peccati per animi sanitatem libertas arbitrii per liberum arbitrium justuia dilectio per justitiae dâ—lectionem legis impletio De spir lit c. 30. By the law we have the knowledg of sin by faith we impetrate Gods grace against sin by grace the soul is healed from corruption by that healing we have liberty of will by this liberty we come to love righteousness by the love of righteousness we perform or fulfil the law and so are justified Faith thâ—â— does justifie according to him as exordium hujus ad salutem connexionis so he expresses it c. 31. as the beginning work that brings on the rest which follow in this connexion or as the foundation link in this chain of our salvation That we may be sure of his judgment herein this must not go without some quotation from one of his latter books also Ex fide antem ideo dicit justificari hominem non ex operibus quia ipsa prima datur ex qua impetrentur caetera quae proprie opera nuncupantur in quibus juste vivitur The Apostle saith a man is justified by faith and not by works because it is faith that is first given from whence they follow or by which the grace of God to lead a holy life is obtained De praedestinatione sanctorum l. 1. c. 7. And unto this will I add the suffrage yet of a greater Authour the Son of Sirach Faith is the beginning of cleaving to God There may be here therefore two questions de fide Qua justificat and quâ justificat What faith it is that justifies us and how faith justifies us For the former it is agreed easily That faith which worketh by love as St. Paul speaks or that faith which is made perfect by works as St. James speaks and no other is that which justifies us There are some Divines make faith a complex thing to comprehend repentance and obedience under it Faith say they is the receiving Christ both as Saviour and Lord or the receiving him upon the terms of the Gospel and it is no wonder if they say faith alone justifies us when his faith alone is no less with them then the whole condition which the Gospel requires of us to our justification Others do distinguish faith repentance and obedience and say that it is not faith alone but repentance and new obedience also is required to justifie us And both these sorts of Divines say but the same thing in effect and agree in their meaning When the Scripture therefore sayes If thou believest thou shalt be saved or if thou repentest thou shalt be saved Bellarmine sayes such Texts must be understood with the supposition si caetera adhibeantur that is if that which is required also else where is supplied Thou shalt be saved if thou repentest provided thou also believest and if thou believest thou shalt be saved provided also thou repentest and walkest sincerely before God I mean provided thou resolves upon a changed upright life and if thou art not prevented bringest this resolution to practice there being no doubt but if a man dye before opportunity his consent to the Covenant is to be reckoned for obedience and baptisme alwayes washes away sins with the Fathers Non concluditur legitime saies a judicious Protestant Divine a positione unius disperati ad negationem alterius neque ab eo quod aliquot locis docetur ad negationem corum quae alibi asseruntur And this I take to be more after St. Austin and St. James who do both methinks make faith the initium fundamentum to use his words the foundation and entrance to obedience and good works and so to justifie us as it is productive of them We shall reconcile all I hope if we say only that faith indeed may be distinguished when not divided from our obedience in our justification That is in short faith is one thing and justifying faith is another and yet justifying faith retain the common nature still of faith Justifying faith I take it is such a believing of or trusting to Gods mercy that he will pardon our sins if we repent and walk sincerely before him which are the terms obtained for us through Christs redemption as produces that repentance and sincere walking It is such an assent to what God reveals as carryes the heart and life along with it I believe his promises to wit effectually when I so trust them as to do the things he requires of me to obtain them I believe his precepts when I keep them I believe his threats when I abstain from the evil he forbids to avoid them I believe the Gospel when I become Christs Disciple Credere is fidelis esse according to Salvian and to be faithful is to doe our duty Well done good and faithful servant For the latter I do not apprehend seriously if I may speak freely my thoughts to which very end do I write but that there is a great deal more stir and difference among Divines in this point of justification by faith then needs in late times If any man might meerly by his believing Christ dyed for him and hath carryed away all sin be justified and saved let him live as he list holding still but this perswasion there were something in our contending for justification by faith alone and a man would not be bereaved of the comfort of such a doctrine for the World But when we all agree that whether good works do justify or no good works in the resolution and practice if not prevented are necessary some way or other so that no man living ever was or can be justified that is destitute of them I doubt me verily our contention in this matter is rather curious then profitable in shewing how faith without works but not a faith which is without works at least in the will and intention does justify I know our Divines against in the Papists contend that faith justifies