faith in his Blood to shew his Righteousness And in the Tenth Chapter Christ is the end of the Law unto Righteousness to every man that believeth And in the Eighth Chapter That which was impossible by the Law in as much as it was weak by the flesh God sending his own Son in the similitude of sinful flesh by sin damned sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us which walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Which Texts are alledged by our Modern Divines to prove the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us as the formal cause of our Justification but our Church expresly tells us that she understands these Texts to signifie no more on Christs part but Iustice or the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice. And whereas these new Divines make such a difference between the Active and Passive Righteousness of Christ that by his Death and Sufferings he expiated our Sins and by his Active Obedience makes us righteous Our Church knows no difference in this matter but assures us that they both concur to the same effect to make satisfaction for our sins He made satisfaction to Gods Iustice by the offering of his Body and shedding his Blood with fulfilling the Law perfectly and throughly Which account I expresly gave of it in my former Discourse p. 330. Edit 2. p. 231. In this sense we are taught that Christ is now the Righteousness of all them that truly believe in him he for them paid their Ransom by his Death he for them fulfilled the Law in his Life So that now in him and by him every true Christian Man may be called a fulfiller of the Law for asmuch as that which their infirmity lacked Christs Iustice hath supplied Which last clause the Looking-Glass-Maker thought fit to leave out for he had so much wit in his anger as to see that it did not make to his purpose for the meaning of it is this that Christs active and passive Righteousness is imputed to us to procure the pardon of our sins thereby to supply the defects of our Righteousness not to make us formally righteous though our Righteousness be imperfect and defective yet Christ by his Righteousness having obtained the pardon of our sins we may be said in him to fulfil the Law in as much as that which our Infirmity lacked Christs Iustice his Merit and Satisfaction as it is before explained hath supplied And once for all our Church tells us what she means by being justified by Christ only We put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no vertue and good works of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do to deserve the same Christ himself being the only cause meritorious thereof So that the plain sense of our Church is that Christs part in our Justification is only to be the meritorious cause of it to merit Pardon and Justification for all those who heartily believe in him And who-ever of our Communion have affirmed any more they have in so doing plainly deserted the Doctrine of our Church And therefore Doctor Prideaux himself does expresly disown the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ in any other sense than that of Merit Iustificamur per justitiam Christi non personae quâ ipse vestitus est sed meriti quâ suos vestit nobis imputatam that is We are justified by the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us not by his Personal Righteousness as Dr. Owen affirms with which he is cloathed himself but with the Righteousness of Merit with which he cloaths those who belong to him And in answer to a passage out of Bellarmine he adds Quis unquam è nostris nos per justitiam Christi imputatam formaliter justificari asseruit that is Who among us ever affirmed that we were formally justified by the imputed Righteousness of Christ. And as the learned Forbs observes it sounds very like a contradiction to assert that the Righteousness of Christ is both the meritorious and the formal cause of our Justification Nequit enim fieri ut eadem res simul fit causa efficiens ad quam meritum reducitur formalis ejusdem effecti quia sic simul de essentia effecti foret non foret cùm causa formalis interna sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 efficiens autem externa tantum ut constat that is It cannot be that the same thing should be both the efficient as Merit is and the formal cause of the same effect for so it must both be of the essence and not of the essence of the effect for a formal cause is internal and belongs to the nature and essence of the thing but an efficient is an external cause as every one knows And therefore when the Learned Bishop Davenant asserts the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us to be the formal cause of our Justification and explains it by our being justified ex intuitu meritorum Christi propter Christum with respect to the Merits of Christ and for Christs sake though he uses a different phrase which too many since have abused to bad purposes yet he seems to mean no more by it than we do who say that the Righteousness of Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification for that must be explained by the same phrases of being justified for Christs sake and with respect to the Merits of Christ and indeed the only difference the Bishop makes between the Righteousness of Christ being the meritorious and the formal cause of our Justification is no more but this that in the first case he considers the Merits of Christ absolutely as the price of our Redemption in the second he considers those same Merits of Christ applied to particular persons for the pardon of their particular sins which still makes it no more than a meritorious cause His words are these Eadem unica justitia Christi in se suo valore considerata est meritoria causa humanae justificationis considerata autem quatenus imputatur donatur applicatur tanquam sua singulis credentibus in Christum insitis subit vicem causae formalis And that he intends no more by a formal cause than what others express by a meritorious cause is plain in this that he acknowledges the imputation even of Christs active Righteousness only in the sense of Merit He expresses his agreement with Vasques in this matter who acknowledges the imputation of the Merit of Christs active Obedience Cùm dicimus Merita Christi nobis imputari idem de justitia sanctitate illius existimamus nam cùm Merita Christi ex sanctitate ejus dignitatem accipiant eodem sensu quo Merita nobis dicuntur imputari ipsa etiam Iustitia Christi imputari dicitur that is When we say that
Salvation by receiving Christ by resting and relying and rolling on Christ There is no use of Repentance or Charity or the Love of God in this affair for they cannot apply the Righteousness of Christ to us If we come to Christ for Righteousness we must come without any Righteousness of our own And yet it is hard to understand how this fiducial Reliance on Christ can apply his Righteousness to us a confident Persuasion that Christ is ours may make a fanciful application of his Righteousness to us but a mere Reliance on Christ makes no application but only signifies a Hope that it shall be applied And if they will be true to their Principles that we are justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us which is God's act whereby he applies the Righteousness of Christ I cannot understand how we can be justified by applying his Righteousness to our selves by Faith which if it have any sense must signifie our imputing the Righteousness of Christ to our selves for the Righteousness of Christ can be applied to us only by Imputation which makes our Justification our own Act and not Gods For it is as absurd to the full to say that Faith is an Instrument in doing that which is intirely Gods act or that our Imputation of Christs Righteousness to our selves is an Instrument of Gods imputing his Righteousness to us And then it is worth considering which of these two Imputations must go first if we apply that is impute the Righteousness of Christ to our selves before God has imputed it this is a false Confidence and Presumption if God imputes it first then we are actually justified and there needs no Imputation or Application of Faith to make this Righteousness ours all that can be said in this case is what the Antinomians affirm that we are first justified before we believe and that Faith is only a Sign or Evidence not an Instrument of our Justification But to let pass the Absurdities of this Doctrin every one may perceive how different this notion is from the sense of the Church of England which does not attribute our Justification to Faith as our own Act much less to any particular Act of Faith but by Justification by Faith only intends no more than that God will pardon our sins if we repent of them and reform our Lives and trust in the Mercies of God through the Merits and Mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the sense of our Church the sole object of our trust is the Mercy of God through the Merits of Christ and therefore the proper Act of Faith is to embrace the Promise of Pardon upon the conditions of Repentance and a new Life we must first repent of our sins and reform our Lives and then rely on the Mercy of God for our Pardon and Reward But according to this new Divinity the sole object of our trust and reliance is the perfect and personal Righteousness of Christ which shuts out the Mercy of God and the meritorious Death and Sacrifice of Christ and the Promises of Pardon and the necessity of an inherent and personal Righteousness as abundantly appears from what I have discourst above But fourthly whereas our Church makes Christ only the meritorious cause of our Justification but still requires on our part Faith and Repentance and the Love of God as antecedent conditions of our Justification these men found all our hopes of Justification immediately on the Person of Christ. Every good Christian hopes to be justified and saved by Christ but not to be immediately saved by Christ i. e. by a bare Union to his Person but by believing his Gospel and obeying his Laws which are necessarily required on our part to give us an Interest in his Merits and Righteousness but to assert that nothing is necessary to our Justification but to apply Christ and his Righteousness to our selves by a fiducial Reliance and Recumbency is to place our hopes immediately in the Person of Christ which is the foundation of Antinomianism For this reason among others I charged them in my former Discourse with setting up the Person of Christ in opposition to his Gospel and making a new Religion of the Person of Christ distinct from and contrary to the Religion of his Gospel For the Gospel requires a great many previous conditions to entitle us to the Merits and Righteousness of Christ as that we must repent of our sins and reform our Lives and become new Creatures and then God will pardon and reward us for the sake of Christ but if an immediate Application of the Righteousness of Christ to our selves by a fanciful and Enthusiastick Faith will make all Christ ours this makes all the conditions of the Gospel void and useless and sets up the Person of Christ and his Personal Righteousness instead of his Laws and Religion The Gospel attributes the Pardon of our sins and the Acceptance of our imperfect Services to the virtue and efficacy of Christs Sacrifice and Righteousness and thus we are made righteous by Christ as by a meritorious Cause But in this way the Righteousness of Christ must serve instead of a personal and inherent Righteousness which makes us so innocent that we need no Pardon and so perfectly righteous that we merit a Reward This I take to be the grand Miscarriage in these mens Divinity which indeed is the foundation of Antinomianism though the mistake be very taking and popular which makes an opposition to it very odious that whereas Christ is our Life and our Righteousness our Wisdom and Power and the Author of all spiritual Blessings but does not dispense these Blessings immediately to us but in such ways and methods and upon such terms and conditions as are prescribed and declared in the Gospel these men send us immediately to the Person of Christ for Life and Righteousness for Beauty and Comliness for Grace and Wisdom and for the supply of all our spiritual wants which shuts out his Gospel and Religion or makes it wholly useless and let but Dr. Owen stand to what he asserts in his Vindication We do not imagin but believe from the Scripture and with the whole Church of God that we receive Grace and Salvation from the Person of Christ in those distinct ways wherein they are capable of being received if by that he means such ways as are prescribed in the Gospel and I declare I have no controversie with him about this matter Thus for instance Christ is our Righteousness as he is the meritorious cause of the Pardon of our sins and the Acceptance of our sincere but imperfect services but the way to be made righteous by Christ is not immediately to go to Christ for Righteousness with all our sins and impurities about us to be cloathed with his perfect and personal Righteousness but to repent of our sins and to believe and obey the Gospel and then we shall be pardoned and rewarded for Christs sake Thus Christ is our
Doctrine would be that we are not delivered from the guilt and punishment of our sins by the Death of Christ which the Scripture every where asserts but by the translation of our sins on him When our sins are transferred on Christ we are ipso facto innocent and his Death cannot deliver us who are freed already but must be only to deliver himself from this assumed guilt we are freed by the transferring of our guilt on Christ and Christ is freed by undergoing the punishment of sin As if any man should be so kind as to take my Debt absolutely upon himself if the Creditor accept of this exchange I am finally discharged and am not liable to any farther Arrest or Action at Law and whenever he pays the Debt he does not free me but himself from the Obligation So that now his Argument from Proportion falls to the ground That if our sins were imputed to Christ otherwise than meerly in the Effects of them so must likewise the Righteousness of his Life and the Sacrifice of his Death be otherwise imputed to us than meerly in the Benefits of them For as Christ was not accounted a Sinner by the imputation of our sins to him so neither shall we be accounted formally righteous by the imputation of his Personal Righteousness to us His next Argument is That seeluding not only the Righteousness of Christs Life but the Satisfaction of his Death as the matter and the imputation of it as the formal cause of Iustification it seems repugnant to the Immutability and Essential Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect Obedience the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure The sum of which Argument is this That it is unjust for God to forgive us our sins though Christ hath died to make Atonement for them unless we be made formally righteous by the imputation of his Righteousness to us which in plain terms overthrows the Gospel of Christ and makes the Sacrifice of his Death of no value for if Christ have expiated our sins by his Death why may not God accept and reward our imperfect Services without being unjust in doing so But that Law which requireth perfect Obedience remains still in force and denounceth wrath against every failure But is there any Law which forbids God to pardon sin though his own Son make atonement for it by his Death Where is this Law And where is the Sanction of it And who gave it this Sanction Will nothing satisfie the Law but perfect and unsinning Obedience Then there can be no Gospel then God never can forgive sin and it is a vain thing to talk of it We may be Righteous by an imputed Righteousness were it possible for God to judge otherwise of things than they are but our sins can never be forgiven which is a direct contradiction to the whole Gospel A Law in force which will not admit of Pardon and Forgiveness upon any terms is inconsistent with Gospel-Grace and therefore had not Mr. Ferguson told us that the Socinians assert the abrogation of the Sanction of the Law upon the confirmation of the Gospel-Covenant I should have been inclined to have thought so too for I cannot understand how it is possible to reconcile a Law which requires unsinning Obedience under the pain of Damnation with the Gospel which promises Pardon of sin and eternal Life upon the condition of sincere Obedience which are at as great a distance as a necessity of Pardon and a necessity of Innocency And now I think of it there is no danger of Socinianism if we do but attribute such an abrogation of the Law if it may be so called as well as the Sanction of the Gospel to the Merits of Christs Death and Sufferings and therefore I boldly assert That there is no such Law now in force as requires unsinning Obedience under the penalty of Damnation Not that Christ hath in a proper sense abrogated the Law by his Death if by the Law we mean those Eternal Rules of Righteousness which necessarily result from the nature of things and their mutual relations and respects that is that he has not made that to be no sin which according to the Eternal Rules of Righteousness was a sin as Mr. Ferguson childishly argues That then it would follow that by being Believers we wholly cease to be Sinners and that the Gospel instead of only making provision for the remission of sins against the Law hath prevented the breaches of it from being so But the only abrogation of the Law is That we shall not be judged or condemned according to the Rules of a perfect and unsinning Obedience that Christ having made Atonement and Expiation for our sins God will now for the sake of Christ pardon the sins of true Penitents and reward their sincere though imperfect Obedience This is the Gospel-Covenant which was purchased and sealed with the blood of Christ which does not make that to be no sin which before was a sin but only absolves us from the condemnation due to sin and entitles us to those Rewards which an imperfect Obedience cannot merit Perfect Obedience is the Attainment at which we must aim but not the Rule by which we shall be judged There is no other Law now in force to Christians but the Gospel of our Saviour which is the Christian Law and is the Perfection and Advancement both of the Law of Nature and the Law of Moses and this Law requires a perfect but accepts and rewards a sincere Obedience it does not come short of any Law in the perfection of its Rules and it excells all other Laws as it is a Dispensation of Grace For though the Gospel requires both a perfect and sincere Obedience yet it requires them under very different Sanctions at least if Promises may be called the Sanction of a Law The Sanction of Sincerity is the Promise of Eternal Life nothing less than this will deliver us from the wrath of God or procure our admission into Heaven by this Rule we shall be judged as to our final state of Happiness or Misery But the Sanction of Perfection consists in the greater degrees of Glory He who is sincere though imperfect shall be saved according to the terms of the Gospel but our Reward shall be proportion'd to our different Attainments and the greatest Glory is reserved for the most perfect Saint And now I hope Mr. Ferguson will be satisfied that it is not repugnant to the Immutability and Essential Holiness of God to accept and reward a sincere though imperfect Obedience since he does not absolve his Creatures from any essential part of their Duty but is so merciful as for the sake of Christ to pardon and accept sincere Penitents and so holy as to encourage the most perfect Vertue with the promise of proportionable Rewards As for what Mr. Ferguson adds concerning Christs Surrogation in our room and stead
which makes all his Acts and Sufferings in a Law-sense accounted ours before he had laid too much weight and stress on this Argument he ought first to have proved that Christ acted as our Substitute in all that he did as well as suffered and he might have tried his Skill in answering those Arguments wherewith I have already assaulted that Notion but this is not his way it is more agreeable to his Genious and Capacity to dictate Magisterially than to prove Christ indeed died as a Sacrifice for our Sins and in this sense suffered in our stead but his suffering in our stead is a plain demonstration that his sufferings are not accounted ours any otherwise than as we receive the benefit of them in the expiation and forgiveness of our sins which is the proper effect of Sacrifices and redounds to them for whom the Sacrifice is offered which is all I can understand by any sufferings which are not ours being accounted ours in a Law-sense for any other sense implies a contradiction that any sufferings which are not under-gone by us but by another in our stead should be accounted ours any otherwise than as we receive the benefit and advantage of them And this is what the Learned Bishop Davenant understood by Imputation De facto imputantur extrinseca quando illorum intuitus respectus valent nobis ad aliquem effectum aequè ac si à nobis vel in nobis essent Then those things which are without us and do not properly belong to us are said to be imputed to us when with respect to them we are equally intitled to their effects as if they had been done by us or were inherent in us But such a Surrogationand Imputation will not satisfie Mr. Ferguson who must have the Righteousness of Christs Life and the Sacrifice of his Death otherwise imputed to us than meerly in the benefits of them Though any other imputation is impossible as implying a Thwacking Contradiction to use his own phrase Having thus got rid of these Objections in a fair Logical Way according to Mr. Ferguson's desire and not called but proved them all to be meer cavil and sophistry and vulgar talk I come now to the main Charge which he draws up against me of perverting the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors And in order to make good this Charge he premises two things First That to Iustifie is in its proper acceptation a forensick term signifying to acquit and absolve one that is acoused This I readily grant The second is That Iustification not only supposeth us to be indicted but withal imports an absolution from the Charge of that Law of the breach whereof we are accused I don't much care if I grant this too but then observe the consequence the Law which accuseth us is the Law of perfect and unsinning Obedience and therefore if we would be acquitted and absolved from the Accusation of the Law we must produce a perfect and unsinning Obedience for our Justification for to be pardoned is not a proper but a metaphorical Justification for in propriety of speech neither can an accused Innocent by being acquitted be said to be pardoned nor a condemned Criminal by having the execution of his sentence remitted be said to be justified So that to our proper Justification from the Sentence of the Law is necessarily required an Imputation of the perfect Righteousness of Christ to us to make us perfectly righteous but to place Justification in the Pardon of Sin as I do is to pervert plain Scripture into Metaphors for then Iustification as it is opposed to the accusation of the Law its charging us with guilt and its passing Sentence of Condemnation against us thereupon doth not admit a proper sense in the whole Scripture but must every where be construed metaphorically and that the import of it is that we are not properly and in a Law-sense justified but that such Benefits accrue to us by remission of sin as if we were so And now I pity our Author with all my heart for he hath run himself into a labyrinth out of which all his Art and Sophistry can never deliver him The only Foundation he has to bear up the weight of this Charge is That the Law of perfect and unsinning Obedience is still in force but I have already shewed the weakness and vanity of this pretence and how inconsistent it is with the Gospel-Covenant and therefore I need add no more in vindication of my self for take away this Law of perfect Obedience and Mr. Ferguson himself acknowledges that according to my notion in reference to the demands of the Gospel we may in a proper sense be said to be justified So that I am whole again all on a sudden and the only difference between Mr. Ferguson and my self is that he contends for the necessity of a legal Righteousness and Justification and I contend for an Evangelical Righteousness he is for being justified by the Personal Righteousness of Christ I am for being justified according to the gracious terms and conditions of the Gospel which are founded on the Merits and Righteousness of Christ. But let us suppose for once that this Law of perfect and unsinning Obedience is still in force and does accuse us and that our Justification must respect the Sentence of the Law what then Why then to place Justification in pardon of sin is to make it not a proper but metaphorical Justification and what then If this be the Scripture-notion of it I matter not whether it be proper or metaphorical the abuse of Scripture-expressions does not consist in expounding Scripture either to a proper or to a metaphorical sense but in wresting metaphorical and allusive expressions to a proper sense when they ought to be taken metaphorically and proper expressions to a metaphorical sense when they ought to be expounded to a proper sense And this Mr. Ferguson himself acknowledges when he gives some Rules for the Exposition of Scripture which are generally good when he transcribes them out of other men I call that says he the literal sense of Scripture which God doth intend in the words whether the words be taken properly or tropically That which ariseth from a figurative acceptation of the words is as truly a literal sense as that which flows from their proper acceptation And therefore he ought to have prov'd not only that I take Justification in a metaphorical sense but that the Scripture when it speaks of the Justification of a Sinner before God uses that word in a proper sense for Acquitting the Innocent which is a pretty odd way of Justifying a Sinner But here our Author is very silent and cannot give one instance of it only he tells us That in this sense it must be taken when declarative of the Act of God towards us as our Iudge or when set in opposition to condemnation or the curse of the Law to which we are obnoxious But what need of that
