the Subject and that he performed it in order to the Impetration of the benefits we have by his Life and Death or by his Redemption Of the other we are all Subjects and are to perform it our selves in order to the Application of that Redemption or participation of those benefits he hath obtained for us This Distinction whether necessary or no for I think it to be of our own late Divines and no antient one is good so far as thus used But as for your Notion which you so industriously build upon it though it hath something of truth in it it is too perplext over-loading and superfluous so that it edifies not For why I pray do you trouble your self and us with this teaching that we have a pleadable security from Gods Promise to Christ in his Covenant of Redemption that if we believe we shall be saved when we have an express Promise thereof to every one our selves in the Gospel and is not that security enough if this moreover had not been started by you It is apparent that seeing the Righteousness of Christ which you count to be imputed to us Is his performance of the Mediatorial Law this is a Righteousness whereof we are uncapable and consequently not that Righteousness which the common Protestant hath accounted to be imputed or made ours in their sense for our Justification It must yet be acknowledged that the Righteousness of the Law of Works which we were bound to perform is part of that Mediatorial Law which he performed and I suppose the common Protestant have understood that part thereof consisting in his active and passive Obedience to be the Righteousness which is imputed to Believers And here it is certain that you fall not in with them in this Opinion but hold that the Righteousness of Christ which you call our Justifying Righteousness and that which besides the Effects as you speak is imputed to the Believer is his Mediatorial Righteousness as appears by your expression of it when you say it is imputed to Believers as their pleadable security for their pardon and title to eternal life in the Right of Christ In the Right of Christ this makes it plain that you understand his Mediatorial Righteousness but I hope you do not still mean that the same numerical Right which is his can be ours You know the accident of one subject cannot migrate into another so that Really it cannot and if you grant it to be Legally ours take heed lest you grant all away for then may your Brethren say Christs performance it self is ours also in that sense and Mr. Baxter and I and you are gone But not to stop this being only in the way the Righteousness of Christ you mean being his Mediatorial Righteousness you account then that there is a subordinate Righteousness which we must have in order to the Imputation of this to us for our Justification Hereupon you set up two Barrs the Barr of the Law and Barr of the Gospel the Creators Barr and the Redeemers Barr as you call them insomuch as together with a double Righteousness and double Barr you make us also as any one may think two Specifical Justifications But not after this narration if the Distinction you laid down before be tight that the Law whereto Christ subjected himself in order to the Impetration of our Redemption was the Mediatorial Law and his performance of that Law our Justifying Righteousness according as you affirm then can there be no Creators Barr or Barr of the Law of Works here erected for us to stand at seeing it was Christ alone was accountable for that performance And further seeing Christ as he took on him our Nature did voluntarily come also under the Law the Law of Works as well as Jewish Law as part of his Fathers Commandment and perfectly fulfilled the same and suffered moreover for our transgressing it he did thereby as the Apostle tells us redeem us from the Law And what I pray is this Redemption from that Law but a delivering us fromits Barr if you understand the thing so as we are not to be judged by it Though we are under the Law still as a Rule of Living we are freed from it as the Rule of Judgment as I say in my Pacification Again I must inculcate upon this Hypothesis the Law of Mediation being that Law Christ performed for the Impetration of those benefits which we have by him and the law of the Gospel that we perform for Application of those benefits I pray let me ask is not Justification one of those benefits Christ hath impetrated merited purchased for us As Pardon and Salvation so are Justification whereof these are Effects and the Law of Grace it self which justifies us all of them benefits that Christ hath purchased by performing the Law of Mediation Well Justification then it self being one of those benefits when Christs performance of the Mediatorial Law is that Righteousness alone which goes to the Impetration of it and in this regard that may be said ours It is our performance of the Law of Grace which goes to and is the Righteousness alone which is or can be ours in the Application or enjoyment of it To come at last then to a full point in this matter it being Christs performance which we agree hath merited impetrated procured all our benefits and so is the Principal Righteousness as you may call it if you please when yet there must be a Righteousness of our own to go before as the Condition which this Law of the Gospel requires of us to give us right to these benefits it appears in what sense our Faith or Evangelical Obedience is to be held a Righteousness subordinate seeing Mr. Baxter hath so termed it unto Christs which is no more than this that our Gospel Righteousness of Faith is prerequired in order to the having the Righteousness of Christ imputed according to you and Mr. Baxter But how imputed for here is the upshot Does Mr. Baxter mean imputed in se besides the Effects as you speak No this