in sensu correlativo or in regard of the object so as to be justified by Christs blood and by faith is all one that is by faith in his blood The righteousness of Christ imputed is the formal say some or as others had rather say the material cause of our justification and faith justifies as an instrument For my own part I will tell you therefore what I have sometimes set down for truth in my contending belief and what I think in my cold practical conceit of the point As for my former thoughts I have some times pitched them thus Justifying faith is the receiving act of a working habit as hath the other act too to out forth upon trial or else it is but a dead faith Now this faith I have counted justifies as an instrument not mans who doeth not justify himself but Gods instrument though mans act This I have made out to my self thus Unto justification there goes two things the imputation of Christs righteousness for the discharge of sin and accepting us
unto life and a valid donation of it to the sinner The last is the ground of the former for man must be made just or God cannot reckon him so and acquit him in judgement The judgement of God is according to truth Now to this making a man just as there is this donation of God there must be mans receiving Christ is not ours though tendered or given until we receive him This receiving then which is our act that is faith it self God excites and make use of to this end He makes use of it I have accounted as his instrument of making Christ ours to this end he hath apppointed it for that he may accordingly reckon his righteousness to us unto the remission of sin and everlasting salvation Having told you this first I may make the bolder to tell you my more indifferent thoughts of farther years I do apprehend that the Apostles in their doctrine and the Primitive Christians had more simple and less intricate conceptions of things then we have and that their dispute then whether we are justifyed by faith or works in the most simple understanding of it contains no more than to shew us what is required of persons that they may be justified or what is that God hath made the condition on our parts of our justification St. Augustine I have said does teach us that faith does justifie us as the beginning and foundation unto grace and a good life and the Council of Trent with Bellarmine and the Papists after that Council stand upon this Faith justifies only as initium justificationis the beginning of justification But howsoever the Papists have made use of that Father the truth and light which he hath offered is not to be lost I do take this to be the most right and certain notion that faith does justify as initium and fundamentum I will not say justificationis seeing I understand not justification to be all one with sanctification as they do but as fundamentum conditionis The condition of our full final justification the Gospel offers is repentance and sincere obedience and faith is the initium and fundamentum of that condition Was not Abraham our Father justified by works when he had offered his Son Isaack sayes St. James The faith of Abraham or his believing God was the beginning and foundation of this excellent work the ready offering his Son which shewed his sincerity of life the condition of justification And the Scripture was fulfilled which faith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness Here believing offering Isaac are all one with S. James The Offering Isaack proceeded from believing as the initium and fundament ū of it and so believing as the initium of sincerity of life or sincere obedience does justifie Such a faith as produces good works which are sincere though imperfect or such good works as proceed from faith are but one and the same thing with the two Apostles and made by both the condition of our justification And here I should be willing to come off but the uniform judgement of the reformed Churches on the Article of Justification requires some regard There is therefore in the Schools a Quatenus specificative reduplicative I suppose when I have said that faith does justifie us as the foundation of the condition and so productive of the whole of it I have said well with S. Augustine as to the quatenus specificative and if I said nothing else it might be enough Nevertheless seeing it is but fit upon this account to speak yet a little more curiously I must needs say farther that I apprehend there is indeed something really in that which lyes in the concurring thoughts of our Divines that faith hath and must have a hand in our justification someway as no other of our works of acts have It is this I believe that God will pardon me if I repent and therefore I repent as my faith now makes me repent and perform the condition it justifies me as to a quatenus specificative but when I have repented and performed the condition the duties I have performed are imperfect and sinful and have need of mercy in point of law and it is my faith yet must go to God for his acceptance of them through Christ when I have done It is my faith let my say that must make up to me out of the mercy or grace of God for Christs sake what is wanting in that I have done to make it such as he may impute it to me for righteousness which else he could not And as faith procures me this or procures it thus we have the quatenus also reduplicative in the great question how faith justifies It is faith makes me perform the condition and then finds acceptance for it being done and as it does both it does specificative and