Does it not as much belong to a supreme and unaccountable Judge to pardon as to absolve And is not Pardon as properly opposed to Condemnation as Absolution is But to let all this pass it is worth considering how our Author in his way can explain Justification in a proper sense He tells us that the proper notion of Justification is to acquit and absolve the Innocent suppose this to be true though it may admit of some dispute whether this forensick use of the word be its proper sense I would willingly learn of our Author how a Sinner can be justified in this proper sense that is how he who hath broken the Laws of God can be acquitted and absolved as innocent how God who cannot lie can declare that that man hath never broken his Laws nor done any thing amiss who is a Sinner Yes says our Author this may be done very well by the imputation of the perfect Righteousness of Christ to Sinners which makes them perfectly innocent suppose this to be true yet is this the proper notion of Justification that a Sinner is innocent and righteous by Imputation Is there no difference then between an imputed and an inherent and personal Righteousness Justification in a proper sense requires a Personal Righteousness and Innocency and I doubt it will require some good lusty tropes to make an imputed Righteousness the matter of our Justification in this Law-notion So that for ought I can see the imputation of Righteousness in his gross notion is as metaphorical a Justification as the Pardon of sin though not half so good sense But I have not thus done with our Author There are three things more which I would desire him to consider at his leisure and to answer when he is able The first is this That Pardon of Sin whether it be a proper or metaphorical Justification is the true Scripture-notion of the Justification of a Sinner Justification indeed in its full extent and latitude signifies the acceptation of our Persons and the restoring us to a state of Grace and Favour with God which is somewhat more than bare Remission but the first Act of Justification on Gods part and that which draws all the rest after it is the Pardon of our Sins this is a Sinners Righteousness wherewith he must appear before God This is the Commission which Christ gave to his Disciples To preach Remission of Sins in his Name this is the great Priviledge of the Gospel that now by Christ all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Act. xiii 39. That is that now Christ hath made a tonement and expiation for those sins for which the Law of Moses did appoint no Sacrifice Where to be justified signifies to be delivered from the guilt and condemnation of Sin that is to be pardoned But not to heap up many Testimonies I shall principally insist on the Fourth Chapter to the Romans as being the proper Seat of this Controversie There St. Paul enquires by what means our Father Abraham was justified before God And in answer to it he tells us that Abraham was not justified by Works but by Faith Where by Works the Apostle does not mean only the Works of the Mosaical Law an External and Ceremonial Righteousness for he proceeds to that in the tenth verse but he seems principally to intend a perfect and unsinning Righteousness Let us then examine what the Apostle means by Justification by Faith what this Righteousness of Faith is as it is opposed to a Righteousness of Works and there are four expressions whereby this Righteousness is described which signifie one and the same thing That it is an imputed Righteousness vers 3 6. that it is a Righteousness without Works that it is a Justification of the ungodly vers 5. that it consists in the Pardon of Sin vers 7 8. I shall begin with the last because this is Mr. Ferguson's grand Charge against me That I place Iustification in the forgiveness of Sin but so does our Apostle and alledges the Authority of the Prophet David for it Even as David also deseribeth the blessedness of that man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without Works saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin vers 6 7 8. This is the Justification of Faith in opposition to Justification by Works that those who heartily believe in God as Abraham did though they have been formerly guilty of many sins and are still subject to many infirmities and defects yet God for Christs sake will forgive their past sins and their present imperfections and will reward them above the Deserts and Merits of their Works A Righteousness of Works consists in Innocency and Perfection but a Righteousness of Faith in Sincerity and Pardon Upon this account it is called an imputed Righteousness Faith was accounted and reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness and blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth Righteousness Which signifies that this is matter of Grace not of Debt for to him that worketh is the reward reckoned not of Grace but of Debt When a man is justified by Works he is absolved because he is innocent and rewarded because he hath merited a Reward which is the Justification for which Mr. Ferguson pleads in a direct opposition to St. Paul but Justification by Faith requires the favour and acceptance of God because though it includes an honest and sincere mind and a readiness to do our best to please God yet it is consistent with a great many infirmities and miscarriages and defects which cannot pass the trial of strict Justice and this is imputed Righteousness when God accepts of that for our Righteousness and Justification which in a strict sense is not Righteousness Whatever is imputed to us for Righteousness must be good but imperfect If it be not good it is no part of Righteousness and therefore cannot be imputed instead of the whole and if it be perfect there is no need of this gracious acceptation it is then a strict and proper not an imputed Righteousness Upon the same account it is called a Righteousness without Works vers 6. Which must not be understood in such a loose sense as if God would justifie a man who does nothing which is good as if he would account that man righteous who does no Righteousness which is expresly contrary to the Doctrine of St. Iohn 1 Epist. iii. 7. But the meaning is either that God sometimes accepts of great and generous Acts of Faith instead of Works when there is no occasion or opportunity of Action which was the case of Abraham when he believed in hope against hope that he should have a Son in his old Age to which the Apostle principally refers in the 5th verse when he tells us That to him that worketh not but believeth his Faith is counted for Righteousness Or
Discourses from the Book of Canticles which describes the love of Christ to his Church in such an allegorical manner in return to this I would offer several things to his consideration As first I suppose he understands that there is a vast difference between Poetical Descriptions such as the Book of Canticles is and Practical Discourses for the Government of our Lives the first requires more Garnish and Ornament and justifies the most mysterious flights of Fancy the second requires a plain and simple dress which may convey the Notions with ease and perspicuity to the Mind And therefore that which is not only justifiable but commendable in a Divine Song which ought to have something Great and Mysterious and to describe every thing with Pomp and Ceremony is not only a ridiculous affectation but a very hurtful vanity in a Preacher whose business is to instruct the Rude and Ignorant not to amaze and astonish his Hearers with Poetick Raptures And secondly Though I do no more quarrel with Allegories than I do with Metaphors which may be of good use in their fit and proper places yet I would desire our Author to consider that there is some little difference between an Allegorical Description of things and an Allegorical Exposition It is justifiable enough in some cases to describe plain things in Allegories and Parables but it is a mad way of expounding Religion by turning it into Allegories which must of necessity make it obscure and mysterious Allegories are of no use till they are expounded and are of a very doubtful signification when we want the true Key of Exposition because they being a work of fancy and imagination may by men of different fancies be expounded to very different and contrary purposes which makes the Song of Solomon it self though the most divine and spiritual thing that ever was penned under the Jewish Church of much less use to us than otherwise it might be as appears from the variety of interpretations which are given of it And this is a plain Argument how injurious these men are to Religion who instead of expounding the Mysteries of it turn them into Allegories which must either be expounded again or continue obscure and expose Religion to all the Freaks of an Enthusiastick and Allegorical Fancy And thirdly Our Author may consider farther that Allegories are much more improper now under the Gospel than they were under the Law Under the Law God instructed the Jews by dark and obscure Types and Figures but did not think fit to unveil his Glory and give them a distinct and clear knowledge of his Will and therefore an Allegorical Song was very allowable under the Typical and Ceremonial State of the Church But since Christ hath appeared who is the Brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his Person who hath given us a plain and perfect Revelation of the Will and Nature of God an Allegorical Religion is as improper as Jewish Types and Ceremonies It disappoints one great end of Christs coming in the Flesh to make his Religion obscure and mysterious and to wrap it up in Types and Allegories And I wonder very much that these men who are so afraid of a significant Ceremony for fear of returning to a Jewish Bondage and Pedagogy should be so fond of an Allegorical and Metaphorical Religion which is as obscure and unintelligible as the Jewish Types were We are not now under a Canticle-Dispensation but live under the bright and clear Light of the Gospel which is equally clouded by Jewish Types and mysterious Allegories But to return It is very easie to give many other instances of their expounding Metaphors by Metaphors and I have given several in my former Discourse thus Faith is call'd Coming Receiving Embracing c. If you enquire How all this must be done They tell you That you must come to Christ on the Legs of Faith or be carried to him in the Chariots of Faith or swim to him on the Stream of the Promise and receive him by the Hand of Faith and embrace him in the Arms of Faith as good old Simeon did and thus Faith becomes an Instrument of Justification and receives Christ who is the Gift of God as a poor man receives an Alms Whereas Legs and Hands and Arms and Instruments are as obscure Metaphors and need as much explication as Coming and Receiving c. and yet you must never expect any better explication from them if you press them hard they will tell you that coming and receiving c. signifies believing but then if you ask them what believing signifies they are forced to ring the Changes backward and tell you that believing is coming and receiving Thirdly Another abuse of Metaphors is to argue and reason from them and to erect such Doctrines on them as are no where to be found in express words in Scripture Thus I shewed in my former Discourse how they prove the imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness to us from the Laws of Marriage of Suretiship and the Mediatory Function The Church is Christs Spouse and as the Wife by vertue of her Marriage Union is entitled to her Husbands Estate thus are Saints by their marriage to Christ entitled to all his Personal Fulness Beauty Righteousness And as a Wife under covert is not liable to an Arrest or Action at Law but all must fall upon her Husband so you being married to Christ this supersedes the Process of the Law against you if it be not satisfied it must seek its reparation at the hands of your spiritual Husband Christ himself c. Thus Mr. Shephard argues very comfortably That the Husband is bound to bear with the Wife as the weaker Vessel and shall we think that God will exempt himself from his own Rules and not bear with his weak Spouse That is one who hath no strength no grace no nor so much as sense of Poverty And Mr. Watson argues at the same rate That Sin it self cannot dissolve our Union to Christ because we are the Members of his Body and Christ will never lose a Member And thus they argue from Christs being our Surety that as in the Law the Debtor and the Surety are but one Person so it is with Christ and us for he took our Debt upon himself and upon this Christ and we are but one Person before God and accordingly he deals with us for he makes over our sins to Christ and Christs Righteousness and Satisfaction to us At the same rate they argue from Christs being our Mediator That Christ fulfilled all Righteousness as he was Mediator and that whatever he did as Mediator he did it for them whose Mediator he was or in whose stead and for whose good he executed the Office of a Mediator before God and hence it is that his compleat and perfect Obedience to the Law is reckoned to us Now when I had plainly shown them how weak and fallacious this way of Reasoning is from
it is some question whether the Doctor smiled at the Argument or at his own Answer however I had rather he would smile still than admire which would be the more effectual Confutation of the two But his Answer is worth considering That the Grace of Duty and Obedience in all Relations is the same the Relations only administring an external occasion unto its peculiar exercise And what our Lord Iesus Christ did in the fulfilling of all Righteousness in the Circumstances and Relations wherein he stood may be imputed to us for our Righteousness in all our Relations every act of Duty and Sin in them respecting the same Law and Principle The meaning of which Answer is this That Christ is said to fulfil all Righteousness for us not because he did fulfil all Righteousness but because he would have done it had he been in such Circumstances and Relations as had required it and thus he has found out a way how Christ may fulfil all Righteousness without doing any thing at all for by the same Reason that he may be said to fulfil the Righteousness of any particular Duties and Relations without doing it he may be said to fulfil the Righteousness of all Duties and Relations without doing any thing for the Grace of Duty and Obedience is the same in all and that does not consist in external Actions for then it will equally oblige to every particular act of Righteousness as to any but in an inward Principle and thus the Doctor must return to what he had before expresly rejected That the habitual Righteousness of Christ as Mediator in his Human Nature is the only Righteousness which can be imputed to us Christ did not fulfil all the particular Duties of Righteousness in his actions because he was not in such circumstances and relations as required it and therefore those at least who are in any condition or relation in which Christ never was as the generality of Mankind upon one account or other are must of necessity be justified not by the imputation of Christs actual but habitual Righteousness And now let me reason a little with the Doctor in his own way Why should Christ live here in the World so long as he did in perfect Obedience to all the Laws of God Had he died before as soon as he had been born there had been perfect Innocency and perfect Holiness by his habitual Grace and thismade him fit to be a Sacrifice to expiate our sins and would as well serve for a perfect Righteousness to cover them and should he have lived to the end of the World unless he could have run through all the several Relations and Conditions of Life he could never actually fulfil all that Righteousness which is required of all Mankind and therefore the perfect habitual Righteousness of his Nature may as well serve for the whole as for a part The Doctor in the place to which I now alluded can find no other reason why Christ should live so long in the World in a perfect Obedience to the Laws of God but only a necessity of an actual fulfilling all Righteousness for us which supposes that an habitual Grace is not enough and yet when he is told that Christ could not and did not fulfil all Righteousness for us because he could not discharge the Duties of our several Relations for us when he never was in most of these Relations could not possibly be in all he answers that there is no need of it because the Grace of Duty and Obedience is the same in all and now how the Doctor can reconcile these two that it is necessary actually to fulfil all Righteousness and that it is not necessary actually to fulfil all Righteousness let him consider for I am sure there must be the same necessity of fulfilling all Righteousness that there is of fulfilling any and he himself describes that Righteousness which Christ was to fulfil for us as our Mediator to be whatever was required of us by vertue of any Law though I suppose when he thus stated it he had not met with this Socinian Objection which he will never be able to answer otherwise than by smiling or admiring In the next place I considered those Arguments whereby the Doctor proves that Christ fulfilled all Righteousness for us as our Mediator And the first is That Christ was under no Obligation to obey those Laws himself and he instances both in the Law of Creation and in the Ceremonial Law given to the Jews First to begin with the Law of Creation that is all those Duties which necessarily result from the frame and constitution of Human Nature and because the Doctor in his Vindication hath represented the force of his Argument in fewer and plainer words I shall quit the advantages which his perplext and intricate arguings in his Book of Communion give an Adversary which I dare venture any man to make sense of without a comment and deal with him at the fairest Weapon He proves then that Christs Obedience to the Law of Creation was designedly for us by two Arguments First because the way whereby the Lord Christ in his own Person became obnoxious and obedient to the Law of Creation was by his own voluntary antecedent choice otherwise than it is with those who are inevitably subject unto it by natural generation under it The meaning of which is that he considers Christ antecedently to his Incarnation when it was in his choice whether he would become Man or no and so consequently whether he would be subject to the Laws of Human Nature and I say still the force of this Argument is no more but this That Christ had not been bound to live like a man had he not voluntarily chose to become man and the reason of that is this that he could not have lived like a man had he not been a man It was in his choice whether he would become Man but when he had chose this it was not at his liberty to choose whether he would submit to the Laws of Human Nature and it is a new way of reasoning to argue that Christ was not bound to obey those Laws for himself because he voluntarily chose such a state which necessarily and without any further choice brought him under those Obligations Which is just as if I should prove that no man is bound upon his own account to discharge the Duties of a Husband because it was at his own choice whether he would have entered into that Relation which when he is in it necessarily exacts such Duties from him The discharge of his Mediatory Office necessarily required that he should become man that he might be our Prophet and Example and Guide our Priest and our Sacrifice our King and Governour and when he was Man his Nature required that he should obey the Laws of Creation and live like a reasonable Creature But the Doctor adds That the Hypostatical Union in the first instant whereof the