were to make it Legally ours and he allows no Imputation of Christs Righteousness in any sense of its being made ours but Relatively in regard to the Effects only So that if the phrase of the Imputing Christs Righteousness was left out altogether of our Books as it is in our Bibles and our Divines had said nothing but that upon our believing and repenting we are for Christs sake and through the Law of Grace made partakers of the benefits he hath purchased and so of Pardon and Life the Doctrine of Satisfaction wherein we agree being first Preached the Article of Justification might have been explained well enough for honest Peoples Edification P. 279. Justification by the Righteousness of Christ you should say though and not by and Justification by the Righteousness of Faith are so connected and inseparable in the subject that they are expressed as if but one only Act and yet they are
very distinguishable Having laid down what precedes I do as it were give instance in this Citation unto the which I do the more deliberately answer The Impetration of our Justification by Christs performing the Mediatory Law is indeed one thing and the Application of it by our performing the Law of the Gospel is another But Justification it self is one Omneens est unum and not two things or acts and consequently ought to be defined and understood as one act so that when in one place it is said we are justified by Christs Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through his Blood and in others we are justified by Faith this makes yet but one act one Justification described in one place by the meritorious in the others by the formal cause thereof which both are to be put together in the Definition I must confess Mr. Baxter as I remember does ordinarily speak at your rate as if we were to be justified both by Law and Gospel and furthermore does not scruple to make as many Particular Justifications as there can be Charges laid against us but with the assertion that there is also a Justification Universal and which I apprehend the Gospel alone does yield us Indeed how to reconcile Mr. Baxter herein to his own Doctrine I must confess I have not yet observed from him but crave your help to find out In the mean time I must warn you that you understand him not after the manner you write for if indeed there are two Barrs at which we must be justified as well as two Righteousnesses that goes into our Justification If to be justified by Faith is one Justification and to be justified by Christs Blood be another so that the Believer must have both as one subordinate to the other unto which apprehension your way of expression leads then must Christs Righteousness be indeed ours in se and not only in the Effects as you appear to maintain against me and him for at one of these Barrs nothing less will serve and then must we return all three to the Road of the common Protestant Doctrine and grant that it is not by our own Works whether Legal or Evangelical no not by Faith as a Work not by Faith as productive of Repentance and New Obedience that is not by St. James's Faith and Works also but by Faith only and by Faith taken objective for Christs Righteousness made ours by Faith so as to be our Formal Righteousness or formally to justifie us And if so there may be an end of Controversies with Mr. Baxters Books as one of them is called which concern Justification his Practical Books may still be in credit but his Controversal Works may be all burnt for you who for maintaining one expression not well advised must forsake him and your self and all almost of weight that you have writ besides There is a Distinction therefore which that accurate Man Mr. Baxter who otherwise has so many does yet want as to this Point of Justification which is that Justification may be taken Strictly or Largely seeing the Scripture so speaks of it If we will take it strictly we consider only what respects the form and definition and Justification so taken is Gods constituting by his Law of Grace and accounting a Man righteous upon his believing for Christs sake or imputing his Faith for Righteousness When Justification largely taken may comprehend its Antecedents as Redemption and Consequents as Pardon and Life together with it See my Righteousness of God p. 55 56 57. In such a large sense of it Mr. Baxter and our Divines may take liberty to speak of it in such a manner as they or others do or as they please but there are these words in that Learned Gentleman Sir Charles Wolsley his Letter to me that are more accurate to my purpose than any that I most like in Mr. Baxter The Scripture says he that were written not with any relation to those nice and subtle Distinctions which Men have since used in interpreting them do chiefly intend to express their plain and genuine meaning of things and in an especial manner by various expressions of the same thing does set forth the amplitude of Gospel Salvation Justification is spoken of in Scripture sometimes in its Cause which is imputing Righteousness by Faith and sometimes in its Effect which is Pardon Therefore I am well pleased to say with you to adjust and comprehend that matter right that the formalis ratio of Justification is Gospel Faith and Obedience that is as imputed to us of God for Righteousness and taking Justification passively meaning as I and Pardon of sin as the necessary consequeent concomitant and effect of it He that will give any other account of it must I believe make use of some other Doctor than St. Paul One thing more I will note in this Postscript and have done and that is the particular p. 312. wherein you say you were ready to subscribe with Mr. Cole You look to your self indeed by such words that you may not lye but do you think your meaning and Mr. Coles