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
him that is justified yet they justifie not all together Where by these good Works being joyned with Faith and being present in him that is justified is meant that they are essential to a Justifying Faith and must be present as antecedent qualifications or conditions without which God will not justifie us as appears from what I have discourst above concerning the nature of Justifying Faith which includes Repentance and the Love of God c. as antecedently necessary to our embracing the Promise of Pardon and Forgiveness which is not the first but the last and completing act of Faith For if these good Works be not one way or other necessary to our Justification no reason can be assigned why they should be present in him that is justified for Faith might then justifie alone without the Presence as well as without the Merit and Efficacy of our good Works And therefore when Faith is said to shut out these good Works from the office of Iustifying that though they be all present yet they do not justifie all together the design is not to deny the Necessity but the Merit of good Works This is plain from the Reason which is immediately assigned why these good Works cannot justifie because all the good Works we can do be imperfect and therefore not able to deserve our Iustification which is the constant Doctrin of the Homilies For our Church by Justification perpetually understands a meritorious and not a conditional Justification and therefore whatever justifies in this sense must by its own Virtue or Merit expiate our sins which is the reason alledged why no man can make himself righteous that is justifie himself by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest Presumption in 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 SO that is by the Merit and Virtue of his own Works And Faith it self considered as our own Act hath no greater privilege upon this account than any other Grace or Virtue for in respect of Merit and Deserving we forsake altogether again Faith Works and all other Virtues Faith does not justifie as our own Act that is it does not merit our Justification as it must do if it justifie as our own Act which in the sense of our Church signifies that we do something so meritorious as to deserve Justification at Gods hands But now Iustification is the office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him that is we can offer him nothing of our own to merit our Justification but which we receive from him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Iustifier and Saviour Iesus Christ. But for this reason Faith only is said to justifie and to shut out our own Works and itself also considered as our own Act from the office of justifying because though it strongly enforce the Necessity of good Works yet in its own nature it excludes all opinion of Merit and Desert For Faith has a necessary respect to the Promise of Mercy and Forgiveness and whoever acknowledges that he ows his Justification to the Mercy of God who for the sake of Christ pardons his Sins and rewards his Imperfect Services as all those must do who hope to be saved by Faith in the notion of our Church does plainly confess that his Works are imperfect and cannot deserve his Justification which takes away all opinion of Merit from our selves and attributes the glory of all to the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ. I shall only observe three things from this Discourse which are very material to our present purpose First that our Church was not acquainted with that Distinction in the modern sense of it that we are justified fide solâ but not solitariâ by Faith alone but not by that Faith which is alone the meaning of which according to some Modern Divines is this That we are justified only by that particular Act of Faith which apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and relies and rolls itself on Christ for Salvation and applies his Merits and Righteousness to the Soul without any regard to Repentance and the Love of God or any other Grace or Virtue That though at the same time God infuse the habits of all Graces and Virtues into a justified person yet in the Act of justifying he hath no regard at all to Repentance or any other Grace but we are justified in order of nature before these are infused into us and without any respect to them And some men would willingly affix this Notion as absurd as it is to our Church because she only requires the presence of these Graces and Virtues in the justified person but shuts them out from the office of Justifying But I have made it appear that these words admit a better sense and that Justification by Faith only in the modern Notion of it so as to exclude the antecedent Necessity of Repentance or any other internal Grace or Virtue is contrary to the constant doctrin of our Church which requires the presence of these Graces as antecedent conditions or qualifications though it shut them out from being the meritorious Causes of Justification And to confirm this I observe secondly that our Church doth not attribute our Justification to any particular Act of Faith She frequently indeed inculcates the embracing of the Promise of Pardon and Forgiveness as essential to a justifying Faith but the reason of that is not because that particular Act justifies us but to attribute our Justification not to the Merit of our own works but to the Mercy of God But she expresly affirms that Faith doth not justifie as our own Act that Justification is not the office of Man but of God and if we be not justified by Faith as our own Act much less can any particular Act of Faith which if it be considered as an Act must be considered as our own Act justifie which overthrows that Instrumentality of Faith in Justification which these men talk of but the plain meaning of our being justified by Faith only is this that God will pardon our sins and reward us with eternal life if we repent of our sins and believe and obey the Gospel of his Son trusting wholly in the Mercies of God and in the Merits and Mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ as it is exprest at large in the Homily That the true understanding and meaning of our being justified by Faith without Works or by Faith in Christ only is this that although we hear Gods Word and believe it although we have Faith Hope Charity and do never so many good Works thereunto yet we must renounce the Merit of all the said Virtues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Virtues and good deeds which
Salvation by receiving Christ by resting and relying and rolling on Christ There is no use of Repentance or Charity or the Love of God in this affair for they cannot apply the Righteousness of Christ to us If we come to Christ for Righteousness we must come without any Righteousness of our own And yet it is hard to understand how this fiducial Reliance on Christ can apply his Righteousness to us a confident Persuasion that Christ is ours may make a fanciful application of his Righteousness to us but a mere Reliance on Christ makes no application but only signifies a Hope that it shall be applied And if they will be true to their Principles that we are justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us which is God's act whereby he applies the Righteousness of Christ I cannot understand how we can be justified by applying his Righteousness to our selves by Faith which if it have any sense must signifie our imputing the Righteousness of Christ to our selves for the Righteousness of Christ can be applied to us only by Imputation which makes our Justification our own Act and not Gods For it is as absurd to the full to say that Faith is an Instrument in doing that which is intirely Gods act or that our Imputation of Christs Righteousness to our selves is an Instrument of Gods imputing his Righteousness to us And then it is worth considering which of these two Imputations must go first if we apply that is impute the Righteousness of Christ to our selves before God has imputed it this is a false Confidence and Presumption if God imputes it first then we are actually justified and there needs no Imputation or Application of Faith to make this Righteousness ours all that can be said in this case is what the Antinomians affirm that we are first justified before we believe and that Faith is only a Sign or Evidence not an Instrument of our Justification But to let pass the Absurdities of this Doctrin every one may perceive how different this notion is from the sense of the Church of England which does not attribute our Justification to Faith as our own Act much less to any particular Act of Faith but by Justification by Faith only intends no more than that God will pardon our sins if we repent of them and reform our Lives and trust in the Mercies of God through the Merits and Mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the sense of our Church the sole object of our trust is the Mercy of God through the Merits of Christ and therefore the proper Act of Faith is to embrace the Promise of Pardon upon the conditions of Repentance and a new Life we must first repent of our sins and reform our Lives and then rely on the Mercy of God for our Pardon and Reward But according to this new Divinity the sole object of our trust and reliance is the perfect and personal Righteousness of Christ which shuts out the Mercy of God and the meritorious Death and Sacrifice of Christ and the Promises of Pardon and the necessity of an inherent and personal Righteousness as abundantly appears from what I have discourst above But fourthly whereas our Church makes Christ only the meritorious cause of our Justification but still requires on our part Faith and Repentance and the Love of God as antecedent conditions of our Justification these men found all our hopes of Justification immediately on the Person of Christ. Every good Christian hopes to be justified and saved by Christ but not to be immediately saved by Christ i. e. by a bare Union to his Person but by believing his Gospel and obeying his Laws which are necessarily required on our part to give us an Interest in his Merits and Righteousness but to assert that nothing is necessary to our Justification but to apply Christ and his Righteousness to our selves by a fiducial Reliance and Recumbency is to place our hopes immediately in the Person of Christ which is the foundation of Antinomianism For this reason among others I charged them in my former Discourse with setting up the Person of Christ in opposition to his Gospel and making a new Religion of the Person of Christ distinct from and contrary to the Religion of his Gospel For the Gospel requires a great many previous conditions to entitle us to the Merits and Righteousness of Christ as that we must repent of our sins and reform our Lives and become new Creatures and then God will pardon and reward us for the sake of Christ but if an immediate Application of the Righteousness of Christ to our selves by a fanciful and Enthusiastick Faith will make all Christ ours this makes all the conditions of the Gospel void and useless and sets up the Person of Christ and his Personal Righteousness instead of his Laws and Religion The Gospel attributes the Pardon of our sins and the Acceptance of our imperfect Services to the virtue and efficacy of Christs Sacrifice and Righteousness and thus we are made righteous by Christ as by a meritorious Cause But in this way the Righteousness of Christ must serve instead of a personal and inherent Righteousness which makes us so innocent that we need no Pardon and so perfectly righteous that we merit a Reward This I take to be the grand Miscarriage in these mens Divinity which indeed is the foundation of Antinomianism though the mistake be very taking and popular which makes an opposition to it very odious that whereas Christ is our Life and our Righteousness our Wisdom and Power and the Author of all spiritual Blessings but does not dispense these Blessings immediately to us but in such ways and methods and upon such terms and conditions as are prescribed and declared in the Gospel these men send us immediately to the Person of Christ for Life and Righteousness for Beauty and Comliness for Grace and Wisdom and for the supply of all our spiritual wants which shuts out his Gospel and Religion or makes it wholly useless and let but Dr. Owen stand to what he asserts in his Vindication We do not imagin but believe from the Scripture and with the whole Church of God that we receive Grace and Salvation from the Person of Christ in those distinct ways wherein they are capable of being received if by that he means such ways as are prescribed in the Gospel and I declare I have no controversie with him about this matter Thus for instance Christ is our Righteousness as he is the meritorious cause of the Pardon of our sins and the Acceptance of our sincere but imperfect services but the way to be made righteous by Christ is not immediately to go to Christ for Righteousness with all our sins and impurities about us to be cloathed with his perfect and personal Righteousness but to repent of our sins and to believe and obey the Gospel and then we shall be pardoned and rewarded for Christs sake Thus Christ is our
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
lived and came to Heaven but without Faith never any man had Life the Thief that was hanged when Christ suffered did believe only and the most merciful God justified him though as Bishop Davenant observes his Faith produced a great many good Works in a very short time but then it follows If he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again but this is the effect that I say that Faith by it self saved him but Works by themselves never justified any man Where he prefers Faith above Works because Faith being a Universal Principle of Obedience is accepted by God without Works when there wants time or opportunity to act them though in no other case but no Works can be pleasing and acceptable to God unless they proceed from a true and hearty Faith Neither Faith is without Works having opportunity thereto nor Works can avail to everlasting Life without Faith The third thing noted of Faith is What manner of Good Works Faith produces and the Good Works of Faith are not some external Acts of Hypocrisie or some worthless and flattering Devotions not some Arbitrary Superstitions c. but are the substantial Duties of Religion which consist in the love of God and of Men which make us like to God and useful to the World as is excellently discoursed in the Second and Third parts of the Homily of Good Works So that according to the sense of our Church Justifying Faith is not an idle and unactive Principle but is fruitful in Good Works and no other Faith can justifie us but such a lively Faith as abounds in all the Fruits of Righteousness according as it hath occasion and opportunity of doing good But to make this still more evident I observe farther that whereas our Church seems to lay the greatest stress upon one particular Act of Faith in the matter of Justification viz. our trust in the Mercy of God and our apprehending the Promise of Forgiveness through the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ she also makes a good Life or at least a firm and stedfast Resolution of a good Life antecedently necessary to this Justifying Act of Faith or to our Trust and Affiance in the Mercy of God through the Merits of our Lord and Saviour This is evident from that Reason which is assigned why no wicked men can have a sure Trust and Confidence in Gods Mercy For how can any man have this true Faith this sure confidence in God that by the Merits of Christ his sins be forgiven and be reconciled to the favour of God and to be partaker of the Kingdom of Heaven by Christ when he liveth ungodly and denieth Christ in his Deeds Surely no such ungodly man can have this Faith and trust in God For as they know Christ to be the only Saviour of the World so they know also that wicked men shall not enjoy the Kingdom of God They know that God hateth Unrighteousness that he will destroy all those that speak untruly that those who have done good Works which cannot be done without a lively Faith in Christ shall come forth into the Resurrection of Life and those that have done evil shall come unto the Resurrection of Iudgment Very well they know also that to them that be contentious and to them that will not be obedient unto the Truth but will obey Unrighteousness shall come indignation wrath and affliction c. The plain meaning of which words is this that no wicked man can have a true Faith in Gods Mercy because the Promise of forgiveness is made upon the Conditions of Repentance and a New Life whereas God hath threatned eternal damnation against all wicked Livers and therefore for any man while he lives in wickedness to hope to be pardoned by God for Christs sake is an express contradiction to the Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel and surely no man shall be justified for believing a lie Thus in the first part of the Sermon of Faith the design of which is to prove that a true lively justifying Faith is fruitful in Good Works we are expresly taught That he that believeth that all that is spoken of God in the Bible is true and yet liveth so ungodly that he cannot look to enjoy the Promises and Benefits of God although it may be said that such a man hath a Faith and Belief to the Words of God yet it is not properly said that he believeth in God or hath such a Faith and Trust in God whereby he may surely look for Grace Mercy and everlasting Life at Gods hands but rather for indignation and punishment according to the merits of his wicked Life This contains the very same Doctrine which was expressed in the former Paragraph farther gives us an account what distinction our Church makes between Credere Deo Credere in Deum to believe God and to believe in God the first signifies to believe whatever is contained in the Word of God to be true the second is to yield such Obedience to the Revelations of the Divine Will as may encourage us to trust in God for the Accomplishment of all those gracious Promises of Pardon and Eternal Life This is all the fiducial Reliance which our Church teacheth to trust to the Mercy of God through the Merits of Christ for Pardon and Eternal Life upon our faithful discharge of all Gospel-Obedience The same Doctrine is more expresly taught if it be possible in the Second Part of the Sermon of Faith Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth in me hath everlasting Life Now forasmuch as he that believeth in Christ hath everlasting Life it must needs consequently follow that he that hath this Faith must have also Good Works and be studious to observe Gods Commandments obediently For to them that have evil Works and lead their Life in Disobedience and Transgression or breaking Gods Commandments without Repentance pertaineth not everlasting Life but everlasting Death as Christ himself saith They that do well shall go into Life eternal but they that do evil shall go into everlasting fire c. What can be more expresly said to prove the inseparable Union of Good Works with Faith in the Act of Justification In the Homily of Repentance this Doctrine is so plainly taught that there can be no possible evasion We are there told That the true Preachers of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the glad and joyful tidings of Salvation have always in their godly Sermons and Preachings unto the People joyned these two together Repentance and Forgiveness of sins even as our Saviour Jesus Christ did appoint himself saying So it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day and that Repentance and Forgiveness of Sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations Forgiveness of sins as I observed before is Evangelical Justification and the necessary condition of Forgiveness is Repentance This is proved in that
