OF THE IMPUTATION OF Christ's Righteousness TO BELIEVERS In what sence sound Protestants hold it And Of the false devised sence by which Libertines subvert the Gospel With an Answer to some common Objections especially of Dr. Thomas Tully whose Justif Paulina occasioneth the publication of this By RICHARD BAXTER A compassionate Lamenter of the Churches wounds caused by hasty judging and undigested concâ—ptions and by the Theological Wars which are hereby raised and managed by perswading the World that meer verbal or notional Differences are material and such as our Faith Love Concord and Communion must be measured by for want of an exact discussion of the ambiguity of words London Printed for Nevil Simons and Jonathan Robinson at the Kings-Arms and Golden-Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard 1675. The Preface Reader IF thou blame me for writing again on a Subject which I have written on so oft and so lately specially in my Life of Faith and Disputations of Justification I shall not blame thee for so doing but I shall excuse my self by telling thee my reasons 1. The occasion is many loud accusations of my self of which I have before given an account I publish it because I see the Contention still so hot in the Church of Christ and mens Charity destroyed against each other one side calling the other Socinians and the other Libertines who are neither of them Christians and if I mistake not for the most part in the dark about one Phrase and that of mens devising rather than about the sence But if indeed it be the sence that they differ about it 's time to do our best to rectifie such Fundamental Errours I find that all of us agree in all the Phrases of Scripture And a Mans Sence is no way known but by his expressions The question is then Which is the necessary Phrase which we must express our sence by We all say that to Believers Christ is made our Righteousness We are made the Righteousness of God in him He hath ransomed redeemed us as a Sacrifice for our sins a price He hath merited and obtained eternal Redemption for us that Sin is remitted covered not imputed that Righteousness is Reckoned or Imputed to us that Faith is Imputed to us for Righteousness and any thing else that is in the Scripture But all this will not serve to make us Christians What is wanting Why we must say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us as ours and that Christ satisfied for our sins Well The thing signified seemeth to us true and good and needful though the Scripture hath as good words for it as any of us can invent We consent therefore to use these Phrases so be it you put no false and wicked sence on them by other words of your own Though we will not allow them to be necessary because not in Scripture And we are more against adding new Fundamental Articles of Faith to the Scripture than against adding new Orders Forms or Ceremonies But yet it will not serve what is yet wanting why we must hold these words in a right sense What yet are not your own devised words a sufficient expression of the matter When we have opened those words by other words how will you know that we use those other words in a right sence and so in infinitum Our sence is that Righteousness is Imputed to us that is we are accounted Righteous because for the Merits of Christs total fulfilling the Conditions of his Mediatorial Covenant with the Father by his Habitual Holiness his Actual Perfect Obedience and his Sacrifice or satisfactory Suffering for our sins in our stead freely without any merit or Conditional act of mans God hath made an Act of Oblivion and Deed of Gift pardoning all sin justifying and adopting and giving Right to the Spirit and Life eternally to every one that believingly accepteth Christ and the Gifts with and by and from him And when we accept them they are all ours by virtue of this purchased Covenant-Gift This is our short and plain explication But yet this will not serve Christianity is yet another thing What is wanting Why we must say that Christ was habitually and actually perfectly Holy and Obedient Imputatively in our particular Persons and that each one of us did perfectly fulfil that Law which requireth perfect Habits and Acts in and by Christ imputatively and yet did also in and by him suffer our selves Imputatively for not fulfilling it and Imputatively did our selves both satisfy God's Justice and merit Heaven and that we have our selves Imputatively a Righteousness of perfect Holiness and Obedience as sinless and must be justified by the Law of Innocency or Works as having our selves imputatively fulfilled it in Christ And that this is our sole Righteousness and that Faith it self is not imputed to us for Righteousness no not a meer particular subordinate Righteousness answering the Conditional part of the new Justifying Covenant as necessary to our participation of Christ and his freely given Righteousness And must all this go into our Christianity But where is it written who devised it was it in the ancient Creeds and Baptism Or known in the Church for five thousand years from the Creation I profess I take the Pope to be no more to be blamed for making a new Church-Government than for making us so many new Articles of Faith And I will not justifie those that Symbolize with him or imitate him in either But yet many of the men that do this are good men in other respects and I love their zeal that doth all this evil as it is for God and the honour of Jesus Christ though I love it not as blind nor their Errour or their Evil. But how hard is it to know what Spirit we are of But it is the doleful mischief which their blind zeal doth that maketh me speak That three or four of them have made it their practice to backbite my self and tell People He holdeth dangerous opinions He is erroneous in the point of Justification And his Books are unsound and have dangerous Doctrines He leaveth the old way of Justification he favoureth Socinianism and such-like this is a small matter comparatively Back-biting and false reports are the ordinary fruits of bitter contentious Zeal and the Spirit of a Sect as such doth usually so work yea to confusion and every evil work when it hath banished the Zeal of Love and of Good Works Jam. 3.14 15 16. Tit. 2.14 And I never counted it any great loss to their followers that they disswade them from the reading of my writings as the Papists do their Proselytes as long as God hath blest our Land with so many better But there are other effects that command me once again to speak to them 1. One is that I have good proof of the lamentable Scandal of some very hopeful Persons of quality who by hearing such language from these men have bin ready to turn away from Religion and say If they thus set
might not be necessary to our Justification and this in the person of a Mediator and Sponsor for us sinners but not so in our Persons as that we truely in a moral or civil sence did all this in and by him Even so God reputeth the thing to be as it is and so far Imputeth Christ's Righteousness and Merits and Satisfaction to us as that it is Reputed by him the true Meritorious Cause of our Justification and that for it God maketh a Covenant of Grace in which he freely giveth Christ Pardon and Life to all that accept the Gift as it is so that the Accepters are by this Covenant or Gift as surely justified and saved by Christ's Righteousness as if they had Obeyed and Satisfied themselves Not that Christ meriteth that we shall have Grace to fulfil the Law our selves and stand before God in a Righteousness of our own which will answer the Law of works and justifie us But that the Conditions of the Gift in the Covenant of Grace being performed by every penitent Believer that Covenant doth pardon all their sins as Gods Instrument and giveth them a Right to Life eternal for Christs Merits This is the sence of Imputation which I and others asserted as the true healing middle way And as bad as they are among the most Learned Papists Cornelius a Lapide is cited by Mr. Wotton Vasquez by Davenant Suarez by Mr. Burges as speaking for some such Imputation and Merit Grotius de Satisf is clear for it But the Brethren called Congregational or Independant in their Meeting at the Savoy Oct. 12. 1658. publishing a Declaration of their Faith Cap. 11. have these words Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth not by infusing Righteousness into them but by pardoning their Sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as Righteous not for any thing wrought in them or done by them but for Christs sake alone not by imputing Faith it self the act of believing or any other evangelical Obedience to them as their Righteousness but by Imputing Christs Active Obedience to the whole Law and Passive Obedience in his death for their whole and sole Righteousness they receiving and resting on him and his Righteousness by Faith Upon the publication of this it was variously spoken of some thought that it gave the Papists so great a scandal and advantage to reproach the Protestants as denying all inherent Righteousness that it was necessary that we should disclaim it Others said that it was not their meaning to deny Inherent Righteousness though their words so spake but only that we are not justified by it Many said that it was not the work of all of that party but of some few that had an inclination to some of the Antinomian principles out of a mistaken zeal of free Grace and that it is well known that they differ from us and therefore it cannot be imputed to us and that it is best make no stir about it lest it irritate them to make the matter worse by a Defence give the Papists too soon notice of it And I spake with one Godly Minister that was of their Assembly who told me that they did not subscribe it and that they meant but to deny Justification by inherent Righteousness And though such men in the Articles of their declared Faith no doubt can speak intelligibly and aptly and are to be understood as they speak according to the common use of the words yet even able-men sometimes may be in this excepted when eager engagement in an opinion and parties carryeth them too precipitantly and maketh them forget something that should be remembred The Sentences here which we excepted against are these two But the first was not much offensive because their meaning was right And the same words are in the Assemblies Confession though they might better have been left out Scriptures Declaration Rom. 4.3 What saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness Ver. 5. To him that worketh not but believeth on him that Justifyeth the Vngodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness Ver. 9. For we say that Faith was reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness How was it then reckoned Ver. 11. And he received the sign of Circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the Faith which he had yet being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of all them that believe that Righteousness might be imputed to them also Ver. 13. Through the Righteousness of Faith Ver. 16. Therefore it is of Faith that it might be by Grace vid. Ver. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24. He was strong in Faith fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform and therefore it was Imputed to him for Righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we or who believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Gen. 15.5 6. Tell the Stars so shall thy seed be And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for Righteousness Jam. 2.21 22 23 24. Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness Luk. 19.17 Well done thou good Servant Because thou hast been Faithful in a very little have thou authority over ten Cities Mat. 25.34 35 40 Come ye blessed For I was hungry and ye gave me Meat Gen. 22.16 17 By my self I have sworn Because thou hast done this thing Joh. 16.27 For the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God Many such passages are in Scripture Our opinion is 1. That it is better to justifie and expound the Scripture than flatly to deny it If Scripture so oft say that Faith is reckoned or Imputed for Righteousness it becometh not Christians to say It is not But to shew in what sence it is and in what it is not For if it be so Imputed in no sence the Scripture is made false If in any sence it should not be universally denied but with distinction 2. We hold that in Justification there is considerable 1. The Purchasing and Meritorious Cause of Justification freely given in the new Covenant This is only Christ's Sufferings and Righteousness and so it is Reputed of God and Imputed to us 2. The Order of Donation which is On Condion of Acceptance And so 3. The Condition of our Title to the free Gift by this Covenant And that is Our Faith or Acceptance of the Gift according to its nature and use And thus God Reputeth Faith and Imputeth it to us requiring but this Condition of us which also he worketh in us by the Covenant of Grace whereas perfect Obedience was required of us by the Law of Innocency If we err in this explication it had been better to confute us than deny
save us from suffering but he obeyed not to save us from obeying but to bring us to Obedience Yet his Perfection of Obedience had this end that perfect Obedience might not be necessary in us to our Justification and Salvation 27. It was not we our selves who did perfectly obey or were perfectly holy or suffered for sin in the Person of Christ or by Him Nor did we Naturally or Morally merit our own Salvation by obeying in Christ nor did we satisfie Gods Justice for our sins nor purchase pardon of Salvation to our selves by our Suffering in and by Christ All such phrase and sence is contrary to Scripture But Christ did this for us 28. Therefore God doth not repute us to have done it seeing it is not true 29. It is impossible for the individual formal Righteousness of Christ to be our Formal personal Righteousness Because it is a Relation and Accident which cannot be translated from subject to subject and cannot be in divers subjects the same 30. Where the question is Whether Christs Material Righteousness that is his Habits Acts and Sufferings themselves be Ours we must consider how a man can have Propriety in Habits Acts and Passions who is the subject of them and in Actions who is the Agent of them To Give the same Individual Habit or Passion to another is an Impossibility that is to make him by Gift the subject of it For it is not the same if it be in another subject To make one man really or physically to have been the Agent of anothers Act even that Individual Act if he was not so is a contradiction and impossibility that is to make it true that I did that which I did not To be ours by Divine Imputation cannot be to be ours by a false Reputation or supposition that we did what we did not For God cannot err or lie There is therefore but one of these two ways left Either that we our selves in person truly had the habits which Christ had and did all that Christ did and suffered all that he suffered and so satisfied and merited Life in and by him as by an Instrument or Legal Representer of our persons in all this Which I am anon to Confute or else That Christs Satisfaction Righteousness and the Habits Acts and Sufferings in which it lay are imputed to us and made ours not rigidly in the very thing it self but in the Effects and Benefits In as much as we are as really Pardoned Justified Adopted by them as the Meritorious cause by the instrumentality of the Covenants Donation as if we our selves had done and suffered all that Christ did as a Mediator and Sponsor do and suffer for us I say As really and certainly and with a fuller demonstration of Gods Mercy and Wisdom and with a sufficient demonstration of his Justice But not that our propriety in the benefits is in all respects the same as it should have been if we had been done and suffered our selves what Christ did Thus Christs Righteousness is ours 31. Christ is truly The Lord our Righteousness in more respects than one or two 1. In that he is the meritorious Cause of the Pardon of all our sins and our full Justification Adoption and right to Glory and by his Satisfaction and Merits only our Justification by the Covenant of Grace against the Curse of the Law of Works is purchased 2. In that he is the Legislator Testator and Donor of our Pardon and Justification by this new-Testament or Covenant 3. In that he is the Head of Influx and King and Intercessor by and from whom the Spirit is given to sanctifie us to God and cause us sincerely to perform the Conditions of the Justifying and saving Covenant in Accepting and Improving the mercy then given 4. In that he is the Righteous Judge and Justifyer of Believers by sentence of Judgment In all these Respects he is The Lord our Righteousness 32. We are said to be made the Righteousness of God in him 1. In that as he was used like a sinner for us but not esteemed one by God so we are used like Innocent persons so far as to be saved by him 2. In that through his Merits and upon our union with him when we believe and consent to his Covenant we are pardoned and justified and so made Righteous really that is such as are not to be condemned but to be glorified 3. In that the Divine Nature and Inherent Righteousness to them that are in him by Faith are for his Merits given by the Holy Ghost 4. In that God's Justice and Holiness Truth Wisdom and Mercy are all wonderfully demonstrated in this way of pardoning and justifying sinners by Christ Thus are we made the Righteousness of God in him 31. For Righteousness to be imputed to us is all one as to be accounted Righteous Rom. 4.6 11. notwithstanding that we be not Righteous as fulfillers of the Law of Innocency 34. For Faith to be imputed to us for Righteousness Rom. 4.22 23 24. is plainly meant that God who under the Law of Innocency required perfect Obedience of us to our Justification and Glorification upon the satisfaction and merits of Christ hath freely given a full Pardon and Right to Life to all true Believers so that now by the Covenant of Grace nothing is required of us to our Justification but Faith all the rest being done by Christ And so Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost is reputed truly to be the condition on our part on which Christ and Life by that Baptismal Covenant are made ours 35. Justification Adoption and Life eternal are considered 1. Quoad ipsam rem as to the thing it self in value 2. Quoad Ordinem Conferendi Recipiendi as to the order and manner of Conveyance and Participation In the first respect It is a meer free-gift to us purchased by Christ In the second respect It is a Reward to Believers who thankfully accept the free-Gift according to its nature and uses 36. It is an error contrary to the scope of the Gospel to say that the Law of Works or of Innocency doth justifie us as performed either by our selves or by Christ For that Law condemneth and curseth us And we are not efficiently justified by it but from or against it 37. Therefore we have no Righteousness in Reality or Reputation formally ours which consisteth in the first species that is in a Conformity to the Preceptive part of the Law of Innocency we are not reputed Innocent But only a Righteousness which consisteth in Pardon of all sin and right to life with sincere performance of the Condition of the Covenant of Grace that is True Faith 38. Our pardon puts not away our Guilt of Fact or Fault but our Guilt of or obligation to Punishment God doth not repute us such as never sinned or such as by our Innocency merited Heaven but such as are not to be damned but to be glorified because pardoned and adopted
that is judged to have no sin is judged to deserve no punishment Unless they will say that to prevent the form and desert of sin is eminenter though not formaliter to forgive But it is another even Actual forgiveness which we hear of in the Gospel and pray for daily in the Lords prayer Of all which see the full Scripture-proof in Mr. Hotchkis of Forgiveness of sin CHAP. III. A further explication of the Controversie Yet I am afraid lest I have not made the state of the Controversie plain enough to the unexercised Reader and lest the very explicatory distinctions and propositions though needful and suitable to the matter should be unsuitable to his capacity I will therefore go over it again in a shorter way and make it as plain as possibly I can being fully perswaded that it is not so much Argumentation as help to understand the matter and our own and other mens ambiguous words that is needful to end our abominable Contentions § 1. THE Righteousness of a Person is formally a moral Relation of that Person § 2. This moral Relation is the Relation of that person to the Rule by which he is to be judged § 3. And it is his Relation to some Cause or supposed Accusation or Question to be decided by that judgment § 4. The Rule of Righteousness here is Gods Law naturally or supernaturally made known § 5. The Law hath a Preceptive part determining what shall be due from us and a Retributive part determining what shall be due to us § 6. The Precept instituting Duty our Actions and Dispositions which are the Matter of that duty are physically considered conform or disconform to the Precept § 7. Being Physically they are consequently so Morally considered we being Moral Agents and the Law a Rule of Morality § 8. If the Actions be righteous or unrighteous consequently the Person is so in reference to those Actions supposing that to be his Cause or the Question to be decided § 9. Unrighteousness as to this Cause is Guilt or Reatus Culpae and to be unrighteous is to be Sons or Guilty of sin § 10. The Retributive part of the Law is 1. Premiant for Obedience 2. Penal for Disobedience § 11. To be Guilty or Unrighteous as to the reward is to have no right to the reward that being supposed the Question in judgment And to be Righteous here is to have right to the reward § 12. To be Guilty as to the penalty is to be jure puniendus or Reus poenae or obligatus ad poenam And to be righteous here is to have Right to impunity quoad poenam damni sensus § 13. The first Law made personal perfect persevering Innocency both mans duty and the Condition of the Reward and Impunity and any sin the condition of punishment § 14. Man broke this Law and so lost his Innocency and so the Condition became naturally impossible to him de futuro § 15. Therefore that Law as a Covenant that is the Promissory part with its Condition ceased cessante capacitate subditi and so did the preceptive part 1. As it commanded absolute Innocency of act and habit 2. And as it commanded the seeking of the Reward on the Condition and by the means of personal Innocency The Condition thus passing into the nature of a sentence And punishment remaining due for the sin § 16. But the Law remained still an obliging Precept for future perfect Obedience and made punishment due for all future sin and these two parts of it as the Law of lapsed Nature remained in force between the first sin and the new-Covenant promise or Law of Grace § 17. The eternal Word interposing a Mediator is promised and Mercy maketh a Law of Grace and the Word becometh mans Redeemer by undertaking and by present actual reprieve pardon and initial deliverance and the fallen world the miserable sinners with the Law and obligations which they were under are now become the Redemers jure Redemptionis as before they were the Creator's jure Creationis § 18. The Redeemers Law then hath two parts 1. The said Law of lapsed nature binding to future perfect obedience or punishment which he found man under called vulgarly the Moral Law 2. And a pardoning Remedying Law of Grace § 19. Because man had dishonoured God and his Law by sin the Redeemer undertook to take mans nature without sin and by perfect Holiness and Obedience and by becoming a Sacrifice for sin to bring that Honour to God and his Law which we should have done and to attain the Ends of Law and Government instead of our Perfection or Punishment that for the Merit hereof we might be delivered and live § 20. This he did in the third person of a Mediator who as such had a Law or Covenant proper to himself the Conditions of which he performed by perfect keeping 1. The Law of Innocency 2. Of Moses 3. And that proper to himself alone and so merited all that was promised to him for Himself and Us. § 21. By his Law of Grace as our Lord-Redeemer he gave first to all mankind in Adam and after in Noah and by a second fuller edition at his Incarnation a free Pardon of the destructive punishment but not of all punishment with right to his Spirit of Grace Adoption and Glory in Union with Himself their Head on Condition initially of Faith and Repentance and progressively of sincere Obedience to the end to be performed by his Help or Grace § 22. By this Law of Grace supposing the Law of lapsed nature aforesaid inclusively all the World is ruled and shall be judged according to that edition of it to Adam or by Christ which they are under And by it they shall be Justified or Condemned § 23. If the question then be Have you kept or not kept the Conditions of the Law of Grace Personal Performance or nothing must so far be our Righteousness and not Christs keeping them for us or Satisfaction for our not keeping them And this is the great Case so oft by Christ described Mat. 7. 25. c. to be decided in judgment and therefore the word Righteous and Righteousness are used for what is thus personal hundreds of times in Scripture § 24. But as to the question Have we kept the Law of Innocency we must confess guilt and say No neither Immediately by our selves nor Mediately by another or Instrument for Personal Obedience only is the performance required by that Law Therefore we have no Righteousness consisting in such Performance or Innocency but must confess sin and plead a pardon § 25. Therefore no man hath a proper Vniversal Righteousness excluding all kind of Guilt whatsoever § 26. Therefore no man is justified by the Law of Innocency nor the Law Mosaical as of works either by the Preceptive or Retributive part for we broke the Precept and are by the Threatning heirs of death § 27. That Law doth not justifie us because Christ fulfilled