can indeed stand in one Stable I will therefore express the truth of this sixth Particular for you with little alteration When a Man believes that very Faith and sincere Gospel Works which proceed from it is you say is not the matter of that Righteousness whereby you to save your Not before put in for which a sinner is justified and so intitled to Pardon and Glory Yet is the Righteousness of Christ alone that for which the Gospel gives the Believer a right to these and all saving blessings who in this respect is justified through Christ or through his Righteousness though by Faith Faith being indeed the Matter or Material Cause and Gods Imputing that Faith not Christs Righteousness to us for Righteousness the Form and Formal Cause of our Justification Reverend Brother What will be the issue of this present endeavour according to my small Ability I know not But I will end with this Story Luther one day being with Melancton Phillip says he I am afraid we are gone too far in that matter of the Sacrament Master says Melancton then let us amend and retract it No says Luther if we do so Phillip we shall be believed in nothing Alas what pity it was and what prejudice to the Protestants Cause that Luther had not hearkned to Melancton It must be no wonder therefore if you hearken not to me now in my farewell Admonition which is to chuse in this small matter of Difference between us not to follow Luther but St. Augustine who is so much commended by all for his Book of Retractations Your very respectful Brother JOHN HUMFREY Animadversions ON HIS End of Discord Learned and Worthy Sir I Wrote a Sheet or two in a Letter to Mr. Williams upon his Postscript to Gospel Truth before this later Book called An End of Discord came out I had no Answer to it nor my Copy
dare not say as they must who indeed hold an Imputation in se that God does judicially account what Christ hath done and suffered to be Legally the Believers this is the Doctrine of an Imputation in se which he militates against in all his Books as Mr. Baxter in all his but to be his pleadable security And what is that Is that Justification Is that I say again an Imputation of what Christ hath done and suffered to the Believer so as to be that Righteousness in se whereby he is justified No what Imputation then in se is it Did he that wrote the rest of the Book write this Did he write it when he was awake or asleep If he was a wake let him tell what That the Performance of the Covenant of Redemption by Christ does afford us a pleadable security that if we believe we shall be saved there is no body questions That this pleadable security is an Effect and Benefit of that performance is not to be questioned neither That the Imputation then of the Righteousness of Christ to us for this pleadable Security if there be any such Imputation is an Imputation of it only in the Effects or quoad Effectus and not in seâ—â— I have it already in my former Letter That this pleadable Security arises from the promise of the Gospel Covenant as well as from that to Christ in the Covenant of Redemption Mr. Ws. says And if from the Gospel there arises no Imputation of Christs Obedience to us in se how does it from the Law of Mediation That God does impute Christs Performance to us for Righteousness is said by Divines but I say again where is it said in Scripture or by any Divine of Note that he imputes it to us for our pleadable Security only by himself it is true that we may impute or apply it to our selves so but where or by whom is it said that God so imputes it and judicially so imputes it Is this the work of Judgment And why does our otherwise very worthy Brother take upon him by making such Speeches for God as he does to put him upon the saying any thing more than needs What needs such a Speech Thou believer I judicially esteem and pronounce thee to be one that I promised to my Son in the Covenant of Redemption to save in reward to his performance of that Covenant therefore I judicially also account what Christ hath done and suffered to be thy pleadable Security that thou shalt be saved Is it not enough that God says this Thou sinner being one that haft believed and repented and so performed through my Grace the Covenant of the Gospel I do therefore according to my promise therein to thy self and all Mankind judicially sentence thee to Life everlasting Let the Believer have this Sentence pronounced by the Covenant of the Gospel he will not need and scarce over thought of any other by the Covenant of Redemption P. 107. As for those that say Christs Righteousness is not imputed in se but in the Effects they oppose all this says he but they great the Righteousness of Christ to be the meritorious Cause of our Justification they narrow not their Opinion to a procuring only a Covenant of Grace or Law of the Gospel but say Christ purchased the Benefits first which that Covenant bestows they are sound in the Doctrine of Satisfaction they abhor the presenting our Faith or Evangelical Obedience to God as any Satisfaction to Justice Attonement for Sin or Prince of Salvation Upon these Accounts more at large expressed better by him a forbearance is very charitably and commendably pleaded for these Brethren by this good Brother in their behalf who no doubt is well inclined to it himself for this is certainly a very ingenious kind of Apologizing for Mr. Baxter's and Mine and his Own Opinion Nevertheless I have two or three things to take Notice of further in this Chapter One is P. 109. Our Opinion quoad Effectus he says does amount to an Imputation in se because the Divine Mind must apply the Merits of Christ to our Faith to make it a Righteousness But how so Why if so the Divine Mind he counts must apply his Righteousness to our persons If through Christs Merits