are essential to justifying Faith and it is not justifying Faith without them such as Repentance and Contrition without which no Faith is a true justifying Faith and therefore we may observe in our Homilies that sometimes Faith is made an essential part of Repentance sometimes Repentance is made essential to a justifying Faith as appears from what I have discoursed above The reason of the mistake is this That these men do not distinguish between the general notion of Faith and Iustifying Faith Faith in general as it signifies a belief of the Being and Providence of God and the Truth of the Scriptures c. is necessary to produce any good Actions for without Faith it is impossible to please God but this bare Assent of the Understanding is not justifying Faith till it excite in us a hearty sorrow for our sins and sincere purposes of a New Life and a great Trust and Affiance in the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ So that Repentance and the Purpose of a New Life are at least essential to justifying Faith and not the fruits and effects of it but the actual performance of these Vows and Promises and the faithful discharge of our Duty to God and Men in a holy and blameless Life may be called the effects of justifying Faith not that they are not as necessary to a justifying Faith as Repentance is but because our Justification is begun without them God in infinite Grace and Mercy receiving us into favour upon our first return to him though these good Works must necessarily follow to compleat and perfect our Justification as it is expresly observed from St. Chrysostom in the Homily of Good Works concerning the Thief upon the Cross that if he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again And in this sense we are told in the Homily of Salvation That Faith doth not shut out the justice of our Good Works necessarily to be done afterwards that is after our Justification of Duty towards God And upon the same account our Church in her XII Article teaches us That Good Works are the Fruits of Faith and follow those who are Iustified And this gives an easie and plain account of the XIII Article of our Church which rejects those Works which are done before Justification that is before a Iustifying Faith as is plain from the Article Works done before the Grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God forasmuch as they spring not of Faith in Iesus Christ neither do they make men meet to receive Grace or as the School-Authors say deserve Grace of Congruity yea rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done we doubt not but that they have the nature of Sin The plain meaning of which is this That Works done before Justifying Faith are not pleasing to God that is whatever Works we do before we repent of our sins and purpose to live a New Life and trust in the Mercy of God and Merits of our Saviour for Pardon and Acceptance cannot please God because such are not Good Works for when we reject Works done before Justification we must not reject Justifying Faith it self nor any thing which is necessary and essential to it for then we run our selves into such a Labyrinth out of which we shall never find a way And indeed I find that some men are very sensible what weight our Church lays upon the necessity of Repentance in order to our Justification and use some little Arts to avoid it for that Description of Faith which is given us in the first part of the Sermon of Faith concluding thus We do trust that our offences be continually washed and purged whensoever we repenting truly do return to him with our whole heart stedfastly determining with our selves through his Grace to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments and never to turn back again to sin Which maks Repentance of our sins and a sincere and stedfast purpose of a new life antecedently necessary to the justfying Act of Faith they use this evasion that the Homily adds Whensoever we repenting return to him either with respect to future sins to the forgiveness of which we all acknowledge Repentance to be necessary or else to distinguish a saving from a counterfeit and sudden Faith not as if true Evangelical Repentance had any influence upon the very Act of Iustification as Faith has The first account is the strangest that ever I met with for there can be no imaginable reason assigned why Repentance should be necessary to obtain the Pardon of those sins which we commit after Justification and not necessary to our first Justification I am sure neither the Scripture nor the Articles and Homilies of our Church nor the Confessions of any Reformed Churches which I ever yet saw ever made such a distinction The Commission which our Saviour gave to his Apostles was to preach Repentance and Forgiveness of sins in his Name to the unconverted and unjustified Jews and Heathens and both the Homilies of our Church and the Augustan-Confession do in express words found the Doctrine of Repentance upon that first Commission given to the Apostles and do thence conclude the necessity of Repentance in order to Forgiveness for since Justification consists in the forgiveness of our sins a repeated Forgiveness is but a repeated Justification of a Sinner and why that should be necessary to the after-after-acts of Justification which was not necessary to the first is beyond my Understanding The second account is much better that it is to distinguish between a saving and a counterfeit Faith but then this very distinction confirms the antecedent necessity of Repentance to Justification for the difference between a saving and counterfeit Faith according to this Account is that a saving Faith supposes Repentance or includes it in its very nature but a counterfeit Faith does not as for what they add that Evangelical Repentance hath not such an influence upon our Justification as Faith has is none of our present dispute if it be but acknowledged to be antecedently necessary we will consider the rest hereafter And now it is time to proceed to the last thing I proposed to consider what our Church attributes to Faith in the matter of our Justification And to state this matter plainly I shall first enquire in what sense our Church rejects Works from the Office of Justifying and attributes it to Faith alone And secondly what the Office of Faith is in the Justification of a Sinner First In what sense our Church rejects Works from the Office of Justifying and attributes it to Faith alone And it is easily observed that our Church acknowledges the antecedent necessity of some Works to our Justification as we are expresly taught in the first part of the Sermon of Salvation And yet that Faith doth not shut out Repentance Hope Love Dread
and the Fear of God to be joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but it shutteth them out from the Office of Iustifying So that although they be all present together in him that is justified yet they justifie not all together So that no man must expect this great Blessing of Justification unless together with Faith he have Repentance Hope Love Dread and the Fear of God which supposes that a man must be a true Penitent and a true Lover of God before he is justified Though Repentance and Hope c. have no actual influence upon our Justification yet they are causae sine quibus non such causes without which the effect will never follow which necessarily intitles them to the nature of Conditions for a Condition which hath no natural or meritorious Efficiency is only a causa sine quâ non and though it is true that the accidental presence of one thing with another which produces any Effect will not entitle it to any degree of Efficiency yet where there is such a natural Union between two things that neither of them can act alone though the effect may more immediately belong to one than to the other yet they both concur to it though the hand does immediately apprehend any thing or lay hold on it yet the Shoulder and the Arm is naturally necessary to produce this action because the Hand cannot move of it self And if they will allow us this similitude which they themselves sometimes use that Good VVorks be the Shoulder and Arm that upholds Faith we will allow Faith to be the Hand And thus it is in Moral Causes where the presence of two things of Faith suppose and Works is necessarily required in order to the same Effect there must be a concurrence of both though it may be in different manners When our Church asserts the necessary presence of some internal Graces and Vertues together with Faith in him who is to be justified she plainly acknowledges that we shall never be justified without them though not for them which is all that any one desires who denies and rejects the Merits of Good Works And as these internal Acts of Repentance Hope c. are antecedently necessary to Justification so Good Works must necessarily follow as we are taught in the same place Nor the Faith also doth not shut out the Iustice of our Good Works necessarily to be done afterwards of Duty towards God for we are most bounden to serve God in doing Good Deeds commanded by him in his holy Scripture all the days of our Life but it excludeth them so that we may not do them to this intent to be made good by doing of them that is to be justified by them And this we are taught is so necessary that unless these Good Works follow as the necessary Fruits of Faith we shall loose our Justification again as you heard above In what sense then does our Church reject good Works and attribute our Justification to Faith alone And that we are told over and over in the most plain and express words that it is only to take away the Merit of Good Works and to attribute our Justification to the free Mercy of God and Merits of Christ not to our own Works and Deservings Hence it is that Justification by Works is so often opposed to our Justification by the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ which are inconsistent in no other sense but that of Merit for though Good Works be supposed the necessary Conditions of Justification yet if they be acknowledged so imperfect as not to merit we shall still need the Merits of Christ to expiate our sins and the Mercy of God to pardon them and to accept of our imperfect Services But the words of the Homily are very express where after alledging the concurrent Testimonies of the ancient Fathers for Justification without Works by Faith alone we have this Explication given of them Nevertheless this Sentence that we be justified by Faith only is not so meant of them that the said Justifying Faith is alone in man without true Repentance Hope Charity Dread and Fear of God at any time and season nor when they say we be justified freely they mean not that we should or might afterward be idle and that nothing should be required on our parts afterward neither they mean not so to be justified without Good Works that we should do no Good Works at all But this saying that we be justified by Faith only freely and without Works is spoken for to take away clearly all Merit of our Works as being unable to deserve our Justification at Gods hands and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of Man and the goodness of God the great infirmity of our selves and the might and power of God the imperfectness of our own Works and the most abundant Grace of our Saviour Christ and therefore wholly to ascribe the Merit and Deserving of our Justification to Christ only and his most precious blood-shedding Hence for a man to be justified by his own Works is expounded as if we should affirm That a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own sins and so justifie himself That is when they reject Justification by Works they understand by it a meritorious Justification Thus in the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we are expresly taught That the true meaning of this Proposition or Saying We be justified by Faith in Christ only according to the meaning of the old ancient Authors is this We put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods free Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no vertue or Good Works of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do for to deserve the same Christ himself only being the Cause meritorious thereof This is so expresly the Doctrine of the Homilies that I need not multiply Testimonies for the proof of it from whence it is evident that our Church owns the necessity of Good Works to all intents and purposes excepting Merit and in this sense they reject Faith too as it is our own Work But now because our Church and all the Reformed Churches expresly reject Works in the matter of Justification under the notion of Merit and Deserving in which sense alone they are injurious to the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ from whence we argue that they own the necessity of Works upon all other Accounts and reject only the Merit of them Some tell us that we should rather argue that they put no difference between Works and the Merit of Works in the matter of Justification but equally reject them both But pray why so Truly for no Reason that I know but that it best serves their Hypothesis They acknowledge that there is a difference between Works and the Merit of Works but will by no means own that
we either 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 Iustification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Iesus Christ the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby Gods Grace and Remission as well of our Original Sin in Baptism as of all actual Sins committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and unfeignedly turn to him All this is called being justified by Faith only which includes a renouncing the Merits and Deserts of our own Works but first requires that we should do good Works before we renounce the Merit of them and an affiance in the Mercy of God for Pardon and Forgiveness upon the conditions of Repentance and a new Life This is all I contend for which is the Antient Catholick Doctrin of our Church against those modern notions of Reliance and Recumbency or the virtue of any particular Act of Faith in the Justification of a Sinner Thirdly I observe that should any man affirm in express words that we are justified by Works as well as by Faith meaning no more by it than that good Works are the necessary Conditions not the meritorious Causes of our Justification though he would differ in the manner of expression yet he would agree with our Church in the true notion of Justification whereas those who use the same phrase of being justified by Faith only and by Faith without Works thereby excluding the antecedent necessity of Repentance and Holiness to our Justification though they retain the same form of words yet renounce the constant Doctrin of our Church and are the only Apostates and Innovators Which may satisfie any man how unjustly I am charged with corrupting the Doctrin of our Church when I have only expressed the true sense and meaning of it in such words as are less liable to be mistaken and how vainly my Adversaries pretend to be such Obedient Sons of the Church of England when under an Orthodox Form of Words they have introduced such Doctrins as are diametrically opposite to the declared sense of this Church After this large and particular Account of the Doctrin of the Church of England concerning the Justification of a Sinner it is time in the second place to consider how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and how those men whom I oppose have corrupted the Doctrin as well as rejected the Authority of our Church And though I have already given sufficient Intimations of this yet it may be of great use more particularly to shew how directly opposite these new and fantastick Notions are to the establisht Doctrin contained in our Articles and Homilies which though it would admit of a very large Discourse I shall comprize in as few words as may be And first whereas our Church expresly asserts that in the Justification of a Sinner on Gods part is required Mercy and Grace Justification consisting in the free Pardon of all our sins Mr. Ferguson very agreeably indeed to his own Principles expresly asserts that Justification does not consist in the Pardon of sin nor is it the result of Mercy but the off-spring of Justice Remission as he acknowledges is the result of Mercy and the act of one exercising Favour but Iustification is the off spring of Iustice and imports one transacting with us in a juridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity This Notion I have examined already and shall add nothing further for the Confutation of it It is directly contrary to the Doctrin of our Homilies and I hope that is Argument enough with these men who pretend such a mighty veneration for the Antient and Catholick Doctrin of our Church But then if any man should wonder as well he may how a Sinner should be justified in this Law-notion according to the strict Rules of Justice that is that a Sinner is justified not by being pardoned but by being acquitted and absolved as an innocent man who has never offended the account of this will farther discover what Friends they are to the Doctrin of our Church For secondly whereas the Church of England requires no more on Christs part but Iustice or the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the Price of our Redemption which makes him the meritorious Cause of our Iustification that God for Christs sake forgives the sins of true Penitents these men place our Justification in the Imputation of Christs personal Righteousness to us They tell us that Christ as our Surety and Mediator hath fulfilled all Righteousness for us and in our stead and that by being clothed with his perfect Righteousness we are accounted perfectly righteous and so are justified not as Malefactors when they are pardoned but as righteous and innocent men who are acquitted and absolved And I have already informed Mr. Ferguson how effectually this Notion undermines the necessity of an inherent Righteousness To be justified by the Merits of Christ signifies no more than to be justified by the gracious Terms and Conditions of the Gospel which is founded on the Merits of Christ which was purchased and sealed with his meritorious Bloud For the Merits of Christ do not immediately justifie any man but whereas strict Justice will not admit of Repentance nor accept of an imperfect though sincere Obedience God has for the sake of Christ who hath expiated our sins by his Death entered into a Covenant of Grace and Mercy wherein he promises Pardon to true Penitents and this necessarily requires an inherent Holiness not to merit but to qualifie us for the Grace of God But if we be made righteous by a perfect Righteousness imputed to us if this will answer all the demands of Law and Justice what need is there of an imperfect Righteousness of our own The Righteousness of Christ imputed to us makes us righteous as Christ is and what need is there then of any Righteousness of our own which would be according to the Proverb to burn day and to light up Candles in the Sun Dr. Owen takes notice of this Objection and pretends to give an Answer to it which must be a little considered for a little will serve the turn And first he observes that here is a great difference if it were no more than that this Righteousness was inherent in Christ and properly his own it is only reckoned and imputed to us or freely bestowed on us But does not this Imputation make it ours How then can we answer the demands of the Law with it Is any thing the less ours because it is not originally ours but so by Gift And the Doctor was sensible that this Answer would not do and therefore secondly he tells us the Truth is that Christ was not righteous with that Righteousness for himself but for us How plain are things when men will speak out So that now