Maledictory Sentence of the Law but also that we are first made and then accounted Persons first meet for Absolution and next meet for God's Acceptance of us as just and as Heirs of Life Eternal and meet for the great Reward in Heaven For when the Apostle denieth Justification by Works it is not credible that he meaneth only that By the Works of the Law no Man is absolved from the Curse of the Law But also No Man by the Works of the Law is before God taken for a Performer of the necessary Condition of Absolution and Salvation nor fit for his Acceptance and for the Heavenly Reward Answ 2. But let the Reader here note that the Doctor supposeth James to mean that By Works a Man is absolved from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law and not by Faith only For that James speaks of Justification in foro Dei is past all doubt And who would have thought that the Doctor had granted this of the Text of James But mistakes seldom agree among themselves Answ 3. And would not any Man have thought that this Author had pleaded for such an Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as justifieth not only from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law but also from the very guilt of sin as sin we being reputed not only pardoned sinners but perfect fulfillers of the Law by Christ and so that we are in Christ conform to the Fac hoc or preceptive part commanding Innocency Who would have thought but this was his drift If it be not all his angry Opposition to me is upon a mistake so foul as reverence forbids me to name with its proper Epithets If it be how can the same Man hold That we are justified as in Christ conform to the Precept of perfect Innocency And yet that The Scripture mentioneth no Justification at all in foro Dei besides that one which is Absolution from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law But still mistakes have discord with themselves Answ 4. It is the judgment indeed of Mr. Gataker Wotton Piscator Paraeus Vrsine Wendeline and abundance other excellent Divines that as sins of omission are truly sin and poena damni or privations truly punishment so for a sinner for his sin to be denied God's Love and Favour Grace and Glory is to be punished and to be pardoned is to have this privative punishment remitted as well as the rest and so that Justification containeth our Right to Glory as it is the bare forgiveness of the penalty of sin because Death and Life Darkness and Light are such Contraries as that one is but the privation of the other But this Learned Doctor seemeth to be of the commoner Opinion that the Remission of Sin is but one part of our Justification and that by Imputation of perfect Holiness and Obedience we must have another part which is our Right to the Reward and I think a little Explication would end that difference But doth he here then agree with himself And to contradict the common way of those with whom he joyneth Do they not hold that Justification is more than an Absolution from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law Answ 5. But indeed his very Description by Absolution is utterly ambiguous 1. Absolution is either by Actual Pardon by the Law or Covenant of Grace which giveth us our Right to Impunity 2. Or by Sentence of the Judg who publickly decideth our Case and declareth our Right determinatively Or by execution of that Sentence in actual delivering us from penalty And who knoweth which of these he meaneth This is but confusion to describe by an unexplained equivocal word And who knoweth what Law he meaneth whose Maledictory Sentence Justification absolveth us from Doth he think that the Law of Innocency and of Moses and the Law of Grace are all one which Scripture so frequently distinguisheth Or that each of them hath not its Malediction If he deny this I refer him to my full proof of it to Mr. Cartwright and elsewhere If not we should know whether he mean all or which 3. And what he meaneth by the Sentence of the Law is uncertain Whether it be the Laws Commination as obliging us to punishment which is not a Sentence in the usual proper sense but only a virtual Sentence that is the Norma Judicis or whether he mean the Sentence of God as Judg according to the Law which is not the Sentence of the Law properly but of the Judg It 's more intelligible speaking and distinct that must edifie us and end those Controversies which ambiguities and confusion bred and feed Answ 6. But which-ever he meaneth most certainly it is not true that the Scripture mentioneth no other Justification in foro Dei For many of the fore-cited Texts tell us that it oft mentioneth a Justification which is no Absolution from the Maledictory Sentence neither of the Law of Innocency of Moses or of Grace but a Justification of a Man's innocency in tantum or quoad Causam hanc particularem Viz. 1. Sometimes a Justifying the Righteous Man against the slanders of the World or of his Enemies 2. Sometimes a justifying a Man in some one action as having dealt faithfully therein 3. Sometimes a judging a Man to be a faithful Godly Man that performeth the Conditions of Life in the Law of Grace made necessary to God's Acceptance 4. Sometimes for making a Man such or for making him yet more inherently just or continuing him so 5. Sometimes for Justification by the Apology of an Advocate which is not Absolution 6. Sometimes for Justification by Witness 7. And sometimes perhaps by Evidence As appeareth Isa 50.8 Rom. 8.33 and so God himself is said to be justified Psal 51.4 Rom. 3.4 and Christ 1 Tim. 3.16 1 King 8.32 Hear thou in Heaven and do and judg thy Servants condemning the Wicked to bring his way upon his Head and justifying the Righteous to give him according to his Righteousness where the Sentence is passed by the Act of Execution Is this absolving him from the Curse of the Law So 1 Chron. 6.23 so Mat. 12.37 Jam. 2.21 24 25. where Justification by our Words and by Works is asserted and many other Texts so speak Frequently to Justifie is to maintain one or prove him to be just It 's strange that any Divine should find but one sort of sense of Justification before God mentioned in the Scriptures I would give here to the Reader a help for some excuse of the Author viz. that by praeter unam illam quae est Absolutio he might mean which is partly Absolution and partly Acceptation as of a fulfiller of the Precept of Perfection by Christ and partly Right to the Reward all three making up the whole but that I must not teach him how to speak his own mind or think that he knew not how to utter it And specially because the Instances here prove that even so it is very far from Truth had he so spoken Answ 7. But what
justified that is Righteous by that Imputation 3. And how unable is my weak Understanding to make his words at peace with themselves The same Man in the next lines saith Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat and all Justification before God must be legal or none so that no Man is justified but as reputed Innocent or a performer of the Law And yet Justification is our Absolution from the Punishment and Malediction of the Law As if he said No Man is justified but by the pardon of that sin which he is reputed never to have had and Absolution from that Curse and Punishment which he is reputed never to have deserved or been under Are these things reconcileable But if really he take Absolution for justifying or acquitting from a false Accusation and so to be absolved from the Malediction of the Law is to be reputed one that never deserved it or was under it then it 's as much as to say that there is no pardon of sin or that no Man that is pardoned or reputed to need a Pardon is justified 4. All this and such Speeches would perswade the Reader that this Learned Disputer thinketh that I took and use the word Legal generally as of that which is related to any Law in genere and so take Evangelical contrarily for that which is related to no Law whereas I over and over tell him that speaking in the usual Language that I may be understood I take Legal specially and not generally for that Righteousness which is related to the Law of Works or Innocency not as if we had indeed such a Righteousness as that Law will justifie us for But a pro-legal-pro-Legal-Righteousness one instead of it in and by our perfect Saviour which shall effectually save us from that Laws condemnation And that by Evangelical Righteousness I mean that which is related to the Law of Grace as the Rule of Judgment upon the just pleading whereof that Law will not condemn but justifie us If he knew this to be my meaning in my weak judgment he should not have written either as if he did not or as if he would perswade his Rsaders to the contrary For Truth is most congruously defended by Truth But if he knew it not I despair of becoming intelligible to him by any thing that I can write and I shall expect that this Reply be wholly lost to him and worse 5. His Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat is true and therefore no Man is justified by the Law But his next words praestitam omnes in Christo agnoscunt seemeth to mean that It was performed by us in Christ Or that It justifieth us because performed perfectly by Christ as such Which both are the things that we most confidently deny It was not Physically or Morally or Politically or Legally or Reputatively take which word you will fulfilled by us in Christ it doth not justifie us because it was fulfilled by Christ as such or immediately and eo nomine It justified Christ because he fulfilled it and so their Law doth all the perfect Angels But we did not personally fulfil it in Christ it never allowed vicarium obedientiae to fulfil it by our selves or another Therefore anothers Obedience merely as such even a Mediators is not our Obedience or Justification But that Obedience justifieth us as given us only in or to the effecting of our Personal Righteousness which consisteth in our right to Impunity and to God's Favour and Life freely given for Christ's Merits sake and in our performance of the Conditions of the Law of Grace or that free Gift which is therefore not a co-ordinate but a sub-ordinate Righteousness and Justification to qualifie us for the former This is so plain and necessary that if in sense it be not understood by all that are admitted to the Sacramental Communion excepting Verbal Controversies or Difficulties I doubt we are too lax in our admissions § 5. Next he tel's us of a threefold respect of Justification 1. Ex parte principii 2. Termini 3. Medii I find my self uncapeable of teaching him that is a Teacher of such as I and therefore presume not to tell him how to distinguish more congruously plainly and properly as to the terms And as to the Principle or Fountain whence it floweth that is Evangelical Grace in Christ he saith It is thus necessary that in our lapsed State all Justification be Evangelical Answ Who would desire a sharper or a softer a more dissenting or a more consenting Adversary Very good If then I mean it ex parte principii I offend him not by asserting Evangelical Righteousness The Controversie then will be only de nomine whether it be congruous thus to call it And really are his Names and Words put into our Creed and become so necessary as to be worthy of all the stress that he layeth on them and the calling up the Christian World to arrive by their Zeal against our Phrase Must the Church be awakened to rise up against all those that will say with Christ By thy words thou shalt be justified And with James By Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only and we are judged by the Law of Liberty and as Christ Joh. 5.22 The Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all Judgment to the Son and that shall recite the 25 th Chapter of Matthew Even now he said at once There is no Justification in foro Dei but Absolution c. The Law of the Spirit of Life hath freed us c. Here is no mention of any Justification but Legal And now All our Justification ex parte principii is only Evangelical So then no Text talks of Evangelical Justification or of Justification ex parte principii And Absolution which defineth it is named ex parte principii And yet all Justification is Evangelical Is this mode of Teaching worthy a Defence by a Theological War 2. But Reader Why may not I denominate Justification ex parte principii Righteousness is formally a Relation To justifie constitutively is to make Righteous To be Justified or Justification in sensu passivo is to be made Righteous And in foro to be judged Righteous And what meaneth he by Principium as to a Relation but that which other Men call the Fundamentum which is loco Efficientis or a remote efficient And whence can a Relation be more fitly named than from the fundamentum whence it hath its formal being Reader bear with my Error or correct it if I mistake I think that as our Righteousness is not all of one sort no more is the fundamentum 1. I think I have no Righteousness whose immediate fundamentum is my sinless Innocency or fulfilling the Law of Works or Innocency by my self or another and so I have no fundamentum of such 2. I hope I have a Righteousness consisting in my personal Right to Impunity and Life and that Jus or Right is mine by the Title of free Condonation and
as fulfilled or from the Reatus Gulpae in se but by Christ's whole Righteousness from the Reatus ut ad paenam 2. But if this be his sense he meaneth then that it is only the Terminus à quo that Justification is properly denominated from And why so 1. As Justitia and Justificatio passive sumpta vel ut effectus is Relatio it hath necessarily no Terminus à quo And certainly is in specie to be rather denominated from its own proper Terminus ad quem And as Justification is taken for the Justifiers Action why is it not as well to be denominated from the Terminus ad quem as à quo Justificatio efficiens sic dicitur quia Justum facit Justificatio apologetica quia Justum vindicat vel probat Justificatio per sententiam quia Justum aliquem esse Judicat Justificatio executiva quia ut Justum eum tractat But if we must needs denominate from the Terminus à quo how strange is it that he should know but of one sense of Justification 3. But yet perhaps he meaneth In satisfactione Legi praestitâ though he say praestandâ and so denominateth from the Terminus à quo But if so 1. Then it cannot be true For satisfacere Justificare are not the same thing nor is Justifying giving Satisfaction nor were we justified when Christ had satisfied but long after Nor are we justified eo nomine because Christ satisfied that is immediately but because he gave us that Jus ad impunitatem vitam spiritum sanctum which is the Fruit of his Satisfaction 2. And as is said if it be only in satisfactione then it is not in that Obedience which fulfileth the preceptive part as it bound us for to satisfie for not fulfilling is not to fulfil it 3. And then no Man is justified for no Man hath satisfied either the Preceptive or Penal Obligation of the Law by himself or another But Christ hath satisfied the Law-giver by Merit and Sacrifice for sin His Liberavit nos à Lege Mortis I before shewed impertinent to his use Is Liberare Justificare or Satisfacere all one And is à Lege Mortis either from all the Obligation to Obedience or from the sole malâ—diction There be other Acts of Liberation besides Satisfaction For it is The Law of the Spirit of Life that doth it And we are freed both from the power of indwelling-sin called a Law and from the Mosaical Yoak and from the Impossible Conditions of the Law of Innocency though not from its bare Obligation to future Duty § 7. He addeth a Third Ex parte Medii quod est Justitia Christi Legalis nobis per fidem Imputata Omnem itaque Justificationem proprie Legalem esse constat Answ 1. When I read that he will have but one sense or sort of Justification will yet have the Denomination to be ex termino and so justifieth my distinction of it according to the various Termini And here how he maketh the Righteousness of Christ to be but the MEDIVM of our Justification though he should have told us which sort of Medium he meaneth he seemeth to me a very favourable consenting Adversary And I doubt those Divines who maintain that Christ's Rigâ—teousness is the Causa Formalis of our Justification who are no small ones nor a few though other in answer to the Papists disclaim it yea and those that make it but Causa Materialis which may have a sound sense will think this Learned Man betrayeth their Cause by prevarication and seemeth to set fiercly against me that he may yeeld up the Cause with less suspicion But the truth is we all know but in part and therefore err in part and Error is inconsistent with it self And as we have conflicting Flesh and Spirit in the Will so have we conflicting Light and Darkness Spirit and Flesh in the Understanding And it is very perceptible throughout this Author's Book that in one line the Flesh and Darkness saith one thing and in the next oft the Spirit and Light saith the contrary and seeth not the inconsistency And so though the dark and fleshy part rise up in wrathful striving Zeal against the Concord and Peace of Christians on pretence that other Mens Errors wrong the Truth yet I doubt not but Love and Unity have some interest in his lucid and Spiritual part We do not only grant him that Christ's Righteousness is a Medium of our Justification for so also is Faith a Condition and Dispositio Receptiva being a Medium nor only some Cause for so also is the Covenant-Donation but that it is an efficient meritorious Cause and because if Righteousness had been that of our own Innocency would have been founded in Merit we may call Christ's Righteousness the material Cause of our Justification remotely as it is Materia Meriti the Matter of the Merit which procureth it 2. But for all this it followeth not that all Justification is only Legal as Legal noteth its respect to the Law of Innocency For 1. we are justified from or against che Accusation of being non-performers of the Condition of the Law of Grace 2. And of being therefore unpardoned and lyable to its sorer Penalty 3. Our particular subordinate Personal Righteousness consisting in the said performance of those Evangelical Conditions of Life is so denominated from its conformity to the Law of Grace as it instituteth its own Condition as the measure of it as Rectitudo ad Regulam 4. Our Jus ad impunitatem vitam resulteth from the Donative Act of the Law or Covenant of Grace as the Titulus qui est Fundamentum Juris or supposition of our Faith as the Condition 5. This Law of Grace is the Norma Judicis by which we shall be judged at the Last Day 6. The same Judg doth now per sententiam conceptam judg of us as he will then judg per sententiam prolatam 7. Therefore the Sentence being virtually in the Law this same Law of Grace which in primo instanti doth make us Righteous by Condonation and Donation of Right doth in secundo instanti virtually justifie us as containing that regulating use by which we are to be sententially justified And now judg Reader whether no Justification be Evangelical or by the Law of Grace and so to be denominated for it is lis de nomine that is by him managed 8. Besides that the whole frame of Causes in the Work of Redemption the Redeemer his Righteousness Merits Sacrifice Pardoning Act Intercession c. are sure rather to be called Matters of the Gospel than of the Law And yet we grant him easily 1. That Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law of Innocency and was justified thereby and that we are justified by that Righteousness of his as the meritorious Cause 2. That we being guilty of Sin and Death according to the tenor of that Law and that Guilt being remitted by Christ as aforesaid we are therefore justified
a congruous way of disputing for Truth and Righteousness nor indeed is it tolerably ingenuous or modest If not then why doth he all along carry his professed agreement with me in a militant strain perswading his Reader that I savour of Socinianism or Popery or some dangerous Error by saying the very same that he saith O what thanks doth God's Church owe such contentious Disputers for supposed Orthodoxness that like noctambuli will rise in their sleep and cry Fire Fire or beat an Allarm on their Drums and cry out The Enemy The Enemy and will not let their Neighbours rest I have wearied my Readers with so oft repeating in my Writings upon such repeated importunities of others these following Assertions about Works 1. That we are never justified first or last by Works of Innocency 2. Nor by the Works of the Jewish Law which Paul pleadeth against 3. Nor by any Works of Merit in point of Commutative Justice or of distributive Governing Justice according to either of those Laws of Innocency or Jewish 4. Nor by any Works or Acts of Man which are set against or instead of the least part of God's Acts Christ's Merits or any of his part or honour 5. Nor are we at first justified by any Evangelical Works of Love Gratitude or Obedience to Christ as Works are distinguished from our first Faith and Repentance 6. Nor are we justified by Repentance as by an instrumental efficient Cause or as of the same receiving Nature with Faith except as Repentance signifieth our change from Vnbelief to Faith and so is Faith it self 7. Nor are we justified by Faith as by a mere Act or moral good Work 8. Nor yet as by a proper efficient Instrument of our Justification 9. Much less by such Works of Charity to Men as are without true love to God 10. And least of all by Popish bad Works called Good as Pilgrimages hurtful Austerities c. But if any Church-troubling Men will first call all Acts of Man's Soul by the name of WORKS and next will call no Act by the name of Justifying Faith but the belief of the Promise as some or the accepting of Christ's Righteousness given or imputed to us as in se our own as others or the Recumbency on this Righteousness as others or all these three Acts as others and if next they will say that this Faith justifieth us only as the proper Instrumental Cause And next that to look for Justification by any other Act of Man's Soul or by this Faith in any other respect is to trust to that Justification by Works which Paul confuteth and to fall from Grace I do detest such corrupting and abusing of the Scriptures and the Church of Christ And I assert as followeth 1. That the Faith which we are justified by doth as essentially contain our belief of the Truth of Christ's Person Office Death Resurrection Intercession c. as of the Promise of Imputation 2. And also our consent to Christ's Teaching Government Intercession as to Imputation 3. And our Acceptance of Pardon Spirit and promised Glory as well as Imputed Righteousness of Christ 4. Yea that it is essentially a Faith in God the Father and the Holy Ghost 5. That it hath in it essentially somewhat of Initial Love to God to Christ to Recovery to Glory that is of Volition and so of Desire 6. That it containeth all that Faith which is necessarily requisite at Baptism to that Covenant even a consenting-practical-belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and is our Christianity it self 7. That we are justified by this Faith as it is A moral Act of Man adapted to its proper Office made by our Redeemer the Condition of his Gift of Justification and so is the moral receptive aptitude of the Subject or the Dispositio materiae vel subjecti Recipientis Where the Matter of it is An adapted moral Act of Man by Grace The Ratio formalis of its Interest in our Justification is Conditio praestita speaking politically and Aptitudo vel Dispositio moralis Receptiva speaking logically which Dr. Twiss still calleth Causa dispositiva 8. That Repentance as it is a change of the Mind from Unbelief to Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost is this Faith denominated from its Terminus à quo principally 9. That we are continually justified by this Faith as continued as well as initially justified by its first Act. 10. That as this Faith includeth a consent to future Obedience that is Subjection so the performance of that consent in sincere Obedience is the Condition of our Justification as continued Secondarily as well as Faith or consent it self primarily And that thus James meaneth that we are Justified by Works 11. That God judging of all things truly as they are now judgeth Men just or unjust on these Terms 12. And his Law being Norma judicii now vertually judgeth us just on these terms 13. And that the Law of Grace being that which we are to be judged by we shall at the last Judgment also be judged and so justified thus far by or according to our sincere Love Obedience or Evangelical Works as the Condition of the Law or Covenant of free Grace which justifieth and glorifieth freely all that are thus Evangelically qualified by and for the Merits perfect Righteousness and Sacrifice of Christ which procured the Covenant or free Gift of Universal Conditional Justification and Adoption before and without any Works or Conditions done by Man whatsoever Reader Forgive me this troublesom oft repeating the state of the Controversie I meddle with no other If this be Justification by Works I am for it If this Doctor be against it he is against much of the Gospel If he be not he had better have kept his Bed than to have call'd us to Arms in his Dream when we have sadly warred so many Ages already about mere words For my part I think that such a short explication of our sense and rejection of ambiguities is fitter to end these quarrels than the long disputations of Confounders 4. But when be saith Works make not a Man just and yet we are at last justified according to them it is a contradiction or unsound For if he mean Works in the sence excluded by Paul we are not justified according to them viz. such as make or are thought to make the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt But if he take Works in the sense intended by James sincere Obedience is a secondary constitutive part of that inherent or adherent personal Righteousness required by the Law of Grace in subordination to Christ's Meritorious Righteousness And what Christian can deny this So far it maketh us Righteous as Faith doth initially And what is it to be justified according to our Works but to be judged so far as they are sincerely done to be such as have performed the secondary part of the Conditions of free-given Life 5. His According but not ex operibus at the
