a congruous way of disputing for Truth and Righteousness nor indeed is it tolerably ingenuous or modest If not then why doth he all along carry his professed agreement with me in a militant strain perswading his Reader that I savour of Socinianism or Popery or some dangerous Error by saying the very same that he saith O what thanks doth God's Church owe such contentious Disputers for supposed Orthodoxness that like noctambuli will rise in their sleep and cry Fire Fire or beat an Allarm on their Drums and cry out The Enemy The Enemy and will not let their Neighbours rest I have wearied my Readers with so oft repeating in my Writings upon such repeated importunities of others these following Assertions about Works 1. That we are never justified first or last by Works of Innocency 2. Nor by the Works of the Jewish Law which Paul pleadeth against 3. Nor by any Works of Merit in point of Commutative Justice or of distributive Governing Justice according to either of those Laws of Innocency or Jewish 4. Nor by any Works or Acts of Man which are set against or instead of the least part of God's Acts Christ's Merits or any of his part or honour 5. Nor are we at first justified by any Evangelical Works of Love Gratitude or Obedience to Christ as Works are distinguished from our first Faith and Repentance 6. Nor are we justified by Repentance as by an instrumental efficient Cause or as of the same receiving Nature with Faith except as Repentance signifieth our change from Vnbelief to Faith and so is Faith it self 7. Nor are we justified by Faith as by a mere Act or moral good Work 8. Nor yet as by a proper efficient Instrument of our Justification 9. Much less by such Works of Charity to Men as are without true love to God 10. And least of all by Popish bad Works called Good as Pilgrimages hurtful Austerities c. But if any Church-troubling Men will first call all Acts of Man's Soul by the name of WORKS and next will call no Act by the name of Justifying Faith but the belief of the Promise as some or the accepting of Christ's Righteousness given or imputed to us as in se our own as others or the Recumbency on this Righteousness as others or all these three Acts as others and if next they will say that this Faith justifieth us only as the proper Instrumental Cause And next that to look for Justification by any other Act of Man's Soul or by this Faith in any other respect is to trust to that Justification by Works which Paul confuteth and to fall from Grace I do detest such corrupting and abusing of the Scriptures and the Church of Christ And I assert as followeth 1. That the Faith which we are justified by doth as essentially contain our belief of the Truth of Christ's Person Office Death Resurrection Intercession c. as of the Promise of Imputation 2. And also our consent to Christ's Teaching Government Intercession as to Imputation 3. And our Acceptance of Pardon Spirit and promised Glory as well as Imputed Righteousness of Christ 4. Yea that it is essentially a Faith in God the Father and the Holy Ghost 5. That it hath in it essentially somewhat of Initial Love to God to Christ to Recovery to Glory that is of Volition and so of Desire 6. That it containeth all that Faith which is necessarily requisite at Baptism to that Covenant even a consenting-practical-belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and is our Christianity it self 7. That we are justified by this Faith as it is A moral Act of Man adapted to its proper Office made by our Redeemer the Condition of his Gift of Justification and so is the moral receptive aptitude of the Subject or the Dispositio materiae vel subjecti Recipientis Where the Matter of it is An adapted moral Act of Man by Grace The Ratio formalis of its Interest in our Justification is Conditio praestita speaking politically and Aptitudo vel Dispositio moralis Receptiva speaking logically which Dr. Twiss still calleth Causa dispositiva 8. That Repentance as it is a change of the Mind from Unbelief to Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost is this Faith denominated from its Terminus à quo principally 9. That we are continually justified by this Faith as continued as well as initially justified by its first Act. 10. That as this Faith includeth a consent to future Obedience that is Subjection so the performance of that consent in sincere Obedience is the Condition of our Justification as continued Secondarily as well as Faith or consent it self primarily And that thus James meaneth that we are Justified by Works 11. That God judging of all things truly as they are now judgeth Men just or unjust on these Terms 12. And his Law being Norma judicii now vertually judgeth us just on these terms 13. And that the Law of Grace being that which we are to be judged by we shall at the last Judgment also be judged and so justified thus far by or according to our sincere Love Obedience or Evangelical Works as the Condition of the Law or Covenant of free Grace which justifieth and glorifieth freely all that are thus Evangelically qualified by and for the Merits perfect Righteousness and Sacrifice of Christ which procured the Covenant or free Gift of Universal Conditional Justification and Adoption before and without any Works or Conditions done by Man whatsoever Reader Forgive me this troublesom oft repeating the state of the