reduplicative justifie the sinner By this it appears how faith hath an eye still to pardon according to the Protestant while it is opposed to works in the point of justification which is not only as respecting the pardon of all our sins upon the performing the condition but as respecting that pardon more especially which goes into the very accepting the condition performed for when there is imperfection still in our duty and yet he accepts it he must pardon also what he accepts And thus it is that the just man is said to live by faith in the most subtle conception The works which the just man does are his righteousness most certainly and that which justifies him but they are short and he could not live in them but that faith supplies as I speak out of Gods pardon and grace and consequently out of the Covenant for Christs sake what is wanting otherwise for acceptation unto life I do not say faith supplies this out of Christs merits as if his and our obedience were mingled to make up that one righteousness that justifies us but that it is our works which we perform our selves is the condition and through Christs merits both the imperfection is pardoned and they accepted according to covenant upon faith It is of faith sayes St. Paul that it might be of grace To be of works is to need to grace but to be of faith is to have such works as need to be pardoned even when they are accepted of God for Christs sake unto everlasting salvation When Augustine does tell us so often that faith justifies gratiam impetrando let us take grace in his and also in our acception and both together will compleat the notion Faith goes to God for his grace or help whereby we perform the condition and so justifies us Faith goes to God also for his grace or favour to pardon and accept what is done for Christs sake and so justifies us As it does impetrate grace or obtain his spirit for our duty and then impetrates grace or finds favour also for acceptance of it taken them both together and we understand fully
how we are justified by Faith As our trusting to a good man does naturally draw out win or procure his assistance which yet is free and not of debt so does our trusting in God for acceptance when it hath first been effectual upon us to the performing our part to that end procure the same from him to our justification Let us take heed of making faith a single act as it does specificative and a complex act as it does reduplicative justifie the believer These are two extreams I think and to be thus composed And so you have my poor thoughts at full upon this vexed question I come then to the third thing wherein the Father is out and that is in his notion of justification it self which is the making us just by infusion This the Papists have so improved as in effect to exclude pardon from it For while they place the work of justification in the abolishing of all sin in the baptized and justified so that there remains no longer any thing that is peccatum but fomes peccati only they do I must say in effect put us to dispute with them whether there by any remission of sins at all seeing the wicked are not pardoned and the justified have their sins so done away by this infused grace as to have none and from hence does there spring their doctrine of merit and perfection which the controversie of justification by works does carry along with it Now I doubt not but the truth here as it doth every where is suffering between two theives That there is no merit or perfection I am convinced and that our works do not merit because they are not perfect but that we are justified by works as we are by faith St. James his words must goe as well as St. Pauls and both must stand good because faith justifies only as productive of works Justification indeed is by works but not meritorious works by works which make reward to be of debt so the Apostles are before reconciled There are two questions then may adjust this great matter between Us and the Papists or unto which the issue of our disputes on this point may be reduced In the one they have the advantage of us in the other we have the better of them The lover of truth must be humbly hardned to follow its footsteps wheresoever he finds them whither on the one side or the other The first question is whether the righteousness we perform our selves or that Christ performed for us be the matter of our justification and I say the faith repentance new obedience which the Christian through divine aid performes himself is accepted with God for Christs sake unto pardon of sin and eternal life It is true the obedience of Christ wrought for us does justifie us suo genere by meriting the pardoning justifying Covenant which is the donative instrument of pardon and life But if the question be askt whether we have performed that which this instrument requires as conditio tituli it must be our own faith and repentance here that is the matter of our righteousness A man may be just in respect to the law of innocency which no man but Christ ever was or in respect to the law of grace which all are and must be that are saved Again a man may be just in respect to the perceptive part of a law or the retributive part It is Christs righteousness and sacrifice alone that justifies Us in regard of the one but not so in regard of the other yet is it that alone which is the meritorious cause both of the acceptation of what we do and freedom from the Laws condemnation The second question is whether salvation then and justification is not according to our merits And I answer