Human Nature was fitted for Glory might have exempted him from the Obligation of any outward Law whatever What he means by outward Laws I cannot tell for the Laws of Creation are intrinsick and essential to human Nature and if the Hypostatical Union do not destroy the Human Nature it cannot exempt it from those natural and necessary Obligations He might as well say that the Hypostatical Union exempts the Human Nature of Christ from the Laws of Reasoning as from the Rules of Life both which are equally the Glory and Perfection of a Reasonable Nature And though we should suppose the Human Nature in Christ in the very first instant of its Union to the Divine Nature to be fitted for Glory yet I cannot see how this exempts the Human Nature from the Obligation of those Laws which are essential to Human Nature unless he thinks that Human Nature in Glory is under no Obligations Had Christ been immediately translated to Heaven he had not been obliged to those particular instances of Obedience which are proper to an earthly state for glorified Saints themselves are not but while Christ is a perfect Man as well as God it will always become him in whatever state he be to live agreeably to Human Nature For though he be advanced to the Right Hand of God he is still as man inferiour to his Father and therefore can never as man be exempted from the necessary Laws of Human Nature But to proceed to the Ceremonial Law The Doctor proves that Christ as an innocent man under the Covenant of Works could not be obliged by this Law which came upon us by reason of Sin especially not to such institutions as signified the washing away of sin and repentance from sin as the Baptism of Iohn did and therefore he fulfilled this Righteousness for us To this I answered in my former Discourse That though it were granted that these Laws at first were commanded upon occasion of sin yet an innocent man may observe them to good and wise purposes as publick and solemn acts of Worship or external and visible expressions of Devotion as a publick Profession of Righteousness and a vertuous Life to which purposes among others the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law and the Baptism of Iohn served c. To which the Doctor returns no answer but makes me say what I never thought and abuses his credulous Readers with an apprehension that I had talked like himself at such a rate of Nonsense as any one in his Wits must needs despise to borrow some of his own Elegancies For thus he reports my sense or words or both as he would perswade his Readers that I say that an Innocent Person such as Christ was absolutely may be obliged for his own sake to the observation of such Laws and Institutions as were introduced by the occasion of sin and respected all of them the personal sins of them that were obliged by them And now he desires to be left to his liberty nay to the necessity of his mind not to believe Contradictions I wish he had been under this necessity a little sooner or were yet under a necessity of not making contradictions for what he believes no man can tell I plainly acknowledged that Christ being an Innocent Person could not observe any of these Judaical Ceremonies with respect to personal sins but I say as they had other significations so he might observe them to other purposes Circumcision in its first Institution was a seal of that Covenant which God made with Abraham and therefore did very well become him who was not only of the Seed and Posterity of Abraham but that very Seed which was promised in the Covenant whereof Circumcision was the Seal The Baptism of Iohn was a publick Profession of a vertuous Life which becomes the most innocent man but it was a profession of Repentance and signified the washing away of sin only when the baptized Person had been a Sinner and yet the Baptism of our Saviour was designed for a nobler purpose as a Publick Inauguration of him to his Prophetical Office The Passover was an Eucharistical Sacrifice in commemoration of the Deliverance of their Fore-fathers out of Aegypt and therefore might be observed by the most innocent man but I challenge the Doctor or any of his Friends to prove that Christ offered any Sin or Trespass-Offering which respect only personal Offences or that he observed any Ceremony which could signifie nothing else but personal guilt and till he can prove this his Argument is worth nothing His second Argument to prove that what Christ did as Mediator that is the actual Obedience of his Life he did for us and in our stead I represented thus That there can be no other reason assigned of Christs Obedience to the Law but only this that he did it in our stead Here the Doctor according to his usual way charges me with mis-representing his Argument for his words are That the end of the active Obedience of Christ cannot be assigned to be that he might be fit for his Death and Oblation These I acknowledge to be his words but not his Argument for the force of his Argument consists in the dis-junction as I expresly observed that either Christ fulfilled all Righteousness to fit him for his Death and Oblation or he did it for us and in our stead because otherwise as he himself expresses it if the Obedience Christ performed be not reckoned to us and done upon our account there is no just cause to be assigned why he should live here in the World so long as he did in perfect Obedience to all the Laws of God and therefore in answer to this I made it appear that though the Righteousness of Christ were supposed not necessary to qualifie him for his Death which he can never prove yet there were other great and necessary Reasons why he should live so long in the World in a perfect Obedience to the Divine Will His third Argument to prove that Christ performed all Righteousness for us is the absolute necessity of it for this is the term of the Covenant Do this and live so that we being unable to yield that compleat perfect Obedience which the Law requires as the condition of Life and Happiness it is necessary that Christ our Mediator and Surety should fulfil the Law for us The sum of which Argument as I told him before is this That there never was nor ever can be a Covenant of Grace that God still exacts the rigorous perfection of the Law from us and that we must not appear before him without a compleat and perfect Righteousness of our own or of another Now this is the thing in question whether we must be made righteous with the perfect Righteousness of Christ imputed to us or whether God will for the sake of Christ dispense with the rigor of the Law and accept a sincere and Evangelical Obedience instead of a
that Homily which seem to favour that notion of our Justification by the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness though that phrase of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness is nowhere used throughout the whole Homily but if we will take that Explication which the Homily it self gives of them it will evidently appear that there was no such thing intended by them I shall produce these expressions in their proper places and in the management of this Argument shall First explain the sense of our Church concerning the Doctrine of Justification out of the Homilies of Salvation Faith Good Works and Repentance And Secondly Show you how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and what a just reason this is for a more particular explication of those Expressions which occasioned the corruption of the wholsom Doctrine of our Church First I shall enquire what is the true sense of the Church of England concerning the Doctrine of Justification And first I observe that our Church places the nature and essence of Justification in the forgiveness of sins This is evident from the very first words of the Homily Because all men be Sinners and Offenders against God and Breakers of his Law Commandments therefore can no man by his own Acts Words and Deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God but every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another Righteousness or Iustification to be received at Gods own hands that is to say the forgiveness of his sins and trespasses in such things as he hath offended And this Iustification or Righteousness the forgiveness of sins which we so receive of Gods Mercy and Christs Merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of God for our perfect and full Iustification So that our full and perfect Justification consists in the forgiveness of our sins whereby God over-looking what we have done amiss deals with us as with Righteous Persons that is bestows Eternal Life on us The Homily takes notice of two ways of Justification The first is by our own Works when we live so innocently and vertuously as to be acquitted and absolved by God according to the strict Rules of Law and Justice But in this way no Sinner can be justified for the Law justifies no man who is a Transgressor of the Law and therefore since we are all Sinners and can neither expiate our past sins nor perfectly keep the Law for the future it is impossible that we should be justified by our own Acts and Deeds It remains therefore that no Sinner can be justified or accounted Just and Righteous before God without the pardon and forgiveness of his Sins this is the Justification and Righteousness of a Sinner that God forgives his wilful sins and covers all the defects of his good Actions for when the sin is pardoned and covered the man is innocent and righteous Now this Account I am sure cannot please Dr. Owen and his Friends who look upon the forgiveness of sin but as one part of our Justification and that the most inconsiderable too which only makes us innocent and delivers us from the condemnation of the Law but cannot entitle us to future Happiness besides Innocency as they tell us there is required a perfect Righteousness the first is owing to the Death of Christ which expiates our sins the second to the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness to us which makes us perfectly just and righteous this is a down-right contradiction to the Doctrine of our Church which teaches us that God accepts and allows of this forgiveness of sin for our full and perfect Iustification And indeed forgiveness of sins is a true Evangelical way of Justification in opposition to a Legal Justification which consists in perfect and unsinning Obedience the first our Church requires but the Doctor and his Friends exact the latter a perfect Righteousness of Works for as the Doctor observes Life is not to be obtained unless all be done that the Law requires that is still true If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments they must be kept by us or by our Surety All the difference the Doctor knows between the Law and the Gospel is only this that the Law required a perfect Righteousness from every man in his own Person the Gospel accepts of a perfect Righteousness in the Person of our Mediator but still we are justified by a Legal not Evangelical Righteousness that is by a Righteousness of Works not by pardon and forgiveness And it has been before observed by some learned men that to place our Justification in the forgiveness of our sins as our Church doth and in the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness to us as others do are not very consistent For by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us we are Legally Righteous or have a perfect Righteousness of Works and Forgiveness of sins and a perfect Righteousness destroy each other for if we are perfectly Righteous whether in our own Persons or by Imputation we need no Forgiveness and if we need Forgiveness it is plain that God does not so much as impute a perfect Righteousness to us So that when our Church places the whole nature of our Justification in the Forgiveness of sins it is a good Argument that she never thought of a Legal Righteousness of Works of the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness and Obedience to make us righteous before God But for a fuller Explication of this Doctrine of Justification we are taught in that Homily that there are especially three things which must go together in our Iustification upon Gods part his great Mercy and Grace upon Christs part Iustice that is the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and sheddidg his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly and upon our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Iesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us This is a much more intelligible way of explaining the Doctrine of Justification than by the Material Formal Efficient Instrumental Causes and such-like terms of Art which need more explication than the Doctrine it self and therefore I shall follow this method and reduce the Doctrine of the Homilies under these three Heads What is Gods part what is Christs part and what is required on Mans part in the business of Justification First Let us consider what is Gods part in the Justification of a Sinner and that is the Mercy and Grace of God which expresses it self first in providing a Ransom for us as it is expressed in the Homily That our Iustification doth come freely by the meer Mercy of God and of so great and free mercy that whereas all the World was not able of themselves to pay any part towards their Ransom it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite mercy without any our Desert or Deserving to prepare for us the
Christ and therefore tell us that St. Paul who had an excellent faculty this way observes what doth most effectually take with people to beguile their Spirits and with a kind of Craft to catch their Affections and that accordingly he meets with every thing that is most enamouring and taking with people Thus far Dr. Crispe and Dr. Owen very well agree in placing the great Mystery of Religion in winning and wooing People unto Christ though St. Paul tells us that the Ministers of the Gospel are Embassadors of Christ beseeching the People in Christs stead to be reconciled unto God So that Christ and his Embassadors woo for God but Antinomians woo altogether for Christ to win people to the Person of Christ. Let us then consider what course they take thus to woo and win people unto Christ Now if by this wooing people to Christ they understood no more than to persuade men to embrace the Faith and Religion of Christ the proper way to effect it were to prove the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation made by Christ to represent the Excellency of his Religion how easie and advantageous his Commands are how perfective of our Nature and how necessary to dispose and qualifie us for future Happiness to set before them those Rewards which Christ hath promised to those who obey him and those severe threatnings which he hath denounced against the Workers of Iniquity and to confirm them in the belief and expectation of all this by the consideration of the Incarnation Death and Sufferings of the Son of God who died to expiate our Sins and to purchase Pardon and Eternal life for all true Penitents and rose again from the dead and ascended into Heaven to intercede for us to dispence the influences of his Grace to raise us to a new and spiritual life here and at the last Day to raise our dead bodies out of the dust and to reward us with Immortality and Glory And then we may argue from the love of our Crucified Saviour to perswade men to live to him who died for them These and such like Arguments are very powerful to perswade men to be Christians but this is not the way of wooing for Christ You must with a holy guile catch peoples affections and make them fall in love with the Person of Christ and therefore you must describe his Personal Graces and Excellencies and consider what is most enamouring and taking with the People Thus for instance The World is mightily taken with Beauty with compleatness of Person Oh saith one let me have a beautiful person it is no matter how poor Well then Christ is a rare piece for such is the beauty of Christ that there is no beauty like his He is the Image of the invisible God the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person And Mr. Watson could have furnished him with a great many other irrefragable proofs of Christ's beauty and loveliness though I think the Doctor had too much wit to have made use of them But besides Beauty some persons look for Linage what a Stock a person is of Well if this will take then there is no Stock like this of Christ he is of the greatest House in the world The First-begotten of all Creatures He comes of that great House of God himself He is not a Younger Brother in this House neither for he is the First-begotten of the House that is a great matter among persons to marry the Heir of the Family nay he is the Only-begotten of the House there is never another in all the Family and that is a great encouragement so that if men go all the World over to find a Match in the Noblest House they will never meet with such a one as this of the Son of God which exactly agrees with Mr. Vincent's reasoning to perswade young Women to chuse Christ for their Husband Well but if he be poor after all I shall live but poorly with him But Christ is rich in Treasure too it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell He hath the whole World to dispose of and therefore Gold and Silver are not to be compared to him which Notion Mr. Brooks hath excellently improved in his Riches of Christ. Thus to conclude You have a Proverb That Batchelours Wives and Maids Children must be rare Creatures that is their fancy will devise what kind of one they will have and what kinds of perfections they desire Let the fancy devise what kind of perfections it can to please sense Christ shall really out-strip in perfection all these fancies more than a Substance doth out-strip a shadow This is the great Mystery of Antinomianism which some of our Modern Divines call the Mystery of the Gospel and the only spiritual Preaching of Christ to attribute every thing immediately to the Person of Christ which is spoke of him either with respect to his Gospel and Revelations or his Propitiation and Sacrifice or his Mediation and Intercession for us as to give some few instances of it Thus it is a great Gospel truth That Christ is the way to the Father that he is the way the truth and the life both as he instructs us in the way to life and happiness how we may please God and save our Souls and as he is our Mediator and High Priest by whom we have access to God But then this requires that we study his will and live in obedience to his Laws that we may have an interest in his Mediation and may with a humble confidence put up our Prayers to God in his name Whereas the Antinomians agreeably enough with the Divinity of this last Age make Christ such a way as excludes every thing else even his Laws and Religion Evangelical Righteousness and Holiness from being the way Christ himself and nothing but Christ though in a subservency and subordination to him can be the way Thus Dr. Crisp tells us That Christ is the only way to free sinners from the guilt of sin which is true in a sober sense that Christ only makes attonement for our sins but in the Doctors Divinity Christ is so the only way that nothing else but Christ is required to this neither Repentance nor Evangelical Righteousness The Gospel holds forth the Lord Christ as freely tendring himself to people considering people only as ungodly persons receiving him that is taking him for their own to be justified and saved by him you have no sooner received him but you are instantly justified by him and in this Iustification you are discharged from all the faults that can be laid to your charge And his Argument to prove this is the same with Mr. Ferguson's He was made sin for us here you see plainly our sins are so translated to Christ that God doth reckon Christ the very Sinner nay God doth reckon all our sins to be his sins and makes him to be sin for us And what is
new Converts If ye continue in my words then shall ye be my Disciples indeed Iohn viii 31. Why does he not correct the whole Gospel the language of which is He that continueth to the end shall be saved Upon the next Plea he has a learned Dispute about the Pharisees Memories which were better than any Concordance for the Hebrew Text I know the Story as well as he and do not much matter what the credit of it is but is not this a wise reason why our Saviour did not name the Text in preaching to a promiscuous Auditory because it may be some few great Rabbies knew where to find it whereas the generality of the people are said not to know the Law In the next place he disputes as learnedly whether Iudas hanged himself and I perceive this great Critick thinks every one must be as impertinent as himself who cannot meet with the word Iudas or hanged or the like but whether it be to the purpose or not must dispute the case whether Iudas were hanged for if he broke his Neck or had drowned or burnt himself it had been all one to my purpose and I was not disposed to go out of my way to pursue Feathers and Butterflies Upon the next he gravely observes That there are no good men but sleep sometimes unless they be wiser than the five wise Virgins We will allow him this so they do not sleep to let their Lamps go out as the five foolish Virgins did On the next he observes That it is a huge commendation of good Knowledge that I say If a good man have the keeping of it it is never the worse for him though if he think this any disparagement to good Knowledge I perceive he understands Rhetorick as little as Logick or thinks his Readers understand neither On the next when I say That keeping the Lords day strictly is one good thing which doth well in the company of more he is afraid I forgot my self and stumbled upon a Puritanical saying before I was aware and adds that notwithstanding I thus commend a strict observation of the Lords day I could like well enough of a Book of Sports the uncharitableness of which Censure contrary to the express sense of my words I leave to be corrected by his own Conscience if he have any left And here our Author thinks fit to break off for it was not safe to go any farther those other Pleas which this poor man makes to defend himself against the imputation of Hypocrisie are such on which he dares not venture as That he performs all these Duties with life and zeal That he is constant and perseveres in godly courses and that he is conscious to himself of his Honesty and Sincerity in all this that he does all with a good heart for God that is out of a hearty Devotion to God and Reverence for his Laws and if such a man may be a Hypocrite no man can be sure of his Sincerity Only upon this last he observes That Mr. Shephard only says That a man may think he hath a good heart to God and yet deceive himself whereas I wish he had said that a man who thinks he hath a good heart to God must needs be mistaken and then I would say the whole Doctrine concerning Marks and Evidences were at an end Now to make it appear what a fair Adversary I have of this Author I shall transcribe this whole passage Object But some men are conscious to themselves of their own hypocrisie but I do all with a good heart for God Answ. So thou maist think of thy self and be deceived Upon this I observe If this be an Objection let a man have what marks he will the Objection will still be good for after all it may be objected that a man may be deceived in it and think he hath these marks when he hath them not And as a proof of this Mr. Shephard adds There is a way that seemeth right to a man but the end thereof is death thou mayest live so as to deceive thy self and others and yet prove an Hypocrite On which I observe that the sense of this argument is this As if because some men may think themselves good who are in a bad way no man could ever be sure that he were in the right and thus farewel all Evidences So that there is no need Mr. Shephard should say that he who thinks he hath a good heart towards God must needs be mistaken in order to overthrow the Doctrine of Marks and Evidences for if a man who is conscious to himself of his own sincerity that he hath a great reverence and regard for God in all his actions may be deceived in it it is sufficient to destroy all Marks and Evidences For if we cannot be sure what the workings and motions purposes and resolutions and habitual inclinations of our own Minds are we can be sure of nothing and if a man who is as sure of this as inward sense and feeling can make him may be deceived then there is no way to be sure of it this makes men as down-right Scepticks in the Doctrine of Marks and Evidences as to deny the truth of our Senses or of our Faculties does in Philosophy That refined Hypocrisie wherewith men deceive themselves does not consist in such an hypocrisie and deceitfulness of the heart as conceals it self from it self which is absolutely impossible but in a false and hypocritical Religion when they think to please God by some exterior homage or flattering Devotions or costly or pompous Ceremonies or by an Orthodox Faith or counterfeit Reliances or any other mode or form of Religion without a sincere Obedience to his Laws the men know that they are Villains all this while that they are guilty of notorious wickedness as the Scribes and Pharisees were but they flatter themselves that they may be very dear to God notwithstanding this either for the sake of the Righteousness of Christ or some hypocritical performances of their own These are the ways which seem right to a man when the end thereof is death This is the sum of our Authors charge against me for perverting mens words and how he hath acquitted himself in it let the Reader judge and all the amends I shall require of him is to turn his Looking-Glass upon himself and to view his own face in it But there is one Argument still behind to prove that I could have no good design in writing that Discourse and when I have answered that I hope I may pass at least for a well-meaning man And that is That I thrust out my sting against those who have written nothing taken notice of by me that can be supposed to hurt or hinder Godliness And though he mentions those he instances only in one a fault which at all turns he corrects in me now suppose this were true is there nothing fit to be corrected but what has an immediate tendency to
