hath made to the World which includes whatever he hath revealed to us concerning his own Person Natures Mediation and the whole Will of God concerning our Salvation which must be learnt from the express Declarations of the Gospel not from some fanciful and imaginary consequences which is a very unsafe way in matters of pure Revelation Doctor Owen hath advanced an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ as the only Medium of saving knowledge that is when we have from the Gospel learnt who Christ is what he hath done and suffered for us when we have learnt those things which concern his Person Offices and Work we may then give free scope to our fancies and draw such conclusions as are no where expresly contained in Scripture or could not possibly have been learnt from Scripture at least not clearly and savingly without such an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ that is without reasoning and drawing conclusions from what Christ hath done suffered These conclusions must be formed into artificial Theories and Schemes of Religion and then these are the great Gospel-Mysteries and the only saving knowledge of Christ and those men only preach Christ who fill peoples heads with such choice Speculations as they have learnt from this Acquaintance with Christ. I thought there was very great reason to oppose this Principle which gave such boundless scope to mens fancies and allowed every man to frame and mold a Religion according to his own humour and was the more confirmed in this when I observed what strange Mysteries the Doctor himself had learn'd from this Acquaintance with Christ which I am sure without this he could never have learnt either from Scripture or Reason I gave several instances of this nature out of his own Writings which shall be made good in due time at present I must observe what Doctrines I there reject and in what sence I rejected such a notion of Gods Justice as represents him as fierce and savage as the worst of beings such a notion of Justice as disparages the Satisfaction of Christ as if the whole design of it were to gratifie Revenge and to appease a furious and merciless Deity which notion at first frighted Socinus out of his Wits and made him rather chuse to deny the satisfaction of Christ than to believe any thing so unworthy of God though thanks be to God that we need do neither I reject such a notion of Justice as disparages the Wisdom of God in the contrivance of our Redemption by Jesus Christ for if it were absolutely necessary for God to punish sin and there were no other Person in the World fit or able to bear the punishment of sin and to make expiation for it but only Christ there was required no great Wisdom to make the choice I reject such a notion of the Mercy and Patience of God as represents it to be the effect only of the satisfaction of Revenge which is like the tameness of an angry man when his passion is over which is an unworthy conceit of the infinite Love and Goodness of the Divine Nature I reject such a notion of Mercy as represents God to be fond easie to Sinners while they continue so and I think such a notion of Justice and Mercy very unworthy of God which represents him more concerned to punish Sin than to reform it And is it not hard that a man must be scandalized with denying the satisfaction of Christ and blaspheming God meerly for rejecting such Doctrines as are injurious to the Satisfaction of Christ and when they are pursued to their just and natural consequences are down right blasphemy against God this is a certain way to prevent the confutation of such Doctrines for you cannot confute them without discovering their blasphemy and whoever does so shall himself be charged as a Blasphemer But to proceed I reject such a notion of our Union to the Person of Christ as is unintelligible such as the Great Patrons of it cannot explain nor any one else understand for since all our hopes of Salvation depends upon our Union to Christ I can by no means think that this is such a Mystery as surpasses humane knowledge for that on which the happiness of all men depends ought in reason to be so plain that it may be understood by all I reject such a notion of our Union to the Person of Christ as intitles us to all the Personal Excellencies Fulness Beauty and to the Personal Righteousness of Christ as much as Marriage intitles a Woman to her Husbands Estate that whatever Christ hath done and suffered is as much reckoned ours when we are united to him as if we had done and suffered the same things our selves and that upon this account we are justified only by the Righteousness of Christ without respect to any inherent Righteousness in our selves Now I reject this because no Union can thus intitle us to Christs personal Excellencies and Righteousness but such a natural Union as makes Christ and Believers One Person that they are Christed with Christ which is an absurd and dangerous Heresie but neither our Marriage to Christ nor his being our Surety or Mediator can effect this for whatever Union there may be between the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers while their Persons remain distinct their Properties and Qualifications and Righteousness must be considered as distinct too and though we may receive great advantage by what Christ hath done and suffered yet it cannot be reckoned ours in that strict notion as if it had been done by us and there is a vast difference between these two notions for the first only makes the Righteousness of Christ the meritorious cause of our Pardon and Reward which makes it necessary to have a Righteousness of our own to entitle us to these Blessings but the second makes the Righteousness of Christ our Personal Righteousness which destroys the necessity of any inherent Righteousness in our selves but of this more hereafter I reject such a notion of our Union to Christ whereby bad men may be nay must be united to Christ while they continue in their sins for if it once be granted as it must be granted if we believe the Gospel that our Union to Christ gives us an actual interest in all his Promises such as Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life it is easie to observe how this overthrows the whole Design of the Gospel if a bad man while he continues so may be united to Christ for then he is a Son of God and an Heir of Everlasting Life and what becomes then of all those Gospel-Threatnings which denounce the wrath of God against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men When Christ tells us That he who breaks the least of his Commandments shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven that except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and when St.