Controversie I meddle with no other If this be Justification by Works I am for it If this Doctor be against it he is against much of the Gospel If he be not he had better have kept his Bed than to have call'd us to Arms in his Dream when we have sadly warred so many Ages already about mere words For my part I think that such a short explication of our sense and rejection of ambiguities is fitter to end these quarrels than the long disputations of Confounders 4. But when be saith Works make not a Man just and yet we are at last justified according to them it is a contradiction or unsound For if he mean Works in the sence excluded by Paul we are not justified according to them viz. such as make or are thought to make the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt But if he take Works in the sense intended by James sincere Obedience is a secondary constitutive part of that inherent or adherent personal Righteousness required by the Law of Grace in subordination to Christ's Meritorious Righteousness And what Christian can deny this So far it maketh us Righteous as Faith doth initially And what is it to be justified according to our Works but to be judged so far as they are sincerely done to be such as have performed the secondary part of the Conditions of free-given Life 5. His According but not ex operibus at the
of Justification to be the Remission of Sin Original and Actual or the Imputation of Christs Righteousness which he maketh to be all one or the Imputation of Faith for Righteousness Saith Bishop Downame of Justif p. 305. To be Formally Righteous by Christs Righteousness imputed never any of us for ought I know affirmed The like saith Dr. Prideâ—aux when yet very many Protestants affirm it Should I here set together forty or sixty Definitions of Protestants verbatim and shew you how much they differ it would be unpleasant and tedious and unnecessary And as to those same Divines that Dr. Tully nameth as agreed Dr. Davenants and Dr. Fields words I have cited at large in my Confes saying the same in substance as I do as also Mr. Scudders and an hundred more as is before said And let any sober Reader decide this Controversie between us upon these two further Considerations 1. Peruse all the Corpus Confessionum and see whether all the Reformed Churches give us a Definition of Justification and agree in that Definition Yea whether the Church of England in its Catechism or its Articles have any proper Definition Or if you will call their words a Definition I am sure it 's none but what I do consent to And if a Logical Definition were by the Church of England and other Churches held necessary to Salvation it would be in their Catechisms if not in the Creed Or if it were held necessary to Church-Concord and Peace and Love it would be in their Articles of Religion which they subscribe 2. How can all Protestants agree of the Logical Definition of Justification when 1. They agree not of the sense of the word Justifie and of the species of that Justification which Paul and James speak of Some make Justification to include Pardon and Sanctification see their words in G. Forbes and Le Blank many say otherwise Most say that Paul speaketh most usually of Justification in sensu forensi but whether it include Making just as some say or only Judging just as others or Nolle punire be the act as Dr. Twisse they agree not And some hold that in James Justification is that which is eoram hominibus when said to be by Works but others truly say it is thay coram Deo 2. They are not agreed in their very Logical Rules and Notions to which their Definitions are reduced no not so much as of the number and nature of Causes nor of Definitions as is aforesaid And as I will not undertake to prove that all the Apostles Evangelists and Primitive Pastours knew how to define Efficient Material Formal and Final Causes in general so I am sure that all good Christians do not 3. And when Justification is defined by Divines is either the Actus Justificantis and this being in the predicament of Action what wonder if they disagree about the Material and Formal Causes of it Nay it being an Act of God there are few Divines that tell us what that Act is Deus operatur per essentiam And Ex parte agentis his Acts are his Essence and all but one And who will thus dispute of the Definition and Causes of them Efficient Material Formal Final when I presumed to declare that this Act of Justifying is not an immanent Act in God nor without a Medium but Gods Act by the Instrumentality of his Gospel-Covenant or Promise many read it as a new thing and if that hold true that the First Justification by Faith is that which Gods Gospel-Donation is the Instrument of as the Titulus seu Fundamentum Juris being but a Virtual and not an Actual Sentence then the Definition of it as to the Causes must differ much from the most common Definitions But most Protestants say that Justification is Sententia Judicis And no doubt but there are three several sorts or Acts called Justification 1. Constitutive by the Donative Covenant 2. Sentential 3. Executive And here they are greatly at a loss for the decision of the Case what Act of God this Sententia Jucis is What it will be after death we do not much disagree But what it is immediately upon our believing It must be an Act as in patiente or the Divine essence denominated from such