would relate things not according to the Customs and Usages of the Times wherein they were acted but according to the practice of the Times wherein he writ for otherwise it is nothing to the purpose at what time the Gospels were writ nor what was the belief and practice of that Age if we suppose the Gospels to be a true History not of those present times but of the Life of Christ and of that Age wherein he lived He argues much at the same rate in another place where he would prove that the Sermons Parables of our Saviour ought not to be of greater Authority in the Christian Church than the Writings of the Apostles which is contrary to the Judgment and practice of the Ancient Church and his Argument is extraordinary subtil Because our Saviour did no more write the four Gospels than he did the Epistles the same Spirit that inspired Matthew Mark Luke Iohn to write the Gospels inspired Paul Peter Iames Iohn Iude to write the Epistles As if the Authority of our Saviours Sermons did depend upon the Writer not on the Speaker There is a vast difference between the Truth of a Relation and the Authority of those Sermons and Parables contained in it the first depends upon the honesty of the Historian the second upon the Authority of the Speaker So that though Matthew or Mark c. wrote the History of the Gospel yet the Sermons and Parables of the Gospel derive their authority and veneration from Christ himself and therefore the comparison between the Gospels and Epistles does not lie between St. Mathew and Mark c. and St. Peter and St. Paul but between Christ and his Apostles and though the Evangelists were inspired men yet the only inspiration which was necessary for this Work was only to help their Memories to make a true and faithful Relation of what our Saviour did and taught and though the Apostles were inspired men too yet their very Inspirations were to be examined by the Doctrine of the Gospel which was to be the Rule of their Preaching and Writings But to return In pag. 4. I find our Author in a great amazement and I always suspected something was the matter with him that he wrote so much like a man out of his wits the occasion of it is that I say That all these Offices of Prophet Priest and King are not properly distinct Offices in Christ but the several parts and administrations of his Mediatory Kingdom Here he first observes That 't is a strange Presumption for a Young Divine to say that these Offices are not distinct Offices in Christ and never in the least suggest wherein the impropriety of so calling them doth lie But I did not say that they are not distinct Offices but not so properly distinct Offices and had he not been in a great amazement he might have seen the reasons why I said so because Christ did exercise a Regal Power and Authority in each of these Offices and the reason why I chose to state it in this manner was the better to show how all these Offices did conspire to the same end Christ is a Mediatory King whose Office is to reconcile God and Man and in order to attain this end he gives us his Laws to be the Rule of our Lives makes Atonement for our Sins and powerfully bestows all those Blessings on us which he hath purchased by his death All this is necessary to the Recovery of lost man and therefore we must not expect to receive any benefit by his Expiation and Sacrifice without Obedience to his Laws nor think that his Kingly Power will save those who submit not to his Rule and Government which those are very apt to do who do not consider how all these Offices belong to him as a Mediatory King but look upon them as such distinct things which have distinct effects without any relation to or dependance on each other For this very reason a late Reverend Author quarrels at Mr. Baxter's definition of Justifying Faith that it is to receive Christ in all his Offices as Prophet Priest and King He dares not deny that justifying Faith must receive a whole Christ but then he affirms that Christ is the formal Object of justifying Faith not considered as Prophet or King but as Priest Etsi Idem Christus sit Dominus Sacerdos totusque in justificatione recipiatur totus tamen omni sensu i. e. omnium promiscue munerum intuitu ad justificationem formaliter minime requiritur sed tantum qua Sacerdos legi satisfaciens i. e. Though the same Christ be both Lord and Priest and whole Christ is received in justification yet not under that formal consideration as a whole Christ in all his Offices but only as a Priest who makes satisfaction to the Law And the reason which he assigns for it is this That Justification consists in being delivered from the Curse of the Law that the only way whereby we are delivered from this Curse is the Satisfaction of Christ and Christ made this Satisfaction for us only as our Priest and Sacrifice And this were a good reason indeed for justifying Faith to eye Christ only as our Priest and Sacrifice if his Satisfaction alone could give us a title to Justification if expiation of sin were the only thing required to the pardon of it The Sacrifice of Christ hath made a general expiation for the sins of the world but this Satisfaction it self intitles no particular man to the benefit of it that more properly belongs to the Prophetical and Kingly Office to confer a Right and Title to the Benefits of Christs Priesthood and therefore we must first receive Christ as our Prophet and our King that is must believe his Revelations obey his Laws and submit to his Government before we have any reason to look on him as our Priest to expiate our sins His Priestly and Prophetical Offices are but subservient to his Regal Power as the Priests and Prophets under the Law were to their Kings and therefore can have no effect without our subjection to Christ as our Lord and King which unites us to him and makes us Members of his Body which he redeemed and purchased with his Blood But then he wonders why they may not be distinct Offices and yet parts of Christs Mediatory Kingdom but then I wonder too what he means by distinct Offices and parts When I say they are not properly to be considered as distinct Offices by distinct Offices I mean such Offices as have no dependance upon each other but can attain their ends single and apart and when I say they are several parts of the Mediatory Kingdom I mean as any one might easily guess that though there are several Acts distinct from each other and proper to each of these Offices yet they all center in one common end they are all but the different administrations of the Mediatory Kingdom and necessary to produce the same
else a Righteousness without Works signifies a Righteousness without the Perfection of Works and therefore the Apostle makes a Righteousness without Works the same with an imputed Righteousness and both of them to consist in forgiveness of sins even as David also describeth the blessedness of that man to whom the Lord imputeth Righteousness without Works saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered So that forgiveness of sins which supposeth an imperfect and defective Righteousness if we will believe our Apostle is a description of Righteousness without Works Upon the same account it is called Justifying the Ungodly vers 5. which can by no means signifie that God will justifie a wicked man while he continues wicked for this is a plain contradiction to the whole Gospel but it signifies that God will justifie those who though they have been wicked which was the case of Abraham and the Gentile-World yet return to him by a hearty Repentance and a true lively Faith Justification by Works requires a perpetual Innocency and Blamelesness of Life for a man who ever was a Sinner can never be justified by Works in this sense because he can never be innocent again it being impossible that that should never have been which has been But now the Righteousness of Faith which consists in the forgiveness of sins makes him Righteous who has been a Sinner and is still an imperfect Saint not that such a man never was a Sinner but that God doth not impute his sins to him This is the Apostles account of Evangelical Righteousness and Justification that it is an imputed Righteousness a Righteousness without Works a Justifying the Ungodly or which is the sum of all that it consists in the Pardon of Sin And now let our Author tell the Apostle That this is to turn plain Scripture into Metaphors and that it is inconsistent with the Immutability and Essential Holiness of God But secondly I have something more to say to Mr. Ferguson which I suppose will be of some weight with him viz. That all the Reformed Churches are for that Metaphorical Justification which he rejects that is they place our Justification in the forgiveness of sin Thus the French Church declares in her Confession which Beza presented to Charles IX in the Name of that Church Credimus totam nostram justitiam positam esse in peccatorum nostrorum remissione quae sit etiam ut testatur David unica nosâ—â—a a selicitas i. e. We believe that our WHOLE RIGHTEOUSNESS consists in the pardon of our sins which also as David witnesseth is our ONLY Blessedness In sola Iesu Christi obedientia prorsus acquiescimus quae quidem nobis imputatur tum ut tegantur omnia nostra peccata tum etiam ut gratiam coram Deo naniscamur And we rest wholly in the Obedience of Jesus Christ which is imputed to us both that all our sins may be covered and that we may obtain grace and favour with God By which last words we learn what they and other Protestant Churches mean by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness and resting on the Obedience and Righteousness of Christ not that his Righteousness is so imputed to us as to make us formally righteous and to answer the demands of the Law which exacts an unsinning Obedience but it is so imputed to us that for the sake of Christ God forgives our sins and receives us into favour Thus the Helvetian Confession tells us Iustificare significat Apostolo in disputatione de Iustificatione peccata remittere à culpa poena absolvere in gratiam recipere justum pronunciare To justifie according to the Apostles sense of it in his dispute of Justification signifies to forgive sins to absolve from guilt punishment to receive into a state of favour and to pronounce such a person just and righteous that is not just as an innocent but as a pardon'd man Nor is the Scotch-Confession more Orthodox in this point For giving an account of those benefits we receive by the Satisfaction and Righteousness of Christ it sums them up in this Deus Pater nos in corpore Iesu Christi Filii sui intuetur imperfectam nostram obedientiam quasi perfectam acceptat omniaque opera nostra quae in se multis maculis foedantur perfecta justitia filii sui tegit i. e. God the Father beholds us as Members of Christs Body accepts our imperfect Obedience as if it were perfect and covers all our works which in themselves are defiled with many spots and blemishes with the perfect Righteousness of his Son So that according to the sense of this Church to which our Author ought to pay some Reverence we are not acquitted and absolved as innocent Persons by the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness but for Christs sake God accepts our imperfect Obedience as if it were perfect and covers all the imperfections and defects of our Works with the perfect Righteousness of his Son that is pardons all our sins for the sake of Christs perfect Righteousness The Augustan Confession is very express in this matter and so is their Apology Consequi remissionem peccatorum est justificari juxta illud beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates To obtain the pardon of sin is to be justified according to that saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven Thus the Churches of Bohemia declare their sense Per Christum homines gratis fide in Christum per misericordiam justificari salutem remissionem peccatorum consequi That to be justified is to obtain the pardon of sin and salvation freely by Christ. Thus we read in the Dutch Confession Credimus omnem felicitatem nostram sitam esse in peccatorum nostrorum remissione quae est in Christo Iesu eaque unica totam nostram justitiam coram Deo contineri We believe that our whole Happiness consists in the forgiveness of sins which is by Jesus Christ and that in this alone consists our WHOLE Righteousness before God And to conclude with our own Church in the Homily of Salvation we are taught that our Iustification consists in the forgiveness of sin and that this Iustification and Righteousness which we so receive of Gods Mercy and Christs Merits is taken accepted and allowed of God for our perfect and full Iustification I do not urge the Consent of Reformed Churches as if I thought their Authority sufficient to determine us in this matter they had no Authority but Reason and Scripture nor did they pretend to any other which is the true Principle of the Protestant Reformation There are but three sorts of Authority of any moment in Religion viz. The Authority of Divine Inspiration the Authority of Testimony and the Authority of Discipline and Order The Authority of Divine Inspiration is peculiar to Christ and his Apostles who spoke by an Infallible Spirit and is now confined to the holy Scriptures which are the only Infallible Rule of
Faith and Manners The Authority of Testimony is proper only to those Ages which immediately succeeded the Apostles for it may reasonably be presumed that those Persons who convers'd with the Apostles themselves or convers'd with those who convers'd with the Apostles who understood the Phrase and Dialect of that Age and those particular Controversies and Disputes which were then on foot may be able to give us a better account of the traditionary sense of Scripture and of the practice of the Apostles than those who lived in after-Ages and upon this account the Writings of those who lived in the first Centuries have always had a just Esteem and Authority in the Christian Church but still the more Ancient they are the greater is their Authority and the farther they are removed from the Fountain of Tradition so their Authority lessens The Authority of Discipline and Order is that Authority which every particular Church has over her own Members or which the Universal Church represented in General Councils has over particular Churches For while we live in Communion with any Church we oblige our selves to submit to its Government and at least so far to receive those Doctrines which she owns as not to disturb Publick Peace and Order by our Private Disputes But in all other cases he has the greatest Authority who has the best Reason and it is a childish thing to urge the bare Authority of any Man or Church when it hath neither Scripture nor Reason to support it So that I do not urge the consent of these Reformed Churches upon account of any inherent Authority but to make it appear how vainly Mr. Ferguson brags when he charges me with opposing the received Doctrines of Protestant Churches For indeed those Doctrines which I oppose are meer Novelties and were never publickly owned by any Reformed Church and never had any greater Authority than what an Assembly of Divines and an Ordinance of Parliament could give them He who understands what notion the first Reformers had of justifying Faith that it is fiducia misericordia propter Christum a firm and stedfast belief and hope that they should find mercy with God for Christs sake can never imagine that they once dreamt of such an Imputation of Christs Righteousness to them as should make them stand in no need of Mercy or of such a Iustification as is the Off-spring of Iustice and imports one transacting with us in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity in opposition to Pardon and Remission which is the result of Mercy and the act of one exercising favour which is Mr. Ferguson's Account of it in his own words But thirdly As this Notion of Imputation has no Foundation in Scripture as I abundantly proved in my former Discourse of which our Author takes no notice and it was very wisely done of him for I am sure he cannot answer it so it overthrows the principal Doctrines of the Gospel and contradicts its main design I shall briefly name some few First Justification by a perfect Righteousness is inconsistent with pardon and forgiveness Mr. Ferguson acknowledges That to justifie and to pardon are wholly distinct in their Natures and Ideas and always separated in the cases of such as are arraigned at humane Tribunals and that thus it is in the actings of God too Now I wonder he did not consider that by the same reason the same subject is not capable of both He who is universally justified in our Authors notion that is who is acquitted and absolved in a Juridical way i. e. as perfectly innocent and righteous needs no pardon nor is he capable of it because he has no sins to be pardon'd and he who is pardon'd cannot be justified in this sense because Pardon supposes him a Sinner and Justification supposes him innocent which hath some little appearance of a Contradiction So that the Gospel-way of Justification which is by Pardon and Forgiveness is quite discarded and we are justified by a legal Righteousness or by the Works of the Law that is by a perfect and unsinning Obedience though the Apostle tells us That by the Works of the Law no flesh shall be justified for though this perfect Righteousness whereby we are justified be not our own but the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us yet it is the Works of the Law still which is an express Contradiction to the Apostles Doctrine And I wonder what our Author thinks of all those Promises of Pardon which are contained in the Gospel and which are the greatest support and comfort of Sinners when it is impossible to find any place for them in his New-Gospel Secondly This notion of Justification overthrows the Necessity and Merit of Christs Death and Sacrifice the vertue of a Sacrifice consists in the expiation and forgiveness of sin but now if Justification excludes Pardon there is no need of a Sacrifice if nothing will satisfie the demands of the Law but a perfect and unsinning Obedience then there can be no Sacrifice for sin or at best it is to no purpose for it cannot satisfie the Law and therefore not expiate our sin and if Christ have satisfied the Law by his perfect Obedience there is no reason why he should suffer the penalty for no Law can oblige us both to obey it perfectly and to endure the Penalties for the breach of it though we do perfectly obey it So that if Christ died for our sins and if remission of sins must be preached in his name then we are not perfectly righteous by the imputation of his Righteousness but must obtain the pardon of our sins through Faith in his Blood Thirdly This notion of Justification destroys the Grace and Mercy of God in the Justification of a Sinner This Mr. Ferguson expresly owns That Pardon indeed if there could be any such thing is the result of Mercy but Iustification is the Off-spring of Iustice and imports Gods transacting with us in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity And I know not any assertion which more expresly destroys the Grace of the Gospel Whereas St. Paul attributes our Justification as well as Pardon to the Grace of God We are justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Iesus Nor will it relieve him to say that our Justification is an Act of Grace because though we are justified in a proper Law-notion by a perfect Righteousness yet this Righteousness is not inherent but imputed which is an act of Grace for besides that this implies a contradiction to be justified in a proper Law-sense by an imputed that is an improper Righteousness and that God proceeds in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law and yet admits of such a Righteousness as not the Law but only Grace can accept I say besides this we may for the very same Reason say that Pardon is an act of Justice because it is purchas'd by the Death of Christ.