most precious Iewels of Christs Body and Blood whereby our Ransome might be fully paid the Law fulfilled and his Iustice satisfied There is no Controversie between us about this matter that it was an expression of the undeserved Goodness of God to send Christ into the World to save Sinners And secondly The Mercy of God is seen in the very Act of Justifying us in accepting this Atonement and in forgiving our sins Thus we are informed in the second part of that Sermon of Salvation Justification is not the Office of Man but of God for Man cannot make himself righteous by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest arrogancy and presumption of Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own Sins and so Justifie himself But Justification is the Office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him but which we receive of him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his most dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Saviour and Justifier Jesus Christ. Bywhich words it is very plain what is understood by Justification being Gods Act and not Mans that is that it is an Act of Favour and Grace not of Merit and Desert Though God may be said to Justifie an Innocent Man when he pronounces him Just and Righteous according to Law which is the proper office of a Judge i. e. to acquit an Innocent Man when he is arraigned yet in this case an Innocent Man may be said to Justifie himself because he is Justified by his own Actions and God only like a Just and Righteous Judge pronounces the Sentence of Justification that is acquits and absolves him as his actions deserve which strict Justice requires But in the Justification of a Sinner who dares not stand the trial of strict Justice but appeals to the Grace and Mercy of God Justification is properly Gods Act and not Mans is owing to the Divine Grace and Mercy not to Mans Merit and Desert Upon the same account we are told in the same place that not our own Act to believe in Christ or that this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth not justifie us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves Which I confess sounds very like what some men say That Faith doth not justifie us as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and applies it to us by which Righteousness thus apprehended by Faith we are justified but there is nothing less meant in this place as will appear from considering the whole Sentence which is this So that the true understanding of this Doctrine We be justified freely by Faith without Works or that we be justified by Faith in Christ only is not that this our own Act to believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth justifie us and deserve our Justification unto us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves but the true understanding and meaning thereof is that although we hear Gods Word and believe it and do never so many Works thereunto yet we must renounce the Merit of all our said Vertues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Vertues and good Deeds which we have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve Remission of our Sins and our Justification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Christ Jesus the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby Gods Grace and Remission as well of Original Sin in Baptism as of all Actual Sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to him again The meaning of which is plain that we are not justified by Faith as our own act as we are not justified by Hope and Charity as our own acts that is that they cannot merit our Justification or the Forgiveness of our sins When we have done the best we can we must still fly to the Mercy of God through the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ that distinction of Faiths justifying not as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and cloaths us with the perfect Robes of his Righteousness for which God accounts us perfectly Righteous is of a later date than these Homilies and very inconsistent with the Doctrine contained in them Thus you see what Gods part is in the Justification of a Sinner viz. To provide a Ransom and to forgive sins in vertue of that Ransom that is to justifie those who according to the strictness and rigor of the Law are not Just and Righteous Persons Thus to conclude this in the words of the Homily You have heard the Office of God in our Iustification and how we receive it of him freely by his Mercy without our Deserts Let us now consider what is Christs part in our Justification and that is expressed by Iustice that is the satisfaction of Iustice or the Price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and shedding of his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly The plain meaning of which is that we are justified for the sake of Christs Merits that his Obedience in doing and suffering the Will of God in dying for our sins and in fulfilling the Law is the meritorious cause of our Justification that is did deserve at Gods hands that for Christs sake he should pardon all humble penitent and believing Sinners This is all the Imputation of Christs Righteousness which our Church acknowledges that the Righteousness of Christ is the meritorious Cause of our Justification Thus we are told That Infants being baptized and dying in their Infancy are by this Sacrifice washed from their sins brought to Gods favour and made his Children and Inheritors of his Kingdom of Heaven And they which in act or deed do sin after their Baptism when they turn again to God unfeignedly they are likewise washed by this Sacrifice from their sins in such sort that there remaineth not any spot of sin that shall be imputed to their damnation Which is to the same sense with that of St. Iohn that if we walk in the light as he is in the light if we are holy as God is we have fellowship one with another and the Blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin 1 Iohn i. 7. And to this sense our Church expounds those Texts Rom. iii. All have offended and have need of the Glory of God but are justified freely by his Grace by Redemption which is in Iesus Christ whom God hath set forth to us for a Reconciler and Peace-maker through
Christ and to this I will stand Let us hear then what Mr. Ferguson has to object against it And first he can by no means understand how the Righteousness of Christs Life and Death can be the meritorious cause of Gods forgiving our sins and follies he should have said of that Covenant wherein God promises to forgive our sins upon certain Conditions for asmuch as according to what I express elsewhere his Essential Goodness obliged him to it The words which he cites to this purpose are these That the natural notions which men have of God assure them that he is very good and that it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace Now I would know of Mr. Ferguson which of these three he will reject whether he will deny that the natural notion of a Deity includes infinite Goodness or that the notion of infinite Goodness includes Pardoning Grace when there is a just and honourable occasion for it or that the Merits of Christs Life and Death have purchas'd the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel If he believe all these he is as much concerned to answer this Objection as I am if he deny them he must either turn Atheist or Socinian But pray who told him that the Goodness of God did immediately oblige him to pardon Sinners or that the Goodness of God confers an antecedent title on Sinners to Grace and Pardon May not a good God consult the Reputation of his Holiness and of his Authority and Government and dispence his Pardons in such prudent Methods as his own Infinite Wisdom shall direct And may he not then require the intervention of a Sacrifice and of a very meritorious one too to purchase and seal his Pardon to Sincers The Essential Goodness of God only proves That he may pardon Sin without a Sacrifice but it does not prove that either he will or must The next Exception is very surprizing That because I elsewhere assert That the whole Mystery of the Recovery of Mankind consists only in repairing the Divine Image which was defaced by Sin that is in making all men truly good and vertuous c. He cannot imagine how the Covenant of Grace can be so much as necessary to the promising of Remession of Sins much less that the Death of Christ was needful to procure it to that end But pray why so Is not the Promise of Pardon purchas'd and sealed with the Blood of Christ absolutely necessary to encourage men to be good Does not the Gospel represent this to be the last and ultimate end of what Christ hath done and suffered to rescue Mankind from the Power of the Devil and Dominion of their Lusts and to renew them after the Image of God If Mr. Ferguson be ignorant in these matters I can direct him to a very good Book which will better instruct him But suppose he know no other end of Christs Death but to satisfie a natural vindictive inexorable Iustice yet if this must be done before any thing else can be done is it not absolutely necessary to the last and ultimate end which is to transform men into the Image of God and to bring them to the fruition of him For the satisfaction of Justice in what sense soever he pleases to understand it can only be a means in order to the Recovery of lost Man not the Recovery it self In the next place he tells us That it seems inconsistent with the Wisdom and Sapience of God to introduce a perfect Righteousness such as that of his Son was meerly to make way for his justifying us upon an imperfect Righteousness such as that of our Obedience is What force there may be in that phrase of introducing a perfect Righteousness I cannot tell