it seems this Righteousness is not so properly Christs Righteousness as ours he had no need to fulfil all Righteousness for himself but for us as our Mediator and Surety So that here can be no comparison between the Righteousness of Christ inherent in him and imputed to us because it is not so much his Righteousness as ours But was not Christ personally righteous with this Righteousness Did he so fulfil Righteousness for us that he himself had no interest in it Can it be inherent in him and he not righteous by it And if Christ in his private capacity as a man subject to the Law were righteous with that very Righteousness which makes us righteous then we are righteous as Christ is and not only righteous with his Righteousness which he wrought for us and that completely but righteous with the very same Righteousness that makes him righteous which excludes indeed all comparison as the Doctor well observes because we cannot so properly compare a thing with it self but it demonstrates the Identity or Sameness of this Righteousness And here unless I will prove my self an arrant Coward I must accept that Challenge the Doctor has sent me to stand to that Resolution I gave in my former Discourse to that Question What Influence the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his Life have upon our Acceptance with God Which signifies no more than what is meant by our being saved by the Merits and Righteousness of Christ and the Answer I gave to it is this That all I can find in Scripture about it is that to this we ow the Covenant of Grace that God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christs Life and with the Sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a new Covenant with Mankind wherein he promises Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel Now I would desire the Doctor to take notice that I stand to this and accept his Challenge let him chuse what seconds or thirds or fourths he pleases This Assertion the Doctor says cannot be reconciled to common Sense or the fundamental Principles of Christian Religion And indeed he has discovered a great many Absurdities in it which are enough to put any man out of conceit with such a Doctrin for hence it follows if we will believe him for we have only his bare word for it That God entred into a new Covenant originally only for the sake of those things whereby that Covenant was ratified and confirmed But how does this follow Did I ever affirm that the Death of Christ did only ratifie and confirm the Covenant Do I not every where assert that Christs Death did procure and purchase as well as seal the Covenant of Grace And I hope God may be said to enter into Covenant for the sake of a meritorious Cause What he means by Gods originally entring into Covenant I cannot tell unless it be that this was the first moving cause of Gods entring into Covenant but this can not be attributed to the Death of Christ upon any account but to that free Grace which first contrived the way of our Recovery and sent Christ into the world to accomplish it But however does it not follow from this Assertion That Christ was so the Mediator of the new Covenant that he died not for the Redemption of Transgressions under the first Covenant whereby the whole Consideration of his Satisfaction and of Redemption properly so called is excluded that there is no consideration to be had of his Purchase of the Inheritance of Grace and Glory with many other things of the same importance I see unless the Doctor get a very good Second there is no great danger in accepting his Challenge for is there any appearance of consequence in this that because Christ by his Death purchased and sealed the new Covenant that therefore he did not die for the Redemption of sins under the first Covenant nor to purchase the Inheritance of Grace and Glory That which purchases a Covenant purchases every thing contained in it Now the new Covenant contains the Promise of Forgiveness of sin and therefore whatever sins are pardoned in the new Covenant were expiated by the Death of Christ without which there is no Remission and consequently could be no Promise of Remission The new Covenant contains the Promises of Grace and Glory and therefore Grace and Glory are as much the purchase of Christs Death as the new Covenant is The plain account of the matter is this That Christ hath expiated our sins by his meritorious Death and Sufferings and hath purchased the Pardon of sin and eternal Life and whatever Christ hath purchased by his Death God hath promised to bestow on us in the new Covenant So that the whole virtue of Christs Death is contained in the Covenant of Grace i. e. whatever he has purchased for us by his Death is there promised and we must expect no other benefit by the Death of Christ than to be saved according to the conditions of the new Covenant which signifies the same thing with being justified and saved by the Merits of Christ and convinces us of the necessity of inherent Holiness which is the condition of the Gospel Covenant The last Absurdity the Doctor has discovered in my Assertion argues him to be a man of a very deep reach That the Gospel or the Doctrin of the Gospel is the new Covenant which is only a perspicuous Declaration of it Now suppose this were never so great an Absurdity how am I concerned in it when I expresly say that the new Covenant let it be what it will is owing to the Merits and Righteousness of Christ Though it is a mighty subtil Distinction between the new Covenant and the perspicuous Declaration of it which is like distinguishing between a Law or Contract and the Words whereby it is expressed How easie is it for such nice Metaphysical Wits to find or make Absurdities in any thing But to proceed I observe thirdly that whereas our Church attributes our Justification to such a Faith as comprehends in its notion Repentance and the Love of God and all internal Graces and Virtues and a sincere purpose and resolution to reform our Lives and external Conversation and makes all this absolutely necessary to our Justification these men on the contrary attribute our Justification to a particular Act of Faith which they call a fiducial Reliance or Recumbency on Christ for Salvation abstracted from Repentance or the Love of God or any othe Grace or Virtue And this I confess is very agreeable to their notion of Justification by the Imputation of Christs personal Righteousness to us for if we are made righteous only by being clothed with the perfect Righteousness of Christ nothing more can be required of us in order to our Justification but to apply the Righteousness of Christ to our selves which they tell us is done by coming to Christ for
Allegories and very gravely states the difference between a Metaphor and Allegory and Parable c. as if he were reading a Rhetorick Lecture to his School-boys and very strongly proves that it is lawful to use Metaphors and that the Spirit of God in Scripture does so it being his peculiar Talent to prove that which no body denies at length he comes to the business to show that some of the expressions reflected on in the Writings of the Nonconformists are such as the Holy Ghost himself hath preceded them in the use of and that to the very same ends and purposes for which they produce them And that he may not be thought to design the disparagement of any party of men by quoting Testimonies from divers of their Authors who rather than not strain up the dregs of their choler against the Fanaticks for their Phraseologies have even written in derogation of Scripture-phrases and made the Spirit of God the subject of their derision as well as the Nonconformists to avoid this he confines himself to me alone This is true Fanatick Charity He will by no means good man disparage any party of men only he informs his Readers that there are a sort of men who write against the Fanaticks and it is pretty well known who they are that make the Spirit of God the subject of their derision And why so I pray because they laugh at the Fanaticks for their ridiculous abuse of Scripture-Phrases and Metaphors Though they prate Nonsense in Scripture-phrase yet because it is the phrase of Scripture which they thus abuse every one who laughs at them for it if we will believe Mr. Ferguson makes the Spirit of God the subject of his derision And yet our Author when he is in a better mood tells us But let them and all such Persons of what communion and perswasion soever they are who turn the Gospel thus into a Romance and subvert the Mysteries of Faith by transforming them into Phantastick Allegories be treated with the derision and contempt of all who pretend to Wisdom and Modesty So that it seems some men may turn the very Gospel it self into a Romance and abuse the Phrases and Expressions of Scripture to very evil purposes and then it is not a deriding the Spirit of God but that which is consistent with Wisdom and Modesty to expose them to derision and contempt Thus contrary is our Author to himself when he opposes the Quakers and vindicates his own dear Brethren who have abused Scripture-expressions as grosly though in many cases with less wit and to worse purposes than the Quakers themselves as he is forc'd to acknowledge of T. W. that maybe in some things he hath prevaricated which is in plain English to say that it may be he hath either play'd the Fool or the Knave for which character T. W. is very much beholden to Mr. Ferguson But he hath taken care that no other Person shall be able to answer this Charge for though he very charitably accuses all men who write against the Fanaticks yet he names no man nor gives any particular instances of this prophane derision of the Holy Spirit only I am singled out to bear the fury of his assault and I am very well contented with it provided that if I acquit my self his bare Testimony may not be taken against any man till the Cause be first heard and tried The plain state of the Controversie is this I charge them with drawing a