Last Judgment is but a Logomachie According signifieth as much as I assert But ex is no unapt Preposition when it is but the subordinate part of Righteousness and Justification of which we speak and signifieth with me the same as According 6. His Tropical Phrase that Works pronouce us just is another ambiguity That the Judg will pronounce us just according to them as the foresaid second part of the Constitutive Cause or Matter of our Subordinate Righteousness is certain from Matth. 25. and the scope of Scripture But that they are only notifying Signs and no part of the Cause of the day to be tryed is not true which too many assert § 9. He proceedeth If there be an Evangelical Justification at God's Bar distinct from the legal one there will then also be in each an absolution of divers sins For if the Gospel forgive the same sins as the Law the same thing will be done and a double Justification will be unprofitable and idle If from divers sins then the Law forbids not the same things as the Gospel c. Answ It 's pitty such things should need any Answer 1. It 's a false Supposition That all Justification is Absolution from sin To justifie the sincerity of our Faith and Holiness is one act or part of our Justification against all possible or actual false Accusation 2. The Law of Innocency commanded not the Believing Acceptance of Christ's Righteousness and Pardon and so the Remnants of that Law in the hand of Christ which is the Precept of perfect Obedience de futuro commandeth it only consequently supposing the Gospel-Promise and Institution to have gone before and selected this as the terms of Life so that as a Law in genere existent only in speciebus commandeth Obedience and the Law of Innocency in specie commanded personal perfect perpetual Obedience as the Condition of Life so the Gospel commandeth Faith in our Redeemer as the new Condition of Life on which supposition even the Law of lapsed Nature further obligeth us thereto And as the Commands differ so do the Prohibitions There is a certain sort of sin excepted from pardon by the pardoning Law viz. Final non-performance of its Conditions And to judg a Man not guilty of this sin is part of our Justification as is aforesaid § 10. He addeth If Legal and Evangelical Justification are specie distinct then so are the Courts in which we are justified If distinct and subordinate and so he that is justified by the law is justified by the Gospel c. Answ 1. No Man is justified by the Law of Innocency or Works but Christ Did I ever say that That Law justifieth us who have voluminously wrote against it If he would have his Reader think so his unrighteousness is such as civility forbids me to give its proper Epithets to If not against what or whom is all this arguing 2. I call it Legal as it is that perfect Righteousness of Christ our Surety conform to the Law of Innocency by which he was justified though not absolved and pardoned I call it pro Legalis justitia because that Law doth not justifie us for it but Christ only but by it given us ad effecta by the New-Covenant we are saved and justified from the Curse of that Law or from Damnation is certainly as if we had done it our selves I call Faith our Evangelical Righteousness on the Reasons too oft mentioned Now these may be called Two Justifications or rather two parts of one in several respects as pleaseth the Speaker And all such Word-Souldiers shall have their liberty without my Contradiction 3. And when will he prove that these two Sorts or Parts or Acts may not be at once transacted at the same Bar Must there needs be one Court to try whether I am a true Believer or an Infidel or Hypocrite and another to judg that being such I am to be justified against all Guilt and Curse by vertue of Christ's Merits and Intercession Why may not these two parts of one Man's Cause be judged at the same Bar And why must your Pupils be taught so to conceive of so great a business in it self so plain § 11. He proceedeth The Vse of this Evangelical Justification is made to be that we may be made partakers of the Legal Justification out of us in Christ And so our Justification applyeth another Justification and our Remission of sins another Answ No Sir but our particular subordinate sort of Righteousness consisting in the performance of the Conditions of the free Gift viz. a believing suitable Acceptance is really our Dispositio receptiva being the Condition of our Title to that Pardon and Glory which for Christ's Righteousness if freely given us And our personal Faith and Sincerity must be justified and we in tantum before our Right to Christ Pardon and Life can be justified in foro 2. And to justifie us as sincere Believers when others are condemned as Hypocrites and Unbelievers and Impenitent is not Pardon of Sin These Matters should have been put into your excellent Catechism and not made strange much less obscured and opposed when laying by the quarrels about mere words I am confident you deny none of this § 12. He addeth Then Legal Justification is nothing but a bare word seeing unapplyed as to the Matter it is nothing as it is not called Healing by a Medicine not applyed nor was it ever heard that one Healing did apply another Answ Alas alas for the poor Church if this be the Academies best sorrow must excuse my Complaint If it be an Argument it must run thus If Legal or pro-legal Righteousness that is our part in Christ's Righteousness be none to us or none of our Justification when not-applyed than it is none also when it is applyed But c. Answ It is none till applyed Christ's Merits or Legal Righteousness justifie himself but not us till applyed Do you think otherwise or do you wrangle against your self But I deny your Consequence How prove you that it is none when applyed therefore Or the Cure is none when the Medicine is applyed Perhaps you 'l say That then our Personal Righteousness and subordinate Justification is ours before Christ's Righteousness and so the greater dependeth on and followeth the less Answ 1. Christ's own Righteousness is before ours 2. His Condition Pardon to fallen Mankind is before ours 3. This Gift being Conditional excepteth the non-performance of the Condition And the nature of a Condition is to suspend the effect of the Donation till performed 4. Therefore the performance goeth before the said Effect and our Title 5. But it is not therefore any cause of it but a removal of the suspension nor hath the Donation any other dependance on it And is not all this beyond denial with Persons not studiously and learnedly misled But you say It was never heard that one Healing applyed another Answ And see you not that this is a lis de nomine and
about the Imputation of Adam's Sin Dr. Gell Mr. Thorndike c. vehemently accusing the doctrine of Imputed Righteousness The Consent of all Christians especially Protestants about the sense of Imputed Righteousness 1. The form of Baptism 2. The Apostles Creed 3. The Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creed 4. Athanasius's Creed 5. The Fathers sense Laurentius his Collections Damasus his Creed 6. The Augustan Confession 7. The English Articles Homilies and Confession 8. The Saxon Confession 9. The Wittenberg Confession 10. The Bohemian Confession 11. The Palatinate Confession 12. The Polonian Confessions 13. The Helvetian Confession 14. The Basil Confession 15. The Argentine Confession of the four Cities 16. The Synod of Dort and the Belgick Confession 17. The Scottish Confession 18. The French Confession Whether Imputation of Passion and Satisfaction or of meritorious Perfection go first How Christ's Righteousness is called the formal Cause c. That it is confessed that Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us as our sin was to him Molinaeus Maresius Vasseur Bellarmine is constrained to agree with us A recommendation of some brief most clear and sufficient Treatises on this subject viz. 1. Mr. Bradshaw 2. Mr. Gibbon's Sermon 3. Mr. Truman's Great Propitiation 4. Placeus his Disput in Thes Salmur 5. Le Blank 's Theses And those that will read larger Mr. Watton John Goodwin and Dr. Stillingfleet Chap. 2. The opening of the Case by some Distinctions and many Propositions Joh. Crocius Concessions premised Mr. Lawson's Judgment Chap. 3. A further Explication of the Controversie Chap. 4. My Reasons against the denied sense of Imputation and personating The denied sense repeated plainly Forty three Reasons briefly named Chap. 5. Some Objections answered Chap. 6 7 8. Replies to Dr. Tully and a Defence of the Concord of Protestants against his Military Alarm and false pretence of greater discord than there is Of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness Material or Formal to Believers Whether we are Reputed personally to have suffered on the Cross and to have satisfied God's Justice for our own sins and to have been habitually perfectly Holy and Actually perfectly Obedient in Christ or by Christ and so to have merited our own Justification and Salvation And whether Christ's Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive be strictly made our own Righteousness in the very thing it self simply Imputed to us or only be made ours in the effects and Righteousness Imputed to us when we believe because Christ hath satisfied and fulfilled the Law and thereby merited it for us The last is affirmed and the two first Questions denied I Have said so much of this subject already in my Confession but especially in my Disputations of Justification and in my Life of Faith that I thought not to have meddled with it any more But some occasions tell me that it is not yet needless though those that have most need will not read it But while some of them hold that nothing which they account a Truth about the Form and Manner of Worship is to be silenced for the Churches peace they should grant to me that Real Truth so near the Foundation in their own account is not to be silenced when it tendeth unto Peace In opening my thoughts on this subject I shall reduce all to these Heads 1. I shall give the brief History of this Controversie 2. I shall open the true state of it and assert what is to be asserted and deny what is to be denied 3. I shall give you the Reasons of my Denials 4. I shall answer some Objections CHAP. I. The History of the Controversie § 1. IN the Gospel it self we have first Christ's Doctrine delivered by his own mouth And in that there is so little said of this Subject that I find few that will pretend thence to resolve the Controversie for Imputation in the rigorous sence The same I say of the Acts of the Apostles and all the rest of the New Testament except Pauls Epistles The Apostle Paul having to do with the Jews who could not digest the equalizing of the Gentiles with them and specially with the factious Jewish Christians who thought the Gentiles must become Proselytes to Moses as well as to Christ if they would be Justified and Saved at large confuteth this opinion and freeth the Consciences of the Gentile Christians from the Imposition of this yoke as also did all the Apostles Act. 15. And in his arguing proveth that the Mosaical Law is so far from being necessary to the Justification of the Gentiles that Abraham and the Godly Jews themselves were not Justified by it but by Faith And that by the works of it and consequently not by the works of the Law or Covenant of Innocency which no man ever kept no man could ever be justified And therefore that they were to look for Justification by Christ alone and by Faith in him or by meer Christianity which the Gentiles might have as well as the Jews the Partition-wall being taken down This briefly is the true scope of Paul in these Controversies § 2. But in Paul's own days there were somethings in his Epistles which the unlearned and unstable did wrest as they did the other Scriptures to their own destruction as Peter tells us 2 Pet. 2. And it seemeth by the Epistle of James that this was part of it For he is fain there earnestly to dispute against some who thought that Faith without Christian works themselves would justifie and flatly affirmeth that we are Justified by Works and not by Faith only that is as it is a Practical Faith in which is contained a Consent or Covenant to obey which first putteth us into a justified state so it is that Practical Faith actually working by Love and the actual performance of our Covenant which by way of Condition is necessary to our Justification as Continued and as Consummate by the Sentence of Judgment Against which sentence of James there is not a syllable to be found in Paul But all the Scripture agreeth that all men shall be Judged that is Justified or Condemned according to their works But it is not this Controversie between Faith and Works which I am now to speak to having done it enough heretofore § 3. From the days of the Apostles till Pelagius and Augustine this Controversie was little meddled with For the truth is the Pastors and Doctors took not Christianity in those days for a matter of Shcolastick subtilty but of plain Faith and Piety And contented themselves to say that Christ dyed for our sins and that we are Justified by Faith and that Christ was made unto us Righteousness as he was made to us Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption § 4. But withal those three first Ages were so intent upon Holiness of Life as that they addicted their Doctrine their Zeal and their constant endeavours to it And particularly to great austerities to their Bodies in great Fastings and great contemp◠of the World and exercises of Mortification to kill their fleshly
it for us For it said not in words or sense Thou or one for thee shall Perfectly Obey or Suffer It mentioned no Substitute But it is the Law-giver and not that Law that justifieth us by other means § 28. But we have another Righteousness imputed to us instead of that Perfect Legal Innocency and Rewardableness by which we shall be accepted of God and glorified at last as surely and fully at least as if we had never sinned or had perfectly kept that Law which therefore may be called our Pro-legal Righteousness § 29. But this Righteousness is not yet either OURS by such a propriety as a Personal performance would have bin nor OURS to all the same ends and purposes It saveth us not from all pain death or penal desertion nor constituteth our Relation just the same § 30. It is the Law of Grace that Justifieth us both as giving us Righteousness and as Virtually judging us Righteous when it hath made us so and it is Christ as Judg according to that Law and God by Christ that will sentence us just and executively so use us § 31. The Grace of Christ first giveth us Faith and Repentance by effectual Vocation And then the Law of Grace by its Donative part or Act doth give us a Right to Vnion with Christ as the Churches Head and so to his Body and with him a right to Pardon of past sin and to the Spirit to dwell and act in us for the future and to the Love of God and Life eternal to be ours in possession if we sincerely obey and persevere § 32. The total Righteousness then which we have as an Accident of which we are the Subjects is 1. A right to Impunity by the free Pardon of all our sins and a right to Gods Favour and Glory as a free gift quoad valorem but as a Reward of our Obedience quoad Ordinem conferendi rationem Comparativam why one rather than another is judged meet for that free gift 2. And the Relation of one that hath by grace performed the Condition of that free Gift without which we had been no capable recipients which is initially Faith and Repentance the Condition of our Right begun and consequently sincere Obedience and Perseverance the Condition of continued right § 33. Christs personal Righteousness is no one of these and so is not our Constitutive Righteousness formally and strictly so called For Formally our Righteousness is a Relation of right and it is the Relation of our own Persons And a Relation is an accident And the numerical Relation or Right of one person cannot be the same numerical Accident of another person as the subject § 34. There are but three sorts of Causes Efficient Constitutive and Final 1. Christ is the efficient cause of all our Righteousness 1. Of our Right to Pardon and Life 2. And of our Gospel-Obedience And that many waies 1. He is the Meritorious Cause 2. He is the Donor by his Covenant 3. And the Donor or Operator of our Inherent Righteousness by his Spirit 4. And the moral efficient by his Word Promise Example c. 2. And Christ is partly the final cause 3. But all the doubt is whether his personal Righteousness be the Constitutive Cause § 35. The Constitutive Cause of natural bodily substances consisteth of Matter disposed and Form Relations have no Matter but instead of Matter a Subject and that is Our own persons here and not Christ and a terminus and fundamentum § 36. The Fundamentum may be called both the Efficient Cause of the Relation as commonly it is and the Matter from which it resulteth And so Christs Righteousness is undoubtedly the Meritorious efficient Cause and undoubtedly not the Formal Cause of our personal Relation of Righteousness Therefore all the doubt is of the Material Cause § 37. So that all the Controversie is come up to a bare name and Logical term of which Logicians agree not as to the aptitude All confess that Relations have no proper Matter besides the subject all confess that the Fundamentum is loco efficientis but whether it be a fit name to call it the Constitutive Matter of a Relation there is no agreement § 38. And if there were it would not decide this Verbal Controversie For 1. Titulus est fundamentum Juris The fundamentum of our Right to Impunity and Life in and with Christ is the Donative act of our Saviour in and by his Law or Covenant of Grace that is our Title And from that our Relation resulteth the Conditio tituli vel juris being found in our selves 2. And our Relation of Performers of that Condition of the Law of Grace resulteth from our own performance as the fundamentum compared to the Rule So that both these parts of our Righteousness have a nearer fundamentum than Christs personal Righteousness § 39. But the Right given us by the Covenant and the Spirit and Grace being a Right merited first by Christs personal Righteousness this is a Causa Causae id est fundamenti seu Donationis And while this much is certain whether it shall be called a Remote fundamentum viz. Causa fundamenti and so a Remote Constitutive Material Cause or only properly a Meritorious Cause may well be left to the arbitrary Logician that useeth such notions as he pleases but verily is a Controversie unfit to tear the Church for or destroy Love and Concord by § 40. Quest 1. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS Ans Yes In some sense and in another not § 41. Quest 2. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS Ans Yes In the sense before opened For all things are ours and his righteousness more than lower Causes § 42. Quest 3. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS as it was or is His own with the same sort of propriety Ans No. § 43. Quest 4. Is the formal Relation of Righteous as an accident of our persons numerically the same Righteousness Ans No It is impossible Unless we are the same person § 44. Quest 5. Is Christ and each Believer one political person Ans A political person is an equivocal word If you take it for an Office as the King or Judg is a political person I say No If for a Society Yea But noxia noxa caput sequuntur True Guilt is an accident of natural persons and of Societies only as constituted of such and so is Righteousness Though Physically Good or Evil may for society-sake befal us without personal desert or consent But if by Person you mean a certain State or Condition as to be a subject of God or one that is to suffer for sin so Christ may be said to be the same person with us in specie but not numerically because that Accident whence his Personality is named is not in the same subject § 45. Quest 6. Is Christs Righteousness imputed to us Ans Yes If by imputing you mean reckoning or reputing it ours so far as is aforesaid that is such a Cause of ours §
46. Quest 7. Are we reputed our selves to have fulfilled all that Law of Innocency in and by Christ as representing our persons as obeying by him Ans No. § 47. Quest 8. Is it Christs Divine Habitual Active or Passive Righteousness which Justifieth us Ans All viz the Habitual Active and Passive exalted in Meritoriousness by Union with the Divine § 48. Quest 9. Is it Christs Righteousness or our Faith which is said to be imputed to us for Righteousness Rom. 4. Ans 1. The text speaketh of imputing Faith and by Faith is meant Faith and not Christs Righteousness in the word But that Faith is Faith in Christ and his Righteousness and the Object is quasi materia actus and covenanted 2. De re both are Imputed that is 1. Christs Righteousness is reputed the meritorious Cause 2. The free-gift by the Covenant is reputed the fundamentum juris both opposed to our Legal Merit 3. And our Faith is reputed the Conditio tituli and all that is required in us to our Justification as making us Qualified Recipients of the free-Gift merited by Christ § 49. Quest 10. Are we any way Justified by our own performed Righteousness Ans Yes Against the charge of non-performance as Infidels Impenitent Unholy and so as being uncapable of the free-gift of Pardon and Life in Christ CHAP. IV. The Reasons of our denying the fore-described rigid sence of Imputation Though it were most accurate to reduce what we deny to several Propositions and to confute each one argumentatively by it self yet I shall now choose to avoid such prolixity and for brevity and the satisfaction of such as look more at the force of a Reason than the form of the Argument I shall thrust together our denyed Sence with the manifold Reasons of our denyal WE deny that God doth so Impute Christs Righteousness to us as to repute or account us to have been Holy with all that Habitual Holiness which was in Christ or to have done all that he did in obedience to his Father or in fulfilling the Law or to have suffered all that he suffered and to have made God satisfaction for our own sins and merited our own Salvation and Justification in and by Christ or that he was did and suffered and merited all this strictly in the person of every sinner that is saved Or that Christs very individual Righteousness Material or Formal is so made ours in a strict sense as that we are Proprietors Subjects or Agents of the very thing it self simply and absolutely as it is distinct from the effects or that Christs Individual Formal Righteousness is made our Formal Personal Righteousness or that as to the effects we have any such Righteousness Imputed to us as formally ours which consisteth in a perfect Habitual and Actual Conformity to the Law of Innocency that is that we are reputed perfectly Holy and sinless and such as shall be Justified by the Law of Innocency which saith Perfectly Obey and Live or sin and die All this we deny Let him that will answer me keep to my words and not alter the sense by leaving any out And that he may the better understand me I add 1. I take it for granted that the Law requireth Habitual Holiness as well as Actual Obedience and is not fulfilled without both 2. That Christ loved God and man with a perfect constant Love and never sinned by Omission or Commission 3. That Christ died not only for our Original sin or sin before Conversion but for all our sin to our lives end 4. That he who is supposed to have no sin of Omission is supposed to have done all his duty 5. That he that hath done all his duty is not condemnable by that Law yea hath right to all the Reward promised on Condition of that duty 6. By Christs Material Righteousness I mean those Habits Acts and Sufferings in which his Righteousness did consist or was founded 7. By his and our Formal Righteousness I mean the Relation it self of being Righteous 8. And I hold that Christs Righteousness did not only Numerically as aforesaid but also thus totâ specie in kind differ from ours that his was a perfect Habitual and Actual Conformity to the Law of Innocency together with the peculiar Laws of Mediator-ship by which he merited Redemption for us and Glory for himself and us But ours is the Pardon of sin and Right of Life Purchased Merited and freely given us by Christ in and by a new Covenant whose condition is Faith with Repentance as to the gift of our Justification now and sincere Holiness Obedience Victory and Perseverance as to our possession of Glory Now our Reasons against the denyed sence of Imputation are these 1. In general this opinion setteth up and introduceth all Antinomianism or Libertinism and Ungodliness and subverteth the Gospel and all true Religion and Morality I do not mean that all that hold it have such effects in themselves but only that this is the tendency and consequence of the opinion For I know that many see not the nature and consequences of their own opinions and the abundance that hold damnable errors hold them but notionally in a peevish faction and therefore not dammingly but hold practically and effectually the contrary saving truth And if the Papists shall perswade Men that our doctrine yea their 's that here mistake cannot consist with a godly life let but the lives of Papists and Protestants be compared Yea in one of the Instances before given Though some of the Congregational-party hold what was recited yet so far are they from ungodly lives that the greatest thing in which I differ from them is the overmuch unscriptural strictness of some of them in their Church-admissions and Communion while they fly further from such as they think not godly than I think God would have them do being generally persons fearing God themselves Excepting the sinful alienation from others and easiness to receive and carry false reports of Dissenters which is common to all that fall into sidings But the errors of any men are never the better if they be found in the hands of godly men For if they be practised they will make them ungodly 2. It confoundeth the Person of the Mediator and of the Sinner As if the Mediator who was proclaimed the Beloved of the Father and therefore capable of reconciling us to him because he was still well-pleased in him had not only suffered in the room of the sinner by voluntary Sponsion but also in suffering and doing been Civilly the very person of the sinner himself that sinner I say who was an enemy to God and so esteemed 3. It maketh Christ to have been Civilly as many persons as there be elect sinners in the World which is both beside and contrary to Scripture 4. It introduceth a false sence and supposition of our sin imputed to Christ as if Imputatively it were his as it is ours even the sinful Habits the sinful Acts and