our Faith is made a Righteousness then his Merits must make our persons Righteous This is his sense which he hath in diverse expressions three times in the Paragraph Very well now I say that if through Christs Merits God does impute our Faith for Righteousness then must the Imputation of Christs Righteousness be an Imputation only quoad Effectus for this is a grand Effect of it that our Faith which of it self is none is through those Merits imputed for Righteousness And if the Righteousness of Christ be Imputed only quoad Effectus it is not Imputed in se for our Justification The Divine Mind says he does apply Christs Righteousness to the Person which in plain words is God does Impute it to a Person But what Imputation is it is it not an Imputation quoad Effectus It is doubtless for that Effect which Christs Righteousness has to make our Faith a Righteousness it hath the same to make the Person accepted as a Gospel Righteous Person and for his sake to be dealt with accordingly but not as a Legally Righteous Person as Christ is It is thus and no otherwise whereas he speaks of it as if it were an Imputation in se which our Opinion he says amounts unto nay supposes and infers he says as Necessary But if it were an Imputation in se then should Christs Righteousness not our Faith be imputed to us for Righteousness which falls in he knows with the Opinion of the Brethren and makes it the Formal Cause of our Justification Alas that this perplexing Notion should lead this considering Brother into those Blunderings which seeing it does I do write this Book on purpose to prosecute it if I can to the death not to hurt him but to rid him of it That what he says is very handsome for perswading the contrary minded to bear with if not receive our Opinion because it hath all the Conveniency as to the Substantial Doctrine of the Protestant which the Brethren can make of theirs Yet he is short in his discernment of that very Critical Point wherein the hinge of this Controversie among us does turn which is the Question whether the Righteousness of Christ or of Faith be the Formal Righteousness that justifies us I wonder that this very searching and judicious Brother should not see here his Defect An imputed Righteousness in se makes Christs Righteousness the Formal Cause an imputed Righteousness only quoad Effectus makes his Righteousness the Meritorious Cause alone of our Justification Another is P. 11. I could wish a very worthy Person of this Opinion would review in his own account of Justification where he faith it is that act whereby God imputes to every sound believer his
the other As for his Pleadable Security I have spoke to it already we will return therefore to the two Righteousnesses That there are two distinct Righteousnesses is out of question and that Christ's Righteousness is justifying and our Faith justifying by the Virtue and Merit of his may be received And if this worthy Brother hereupon had first understood and then told us that though there be two Righteousnesses apart they make together but one justifying Righteousenss that is these two Righteousnesses are two parts of one whole Justifying Righteousness according to one Sentence and one Justification he had been happy and might then have spared his making two Rules of Judgment As for our Faith or Evangelical Righteousness we declare it merits not our Justification nor the benefits of it It is Christ's Righteousness alone has merited the Reward When we define Justification then to be an Act of Grace whereby God according to the Gospel Law or Rule of Judgment does account the Believer Righteous and through the satisfaction and merits of our Redeemer does judge him to the Reward of impunity and Life it is all one as to impute Christ's Righteousness to him or to adjudge him to the participation thereof for this Impunity and Life being the effects of his Righteousness his Righteousness is made ours when the Effects are in relation to those Effects and can be no otherwise imputed to us When Mr. Baxter then does tell us of a Righteousness of ours subordinate to Christ's his meaning is that our Faith or Evangelical Righteousness being the conditon of our enjoying the Benefits Christ hath purchased for us the performance of the Condition or this Righteousness Evangelical is required and must proceed in order to our having his Righteousness quoad hos effectus for his Righteousness I have said is had or imputed to us only in our enjoyment of the Effects To conclude then our Faith is Justifying or justifies us per modum justitiae constituentis Christ's Righteousness is justifying or justifies per modum Efficientis or per modum meriti They both of them are to be put into the Definition the one I say when imputed for Righteousness per modum causae formalis and the other per modum causae meritoriae concurring as two-parts of one justifying Righteousness to the Sinners justification I have done and now what remains but that Mr. Ws. be persuaded to retract his Notion and that I offer him my Reasons for it which are as follow 1. In the first place let us consider his Notion which is this that God adjudges the Believer to be one whose absolution adoption and glory were promis'd to Christ in reward of his Death by the Covenant of Redemption and for his actual Interest and enjoyment thereof and also acceptance and treatment as a righteous Person against all Challenges God judicially accounts what Christ hath done and suffered to be his pleadable Security This we take to be Imputation The former part here is matter of fair ful and proper Words but as for the latter part where the point is toucht this seems to me strange Christ's Obedience is the Believers Pleadable Security when he should assert it to be the Believers Righteousness Is