And therefore if our Author would make good his notion he must shew how Pardon is more an act of Grace than Justification and how Justification is more the Off-spring of Justice than Pardon and if he dare stand to this notion there needs not many words to prove that he overthrows the whole Grace of the Gospel Fourthly There is another very ill consequence of this notion that it destroys the necessity of an inherent Righteousness or of a good Life For what necessity can there be that we should have a Righteousness of our own when we are perfectly righteous with the imputed Righteousness of Christ The Law demands a perfect and unsinning Righteousness and it is impossible it should demand any more we answer this Charge by the perfect Righteousness of Christ and when this is done we are innocent and righteous and have a title to the Rewards of a perfect Obedience and what can be desired more from us Mr. Ferguson indeed supposes that the Law requires a perfect Obedience and that the Gospel over and above this requires Faith and a sincere Obedience and that Christ was our Substitute to make Satisfaction to the Demands of the Law and not of the Gospel And that by his Death he hath only freed us from what we were obnoxious to upon failure of perfect Obedience but not at all from what we are liable to in case of Unbelief and want of sincere Obedience Now though this be true in some sense that is that Christ by his Death hath expiated our sins and thereby delivered us from the condemnation of the Law upon the failure of perfect Obedience and hath sealed the Covenant of Grace in his Blood which accepts and rewards a sincere though imperfect Obedience yet as it is applied by him it is down-right non-sense for if we perfectly answer the Demands of the Law by the imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness there is no need of the Gospel nor any place for it Perfection includes Sincerity as the greater includes the less and therefore if the Righteousness of Christ answers the Demands of the Law as to a perfect Obedience it shuts out any farther Demands of the Gospel He who is perfectly righteous is sincere too and he who can answer the Demands of Justice needs not the allowances of Grace and Mercy So that the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness does supercede our own Endeavours and makes our own Righteousness needless for this Reason I charged them before and do so still with setting up the Person of Christ in opposition to his Laws and Religion with magnifying his Personal Righteousness so as to evacuate all the Obligations of Duty And now methinks I can deal with any thing in Mr. Ferguson but his Brow and Confidence who is of the true breed and can stare the Sun in the face without blinking for after all this he declares That let me but once justifie my Charge of their making the Personal Righteousness of Christ our Personal Righteousness or that they maintain Christ to have fulfilled all Righteousness in our stead he does assure me that he will not only be ready to allow my severest Reproofs but to commend and second them Now unless by Personal he means inherent nothing in the World can be more plain then that he himself makes Christs Personal Righteousness our Personal Righteousness for we are Personally Righteous with the Righteousness of Christ and answer all the Demands of the Law with it and then I conceive it must be a Personal Righteousness not by inhesion indeed with which I never charged them but by imputation And as for Christs fulfilling Righteousness in our stead unless he has some secret quirk in that phrase our stead Doctor Owen does not only profess this but endeavours to prove it by several Arguments that Christ did not keep the Law for himself but for us and that not for our good only but that we might be righteous with his Righteousness and fulfil the Law in him He keeps the Law as our Mediator and Surety and Representative and I think that is so for us as to be in our stead this I have discours'd at large in my former Book and thither I shall refer my Reader Having thus justified my self in a proper Law-notion from the Accusations of this Author I shall farther consider how he justifies his dear Friends the Nonconformists from that Charge of toying with Scripture-Metaphors and Phrases and turning them into Burlesque And truly he is the most wretched Apologist that ever I saw sometimes he acknowledges the Charge with respect to particular Persons who through ignorance inadvertency or wantonness prevaricate in this matter but would not have the whole Party which was never done by me traduced for the folly of a few but if we should enquire how few those are who thus prevaricate in this matter and judge of it by their late Writings I doubt it would appear by computation that they never had so many Prevaricators at Cambridge since the first Institution of that Order and then let any one judge how well this agrees with what he asserts in the same breath that he knows none more observant of these Rules which he had before laid down in the sensing and applying of Metaphors than those who are stiled Nonconformists which proves nothing but that he has very little good Acquaintance But indeed Mr. Ferguson has taken the best course he could I had shewed in particular instances how they had abused Scripture-Phrases and Metaphors but he did not think fit to descend to particulars but instead of that collects a great many good Rules out of Glassius and Vossius and tells us how they ought to expound and use Metaphors and then without any farther proof concludes that they do so Whereas should we suppose that all the Nonconformists understood the Rules of Rhetorick as well as our Author though I fear many of them never read so much Rhetorick in their Lives before and I wish reading this may do them some good yet it is a very different Art to understand the Rules of Rhetorick to practise them whether they have any Skill in the first or no I know not but I am sure if they have they are as saving of it as ever men were as if they were afraid it would waste by too common a use Just after the same manner he vindicates the Nonconformists from those Aspersions lately cast upon them as if they were Defamers of Reason disclaiming it from all Concern in Religion c. To wipe off this Reproach which was not cast upon them but which they brought upon themselves by their perpetual Declamations against Reason our Author writes a large Chapter to shew the Use of Reason in Matters of Religion and this must pass for a Justification of the Nonconformists and now they will be thought the only Rational Divines Whereas in truth had he managed this Argument with as much accuracy as
he pretends to he had been so far from justifying the Nonconformists that he had given a fatal blow to those ridiculous People who declaim against the Use of Reason But for ought I see they may talk at their old rate still for all Mr. Ferguson Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè But to wave this only wishing that some young Sophister and there are many of them that are equal Matches for this Fanatick Professor would undertake to correct his insolent humour and teach him to treat Des-Cartes with greater Reverence I shall only inform him at present against he writes next what he should write about for I find he has abundance to say when it is nothing to the purpose but either does not or will not understand what he should oppose nor what he should vindicate I was not so silly as to oppose a sober use of Metaphors no not in matters of Religion as Mr. Ferguson would fain insinuate nor did I concern my self about their slovenly and Kitchin-Metaphors though it is a great prophanation of sacred things to make such gross and fulsom representations of them as must needs disgust more refined and spiritual minds and expose Religion to the Scoffs and Drollery of Atheistical Wits But my Quarrel with them is that they confound and darken the most plain and material notions in Religion by metaphorical Descriptions and turn the Scriptures themselves into an Allegory or Romance and of this they are guilty several ways First By thrusting Metaphors into Definitions this Mr. Ferguson himself does in express words condemn and therefore I would desire him in behalf of himself and his Friends to give me a Definition of Justifying Faith agreeable to their Principles without a Metaphor in it Could I once see this I doubt not but all our Disputes about Faith and Justification would be at an end and yet this he is bound to do if he will be true to his own Rules for he acknowledges that every thing spoken metaphorically is spoken obscurely with respect to expressing the nature of things And accordingly in assigning the definitions of things metaphorical terms are to be avoided because as Aristotle says as Mr. Ferguson might learn from many Modern Authors without ever seeing Aristotle though he should be so ingenuous as to own his Masters they do not declare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what a thing is but only what it is like to when any thing is manifested by a Metaphor the thing it self is not fully expressed but only some similitude betwixt it and another And what he adds is so great and useful a Truth that it is sufficient to expiate all the Fooleries of his Book because it will confute them all That there is not any thing relating to Doctrine or Manners delivered in the Scripture metaphorically which is not somewhere or other either explicitly or implicitly expressed in terms that are proper one place being a Key to the unlocking another And yet after all this I never could yet hear any thing but Metaphors from these men in their Definitions or Descriptions of Justifying Faith Justifying Faith is either a coming to Christ or receiving Christ or embracing Christ or a looking fiducially on Christ or leaning and resting and rolling on Christ and his Righteousness for Salvation Now what are all these but Metaphors taken from material and sensible things Which can never give us any intelligible notion of Faith though they may serve for illustration when we first understand its nature And yet as if this were not sufficiently obscure already most of them make each of these distinct acts of Faith which in order of nature precede each other We must first come to Christ and then we must receive him and then we must look fiducially on him and then we must lean and rest and roll our Souls on him and then we must lay him in our Bosoms and embrace him in our Arms and when we have done all this we shall be very understanding Believers if we have but a good Fancy to distinguish between the Legs and Hands and Arms and Eyes and Bosom of Faith I do not speak this in Mirth and Drollery but with a just Indignation to see the Religion of our Saviour transformed into a Work of Fancy and with a hearty pity for those deluded People who are fed with such thin and airy Notions The plain notion of Justifying Faith stript of all Metaphors and Figures can be no other than this Such a firm and sted fast Assent to all the Revelations of the Gospel as governs our Hearts and Lives by the Laws of it Or to give a larger Explication of it It is such an Assent to whatever Christ hath revealed concerning the Nature and Will of God or his own Nature Offices and Mediation the Rules of Life and Practice and the Rewards and Punishments of the next Life as does effectually determine our Wills to the Obedience of his Holy Laws To receive Christ in all his Offices when it is explained comes to the very same sense To believe all the Revelations of Christ as he is our Prophet to acknowledge the Vertue and Merit of his Sacrifice and Intercession as he is our Priest and to expect our acceptance with God for his sake upon condition of our obeying his Laws and submitting to his Government as he is our King But these men could never be perswaded to talk without Metaphors which would spoil all the Shiboleths of their Party and make them look like dull Moralists and yet I shall once more challenge Mr. Ferguson in compliance with his own Rules to give me a Definition of Justifying Faith agreeable to his notions of Justification without a Metaphor and if he cannot do this as he will be a wonderful man if he can I would desire him to consider how dangerous it is to transcribe good Rules out of good Books without understanding the Consequences of them Secondly Another fault which they are guilty of in the use of Metaphors is that they expound one Metaphor by another this Mr. Ferguson very justly condemns For Metaphors properly signifying one thing and being applied to signifie another only because of some resemblance we are therefore in our sensing of Metaphors to remove the metaphorical term and to substitute in its room that word which properly signifies the thing whereof we conceive the former to have been only a figure To paraphrase Metaphors in metaphorick terms is instead of making them intelligible to continue them dark and mysterious Now if this be a fault as I perfectly agree with Mr. Ferguson that it is he would do well to correct those men which might be taken more kindly from him who do not only explain one Metaphor by another but pursue a single Metaphor till they have forc'd it into an Allegory I gave one short instance of this in my former Discourse with respect to the Marriage between Christ and Believers And whereas our Author justifies such
put to it when they are forc'd to take Sanctuary in the Authority of that Church which they so much reproach and vilifie when they dare not trust to any other Weapon to defend their Cause but the despised name of the Church of England Those I am sure must be very blind who cannot see through so transparent a Cheat. The meaning then of all this noise about the Church of England is no more but this They are conscious to themselves of a bad Cause which they can no longer defend by plain Scripture and Reason and therefore shelter themselves in the Authority of the Church and would fain perswade the Bishops and the Church of England to defend them since they cannot defend themselves and having little else to say they make long Harangues about Articles and Homilies and pretend a mighty Zeal for the True Ancient and Catholick Doctrine of the Church of England And now methinks the Church of England and the Reverend Bishops are very much beholden to me for they have not had so many good words from these men in many years before and must never expect the like again but upon such another occasion and I hope the People will begin to consider what a Church they have forsaken whose Authority is much greater than all other Arguments with their own Teachers But I see it is very dangerous to be too much in love with any thing for this great zeal and passion for the Doctrine of the Church of England has betrayed the Doctor and his good Friend the Author of the Speculum to some hasty Sayings of which it may be they may see cause to repent when they are better advised They are great Friends you must know to Liberty and Indulgence and take it very ill if they may not only think and act as they please in matters of Religion but make Parties and Factions too and controul the Commands of Secular Powers and yet these very men who so much extol and magnifie an Indulgence and so much need it give plain intimations how far they would be from granting that Liberty to others which they challenge to themselves The Doctor tells me There is great reason to pity the People committed to my Charge what regard soever ought to be had unto my self i. e. though I should starve for want of my Rectorship as he expresses himself elsewhere Had this man in their days treated this Doctrine with his present scoffing petulancy he had scarce been Rector of St. George Buttolph-Lane c. Nor should I be so now could he hinder it But what becomes of Liberty and Indulgence then in matters of Religion Must the Conscience be set free in matters of External Order and Government but tied up in Doctrines and Opinions This indeed is the Doctors avowed Principle as great a Friend as he is to Liberty He would be excused himself from subscribing Three of the XXXIX Articles but as for the other XXXVI he would have no man suffered to live in England who will not subscribe them and the Doctor can remember when he proposed this very unseasonably The Author of the Speculum desires his Friend to bid me consider whether if the Parliament should meet they might not find leisure enough to censure my Discourse as they did Mr. Mountague ' s who in vain pleaded for himself that he had writ against the Puritans and was left alone to suffer though others had instigated him to write The Commons of England will scarce endure to find the Doctrine of the Church of England struck at though it be through the sides of Dr. Owen and Dr. Jacomb But now suppose the Commons of England should think it as reasonable to secure the Government and Discipline as the Doctrine of the Church what would become then of Indulgence Would not our Author then change his Note and repent of such Intimations as these Or if the Commons of England should happen to have other thoughts of that Discourse than our Author has and should think it necessary to prevent the Debauching of Mens Minds by such corrupt Doctrines as are there opposed what would become of most of the Conventicles in England Could he with any Confidence then cry out of Persecution when he himself hath sounded the Alarm to it This it is to fence with a two-edged Sword which cuts both ways and may wound a Friend as soon as an Enemy This is sufficient in answer to my Adversaries who are well skill'd at drawing up a Charge but have no faculty at proving it But I think my self upon this occasion concerned to vindicate the Doctrine of the Church of England from the mis-representations of these men as if it favoured such uncouth and absurd notions as besides the ill consequences of them have no foundation in Scripture or Reason which I doubt may represent the best Church in the World to great disadvantage with many I mean with all wife and considering men The principal thing which these Men object against me is the Doctrine of Justification as it is explained in the Articles and Homilies of our Church And I am contented the Controversie should be put upon this issue whether they or I speak most consonantly to the Doctrine of the Church of England in this matter The Doctrine of Justification is contained in Article XI which is this We are accounted Righteous before God only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ by Faith and not for our own Merits and Deservings Wherefore that we are Iustified by Faith only is a most wholsom Doctrine and very full of comfort as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Iustification The Article is plain and expressed in a few words without any Scholastical Subtilties we are not clogged here with the several Modes of Causality with the Efficient Formal Material Instrumental Causes of Justification which fill up every Page in the Books of Modern Divines All that our Church requires us to profess is only this that we are accounted Righteous before God only by Faith and for the Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that neither Faith nor Works are the Meritorious Cause of our Justification but that all the Merit of it is to be attributed to Christ who died for our sins and fulfilled the Law so that whoever acknowledges the Merits of Christ and denies the Merits of Good Works answers the end and design of this Article For this was the great Controversie of those days between the Papists and Protestants whether we were Justified freely by the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ or by the Merits of our own Works and the principal design of this Article was to oppose the Popish Doctrine of the Merit of Good Works But we are referred to the Homily of Justification for a larger Account of this Doctrine and thither I willingly appeal And to proceed with all possible ingenuity I readily acknowledge that there are several Expressions in
most precious Iewels of Christs Body and Blood whereby our Ransome might be fully paid the Law fulfilled and his Iustice satisfied There is no Controversie between us about this matter that it was an expression of the undeserved Goodness of God to send Christ into the World to save Sinners And secondly The Mercy of God is seen in the very Act of Justifying us in accepting this Atonement and in forgiving our sins Thus we are informed in the second part of that Sermon of Salvation Justification is not the Office of Man but of God for Man cannot make himself righteous by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest arrogancy and presumption of Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own Sins and so Justifie himself But Justification is the Office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him but which we receive of him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his most dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Saviour and Justifier Jesus Christ. Bywhich words it is very plain what is understood by Justification being Gods Act and not Mans that is that it is an Act of Favour and Grace not of Merit and Desert Though God may be said to Justifie an Innocent Man when he pronounces him Just and Righteous according to Law which is the proper office of a Judge i. e. to acquit an Innocent Man when he is arraigned yet in this case an Innocent Man may be said to Justifie himself because he is Justified by his own Actions and God only like a Just and Righteous Judge pronounces the Sentence of Justification that is acquits and absolves him as his actions deserve which strict Justice requires But in the Justification of a Sinner who dares not stand the trial of strict Justice but appeals to the Grace and Mercy of God Justification is properly Gods Act and not Mans is owing to the Divine Grace and Mercy not to Mans Merit and Desert Upon the same account we are told in the same place that not our own Act to believe in Christ or that this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth not justifie us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves Which I confess sounds very like what some men say That Faith doth not justifie us as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and applies it to us by which Righteousness thus apprehended by Faith we are justified but there is nothing less meant in this place as will appear from considering the whole Sentence which is this So that the true understanding of this Doctrine We be justified freely by Faith without Works or that we be justified by Faith in Christ only is not that this our own Act to believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth justifie us and deserve our Justification unto us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves but the true understanding and meaning thereof is that although we hear Gods Word and believe it and do never so many Works thereunto yet we must renounce the Merit of all our said Vertues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Vertues and good Deeds which we have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve Remission of our Sins and our Justification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Christ Jesus the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby Gods Grace and Remission as well of Original Sin in Baptism as of all Actual Sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to him again The meaning of which is plain that we are not justified by Faith as our own act as we are not justified by Hope and Charity as our own acts that is that they cannot merit our Justification or the Forgiveness of our sins When we have done the best we can we must still fly to the Mercy of God through the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ that distinction of Faiths justifying not as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and cloaths us with the perfect Robes of his Righteousness for which God accounts us perfectly Righteous is of a later date than these Homilies and very inconsistent with the Doctrine contained in them Thus you see what Gods part is in the Justification of a Sinner viz. To provide a Ransom and to forgive sins in vertue of that Ransom that is to justifie those who according to the strictness and rigor of the Law are not Just and Righteous Persons Thus to conclude this in the words of the Homily You have heard the Office of God in our Iustification and how we receive it of him freely by his Mercy without our Deserts Let us now consider what is Christs part in our Justification and that is expressed by Iustice that is the satisfaction of Iustice 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 The plain meaning of which is that we are justified for the sake of Christs Merits that his Obedience in doing and suffering the Will of God in dying for our sins and in fulfilling the Law is the meritorious cause of our Justification that is did deserve at Gods hands that for Christs sake he should pardon all humble penitent and believing Sinners This is all the Imputation of Christs Righteousness which our Church acknowledges that the Righteousness of Christ is the meritorious Cause of our Justification Thus we are told That Infants being baptized and dying in their Infancy are by this Sacrifice washed from their sins brought to Gods favour and made his Children and Inheritors of his Kingdom of Heaven And they which in act or deed do sin after their Baptism when they turn again to God unfeignedly they are likewise washed by this Sacrifice from their sins in such sort that there remaineth not any spot of sin that shall be imputed to their damnation Which is to the same sense with that of St. Iohn that if we walk in the light as he is in the light if we are holy as God is we have fellowship one with another and the Blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin 1 Iohn i. 7. And to this sense our Church expounds those Texts Rom. iii. All have offended and have need of the Glory of God but are justified freely by his Grace by Redemption which is in Iesus Christ whom God hath set forth to us for a Reconciler and Peace-maker through