as the Scripture is cleer and full from one end to the other for the affirmative in the former question so is the Apostle Paul as full and cleer and positive as can be for the negative in the latter What is it indeed he beats upon but this altogether that there are no works in the earth Christs excepted that do merit and that justification and salvation therefore are of grace Not of works but of grace What is that in the sense and meaning but as much as if he should have said it in express terms not of merit but of grace or not of works that are meritorious and would make the reward to be of debt but of such works that though they be rewarded it is of grace and more then in justice according to the law God needed to have done For this is the meaning of the Apostle in excluding of merit There is a paternal government according to the law of grace wherein the denyal of a reward due to our works were to overthrow all religion A good child by his filial behaviour merits love and benefits We dispute not unless de nomine only against such a merit as this But as to a merit in Gods strict distributive justice according to the law of works or any other justice which should make our works to be meritorious ex condigno non solum ratione pacti acceptationis sed ratione operis as Bellarmine with the Papists does speak St. Paul is full in the deny l. It is nothing else certainly but the misapprehension of the word grace in St. Austin received by the Church of Rome from him that could have blinded them so in this point I have shown his mistake in this term and in those of works and grace and have and do here give you the right sense of each according to the Apostle The certain truth is this God gave a law to man according to his creation and if he had performed that or any of us could perform that then should he as Creator and Rector be engaged to reward the performance according to this law so that the reward should be of right but seeing man is fallen and no Person on earth does or can perform that law there are no works on earth that do properly merit or no man on earth that can be justified if he have only his desert by his works This is undoubtedly the very entendment of the Apostle That all boasting and merit may be excluded from the world while it is proved that no mortal is justified or saved but by grace And what need further conviction in this matter we have the Papists own words and general confessions that they are all sinners and that it is through Christs merits that they merit If they are sinners then have they not these works that are meritorious but it must be of mercy that they are not condemned and if it be through Christs merits that they merit then is the reward not for the work sake but for his And what is it that Christ hath merited that they should merit It must come to this that Christ by what he hath done for us hath merited or procured this grace or favour from
of Arminius is good It is faith which is a mans own act that is imputed for righteousness therefore not the righteousness acts or obedience of another But when this acute Divine would introduce a notion hereupon that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere therefore must justifie us and not works or not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operari it is both an ill and weak conceit which is neither of use nor value For as the Scripture speaks of faith being accounted for righteousness so does it tell us that Abrahams offering his Son and Phineas act were accounted to them for righteousness and that Rahabs hiding the Spies did justifie her That is it is faith as productive of works or works as produced by faith that receives the reward of perfect righteousness which is we are to remember also for Christs sake or through his merits not imputed to us as proprietors but prevailing with the Father for such terms for sinners as answers our redemption and grace of the Gospel I would fain know of any man who is most Orthodox in his complexion whether he does or is able to think that Enoch Noah Job who were before the law Samuel the Kings and Prophets who were under the law or any man or woman whatsoever before the coming of Christ did ever imagine that they were righteous and to be accepted with God for the obedience which the Messiah should perform in their behalf when he came into the world and that the believing this was an instrument of making it to be theirs and so to be imputed to them which it could not be else or whether they did not look on themselves to be righteous by doing righteously and to obtain Gods favour by their upright walking with him and no otherwise in the World They judged not their own righteousness the meritorious cause of pardon to answer the Curse of the Law of Innocency but they believed in Gods mercy and so repented obeyed and were saved through the Redeemer And Enoch walked with God and God took him Blessed is the man sayes David who walkes in his wayes and to whom he imputeth no sin In the acceptation then of a mans own upright walking and in the pardon of his sins did our justification and blessedness lye in Davids time and in the same no doubt does it lye still under the Gospel I would yet fain know whether any of the Disciples James John or Paul himself whether Clement Roman or Alexandrine Justin Martyr Cyprian Ambrose Augustine or any of the Fathers whether Councels or School-men whether John Hus or Wickliffe or any famous or holy Writer without resting on some bare incoherent scraps of sentences did ever understand