an effect And what Judgment and Sentence God hath upon our believing few open and fewer agreee Mr. Tombes saith it is a Sentence in Heaven notifying it to the Angels But that is not all or the chief some run back to an Immanent Act most leave it undetermined And sure the Name of Sentence in general signifieth no true Conception of it at all in him that knoweth not what that Sentence is seeing Universals are Nothing out of us but as they exist in individuals Mr. Lawson hath said that wihch would reconcile Protestants and some Papists as to the Name viz. that Gods Execution is his Sentence He Judgeth by Executing And so as the chief punishment is the Privation of the Spirit so the Justifying Act is the executive donation of the Spirit Thus are we disagreed about Active Justification which I have oft endeavoured Conciliatorily fullier to open And as to Passive Justification or as it is Status Justificati which is indeed that which it concerneth us in this Controversie to open I have told you how grosly some describe it here before And all agree not what Predicament it is in some take it to be in that of Action ut recipitur in passo and some in that of Quality and Relation Conjunct But most place it in Relation And will you wonder if all Christian Women yea or Divines cannot define that Relation aright And if they agree not in the notions of the Efficient Material Formal and Final Causes of that which must be defined as it is capable by its subjectum fundamentum and terminus I would not wish that the Salvation of any Friend of mine or any one should be laid on the true Logical Definition of Justification Active or Passive Constitutive Sentential or Executive And now the Judicious will see whether the Church and Souls of Men be well used by this pretence that all Protestants are agreed in the Nature Causes and Definition of Justification and that to depart from that one Definition where is it is so dangerous as the Doctor pretendeth because the Definition and the Definitum are the same § XX. P. 34. You say You tremble not in the audience of God and Man to suggest again that hard-fronted Calumny viz. that I prefer a Majority of Ignorants before a Learned man in his own profession Answ I laid it down as a Rule that They are not to be preferred You assault that Rule with bitter accusations as if it were unsound or else to this day I understand you not Is it then a hard-fronted Calumny to defend it and to tell you what is contained in the denying of it The audience of God must be so dreadful to you and me that without calling you to
from that Law that is from its Obligation of us to Innocency as the necessary terms of Life and from its Obligation of us to Death for want of Innocency But we are not justified by that Law either as fulfilled or as satisfied by us our selves either personally or by an Instrument substitute or proper Representative that was Vicarius Obedientiae aut poenae 3. And we grant that the Jews were delivered from the positive Jewish Law which is it that Paul calleth The Law of Works And if he please in all these respects to call Justification Legal we intend not to quarrel with the name though what I called Legal in those Aphorisms I chose ever after to call rather Justitia pro-legalis But we cannot believe him 1. That it is only Legal 2. Or that that is the only or most proper denomination § 8. He proceedeth thus And it will be vain if any argue That yet none can be saved without Evangelical Works according to which it is confessed that all men shall be judged for the distinction is easie which the Author of the Aphorisms somewhere useth between the first or Private and the last or Publick Justification In the first sense it is never said That Works justifie but contrary That God justifieth him that worketh not Rom. 4.5 In the latter we confess that Believers are to be justified according to Works but yet not Of or By Works nor that that Justification maketh men just before God but only so pronounceth them Answ 1. This is such another Consenting Adversary as once before I was put to answer who with open mouth calls himself consequentially what he calleth me if the same Cause and not the Person make the Guilt Nay let him consider whether his grand and most formidable Weapon So also saith Bellarmine with other Papists do not wound himself For they commonly say That the first Justification is not of Works or Works do not first justifie us Have I not now proved that he erreth and complyeth with the Papists If not let him use better Arguments himself 2. But why is the first Justification called Private Either he meaneth God's making us just constitutively or his judging us so and that per sententiam conceptam only or prolatam also 1. The common distinction in Politicks inter judicium Privatum Publicum is fetcht from the Judg who is either Persona privata vel publica a private Man or an authorized Judg judging as such And so the Judgment of Conscience Friends Enemies Neighbours mere Arbitrators c. is Judicium privatum and that of a Judg in foro is Judicium publicum yea or in secret before the concerned Parties only in his Closet so it be decisive If this Learned Doctor so understand it then 1. Constitutive Justification which is truly first is publick Justification being done by God the Father and by our Redeemer who sure are not herein private authorized