but I can discover no inconsistency with the Wisdom of God to accept reward those who are sincerely but not perfectly righteous for the sake of one who is If God bestowed so many Blessings on the Posterity of Abraham for the sake of their Father who was not perfectly righteous I wonder our Author should think it any derogation to the Divine Wisdom to accept and reward our imperfect Obedience for the sake of the perfect Righteousness Obedience of Christ. Nay though we should suppose that God had sent Christ into the world upon no other design but to set a most perfect Example of Holiness Obedience to the Divine Will and to give a plain Demonstration how highly he is pleased with Obedience to his Laws should not only greatly reward him in his own Person but should promise for his sake to pardon and reward all those who imitate though imperfectly his Example which in our Authors Phrase is to introduce a perfect Righteousness meerly that he may justifie us upon an imperfect one this would be no greater blemish to the Wisdom of God than it is to chuse fit and proper ways of expressing his love to Holiness and encouraging the Obedience of his Creatures But our Author proceeds very Rhetorically Nor shall I â—â—gue how that the Righteousness of Christs Life and Sacrifice of his Death must be imputed to us for Iustification in proportion to our Sins having been imputed to him in order to his Expiatory Sufferings He may argue thus if he pleases and I shall perfectly agree with him in it Let us then consider how he manages this Argument Christs Sufferings must not be attributed meerly to Gods Dominion without any respect to Sin This I grant therefore our sins were imputed to him not only in the effects of them but in the guilt This I so far grant that the Sufferings of Christ had respect to the guilt of our Sins otherwise he could not have been a Sacrifice for Sin but whereas he adds That it is a thing utterly unintelligible I hope Mr. Ferguson thinks it never the less true for that how Christ could be made sin for us and have our punishment transferred to him without a previous imputation of sin and the derivation of its guilt upon him I am so far of another mind that I think it unintelligible how it should be so for besides that guilt cannot be transferred upon an innocent Person though punishment may I cannot understand how Christ should suffer for our sins if the guilt of our sins were transferred upon himself if he died for our sins it is plain that the guilt is accounted ours still though the punishment be transferred on him And this is essential to the nature of a Sacrifice that it dies not for it self but for another and therefore not for its own but for anothers guilt continuing anothers Christ was no Sinner in any sense but a Sacrifice for Sin which differ just as much as bearing the guilt and bearing the punishment of sin Were our sins transferred on Christ in Mr. Ferguson's way so that our sins become his and that he may be called a Sinner nay the greatest of Sinners the necessary consequence of this
Faith and Manners The Authority of Testimony is proper only to those Ages which immediately succeeded the Apostles for it may reasonably be presumed that those Persons who convers'd with the Apostles themselves or convers'd with those who convers'd with the Apostles who understood the Phrase and Dialect of that Age and those particular Controversies and Disputes which were then on foot may be able to give us a better account of the traditionary sense of Scripture and of the practice of the Apostles than those who lived in after-Ages and upon this account the Writings of those who lived in the first Centuries have always had a just Esteem and Authority in the Christian Church but still the more Ancient they are the greater is their Authority and the farther they are removed from the Fountain of Tradition so their Authority lessens The Authority of Discipline and Order is that Authority which every particular Church has over her own Members or which the Universal Church represented in General Councils has over particular Churches For while we live in Communion with any Church we oblige our selves to submit to its Government and at least so far to receive those Doctrines which she owns as not to disturb Publick Peace and Order by our Private Disputes But in all other cases he has the greatest Authority who has the best Reason and it is a childish thing to urge the bare Authority of any Man or Church when it hath neither Scripture nor Reason to support it So that I do not urge the consent of these Reformed Churches upon account of any inherent Authority but to make it appear how vainly Mr. Ferguson brags when he charges me with opposing the received Doctrines of Protestant Churches For indeed those Doctrines which I oppose are meer Novelties and were never publickly owned by any Reformed Church and never had any greater Authority than what an Assembly of Divines and an Ordinance of Parliament could give them He who understands what notion the first Reformers had of justifying Faith that it is fiducia misericordia propter Christum a firm and stedfast belief and hope that they should find mercy with God for Christs sake can never imagine that they once dreamt of such an Imputation of Christs Righteousness to them as should make them stand in no need of Mercy or of such a Iustification as is the Off-spring of Iustice and imports one transacting with us in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity in opposition to Pardon and Remission which is the result of Mercy and the act of one exercising favour which is Mr. Ferguson's Account of it in his own words But thirdly As this Notion of Imputation has no Foundation in Scripture as I abundantly proved in my former Discourse of which our Author takes no notice and it was very wisely done of him for I am sure he cannot answer it so it overthrows the principal Doctrines of the Gospel and contradicts its main design I shall briefly name some few First Justification by a perfect Righteousness is inconsistent with pardon and forgiveness Mr. Ferguson acknowledges That to justifie and to pardon are wholly distinct in their Natures and Ideas and always separated in the cases of such as are arraigned at humane Tribunals and that thus it is in the actings of God too Now I wonder he did not consider that by the same reason the same subject is not capable of both He who is universally justified in our Authors notion that is who is acquitted and absolved in a Juridical way i. e. as perfectly innocent and righteous needs no pardon nor is he capable of it because he has no sins to be pardon'd and he who is pardon'd cannot be justified in this sense because Pardon supposes him a Sinner and Justification supposes him innocent which hath some little appearance of a Contradiction So that the Gospel-way of Justification which is by Pardon and Forgiveness is quite discarded and we are justified by a legal Righteousness or by the Works of the Law that is by a perfect and unsinning Obedience though the Apostle tells us That by the Works of the Law no flesh shall be justified for though this perfect Righteousness whereby we are justified be not our own but the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us yet it is the Works of the Law still which is an express Contradiction to the Apostles Doctrine And I wonder what our Author thinks of all those Promises of Pardon which are contained in the Gospel and which are the greatest support and comfort of Sinners when it is impossible to find any place for them in his New-Gospel Secondly This notion of Justification overthrows the Necessity and Merit of Christs Death and Sacrifice the vertue of a Sacrifice consists in the expiation and forgiveness of sin but now if Justification excludes Pardon there is no need of a Sacrifice if nothing will satisfie the demands of the Law but a perfect and unsinning Obedience then there can be no Sacrifice for sin or at best it is to no purpose for it cannot satisfie the Law and therefore not expiate our sin and if Christ have satisfied the Law by his perfect Obedience there is no reason why he should suffer the penalty for no Law can oblige us both to obey it perfectly and to endure the Penalties for the breach of it though we do perfectly obey it So that if Christ died for our sins and if remission of sins must be preached in his name then we are not perfectly righteous by the imputation of his Righteousness but must obtain the pardon of our sins through Faith in his Blood Thirdly This notion of Justification destroys the Grace and Mercy of God in the Justification of a Sinner This Mr. Ferguson expresly owns That Pardon indeed if there could be any such thing is the result of Mercy but Iustification is the Off-spring of Iustice and imports Gods transacting with us in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity And I know not any assertion which more expresly destroys the Grace of the Gospel Whereas St. Paul attributes our Justification as well as Pardon to the Grace of God We are justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Iesus Nor will it relieve him to say that our Justification is an Act of Grace because though we are justified in a proper Law-notion by a perfect Righteousness yet this Righteousness is not inherent but imputed which is an act of Grace for besides that this implies a contradiction to be justified in a proper Law-sense by an imputed that is an improper Righteousness and that God proceeds in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law and yet admits of such a Righteousness as not the Law but only Grace can accept I say besides this we may for the very same Reason say that Pardon is an act of Justice because it is purchas'd by the Death of Christ.