to Christ in Union to the Spirit to Impunity and to Glory And 2. The Grace of the Spirit by which we are made Holy and fulfil the Conditions of the Law of Grace We are the Subjects of these and he is the Minister and the meritorious Cause of our Life is well called Our Righteousness and by many the material Cause as our own perfect Obedience would have been because it is the Matter of that Merit 4. And also Christ's Intercession with the Father still procureth all this as the Fruit of his Merits 5. And we are Related as his Members though not parts of his Person as such to him that thus merited for us 6. And we have the Spirit from him as our Head 7. And he is our Advocate and will justifie us as our Judg. 8. And all this is God's Righteousness designed for us and thus far given us by him 9. And the perfect Justice and Holiness of God is thus glorified in us through Christ And are not all these set together enough to prove that we justly own all asserted by these Texts But if you think that you have a better sense of them you must better prove it than by a bare naming of the words Object 3. If Christ's Righteousness be Ours then we are Righteous by it as Ours and so God reputeth it but as it is But it is Ours 1. By our Vnion with him 2. And by his Gift and so consequently by God's Imputation Answ 1. I have told you before that it is confessed to be Ours but that this syllable OVRS hath many senses and I have told you in what sense and how far it is OVRS and in that sense we are justified by it and it is truly imputed to us or reputed or reckoned as OVRS But not in their sense that claim a strict Propriety in the same numerical Habits Acts Sufferings Merits Satisfaction which was in Christ or done by him as if they did become Subjects of the same Accidents or as if they did it by an instrumental second Cause But it is OVRS as being done by a Mediator instead of what we should have done and as the Meritorious Cause of all our Righteousness and Benefits which are freely given us for the sake hereof 2. He that is made Righteousness to us is also made Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption to us but that sub genere Causae Efficientis non autem Causae Constitutivae We are the Subjects of the same numerical Wisdom and Holiness which is in Christ Plainly the Question is Whether Christ or his Righteousness Holiness Merits and Satisfaction be Our Righteousness Constitutively or only Efficiently The Matter and Form of Christ's Personal Righteousness is OVRS as an Efficient Cause but it is neither the nearest Matter or the Form of that Righteousness which is OVRS as the Subjects of it that is It is not a Constitutive Cause nextly material or formal of it 3. If our Union with Christ were Personal making us the same Person then doubtless the Accidents of his Person would be the Accidents of ours and so not only Christ's Righteousness but every Christians would be each of Ours But that is not so Nor is it so given us by him Object 4. You do seem to suppose that we have none of that kind of Righteousness at all which consisteth in perfect Obedience and Holiness but only a Right to Impunity and Life with an imperfect Inherent Righteousness in our selves The Papists are forced to confess that a Righteousness we must have which consisteth in a conformity to the preceptive part of the Law and not only the Retributive part But they say It is in our selves and we say it is Christ's imputed to us Answ 1. The Papists e. g. Learned Vasqueâ— in Rom. 5. talk so ignorantly of the differences of the Two Covenants or the Law of Innocency and of Grace as if they never understood it And hence they 1. seem to take no notice of the Law of Innocency or of Nature now commanding our perfect Obedience but only of the Law of Grace 2. Therefore they use to call those Duties but Perfections and the Commands that require them but Counsels where they are not made Conditions of Life and sins not bringing Damnation some call Venial a name not unfit and some expound that as properly no sin but analogically 3. And hence they take little notice when they treat of Justification of the Remitting of Punishment but by remitting Sin they usually mean the destroying the Habits As if they forgot all actual sin past or thought that it deserved no Punishment or needed no Pardon For a past Act in it self is now nothing and is capable of no Remission but Forgiveness 4. Or when they do talk of Guilâ— of Punishment they lay so much of the Remedy on Man's Satisfaction as if Christ's Satisfaction and Merits had procured no pardon or at least of no temporal part of Punishment 5. And hence they ignorantly revile the Protestants as if we denied all Personal Inherent Righteousness and trusted only to the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as justifying wicked unconverted Men The Papists therefore say not that we are innocent or sinless really or imputatively no not when they dream of Perfection and Supererrogation unless when they denominate Sin and Perfection only from the Condition of the Law of Grace and not that of Innocency 2. But if any of them do as you say no wonder if they and you contend If one say We are Innocent or Sinless in reality and the other we are so by Imputation when we are so no way at all but sinners really and so reputed what Reconciliation is there to be expected till both lay by their Errour Object 5. How can God accept him as just who is really and reputedly a Sinner This dishonoureth his Holiness and Justice Answ Not so Cannot God pardon sin upon a valuable Merit and Satisfaction of a Mediator And though he judg us not perfect now and accept us not as such yet 1. now he judgeth us Holy 2. and the Members of a perfect Saviour 3. and will make us perfect and spotless and then so judg us having washed us from our sins in the Blood of the Lamb. Object 6. Thus you make the Reatus Culpae not pardoned at all but only the Reatus Poenae Answ 1. If by Reatus Culpae be meant the Relation of a Sinner as he is Revera Peccator and so to be Reus is to be Revera ipse qui peccavit then we must consider what you mean by Pardon For if you mean the nullifying of such a Guilt or Reality it is impossible because necessiate existentiae he that hath once sinned will be still the Person that sinned while he is a Person and the Relation of one that sinned will cleave to him It will eternally be a true Proposition Peter and Paul did sin But if by Pardon you mean the pardoning of all the penalty which for that sin is due damni
Righteousness consisting in 1. perfect Innocency 2. And that in the Works of the Jewish Law which bind us not 3. And in doing his peculiar Works as Miracles Resurrection c. which were all His Righteousness as a conformity to that Law and performance of that Covenant which was made with and to him as Mediator But his Righteousness is the Meritorious Cause and Reason of another Righteousness or Justification distinct from his freely given us by the Father and himself by his Covenant So that here indeed the Similitude much cleareth the Matter And they that will not blaspheme Christ by making guilt of sin it self in its formal Relation to be his own and so Christ to be formally as great a sinner as all the Redeemed set together and they that will not overthrow the Gospel by making us formally as Righteous as Christ in kind and measure must needs be agreed with us in this part of the Controversie Object 9. When you infer That if we are reckoned to have perfectly obeyed in and by Christ we cannot be again bound to obey our selves afterward nor be guilty of any sin you must know that it 's true That we cannot be bound to obey to the same ends as Christ did which is to redeem us or to fulfil the Law of Works But yet we must obey to other ends viz. Ingratitude and to live to God and to do good and other such like Answ 1. This is very true That we are not bound to obey to all the same ends that Christ did as to redeem the World nor to fulfil the Law of Innocency But hence it clearly followeth that Christ obeyed not in each of our Persons legally but in the Person of a Mediator seeing his due Obedience and ours have so different Ends and a different formal Relation his being a conformity proximately to the Law given him as Mediator that they are not so much as of the same species much less numerically the same 2. And this fully proveth that we are not reckoned to have perfectly obeyed in and by him For else we could not be yet obliged to obey though to other ends than he was For either this Obedience of Gratitude is a Duty or not If not it is not truly Obedience nor the omission sin If yea then that Duty was made a Duty by some Law And if by a Law we are now bound to obey in gratitude or for what ends soever either we do all that we are so bound to do or not If we do it or any of it then to say that we did it twice once by Christ and once by our selves is to say that we were bound to do it twice and then Christ did not all that we were bound to but half But what Man is he that sinneth not Therefore seeing it is certain that no Man doth all that he is bound to do by the Gospel in the time and measure of his Faith Hope Love Fruitfulness c. it followeth that he is a sinner and that he is not supposed to have done all that by Christ which he failed in both because he was bound to do it himself and because he is a sinner for not doing it 3. Yea the Gospel binds us to that which Christ could not do for us it being a Contradiction Our great Duties are 1. To believe in a Saviour 2. To improve all the parts of his Mediation by a Life of Faith 3. To repent of our sins 4. To mortifie sinful Lusts in our selves 5. To fight by the Spirit against our flesh 6. To confess our selves sinners 7. To pray for pardon 8. To pray for that Grace which we culpably want 9. To love God for redeeming us 10. Sacramentally to covenant with Christ and to receive him and his Gifts with many such like which Christ was not capable of doing in and on his own Person for us though as Mediator he give us Grace to do them and pray for the pardon of our sins as in our selves 4. But the Truth which this Objection intimateth we all agree in viz. That the Mediator perfectly kept the Law of Innocency that the keeping of that Law might not be necessary to our Salvation and so such Righteousness necessary in our selves but that we might be pardoned for want of perfect Innocency and be saved upon our sincere keeping of the Law of Grace because the Law of Innocency was kept by our Mediator and thereby the Grace of the New-Covenant merited and by it Christ Pardon Spirit and Life by him freely given to Believers Object 10. The same Person may be really a sinner in himself and yet perfectly innocent in Christ and by imputation Answ Remember that you suppose here the Person and Subject to be the same Man And then that the two contrary Relations of perfect Innocency or guiltlesness and guilt of any yea much sin can be consistent in him is a gross contradiction Indeed he may be guilty and not guilty in several partial respects but a perfection of guiltlesness excludeth all guilt But we are guilty of many a sin after Conversion and need a Pardon All that you should say is this We are sinners our selves but we have a Mediator that sinned not who merited Pardon and Heaven for sinners 2. But if you mean that God reputeth us to be perfectly innocent when we are not because that Christ was so it is to impute Error to God He reputeth no Man to be otherwise than he is But he doth indeed first give and then impute a Righteousness Evangelical to us instead of perfect Innocency which shall as certainly bring us to Glory and that is He giveth us both the Renovation of his Spirit to Evangelical Obedience and a Right by free gift to Pardon and Glory for the Righteousness of Christ that merited it And this thus given us he reputeth to be an acceptable Righteousness in us CHAP. VI. Animadversions on some of Dr. T. Tullies Strictures § 1. I Suppose the Reader desireth not to be wearied with an examination of all Dr. Tullies words which are defective in point of Truth Justice Charity Ingenuity or Pertinency to the Matter but to see an answer to those that by appearance of pertinent truth do require it to disabuse the incautelous Readers Though somewhat by the way may be briefly said for my own Vindication And this Tractate being conciliatory I think meet here to leave out most of the words and personal part of his contendings and also to leave that which concerneth the interest of Works as they are pleased to call Man's performance of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace in our Justification to a fitter place viz. To annex what I think needful to my friendly Conference with Mr. Christopher Cartwright on the Subject which Dr. Tullies Assault perswadeth me to publish § 2. pag. 71. Justif Paulin. This Learned Doctor saith The Scripture mentioneth no Justification in foro Dei at all but that One which is Absolution from
the Maledictory Sentence of the Law Answ 1. If this be untrue it 's pity so worthy a Man should unworthily use it against peace and concord If it be true I crave his help for the expounding of several Texts Exod. 23.6 7. Thou shalt not wrest the Judgment of thy Poor in his Cause Keep thee far from a false Matter and the Innocent and Righteous slay thou not for I will not justifie the wicked Is the meaning only I will not absolve the wicked from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law of Innocency Or is it not rather I will not misjudg the wicked to be just nor allow his wickedness nor yet allow thee so to do nor leave thee unpunished for thy unrighteous judgment but will condemn thee if thou condemn the Just Job 25.4 How then can Man be justified with God or How can he be clean that is born of a Woman Is the sense How can Man be absolved from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law Or rather How can he be maintained Innocent Psal 143.2 In thy sight shall no Man living be justified Is the sense No Man living shall be absolved from the Maledictory sentence of the Law Than we are all lost for ever Or rather no Man shall be found and maintained Innocent and judged one that deserved not punishment Therefore we are not judged perfect fulfillers of that Law by another or our selves Object But this is for us and against you for it denyeth that there is any such Justification Answ Is our Controversie de re or only de nomine of the sense of the word Justifie If de re then his meaning is to maintain That God never doth judg a Believer to be a Believer or a Godly Man to be Godly or a performer of the Condition of Pardon and Life to have performed it nor will justifie any believing Saint against the false Accusations that he is an Infidel a wicked ungodly Man and an Hypocrite or else he writeth against those that he understood not But if the Question be as it must be de nomine whether the word Justifie have any sense besides that which he appropriateth to it then a Proposition that denieth the Existentiam rei may confute his denyal of any other sense of the word So Isa 43.9 26. Let them bring forth their Witnesses that they may justified Declare thou that thou mayest be justified that is proved Innocent But I hope he will hear and reverence the Son Matth. 12.37 By thy words thou shalt be Justified and by thy words thou shalt be Condemned speaking of Gods Judgment which I think meaneth de re nomine Thy Righteous or unrighteous words shall be a part of the Cause of the day or Matter for or according to which thou shalt be judged obedient or disobedient to the Law of Grace and so far just or unjust and accordingly sentenced to Heaven or Hell as is described Matth. 25. But it seems this Learned Doctor understands it only By thy words thou shalt be absolved from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law and by thy words contrarily condemned Luk. 18.14 The Publican went down to his House justified rather than the other I think not only from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law of Innocency but by God approved a sincere Penitent and so a fit Subject of the other part of Justification Acts 13.39 is the Text that speaketh most in the sense he mentioneth And yet I think it includeth more viz. By Christ 1. we are not only absolved from that Condemnation due for our sins 2. but also we are by his repealing or ending of the Mosaick Law justified against the Charge of Guilt for our not observing it and 3. Augustine would add That we are by Christ's Spirit and Grace made just that is sincerely Godly by the destruction of those inherent and adherent sins which the Law of Moses could not mortifie and save us from but the Spirit doth Rom. 2.13 Not the Hearers of the Law are just before God but the Doers of the Law shall be justified Is it only The Doers shall be Absolved from the Maledictory Sentence c. Or first and chiefly They shall be judged well-doers so far as they do well and so approved and justified so far as they do keep the Law which because no Man doth perfectly and the Law of Innocency requireth Perfection none can be justified absolutely or to Salvation by it Object The meaning is say some The Doers of the Law should be justified by it were there any such Answ That 's true of absolute Justification unto Life But that this is not all the sense of the Text the two next Verses shew where the Gentiles are pronounced partakers of some of that which he meaneth inclusively in doing to Justification Therefore it must include that their Actions and Persons are so far justified more or less as they are Doers of the Law as being so far actively just Rom. 8.30 Whom he justified them he also glorified And 1 Cor. 6. â—â— Ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Many Protestants and among them Bezâ— himself expound in the Papists and Austins sense of Justification as including Sanctification also as well as Absolution from the Curse And so Arch Bishop Vsher told me he understood them As also Tit. 3.7 That being justified freely by his Grace And many think so of Rom. 4.5 he justifieth the Vngodly say they by Converting Pardoning and Accepting them in Christ to Life And Rom. 8.33 Who shall condemn it is God that justifieth seemeth to me more than barely to say God absolveth us from the Curse because it is set against Man's Condemnation who reproached slandered and persecuted the Christians as evil Doers as they did Christ to whom they were predestinated to be conformed And so must mean God will not only absolve us from his Curse but also justifie our Innocency against all the false Accusations of our Enemies And it seemeth to be spoken by the Apostle with respect to Isa 50.8 He is near that justifieth me who will contend with me Which my reverence to this Learned Man sufficeth not to make me believe is taken only in his sense of Absolution Rev. 22.11 He that is Righteous let him be justified still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which not only our Translaters but almost all Expositors take as inclusive of Inherent Righteousness if not principally speaking of it To speak freely I remember not one Text of Scripture that useth the word Justifie in this Doctor 's sense that is Only for the said absolution from the Curse of the Law For all those other Texts that speak for Justification by Christ's Grace and Faith and not by the Works of the Law as Rom. 3.20 24 28 30. and 4.2 5 25. 5.1 9 16 18. 1 Cor. 4.4 Gal. 2.16 17. 3.8 11 24. 5.4 c. do all seem to me to mean not only that we are absolved from the