to this Argument is to find what there is to be answered To be justified by Works without Merit if any men phrase it so can signifie no more but this that God for Christs sake forgives the sins and accepts the Persons of those who though they be guilty of many Infirmites yet do heartily and sincerely endeavour to please him and by the practise of a real Righteousness do every day aspire after a greater likeness to him now the question is Why since these men do not merit such favours should God prefer them before those who busie themselves in some external Rites and Ceremonies or Judaical Observances which have no real Goodness in them And I can give no other account of it but that it is for the same reason for which God prefers an Evangelical before a Ceremonial Righteousness and if there be no reason for this excepting Merit I confess the Argument is unanswerable Is there no reason why God should prefer the internal Habits of Grace and Vertue which are a participation of his own Nature and the beginnings though but weak and imperfect of a new and spiritual Life and the best qualifications for future Glory and Happiness before some external Rites and Usages which have no real worth Is there no reason why God should prefer the substantial Acts of Piety and Charity which are useful to Men and an imitation of the bounty and goodness of God before picking up straws and such useless and ludicrous Employments Is there no difference between Works which are imperfectly good and Works which have no goodness in them But I think it is a Work of Supererogation though not very meritorious to answer such an Argument But now in requital of this Argument against the distinction between Works and Merit I shall give another for it and that is That our Church makes nothing more necessary on our part to our Salvation than to our Justification and therefore when she rejects Good Works from the Office of Justifying if she intends to deny the Necessity as well as the Merit of Good Works she must be understood to deny the necessity of Good Works to our Salvation also which is an express Contradiction to her declared Doctrine There is no such distinction as this between Justification and Salvation to be found in any of the Articles or Homilies of our Church which is a good Argument that our Church knew no such distinction for if she had we cannot but think that she would have made use of it in express terms at one time or other there being the same occasion for it then that there is now The Sermon or Homily of Justification is called the Sermon of Salvation and these words Iustification and Salvation are promiscuously used in the Homily it self Thus in the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we have these words at the beginning It hath been manifestly declared unto you that no man can fulfil the Law of God and therefore by the Law all men are condemned whereupon it followeth necessarily that some other thing should be required for our SALVATION than the Law and that is a true and lively Faith in Christ bringing forth good Works and a Life according to Gods Commandments Where Salvation must of necessity signifie what at other times is called Justification for our Church tells us that we cannot be saved by the Works of the Law because we cannot fulfil the Law which is the reason at other times assigned why we cannot be Iustified by the Law Because all men be Sinners and Offenders against God and Breakers of his Law therefore can no man by his own Acts Words and Deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God Which are the very first words of the Sermon of Salvation And what is here required for our Salvation is the very same which in other places our Church requires to our Justification viz. A true and lively Faith in Christ bringing forth Good Works and a Life according to Gods Commandments Thus in the first part of the Sermon of Good Works our Church cites those words of S. Chrysostom I can shew a man that by Faith without Works lived came to heaven but without Faith never any man had Life the Thief that was hanged when Christ suffered did believe only and the most merciful God justified him this is an Example of living and going to Heaven by Faith without Works that the Thief was justified by Faith only so that to be justified by Faith and to live and go to Heaven by Faith it seems are equivalent expressions as appears also from what follows And because no man shall say again that he lacked time to do good VVorks for else he would have done them Truth it is and I will not contend therein but this I will surely affirm that Faith only SAVED him So that to be justified and to be saved by Faith still signifies the same thing and in the same sense wherein our Church affirms that we may be justified by Faith only she affirms that we may be saved by Faith only which therefore must not exclude the Necessity but the Merit of Good Works and whenever Faith only will not justifie it will not save neither as it follows If he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again That is his Justification as appears from the whole Discourse The Learned Bishop Davenant certainly was not acquainted with this distinction when he proposed that Question Utrum bona Opera sint necessaria ad Iustificationem vel Salutem Whether Good Works be necessary to Justification or Salvation and answers it without making any difference between their necessity to Justification and to Salvation which is not very reconcileable with our Modern Divinity in which good Works are so far from being owned necessary that they are judged dangerous and hurtful in reference to Justification though they may be necessary to our Salvation And indeed this distinction between Justification and Salvation was on purpose invented to mollifie some harsh expressions of later Divines who rejected good Works and a holy Life from having any thing to do in the Justification of a Sinner This gave birth to the Antinomian Heresie which wholly rejects the Law and good VVorks and under a pretence of advancing the freeness of Gods Grace delivers Believers from all the necessary Obligations of Duty and Obedience to prevent the infection of this Doctrine they invented this distinction between Justification and Salvation and asserted that though Good VVorks are not necessary to our Justification yet they are to our Salvation which is as much as to say that though our sins shall be pardoned and our persons accepted and accounted perfectly righteous and have an actual Right and Title to future Glory without Holiness and Obedience yet we shall never have an actual Possession of Glory but upon the condition of an holy Life which were it true
no where taught to draw from such Premises which makes an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ a new way of discovering Divine Truths distinct from the Revelations of the Gospel and if this be once acknowledged to be a good way of reasoning men may as well draw such Conclusions as are no where to be found in Scripture as those which are By the same Argument the Doctor proves what the desert of Sin is the demerit of Sin is such that it is altogether impossible that God should pass by any the least unpunished How does this appear Why from the Person who suffered for it who was the only Son of God and if God would have done it for any passed by sin unpunished he would have done it in reference to his only Son but he spared him not The sum of which Argument is this that because God would not spare his only Son after he had determined that he should die as a Sacrifice for sin therefore he could not spare him and therefore the demerit of Sin is such that it is impossible God should suffer it to go unpunished which is indeed a pretty Argument but whether it be true or false it is no Scripture Argument and therefore may serve for another instance of this new way of reasoning from the knowledge of Christ. This may suffice at present to make good my Charge that the Doctor sets up an acquaintance with the Person of Christ as a new medium of saving knowledge distinct from the Revelations of the Gospel from whence we may clearly and savingly learn those Divine Truths which though they are pretended to be contained in the Gospel yet are not clearly and savingly to be learnt thence without this knowledge of the Person of Christ the plain meaning of which is that men must first reason from what Christ hath done and suffered and thence form their Notions and Theories of Religion and then it is very hard if they cannot find some obscure ambiguous or metaphorical expressions in Scripture to countenance such conceits But this Book of Communion out of which I have transcribed these passages was writ near twenty years since and therefore to do the Doctor all the right we can let us consider whether in his later Writings he hath expressed himself more cautiously in this matter In his second Volume on the Hebrews a Book of a very late date p. 20. I find this observation A diligent attentive consideration of the Person Offices and Work of Iesus Christ is the most effectual means to free the Souls of men from all entanglements of errors and darkness and to keep them constant in the profession of the truth This is the very same Doctrine we had before that we must learn Divine Truths which is much the same with being delivered from errors and darkness by a knowledge of the Person and Offices of Christ For the explaining of this he tells us there must be a diligent searching into the Word wherein Christ is revealed to us The Scriptures reveal him declare him testifie of him to this end are they to be searched that we may learn and know what they so declare and testifie Thus far it is very well and would men confine their knowledge of Christ and Divine Truths to the Revelation of the Gospel it would be an infallible preservative against all Error But I do not so well understand what he adds towards the conclusion of that Discourse Unto him Christ and the knowledge of him is all our study of the Scripture to be referred and the reason why some in the perusal of it have no more light profit or advantage is because they have no more respect unto Christ in their enquiry If he be once out of our eye in searching the Scripture we know not what we do nor whither we go no more than doth the Mariner at Sea without regard to the Pole-star Truths to be believed are like Believers themselves all their life power and order consist in their relation to Christ separated from him they are dead and useless This is very profound and Mysterious we must search the Scriptures to know Christ and the knowledge of Christ must direct us in expounding the Scripture as the Pole-star does the Mariner to steer a safe and direct Course We must consider all Truths in their relation to Christ which gives life and power and order to them I wish the Doctor had given us some examples of this for I confess I cannot understand it In p. 23. he tells us But here lies the root of mens failings in this matter They seek for truth of themselves and of other men but not of Christ what they can find out by their own endeavours what other men instruct them in or impose upon them that they receive few have that faith love and humility are given up to that diligent contemplation of the Lord Christ and his Excellencies which are required in those who diligently wait for his Law so as to learn the truth of him So that it seems by eying Jesus Christ in searching the Scriptures he means a diligent contemplation of the Lord Christ and his Excellencies which will be a safer guide to all true saving knowledge than all other enquiries whatsoever so that still we must learn all Sacred Truths from the knowledge of Christ's Person and Excellencies And indeed this he expresly tells us in the same Page All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in Christ and therefore from him alone to be received and in him alone to be learned In the due consideration of the Lord Christ are these Treasures opened unto us There is not the least line of truth how far soever it may be extended and how small soever it may at length appear but the springs of it lie in the Person of Christ and then we learn it aright when we learn it in the spring or as it is in him Eph. 4. 21. which when we have done we may safely trace it down and follow it to its utmost extent If there be any sense to be made of this Discourse it must be this that we must learn all Divine Truths from a consideration of the Lord Christ his Person and Excellencies c. because the Springs of all truth lie in the Person of Christ and without such a serious consideration of the Person of Christ to direct and steer our Course the study of the Gospel will avail us nothing That it is to no great purpose to understand Gospel Truths unless we can find out the springs and the Center of them in the Person of Christ He that looks upon Gospel truths as Sporades as scattered up and down independently one of another who sees not the Root Center and Knot of them in Iesus Christ it is most probable that when he goes about to gather them for his use he will also take up things quite of another nature But it may be we may understand the Doctor better if
in the first Person I and in Me he cannot mean this of his own Person but of his Church Doctrine and Religion according as the circumstances of the place require the plain meaning of it is this that we must not consider the Person of Christ as abstracted from his being the Head of his Church and the great Prophet and Teacher of it as these men do as will appear more in what follows Secondly I observe that we are united to Christ and to the Church by the very same act as it must necessarily be if the Union be the same Faith in Christ and such a publick profession of it as he requires unites us to Christ and incorporates us into the Christian Church that is makes us members of Christ's body which is our Union to him We are not first united to Christ by Faith and then united to the Church by our subsequent choice and consent by explicite Contracts as some imagine without any reason or president of the Apostolick Age but that Faith which unites us to Christ incorporates us into his Church makes us members of his body wherein our Union consists and that obliges us as we will own our Christianity to a visible Communion with the Church where it may be had Thirdly to make this yet more clear we must consider what is meant by the Church in this question Now the general Notion of a Church is a Religious Society founded on the belief of the Gospel and an acknowledgment of the Authority of Christ and united to him as their Head who rules and governs them either immediately by himself or by the mediation of Church-Officers authorized by him for that purpose That Christ designed not only to reform and save some particular men but to erect a Church and to unite all his Disciples to himself in one body is so very evident that were not men acted by Faction and Interest it could admit no serious dispute All the Metaphors which describe our Union to Christ do primarily refer to the Christian Church as I observed before Christ is the Head and the Church his body and the Apostle tells us that there is but one body and that he is the Saviour of the body and that he has redeemed his Church with his own bloud The Jewish Church was Typical of the Christian and they were all of one Family the carnal Seed and Posterity of Abraham and were all united by the same Laws and Religious Ceremonies and there was no way for an Alien to partake of the Priviledges of that holy people but by being incorporated into the body of Israel who were the Heirs of the Promises by Baptism and Circumcision Now as the Jews were the carnal Posterity of Abraham so the Apostle tells us that Christians are his spiritual Seed the Sons of God and the Children of Abraham by Faith Gal. 3. 26 29. i. e. We are admitted into Abraham's Family and made Heirs according to Promise When God cast off the Jewish Church he did not leave himself without a Church in the world but as some of those branches were broken off so the Christians who before their Conversion were many of them Pagan Idolaters a wild Olive tree were graffed in among them and with them partake of the root and fatness of the Olive tree Rom. 11. 27. So that Christ did not come to dissolve but to reform the Church He owns no relation to particular men as scattered Individuals but as incorporated into his Church Now the internal Union of the Church to Christ consists in a sincere and lively Faith and a voluntary subjection to his Authority the External Ligaments of it are an External and visible profession of our Faith and solemn Vows of Obedience which is regularly according to our Saviours Institution performed in Baptism and external and visible Communion and the external Ministries of Grace to which our Saviour has ordinarily annexed the internal operations of his Spirit as will appear more hereafter Now though Internal Union by a sincere and hearty Faith and a subjection of our selves to the Laws and Government of Christ will unite us to his invisible Church where there is no visible Society of Christians professing the faith of Christ and living in a regular Communion and Fellowship with each other Yet where there is we cannot be united to Christ's body without a visible incorporation into his Church For the visible and invisible Church of Christ is but one body and to renounce the Communion of the visible Church where it may be had without any injury to our internal Union that is without being forced to renounce any Article of the Christian Faith or to violate any of the Christian Laws is in effect to renounce Christianity For Christ hath appointed no other ordinary method of our Union to his body but those ordinary and regular ways of incorporation into his Church and though he will dispense with ordinary ways in extraordinary cases yet we have no reason to think he will ordinarily do so which would be to dissolve his visible Church or to make External Communion the most arbitrary and precarious thing in the world A secret Faith in Christ and acknowledgment of his Authority does not ordinarily unite us to his body but is only a necessary qualification and disposition to such a Union But in order to an actual Union there is required such a publick profession of our Faith and solemn Vows of Obedience performed with such initial Rites as our Saviour has appointed as does actually incorporate us into the Christian Church as makes us members of the Universal Church visible or invisible and more immediately unites us to the particular Church wherein we live just as it is in our admission into any Relation or Society there is required an antecedaneous consent to qualifie us for it but this alone does not unite to such a Society without such particular Ceremonies or publick Oaths and Engagements as by the Laws of that Society are required to our actual admission And therefore in the Ancient Church the Clinici who delayed their Baptism till they were under the apprehensions of death though all their lives they professed the Faith of Christ yet refusing by this holy Rite to be actually incorporated into the Church they were looked on at best as a very imperfect sort of Christians of whose state there was just reason for doubt and jealousie Fourthly we may observe some difference in the manner of our admission into the Church according to the different states and dispensations of it We may consider the Church in its Idea and Embrio before there be any visible Society of Christians and in this case though the first Believer cannot be said to be admitted into any Society of Christians yet he may be said to be admitted into the Church For then the Church signifies Christ who is the Head and such a platform and Idea of a Society which is to be set up in the world