that Homily which seem to favour that notion of our Justification by the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness though that phrase of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness is nowhere used throughout the whole Homily but if we will take that Explication which the Homily it self gives of them it will evidently appear that there was no such thing intended by them I shall produce these expressions in their proper places and in the management of this Argument shall First explain the sense of our Church concerning the Doctrine of Justification out of the Homilies of Salvation Faith Good Works and Repentance And Secondly Show you how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and what a just reason this is for a more particular explication of those Expressions which occasioned the corruption of the wholsom Doctrine of our Church First I shall enquire what is the true sense of the Church of England concerning the Doctrine of Justification And first I observe that our Church places the nature and essence of Justification in the forgiveness of sins This is evident from the very first words of the Homily Because all men be Sinners and Offenders against God and Breakers of his Law Commandments therefore can no man by his own Acts Words and Deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God but every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another Righteousness or Iustification to be received at Gods own hands that is to say the forgiveness of his sins and trespasses in such things as he hath offended And this Iustification or Righteousness the forgiveness of sins which we so receive of Gods Mercy and Christs Merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of God for our perfect and full Iustification So that our full and perfect Justification consists in the forgiveness of our sins whereby God over-looking what we have done amiss deals with us as with Righteous Persons that is bestows Eternal Life on us The Homily takes notice of two ways of Justification The first is by our own Works when we live so innocently and vertuously as to be acquitted and absolved by God according to the strict Rules of Law and Justice But in this way no Sinner can be justified for the Law justifies no man who is a Transgressor of the Law and therefore since we are all Sinners and can neither expiate our past sins nor perfectly keep the Law for the future it is impossible that we should be justified by our own Acts and Deeds It remains therefore that no Sinner can be justified or accounted Just and Righteous before God without the pardon and forgiveness of his Sins this is the Justification and Righteousness of a Sinner that God forgives his wilful sins and covers all the defects of his good Actions for when the sin is pardoned and covered the man is innocent and righteous Now this Account I am sure cannot please Dr. Owen and his Friends who look upon the forgiveness of sin but as one part of our Justification and that the most inconsiderable too which only makes us innocent and delivers us from the condemnation of the Law but cannot entitle us to future Happiness besides Innocency as they tell us there is required a perfect Righteousness the first is owing to the Death of Christ which expiates our sins the second to the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness to us which makes us perfectly just and righteous this is a down-right contradiction to the Doctrine of our Church which teaches us that God accepts and allows of this forgiveness of sin for our full and perfect Iustification And indeed forgiveness of sins is a true Evangelical way of Justification in opposition to a Legal Justification which consists in perfect and unsinning Obedience the first our Church requires but the Doctor and his Friends exact the latter a perfect Righteousness of Works for as the Doctor observes Life is not to be obtained unless all be done that the Law requires that is still true If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments they must be kept by us or by our Surety All the difference the Doctor knows between the Law and the Gospel is only this that the Law required a perfect Righteousness from every man in his own Person the Gospel accepts of a perfect Righteousness in the Person of our Mediator but still we are justified by a Legal not Evangelical Righteousness that is by a Righteousness of Works not by pardon and forgiveness And it has been before observed by some learned men that to place our Justification in the forgiveness of our sins as our Church doth and in the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness to us as others do are not very consistent For by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us we are Legally Righteous or have a perfect Righteousness of Works and Forgiveness of sins and a perfect Righteousness destroy each other for if we are perfectly Righteous whether in our own Persons or by Imputation we need no Forgiveness and if we need Forgiveness it is plain that God does not so much as impute a perfect Righteousness to us So that when our Church places the whole nature of our Justification in the Forgiveness of sins it is a good Argument that she never thought of a Legal Righteousness of Works of the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness and Obedience to make us righteous before God But for a fuller Explication of this Doctrine of Justification we are taught in that Homily that there are especially three things which must go together in our Iustification upon Gods part his great Mercy and Grace upon Christs part Iustice that is the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and sheddidg his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly and upon our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Iesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us This is a much more intelligible way of explaining the Doctrine of Justification than by the Material Formal Efficient Instrumental Causes and such-like terms of Art which need more explication than the Doctrine it self and therefore I shall follow this method and reduce the Doctrine of the Homilies under these three Heads What is Gods part what is Christs part and what is required on Mans part in the business of Justification First Let us consider what is Gods part in the Justification of a Sinner and that is the Mercy and Grace of God which expresses it self first in providing a Ransom for us as it is expressed in the Homily That our Iustification doth come freely by the meer Mercy of God and of so great and free mercy that whereas all the World was not able of themselves to pay any part towards their Ransom it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite mercy without any our Desert or Deserving to prepare for us the