or receive the full notion of faiths instrumentality and the imputation of a passive righteousness before Luther And if not whether it be possible it should be of any such moment as is made of it by most Protestants It was an Article indeed that raigned in Martins heart and I do therefore give it my obeysance but it is no Article I take it as the remission of sins is in the Creed of the Apostles If the righteousness of Christ be imputed to us as if it were ours in it self it must be the righteousness of his active or passive obedience or both If his active obedience be imputed to us then must we be lookt upon in him as such who have committed no sin nor omitted any duty and then what need will there be of Christs death how shall Christ dye for our sins if we be lookt on in Christ as having none at all If Christs passive obedience be imputed then must we be look't on as such who in Christ have suffered and satisfied the law and born the full curse of it and then how shall there be room for any pardon The man who payes his full debt by himself or surety can in no sense be forgiven by his Creditour Indeed the Argument of the Socinian from pardon against Christs satisfaction is not valid but it is good against the imputation of it to us as if we our selves had satisfied Christ may have wrought with the Father or made him that satisfaction as to procure new terms so that a man may be justifyed as a fulfiller of them and yet need pardon for non-performance of the old If Christs active and passive obedience both are imputed then must God be made to deal with man according to the Covenant of works in the business of his justification when nothing is more apparent in the Scripture than that by grace it is that a man is justified and by grace saved If nothing less then such a righteousness as does both answer and satisfie the law also and that fully will suffice for the sinners plea to free him from condemnation he is not judged by the law of grace but he is judged by the law of works out of question There were no need to bring this notion of Christs imputed righteousness into the Church but that our Protestants mistake themselves and forget that we are justified and saved by the Covenant of Grace and not by the law of Moses or Covenant of our Creation Christ came into the World to procure and tender a new law and in this regard is he said to be our Law-giver not that he hath given any other moral rules of life to us for we know his conmandement only is Love than what was contained in the Law before wherein some do but boldly impose upon themselves and others but that he hath given the same precepts with indulgence If God then shall not deal with man in his justification here and at judgment according to that indulgence or according to the law now in Christs hands that is according to the Covenant of Grace the main business of Christ coming and redemption were lost You shall hear a Protestant in his prayer appealing from the Tribunal of Gods justice to the throne of his grace and yet in his Sermon be telling the people that it is nothing else but the perfect obedience and satisfaction of Christ imputed to them that saves them which is to bring them back from the throne of his grace to the bar of his justice to be judged Such appeals have been received I suppose from the Fathers as very significant of truth and their meaning but not agreeable to this notion In the last place there is a righteousness revealed in the Gospel that God went by in his dealing with all the holy men and women who were before Christ and which he goes by in his dealing with us now and all the World whereby it is that we are justified in opposition to the righteousness of works the which together with the grace of the Gospel in the true sense and import thereof is kept out of the Protestant understanding by this notion of the rigid imputation of Christs righteouness in it self that being also but a late and forced notion and not tending to
The righteousness of God and grace opposed to works is really nothing else but the meritorious righteousness of Christ procuring the pardoning Covenant of grace and our performing the condition that is the righteousness of the Covenant of grace accepted by God for Christs sake instead of the righteousness of the Covenant of works Only we are to know this righteousness may be understood either with respect to God as it is all one I say with his grace or with respect to Vs as it is all one with that upon which this grace is vouchsafed Charitas Dei dicta est diffundi in cordibus nostris non qua nos ipse diligit sed qua nos facit dilectores suos sicut justitia Dei qua justi ejus munere efficimur As it is called the love of God whereby we are made to love him so the righteousness of God whereby we are made righteous through his gift Aug. de spir lit c. 32. It is true that this righteousness is wrought in us by the spirit and flowes not from our selves it is true also that as we performe it by his aid it is our own work yet is not the one the reason why it is called the righteousness of God nor the other any hindrance why it should not be so called for the reason lyes altogether in the opposition of it meerly to that of works Let a man do all that he can whether by his own strength or by Gods aid he can never come up to the law of works or to a conformity to the terms of the Covnant of nature or law of Moses as it was a representation of that Covenant so that by the deeds thereof he cannot be justified and for as much as it pleased God therefore