New Scheme of Religion such as is no where to be found in express terms in Scripture from a pretended Acquaintance with Christs Person I foresaw an easie and obvious objection against this that there are no men who stuff their Books and Discourses with more frequent quotations of Scripture than they do right or wrong they have a Scripture proof for every thing they say and does it not look like a calumny then to charge them with fetching their Religion from any other Fountain than the holy Scriptures In answer to this I made it appear that they expound Scriptures according to their own fancies and in compliance with their pre-conceived opinions that they do not fetch their notions from the Scriptures but wrest the Scriptures from their proper and genuine sense to make them countenance their own fancies Now because I produce those Scripture expressions which these men pervert and burlesque to use his own word by their wild and fanciful applications Mr. Ferguson had no way to be even with me but to charge me with burlesquing the Scripture it self As for instance They tell us That all we have to do in order to our salvation is to get into Christ and to be united to him for then his Fulness and Beauty and Riches and Righteousness and Merits and All is ours and in order to this Union which what it is they could never yet explain we must first come to Christ and then receive him and apply his Merits and Righteousness to our selves and then lean and rest and roll our Souls upon him and trust to be saved wholly by his Merits without any Righteousness of our own and all this they learnedly prove from those Scripture-expressions of coming to Christ and receiving him c. which signifie no more than believing in Christ or undertaking the publick Profession of Christianity but because I show how far these Scripture-phrases are from countenancing their Gibberish Mr. Ferguson challenges me with burlesquing the Scripture Coming to Christ signifies according to the Eastern Dialect to believe in Christ or to become his Disciple but because it is called coming hence these men of fancy dream of I know not what spiritual progress of the Soul to Christ and explain believing by coming to Christ which in their Divinity is one of the first Acts of Faith Now because I say That it falls out luckily that Faith is called coming I am charged with deriding the Scripture whereas it is plain that if I deride any thing it is only their foolish Explications of Scripture-phrases for all their Mystical Divinity had been spoiled and they must have been forc'd to have spoke plain sense like other men or to have spoke Nonsense without the least pretence of the authority of Scripture had it not been for such Eastern Phrases which were intended by the Holy Ghost to another purpose but are capable of being perverted by such English Divines to the countenancing of a New-fashion'd English Divinity and I think still that this fell out very luckily for them Thus with an equal skill and ingenuity he accounts it deriding the Scripture to say That coming and going are very intelligible explications of believing whereas coming must be explained by believing not believing by coming unless we will in a proper sense burlesque the Scripture Thus because I reject their fanciful and presumptuous trust and confidence in Christ viz. to be saved by him for no other reason but because they trust to be saved
Does it not as much belong to a supreme and unaccountable Judge to pardon as to absolve And is not Pardon as properly opposed to Condemnation as Absolution is But to let all this pass it is worth considering how our Author in his way can explain Justification in a proper sense He tells us that the proper notion of Justification is to acquit and absolve the Innocent suppose this to be true though it may admit of some dispute whether this forensick use of the word be its proper sense I would willingly learn of our Author how a Sinner can be justified in this proper sense that is how he who hath broken the Laws of God can be acquitted and absolved as innocent how God who cannot lie can declare that that man hath never broken his Laws nor done any thing amiss who is a Sinner Yes says our Author this may be done very well by the imputation of the perfect Righteousness of Christ to Sinners which makes them perfectly innocent suppose this to be true yet is this the proper notion of Justification that a Sinner is innocent and righteous by Imputation Is there no difference then between an imputed and an inherent and personal Righteousness Justification in a proper sense requires a Personal Righteousness and Innocency and I doubt it will require some good lusty tropes to make an imputed Righteousness the matter of our Justification in this Law-notion So that for ought I can see the imputation of Righteousness in his gross notion is as metaphorical a Justification as the Pardon of sin though not half so good sense But I have not thus done with our Author There are three things more which I would desire him to consider at his leisure and to answer when he is able The first is this That Pardon of Sin whether it be a proper or metaphorical Justification is the true Scripture-notion of the Justification of a Sinner Justification indeed in its full extent and latitude signifies the acceptation of our Persons and the restoring us to a state of Grace and Favour with God which is somewhat more than bare Remission but the first Act of Justification on Gods part and that which draws all the rest after it is the Pardon of our Sins this is a Sinners Righteousness wherewith he must appear before God This is the Commission which Christ gave to his Disciples To preach Remission of Sins in his Name this is the great Priviledge of the Gospel that now by Christ all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Act. xiii 39. That is that now Christ hath made a tonement and expiation for those sins for which the Law of Moses did appoint no Sacrifice Where to be justified signifies to be delivered from the guilt and condemnation of Sin that is to be pardoned But not to heap up many Testimonies I shall principally insist on the Fourth Chapter to the Romans as being the proper Seat of this Controversie There St. Paul enquires by what means our Father Abraham was justified before God And in answer to it he tells us that Abraham was not justified by Works but by Faith Where by Works the Apostle does not mean only the Works of the Mosaical Law an External and Ceremonial Righteousness for he proceeds to that in the tenth verse but he seems principally to intend a perfect and unsinning Righteousness Let us then examine what the Apostle means by Justification by Faith what this Righteousness of Faith is as it is opposed to a Righteousness of Works and there are four expressions whereby this Righteousness is described which signifie one and the same thing That it is an imputed Righteousness vers 3 6. that it is a Righteousness without Works that it is a Justification of the ungodly vers 5. that it consists in the Pardon of Sin vers 7 8. I shall begin with the last because this is Mr. Ferguson's grand Charge against me That I place Iustification in the forgiveness of Sin but so does our Apostle and alledges the Authority of the Prophet David for it Even as David also deseribeth the blessedness of that man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without Works saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin vers 6 7 8. This is the Justification of Faith in opposition to Justification by Works that those who heartily believe in God as Abraham did though they have been formerly guilty of many sins and are still subject to many infirmities and defects yet God for Christs sake will forgive their past sins and their present imperfections and will reward them above the Deserts and Merits of their Works A Righteousness of Works consists in Innocency and Perfection but a Righteousness of Faith in Sincerity and Pardon Upon this account it is called an imputed Righteousness Faith was accounted and reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness and blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth Righteousness Which signifies that this is matter of Grace not of Debt for to him that worketh is the reward reckoned not of Grace but of Debt When a man is justified by Works he is absolved because he is innocent and rewarded because he hath merited a Reward which is the Justification for which Mr. Ferguson pleads in a direct opposition to St. Paul but Justification by Faith requires the favour and acceptance of God because though it includes an honest and sincere mind and a readiness to do our best to please God yet it is consistent with a great many infirmities and miscarriages and defects which cannot pass the trial of strict Justice and this is imputed Righteousness when God accepts of that for our Righteousness and Justification which in a strict sense is not Righteousness Whatever is imputed to us for Righteousness must be good but imperfect If it be not good it is no part of Righteousness and therefore cannot be imputed instead of the whole and if it be perfect there is no need of this gracious acceptation it is then a strict and proper not an imputed Righteousness Upon the same account it is called a Righteousness without Works vers 6. Which must not be understood in such a loose sense as if God would justifie a man who does nothing which is good as if he would account that man righteous who does no Righteousness which is expresly contrary to the Doctrine of St. Iohn 1 Epist. iii. 7. But the meaning is either that God sometimes accepts of great and generous Acts of Faith instead of Works when there is no occasion or opportunity of Action which was the case of Abraham when he believed in hope against hope that he should have a Son in his old Age to which the Apostle principally refers in the 5th verse when he tells us That to him that worketh not but believeth his Faith is counted for Righteousness Or