Homily by many Scripture-Promises and Examples and therefore we must consider what our Church means by Repentance and the explication of this is reduced to four principal Points From what we must return to whom we must return by whom we may be able to convert and the manner how to turn to God First From whence or from what things we must return and that is From all our sins not only grosser vices but the filthy lusts and inward concupiscences of the Flesh. All these things must they forsake that will truly turn unto the Lord and repent aright For sith for such things the wrath of God cometh upon the Children of Disobedience no end of punishment ought to be look'd for as long as we continue in such things But this must be done by Faith for sith that God is a Spirit he can by no other means be apprehended and taken hold upon That is God being a Spirit we cannot see him with bodily Eyes nor go to him on our Legs nor take hold of him with an Arm of Flesh and therefore this Metaphor of returning to God and going to him and taking hold of him must be expounded to a spiritual sense is the work of Faith which discovers him who is invisible and unites our Souls and Spirits to him And We have need of a Mediator for to bring and reconcile us unto him who for our sins is angry with us the same is Jesus Christ who being true and natural God c. took our nature upon him that so he might be a Mediator between God and us and pacifie his wrath In the second part of the Homily we have this general Description of Repentance That it is a true Returning unto God whereby men forsaking utterly their Idolatry and Wickedness do with a lively Faith embrace love and worship the true living GOD only and give themselves to all manner of good Works which by Gods Word they know to be acceptable unto him And we are there informed That there are four Parts of Repentance the first is Contrition of the Heart For we must be earnestly sorry for our sins and unfeignedly lament and bewail that we have by them so grievously offended our most bounteous and merciful God c. The second is an unfeigned Confession and acknowledging of our sins to God The third is Faith whereby we do apprehend and take hold upon the Promises of God touching the free pardon and forgiveness of our sins which Promises are sealed up unto us with the death and blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Reason of this is because Contrition and Confession will avail us nothing unless we stedfastly believe and be fully perswaded that God for his Son Jesus Christs sake will forgive us all our sins for though we be never so earnestly sorry for our sins and acknowledge and confess them yet all these things shall be but means to bring us to utter desparation except we do stedfastly believe that God our heavenly Father will for his Son Jesus Christs sake pardon and forgive us our Offences and Trespasses and utterly put them out of remembrance in his sight therefore they that teach Repentance without Christ and a lively Faith in the Mercy of God do only teach Cains or Iudas Repentance That is they teach men to be sorry for their sins without any hopes of Pardon and Forgiveness which is only to be obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ. The fourth part of Repentance is an amendment of Life in bringing forth fruits worthy of Repentance for they that do truly repent must be clean alter'd and changed they must become New Creatures they must be no more the same that they were before As appears from Iohn the Baptists Exhortation to the Scribes and Pharisees whereby we do learn that if we will have the wrath of God to be pacified we must in no wise dissemble but turn unto him again with a true and sound Repentance which may be known and declared by good Fruits as by most sure and infallible signs thereof This I think is as plain as words can make it that Repentance which consists in a hearty sorrow for all our sins and in a humble Confession of them to Almighty God and in a sincere Faith and Trust in the Mercies of God through our Lord Jesus Christ together with an actual amendment of our lives is according to the sense of our Church absolutely necessary to obtain the pardon of our sins that is Iustification by the free Grace of God This has often made me wonder that any one should affix such a Doctrine as this to the Church of England That Repentance it self is not antecedently necessary to our Iustification I am sure the Learned Bishop Davenant was of another mind in this point for he expresly asserts that there are some Works sine quibus Iustificatio nunquam fuit ab ullo mortalium obtenta nunquam obtinebitur without which Justification never was and never shall be obtained by any mortal man among which he reckons true Repentance and Faith and the love of God and of our Neighbour Haec hujusmodi opera cordis interna sunt omnibus justificatis necessaria non quod contineant in se efficaciam seu meritum Iustificationis sed quod juxta ordinationem divinam vel requiruntur ut conditiones praeviae seu concurrentes sicuti poenitere credere vel ut effecta à fide justificante necessario manantia ut amare Deum c. i. e. These and such-like internal Works of the Heart are necessary to all that are justified not that they are meritorious Causes of Justification but because according to the Divine Appointment they are required either as previous or concurring conditions such as Repentance and Faith or as effects which necessarily flow from a justifying Faith such as to love God c. Where this Learned Prelate doth expresly assert that Repentance as well as Faith is a previous Condition of our Justification and I fear will hereafter be accounted one of our Innovators And that distinction which the Bishop makes between those Works which are required as previous Conditions of Justification as to repent and believe and those Works which are necessary Effects of justifying Faith which must always be present in the justified Person as to love God c. gives a plain and easie answer to the grand Exception against the antecedent necessity of Repentance to our Justification viz. Because then it must precede Faith it self I suppose because every true Believer is actually justified in the first instant of his being a true Believer whereas all good Works and therefore Repentance and Contrition which are certainly good Works are the Effects and Fruits of Faith and so consequently must follow our Justification by Faith unless we will place the Effects before their Cause But this is absolutely false that all good Works are the effects and fruits of justifying Faith for there are some good Works which
and the free choise of the Divine Will and therefore though we may conclude from the Divine Nature that God will be gracious and compassionate to sinners yet we cannot certainly know in what measures and proportions God will exercise this Grace and Mercy without an express declaration of his Will and when God has declared his Will as he has now done in the Gospel it is then at best to no purpose to argue from his Nature unless we have a mind to encourage Sinners to expect more Grace from the Divine Nature than God hath promised in the Revelation of the Gospel So that though we should suppose that he did not consider this boundless Grace in Christ as Mediator but considered it as in him who is Mediator which by the way spoils all the comfort sinners might take from the boundless mercy of the Divine Nature in Christ if this be not in him as our Mediator unless we may expect more Grace from Christ upon his Personal account than from his Mediation that is more from the Person than from the Gospel of Christ which contains the terms of his Mediation which he so vehemently disowns yet I say this Argument were weak and fallacious because we cannot reason thus from the Divine Nature it self for though the Divine Nature be the Fountain of Grace and Mercy yet the Divine Will regulates the exercise of it and assigns its measures much less can we reason thus from the Divine Nature considered in Christ as our Mediator for a Mediator as Mediator though he be God-man is not the Fountain but Minister of Grace as Christ witnesses That he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him And thus he is considered in Scripture even where he is said to be the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and truth which seems not primarily to refer to the inherent glory and perfection of his Nature though that may be proved from it but to the glory of his Ministry which was the only glory the Apostles could then discover when his Essential Majesty was hid under a vail of flesh and therefore I think still the Doctor would do well to make God the Father the Fountain of Grace for though when we consider the three Persons in the Sacred Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Essence what is attributed to one is supposed to be attributed to the other yet when we consider them under different capacities and relations it is not so Christ as God essentially one with the Father and Holy Spirit is the Fountain of Grace as Mediator he is the Minister of it the Father sends and Christ is sent the Father prescribes his