an imputation of Christ's Righteousness for a pleadable Security and Imputation of it in se Who does not see this to be contrary and the thing we stand upon That which Christ hath done and suffered is through Gods promise whether to Christ or us a Security which we may plead with God for our Pardon and Salvation upon our believing but is Christs performance therefore imputed in se for our performance What is that Mr. Ws. takes for Imputation Is it not the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to the Believer And is the imputing of Christs Righteousness to be the Believers and to be his Pleadable Security that is an Imputation of it to that Effect all one My Neighbours honesty and faithfulness is my Security that such a Debt shall be paid me but is his honesty and fidelity therefore in se my honesty and faithfulness O strange that my Reverend Brother should be so intoxicated with this Notion even so as to be out of his senses and take one thing for another I pray is not the Point between us and the Brethren this Whether Christs Righteousness be imputed in se for our Justification And is the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us for our Pleadable Security our Justification Gods judicial imputing Christs Righteousness to a person in se does justifie him Could his imputing it to him if there were any such thing for his Pleadable Security and not for his Righteousness which in se denotes justifie him How does his Notion come up to the Point of Justification As for what he adds that God does Judicially account what Christ hath done suffered to be the Believers Pleadable Security it is as a man that is not only intoxicated but plays bold pranks This is indeed said ordinarily by some Divines that Christ doth judicially account what Christ hath done and suffered to be our Righteousness that answers the Law and justifies us Now for Mr. Ws. to invert this judicial process of God to his Pleadable Security and then say This we take for Imputation it seems to me such an audacious imposing upon his followers such a piece of confidence in so momentous a Point as it is not to be endured 2. An Imputation in se does necessarily infer Christ to be our Legal Person which overturns the whole Doctrine of Mr. Ws. and I and Mr. Baxter It is impossible God should account Christs Righteousness to be another mans in se but Legally and if it be ours Legally then must he be our Legal Person and so have acted and suffered in our stead as such The Lord Christ now we acknowledge did suffer and dye for us or in our stead in this sense that we might not dye or suffer upon our believing but not that God should account us to have suffered and done what he did That is he acted only as our Mediator To suffer that we might not suffer and to suffer that his sufferings should be accounted ours are contradictory things so that by no means Christ must not be accounted our Legal Person in what he did and suffered for us In this Point it was Mr. Baxter broke loose from the common Doctrine and he that holds an Imputation in se unless this new-fangle be so with us must break from him An Impuation in se makes the Believer in Law-sense as righteous as Christ and so brings in all the consequences of Antinomianism which may be seen if Mr. Baxter 3. From those two Reasons thus at first laid down I argue Either there is another Imputation in se which Mr. Ws. has found out or either the Imputation in se which Mr. Ws. has made out by his new Notions is really a true Imputation in se or else an Imputation in se must be denied
Animadversions BEING The Two Last BOOKS OF MY Reverend Brother Mr. Williams The One Entituled A Postscript to Gospel-Truth The Other An End of Discord Conscientiously Examined In Order to a Free Entertainment of the Truth in some Momentous Points in Divinity controverted among the Nonconformist Brethren occasionally here Determined for the sake of those Honest among Us that seek it without Trick or Partiality By Iohn Humfrey the Aged What thy Hand findeth to do do it with thy Might For there is no Work nor Device nor Wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest Eccles 9.10 LONDON Printed by Tho. Snowden for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1699. Animadversions on his Postscript The Introduction Mr. WIlliams having Printed his Book called Gospel Truth with many Presbyterian hands set to it there was some heat and several Exceptions raised against it by some of the Independent Brethren whereof one of the chief was this That he held the Righteousness of Christ to be imputed only in the Effects Here instead of his owning this Truth and standing to it he denies that he held it and for his proof produces this passage out of his Book That besides the Effects being made ours the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to Believers This passage of his I took and gave him notice of in a Letter Printed in my Middle Way of Justification disliking it as receding from Mr. Baxter But Mr. Williams to uphold himself against this Accusation is unhappily engaged and sets his Wits in his Man made Righteous to from a notion that might serve him to maintain his own Doctrine which is Baxterian and yet answer the Brethren as he has by this denial and so satisfie his followers A great conceit at present I perceive he took of his Notion which shews him honest by that passage in the Sheet he called an Answer to my Letter where he complains of his being struck at by both Extreams when deeper thoughts says he would perceive the Truth stated quoting p. 77 78 79 80. of that Book against the excess of both The Brethren and common Protestant say Christ's Righteousness is imputed in se Mr. Baxter and I that it is imputed and can be made ours only quoad Effectus Either