if the word Justification had been found only as he affirmed If Justice Righteousness and Just be otherwise used that 's all one in the sense and almost in the word seeing it is confessed that to Justifie is 1. To make Just 2. Or to esteem Just 3. Or sentence Just 4. Or to prove Just and defend as Just 5. Or to use as Just by execution And therefore in so many senses as a Man is called Just in Scripture he is inclusively or by connotation said to be Justified and Justifiable and Justificandus And I desire no more of the Impartial Reader but to turn to his Concordances and peruse all the Texts where the words Just Justice Justly Righteous Righteousness Righteously are used and if he find not that they are many score if not hundred times used for that Righteousness which is the Persons Relation resulting from some Acts or Habits of his own as the Subject or Agent and otherwise than according to his solitary sense here let him then believe this Author § 3. But he is as unhappy in his Proofs as in his singular untrue Assertion Rom. 8.2 4. The Law of the Spirit of Life hath freed us from the Law of Sin and of Death Gal. 3.13 God sent his Son thta the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law and many more such Here is no mention of any but one legal Justification Answ 1. Reader do you believe that these two Texts are a perfect Enumeration And that if these mention but one sense or sort of Justification that it will follow that no more is mentioned in Scripture Or if many hundred other Texts have the same sense 2. Nay he hath chosen only these Texts where the word Justification or Justifie is not at all found By which I may suppose that he intendeth the Controversie here de re and not de nomine And is that so Can any Man that ever considerately opened the Bible believe that de re no such Thing is mentioned in Scripture 1. As making a Man a believing Godly Man 2. Or as performing the Conditions of Life required of us in the Covenant of Grace 3. Nor esteeming a Man such 4. Not defending or proving him to be such 5. Nor judging him such decisively 6. Nor using him as such 7. Nor as justifying a Man so far as he is Innocent and Just against all false Accusation of Satan or the World 3. The first Text cited by him Rom. 8.24 downright contradicts him Not only Augustine but divers Protestant Expositors suppose that by the Law of the Spirit of Life is meant either the quickning Spirit it self given to us that are in Christ or the Gospel as it giveth that Spirit into us And that by delivering us from the Law of Sin is meant either from that sin which is as a Law within us or Moses Law as it forbiddeth and commandeth all its peculiarities and so maketh doing or not doing them sin and as it declareth sin yea and accidentally irritateth it Yea that by the Law of Death is meant not only that Law we are cursed by and so guilty but chiefly that Law as it is said Rom. 7. to kill Paul and to occasion the abounding of sin and the Liâ—e of it And that by the fulfilling of the Law in us that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit is meant that by the Spirit and Grace of Christ Christians do fulfil the Law as it requireth sincere Holiness Sobriety and Righteousness which God accepteth for Christ's sake which the Law of Moses without Christ's Spirit enabled no Man to fulfil Not to weary the Reader with citing Expositors I now only desire him to peruse Ludov. de Dieu on the Text. And it is certain that the Law that Paul there speaketh of was Moses Law And that he is proving all along that the observation of it was not necessary to the Gentiles to their performance or Justification and Salvation necessitate praecepti vel medii for it would not justifie the Jews themselves And sure 1. all his meaning is not The Law will not absolve Men from the sense of the Law But also its Works will give no one the just title of a Righteous Man accepted of God and saved by him as judging between the Righteous and the wicked as Christ saith Matth. 25. The Righteous shall go into Everlasting Life c. 2. And if it were only the Maledictory Sentence of Moses Law as such that Paul speaketh of Absolution from as our only Justification then none but Jews and Proselites who were under that Law could have the Justification by Faith which he mentioneth for it curseth none else For what-ever the Law saith it saith to them that are under the Law The rest of the World were only under the Law of lapsed Nature the relicts of Adam's Law of Innocency and the Curse for Adam's first Violation and the Law of Grace made to Adam and Noah and after perfected fullier by Christ in its second Edition 2. His other Text Christ redeemed us from the Curse of the Law proveth indeed that all Believers are redeemed from the Curse of the first Law of Innocency and the Jews from the Curse of Moses Law which is it that is directly meant But what 's that to prove that these words speak the whole and the only Justification and that the Scripture mentioneth no other § 4. He addeth Lex est quae prohibet Lex quae poenam decernit Lex quae irrogat Peccatum est transgressio Legis Poena effectus istius trangressionis Justificatio denique absolutio ab ista poena Itaque câ—m Lex nisi praestita nenimem Justificat praestitam omnes in Christo agnoscunt aut Legalis erit omnis JUstificatio coram Deo aut omnino nulla Answ 1. But doth he know but one sort of Law of God Hath every Man incurred the Curse by Moses Law that did by Adams Or every Man fallen under the peremptory irreversible condemnation which the Law of Grace passeth on them that never believe and repent Doth this Law He that believeth not shall be damned damn Believers One Law condemneth all that are not Innocent Another supposeth them under that defect and condemneth peremptorily not every Sinner but the Wicked and Unbelievers 2. Again here he saith Justification is Absolution from that Penalty But is a Man absolved properly from that which he was never guilty of Indeed if he take Absolution so loosly as to signifie the justifying a Man against a false Accusation and pronouncing him Not-Guilty So all the Angels in Heaven may possibly be capable of Absolution Justification is ordinarily so used but Absolution seldom by Divines And his words shew that this is not his senses if I understand them But if we are reputed perfect fulfillers of the Law of Innocency by Christ and yet Justification is our Absolution from the Curse then no Man is
Donation by the Gospel-Covenant or Grant And so that Grant or Gospel is the fundamentum of it But the Merits of Christ's Righteousness purchased that Gift and so those Merits are the remote fundamentum or efficient And thus my Justification by the Doctor 's confession is Evangelical 3. I must perish if I have not also a subordinate personal Righteousness consisting in my performance of those Conditions on which the New-Covenant giveth the former And the fundamentum of this Righteousness is the Reality of that performance as related to the Irrogation Imposition or Tenor of the Covenant making this the Condition This is my Heresie if I be heretical and be it right or wrong I will make it intelligible and not by saying and unsaying involve all in confusion § 6. He addeth Ex parte Termini Legalis est quia terminatur in satisfactione Legi praestanda Liberavit me à Lege mortis c. And hence he saith the denomination is properly taken Answ 1. The Reader here seeth that all this Zeal is exercised in a Game at Words or Logical Notions and the Church must be called for the umpirage to stand by in Arms to judg that he hath won the Day What if the denomination be properly to be taken from the Terminus Is it as dangerous as you frightfully pretend to take it aliunde 2. But stay a little Before we come to this we must crave help to understand what he talketh of Is it 1. Justificatio Justificans active sumpta Or 2. Justificatio Justificati passive 3. Or Justitia 1. The first is Actio and the Terminus of that Action is two-fold 1. The Object or Patient a believing Sinner 2. The Effect Justificatio passivè neither of these is the Law or its Malediction But which of these is it that we must needs name it from 2. The passive or effective Justification is in respect of the Subjects Reception called Passio In respect of the form received it is as various as I before mentioned 1. The Effect of the Donative Justification of the Law of Grace is Justitia data a Relation oft described 2. The Effect of the Spirits giving us Inherent Righteousness is a Quality given Acts excited and a Relation thence resulting 3. The Effect of Justification per sententiam Judicis is immediately a Relation Jus Judicatum 4. The Effect of an Advocates Justification is Justitia persona ut defensa seu vindicata 5. The Effect of Executive Justification is Actual Impunity or Liberation And are all these one Terminus or hence one name then These are the Termini of Justificatio Justificantis ut Actionis and nothing of this nature can be plainer than that 1. Remission of sin passively taken the Reatus or Obligatio ad poenam the first ad quem and the second à quo are both the immediate Termini of our Act of Justification 2. That the Terminus Justitiae as it is the formal Relation of a Justified Person as such is the Law as Norma Actionum as to Righteous Actions and the Law or Covenant as making the Condition of Life as to those Actions sub ratione Conditionis Tituli And the Promissory and Minatory part of the Law as Justitia is Jus praemii impunitatis First The Actions and then the Person are Just in Relation to the Law or Covenant by which their Actions and they are to be judged But the remoter Terminus is the malum à quo and the bonum ad quod And as à quo it is not only the evil denounced but also the Reatus or Obligation to it and the efficacious Act of the Law thus cursing and the Accusation of the Actor or Accuser real or possible that is such a terminus II. But when he saith Ex parte Termini Legalis est either still he taketh legal generally as comprehending the Law of Innocency of Works and of Grace or not If he do I must hope he is more intelligent and just than to insinuate to his Reader that I ever mention an Evangelical Justification that is not so legal as to be denominated from the Law of Grace as distinct from that of Works If not he was indebted to his intelligent Reader for some proof that no Man is justified against this false Accusation Thou art by the Law of Grace the Heir of a far sorer punishment for despising the Remedy and not performing the Conditions of Pardon and Life And also for this thou hast no right to Christ and the Gifts of his Covenant of Grace But no such proof is found in his Writings nor can be given III. But his Quia Terminatur in satisfactione Legi praestanda I confess it is a Sentence not very intelligible or edifying to me 1. Satisfactio proprie stricte sic dicta differâ— Ã solutione ejusdem quod sit solutio aequivalentis alias indebite Which of these he meaneth Satisfaction thus strictly taken or solutio ejusdem I know not Nor know what it is that he meaneth by Legi praestandâ Indeed solutio ejusdem is Legi praestanda but not praestita by us personally or by another For we neither kept the Law nor bare the full Penalty And the Law mentioned no Vicarium Obedientiae aut pâ—enae Christ performed the Law as it obliged himself as Mediator and as a Subject but not as it obliged us for it obliged us to Personal performance only And Christ by bearing that Punishment in some respects which we deserved satisfied the Law-giver who had power to take a Commutation but not the Law unless speaking improperly you will say that the Law is satisfied when the remote ends of the Law-giver and Law are obtained For the Law hath but one fixed sense and may be it self changed but changeth not it self nor accepteth a tantundem And Christ's suffering for us was a fulfilling of the Law which peculiarly bound him to suffer and not a Satisfaction loco solutionis ejusdem And it was no fulfilling the Penal part of the Law as it bound us to suffer For so it bound none but us so that the Law as binding us to Duty or Suffering was neither fulfilled nor strictly satisfied by Christ but the Law-giver satisfied and the remote ends of the Law attained by Christ's perfect fulfilling all that Law which bound himself as Mediator Now whether he mean the Law as binding us to Duty or to Punishment or both and what by satisfaction I am not sure But as far as I can make sense of it it seeneth to mean that Poena is satisfactio loco obedientiae and that Punishment being our Due this was satisfactio Legi praestandâ for he saith not Praestita But then he must judge that we are justified only from the penal Obligation of the Law and not from the preceptive Obligation to perfect Obedience And this will not stand with the scope of other Passages where he endureth not my Opinion that we are not justified by the fae hoc the Precept
from that Law that is from its Obligation of us to Innocency as the necessary terms of Life and from its Obligation of us to Death for want of Innocency But we are not justified by that Law either as fulfilled or as satisfied by us our selves either personally or by an Instrument substitute or proper Representative that was Vicarius Obedientiae aut poenae 3. And we grant that the Jews were delivered from the positive Jewish Law which is it that Paul calleth The Law of Works And if he please in all these respects to call Justification Legal we intend not to quarrel with the name though what I called Legal in those Aphorisms I chose ever after to call rather Justitia pro-legalis But we cannot believe him 1. That it is only Legal 2. Or that that is the only or most proper denomination § 8. He proceedeth thus And it will be vain if any argue That yet none can be saved without Evangelical Works according to which it is confessed that all men shall be judged for the distinction is easie which the Author of the Aphorisms somewhere useth between the first or Private and the last or Publick Justification In the first sense it is never said That Works justifie but contrary That God justifieth him that worketh not Rom. 4.5 In the latter we confess that Believers are to be justified according to Works but yet not Of or By Works nor that that Justification maketh men just before God but only so pronounceth them Answ 1. This is such another Consenting Adversary as once before I was put to answer who with open mouth calls himself consequentially what he calleth me if the same Cause and not the Person make the Guilt Nay let him consider whether his grand and most formidable Weapon So also saith Bellarmine with other Papists do not wound himself For they commonly say That the first Justification is not of Works or Works do not first justifie us Have I not now proved that he erreth and complyeth with the Papists If not let him use better Arguments himself 2. But why is the first Justification called Private Either he meaneth God's making us just constitutively or his judging us so and that per sententiam conceptam only or prolatam also 1. The common distinction in Politicks inter judicium Privatum Publicum is fetcht from the Judg who is either Persona privata vel publica a private Man or an authorized Judg judging as such And so the Judgment of Conscience Friends Enemies Neighbours mere Arbitrators c. is Judicium privatum and that of a Judg in foro is Judicium publicum yea or in secret before the concerned Parties only in his Closet so it be decisive If this Learned Doctor so understand it then 1. Constitutive Justification which is truly first is publick Justification being done by God the Father and by our Redeemer who sure are not herein private authorized Persons 2. And the first sentential Justification as merely Virtual and not yet Actual viz. as it 's virtually in the Justifying Law of Grace as norma Judicis is publick in suo genere being the virtus of a Publick Law of God or of his Donative Promise 3. And the first Actual Justification per Deum Judicem per sententiam conceptam which is God's secret judging the Thing and Person to be as they are is secret indeed in se yet revealed by God's publick Word but publick as to the Judg. 4. And the first sententia prolata the fourth in order is someway publick as opposite to secresie for 1. it is before the Angels of Heaven 2. And in part by Executive demonstrations on Earth But it is certainly by a publick Judg that is God 5. And the first Apologetical Justification by Christ our Interceding Advocate is publick both quoad personam and as openly done in Heaven And if this worthy Person deny any Justification per sententiam Judicis upon our first Believing or before the final Judgment he would wofully fall out with the far greatest number of Protestants and especially his closest Friends who use to make a Sentence of God as Judg to be the Genus to Justification But if by Private and Publick Justification he means secret and open 1. How can he hope to be understood when he will use Political Terms unexplained out of the usual sense of Politicians But no men use to abuse words more than they that would keep the Church in flames by wordy Controversies as if they were of the terms of Life and Death 2. And even in that sense our first Justification is publick or open quoad Actum Justificancantis as being by the Donation of a publick Word of God Though quoad effectum in recipiente it must needs be secret till the Day of Judgment no Man knowing anothers Heart whether he be indeed a sound Believer And so of the rest as is intimâ—ted Concerning what I have said before some may Object 1. That there is no such thing as our Justification notified before the Angels in Heaven 2. That the Sententia Concepta is God's Immanent Acts and therefore Eternal Answ To the first I say 1. It is certain by Luk. 15.10 that the Angels know of the Conversion of a Sinner and therefore of his Justification and publickly Rejoyce therein Therefore it is notified to them 2. But I refer the Reader for this to what I have said to Mr. Tombes in my Disputation of Justification where I do give my thoughts That this is not the Justification by Faith meant by Paul as Mr. Tombes asserteth it to be To the Second I say Too many have abused Theology by the misconceiving of the distinction of Immanent and Transient Acts of God taking all for Immanent which effect nothing ad extra But none are properly Immanent quoad Objectum but such as God himself is the Object of as se intelligere se amare An Act may be called indeed immanent in any of these three respects 1. Ex parte Agentis 2. Ex parte Objecti 3. Ex parte effectus 1. Ex parte agentis all God's Acts are Immanent for they are his Essence 2. Ex parte Objecti vel Termini God's Judging a Man Just or Unjust Good or Bad is transient because it is denominated from the state of the Terminus or Object And so it may be various and mutable denominatively notwithstanding God's Simplicity and Immutability And so the Sententia Concepta is not ab Aeterno 3. As to the Effect all confess God's Acts to be Transient and Temporary But there are some that effect not as to judg a thing to be what it is 3. Either this Militant Disputer would have his Reader believe that I say That a Man is justified by Works in that which he called making just and the first Justification or not If he would such untruth and unrighteousness contrary to the full drift of many of my Books and even that which he selected to oppose is not
of a name of your own introduction for illustration If we were playing at a Game of Tropes I could tell you that the Healing of Mens Vnbelief is applicatory for the healing of their Guilt And the healing of Men's Ignorance Pride and Wrangling about words and frightning Men into a Conceit that it is about Life and Death is applicatory as to the healing of the Churches Wounds and Shame But I rather chuse to ask you Whether it was never heard that a particular subordinate personal Righteousness even Faith and Repentance was made by God the Condition of our Right to Pardon and Life by Christ's Righteousness Did you never teach your Sholars this in what words you thought best And yet even our Faith is a Fruit of Christ's Righteousness but nevertheless the Condition of other Fruits If you say that our Faith or Performance is not to be called Righteousness I refer you to my Answer to Mr. Cartwright And if the word Righteousness be not ofter ten to one used in Scripture for somewhat Personal than for Christ's Righteousness imputed then think that you have said something If you say But it justifieth not as a Righteousness but as an Instrument I Answer 1. I have said elsewhere so much of its Instrumentality that I am ashamed to repeat it 2. It justifieth not at all for that signifieth efficiency but only maketh us capable Recipients 3. We are justified by it as a medium and that is a Condition performed as aforesaid And when that Condition by a Law is made both a Duty and a Condition of Life the performance is by necessary resultancy a Righteousness But we are not justified by it as it is a Righteousness in genere nor as a mere moral Virtue or Obedience to the Law of Nature but as it is the performance of the Condition of the Law of Grace and so as it is this particular Righteousness and no other § 13. In Legal Justification saith he taken precisely either there is Remission of sin or not If not What Justification is that If yea then Evangelical Justification is not necessary to the application of it because the Application is supposed c. Answ 1. What I usually call Evangelical Righteousness he supposeth me to call Justification which yet is true and sound but such as is before explained 2. This is but the same again and needeth no new answer The performance of the Condition is strangely here supposed to follow the Right or Benefit of the Gift or Covenant If he would have the Reader think I said so he may as ingeniously tell that I deny all Justification If not what meaneth he CHAP. VII Dr. Tullies Quarrel about Imputation of Christ's Righteousness considered § 1. CAp. 8. pag. 79. he saith Because no Man out of Socinus School hath by his Dictates more sharply exagitated this Imputation of Righteousness than the Author of the Aphorisms and it is in all mens hands we think meet to bring into a clearer Light the things objected by him or more truly his Sophistical Cavils whence the fitter Prospect may be taken of almost the whole Controversie Answ That the Reader may see by what Weapons Theological Warriours wound the Churches Peace and profligate brotherly Love let him consider how many palpable Untruths are in these few Lines even in matter of Fact 1. Let him read Dr. Gell Mr. Thorndike and by his own confession the Papists a multitude of them and tell me true that No Man out of Socinus School hath c. To say nothing of many late Writings near us 2. If I have 1. never written one word against Imputation of Righteousness there or elsewhere 2. Yea have oft written for it 3. And if those very Pages be for it which he accuseth 4. Yea if there and elsewhere I write more for it than Olevian Vrsine Paraeus Scultetus Wendeline Piscator and all the rest of those great Divines who are for the Imputation only of the Passive Righteousness of Christ when I profess there and often to concur with Mr. Bradshaw Grotius and others that take in the Active also yea and the Habitual yea and Divine respectively as advancing the Merits of the Humane If all this be notoriously true what Epithets will you give to this Academical Doctors notorious Untruth 3. When that Book of Aphorisms was suspended or retracted between twenty and thirty years ago publickly because of many crude Passages and unapt Words and many Books since written by me purposely fully opening my mind of the same things all which he passeth wholly by save a late Epistle what credit is to be given to that Man's ingenuity who pretendeth that this being in all mens hands the answering it will so far clear all the Controversie § 2. Dr. T. He hence assaulteth the Sentence of the Reformed because it supposeth as he saith that we were in Christ at least legally before we believed or were born But what proof of the consequence doth he bring The rest are but his Reasons against the Consequences and his talk against me as pouring out Oracles c. Answ 1. Is this the mode of our present Academical Disputers To pass by the stating of the Controversie yea to silence the state of it as laid down by the Author whom he opposeth in that very place and more fully elsewhere often Reader the Author of the Aphorisms pag. 45. and forward distinguishing as Mr. Bradshaw doth of the several senses of Imputation and how Christ's Righteousness is made ours 1. Beginneth with their Opinion who hold That Christ did so obey in our stead as that in God's esteem and in point of Law we were in Christ dying and suffering and so in him we did both perfectly fulfil the Commands of the Law by Obedience and the Threatnings of it by bearing the Penalty and thus say they is Christ's Righteousness imputed to us viz. His Passive Righteousness for the pardon of our sins and deliverance from the Penalty His Active Righteousness for the making of us Righteous and giving us title to the Kingdom And some say the Habitual Righteousness of his Humane Nature instead of our own Habitual Righteousness Yea some add the Righteousness of the Divine Nature The second Opinion which he reciteth is this That God the Father accepteth the sufferings and merits of his Son as a valuable consideration on which he will wholly forgive and acquit the Offenders and receive them into his favour and give them the addition of a more excellent happiness so they will but receive his Son on the terms expressed in the Gospel And as distinct from theirs who would thus have the Passive Righteousness only imputed he professeth himself to hold with Bradshaw Grotius c. that the Active also is so imputed being Justitia Meriti as well as Personae and endeavoureth to prove it But not imputed in the first rigid sense as if God esteemed us to have been and done and suffered our selves in and by Christ and merited