work and he finishes it And therefore to make Christ as Mediator the Fountain of Grace is a derogation from God the Father whom the Scripture makes the first mover and supreme Agent in the work of our Redemption I observed in the same place another instance of this way of reasoning from the Divine Nature in Christ to prove that Eternity Unchangeableness and Fruitfulness of his Love Now this I say is a way of proving the Eternity Unchangeableness and Fruitfulness of Christ's love which the Scripture no where teaches but is wholly owing to an acquaintance with Christ And I wonder that the Doctor should be at a loss to know what it is I except against whether it be that the love of Christ as he is God is Eternal Or that it is Unchangeable Or that it is Fruitful or Effective of good things unto the Persons Beloved It is neither of these in themselves considered for I own all as he very well knows but I except partly against his way of stating these things and partly against his way of proving them or rather against both together What he means by this Eternal Unchangeable and Fruitful Love he tells us himself The love which I intend and whereunto I ascribe those properties is the especial love of God in Christ unto the Elect. This is such a love as is Eternal without beginning and without end as does not change with the changes of the object as the love of men does and is so fruitful and effectual as to love Life Grace holiness into us to love us into Covenant to love us into heaven Now my business is not to dispute the case whether God have elected some particular Persons whom he will infallibly bring to glory which I never denied yet and I think never shall But the question is Whether the Eternity and Unchangeableness and fruitfulness of this Electing Love can be proved from the Eternity and Immutability c. of the Divine Nature The inconvenience I then urged it with was this If this love be so Eternal and Unchangeable c. because the Divine Nature is so then it was always so for God always was what he is and that which is Eternal could never be other than it is now and why could not this Eternal and Unchangeable and Fruitful love as well preserve us from falling into Sin and Misery and Death as love Life and Holiness into us all To this the Doctor answers That Gods love is in Scripture represented Unchangeable because he himself is so but it doth not hence follow that God loveth any one naturally or necessarily His love is a free act of his Will and therefore though it be like himself such as becomes his nature yet it is not necessarily determined on any object nor limited as to the Nature Degrees Effects of it which he proves from the different dispensations of the Grace and Mercy of God under the Law and Gospel and adds God is always the same that he was love in God is always the same that it was but the Objects Acts and Effects of this Love with the measures and degrees of them are the issues of the counsel or free purpose of his Will Now this Answer is what I would have and plainly discovers the Sophistry of this way of reasoning For if this electing Love be not the immediate and necessary effect of the Divine Nature but the free choise and purpose of his Will then we cannot learn either that it is or what it is from the bare contemplation of the Divine Nature but from the declarations of the Divine Will for we can prove nothing from the Divine Nature but what has a necessary and inseparable connexion with some attribute and perfection in God but where a free choice and counsel intervenes we must be contented to be ignorant or to learn from Revelation We may certainly conclude from the holiness and goodness of God that God will love good men and hate the wicked because holiness includes in the very notion of it a necessary love to goodness and hatred of evil and from the immutability of God we may conclude his unchangeable love to goodness and hatred of evil as the Psalmist expresseth it Psal. 103. 17 18. But the mercy
justified in time as soon as they are capable of it that is as soon they are in being In his Book of Communion p. 204. he has ten Propositions much to the same purpose He there tells us That Christ in his undertaking of the work of our Redemption with God was constituted and considered as a common publick person in the stead of them for whose reconciliation to God he suffered And that being thus a common Person upon his undertaking as to merit and efficacy and upon his actual performance as to solemn declaration this is what Dr. Crisp calls Gods laying iniquity upon Christ by way of Obligation and by way of Execution was as such as a common person acquitted absolved justified and freed from all and every thing that on the behalf of the Elect as due to them was charged upon him or could so be So that he was from all Eternity upon his undertaking and in time upon his actual performance as a common Person that is in the name and as representing the persons of the Elect acquitted absolved and justified and therefore as it follows Christ received the general acquittance for them all and they are all acquitted in the Covenant of the Mediator whence they are said to be crucified with him to die with him to rise with him to sit with him in heavenly places namely in the Covenant of the Mediator This is what Dr. Crisp calls a secret application of Gods laying iniquity upon Christ to particular persons which is done before they know it and the only difference between him and Dr. Owen is that Dr. Owen will not allow this to be a discharge of the Elect in their own persons but only in the Person of the Mediator and Dr. Crisp thinks it more proper to say that this is a personal discharge of them since it is done in their names and persons but it is no great matter who speaks most properly when the thing is the same In another Discourse of the Death of Christ in answer to Mr. Baxter's Objections against his Treatise of Redemption p. 72. he asserts that the Elect have an actual right to all that was purchased by Christ's Death before believing and that is equivalent to their having a right from Eternity or from the first moment of their being And he offers it as his one opinion Whether absolution from the guilt of sin and obligation unto death though not as terminated in the conscience that is though it be not known to the Person which is Dr. Crisp's secret application for complete Iustification do not precede our actual believing and expounds the Justification of the ungodly Rom. 4. to this sense as Dr. Crisp expresly does And though he dare not assert complete Iustification to be before believing yet he affirms that absolution is as it is considered as the act of the Will of God that is secret and known only to God for a discharge from the effects of anger naturally precedes all collation of any fruits of love such as faith is And the difference between this absolution and complete Justification is no more but this That absolution wants that act of pardoning mercy which is to be terminated and completed in the conscience of a sinner That is though such a man be pardoned before believing yet he can have no sense of his Pardon before believing which is exactly Dr. Crisp's notion And absolution wants the hearts perswasion of the truth and goodness of the Promise and the mercy held out in the Promise And it wants the Souls rolling it self on Christ and receiving Christ as the Author and Finisher of that mercy an All-sufficient Saviour to them that believe All which signifies no more than that Absolution is before and without Faith for this apprehending the truth and goodness of the Promise and rolling it self on Christ according to the Doctors notion constitute the justifying Act of Faith And therefore when the Doctor elsewhere tells us that the Elect till the full time of their actual deliverance determined and appointed to them in their several Generations be accomplished are personally under the Curse of the Law and on that account are legally obnoxious to the