the Brethren or We are in the right But Mr. Ws. has an invention to middle the matter so as we shall both be out and in an extream and yet he hold with us both These deeper thoughts therefore of his I took into consideration in my Book called Pacification and he offering something in reply in some other after Books I took it again into consideration in my Appendix To my last book But finding this Reverend Brother keeping still his course in holding with the Hound as the Proverb is and running with the Hare I must pursue him in his Notion till I have hunted it down For it is a cloudy perplexed troublesome Notion that can serve us nothing but to entangle the understanding without any profit to others or significancy to himself As I have made my Animadversions therefore on his Books preceding I do make these on these later Books seeing he persists in his Notion which were writ in two Letters the first to himself the second to another and are as follows Reverend Brother Reading your Postscript I come in p. 525. to the Point whether the Gospel be a Law and I turned to your Defence as you bid for your sense of it where you shew in what sense you allow it and in what you do not As for the sense in which you allow it and then maintain the same with your Reasons I approve but as to the sense wherein you do not allow it though I except not against the rest I make a stand at the second to wit the sense you say our Divines fix upon the Arminians and upon that prejudice do you condemn it when if you had not miscited it you had as well yield to your Adversaries that it is no Law at all as to deny this sense of it I say therefore in opposition to you The Gospel is a Law in this sense that acts of Obedience to it that is a sincere or sound Faith working by Love which it requires is the Righteousness when perform'd by which we are justified as perfect Obedience was under the Law of Adam You do this harmless honest and right tenent open wrong in saying for which the Arminians as well as we do all know that it is Christ's Satisfaction and Merit not ours is that for which we are justified but it is our Faith it self the Faith which is the condition of the Gospel that is St. Jame's Faith and Works also is that Righteousness when perform'd which constitutes us righteous and by which we are justified Pray Mr. Williams believe it and be confirm'd that as perfect Obedience was the Condition of Life in the Law of Works and if that Condition had been performed it had been Adams Righteousness by which he had been justified so is Faith the Condition of the Law of Grace and if that Condition be fulfilled it does become a Righteousness according to this Law so as by it we are justified In the one I must add to prevent what you may alledge the reward would have been of Merit or Debt because it was for the performance sake In the other it is of Grace because it is for Christs sake that it is so accepted I was sorry at my heart that in the Letters between me and my Learned holy humble and worthy Brother Mr. Clark though no Man be more for Conditions under the Gospel than he and that the Gospel is a Law and that Law by which we shall be judged yet did he stick at yielding this which is so open and undeniably consequent to wit that whatsoever it be which is required by a Law as the Condition thereof before it is fulfilled when that Condition is fulfilled it does and must become the Righteousness of that Law and if a Man be judged thereby he must be justified It is that very Righteousness is the formalis ratio of his Justification For that there must be some Justitia wherein Justificationis forma does Constare there is no Man's Reason but must how Being a Condition it is a Righteousness as to Judicial proceedings by that Law which appoints that Condition say you p. 274. Faith Def. p. 22. is not the Justifying Righteousness but is the Condition of our being justified by Christs Righteousness By such expressions contradicting this before what mean you You pretend at least one may think so to speak as the common Protestant but do you understand as they to wit that upon our believing Christs Righteousness is so imputed as to be legally ours for our Justification If you believe not this why do you not say quite otherwise That tho' it is Christs Righteousness is the meritorious cause of our Justification and so
Law of Works Nor fall so low as a meer participation of the Effects of Christs Righteousness but assent to an Imputation of Christs Righteousness it self relatively to those Effects Alas for Mr. Ws. Into what shifts for want of an Ingenuous confession is he brought Do not I and Mr. Baxter say this Is this indeed a Middle Way in good earnest Have not we said the same before him And is not Mr. Ws. setled Judgment and which he maintains as well as I and Mr. Baxter that Legally which our former Divines have still stood upon the Righteousness of Christ is not imputed to us and when he says Relatively after us in regard to the Effects is not this it which Mr. Baxter and I say when we affirm against the common Doctrine that Christs Righteousness is imputed not in se but only in the Effects You see it more fully in my Letter to his Postscript Alas what a little Self-denyal here would have served him to make the Acknowledgment of taking this from us and of his Agreement with it And is this the Meant between them that rise too high and us that fall too low when it is the very same we say and he takes it from us The contradiction onely excepted for when the in se and the Effects are Opposed he will have Christs Righteousness ours in its self upon our saying it is Relatively ours in regard to the Effects I come to the Chapter that concerns me the Title whereof is this An Attempt to accommodate the Difference between