sanctitas caetera nam quae foris exercentur nullum habent salutis effectum Now whether they were mistaken in their Conclusion or not the Premises were the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church owned by those very Fathers who opposed the rebaptization of Schismaticks We are united to Christ by our Union with the Catholick visible or invisible Church which necessarily includes our visible Fellowship and Society with that particular Church wherein we live when we may hold Communion with it without renouncing the Christian Faith or violating any express Law which our Saviour has given us as I discoursed more fully in my other Book And when we cannot joyn in Communion with any visible Society of Christians without renouncing our fidelity to Christ our Union to Christ is then secured in our spiritual Union to his invisible Church and body Now this gives a plain solution to all Mr. Ferguson's Arguments whereby he proves That Communion with a particular Church cannot be the medium of a Christians Union to Christ. Though I never asserted this any other ways than as communion with a particular Church where it may be had is essential to our Union with the Universal Church But let us hear what he says First there may be some Individual Christians where there is no particular instituted Church of Christ into which they can be admitted Then if they be Christians they are united to the Universal Church But there can be no particular Church without the pre-existence of Individual Believers Right but every Individual Believer is not a Christian till he be incorporated into the Christian Church Faith is necessary to qualifie a man for admission into the Church but though God may dispense with extraordinary cases yet ordinarily Faith alone does not make a man a Christian as appears from the third Proposition We must believe and be baptized if we will be saved For Baptism ordinarily incorporates us into the Christian Church to which alone the Promises of Salvation are made And whereas a late Author thinks to evade the force of this Argument by observing that our Saviour adds But he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16. 16 So that men shall be damned meerly upon account of their unbelief and not meerly for want of baptism provided they have faith It is on the contrary very evident that no such thing can be concluded from our Saviours words He first lays down the terms of Salvation Faith and Baptism and methinks those men make very bold with our Saviour who affirm that we may be ordinarily saved for our Saviour speaks here of ordinary cases without Baptism but then he adds who shall be damned and they are Unbelievers of two sorts such Infidels as refuse Baptism and such unbelievers as are baptized So that he that believeth not shall be damned signifies that though Faith and Baptism be necessary to Salvation yet unbelief alone whether men be baptized or not shall damn them For I would ask this Author whether supposing that our Saviour had designed in those words He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved to signifie that Faith and Baptism were both necessary to Salvation it had been proper for him to have added but he that believeth not and is not baptized shall be damned which would have damned only unbaptized Infidels and have given too great reason to baptized hypocrites and unbelievers to hope for salvation But to return to Mr. Ferguson his second Argument is this That Christians may be obliged upon their loyalty to Christ to renounce Communion not only with the particular Church with which they have walked but to suspend fellowship with any particular Church that lies within the circle and compass of their knowledge If there be a just cause for this it will be their vindication and this will not prejudice their union to the invisible Catholick Church But I hope all good Christians will be more wary of this than our Author and his Friends are for humour and frowardness and interest will not justifie a separation His third Argument is of the same nature and needs no other answer That Christians may be injuriously cast out of the Communion not only of one but of every particular Church and yet remain united to Christ If they be injuriously cast out it shall be no prejudice to them for Christ will reverse all unjust Sentences such men are still united to Christ and therefore are united to his body the Catholick invisible Church But what he adds that a man may be justly secluded for a time from communion with any particular Church and yet his union to Christ not be dissolved Though it make nothing against me for if he be still united to Christ he is united to the Catholick Church though secluded from the Communion of the visible Church yet it is directly contrary to the sense of all antiquity and makes the censures of the Church vain and useless things What is the meaning of that authority our Saviour hath granted to his Apostles and Ministers Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven if they may bind and Christ loose if they may justly separate men from the body of Christ and yet Christ keep them united to himself which I fear must be unjustly done if the other be justly unless he will say that the Church may justly separate men from Christ Christ justly keep them united to himself All Divines indeed grant that whatever is done errante clave through ignorance and mistake or for some worse reasons is rectified by Christ but to say that Christ makes void the just and regular Censures of his Church is expresly contrary to his declared will and is in effect to repeal and countermand that authority which he has left in his Church and therefore so far as any man is justly separated from the Church he is separated from Christ too and cannot regularly be restored again but by the same authority But I suppose Mr. Ferguson and he has some reason for it is of Mr. Watson's mind That neither Sin nor Satan can dissolve our Union with Christ and then I know no reason why it should dissolve our Union with the Church neither His fourth Argument is That none are to be received under the notion of members into a particular Church but upon a presumption that Christ hath received them But it is sufficient if they be such as Christ will receive and own when they are incorporated into his Church and indeed Mr. Ferguson's way is down-right non-sense For Christ's receiving men is his admission of them into his Church as members of his body and if Christ must receive them first he must own them for members of his Church before they are members of his Church and no man is fit to be admitted as a member of the Church before he be a member of the Church As for what
he adds that men must first be Believers before they be admitted members of the Church is very true but Faith only does not make them Christians as I shewed above His fifth Argument is That it is a Persons submitting himself to the Laws and Authority of Christ which swayeth and influenceth him to submit to Pastors and Teachers and to joyn with others in the fellowship of the Gospel and by consequence our union with a particular Church is so far from being the bond of our Union with the Lord Iesus that on the contrary our Union with him is the motive and inducement of our joyning into fellowship with a particular Church This is so far from being true that on the contrary we have no visible way of submitting to the Authority of Christ but by submitting our selves to that Authority and Government which he hath left in his Church For Christ does not govern us now as a visible head but by the Ministry of men whom he hath invested with authority for that purpose The belief of Christ's Power and Authority is the reason of our subjection to the Church but we do not actually submit to the Authority of Christ on earth but by our actual subjection to the Church as I shewed above in the fourth Proposition As for his proof from the example of the Churches of the Macedonians that they first gave themselves to the Lord and then unto them the Apostles by the will of God 2 Cor. 8. 5. Which he thus expounds That it was by taking upon them the observance of Christs commands that they found themselves obliged to coalesce into Church Societies it is a famous example of our Author's skill or honesty in expounding Scriptures for the Apostle speaks nothing there of Church Societies or the reason of their entring into them which was no dispute in those days when Independency was not yet hatched but he commends the bounty and charity of the Macedonians in contributing to the necessities of the poor Saints and their great forwardness to it that they did not need to be stirred up by the Apostles to so good a work but on the contrary earnestly intreated them to receive the gift and take upon them the fellowship of the ministring to the Saints And the account the Apostle gives of it is this that they first gave up themselves and all they had to the service of Christ and then committed their liberal contributions into their hands to be disposed of for the propgation of the Gospel and the relief of the Saints This was the commendation of their charity that it was not the effect of importunate solicitations but of hearts entirely devoted to Christ and the service of the Church though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie that they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us his Apostles who are invested with his Authority and then expressed their bounty and liberality to the poor Christians His last Argument is That an imagination of our being united to Christ by the mediation of an Union with the Church seems to have been the foundation of the Papal Vicarious Political Head But pray how so Because I assert that Christ is the Head of the Church which is his body and that he is a head only to his body and therefore that none can be united to Christ as their head without being members of his body therefore there must be a Papal Vicarious Political Head I must now do as M. Ferguson does deny the consequent for I am sure there is no consequence in it He imagines that our Union to Christ and our Union to the Church are two distinct Unions and therefore if we are united to Christ by our Union to the Church there ought to be a Universal Vicarious Head on earth to whom we may be united Whereas we are united to no head but Christ and we are united to this Head as all members are by our Union to his body which is his Church To be united to a Vicarious Head in order to our Union to the Real Head if it be not senseless and ridiculous yet is founded neither on reason nor Scripture nor any analogy or resemblance in nature but to be united to the body that we may be united to the head is necessary in order of nature for no member is any other ways united to the head but by its Union to the body The whole Church is the body of Christ and Apostles and Prophets and Bishops are but members of this body though of greater use dignity and authority than meaner Christians as in the natural body some members are more honourable and useful than the rest But who told Mr. Ferguson that Christ is not the immediate Political Head of his Church and that therefore there must be a Vicarious Head He represents this as my opinion though I never said so nor thought so I have said indeed that particular Christians are not immediately united to the person of Christ but are united to Christ by their Union to his Church But it does not hence follow that Christ is not the immediate Head of every Christian much less that he is not the immediate head of his whole Church except he will say that the Head in the natural body is not the immediate head of the body and of every member in it because the hand and the foot are not immediately joyned to it These are Mr. Ferguson's Arguments to prove that we are not united to Christ by being united to the Christian Church most of which he alleadges also upon another occasion to prove That one living in the Fellowship and Communion of no visible Church may be a Christian which was the avowed Doctrine of Socinus by this we may guess what weight he laid upon them and I am not at leisure to repeat my answers as often as he repeats his Arguments but dare venture them at one proposal against his frequent repetitions And therefore to proceed among other Arguments whereby I confirmed that Notion that our Union to Christ consists in our Union to the Christian Church I argued from the nature of the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper which our Saviour has appointed as Symbols of our Union with him Our first undertaking of Christianity is represented in our Baptism wherein we make a publick profession of our faith in Christ and solemnly vow obedience to him and it is sufficiently known that Baptism is the Sacrament of our admission into the Christian Church Now in answer to this Mr. Ferguson tells us 1. That Baptism is neither the medium of our Union with the Catholick visible Church nor that whereby we become members of a particular instituted Church I hope our Author will not here too challenge me with contradicting the Church of England which so expresly teaches us that in our Baptism we were made the members of Christ the Children of
though this holy Supper be not the first medium of our Union to the Church yet it represents the Union of the Christian Church and of all particular Christians in it in one body to Christ which was all I designed to prove by it In the second place he tells us That by the Lords Supper we ratifie our perseverance and renew our engagements of being the Lords And thirdly That it is a Symbol of our Union to Christ and to each other And so we are very well agreed and it is time to give over this Dispute Thus I have brought off my two first Propositions safe and sound but before I proceed to the rest I must remove a rub or two which Mr. Ferguson has thrown in my way For he charges me with denying our Union to the Person of Christ and our immediate Union to his Person and this indeed I do in some sense and if he had been either an honest man or a fair Disputant he ought to have declared in what sense I disowned it but instead of this he fills several Pages with long and senseless Harangues to prove that we must be united to the Person of Christ and that it would have been as consistent with my design to own as to deny it when indeed I never denied it but expresly owned it in that sense which he would now contend for And to give a plain demonstration of the honesty and ingenuity of this Author I shall transcribe one Page out of my former Discourse which concerns this matter The design of all these distinctions is to prove the Union of Persons between Christ and Believers and because I find this Author hath bewildred himself I will endeavour to help him out for it is a very plain case if Christ and Believers are united their Persons must be united too For the Person of Christ is Christ himself and the Persons of Believers are Believers themselves and I cannot understand how they can be united without their Persons that is without themselves But then they are united by mutual relations as the Person of a Prince and of his Subjects of a Husband and his Wife are united or by mutual affections or common interest not by a natural adhesion of Persons But because I find it does not satisfie these men that Christ and Believers are united unless their Persons be united too it makes me suspect that there is a greater Mystery in this Union of Persons than every one apprehends Upon this I considered what they meant by the Person of Christ and our Union to him So that I do not impeach them for not being satisfied that Christ and Believers are united unless their Persons be united too as Mr. Ferguson represents it but from their making such a difference between our Union to Christ and our Union to his Person I reasonably concluded that they meant something more by our Union to the Person of Christ than every one was aware of and so indeed I found it as appears from what I discoursed in that place And to give as short and perspicuous an account of it as possibly I can here I observe that by the Person of Christ to which we are united they mean such a Person as has done all for us and hath undertaken to do all in us And by an immediate Union to this Person they mean at most an immediate application of themselves to his Person by reliance and recumbency which gives them an interest in all that Christ has done and suffered by vertue of an Union to his Person First By the Person of Christ to which we are united they mean such a Person as has done all for us and has undertaken to do all in us As for the latter part of this that Christ hath undertaken to do all in us I shall reserve it to be considered under the head of Political Union and shall at present confine my Discourse to his having done all for us This is their notion of Christ's being our Surety and Mediator that in our stead he hath satisfied the justice of God and fulfilled all righteousness and that we are made righteous by his Personal Righteousness which he performed in his own Person but in our stead and as representing us And I should wonder that Mr. Ferguson denies this but that I now know him too well to wonder at any thing he says For Doctor Iacomb has industriously endeavoured to prove this notion of Christs being our Surety to do all in our stead and Dr. Owen hath with as great endeavours and with like success attempted to prove this from Christs being our Mediator But how far either the notion of a Surety or of a Mediator is from countenancing any such Doctrine I have made abundantly evident in my former Discourse to which Mr. Ferguson replies nothing but entertains and amuses his Readers with some School pedantry in the derivation of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he learnedly observes comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to leave these little Criticisms to School-boys and to reduce the Controversie into a short compass the fundamental mistake is this that they represent Christ as a Surety and Mediator for some particular men not as the Surety and Mediator of the Covenant I made it appear that though we should grant that Christ is called a Surety and Mediator with respect to his undertaking for some particular persons yet they cannot reasonably argue from the notion of a Surety and Mediator to prove that Christ fulfilled all righteousness for those and in their stead whose Surety and Mediator he was and as I have observed above my Adversaries have been forced to quit this way of arguing from the general notion of a Surety and Mediator among men But indeed the foundation of this notion is false that Christ did undertake for particular persons to do all for them which was required of them by vertue of any Law as Dr. Owen represents it Christ by his death made a general Atonement and Expiation for Sin and with his Blood procured purchased and sealed the Covenant of Grace wherein God promises pardon of Sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel and thus his bloud is the bloud of the Covenant and he is the Surety and Mediator of the Covenant But that what Christ did and suffered he should do in the name and stead only of some particular Persons as their Surety Proxy Surrogate or Substitute has not the least foundation in Scripture and is the first cause and the only support of the Antinomian Heresie Mr. Ferguson founds Christ's Suretiship on the Covenant of Redemption that is on that Covenant which some modern Divines so much talk of between God the Father and Christ concerning the Salvation of the Elect that God the Father gives so many persons by name to Christ to be saved by him and upon his voluntary undertaking that work he stands
in the room and stead of those men and does and suffers what ever was required of them acting for them as a common person that God imputes all their Sins to Christ and imputes his Righteousness to them and reckons it as much theirs as if it had been personally performed by them Gods appointing of Christ to this work and his accepting of it puts him into the room and stead of the Elect and whatever is done by him as their Surety and Mediator is reckoned as done by them If this could be proved it were somewhat to the purpose but if no such thing appear as Christ's acting in the name and stead of any particular men this utterly subverts their notion of Suretiship For a Surety or Proxy or Surrogate or what ever you will call him who acts in the name and stead of others so that what he does is reckoned as done by those for whom he acts must do what he does in the name and as representing the persons of some certain particular men For to act in the name and stead of another in this sense and yet not to represent any certain person is a contradiction I do not deny but that Christ may properly be said to die in our stead loco nostro vice nostrâ in as much as his Death was a proper Expiatory Sacrifice for Sin or as Grotius explains that Phrase Vice nostra Christum esse mortuum hoc est nisi Christus esset mortuus nos fuisse morituros quia Christus mortuus est nos non morituros morte aeterna That Christ is said to die in our stead because unless Christ had died me must have died and since Christ hath died we shall not die an Eternal death De satisf Cap. 9. But then Christ did not so die in our stead much less fulfil Righteousness in our stead as to personate us as our Substitute Attorney or Proxy and the difference between these two is vastly wide for in the first Case Christ only so dies in our stead that in virtue of his Expiation and Sacrifice he procures confirms and ratifies a Universal Covenant of Grace with mankind upon certain terms and conditions to be performed by us hence his bloud is called the bloud of the Covenant and he the Surety of the Covenant But for Christ to act in our stead so as to represent and personate us gives us an immediate actual right to the purchase of Christ's Death and to the merit of his Righteousness for what is thus done in our stead is in Law and Justice reckoned as done by us and therefore can admit of no intervening condition to intitle us to it In the first sense Christ may die for all mankind and be a propitiation for the sins of the whole World and the Sacrifice and Expiation of his Death be very well reconciled with a conditional Covenant But in the second sense he can be said to die for none but those particular men whose persons he represented as their Surety and Proxy and who have an immediate right to what ever he has done and suffered for no other reason but because he acted in their name and stead Which resolves the whole Covenant of Grace between God and man into the Covenant of Redemption as they call it between God and Christ. Mr. Ferguson has a great mind to say something against this notion of Christ's being the Surety and Mediator of the Covenant and not such a Surety and Mediator for particular persons as acts in their name and stead and does for them what ever was required of them by any Law He first excepts against my Notion of a Surety of a Covenant that it signifies no more than to confirm and ratifie this Covenant and to undertake for the performance of it that all the Promises of the Covenant shall be made good upon such terms and conditions as are annexed to them And first he would fain insinuate the charge of Socinianism against it though he confesses that both Grotius and Dr. Hammond go this way but yet my Paraphrase hath more affinity to Schlichtingius's Gloss than to either of theirs which is said with the usual ingenuity of our Authour without any pretence or shew of reason For there is nothing in my Paraphrase like Schlichtingius's which I had never seen As he has set it down in the Margin Schlichtingius's Comment is this Sponsor foederis appellatur Iesus quod nomine Dei nobis sposponderit i. e. fidem fecerit Deum foederis promissiones servaturum esse non verò quasi pro nobis sposponderit Deo nostrorumve delictorum solutionem in se receperit That Iesus is therefore called the Surety of the Covenant because he hath promised us in Gods name that God shall keep and perform the Promises of the Covenant not that he undertook for us to God by taking upon himself the discharge of our debts or sins That is by making Atonement and satisfaction for sin Which is so far from being my sense that it is directly contrary to it For when I say that Christ's being the Surety of the Covenant signifies his confirming and ratifying the Covenant and undertaking for the performance of it under those Phrases of consirming and ratifying I include whatever Christ did in order to the full and complete ratification of the Covenant and had a principal regard to that Expiation and Atonement which he made for sin which was the procuring cause of the Covenant of Grace and the Seal and ratification of it For thus Covenants were confirmed by Sacrifices in the Eastern Countries Thus Moses confirmed the Covenant between God and the people of Israel by sprinkling the book and all the people with the bloud of the Sacrifice saying this is the bloud of the Testament which God hath ordained to you Heb 9. 19 20 21. Upon which account the bloud of Christ is called the bloud of sprinkling too because by his bloud God did seal and confirm the Covenant of Grace as the sprinkling the bloud of beasts did confirm the Mosaical Covenant as I expresly observed in my former Discourse from whence Mr. Ferguson might have learned what I meant by confirming and ratifying the Covenant Now this alone answers all Mr. Ferguson's Objections against my Notion of a Surety of a Covenant He tells us that the Surety of a better Testament and Mediator of a better Covenant are equipollent terms though he produces no other reason for it but that Christ is called a Surety in one place and Mediator in another whereas the notions seem to be somewhat different and that his being stiled a Surety hath respect not to his Prophetical but Sacerdotal Office and what follows from hence Why therefore Christ's being our Surety does not signifie his confirming and ratifying the Covenant which had been an unanswerable objection had I attributed the confirmation of the Covenant to Christ only as Prophet and not as Priest but now proves nothing but our Authors