wrath of God He only chuses to contradict himself to avoid the imputation of Antinomianism For by their actual deliverance I presume he must understand the time of their actual believing and if they are absolved before they actually believe how can they be under the Law or legally obnoxious to the wrath of God And therefore he immediately qualifies this that though they are obnoxious to the Law and the Curse thereof yet not at all with its primitive intention of execution upon them which is as much as to say that they are obnoxious to the Curse of the Law but not obnoxious to the execution of that Curse which I take to be non-sense How then are they obnoxious to the Curse of the Law Why as it is a means appointed to help forward their acquaintance with Christ and acceptance with God on his account By which I suppose he means that their Absolution being at present secret and not terminated and completed in the Conscience they are terrified and scared with the threatnings of the Law as fancying themselves to be under it when they are not and this makes them fly to Christ for refuge and sanctuary And though Dr. Crisp indeed do not like this way of affrighting men to Christ by the Law yet the difference is not great and makes no material alteration in the Scheme of their Religion And therefore when Dr. Owen adds That it was determined by Father Son and Holy Ghost that the way of the actual personal deliverance of the Elect from the Sentence and Curse of the Law should be in and by such a way and dispensation as might lead to the praise of the glorious grace of God and to glorifie the whole Trinity by ascending to the Fathers love through the works of the Spirit and Bloud of the Son All that he means by it is this that we shall have no sense of our Absolution by the Bloud of Christ till we actually believe nor be actually possessed of Eternal Life till we be renewed and sanctified all which Dr. Crisp will own and is consistent enough with our Justification or Absolution from Eternity since Faith and all other blessings are the effect of our antecedent Absolution in Christ as the Doctor confesses And this is all Mr. Ferguson means when he tells us That Christ's own discharge was an immediate consequent of his sufferings and they for whom he suffered had also immediately a fundamental right of being acquitted but their actual deliverance was to be in the way and order that he who had substituted himself in our room and he who had both admitted and been the Author of the substitution thought fit to appoint This is the necessary consequence of this Doctrine that if Christ acted as a Surety in the name
and satisfaction he attributes to Christ Nay he is so far from attributing any merit and satisfaction to what Christ did that he affirms that the will of God is not moved thereby nor changed into any other respect towards those for whom Christ died than what it had before which I take to be complying with those who assert that God was not moved by the death of Christ to forgive sin and who those are I presume the Doctor knows since he has so often told me of them As for what he insinuates that I deny the necessity of satisfaction to be made unto divine Iustice I own the charge and have as good company in it as heart can wish for not to take notice of our modern Writers who whatever the Doctor may think of it have writ at a better rate against the Socinians than the necessity men Vossius gives us a particular account of the concurring judgment of the ancient Fathers in this point The Author of that Book de Cardinalibus Christi operibus Athanasius St. Austin Leo M. Gregorius M. together with several eminent Divines of the Reformed Churches and particularly a great man of our own the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield who in his Letter to Grotius gives an account of the sense of this Church in this point of the necessity of satisfaction Nos in sententia Augustini acquiescimus non defuisse Deo pro sua omnipotentia sapientia alios modos possibiles sed hunc convenientissimum esse visum We rest satisfied in St. Austin ' s opinion that God who is infinitely wise and powerful did not want other possible ways for the Redemption of Mankind but judged this the most convenient of all And here I must once more take notice of that account the Doctor gives of the necessity of Satisfaction which he resolves into a natural vindictive Iustice which makes it impossible that Gods anger should be diverted from sinners without the interposing of a Propitiation Upon which account he tells us that whatever discoveries were made of the patience and lenity of God unto us yet if it were not withal revealed that the other Properties of God as his Iustice and Revenge for sin had their actings also assigned them to the full there could be little consolation gathered from the former This account as I then thought and think so still makes a very unworthy Representation of Almighty God as if he were so just that he is cruel and savage and irreconcilable till he has taken his fill of Revenge and represents the whole design of Christs Death to be only a satisfaction of Revenge without which God could not be appeased as if Divine Vengeance as I then expressed it out of a just indignation to such a horrid Doctrin did glut and satiate itself with the bloud of Christ instead of the bloud of the sinner This Dr. Owen makes very severe Reflexions on as blasphemous and prophane and I will not deny upon second thoughts but that it might have been more inoffensively expressed for there is an Euphemia due from us when we speak of sacred things and it is not fit always to represent such Doctrins in their true and proper colors But every one might easily perceive that I did not intend it as any disparagement to the satisfaction of our Saviour to which we owe all our present Mercies and future hopes but as the natural Interpretation and Language of the Doctors Argument I deny not that Anger and Fury and Vengeance are in Scripture attributed to God when it speaks after the manner of men to signifie the severity of those judgments which God will inflict upon obstinate sinners but to think that the Death of Christ who was his only and his beloved Son was a satisfaction of his natural and unappeasable Vengeance and Fury is such an account as the Scripture no where gives us of the Death of Christ as is incredible in it self and irreconcileable with the other Perfections of the Divine Nature But let us hear what the Doctor has to say for himself and he tells us That all he intended by that which he asserted is no more but this that such is the essential Holiness and Righteousness of the Nature of God that considering him as the supreme Governour and Ruler of Mankind it was inconsistent with the holiness and rectitude of his Rule and the glory of his Government to pass by Sin absolutely or to pardon it without Satisfaction Propitiation or Atonement That God being infinitely holy does perfectly hate all wickedness and that as he is the supreme Governour of the world he justly may and in some cases cannot consistently with his Holiness and Wisdom and the ends of his Government do any other than punish sin is denied by no body that I know But the Doctor proceeds farther that God as a holy and just Governour is under a necessity of Nature to punish every sin that is committed that though the sinner repent of his sins and humbly confess and bewail them and sincerely reform yet Justice must be satisfied either with the punishment of the sinner or some other in his stead Thus he states it in his Diatriba de Iustitiâ p. 2. Iustitiam peccati vindicatricem Deo esse naturalem contendo in exercitio necessariam i. e. I contend and earnestly assert that that Iustice which takes vengeance on sin is natural to God and necessary in the exercise of it Now this is a very different thing from the Justice of Government which allows the most just and righteous Judges to pardon Offences when the ends of Government may as well be attained