such as judge Christs Righteousness is imputed only in the Effects and not in se and those of us who think it is imputed in se These words and those of us I take all from Mr. Ws. This is that Mr. Lobb if we may believe his Books and I think Mr. Chancy took so ill from him as to write so engagedly against him that he pretends to hold with the Brethren in maintaining the Imputation of Christs Righteousness in se against those that deny it that is such as I Mr. Baxter Wotton Forbs Mr. Baxter names Bradshaw Grotius when yet he is fundamentally of our Opinion and so far as concerns the Brethren nothing at all for them If he be offended at my saying that he agrees with us excepting his new Notion which signifies not I can't help it for I can say no otherwise and methinks that which is said but now should make him ashamed of it You see there no Middle way for him The Brethren and common Protestant do understand that Christ in his dying for us did suffer in our stead which can bear no other true sense in their Judgment but this that he was our Representative so as what he did and suffered in our behalf is in law-Law-sense accounted of God as done and suffered by us so that his Satisfaction and Obedience thereupon is Legally I say or in the acceptation of Law reckoned by him as our Righteousness for being received by Faith it becomes ours so as that it does formally justifie us Here is most fairly that which hath been and is to be understood by an Imputation in se to wit such as our former Protestants accounted Orthodox and have generally held But Mr. Baxter letting these Brethren know in the way that when we grant against the Socinian that Christ died in our stead by which we mean that he dyed to save us from dying who must else have dyed our selves we do not understand as they that we dyed and suffered in him for to dye in our room that we might not dye and to be accounted of God to have dyed or dyed in him is an inconsistency that may convince them that Reverend Man and faithful Servant of Christ being sensible how this Doctrine does argumentatively lead to Antinomianism and did hurry so many of this Nation into it as it did before he wrote he being stirred up we may believe by God as an Instrument to eradicate the Antinomian Heresie did set himself with assistance in many Books to refute this Opinion as necessary to that end Upon this true and short account given I ask then Is Mr. Ws. in good earnest now of the Judgment of the Brethren or of Mr. Baxters He knows in his Conscience and we all see by this Book and all his others a manifest confirmation every where with great strength and weight and diligent reading which may shame those that despise him as not Learned of the Doctrine taught by that profound Divine and most sincere Minister of Jesus Christ And shall this Elisha that hath still followed his Elijah go now in Words for it is no more to cast away his Mantle and disown his Master I cannot endure that when Mr. Ws. makes here two sides he should rank the Brethren and He on the one side and I and Mr. Baxter on the other If any other had wrote the Title to this Chapter I would have said it is false Mr. Ws. and I and Mr. Baxter are of one Opinion P. 104. There are some that say the Righteousness of Christ is imputed in se for Justification and some that say it is not imputed in se but quoad Effectus He numbers himself among the former Of the former then there are belike two sorts with him such as think the Elect or Believer to be accounted by God to have obliged and suffered in Christ which he disproves and therefore tells of another sort that is such as do not think that God does judicially account any to have obeyed and suffered in Christ for that he stoutly denies in all his Books as well as Mr. Baxter and I and yet do hold an Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in se which indeed is a Rarity for I believe there is not any but himself and it is fit therefore to hear how Mr. Ws. single self does hold this even in opposition to the Brethren as well as us but that I have already canvased that new perplexed Contrivance which he invented for the sake of those tender Brethren that cannot bear with the sound Doctrine of Mr. Baxter though there is none of them I believe that regard the Invention in my Pacification my Appendix to him at large in the End of my Ultima Manus and also in my Letter before to his Postscript so that there is nothing left more to do but to wonder at this Reverend Man what he means thus to persist especially in telling us of a variety among this sort in wording their Conceptions but they all come to one which indeed is well said for he alone in the one and only one that ever entertained such an Imagination Well what then is this that one sense it comes to Why this that God according to the Covenant of Redemption where he promises to Christ to save the Believer he judicially accounts what Christ hath done and suffered to be his pleadable Security This we take to be Imputation We what we None surely but himself he