And therefore if our Author would make good his notion he must shew how Pardon is more an act of Grace than Justification and how Justification is more the Off-spring of Justice than Pardon and if he dare stand to this notion there needs not many words to prove that he overthrows the whole Grace of the Gospel Fourthly There is another very ill consequence of this notion that it destroys the necessity of an inherent Righteousness or of a good Life For what necessity can there be that we should have a Righteousness of our own when we are perfectly righteous with the imputed Righteousness of Christ The Law demands a perfect and unsinning Righteousness and it is impossible it should demand any more we answer this Charge by the perfect Righteousness of Christ and when this is done we are innocent and righteous and have a title to the Rewards of a perfect Obedience and what can be desired more from us Mr. Ferguson indeed supposes that the Law requires a perfect Obedience and that the Gospel over and above this requires Faith and a sincere Obedience and that Christ was our Substitute to make Satisfaction to the Demands of the Law and not of the Gospel And that by his Death he hath only freed us from what we were obnoxious to upon failure of perfect Obedience but not at all from what we are liable to in case of Unbelief and want of sincere Obedience Now though this be true in some sense that is that Christ by his Death hath expiated our sins and thereby delivered us from the condemnation of the Law upon the failure of perfect Obedience and hath sealed the Covenant of Grace in his Blood which accepts and rewards a sincere though imperfect Obedience yet as it is applied by him it is down-right non-sense for if we perfectly answer the Demands of the Law by the imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness there is no need of the Gospel nor any place for it Perfection includes Sincerity as the greater includes the less and therefore if the Righteousness of Christ answers the Demands of the Law as to a perfect Obedience it shuts out any farther Demands of the Gospel He who is perfectly righteous is sincere too and he who can answer the Demands of Justice needs not the allowances of Grace and Mercy So that the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness does supercede our own Endeavours and makes our own Righteousness needless for this Reason I charged them before and do so still with setting up the Person of Christ in opposition to his Laws and Religion with magnifying his Personal Righteousness so as to evacuate all the Obligations of Duty And now methinks I can deal with any thing in Mr. Ferguson but his Brow and Confidence who is of the true breed and can stare the Sun in the face without blinking for after all this he declares That let me but once justifie my Charge of their making the Personal Righteousness of Christ our Personal Righteousness or that they maintain Christ to have fulfilled all Righteousness in our stead he does assure me that he will not only be ready to allow my severest Reproofs but to commend and second them Now unless by Personal he means inherent nothing in the World can be more plain then that he himself makes Christs Personal Righteousness our Personal Righteousness for we are Personally Righteous with the Righteousness of Christ and answer all the Demands of the Law with it and then I conceive it must be a Personal Righteousness not by inhesion indeed with which I never charged them but by imputation And as for Christs fulfilling Righteousness in our stead unless he has some secret quirk in that phrase our stead Doctor Owen does not only profess this but endeavours to prove it by several Arguments that Christ did not keep the Law for himself but for us and that not for our good only but that we might be righteous with his Righteousness and fulfil the Law in him He keeps the Law as our Mediator and Surety and Representative and I think that is so for us as to be in our stead this I have discours'd at large in my former Book and thither I shall refer my Reader Having thus justified my self in a proper Law-notion from the Accusations of this Author I shall farther consider how he justifies his dear Friends the Nonconformists from that Charge of toying with Scripture-Metaphors and Phrases and turning them into Burlesque And truly he is the most wretched Apologist that ever I saw sometimes he acknowledges the Charge with respect to particular Persons who through ignorance inadvertency or wantonness prevaricate in this matter but would not have the whole Party which was never done by me traduced for the folly of a few but if we should enquire how few those are who thus prevaricate in this matter and judge of it by their late Writings I doubt it would appear by computation that they never had so many Prevaricators at Cambridge since the first Institution of that Order and then let any one judge how well this agrees with what he asserts in the same breath that he knows none more observant of these Rules which he had before laid down in the sensing and applying of Metaphors than those who are stiled Nonconformists which proves nothing but that he has very little good Acquaintance But indeed Mr. Ferguson has taken the best course he could I had shewed in particular instances how they had abused Scripture-Phrases and Metaphors but he did not think fit to descend to particulars but instead of that collects a great many good Rules out of Glassius and Vossius and tells us how they ought to expound and use Metaphors and then without any farther proof concludes that they do so Whereas should we suppose that all the Nonconformists understood the Rules of Rhetorick as well as our Author though I fear many of them never read so much Rhetorick in their Lives before and I wish reading this may do them some good yet it is a very different Art to understand the Rules of Rhetorick to practise them whether they have any Skill in the first or no I know not but I am sure if they have they are as saving of it as ever men were as if they were afraid it would waste by too common a use Just after the same manner he vindicates the Nonconformists from those Aspersions lately cast upon them as if they were Defamers of Reason disclaiming it from all Concern in Religion c. To wipe off this Reproach which was not cast upon them but which they brought upon themselves by their perpetual Declamations against Reason our Author writes a large Chapter to shew the Use of Reason in Matters of Religion and this must pass for a Justification of the Nonconformists and now they will be thought the only Rational Divines Whereas in truth had he managed this Argument with as much accuracy as
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
to this Argument is to find what there is to be answered To be justified by Works without Merit if any men phrase it so can signifie no more but this that God for Christs sake forgives the sins and accepts the Persons of those who though they be guilty of many Infirmites yet do heartily and sincerely endeavour to please him and by the practise of a real Righteousness do every day aspire after a greater likeness to him now the question is Why since these men do not merit such favours should God prefer them before those who busie themselves in some external Rites and Ceremonies or Judaical Observances which have no real Goodness in them And I can give no other account of it but that it is for the same reason for which God prefers an Evangelical before a Ceremonial Righteousness and if there be no reason for this excepting Merit I confess the Argument is unanswerable Is there no reason why God should prefer the internal Habits of Grace and Vertue which are a participation of his own Nature and the beginnings though but weak and imperfect of a new and spiritual Life and the best qualifications for future Glory and Happiness before some external Rites and Usages which have no real worth Is there no reason why God should prefer the substantial Acts of Piety and Charity which are useful to Men and an imitation of the bounty and goodness of God before picking up straws and such useless and ludicrous Employments Is there no difference between Works which are imperfectly good and Works which have no goodness in them But I think it is a Work of Supererogation though not very meritorious to answer such an Argument But now in requital of this Argument against the distinction between Works and Merit I shall give another for it and that is That our Church makes nothing more necessary on our part to our Salvation than to our Justification and therefore when she rejects Good Works from the Office of Justifying if she intends to deny the Necessity as well as the Merit of Good Works she must be understood to deny the necessity of Good Works to our Salvation also which is an express Contradiction to her declared Doctrine There is no such distinction as this between Justification and Salvation to be found in any of the Articles or Homilies of our Church which is a good Argument that our Church knew no such distinction for if she had we cannot but think that she would have made use of it in express terms at one time or other there being the same occasion for it then that there is now The Sermon or Homily of Justification is called the Sermon of Salvation and these words Iustification and Salvation are promiscuously used in the Homily it self Thus in the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we have these words at the beginning It hath been manifestly declared unto you that no man can fulfil the Law of God and therefore by the Law all men are condemned whereupon it followeth necessarily that some other thing should be required for our SALVATION than the Law and that is a true and lively Faith in Christ bringing forth good Works and a Life according to Gods Commandments Where Salvation must of necessity signifie what at other times is