to vouchsafe us a new law the law of faith or grace or the new Covenant having lower terms that in the performance hereof or in a conformity only hereunto the man who is a sinner in respect of the law may be righteous and so God just in justifying him this grace and condescention of God being meerly from his own good will is called thus the righteousness which is of him in opposition to the other which is of nature and so were ours or mans righteousness properly if he could attain unto the same But when he cannot attain unto that which is so by nature whatsoever he attains if it be less must be a righteousness only through grace which notwithstanding our shortness God mercifully condescends to accept instead of that which is perfect through the merits of our Saviour and in regard of that acceptation N. B. it is called his or the righteousness which is of him of his own free tender and allowance when in regard of performance it is ours though we do it by his help Lo here the true key that opens the mind of the Apostle and consequently the door to that treasure which depends upon it That which is said I know by our Protestants most to the quick is this that pardon indeed is an act of meer grace but justification is an act of justice according to law and therefore must Christs is an act of justice according to law and therefore must Christs righteousness which alone does answer the law be brought in to justifie the believer But this is a mistake for if justification lyes not altogether in pardon Even as David describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven it is at least one part of it and the whole is expresly declared by the Apostle to be by grace being justified freely by his grace True indeed it is an act of righteousness even a judicial or forensical act that is according to law but what law not the law of works but according to the law of Faith It is an act I say of that righteousness of God and no other which the Apostle sets forth in opposition to the law and works and makes all one with his grace To reckon it then an act of justice according to the Law intending thereby the law of works is to correct the Apostle and to tell him we know better how we are justified by Christ then he It is the understanding of this righteousness whereof we are now speaking will set us all right It is Christs obedience and sufferings alone no doubt which could make any compensation to God for our sins that he might without diminuition to his honour as Law-giver or Governour recede from his first law but when Christ hath by his satisfaction procured this that God should now deal with us by a new law the remedying law or upon other terms the thing is manifest in itself that the righteousness then which is pleaded and accepted for this satisfaction sake of Christ must be this righteousness of the new law or the righteousness of faith and not of works which both denominates the performer righteous and God just in justifying him according to it For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth That is as I construe it Christ by his satisfaction hath procured that we should not be judged by the law of works and consequently that righteousness or justification be attained if we do but perform the terms of the Gospel To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and a justifyer of him that belives in Jesus Who is made unto us of God that is a phrase I take it signifying no more then through whom one way or other God would have us obtain all spiritual blessings wisdome righteousness sanctification and redemption After this there are no texts I count such as the last purposely mentioned which are pressed by our Divines for their service before that are able to carry such a burden He hath made him sin for us sin as the expiatory sacrifice under the law is called sin who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him That is he who was the imaculate Lamb was made a sacrifice for our sins that we may become righteous with the righteousness of God which he accepts through him Christ as a Sacrifie redeems us from the law of sin and purchases for us a law of grace according to that law we have a righteousness which is accepted unto life through Christ I pray note it therefore it is not said that his righteousness might be made ours nor that we might be made his righteousness but that we might be made the righteousness of God And what is the righteousness of God I have shewen you just now and what in him likewise is declared here together with it in these few words Vt simus justitia Dei in ipso Haec est illa justitia Dei non qua ipse justus est sed qua nos ab eo facti That we should become the righteousness of God in him This is that righteousness