Faith for Righteousness upon the account of Christs Satisfaction and Merits and gives Pardon and Life as the benefits of it I cannot but desire to know this Person seeing as these words render him he should be living for what this Author says is so agreeable to my Mind that if it were not but that I know the Commendation he gives him is not belonging to me I should have thought they were my own Words The following Saying he cites accordingly Though Christs Sacrifice the Defects of Faith which is our Righteousness are pardoned and by his Merits that imperfect Duty is accounted or imputed to us for Righteousness which it is not in its self Both I think exceeding well But Mr. Ws. objects How can Pardon be the effect of imputing Faith for Righteousness which is Justification and yet God cannot impute faith for Righteousness unless he first pardon its defects for the sake of Christs Sacrifice This Objection I foresaw and have prevented That he adds besides is stumbling at a Straw and ought not to retard us in my Book of the Righteousness of God p. 24. where having defined Justification after this same manner I â—m the concluding my Explication thereof have these words After this I distinguish this pardoning and bearing with the defects of our Faith Repentance New Obedience which are Conditions of the Gospel Covenant and so our Gospel Righteousness or that which is imputed for Righteousness And that General or Total Pardon which the Covenant promises and becomes absolute upon performing the Condition The one of these is that very Grace or Act of Grace it self that goes into that Act of Imputation or Act that imputes our Faith for Righteousness when the other I say still is the Effect or Benefit following Justification I will add The one let us note farther is dispensed by God as Dominus or Absolute Lord so I apprehend and is more or less to one person than another at his will and pleasure that hath no bounds to be set to it When the other is dispensed by him as Rector and Judge to every Man alike upon the performed Condition I will yet add And this may give some more Line to the Assertors of Free-Grace than they every yet thought on for Improvement and that solid comfort I raise from hence in my Pacification p. 27 28 29. quoted again in my Righteousness of God p. 21. in the Margin which I commend to the Reader as my Blessing while alive and dead The lat is p. 112. The reason for our denial of an Imputation in se he renders truly as the chief reason to be an apprehension that there is no such Imputation unless we are accounted of God to have done and suffered what Christ did which would induce the Antinomian Scheme This is so it is the reason and that the meaning and intent of that phrase is no other than this I know no body like to deny unless himself But that I deny says he to be the only import of that phrase for when that Righteousness it self is imputed Relatively to the special Effects of it it is truly an Imputation in se Here is a double deceit errour or falshood One in the Logick of it the other in the matter of it In the Logick the words it self must not be put in we deny an Imputation of this Righteousness it self or in it self This it self therefore is a Petitio Principis that is fallacious which must be left out and then as to the matter I say an affirming Christs Righteousness to be imputed that is reckoned or made ours Relatively only in regard to the Effects is the denyal of it to be so in se according to the received sense of that Distinction But indeed if we might coyn here a new Distinction between Mr. Ws. and I and not do hurt by it making an Imputation in se to be either a Legal or Relative Imputation only So long as Mr. Ws. does maintain that Christs Righteousness is not imputed in se Legally to a Believer and stands on the Negative against the Brethren herein as much as I If I grant to him this Imputation in se which is Relative only I see not but he and I are perfectly agreed and so all the new-fangled Notion of another Imputation of Christs Right to us in it self or of his Obedience to the Mediatorial Law for our pleadable Security instead of for our Righteousness that is instead of an Imputation in se an Imputation only quoad hunc effectum an open prevarication which will never be made to signifie any thing may be spared and that clutter be quite over But I cannot in conscience grant him the use of an Imputation in se according to this sense because an Imputation quoad Effectus is understood to be Membrum dividens and consequently contrary to an Imputation in se according to our common understanding of that distinction Besides that the use of the term in se in such a latitude may be dangerous to many and the untrue use of it so long by him has done as I doubt too much hurt already I cannot therefore but be a little more severe herein and must observe that when Mr. Ws. does deny the Brethrens sense to be the only import of the phrase in se he denys it upon the account of the term Relatively which term he took from me I am confident and had no thoughts of it or such a meaning or evasion when he at first said that Besides the Effects the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer Now when I or Mr. Baxter from which of us he takes it use the Term in contradistinction to that in se while we explain our Opinion thus purposely that the Effects are ours Really but Christs Righteousness ours only in regard to these Effects and Mr. Ws. takes the term from me without telling that but proposing it as his own does come so long after in his Postscript and this Book to give us this account of that Assertion of his as aforesaid and telling us that if the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to us in the Effects then it must be it self Relatively ours in regard to them I cannot see how any one can count that there is either satisfaction or ingenuity in it For when this word it self is I say sophistical and must not be taken for in it self as if we were proprietors of that Righteousness whereof Christ only is the proprietor but of the benefit he hath procured us by it which is the perfect sense and truth and all the truth which in good earnest it contains Mr. Ws. methinks should not be so shameless as any longer to persist If he had said this at first if indeed he had had this and no other meaning but this of Relative at first then could not I or any of Mr. Baxters Friends have been offended as if he had departed from us in this bottom Point of difference between the