by him Thus he states the Controversie And doth this Doctor fight for Truth and Peace by 1. passing by all this 2. Saying I am against Imputed Righteousness 3. And against the Reformed Were not all the Divines before named Reformed Was not Camero Capellus Placeus Amyrald Dallaeus Blondel c. Reformed Were not Wotton Bradshaw Gataker c. Reformed Were not of late Mr. Gibbons Mr. Truman to pass many yet alive Reformed Must that Name be shamed by appropriating it to such as this Doctor only 2. And now let the Reader judg with what face he denieth the Consequence that it supposeth us to have been in Christ legally c. When as I put it into the Opinion opposed and opposed no other But I erred in saying that most of our ordinary Divines hold it But he more in fathering it in common on the Reformed § 2. Dr. T. 2. Such Imputation of Righteousness he saith agreeth not with Reason or Scripture But what Reason meaneth he Is it that vain blind maimed unmeasurably procacious and tumid Reason of the Cracovian Philosophers Next he saith Scripture is silent of the Imputed Righteousness of Christ what a saying is this of a Reformed Divine so also Bellarmine c. Answ Is it not a doleful case that Orthodoxness must be thus defended Is this the way of vindicating Truth 1. Reader my words were these just like Bradshaws It teaâ—heth Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in so strict a sense as will neither stand with Reason nor the Doctrine of the Scripture much less with the PHRASE of Scripture which mentioneth no Imputation of Christ or his Righteousness 1. Is this a denying of Christ's Righteousness imputed Or only of that intollerable sense of it 2. Do I say here that Scripture mentioneth not Imputed Righteousness or only that strict sense of it 3. Do I not expresly say It is the Phrase that is not to be found in Scripture and the unsound sense but not the sound 2. And as to the Phrase Doth this Doctor or can any living Man find that Phrase in Scripture Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us And when he knoweth that it is not there are not his Exclamations and his Bug-bears Cracovian Reason and Bellarmine his dishonour that hath no better Weapons to use against the Churches Peace To tell us that the sense or Doctrine is in Scripture when the question is of the Phrase or that Scripture speaketh in his rigid sense and not in ours is but to lose time and abuse the Reader the first being impertinent and the second the begging of the Question § 3. Dr. T. The Greek word answering to Imputation is ten times in Rom. 4. And what is imputed but Righteousness we have then some imputed Righteousness The Question is only what or whose it is Christ's or our own Not ours therefore Christs If ours either its the Righteousness of Works or of Faith c. Answ 1. But what 's all this to the Phrase Could you have found that Phrase Christ's Righteousness is imputed why did you not recite the words but Reason as for the sense 2. Is that your way of Disputation to prove that the Text speaketh of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness when the Question was only In what sense What kind of Readers do you expect that shall take this for rational candid and a Plea for Truth 3. But to a Man that cometh unprejudiced it is most plain that Paul meaneth by imputing it for Righteousness that the Person was or is accounted reckoned or judged Righteous where Righteousness is mentioned as the formal Relation of the Believer so that what-ever be the matter of it of which next the formal Relation sure is our own and so here said And if it be from the matter of Christ's Righteousness yet that must be our own by your Opinion And it must be our own in and to the proper Effects in mine But sure it is not the same numerical formal Relation of Righteousness that is in Christ's Person and in ours And it 's that formal Relation as in Abraham and not in Christ that is called Abraham's Reputed Righteousness in the Text I scarce think you will say the contrary § 4. Dr. T. But Faith is not imputed to us for Righteousness Answ Expresly against the words of the Holy Ghost there oft repeated Is this defending the Scripture expresly to deny it Should not reverence and our subscription to the Scripture sufficiently rather teach us to distinguish and tell in what sense it is imputed and in what not than thus to deny without distinction what it doth so oft assert Yea the Text nameth nothing else as so imputed but Faith § 5. If it be imputed it is either as some Virtue or Humane Work the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere or as it apprehendeth and applyeth Christ's Righteousness Not the first If Faith be imputed relatively only as it applyeth to a Sinner the Righteousness of Christ it 's manifest that it 's the Righteousness of Christ only that is imputed and that Faith doth no more to Righteousness than an empty hand to receive an Alms. Answ 1. Sure it doth as a voluntarily receiving hand and not as a mere empty hand And voluntary grateful Reception may be the Condition of a Gift 2. You and I shall shortly find that it will be the Question on which we shall be Justified or Condemned not only whether we received Christ's Righteousness but whether by Faith we received Christ in all the Essentials of his Office and to all the essential saving Uses Yea whether according to the sense of the Baptismal Covenant we first believingly received and gave up our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and after performed sincerely that Covenant 3. But let me defend the Word of God Faith is imputed for Righteousness even this Faith now described 1. Remotely ex materiae aptitudine for its fitness to its formal Office And that fitness is 1. Because it is an Act of Obedience to God or morally good for a bad or indifferent Act doth not justifie 2. More specially as it is the receiving trusting and giving up our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost to the proper ends of Redemption or a suitable Reception of the freely offered Gift and so connoteth Christ the Object for the Object is essential to the Act in specie 2. But proximately Faith is so reputed or imputed as it is the performance of the Condition of the Justifying Covenant or Donation And to be imputed for Righteousness includeth That It is the part required of us by the Law of Grace to make us partakers of the Benefits of Christ's Righteousness which meriteth Salvation for us instead of a legal and perfect Righteousness of our own which we have not Or Whereas we fell short of a Righteousness of Innocency Christ by such a Righteousness hath merited our Pardon and Salvation and given title to them by a New Covenant of Grace which maketh
out all sin that he might confirm what he said both from the Faith of Abraham by which he was justified and from our Saviours Death by which we are delivered from sin But this is on the by 2. But saith Dr. T. The Orthodox abhor the contrary in sensu forensi Answ How easie is it to challenge the Titles of Orthodox Wise or good Men to ones self And who is not Orthodox himself being Judg But it seems with him no Man must pass for Orthodox that is not in so gross an error of his Mind if these words and not many better that are contrary must be the discovery of it viz. That will not say that in sensu forensi God esteemeth Men to have done that which they never did The best you can make of this is that you cover the same sense which I plainlier express with this illfavoured Phrase of Man's inventing But if indeed you mean any more than I by your sensus forensis viz. that such a suffering and meriting for us may in the lax improper way of some Lawyers speaking be called Our own Doing Meriting Suffering c. I have proved that the Doctrine denied by me subverteth the Gospel of Christ Reader I remember what Grotius then Orthodox thirty years before his Death in that excellent Letter of Church-Orders Predestination Perseverance and Magistrates animadverting on Molinaeus saith How great an injury those Divines who turn the Christian Doctrine into unintelligible Notions and Controversies do to Christian Magistrates because it is the duty of Magistrates to discern and preserve necessary sound Doctrine which these Men would make them unable to discern The same I must say of their injury to all Christians because all should hold fast that which is proved True and Good which this sort of Men would disable them to discern We justly blame the Papists for locking up the Scripture and performing their Worship in an unknown Tongue And alas what abundance of well-meaning Divines do the same thing by undigested Terms and Notions and unintelligible Distinctions not adapted to the Matter but customarily used from some Persons reverenced by them that led the way It is so in their Tractates both of Theology and other Sciences and the great and useful Rule Verba Rebus aptanda sunt is laid aside or rather Men that understand not Matter are like enough to be little skilful in the expressing of it And as Mr. Pemble saith A cloudy unintelligible stile usually signifieth a cloudy unintelligent Head to that sense And as Mr. J. Humfrey tells Dr. Fullwood in his unanswerable late Plea for the Conformists against the charge of Schism pag. 29. So overly are men ordinarily wont to speak at the first sight against that which others have long thought upon that some Men think that the very jingle of a distinction not understood is warrant enough for their reproaching that Doctrine as dangerous and unsound which hath cost another perhaps twenty times as many hard studies as the Reproachers ever bestowed on that Subject To deliver thee from those Learned Obscurities read but the Scripture impartially without their Spectacles and ill-devised Notions and all the Doctrine of Justification that is necessary will be plain to thee And I will venture again to fly so far from flattering those called Learned Men who expect it as to profess that I am perswaded the common sort of honest unlearned Christians even Plowmen and Women do better understand the Doctrine of Justification than many great Disputers will suffer themselves or others to understand it by reason of their forestalling ill-made Notions these unlearned Persons commonly conceive 1. That Christ in his own Person as a Mediator did by his perfect Righteousness and Sufferings merit for us the free pardon of all our sins and the Gift of his Spirit and Life Eternal and hath promised Pardon to all that are Penitent Believers and Heaven to all that so continue and sincerely obey him to the end and that all our after-failings as well as our former sins are freely pardoned by the Sacrifice Merits and Intercession of Christ who also giveth us his Grace for the performance of his imposed Conditions and will judg us as we have or have not performed them Believe but this plain Doctrine and you have a righter understanding of Justification than many would let you quietly enjoy who tell you That Faith is not imputed for Righteousness that it justifieth you only as an Instrumental Cause and only as it is the reception of Christ's Righteousness and that no other Act of Faith is justifying and that God esteemeth us to have been perfectly Holy and Righteous and fulfilled all the Law and died for our own sins in or by Christ and that he was politically the very Person of every Believing Sinner with more such like And as to this distinction which this Doctor will make a Test of the Orthodox that is Men of of his Size and Judgment you need but this plain explication of it 1. In Law-sense a Man is truly and fitly said himself to have done that which the Law or his Contract alloweth him to do either by himself or another as to do an Office or pay a Debt by a Substitute or Vicar For so I do it by my Instrument and the Law is fulfilled and not broken by me because I was at liberty which way to do it In this sense I deny that we ever fulfilled all the Law by Christ and that so to hold subverts all Religion as a pernicious Heresie 2. But in a tropical improper sense he may be said to be esteemed of God to have done what Christ did who shall have the benefits of Pardon Grace and Glory thereby merited in the manner and measure given by the free Mediator as certainly as if he had done it himself In this improper sense we agree to the Matter but are sorry that improper words should be used as a snare against sound Doctrine and the Churches Love and Concord And yet must we not be allowed Peace § 4. But my free Speech here maketh me remember how sharply the Doctor expounded and applyed one word in the retracted Aphorisms I said not of the Men but of the wrong Opinion opposed by me It fondly supposeth a Medium betwixt one that is just and one that is no sinner one that hath his sin or guilt taken away and one that hath his unrighteousness taken away It 's true in bruits and insensibles that are not subjects capable of Justice there is c. There is a Negative Injustice which denominateth the Subject non-justum but no◠injustum where Righteousness is not due But when there is the debitum habendi its privative The Doctor learnedly translateth first the word fondly by stolide and next he fondly though not stolidè would perswade the Reader that it is said of the Men though himself translate it Doctrina And next he bloweth his Trumpet to the War with this exclamation Stolide O
the Doctrine but the Book till I had Corrected it and did disown it as too unmeet an Expression of my Mind which I had more fully exprest in other Books And is not this plain English Doth this warrant a Wise and Righteous Man to intimate that I accuse him of writing against that Doctrine of Justification which I Recanted and to call for the What and Where and When Yea and tell me that I refer you to a small Book when instead of referring you to it I only blame you for referring to that alone when I had said as before When many Divines have published the first Edition of their Works imperfectly and greatly corrected and enlarged them in a Second as Beza his Annotations Polanus his Syntagma and many such all Men take it for an Injury for a Neighbour twenty years after to select the first Edition to confute as the Author's Judgment Much more might I when I published to the World that I Suspended the whole Book and have these twenty four years hindred the Printing of it professing that I have in many larger Books more intelligibly and fully opened the same things Yea you fear not pag. 23. to say That I tell you of about 60 Books of Retractations in part at least which I have Written when never such a word fell from me If I say That one that hath published his Suspension of a small Book written in Youth not for the Doctrine of it but some unfit Expressions and hath since in al-most thirty Years time written about sixty Books in many or most of which is somewhat of the same Subject and in some of them he fullier openeth his Mind should be dealt with by an Adversary according to some of his later and larger Explications and not according to the Mode and Wording of that one Suspended Book alone Shall such a Man as you say that I tel you of about sixty Books of Retractations Or will it not abate Mens reverence of your disputing Accurateness to find you so untrusty in the Recitation of a Man's words The truth is it is this great Defect of Heed and Accurateness by hasty Temerity which also spoileth your Disputations But pag. 7. the Aphorisms must be The most Schollar-like and Elaborate though Erroneous Book in Controversie you ever Composed Answ 1. Your Memory is faulty Why say you in the next that I appeal to my Disputation of Justification and some others but you cannot Trudg up and down to every place I would send you your Legs are too weak Either you had read all the sixty Books which you mention the Controversal at least or not If not How can you tell that the Aphorisms is the most Elaborate If yea Why do you excuse your Trudging and why would you select a Suspended Book and touch none that were Written at large on the same Subject 2. By this I suâ—pose to make your Nibble to seem a Triumph you tell your Reader again how to value your Judgment Is it like that any Dunce that is diligent should Write no more Schollar-like at Sixty years of Age than at Thirty And do you think you know better what of mine is Elaborate than I do Sure that Word might have been spared When I know that one printed Leaf of Paper hath cost me more Labour than all that Book and perhaps one Scheme of the Distinctions of Justification which you deride If indeed you are a competent Judg of your own Writings Experience assureth me that you are not so of mine And pag. 25. you say You desire not to be preferred before your Betters least of all when you are singular as here I think you are § III. Pag. 9. You are offended for being put in the Cub with divers mean and contemptible Malefactors Answ O for Justice 1. Was not Bellarmin or some of the Papists and the Socinians as great Malefactors with whom as you phrase it you put me in the Cub 2. Are they Malefactors so far as they agree with you in Doctrine and are you Innocent What is the Difference between your Treatise in the part that toucheth me and that of Mr. Eyres Mr. Crandon and some others such Dr. Owen and Dr. Kendale indeed differed from you the latter seeking by Bishop Vsher an amicable Closure and the former if I understand his Book on the Hebrews less differing from me in Doctrine than once he either did or seemed to do And if any of us all grow no Wiser in thirty years Study we may be ashamed But to give you your due Honour I will name you with your Equals as far as I can judg viz. Maccovius Cluto Coccejus and Cloppenburgius I mean but in the Point in Question it 's no Dishonour to you to give some of them Precedencie in other things It may be also Spanhemius was near you But if I may presume to liken my Betters no Men seem to me to have been so like you as Guilielmus Rivet not Andrew Mr. George Walker and Mr. Roborough I hope this Company is no Dishonour to you And very unlike you are Le Blank Camero Davenant Dr. Hammond Mr. Gataker Mr. Anthony Wotton and in Complexion Scotus and Ockam and such as they If yet I have not Chosen you pleasing Company I pray you choo se so your self But you say on Had you not in your Memory many Scores of greatest Eminence and Repute in the Christian World of the same Judgment with me Know you not I speak the same thing with all the Reformed Churches c. For shame let it be the Church of England with all the rest of the Reformed c. Answ 1. I know not what you hold even when I read what you write I must hope as well as I can that you know your self How then should I know who are of the same Judgment with you 2. Yet I am very confident that all they whom you mention are of the same in some thing or other and in particular that we are Justified by Faith and not by the Works of the Law or any Works in the sence denied by St. Paul c. 3. Do not I with as great Confidence as you lay Claim to the same Company and Concord And if one of us be mistaken must your bare Word determine which it is Which of us hath brought the fuller Proofs I subscribe to the Doctrine of the Church of England as well as you and my Condition these thirteen or fourteen years giveth as much Evidence that I am loth to subscribe to what I believe not as yours doth of you And you that know which of my Books is the most Elaborate sure know that in that Book which I Wrote to explain those Aphorisms called my Confession I cite the Words of above an Hundred Protestant Witnesses that give as much to Works as I do And that of this Hundred one is the Augustine Confession one the Westminster Synod one the Synod of Dort one the Church of England
are offended that I perswade you that by Melancholy Phantasms you set not the Churches together by the Ears and make People believe that they differ where they do not And you ask Who began the Fray Answ 1. Do you mean that I began with you You do not sure But is it that I began with the Churches and you were necessitated to defend them Yes if Gallus Ambsdorfius Schlusselburgius and Dr. Crispe and his Followers be the Church But Sir I provoke you to try it by the just Testimony of Antiquity who began to differ from the Churches In this Treatise I have given you some Account and Vossius hath given you more which you can never answer But if my Doctrine put you upon this Necessity what hindred you from perceiving it these twenty years and more till now O Sir had you no other work to do but to Vindicate the Church and Truth I doubt you had § VIII But pag. 15. You are again incredulous that All the Difference betwixt you and me or others of the same Judgment in the Point of Justification is meerly Verbal and that in the Main we are agreed And again you complain of your weak Legs Answ 1. I do agree with very many against their wills in Judgment because the Judgment may be constrained but with none in Affection as on their part Did I ever say that I differed not from you I tell you I know not what your Judgment is nor know I who is of your Mind But I have not barely said but oft proved that though not the Antinomians the Protestants are mostly here agreed in the Main If you could not have time to read my larger Proof that short Epistle to Mr. Allen's Book of the Covenant in which I proved it might have stopt your Mouth from calling for more Proof till you had better confuted what was given But you say Are perfect Contradictions no more than a difference in Words Faith alone and not Faith alone Faith with and without Works Excuse our Dulness here Answ 1. Truly Sir it is a tedious thing when a Man hath over and over Answered such Objections yea when the full Answers have been twenty years in Print to be put still to say over all again to every Man that will come in and say that his Legs are too weak to go see what was answered before How many score times then or hundreds may I be called to repeat 2. If I must pardon your Dulness you must pardon my Christianity or chuse who believe that there is no such perfect Contradictions between Christ's By thy Words thou shalt be Justified and Paul's Justified by Faith without the Works of the Law or not of Works and James's We are justified by Works and not by Faith only Must we needs proclaim War here or cry out Heresie or Popery Are not all these Reconcileable Yea and Pauls too Rom. 2. The Doers of the Law shall be justified 3. But did I ever deny that it is by Faith alone and without Works Where and when But may it not be by Faith alone in one sense and not by Faith alone in another sense 4. But even where you are speaking of it you cannot be drawn to distinguish of Verbal and Real Differences Is it here the Words or Sense which you accuse The Words you dare not deny to be Gods own in Scripture spoken by Christ Paul and James My Sense I have opened to you at large and you take no Notice of it but as if you abhorred Explication and Distinction speak still against the Scripture Words § IX Pag. 16. But you say Let any discerning Reader compare the 48 § of this Preface with the Words in pag. 5. of your Appeal to the Light and 't is likely he will concur with me in that Melancholy Phantasm or Fear For 't is worth the noting how in that dark Appeal where you distinguish of Popish Points i. e. some-where the Difference is reconcileable others in effect but in words we have no Direction upon which Rank we must bestow Justification nothing of it at all from you Name or Thing But why next to the All-seeing God you should know best your self Answ Alas Sir that God should be in such a manner mentioned I answered this same Case at large in my Confession Apologie Dispute of Justification c. Twenty years ago or near I have at large Opened it in a Folio Cathol Theol. which you saw yea in the very part which you take Notice of and now you publish it worth the Noting that I did not also in one sheet of Paper Printed the other day against a Calumnie of some Sectarian Hearers who gave me no Occasion for such a work Had it not been a Vanity of me Should I in that sheet again have repeated how I and the Papists differ about Justification Were you bound to have read it in that sheet any more than in many former Volumns It 's no matter for me But I seriously beseech you be hereafter more sober and just than to deal with your Brethren the Church and Truth in such a manner as this But by this Talk I suspect that you will accuse me more for opening no more of the Difference in this Book But 1. It is enough for to open my own Meaning and I am not obliged to open other Mens And my own I have opened by so many Repetitions in so many Books as nothing but such Mens Importunity and obstructed Minds could have Excused 2. The Papists minds sure may be better known by their own Writings than by mine The Council of Trent telleth it you What need I recite it 3. I tell you again as I did in my Confession that I had rather all the Papists in the World agreed with us than disagreed I like a Doctrine the better and not the worse because all the Christian World consenteth to it I am not ambitious to have a Religion to my self which a Papist doth not own Where they differ I am sorry for it And it pleaseth me better to find in any Point that we are agreed than that we differ Neither you nor any such as you by crying O Popish Antichristian shall tempt me to do by the Papists as the Dominicans and Jansenists and some Oratorians do by the Calvinists I will not with Alvarez Arnoldus Gibieuf c. make the World believe that my Adversaries are much further from me than they are for fear of being censured by Faction to be one of them If I would have been of a Church-Faction and sold my Soul to please a Party I would have begun before now and taken a bigger Price for it than you can offer me if you would Pag 17. You say Pile one Distinction or Evasion on another as long as you please as many several Faiths and Works and Justifications as you can name all this will never make two Poles meet Answ And do you cry out for War in the Darkness of Confusion