of God not whereby he is righteous but whereby we are made so of him Augustine again in the last cited place It is true then there is a righteousness of faith and righteousness of God of faith as the root of the whole condition which are one and by which in opposition to the righteousness of works we are justified but that this righteousness of God and of Faith is only the obedience of Christs life and death which he performed for us is assumed as much without reason as any consent of that Father To this purpose I take it is God styled in the Old Testament The Lord our righteousness that is in his condescention to accept us for Christs sake as righteous by a law of grace when in strict justice he might condemn us for sinners It is not appropriated to the second Person but to be understood of that Gospel goodness of God whereby he imputeth righteousness to us when we have none according to the law of our creation that is imputing the righteousness of faith to us without the works of that Covenant All our merits O Lord sayes the Father are thy mercy This is the true and exellent import of that expression signifying moreover that God that found out the means to demonstrate his justice no less fully and his goodness more fully to the World in saving us by this new law through his Sons mediation then if we had kept our first innocency or underwent his eternal judgment for our transgressions Another text which is a fellow with this I take it in sense and words is that to the Romans As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous I comment these words thus As through Adams sin we came into the state of the fall and so do all sin or are sinners against the law which none fulfil so by Christs obedience to his Father whereby he procured the grace of a new law for us we are brought to such a state as that many become righteous and are justified by the performance That all man-kind is involved in Adams first sin our Divines are agreed against Pelagius The most understand this to come through the Covenant or Will of God there are some apt to conceive only that Adam being the natural root of mankind human nature it self sinned in him and so when we come to exist his guilt is derived upon our persons as virtually and seminally in him no otherwise then Levi is said to have paid tyths to Melchisedech in the loyns of Ahraham I should incline to this explanation but that I see not then why all the sins of Adam besides and of all our Progenitors should not be ours also upon the same account as much as that first transgression Distinguish we therefore between the precept thou shalt not eat of the Tree under this Covenant and the threatning upon breach of it The Precept plainly belong'd to our first Parents only and as none of us broke that precept which we had not so can we not be reputed to have that sin in it self which we never committed nevertheless the penalty being by the Will or Covenant of God to extend to their progeny which falls out ordinarily in mans laws also that sin of Adams which in it self could be his only in the effects threatned upon the commission does become ours also God does so impute that act to us that we are all as well as he deprived of original righteousness corrupted in our nature and sure to dye In like manner I take it are we to conceive of the imputation both of our sins to Christ and of his righteousness to us Our sins are not laid upon him to make him a sinner but to be a propitiation for our sins He was not made sin or accounted a sinner quoad reatum culpae as if he were guilty of our facts but he was dealt with as a sinner quoad reatum paenae in regard to the obligation unto satisfaction which as a Sponsor he was to make in our behalf The righteousness of Christ likewise which he performed as Sponsor or Mediator cannot be ours either really or representatively in it self because this righteousness as Mediator is proper to his Person and is not the very same required of any or all of us in the law it self but his righteousness as Mediator even his whole submission to the law of his Mediatorship in life and death is ours respectively as to what it procured or to what he intended it should procure in asmuch as we are partakers of the benefits that derive from it Our sins were Christs in the causation of his sufferings Christs righteousnes is ours in the effects of pardon and life eternal A third text and which carryes our Divines I think more then any is that to the Phillipians I count all things but loss that I may win Christ and be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith In these words our Protestants observe that the righteousness of God and of faith is opposed to that righteousness which is our own and therefore it must be a righteousness without Vs received by faith But they are mistaken for besides that the righteousness of faith and of God is not the same with the righteousness of Christ as hath been before observed they are to know that this righteousness which Paul calls his own in this Text is the righteousness of the Jew that is the Jews own or his own as a Jew and a Pharisee not our own or his own as a Christian This appears from the Verses before If any thinketh that he hath whereof he may trust in the flesh I more circumcised the eighth day an Hebrew of the Hebrews as touching the law a Pharisee as touching the righteousness which of the law blameless This appears farther from another text which together with this alone is all that hath any such Antithesis in the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence they fetch this conjecture I bear them record that they have a Zeal for God but not according to knowledg For they being ignorant of Gods righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God It is certain now from these places both that there is a righteousness which was Pauls own and the Jews own which he excluds from justification and opposes to the righteousness of faith and of God but this I say is not the Christian righteousness The Christians faith and new obedience are his own acts out of doubt by Gods help and his righteousness according to the Gospel and you shall never read St. Paul saying I desire to be found in Christ not having my own repentance my own faith love and new obedience which are conditions of being found in him that we may