Persons 2. And the first sentential Justification as merely Virtual and not yet Actual viz. as it 's virtually in the Justifying Law of Grace as norma Judicis is publick in suo genere being the virtus of a Publick Law of God or of his Donative Promise 3. And the first Actual Justification per Deum Judicem per sententiam conceptam which is God's secret judging the Thing and Person to be as they are is secret indeed in se yet revealed by God's publick Word but publick as to the Judg. 4. And the first sententia prolata the fourth in order is someway publick as opposite to secresie for 1. it is before the Angels of Heaven 2. And in part by Executive demonstrations on Earth But it is certainly by a publick Judg that is God 5. And the first Apologetical Justification by Christ our Interceding Advocate is publick both quoad personam and as openly done in Heaven And if this worthy Person deny any Justification per sententiam Judicis upon our first Believing or before the final Judgment he would wofully fall out with the far greatest number of Protestants and especially his closest Friends who use to make a Sentence of God as Judg to be the Genus to Justification But if by Private and Publick Justification he means secret and open 1. How can he hope to be understood when he will use Political Terms unexplained out of the usual sense of Politicians But no men use to abuse words more than they that would keep the Church in flames by wordy Controversies as if they were of the terms of Life and Death 2. And even in that sense our first Justification is publick or open quoad Actum Justificancantis as being by the Donation of a publick Word of God Though quoad effectum in recipiente it must needs be secret till the Day of Judgment no Man knowing anothers Heart whether he be indeed a sound Believer And so of the rest as is intimâ—ted Concerning what I have said before some may Object 1. That there is no such thing as our Justification notified before the Angels in Heaven 2. That the Sententia Concepta is God's Immanent Acts and therefore Eternal Answ To the first I say 1. It is certain by Luk. 15.10 that the Angels know of the Conversion of a Sinner and therefore of his Justification and publickly Rejoyce therein Therefore it is notified to them 2. But I refer the Reader for this to what I have said to Mr. Tombes in my Disputation of Justification where I do give my thoughts That this is not the Justification by Faith meant by Paul as Mr. Tombes asserteth it to be To the Second I say Too many have abused Theology by the misconceiving of the distinction of Immanent and Transient Acts of God taking all for Immanent which effect nothing ad extra But none are properly Immanent quoad Objectum but such as God himself is the Object of as se intelligere se amare An Act may be called indeed immanent in any of these three respects 1. Ex parte Agentis 2. Ex parte Objecti 3. Ex parte effectus 1. Ex parte agentis all God's Acts are Immanent for they are his Essence 2. Ex parte Objecti vel Termini God's Judging a Man Just or Unjust Good or Bad is transient because it is denominated from the state of the Terminus or Object And so it may be various and mutable denominatively notwithstanding God's Simplicity and Immutability And so the Sententia Concepta is not ab Aeterno 3. As to the Effect all confess God's Acts to be Transient and Temporary But there are some that effect not as to judg a thing to be what it is 3. Either this Militant Disputer would have his Reader believe that I say That a Man is justified by Works in that which he called making just and the first Justification or not If he would such untruth and unrighteousness contrary to the full drift of many of my Books and even that which he selected to oppose is not
Last Judgment is but a Logomachie According signifieth as much as I assert But ex is no unapt Preposition when it is but the subordinate part of Righteousness and Justification of which we speak and signifieth with me the same as According 6. His Tropical Phrase that Works pronouce us just is another ambiguity That the Judg will pronounce us just according to them as the foresaid second part of the Constitutive Cause or Matter of our Subordinate Righteousness is certain from Matth. 25. and the scope of Scripture But that they are only notifying Signs and no part of the Cause of the day to be tryed is not true which too many assert § 9. He proceedeth If there be an Evangelical Justification at God's Bar distinct from the legal one there will then also be in each an absolution of divers sins For if the Gospel forgive the same sins as the Law the same thing will be done and a double Justification will be unprofitable and idle If from divers sins then the Law forbids not the same things as the Gospel c. Answ It 's pitty such things should need any Answer 1. It 's a false Supposition That all Justification is Absolution from sin To justifie the sincerity of our Faith and Holiness is one act or part of our Justification against all possible or actual false Accusation 2. The Law of Innocency commanded not the Believing Acceptance of Christ's Righteousness and Pardon and so the Remnants of that Law in the hand of Christ which is the Precept of perfect Obedience de futuro commandeth it only consequently supposing the Gospel-Promise and Institution to have gone before and