justified in time as soon as they are capable of it that is as soon they are in being In his Book of Communion p. 204. he has ten Propositions much to the same purpose He there tells us That Christ in his undertaking of the work of our Redemption with God was constituted and considered as a common publick person in the stead of them for whose reconciliation to God he suffered And that being thus a common Person upon his undertaking as to merit and efficacy and upon his actual performance as to solemn declaration this is what Dr. Crisp calls Gods laying iniquity upon Christ by way of Obligation and by way of Execution was as such as a common person acquitted absolved justified and freed from all and every thing that on the behalf of the Elect as due to them was charged upon him or could so be So that he was from all Eternity upon his undertaking and in time upon his actual performance as a common Person that is in the name and as representing the persons of the Elect acquitted absolved and justified and therefore as it follows Christ received the general acquittance for them all and they are all acquitted in the Covenant of the Mediator whence they are said to be crucified with him to die with him to rise with him to sit with him in heavenly places namely in the Covenant of the Mediator This is what Dr. Crisp calls a secret application of Gods laying iniquity upon Christ to particular persons which is done before they know it and the only difference between him and Dr. Owen is that Dr. Owen will not allow this to be a discharge of the Elect in their own persons but only in the Person of the Mediator and Dr. Crisp thinks it more proper to say that this is a personal discharge of them since it is done in their names and persons but it is no great matter who speaks most properly when the thing is the same In another Discourse of the Death of Christ in answer to Mr. Baxter's Objections against his Treatise of Redemption p. 72. he asserts that the Elect have an actual right to all that was purchased by Christ's Death before believing and that is equivalent to their having a right from Eternity or from the first moment of their being And he offers it as his one opinion Whether absolution from the guilt of sin and obligation unto death though not as terminated in the conscience that is though it be not known to the Person which is Dr. Crisp's secret application for complete Iustification do not precede our actual believing and expounds the Justification of the ungodly Rom. 4. to this sense as Dr. Crisp expresly does And though he dare not assert complete Iustification to be before believing yet he affirms that absolution is as it is considered as the act of the Will of God that is secret and known only to God for a discharge from the effects of anger naturally precedes all collation of any fruits of love such as faith is And the difference between this absolution and complete Justification is no more but this That absolution wants that act of pardoning mercy which is to be terminated and completed in the conscience of a sinner That is though such a man be pardoned before believing yet he can have no sense of his Pardon before believing which is exactly Dr. Crisp's notion And absolution wants the hearts perswasion of the truth and goodness of the Promise and the mercy held out in the Promise And it wants the Souls rolling it self on Christ and receiving Christ as the Author and Finisher of that mercy an All-sufficient Saviour to them that believe All which signifies no more than that Absolution is before and without Faith for this apprehending the truth and goodness of the Promise and rolling it self on Christ according to the Doctors notion constitute the justifying Act of Faith And therefore when the Doctor elsewhere tells us that the Elect till the full time of their actual deliverance determined and appointed to them in their several Generations be accomplished are personally under the Curse of the Law and on that account are legally obnoxious to the wrath of God He only chuses to contradict himself to avoid the imputation of Antinomianism For by their actual deliverance I presume he must understand the time of their actual believing and if they are absolved before they actually believe how can they be under the Law or legally obnoxious to the wrath of God And therefore he immediately qualifies this that though they are obnoxious to the Law and the Curse thereof yet not at all with its primitive intention of execution upon them which is as much as to say that they are obnoxious to the Curse of the Law but not obnoxious to the execution of that Curse which I take to be non-sense How then are they obnoxious to the Curse of the Law Why as it is a means appointed to help forward their acquaintance with Christ and acceptance with God on his account By which I suppose he means that their Absolution being at present secret and not terminated and completed in the Conscience they are terrified and scared with the threatnings of the Law as fancying themselves to be under it when they are not and this makes them fly to Christ for refuge and sanctuary And though Dr. Crisp indeed do not like this way of affrighting men to Christ by the Law yet the difference is not great and makes no material alteration in the Scheme of their Religion And therefore when Dr. Owen adds That it was determined by Father Son and Holy Ghost that the way of the actual personal deliverance of the Elect from the Sentence and Curse of the Law should be in and by such a way and dispensation as might lead to the praise of the glorious grace of God and to glorifie the whole Trinity by ascending to the Fathers love through the works of the Spirit and Bloud of the Son All that he means by it is this that we shall have no sense of our Absolution by the Bloud of Christ till we actually believe nor be actually possessed of Eternal Life till we be renewed and sanctified all which Dr. Crisp will own and is consistent enough with our Justification or Absolution from Eternity since Faith and all other blessings are the effect of our antecedent Absolution in Christ as the Doctor confesses And this is all Mr. Ferguson means when he tells us That Christ's own discharge was an immediate consequent of his sufferings and they for whom he suffered had also immediately a fundamental right of being acquitted but their actual deliverance was to be in the way and order that he who had substituted himself in our room and he who had both admitted and been the Author of the substitution thought fit to appoint This is the necessary consequence of this Doctrine that if Christ acted as a Surety in the name
fourthly that this Union is expressed in Scripture by resembling the Christian Church to Gods Temple wherein he dwells as formerly he did in the Temple at Ierusalem That God now dwells in the Christian Church by his Holy Spirit as he formerly did in the Jewish Temple by Types and Figures and that he does not dwell thus in the Christian Church only as a spiritual Society but in every particular Christian as I explained at large in my former Discourse which is a plain demonstration of our Authors honesty in charging me with rejecting the Inhabitation of the Holy Spirit and making a meer External-Political Union between Christ and Christians This is sufficient to vindicate my own notion from the false representations of this Author and I might honourably enough retreat and leave him to skirmish with his own shadow but to do all the right that may be to my cause and to satisfie all unprejudiced teachable minds I shall give some farther account of the reason why I stated the notion of our Union to Christ in this manner And first the true reason why I did not more particularly discourse of the influences of the Divine Spirit but was contented to give some plain and short intimations of it was because I principally designed to consider what was necessary on our part as matter of duty in order to our Union with Christ For here are the great and dangerous mistakes here it is that my Adversaries have confounded the plain Notions of Religion and lead men into intricate Labyrinths and Meanders What is necessary on Christ's part he will be sure to effect whether we do so clearly and perfectly understand it or not but unless we understand what is necessary on our part it is impossible we should do it unless it be by perfect chance and accident These new Divines cannot to this day direct men how to get into Christ or to be united to him They talk of a Legal and a Mystical Union but what we must do to be thus Legally and Mystically united to Christ they know not we must expect till God gives Christ to us or till Christ unite us to himself or rather till he give us a sense and knowledge that we are united And this is a very hard case that when our Eternal happiness depends on our Union to Christ we should be so perfectly ignorant how to attain to this Union Nay they had so ordered the matter that a very good man who heartily believes the Gospel of Christ and makes conscience of obeying it if he be so weak as to hearken to their preachments may be perplext with Eternal Scruples about his Union to Christ while a bad man who hath a warm and Enthusiastick fancy and can work his imagination into all the various Scenes of the New Birth shall live in the perpetual embraces of Christ and in the Raptures and Extasies of assurance and despise the low attainments of morality and a good life Now my principal design was to rectifie these dangerous mistakes to give men such a notion of our Union to Christ that they may certainly know by what means they may attain this Union and that good men may reap the comfort of it and bad men though never such Seraphical hypocrites may see all their hopes confuted and be forced either to let go all their pretences of Union to Christ or enter upon a new course of life And I could not better do this than by making it appear that to be united to Christ signifies to be his Disciples to be incorporated into his Church by a publick profession of Faith and obedience and to conform our hearts and lives to the Laws of the Gospel And therefore I chose all along to expound those expressions of being one Spirit with Christ of having the Spirit of Christ of Christ's dwelling in us and the like so as to explain what they signified on our part viz. to be transformed into the Image of Christ to be animated by the same love of vertue and goodness to have the same Spirit the same temper of mind which he had than to dispute concerning the manner of the Divine Spirits inhabitation and operation in us which possibly will never be determined as very few modes of things are and is not much material whether it be or not so long as we heartily believe and importunately beg and constantly rely on the assistances of the Divine Grace Secondly There is a further account to be given of this because the gift of the Spirit is consequent to our Union to Christ but does not constitute the formal nature of it That there are some antecedaneous operations of the Holy Spirit whereby we are disposed to believe the Gospel and to list our selves into the number of Christ's Disciples I do not deny but these are of a very different consideration from that gift of the Holy Spirit which is bestowed on those who are actually incorporated into the Christian Church and made the Members of Christ For Christ has promised his Holy Spirit only to those who are actually united to him and indeed in order of nature a member must first be united to the body before it can receive any influences from the Head The gift of the Holy Spirit is an act of Christs Kingly Power and Authority and concerns only his Church and the members of it Just as Temporal Princes can exercise no jurisdiction but over their own Subjects and therefore we must first be united to Christ as members of his Church before we can expect to partake of the benefits and advantages of which the gift of the Holy Spirit is none of the least of his Government God vouchsafes the assistances of the Holy Spirit to all men to whom the Gosspel is preached to work Faith in them but when men do actually believe and give themselves up to Christ in such regular ways as he has appointed then the Holy Spirit is a constant Principle in them upon Covenant and Promise upon which account he is said to dwell in them and to make his abode with them because he is always present as a Principle of a divine life and therefore according to the sense of Scripture of the ancient Church and of the Church of England the Baptism of the Spirit is annexed to our Baptism with water which is the Ceremony of our Initiation into the Christian Church which upon that account in the ancient Church was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or illumination because the Holy Spirit the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge was then bestowed on them And indeed Dr. Owen and all my Adversaries though they differ from me in their Notion of our Union to Christ yet do and according to their Principles must acknowledge that we are first united to Christ before the Holy Spirit is bestowed on us And Dr. Owen proves that Christ is first reckoned unto us before we believe and I can understand no difference between Christs being reckoned
all wickedness By no means for this does not prove that God must necessarily punish the sinner but that he will certainly either destroy sin or the sinner that he can never be reconciled to any wicked man while he continues wicked and that he will certainly express his displeasure against all obstinate and incorrigible sinners the difference is just as much as between such a Justice as punishes the penitent and that which punishes the incorrigible the first is such Severity at best as becomes not a good Man and a wise Governour the second is justified and applauded by the universal consent of Mankind But the Doctor would retort all these ill consequences which I cast upon his Notion upon my self He presumes I own the Satisfaction of Christ and this is the first time he hath ghessed right but what then Therefore also I own that God would not pardon any Sin but upon a supposition of a previous Satisfaction made by Iesus Christ very right still when he had decreed that he would not Here then lies all the difference between us that he says God could not pardon Sin without Satisfaction and I say that although he might have done so without the least diminution of his glory yet he would not and this is a good wide difference between could not and would not The first represents Satisfaction to be the effect of a private Revenge the second to be the effect of Wisdom and Counsel in choosing the most convenient way to dispense his Pardon God we presume had more ways than one to secure the Authority of his Laws the Glory of his Government and to vindicate the Holiness of his Nature but he chose this as the best and fittest It had not been consistent with the Wisdom of God as Governour of the world to have pardoned sin in such a way as would have reflected any disparagement on his Holiness or loosened the Reins of Government and therefore if he had not chose this way he would certainly have chose some other and then he might have rejected this but could not wisely reject all Christ according to these Principles did not die for sinners because God could not forgive sin without such a penal satisfaction but because he preferred this way before all other as the most effectual to attain its end And now I presume my Readers may be as glad as my self to see a Conclusion of this long Dispute Some possibly will think I have said too much and some too little I have taken notice of every thing which was material in my Adversaries and of too many things which were not and though I have not particularly taken notice of Mr. POLHILL and ANTISOZZO it was because there was no need of it Whatever is considerable in them is answered in these Papers and as for ANTISOZZO I had no mind to play the Buffoon as he does and I know no other way of answering him And I hope the world will be sufficiently convinced what a desperate case Fanaticism is reduced to when they are forced upon all occasions to take Sanctuary in Buffoonry but others may do as they please as for my part I am resolved this Controversie shall never end in a Trial of Wit FINIS Vind. p. 5. Vin. p. 119 Chap. 2 Discourse of the Knowledge of Christ Chap. 3. Chap. 4. Chap. 4. Sect. â— Vind. p. 5. P. 7. Speculum p. 55. Speculum p. 53. Epistle to Historia quinque Articularis exarticulata Speculum p. 65. The Interest of Rea son in Religion p. 457. Vind. p. 143. Preface to Historia quinque Articularis exarticulata Speculum p. 2. Ibid. p. â— Ibid. p. 14 Spec. p. 3. P. 457. Ibid. p. 7. Ibid. p. 8 Speculum p. 40. Iustificatio Paulâ—na p. 112. Spec ibid. The Interest of Reason in Religion p. 388. P. 392. P. 395. P. 393. P. 391. Speculum P. 31. P. 36. Vind. P. 1. P. 376. The Interest of Rea son in Religion P. 311. * Ibid. P. 384. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 3. Sect. 4. P. 100. Ib. p. 381. Knowledg of Christ p. 108. * Interest of Reason c. p. 278. Ib p. 383. Ib. p. 285. Knowledg of Christ p. 32. Vide Calvin in locum Beza in locum The Interest of Reason in Religion p. â—â—7 Ib. p. 399. Ib. p. 403. Ib. p. 406. * The Design of Christianity P. 409. Ib. p. 41â— Ib. p. 411. Knowledg of Christ p. â—88 Edit 2. p. 201. Davenant de gratia habituali Cap. 27. P. 413. P. 416. Chap. â— P. 135. Confess Helvet Scoticana Confess Apol. pro Confess August Bohaemica Confell Belgica Confess Homily of Salvation Part 1. P. 417. Knowledg of Christ p. 235 c. p. 279. Edit 2. p. 164. 195. Interest of Reason c p. 416. Ibid. P. 55â— Knowledg of Christ p. 296. Edit 2. p. 2â—7 P. 62. P. 320. P. 344. Knowledg of Christ Chap. 4 Sect. 3. p. 279. Edit 2. p. 195. Chap. 4. Sect. 3. Ibid. p. 68. Edit 2. P. 48. Vindicat p. 208. P. 209. Commun P. 184. Knowledg of Christ P. 297. Edit 2. P. 207. Vindicat P. 211. Vindicat P. â—12 Knowledg of Christ P. 298. Edit Edit 2. P. 2â—9 Vind. P. 217. Ibid. Commun p. 18â— P. 220. * P. 18â— * P. â—10 Edit 2. p. 217. Vindicat. p. 223. Knowledg of Christ p. 311. Edit 2. p. 218. Commun p. 182. Knowledg of Christ p. 315. Edit 2. p. 220. Vind p. 9 p. â— Spec. p. 30. Vindicat. p. 82. P. 117. Spec. p. 68. Commun P. 193. Knowledg of Christ p. 314. Edit 2. p. 220. Sermon of Salvation part 3. Sermon of Salvation part 1. Serm of Salvation part 3. Lect. 5. de Justificatione Considerationes modestae p. 52. De Justitia habituali actuali P. 16. Homily of Faith part 1. Homily of Faith part 1. Heb. 12. Ibid. P. 76. Sermon of Faith part 2. Part 3. Sermon of Good Works part 1. Serm. of Salvation part 3. De Justit Habit. act cap. 29. August-Confess Art XX. Homily of Repentance Sermon of Salvation part 2. De Justit Habit. act cap. 31. De dilectione impletione legis Responsio ad argum adversar Sermon of Salvation part 3. Sermon of Salvation part 1. Sermon of Salvation part 2. Serm. of Salvation part 2. Vide supra p. 152. c. Sup. p. 156 Commun p. 187. Vindicat. p. 232. Ibid. P. 151. Knowledg of Christ p. 201. Edit 2. p. 140. Interest of Reason c p. 475. Knowledg of Christ p. 2 4. Edit 2. p. 143. Vindicat. p. 153. D. Crisp's Christs Preemin p. 89 Ibid. Knowledg of Christ p. 115. Edit 2. P. 77. Christ alone exalted Serm. 1. Ibid. p. 7. P. 10. p. 13. Knowledg of Christ p. 64 65 66 c. p. 24. 129. Edit 2. p. 45 51 9â— Ibid p. 49 Ibid. p. 60 p. 84. Knowledge of Christ. p. 422. Edit 2. p. 295. Knowledge of Christ p. 126. c. Edit 2. p. 88. * p. 100. Knowledg of Christ p. 127. Edit â—â— p. 88. Vindicat. p. 120. Communion p. 187. Ibid. p. 185. Vindicat. p. 120. Knowledge of Christ p. 129. Edit 2. P. 90. Vindiâ—â—â— p. 12â— Knowledg of Christ p. 363 c Edit 2. p. 224. Communion p. 113. Ibid. Christ alone exalted p. 18. Ibid Knowledge of Christ. p. â—5 Edit 2. p. 38. Vindicat. p. 70. Communion p. 119. Vindicat. p. 125. Christ alone exalted Vol. 1. p. 51. Vindicat. p. 101. Ibid. p. 193. p. 207. Ibid. p. 208. c. Ibid. p. 193. Vindicat. p. 104. Christ alone exalted Vol. 1. p. 70. Ibid. p. 210. Ibid. p. 70. Ibid. p. 193. p. 7â— P. 217. Ibid. p. 69. p. 30 Ibid. p. 2â— p. 69. Ibid. P. 30. Ibid. p. 215. Knowledge of Christ p. 413 c Edit 2. p. 295. p. 26. Ibid. p. 27. p. 41â— Edit 2. p. 29. p. 36. Of the excellency of Christ. p. 93. Ibid. Vindicat. P. 33 34 P. 206. P. 170. p. 272. p. 209. Vindicat. p. 177. Vindicat. p. 183. p. 210. Vindicat. p. 187. Vide supra p. 171. c Interest of Reason c. p. 164. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 3. Sect. 3. Interest of Reason P. 35. Knowledge of Christ. Chap. 3. Sect. 3. Interest of Reason in Religion P. 443 c Knowledge of Christ p. 349. Ibid. p. â—45 Ibid. p. 447 c Knowledge of Christ. Chap. 4. Sect. 4. Interest of Reason p. 440 441. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 4. Sect. 1. Interest of Reason P. 597. Ibid. P. 611. Vindicat. p. 15. Knowledge of Christ. p. 145 c Interest of Reason c. p. 459. Ibid. p. 461. 499. Knowledge of Christ p. 162. Interest of Reason c. p. 59â— Cyâ—r Conc. Carthag Knowledge of Christ. p. 165 c Separation yet no Schism P. 9. p. 469. p. 615. p. 619. P. 626. Knowledge of Christ. P. 200. Interest of Reason c. P. 499. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 4. Sect. 3. Interest of Reason c. p. 540. Knowledge of Christ. p. â—â—â— Crisp. Christ alone exalted Vol. 2. p. 88 89. Ibid. p. 90 91. Ibid. p. 244. p. 248. p. 254. p. 256. p. 265. p. 259. p. 272. Communion p. 205. Ibid Interest of Reason c. p. 549. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 4. Sect. 3. Christ alone exalted Vol. 2. p. 186 c Of the death of Christ. p. 77. Ibid. p. 65. Communion p. 206. Knowledge of Christ. Chap. 4. Sect. 1. Interest of Reason c. p. 623. Interest of Reason c. p. 441. Ibid. p. 646. Ibid. p. 645. Ibid. p. 655. Ibid. p. 628. Of the Death of Christ in answer to M. Baxter p. 77 c. Christ alone exalted Vol. 1. p. 160. c Knowledge of Christ. p. 81 82. Edit 2. p. 56 Ibid. p. 330. 328. Edit 2. p. 229. c. Vindicat. p. 227. Vossâ—i resp ad Iudic. Ravensp p. 283. Interest of Reason c. p. 475. Knowledge of Christ. p. 216. c. Edit 2. p. 151. Calvin in 〈◊〉 Vindicat. p. 131. Of the death of Christ in answer to M. Baxter P. 52. Ibid. P. 66. Ibid. P. 50. Resp ad Iudic. Ravensp P. 336. Knowledge of Christ P. 45 47. Edit 2. P. 31 33. Vind. p. 43 Diatriba de Justit p. 160.