by Indulgence as by Punishment And therefore the Doctor distinguishes between Ius Regiminis positivum naturale between a positive and natural Right of Government The Positive Right is such as Magistrates have over their Subjects and this he asserts they may recede from in some extraordinary cases when it is for the Publick Good and Benefit not to punish because the Safety of the People and the Publick Benefit is the supreme Law to such Governours But the Natural Right of Government is that which God has over his Creatures and this is immutable and therefore God cannot recede from it which as it is said without any reason for whether the Right be Positive or Natural it does not alter the Nature nor the prudent Rules and Methods of Government so it gives a plain account what the Doctor means by Gods Right of punishing as Governour which answers to what we call Revenge in private persons which immediately respects himself and not the publick ends of Government which is the true difference between private Revenge and publick Justice and though this be all the Doctor intends yet that all is enough in all reason and is the very all which I charged him with Well but I say as much as this comes to when I assert that God is an irreconcilable enemy to
Man with the Mystery of the Love Grace and Truth of God therein as revealed and declared in the Scripture This comprehends all those Revelations which immediately concern the Person of Christ as his Nature Offices Mediation and all the benefits which flow from them the Mystery of the Love Grace and Truth of God therein And then he adds That without such a knowledge of the Person of Christ as this which contains all we can know and all that is revealed in the Gospel concerning Christ There is no true useful saving knowledge of any other Mysteries of the Gospel to be attained This indeed is very warily said and like a right Sophister set aside all the saving Mysteries of the Gospel which concern the Person and Offices and Mediation of Christ and then there are no other saving Mysteries to be discovered or at least no saving knowledge of any other Mysteries because he knew very well that no Christian could own any saving knowledge when he had laid aside the knowledge of Christ And yet in this saying he craftily insinuates too that there are some other saving Mysteries which are to be discovered when we are first acquainted with Christ and he should have done well to have told me what they are and how they may be discovered since my Living or my Christianity lay at stake and I am not very good at guessing but since he has here concealed this secret we must learn what it is from his former Writings and then whatever danger there be in it I must needs say that this acquaintance with the Person of Christ is a very ill way of expounding Scripture or of learning Gospel-Mysteries as being that which different men may use to different purposes as I shewed in my former Discourse and from whence some men draw such Conclusions as do quite evacuate the ends and design of the Gospel This is sufficient to vindicate my self from those imputations of Falshood and Calumny which occur almost in every Page of the Doctors Answer but I shall not dismiss this subject thus but shall first shew you that there is such a way of reasoning from the knowledge of Christ's Person now in great vogue among some late Writers and what Arguments I reject upon that score as weak or fallacious And secondly discourse something more particularly concerning this way of reasoning As for the first I have given instances enough of this nature in my former Discourse which were so plain and evident that I thought the bare mentioning of them was sufficient to convince any man from what Principles such Arguments and Conclusions were deduced But because I find that my Adversaries are willing to take no notice of the chief design for which those passages were alleadged but to fall into some collateral Disputes I must be forced more expresly to state the matter in debate and reduce it to another form and method The Question then between us is plainly this Whether any Persons pretend to learn or prove the great Principles of their Religion from an Acquaintance with the Nature Person Offices of Christ distinct from the Revelations of the Gospel In my former Discourse I asserted that they deduced such Doctrines from the knowledge of Christ as are no where expresly contained in Scripture and I doubt not but that will appear true upon a particular examination of such Doctrines as they have or shall fall in my way but let the Doctrines be true or false the present dispute is whether they make the knowledge of Christs Person a new medium of saving knowledge from whence we may learn the greater deeper and more saving Mysteries of Religion distinct from the Revelations of the Gospel And that they do so is plain from this that most of the Arguments from whence they deduce and by which they prove their most darling and mysterious Notions are wholly owing to an acquaintance with Christs Person and are no where exprest in Scripture I have already given two instances of this in his way of proving the naturalness of vindictive justice to God and the desert and demerit of sin and shall now add some more The Doctor proves from the Deity of Christ as I observed in my former Discourse the endless bottomless boundless grace and compassion that is in him mercy enough for the greatest the eldest the slubbornest transgressor the infiniteness of Grace with respect to the Spring or Fountain the Deity of Christ will answer all our Objections What is our finite guilt before it How comes this guilt to be finite now When we are so often told that the demerit of every sin is infinite as being committed against an infinite God and requiring an infinite satisfaction for its Atonement Shew me the Sinner that can spread his iniquity to the dimensions if I may so say of this Grace I am glad to hear the Doctor put so fair a sense on these words and to declare to the World that he designed no more in it than to invite all sorts of sinners though under the most discouraging qualifications to come unto Christ for Grace and Mercy by Faith and Repentance Though any man who reads that long Discourse about an endless bottomless boundless Grace and Compassion in Christ such an infinite Grace as makes nothing of our finite guilt as all the sins in the world cannot equal its dimensions without one word of Faith or Repentance or a new life to qualifie us for this mercy especially if withal he understood what a great Patron the Doctor is of the necessity of holiness and obedience to qualifie us for Gods mercy as appears from what I have already discoursed above would not easily have guessed this to have been his meaning And whoever writes a Book which cannot be understood without a Commentary ought not to complain that he is mistaken nor charge his Readers upon that account with ignorance falshood or calumny Though for my part I shall be very well contented he should write another Book consisting of little else than those mild and gentle imputations of falshood and calumny so he will but recant or at least handsomly palliate those doctrines which otherwise may encourage bad men continuing so to lay claim to such a boundless and bottomless mercy But my present business is to observe how the Doctor proves that there is such a boundless bottomless Grace in Christ and his Argument is taken from his Divine Nature which is infinite For when the Conduit of his humanity is inseparably united to the infinite inexhausted fonntain of the Deity who can look into the depths thereof if now there be Grace enough for sinners in an all sufficient God it is in Christ. This is a plain instance of this way of reasoning from an acquaintance with Christ with his Divine nature which the Scripture no where teaches and which is weak and fallacious For though the Divine Nature be infinite yet the exercise of mercy and compassion is regulated by wisdom