selected this as the terms of Life so that as a Law in genere existent only in speciebus commandeth Obedience and the Law of Innocency in specie commanded personal perfect perpetual Obedience as the Condition of Life so the Gospel commandeth Faith in our Redeemer as the new Condition of Life on which supposition even the Law of lapsed Nature further obligeth us thereto And as the Commands differ so do the Prohibitions There is a certain sort of sin excepted from pardon by the pardoning Law viz. Final non-performance of its Conditions And to judg a Man not guilty of this sin is part of our Justification as is aforesaid § 10. He addeth If Legal and Evangelical Justification are specie distinct then so are the Courts in which we are justified If distinct and subordinate and so he that is justified by the law is justified by the Gospel c. Answ 1. No Man is justified by the Law of Innocency or Works but Christ Did I ever say that That Law justifieth us who have voluminously wrote against it If he would have his Reader think so his unrighteousness is such as civility forbids me to give its proper Epithets to If not against what or whom is all this arguing 2. I call it Legal as it is that perfect Righteousness of Christ our Surety conform to the Law of Innocency by which he was justified though not absolved and pardoned I call it pro Legalis justitia because that Law doth not justifie us for it but Christ only but by it given us ad effecta by the New-Covenant we are saved and justified from the Curse of that Law or from Damnation is certainly as if we had done it our selves I call Faith our Evangelical Righteousness on the Reasons too oft mentioned Now these may be called Two Justifications or rather two parts of one in several respects as pleaseth the Speaker And all such Word-Souldiers shall have their liberty without my Contradiction 3. And when will he prove that these two Sorts or Parts or Acts may not be at once transacted at the same Bar Must there needs be one Court to try whether I am a true Believer or an Infidel or Hypocrite and another to judg that being such I am to be justified against all Guilt and Curse by vertue of Christ's Merits and Intercession Why may not these two parts of one Man's Cause be judged at the same Bar And why must your Pupils be taught so to conceive of so great a business in it self so plain § 11. He proceedeth The Vse of this Evangelical Justification is made to be that we may be made partakers of the Legal Justification out of us in Christ And so our Justification applyeth another Justification and our Remission of sins another Answ No Sir but our particular subordinate sort of Righteousness consisting in the performance of the Conditions of the free Gift viz. a believing suitable Acceptance is really our Dispositio receptiva being the Condition of our Title to that Pardon and Glory which for Christ's Righteousness if freely given us And our personal Faith and Sincerity must be justified and we in tantum before our Right to Christ Pardon and Life can be justified in foro 2. And to justifie us as sincere Believers when others are condemned as Hypocrites and Unbelievers and Impenitent is not Pardon of Sin These Matters should have been put into your excellent Catechism and not made strange much less obscured and opposed when laying by the quarrels about mere words I am confident you deny none of this § 12. He addeth Then Legal Justification is nothing but a bare word seeing unapplyed as to the Matter it is nothing as it is not called Healing by a Medicine not applyed nor was it ever heard that one Healing did apply another Answ Alas alas for the poor Church if this be the Academies best sorrow must excuse my Complaint If it be an Argument it must run thus If Legal or pro-legal Righteousness that is our part in Christ's Righteousness be none to us or none of our Justification when not-applyed than it is none also when it is applyed But c. Answ It is none till applyed Christ's Merits or Legal Righteousness justifie himself but not us till applyed Do you think otherwise or do you wrangle against your self But I deny your Consequence How prove you that it is none when applyed therefore Or the Cure is none when the Medicine is applyed Perhaps you 'l say That then our Personal Righteousness and subordinate Justification is ours before Christ's Righteousness and so the greater dependeth on and followeth the less Answ 1. Christ's own Righteousness is before ours 2. His Condition Pardon to fallen Mankind is before ours 3. This Gift being Conditional excepteth the non-performance of the Condition And the nature of a Condition is to suspend the effect of the Donation till performed 4. Therefore the performance goeth before the said Effect and our Title 5. But it is not therefore any cause of it but a removal of the suspension nor hath the Donation any other dependance on it And is not all this beyond denial with Persons not studiously and learnedly misled But you say It was never heard that one Healing applyed another Answ And see you not that this is a lis de nomine and