Controversie is about a Civil personating 3. That God judgeth not falsly 4. That Christ was not our Delegate and Instrument sent by us to do this in our stead as a man payeth his debt by a Servant whom he sendeth with the money 5. That therefore Christs Righteousness is not Imputed to us as if we had done it by him as our Instrument 6. That all the fruits of Christs Merits and Satisfaction are not ours upon our first believing much less before But we receive them by degrees we have new pardon daily of new sins We bear castigatory punishments even Death and Denials or loss of the greater assistance of the Spirit Our Grace is all imperfect c. 7. That we are under a Law and not left ungoverned and lawless and that Christ is our King and Judge And this Law is the Law or Covenant of Grace containing besides the Precepts of perfect Obedience to the Law natural and superadded a Gift of Christ with Pardon and Life but only on Condition that we thankfully and believingly accept the Gift And threatning non-liberation and a far sorer punishment to all that unbelievingly and unthankfully reject it 8. That therefore this Testament or Covenant-Gift is God's Instrument by which he giveth us our Right to Christ and Pardon and Life And no man hath such Right but by this Testament-Gift 9. That this called a Testament Covenant Promise and Law in several respects doth besides the Conditions of our first Right impose on us Continuance in the Faith with sincere Holiness as the necessary Condition of our continued Justification and our actual Glorification And that Heaven is the Reward of this keeping of the new Covenant as to the order of Gods Collation though as to the value of the Benefit it is a Free Gift purchased merited and given by Christ 10. That we shall all be judged by this Law of Christ 11. That we shall all be judged according to our deeds and those that have done good not according to the Law of Innocency or Works but according to the Law of Grace shall go into everlasting life and those that have done evil not by meer sin as sin against the Law of Innocency but by not keeping the Conditions of the Law of Grace shall go into everlasting punishment The sober reading of these following texts may end all our Controversie with men that dare not grosly make void the Word of God Rev. 20.12 13.22.12 2.23 12. That to be Justified at the day of Judgment is to be adjudged to Life Eternal and not condemned to Hell And therefore to be the cause or condition that we are Judged to Glory and the Cause or Condition that we are Justified then will be all one 13. That to be Judged according to our deeds is to be Justified or Condemned according to them 14. That the great tryal of that day as I have after said will not be whether Christ hath done his part but whether we have part in him and so whether we have believed and performed the Condition of that Covenant which giveth Christ and Life 15. That the whole scope of Christ's Sermons and all the Gospel calleth us from sin on the motive of avoiding Hell after we are reputed Righteous and calleth us to Holiness Perseverance and overcoming on the motive of laying up a good Foundation and having a Treasure in Heaven and getting the Crown of Righteousness 16. That the after-sins of men imputed Righteous deserve Hell or at least temporal punishments and abatements of Grace and Glory 17. That after such sins especially hainous we must pray for Pardon and repent that we may be pardoned and not say I fulfilled the Law in Christ as from my birth to my death and therefore have no more need of Pardon 18. That he that saith he hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a lyar 19. That Magistrates must punish sin as God s Officers and Pastors by Censure in Christs name and Parents also in their Children 20. That if Christs Holiness and perfect Obedience and Satisfaction and Merit had bin Ours in Right and Imputation as simply and absolutely and fully as it was his own we could have no Guilt no need of Pardon no suspension or detention of the proper fruits of it no punishment for sin specially not so great as the with-holding of degrees of Grace and Glory And many of the consequents aforesaid could not have followed All this I think we are all agreed on and none of it can with any face be denied by a Christian And if so 1. Then whether Christs perfect Holiness and Obedience and Sufferings Merit and Satisfaction be all given us and imputed unto us at our first believing as Our own in the very thing it self by a full and proper Title to the thing Or only so imputed to us as to be judged a just cause of giving us all the effects in the degrees and time forementioned as God pleaseth let all judge as evidence shall convince them 2. And then whether they do well that thrust their devised sence on the Churches as an Article of Faith let the more impartial judge I conclude with this confession to the Reader that though the matter of these Papers hath been thought on these thirty years yet the Script is hasty and defective in order and fulness I could not have leisure so much as to affix in the margin all the texts which say what I assert And several things especially the state of the Case are oft repeated But that is lest once reading suffice not to make them observed and understood which if many times will do I have my end If any say that I should take time to do things more accurately I tell him that I know my straights of time and quantity of business better than he doth and I will rather be defective in the mode of one work than leave undone the substance of another as great July 20. 1672. Richard Baxter The Contents CHap. 1. The History of the Controversie In the Apostles days In the following Ages Augustine and his followers Opinion The Schoolmen Luther Islebius The Lutherans Andr. Osiander The latter German Divines who were against the Imputation of Christ's Active Righteousness Our English Divines Davenant's sense of Imputation Wotton de Reconcil Bradshaw Gataker Dr. Crisp Jo. Simpson Randal Towne c. And the Army Antinomians checkt by the rising of Arminianism there against it Jo. Goodwin Mr. Walker and Mr. Roborough Mr. Ant. Burges My Own endeavours Mr. Cranden Mr. Eyres c. Mr. Woodbridge Mr. Tho. Warren Mr. Hotchkis Mr. Hopkins Mr. Gibbon Mr. Warton Mr. Grailes Mr. Jessop What I then asserted Corn. a Lapide Vasquez Suarez Grotius de Satisf Of the Savoy Declaration Of the Faith of the Congregational-Divines Their saying that Christs Active and Passive Obedience is imputed for our sole Righteousness confuted by Scripture Gataker Usher and Vines read and approved my Confession of Faith Placeus his Writings and trouble
any Work and Merit of man And his death and blood alone is sufficient to abolish expiate all the sins of all men All must come to Christ for pardon and Remission of Sin Salvation and every thing All our trust and hope is to be fastened on him alone Through him only and his merits God is appeas'd and propitious Loveth us and giveth us Life eternal XI The Palatinate Confession ib. pag. 149. I believe that God the Father for the most full Satisfaction of Christ doth never remember any of my sins and that pravity which I must strive against while I live but contrarily will rather of grace give me the righteousness of Christ so that I have no need to fear the judgment of God And pag. 155. If he merited and obtained Remission of all our sins by the only and bitter passion and death of the Cross so be it we embracing it by true Faith as the satisfaction for our sins apply it to our selves I find no more of this XII The Polonian Churches of Lutherans and Bohemians agreed in the Augustane and Bohemian Confession before recited XIII The Helvetian Confession To Justifie signifieth to the Apostle in the dispute of Justification To Remit sins to Absolve from the fault and punishment to Receive into favour and to Pronounce just For Christ took on himself and took away the sins of the World and satisfied Gods Justice God therefore for the sake of Christ alone suffering and raised again is propitious to our sins and imputeth them not to us but imputeth the righteousness of Christ for ours so that now we are not only cleansed and purged from sins or Holy but also endowed with the Righteousness of Christ and so absolved from sins Death and Condemnation and are righteous and heirs of life eternal Speaking properly God only justifieth us and justifieth only for Christ not imputing to us sins but imputing to us his Righteousness This Confession speaketh in terms neerest the opposed opinion But indeed saith no more than we all say Christs Righteousness being given and imputed to us as the Meritorious Cause of our pardon and right to life XIV The Basil Confession Art 9. We confess Remission of sins by Faith in Jesus Christ crucified And though this Faith work continually by Love yet Righteousness and Satisfaction for our Sins we do not attribute to works which are fruits of Faith but only to true affiance faith in the blood shed of the Lamb of God We ingenuously profess that in Christ who is our Righteousness Holiness Redemption Way Truth Wisdom Life all things are freely given us The works therefore of the faithful are done not that they may satisfie for their sins but only that by them they may declare that they are thankful to God for so great benefits given us in Christ XV. The Argentine Confession of the four Cities Cap. 3. ib. pag. 179. hath but this hereof When heretofore they delivered that a mans own proper Works are required to his Justification we teach that this is to be acknowledged wholly received of God's benevolence and Christ's Merit and perceived only by Faith C. 4. We are sure that no man can be made Righteous or saved unless he love God above all and most studiously imitate him We can no otherwise be Justified that is become both Righteous and Saved for our Righteousness is our very Salvation than if we being first indued with Faith by which believing the Gospel and perswaded that God hath adopted us as Sons and will for ever give us his fatherly benevolence we wholly depend on his beck or will XVI The Synod of Dort mentioneth only Christs death for the pardon of sin and Justification The Belgick Confession § 22. having mentioned Christ and his merits made ours § 23. addeth We believe that our blessedness consisteth in Remission of our sins for Jesus Christ and that our Righteousness before God is therein contained as David and Paul teach We are justified freely or by Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus We hold this Foundation firm and give all the Glory to God presuming nothing of our selves and our merits but we rest on the sole Obedience of a Crucified Christ which is ours when we believe in him Here you see in what sence they hold that Christs merits are ours Not to justifie us by the Law that saith Obey perfectly and Live but as the merit of our pardon which they here take for their whole Righteousness XVII The Scottish Confession Corp. Conf. pag. 125. hath but that true Believers receive in this life Remission of Sins and that by Faith alone in Christs blood So that though sin remain yet it is not Imputed to us but is remitted and covered by Christs Righteousness This is plain and past all question XVIII The French Confession is more plain § 18. ib. pag. 81. We believe that our whole Righteousness lyeth in the pardon of our sins which is also as David witnesseth our only blessedness Therefore all other reasons by which men think to be justified before God we plainly reject and all opinion of Merit being cast away we rest only in the Obedience of Christ which is Imputed to us both that all our sins may be covered and that we may get Grace before God So that Imputation of Obedience they think is but for pardon of sin and acceptance Concerning Protestants Judgment of Imputation it is further to be noted 1. That they are not agreed whether Imputation of Christ's perfect Holiness and Obedience be before or after the Imputation of his Passion in order of nature Some think that our sins are first in order of nature done away by the Imputation of his sufferings that we may be free from punishment and next that his perfection is Imputed to us to merit the Reward of life eternal But the most learned Confuters of the Papists hold that Imputation of Christs Obedience and Suffering together are in order of nature before our Remission of sin and Acceptance as the meritorious cause And these can mean it in no other sence than that which I maintain So doth Davenant de Just hab et act Pet. Molinaeus Thes Sedan Vol. 1. pag. 625. Imputatio justitiae Christi propter quam peccata remittuntur censemur justi coram Deo Maresius Thes Sedan Vol. 2. pag. 770 771. § 6 10. maketh the material cause of our Justification to be the Merits and Satisfaction of Christ yea the Merit of his Satisfaction and so maketh the formal Cause of Justification to be the Imputation of Christs Righteousness or which is the same the solemn Remission of all sins and our free Acceptance with God Note that he maketh Imputation to be the same thing with Remission and Acceptance which is more than the former said 2. Note that when they say that Imputation is the Form of Justification they mean not of Justification Passively as it is ours but Actively as it is Gods Justifying
through the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ 39. Yet the Reatus Culpae is remitted to us Relatively as to the punishment though not in it self that is It shall not procure our Damnation Even as Christ's Righteousness is though not in it self yet respectively as to the Benefits said to be made ours in as much as we shall have those benefits by it 40. Thus both the Material and the Formal Righteousness of Christ are made ours that is Both the Holy Habits and Acts and his Sufferings with the Relative formal Righteousness of his own Person because these are altogether one Meritorious cause of our Justification commonly called the Material Cause Obj. But though Forma Denominat yet if Christs Righteousness in Matter and Form be the Meritorious Cause of ours and that be the same with the Material Cause it is a very tolerable speech to say that His Righteousness is Ours in it self while it is the very matter of ours Ans 1. When any man is Righteous Immediately by any action that action is called the Matter of his Righteousness in such an Analogical sense as Action an Accident may be called Matter because the Relation of Righteous is founded or subjected first or partly in that Action And so when Christ perfectly obeyed it was the Matter of his Righteousness But to be Righteous and to Merit are not all one notion Merit is adventitious to meer Righteousness Now it is not Christs Actions in themselves that our Righteousness resulteth from immediately as his own did But there is first his Action then his formal Righteousness thereby and thirdly his Merit by that Righteousness which goes to procure the Covenant-Donation of Righteousnass to us by which Covenant we are efficiently made Righteous So that the name of a Material Cause is much more properly given to Christs Actions as to his own formal Righteousness than as to ours But yet this is but de nomine 2. Above all consider what that Righteousness is which Christ merited for us which is the heart of the Controversie It is not of the same species or sort with his own His Righteousness was a perfect sinless Innocency and Conformity to the preceptive part of the Law of Innocency in Holiness Ours is not such The dissenters think it is such by Imputation and here is the difference Ours is but in respect to the second or retributive part of the Law a Right to Impunity and Life and a Justification not at all by that Law but from its curse or condemnation The Law that saith Obey perfectly and live sin and die doth not justifie us as persons that have perfectly obeyed it really or imputatively But its obligation to punishment is dissolved not by it self but by the Law of Grace It is then by the Law of Grace that we are judged and justified According to it 1. We are not really or reputatively such as have perfectly fulfilled all its Precepts 2. But we are such as by Grace do sincerely perform the Condition of its promise 3. By which promise of Gift we are such as have right to Christs own person in the Relation and Union of a Head and Saviour and with him the pardon of all our sins and the right of Adoption to the Spirit and the Heavenly Inheritance as purchased by Christ So that besides our Inherent or Adherent Righteousness of sincere Faith Repentance and Obedience as the performed condition of the Law of Grace we have no other Righteousness our selves but Right to Impunity and to Life and not any imputed sinless Innocency at all God pardoneth our sins and adopteth us for the sake of Christ's sufferings and perfect Holiness But he doth not account us perfectly Holy for it nor perfectly Obedient So that how-ever you will call it whether a Material Cause or a Meritorious the thing is plain Obj. He is made of God Righteousness to us Ans True But that 's none of the question But how is he so made 1. As he is made Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption as aforesaid 2. By Merit Satisfaction Direction Prescription and Donation He is the Meritorious Cause of our Pardon of our Adoption of our Right to Heaven of that new Covenant which is the Instrumental Deed of Gift confirming all these And he is also our Righteousness in the sense that Austin so much standeth on as all our Holiness and Righteousness of Heart and Life is not of our natural endeavour but his gift and operation by his Spirit causing us to obey his Holy precepts and Example All these ways he is made of God our Righteousness Besides the Objective way of sense as he is Objectively made our Wisdom because it is the truest wisdom to know him So he is objectively made our Righteousness in that it is that Gospel-Righteousness which is required of our selves by his grace to believe in him and obey him 41. Though Christ fulfilled not the Law by Habitual Holiness and Actual Obedience strictly in the Individual person of each particular sinner yet he did it in the nature of Man And so humane nature considered in specie and in Christ personally though not considered as a totum or as personally in each man did satisfie and fullfil the Law and Merit As Humane Nature sinned in Adam actually in specie and in his individual person and all our Persons were seminally and virtually in him and accordingly sinned or are reputed sinners as having no nature but what he conveyed who could convey no better than he had either as to Relation or Real quality But not that God reputed us to have been actually existent as really distinct persons in Adam which is not true Even so Christ obeyed and suffered in our Nature and in our nature as it was in him and humane sinful nature in specie was Universally pardoned by him and Eternal life freely given to all men for his merits thus far imputed to them their sins being not imputed to hinder this Gift which is made in and by the Covenant of Grace Only the Gift hath the Condition of mans Acceptance of it according to its nature 2 Cor. 5.19 20. And all the individuals that shall in time by Faith accept the Gift are there and thereby made such as the Covenant for his merits doth justifie by that General Gift 42. As Adam was a Head by Nature and therefore conveyed Guilt by natural Generation so Christ is a Head not by nature but by Sacred Contract and therefore conveyeth Right to Pardon Adoption and Salvation not by Generation but by Contract or Donation So that what it was to be naturally in Adam seminally and virtually though not personlly in existence even that it is in order to our benefit by him to be in Christ by Contract or the new Covenant virtually though not in personal existence when the Covenant was made 43. They therefore that look upon Justification or Righteousness as coming to us immediately by Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us without the
by degrees Many sins may be said to be Remissible by vertue of this Sacrifice which never shall be remitted So far Mr. Lawson Here I would add only these Animadversions 1. That whereas he explaineth Christs personating us in suffering by the similitude of a Debtor and his Surety who are the same person in Law I note 1. That the case of Debt much differeth from the case of Punishment 2. That a Surety of Debt is either antecedently such or consequently Antecedently either first one that is bound equally with the Debtor 2. or one that promiseth to pay if he do not I think the Law accounteth neither of these to be the Person of the principal Debtor as it doth a Servant by whom he sends the Debt But Christ was neither of these For the Law did not beforehand oblige him with us nor did he in Law-sence undertake to pay the Debt if we failed Though God decreed that he should do so yet that was no part of the sence of the Law But consequently if a friend of the Debtor when he is in Jayl will without his request or knowledg say to the Creditor I will pay you all the Debt but so that he shall be in my power and not have present liberty lest he abuse it but on the terms that I shall please yea not at all if he ungratefully reject it This Consequent Satisfyer or Sponsor or Paymaster is not in Law-sence the same Person with the Debtor But if any will call him so I will not contend about a word while we agree of the thing the terms of deliverance And this is as near the Case between Christ and us as the similitude of a Debtor will allow 2. I do differ from Mr. Lawson and Paraeus and Vrsine and Olevian and Scultetus and all that sort of worthy Divines in this that whereas they make Christs Holiness and perfect Obedience to be but Justitia personae necessary to make his Sacrifice spotless and so effectual I think that of it self it is as directly the cause of our Pardon Justification and Life as Christs Passion is The Passion being satisfactory and so meritorious and the personal Holiness Meritorious and so Satisfactory For the truth is The Law that condemned us was not fulfilled by Christs suffering for us but the Lawgiver satisfied instead of the fulfilling of it And that Satisfaction lyeth in the substitution of that which as fully or more attaineth the ends of the Law as our own suffering would have done Now the ends of the Law may be attained by immediate Merit of Perfection as well as by Suffering but best by both For 1. By the perfect Holiness and Obedience of Christ the Holy and perfect will of God is pleased whence This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased 2. In order to the ends of Government Holiness and perfect Obedience is honoured and freed from the contempt which sin would cast upon it and the holiness of the Law in its Precepts is publickly honoured in this grand Exemplar In whom only the will of God was done on Earth as it is done in Heaven And such a Specimen to the World is greatly conducible to the ends of Government So that Christ voluntarily taking humane nature which as such is obliged to this Perfection He first highly merited of God the Father hereby and this with his Suffering went to attain the ends that our suffering should have attained much better So that at least as Meritorious if not secondarily as satisfactory I see not but Christs Holiness procureth the Justifying Covenant for us equally with his Death A Prince may pardon a Traitor for some noble service of his Friend as well as for his suffering much more for both This way go Grotius de satisf Mr. Bradshaw and others 3. When Mr Lawson saith that the Law binds not to Obedience and Punishment both he meaneth as to the same Act which contradicts not what Nigrinus and others say that it binds a sinner to punishment for sin past and yet to Obedience for the time to come which cannot be entire and perfect So pag. 311. Cap. 22. Qu. 2. Whether there be two parts of Justification Remission and Imputation of Christs Righteousness 1. He referreth us to what is aforecited against Imputation of Christs Active Righteousness separated or abstracted for Reward from the Passive 2. He sheweth that Paul taketh Remission of sin and Imputation of Righteousness for the same thing So say many of ours In conclusion I will mind the Reader that by reading some Authors for Imputation I am brought to doubt whether some deny not all true Remission of sin that is Remission of the deserved punishment Because I find that by Remission they mean A non-Imputation of sin under the formal notion of sin that God taketh it not to be our sin but Christs and Christs Righteousness and perfection to be so ours as that God accounteth us not as truly sinners And so they think that the Reatus Culpae as well as Poenae simply in it self is done away Which if it be so then the Reatus Poenae the obligation to punishment or the dueness of punishment cannot be said to be dissolved or remitted because it was never contracted Where I hold that it is the Reatus ad Poenam the Dueness of punishment only that is remitted and the guilt of sin not as in it self but in its Causality of punishment And so in all common language we say we forgive a man his fault when we forgive him all the penalty positive and privative Not esteeming him 1. Never to have done the fact 2. Or that fact not to have been a fault and his fault 3. but that punishment for that fault is forgiven him and the fault so far as it is a cause of punishment We must not feign God to judg falsly This maketh me think of a saying of Bp. Vshers to me when I mentioned the Papists placing Justification and Remission of sin conjunct he told me that the Papists ordinarily acknowledg no Remission And on search I find that Aquinas and the most of them place no true Remission of sin in Justification For by Remission which they make part of Justification they mean Mortification or destroying sin it self in the act or habit But that the pardon of the punishment is a thing that we all need is not denyable nor do they deny it though they deny it to be part of our Justification For it 's strange if they deny Christ the pardoning power which they give the Pope And as Joh. Crocius de Justif oft tells them They should for shame grant that Christs Righteousness may be as far imputed to us as they say a Saints or Martyrs redundant merits and supererogations are But if the Guilt of Fact and Guilt of Fault in it self considered be not both imputed first to us that is If we be not judged sinners I cannot see how we can be judged Pardoned sinners For he