called Justification for our Church tells us that we cannot be saved by the Works of the Law because we cannot fulfil the Law which is the reason at other times assigned why we cannot be Iustified by the Law Because all men be Sinners and Offenders against God and Breakers of his Law therefore can no man by his own Acts Words and Deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God Which are the very first words of the Sermon of Salvation And what is here required for our Salvation is the very same which in other places our Church requires to our Justification viz. A true and lively Faith in Christ bringing forth Good Works and a Life according to Gods Commandments Thus in the first part of the Sermon of Good Works our Church cites those words of S. Chrysostom I can shew a man that by Faith without Works lived came to heaven but without Faith never any man had Life the Thief that was hanged when Christ suffered did believe only and the most merciful God justified him this is an Example of living and going to Heaven by Faith without Works that the Thief was justified by Faith only so that to be justified by Faith and to live and go to Heaven by Faith it seems are equivalent expressions as appears also from what follows And because no man shall say again that he lacked time to do good VVorks for else he would have done them Truth it is and I will not contend therein but this I will surely affirm that Faith only SAVED him So that to be justified and to be saved by Faith still signifies the same thing and in the same sense wherein our Church affirms that we may be justified by Faith only she affirms that we may be saved by Faith only which therefore must not exclude the Necessity but the Merit of Good Works and whenever Faith only will not justifie it will not save neither as it follows If he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again That is his Justification as appears from the whole Discourse The Learned Bishop Davenant certainly was not acquainted with this distinction when he proposed that Question Utrum bona Opera sint necessaria ad Iustificationem vel Salutem Whether Good Works be necessary to Justification or Salvation and answers it without making any difference between their necessity to Justification and to Salvation which is not very reconcileable with our Modern Divinity in which good Works are so far from being owned necessary that they are judged dangerous and hurtful in reference to Justification though they may be necessary to our Salvation And indeed this distinction between Justification and Salvation was on purpose invented to mollifie some harsh expressions of later Divines who rejected good Works and a holy Life from having any thing to do in the Justification of a Sinner This gave birth to the Antinomian Heresie which wholly rejects the Law and good VVorks and under a pretence of advancing the freeness of Gods Grace delivers Believers from all the necessary Obligations of Duty and Obedience to prevent the infection of this Doctrine they invented this distinction between Justification and Salvation and asserted that though Good VVorks are not necessary to our Justification yet they are to our Salvation which is as much as to say that though our sins shall be pardoned and our persons accepted and accounted perfectly righteous and have an actual Right and Title to future Glory without Holiness and Obedience yet we shall never have an actual Possession of Glory but upon the condition of an holy Life which were it true
now to proceed to the consideration of our Union to Christ in which Argument Mr. Ferguson has put out his whole strength such as it is which consists only in some Childish Cavils false Representations and insolent and foolish Triumphs Though I wonder he has no more craft than to tell such improbable Stories as confute themselves As for instance he charges my Notion of Union to Christ with disserving holiness Why what is my Notion of Union That I expressed in few words That Christ is a spiritual King and all Christians are his Subjects and our Union to Christ consists in our belief of his Revelations obedience to his Laws and subjection to his Authority How can this disserve Holiness which makes Holiness and Obedience Essential to our Union This is a very improbable Story and I doubt he will find few Vouchers for it And yet to see the power of wit he has two or three as plain proofs of it as heart can wish For first he observes that I acknowledge that in one sense we must be united to Christ before we can be holy But then he ought to have been so honest as to have told what sense that is I shall transcribe that passage and leave men to judge what they please of our Author Our Union to Christ is more or less perfect according to our attainments in true Piety and Vertue The first and lowest degree of our Union to Christ is a belief of his Gospel which in order of nature must go before Obedience to it but yet it includes a purpose and resolution of obeying it and in this sense we must be united to Christ before we can be holy because this belief of the Gospel is the great Principle of Obedience But then our Union is not perfected without actual Obedience this makes us the true Disciples of Christ when we are fruitful in good Works So that all I affirm is that we must first believe the Gospel before we can obey it and that a sincere belief of the Gospel and a hearty resolution of obeying it does begin our union to Christ before we may have the opportunities of External Obedience The Internal acts of the mind as Faith and Repentance and the love of God and the sincere purposes of a new Life are antecedently necessary to our Union to Christ but External Holiness and Obedience which requires time and opportunities of action which are not always in our power may not always go before but must always follow to complete and perfect our Union Which I thus explained in the same place Christ receives bad men as soon as they believe his Gospel and resolve to be good but their Reward is suspended upon the performance of these Vows and this is no reproach to his Holiness But still Mr. Ferguson can prove that I make our Union to Christ to be perfected without actual obedience though I expresly affirm the contrary because I say That to be in Christ signifies no more than being members of his visible Church which is made up of Hypocrites as well as sincere Christians And so I say still That where Christ speaks of such branches in him as bear no fruit Joh. 15. 2. By being in him he can intend no more than being Members of his visible Church by a publick profession of Faith in him for otherwise this Phrase of being in him cannot be applied to hypocrites who bear no fruit But how does it hence follow that our Union to Christ is compleated without Obedience For did I ever assert that an External Union to the visible Church did complete and perfect our Union to Christ And if it does not then I hope we may safely assert that to be in Christ is sometimes taken in that Latitude of sense as to include Hypocrites as well as sincere Christians and yet not assert a complete and perfect Union to Christ without Obedience But it is very pretty to observe our Authors Criticism upon our Saviours words Every branch in me that beareth not fruit which he says may as well be read Every branch that beareth not fruit in me he taketh away Now suppose we should be so civil as to grant him this What will he gain by it Why then the true import of it is this That unless we be in Christ we can bring forth no fruit to God and that what shew of being branches we make by an External Membership in the Church yet that shall be no obex to Christs disclaiming and renouncing our works His design is to prove that every branch in me does not signifie those branches which are in Christ and therefore he will not joyn In me with branch but with beareth fruit which being a very dull observation may pass for his own For I would fain learn of Mr. Ferguson in what this branch is It is certain de fide that it is a branch unless he can find some new reading to avoid that too Of what then is it a branch There is nothing in the Context to which this branch can refer but only the Vine which is Christ and therefore if it be a branch do what he can it must be a branch in the Vine a branch in Christ. And then I have a farther scruple still supposing we did allow his reading how a branch which is not in Christ the Vine can bear fruit in Christ the Vine And therefore if it be acknowledged that God expects from such branches that they should bear fruit in Christ it must be confessed that in one sense or other they are in him for they can in no sense be said to bear fruit in him till in some sense they may be said to be in him And there is still one little difficulty behind what is meant by God's taking away those branches which bear not fruit in Christ This is a plain Allusion to the Husbandman's cutting dead and fruitless branches off from the Vine and so signifies the Excision of such fruitless branches from the body of Christ and how can they be cut off and taken away from Christ if they were never in him And yet after all our Author is forced to return to what he designed to confute and by a Branch to understand one who lives in External Membership with the Church and by so doing makes a shew of being a branch in Christ that is as he must mean if he means any thing of being vitally united to him when he is not which is as much as ever I asserted in this matter only he will by no means allow that these branches may be said to be in Christ though he owns them to be members of the visible Church of Christ and yet he has no way to prove that a branch in this place signifies a Church member but only because it is called a branch in Christ. A second and third Argument whereby Mr. Ferguson proves my Notion of Union to Christ to be destructive to Holiness are both resolved into
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.