the Relation of evil Wicked Vngodly and Vnrighteous which resulteth from them And so it maketh Christ really hated of God For God cannot but hate any one whom he reputeth to be truly ungodly a Hater of God an Enemy to him a Rebel as we all were whereas it was only the Guilt of Punishment and not of Crime as such that Christ assumed He undertook to suffer in the room of sinners and to be reputed one that had so undertaken But not to be reputed really a sinner an ungodly person hater of God one that had the Image of the Devil 5. Nay it maketh Christ to have been incomparably the worst man that ever was in the World by just reputation and to have been by just imputation guilty of all the sins of all the Elect that ever lived and reputed one of the Murderers of himself and one of the Persecutors of his Church or rather many and the language that Luther used Catechrestically to be strictly and properly true 6. It supposeth a wrong sence of the Imputation of Adams sin to his posterity As if we had been justly reputed persons existent in his person and so in him to have been persons that committed the same sin whereas we are only reputed to be now not then persons who have a Nature derived from him which being then seminally only in him deriveth by propagation an answerable Guilt of his sinful fact together with natural Corruption 7. It supposeth us to be Justifiable and Justified by the Law of Innocency made to Adam as it saith Obey perfectly and Live As if we fulfilled it by Christ which is not only an addition to the Scripture but a Contradiction For it is only the Law or Covenant of Grace that we are Justified by 8. It putteth to that end a false sence upon the Law of Innocency For whereas it commandeth Personal Obedience and maketh Personal punishment due to the offender This supposeth the Law to say or mean Either thou or one for thee shall Obey or Thou shalt obey by thy self or by another And if thou sin thou shalt suffer by thy self or by another Whereas the Law knew no Substitute or Vicar no nor Sponsor nor is any such thing said of it in the Scripture so bold are men in their additions 9. It falsly supposeth that we are not Judged and Justified by the new Covenant or Law of Grace but but is said by the Law of Innocency 10. It fathereth on God an erring judgment as if he reputed reckoned or accounted things to be what they are not and us to have done what we did not To repute Christ a Sponsor for sinners who undertook to obey in their natures and suffer in their place and stead as a Sacrifice to redeem them is all just and true And to repute us those for whom Christ did this But to repute Christ to have been really and every one of us or a sinner or guilty of sin it self or to repute us to have been habitually as Good as Christ was or actually to have done what he did either Naturally or Civilly and by Him as our substitute and to repute us Righteous by possessing his formal personal Righteousness in it self All these are untrue and therefore not to be ascribed to God To Impute it to us is but to Repute us as verily and groundedly Righteous by his Merited and freely-Given Pardon and Right to Life as if we had merited it our selves 11. It feigneth the same Numerical Accident their Relation of Righteousness which was in one subject to be in another which is Impossible 12. It maketh us to have satisfied Divine Justice for our selves and merited Salvation and all that we receive for our selves in and by another And so that we may plead our own Merits with God for Heaven and all his benefits 13. The very making and tenor of the new Covenant contradicteth this opinion For when God maketh a Law or Covenant to convey the effects of Christs Righteousness to us by degrees and upon certain Conditions this proveth that the very Righteousness in it self simply was not ours else we should have had these effects of it both presently and immediately and absolutely without new Conditions 14. This opinion therefore maketh this Law of Grace which giveth the benefits to us by these degrees and upon terms to be an injury to Believers as keeping them from their own 15. It seemeth to deny Christs Legislation in the Law of Grace and consequently his Kingly Office For if we are reputed to have fulfilled the whole Law of Innocency in Christ there is no business for the Law of Grace to do 16. It seemeth to make internal Sanctification by the Spirit needless or at least as to one half of its use For if we are by just Imputation in Gods account perfectly Holy in Christs Holiness the first moment of our believing nothing can be added to Perfection we are as fully Amiable in the sight of God as if we were sanctified in our selves Because by Imputation it is all our own 17. And so it seemeth to make our after-Obedience unnecessary at least as to half its use For if in Gods true account we have perfectly obeyed to the death by another how can we be required to do it all or part again by our selves If all the debt of our Obedience be paid why is it required again 18. And this seemeth to Impute to God a nature less holy and at enmity to sin than indeed he hath if he can repute a man laden with hateful sins to be as perfecty Holy Obedient and Amiable to him as if he were really so in himself because another is such for him 19. If we did in our own persons Imputatively what Christ did I think it will follow that we sinned that being unlawful to us which was Good in him It is a sin for us to be Circumcised and to keep all the Law of Moses and send forth Apostles and to make Church-Ordinances needful to Salvation Therefore we did not this in Christ And if not this they that distinguish and tell us what we did in Christ and what not must prove it I know that Christ did somewhat which is a common duty of all men and somewhat proper to the Jews and somewhat proper to himself But that one sort of men did one part in Christ and another sort did another part in him is to be proved 20. If Christ suffered but in the Person of sinful man his sufferings would have been in vain or no Satisfaction to God For sinful man is obliged to perpetual punishment of which a temporal one is but a small part Our persons cannot make a temporal suffering equal to that perpetual one due to man but the transcendent person of the Mediator did Obj. Christ bore both his own person and ours It belongeth to him as Mediator to personate the guilty sinner Ans It belongeth to him as Mediator to undertake the sinners punishment in his own
the same but not unmerically 4. And it is agreed that God judgeth not falsly and therefore taketh not Christ's Righteousness to be any more or otherwise ours than indeed it is nor imputeth it to us erroneously 5. Yet it is commonly agreed that Christ's Righteousness is OVRS in some sense And so far is justly reputed Ours or imputed to us as being Ours 6. And this ambiguous syallable OVRS enough to set another Age of Wranglers into bitter Church-tearing strife if not hindred by some that will call them to explain an ambiguous word is it that must be understood to end this Controversie Propriety is the thing signified 1. In the strictest sense that is called Ours which inhereth in us or that which is done by us 2. In a larger Moral sense that which a Man as the principal Cause doth by another as his Instrument by authorizing commanding perswading c. 3. In a yet larger sense that may be called OVRS which a third person doth partly instead of what we should have done had or suffered and partly for our use or benefit 4. In a yet larger sense that may be called OVRS which another hath or doth or suffereth for our Benefit though not in our stead and which will be for our good as that which a Friend or Father hath is his Friends or Childs and all things are Ours whether Paul or c. and the Godly are owners of the World in as much as God will use all for their good 7. It is therefore a Relation which Christ's Righteousness hath to us or we to it that must here be meant by the word OVRS Which is our RIGHT or Jus And that is acknowledged to be no Jus or Right to it in the foresaid denied sense And it is agreed that some Right it is Therefore to understand what it is the Titulus seu Fundamentum juris must be known 8. And here it is agreed 1. That we are before Conversion or Faith related to Christ as part of the Redeemed World of whom it is said 2 Cor. 5.19 That God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself not imputing to them their sins c. 2. That we are after Faith related to Christ as his Covenanted People Subjects Brethren Friends and Political Members yea as such that have Right to and Possession of Real Communion with him by his Spirit And that we have then Right to Pardon Justification and Adoption or have Right to Impunity in the promised degree and to the Spirits Grace and the Love of God and Heavenly Glory This Relation to Christ and this Right to the Benefits of his Righteousness are agreed on And consequently that his Righteousness is OVRS and so may be called as far as the foresaid Relations and Rights import II. Now a Relation as Ockam hath fully proved having no real entity beside the quid absolutum which is the Subject Fundamentum or Terminus he that yet raileth at his Brother as not saying enough or not being herein so wise as he and will maintain that yet Christ's Righteousness is further OVRS must name the Fundamentum of that Right or Propriety What more is it that you mean I think the make-bates have here little probability of fetching any more Fuel to their Fire or turning Christ's Gospel into an occasion of strife and mutual enmity if they will but be driven to a distinct explication and will not make confusion and ambiguous words their defence and weapons If you set your quarrelsome Brains on work and study as hard as you can for matter of Contention it will not be easie for you to find it unless you will raze out the names of Popery Socinianism Arminianism or Solifidianism Heresie c. instead of real Difference But if the angriest and lowdest Speakers be in the right Bedlam and Billingsgate may be the most Orthodox places Briefly 1. The foresaid Benefits of Christ's Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive as a Meritorious Satisfactory Purchasing Cause are ours 2. To say that the Benefits are Ours importeth that the Causal Righteousness of Christ is related to us and the Effects as such a Cause and so is it self OVRS in that sense that is so related 3. And Christ himself is OVRS as related to us as our Saviour the Procurer and Giver of those Benefits And do you mean any more by OVRS If you say that we deny any Benefits of Christ's Righteousness which you assert name what they are If you say that we deny any true Fundamentum juris or reason of our title name what that is If you say that we deny any true Relation to Christ himself tell us what it is If you cannot say that you are agreed 1. If you say that the Benefit denied by us is that we are judged by God as those that habitually and actively have perfectly fulfilled the Law of Innocency our selves though not in our natural Persons yet by Christ as representing us and so shall be justified by that Law of Innocency as the Fulfiller of it we do deny it and say That you subvert the Gospel and the true Benefits which we have by Christ 2. If you say that we deny that God esteemeth or reputeth us to be the very Subjects of that Numerical Righteousness in the Habits Acts Passion or Relation which was in the Person of Christ or to have done suffered or merited our selves in and by him as the proper Representer of our Persons therein and so that his Righteousness is thus imputed to us as truly in it self our own propriety we do deny it and desire you to do so also lest you deny Christianity 2. If you blame us for saying That we had or have no such Relation to Christ as to our Instrument or the proper full Representer of each Believers particular Person by whom we did truly fulfil the Law of Innocency habitually and actively and satisfied merited c. We do still say so and wish you to consider what you say before you proceed to say the contrary But if you come not up to this where will you find a difference Object 2. Christ is called The Lord our Righteousness and he is made Righteousness to us and we are made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 c. And by the Obedience of one many are made Righteous Answ And are we not all agreed of all this But can his Righteousness be Ours no way but by the foresaid Personation Representating How prove you that He is Our Righteousness and his Obedience maketh us Righteous 1. Because the very Law of Innocency which we dishonoured and broke by sin is perfectly fulfilled and honoured by him as a Mediator to repair the injury done by our breaking it 2. In that he suffered to satisfie Justice for our sin 3. In that hereby he hath merited of God the Father all that Righteousness which we are truly the Subjects of whether it be Relative or Qualitative or Active that is 1. Our Right
this Faith the Condition of our Title and if we do this we shall be judged evangelically Righteous that is such as have done all that was necessary to their right in Christ and the said Benefits and therefore have such a Right This is plain English and plain Truth wrangle no more against it and against the very Letter of the Text and against your Brethren and the Churches Concord by making Men believe that there are grievous Differences where there are none Reader I was going on to Answer the rest but my time is short Death is at the door Thou seest what kind of Work I have of it even to detect a Learned Man's Oversights and temerarious Accusations The weariness will be more to thee and me than the profit I find little before but what I have before answered here and oft elsewhere And therefore I will here take up only adding one Chapter of Defence of that Conciliation which I attempted in an Epistle to Mr. W. Allens Book of the Two Covenants and this Doctor like an Enemy of Peace assaulteth CHAP. VIII The Concord of Protestants in the Matter of Justification defended against Dr. Tullies Oppositions who would make Discord under pretence of proving it § 1. WHile Truth is pretended by most that by envious striving introduce Confusion and every evil Work it usually falleth out by God's just Judgment that such are almost as opposite to Truth as to Charity and Peace What more palpable instances can there be than such as on such accounts have lately assaulted me Mr. Danvers Mr. Bagshaw c. and now this Learned Doctor The very stream of all his Opposition against me about Imputation is enforced by this oft repeated Forgery that I deny all Imputation of Christ's Righteousness Yea he neither by fear modesty or ingenuity was restrained from writing pag. 117. Omnem ludibrio habet Imputationem He derideth all Imputation Judg by this what credit contentious Men deserve § 2. The conciliatory Propositions which I laid down in an Epistle to Mr. W. Allens Book I will here transcribe that the Reader may see what it is that these Militant Doctors war against Lest any who know not how to stop in mediocrity should be tempted by Socinians or Papists to think that we countenance any of their Errors or that our Differences in the point of Justification by Faith or Works are greater than indeed they are and lest any weak Opinionative Persons should clamour unpeaceably against their Brethren and think to raise a name to themselves for their differing Notions I shall here give the Reader such evidences of our real Concord as shall silence that Calumny Though some few Lutherans did upon peevish suspiciousness against George Major long ago assert That Good Works are not necessary to Salvation And though some few good Men whose Zeal without Judgment doth better serve their own turn than the Churches are jealous lest all the good that is ascribed to Man be a dishonour to God and therefore speak as if God were honoured most by saying the worst words of our selves and many have uncomely and irregular Notions about these Matters And though some that are addicted to sidings do take it to be their Godly Zeal to censure and reproach the more understanding sort when they most grosly err themselves And though too many of the People are carried about through injudiciousness and temptations to false Doctrines and evil Lives yet is the Argument of Protestants thus manifested 1. They all affirm that Christ's Sacrifice with his Holiness and perfect Obedience are the meritorious Cause of the forgiving Covenants and of our Pardon and Justification thereby and of our Right to Life Eternal which it giveth us And that this Price was not paid or given in it self immediately to us but to God for us and so that our foresaid Benefits are its Effects 2. They agree that Christ's Person and ours were not really the same and therefore that the same Righteousness which is an Accident of one cannot possibly be an Accident of the other 3. They all detest the Conceit that God should aver and repute a Man to have done that which he never did 4. They all agree that Christ's Sacrifice and Merits are really so effectual to procure our Pardon Justification Adoption and right to the sealing Gift of the Holy Ghost and to Glory upon our Faith and Repentance that God giveth us all these benefits of the New-Covenant as certainly for the sake of Christ and his Righteousness as if we had satisfied him and merited them our selves and that thus far Christ's Righteousness is ours in its Effects and imputed to us in that we are thus used for it and shall be judged accordingly 5. They all agree that we are justified by none but a practical or working Faith 6. And that this Faith is the Condition of the Promise or Gift of Justification and Adoption 7. And that Repentance is a Condition also though as it is not the same with Faith as Repentance of Unbelief is on another aptitudinal account even as a willingness to be cured and a willingness to take one for my Physician and to trust him in the use of his Remedies are on several accounts the Conditions on which that Physician will undertake the Cure or as willingness to return to subjection and thankful acceptance of a purchased Pardon and of the Purchasers Love and future Authority are the Conditions of a Rebel's Pardon 8. And they all agree that in the first instant of a Man's Conversion or Believing he is entred into a state of Justification before he hath done any outward Works and that so it is true that good Works follow the Justified and go not before his initial Justification as also in the sense that Austin spake it who took Justification for that which we call Sanctification or Conversion 9. And they all agree that Justifying Faith is such a receiving affiance as is both 〈…〉 Intellect and the Will and therefore as in 〈…〉 participateth of some kind of Love to the justifying Object as well as to Justification 10. And that no Man can chuse or use Christ as a Means so called in respect to his own intention to bring him to God the Father who hath not so much love to God as to take him for his end in the use of that means 11. And they agree that we shall be all judged according to our Works by the Rule of the Covenant of Grace though not for our Works by way of commutative or legal proper merit And Judging is the Genus whose Species is Justifying and Condemning and to be judged according to our Works is nothing but to be justified or condemned according to them 12. They all agree that no Man can possibly merit of God in point of Commutative Justice nor yet in point of Distributive or Governing Justice according to the Law of Nature or Innocency as Adam might have done nor by the Works of the Mosaical
Law 13. They all agree that no Works of Mans are to be trusted in or pleaded but all excluded and the Conceit of them abhorred 1. As they are feigned to be against or instead of the free Mercy of God 2. As they are against or feigned instead of the Sacrifice Obedience Merit or Intercession of Christ 3. Or as supposed to be done of our selves without the Grace of the Holy Ghost 4. Or as supposed falsly to be perfect 5. Or as supposed to have any of the afore-disclaimed Merit 6. Or as materially consisting in Mosaical Observances 7. Much more in any superstitious Inventions 8. Or in any Evil mistaken to be Good 9. Or as any way inconsistent with the Tenor of the freely pardoning Covenant In all these senses Justification by Works is disclaimed by all Protestants at least 14. Yet all agree that we are created to good Works in Christ Jesus which God hath ordained that we should walk therein and that he that nameth the Name of Christ must depart from iniquity or else he hath not the Seal of God and that he that is born of God sinneth not that is predominantly And that all Christ's Members are Holy Purified zealous of Good Works cleansing themselves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit that they might perfect Holiness in God's fear doing good to all Men as loving their Neighbours as themselves and that if any Man have not the Sanctifying Spirit of Christ he is none of his nor without Holiness can see God 15. They all judg reverently and charitably of the Ancients that used the word Merit of Good Works because they meant but a moral aptitude for the promised Reward according to the Law of Grace through Christ 16. They confess the thing thus described themselves however they like not the name of Merit lest it should countenance proud and carnal Conceits 17. They judg no Man to be Heretical for the bare use of that word who agreeth with them in the sense 18. In this sense they agree that our Gospel-Obedience is such a necessary aptitude to our Glorification as that Glory though a free Gift is yet truly a reward of this Obedience 19. And they agree that our final Justification by Sentence at the Day of Judgment doth pass upon the same Causes Reasons and Conditions as our Glorification doth 20. They all agree that all faithful Ministers must bend the labour of their Ministry in publick and private for promoting of Holiness and good Works and that they must difference by Discipline between the Obedient and the Disobedient And O! that the Papists would as zealously promote Holiness and good Works in the World as the true serious Protestants do whom they factiously and peevishly accuse as Enemies to them and that the Opinion Disputing and name of good Works did not cheat many wicked Persons into self-flattery and Perdition while they are void of that which they dispute for Then would not the Mahometans and Heathens be deterred from Christianity by the wickedness of these nominal Christians that are near them nor would the serious practice of that Christianity which themselves in general profess be hated scorned and persecuted by so many both Protestants and Papists nor would so many contend that they are of the True Religion while they are really of no Religion at all any further than the Hypocrites Picture and Carcass may be called Religion Were Men but resolved to be serious Learners serious Lovers serious Practisers according to their knowledg and did not live like mockers of God and such as look toward the Life to come in jest or unbelief God would vouchsafe them better acquaintance with the True Religion than most Men have § 3. One would think now that this should meet with no sharp Opposition from any Learned lover of Peace and that it should answer for it self and need no defence But this Learned Man for all that among the rest of his Military Exploits must here find some Matter for a Triumph And 1. Pag. 18. he assaulteth the third Propos They all detest the Conceit that God should aver and repute a Man to have done that which he never did And is not this true Do any sober Men deny it and charge God with Error or Untruth Will not this Man of Truth and Peace give us leave to be thus far agreed when we are so indeed But saith he Yea the Orthodox abhor the contrary if to have done it be taken in sensu forensi for in a Physical and Personal they abhor it not but deride it Doth the Aphorist abhor these and such-like sayings We are dead buried risen from the Dead with Christ Answ 1. Take notice Reader that it is but the Words and not the Matter that he here assaulteth so that all here seemeth but lis de nomine He before pag. 84. extolleth Chrysostom for thus expounding He made him sin for us that is to be condemned as an Offender and to die as a Blasphemer And this sense of Imputation we all admit But Chrysostom in that place oft telleth us That by Sin he meaneth both one counted a wicked Man by his Persecutors not by God and one that suffered that cursed Death which was due to wicked cursed Men And which of us deny not Justification by Works as Chrysostom doth I subscribe to his words It is God s Righteousness seeing it is not of Works for in them it were necessary that there be found no blot but of Grace which blotteth out and extinguisheth all sin And this begetteth us a double benefit for it suffereth us not to be lift up in mind because it is all the Gift of God and it sheweth the greatness of the benefit This is as apt an Expression of my Judgment of Works and Grace as I could chuse But it 's given to some Men to extol that in one Man which they fervently revile in others How frequently is Chrysostom by many accused as favouring Free-Will and Man's Merits and smelling of Pelagianism And he that is acquainted with Chrysostom must know That he includeth all these things in Justification 1. Remission of the Sin as to the Punishment 2. Remission of it by Mortification for so he calleth it in Rom. 3. p. mihi 63. 3. Right to Life freely given for Christ's sake 4. And Inherent Righteousness through Faith And he oft saith That this is called the Righteousness of God because as God who is living quickeneth the dead and as he that is strong giveth strength to the weak so he that is Righteous doth suddenly make them Righteous that were lapsed into sin as he there also speaketh And he oft tells us It is Faith it self and not only Christ believed in that is imputed for Righteousness or Justifieth And in Rom. 4. p. 80. he calleth the Reward the Retribution of Faith And pag. 89. he thus conjoyneth Faith and Christ's Death to the Question How Men obnoxious to so much sin are justified he sheweth that he blotted