faedere Hoc fac et vives debeatur Mr. Bradshaw I say attempted a Conciliatory middle way which indeed is the same in the main with Mr. Wotton's He honoureth the Learned Godly persons on each side but maintaineth that the Active and Passive Righteousness are both Imputed but not in the rigid sence of Imputation denying both these Propositions 1. That Christ by the Merits of his Passive Obedience only hath freed us from the guilt of all sin both Actual and Original of Omission and Commission 2. That in the Imputation of Christs Obedience both Active and Passive God doth so behold and consider a sinner in Christ as if the sinner himself had done and suffered those very particulars which Christ did and suffered for him And he wrote a small book with great accurateness in English first and Latin after opening the nature of Justification which hath been deservedly applauded ever since His bosom-Friend Mr. Tho. Gataker a man of rare Learning and Humility next set in to defend Mr. Bradshaw's way and wrote in Latin Animadversions on Lucius who opposed Piscator and erred on one side for rigid Imputation and on Piscator who on the other side was for Justification by the Passive Righteousness only and other things he wrote with great Learning and Judgment in that cause About that time the Doctrine of personal Imputation in the rigid sence began to be fully improved in England by the Sect of the Antinomians trulyer called Libertines of whom Dr. Crispe was the most eminent Ring-leader whose books took wonderfully with ignorant Professors under the pretence of extolling Christ and free-Grace After him rose Mr. Randal and Mr. John Simpson and then Mr. Town and at last in the Armies of the Parliament Saltmarsh and so many more as that it seemed to be likely to have carried most of the Professors in the Army and abundance in the City and Country that way But that suddenly one Novelty being set up against another the opinions called Arminianism rose up against it and gave it a check and carryed many in the Army and City the clean contrary way And these two Parties divided a great part of the raw injudicious sort of the professors between them which usually are the greatest part but especially in the Army which was like to become a Law and example to others Before this John Goodwin not yet turned Arminian preached and wrote with great diligence about Justification against the rigid sence of Imputation who being answered by Mr. Walker and Mr. Robourough with far inferiour strength his book had the greater success for such answerers The Antinomians then swarming in London Mr. Anthony Burges a very worthy Divine was employed to Preach and Print against them which he did in several books but had he been acquainted with the men as I was he would have found more need to have vindicated the Gospel against them than the Law Being daily conversant my self with the Antinomian and Arminian Souldiers and hearing their daily contests I thought it pitty that nothing but one extreme should be used to beat down that other and I found the Antinomian party far the stronger higher and more fierce and working towards greater changes and subversions And I found that they were just falling in with Saltmarsh that Christ hath repented and believed for us and that we must no more question our Faith and Repentance than Christ This awakened me better to study these points And being young and not furnished with sufficient reading of the Controversie and also being where were no libraries I was put to study only the naked matter in it self Whereupon I shortly wrote a small book called Aphorisms of Justification c. Which contained that Doctrine in substance which I judg sound but being the first that I wrote it had several expressions in it which needed correction which made me suspend or retract it till I had time to reform them Mens judgments of it were various some for it and some against it I had before been a great esteemer of two books of one name Vindiciae Gratiae Mr. Pembles and Dr. Twisses above most other books And from them I had taken in the opinion of a double Justification one in foro Dei as an Immanent eternal Act of God and another in foro Conscientiae the Knowledg of that and I knew no other But now I saw that neither of those was the Justification which the Scripture spake of But some half Antinomians which were for the Justification before Faith which I wrote against were most angry with my book And Mr. Crandon wrote against it which I answered in an Apologie and fullyer wrote my judgment in my Confession and yet more fully in some Disputations of Justification against Mr. Burges who had in a book of Justification made some exceptions and pag. 346. had defended that As in Christ's suffering we were looked upon by God as suffering in him so by Christs obeying of the Law we were beheld as fulfilling the Law in him To those Disputations I never had any answer And sinâ—â— then in my Life of Faith I have opened the Libertine errours about Justification and stated the sence of Imputation Divers writers were then employed on these subjects Mr. Eyers for Justification before Faith that is of elect Infidels and Mr. Benjamin Woodbridg Mr. Tho. Warren against it Mr. Hotchkis wrote a considerable Book of Forgiveness of sin defending the sounder way Mr. George Hopkins wrote to prove that Justification and Sanctification are equally carryed on together Mr. Warton Mr. Graile Mr. Jessop clearing the sence of Dr. Twisse and many others wrote against Antinomianism But no man more clearly opened the whole doctrine of Justification than Learned and Pious Mr. Gibbons Minister at Black-Fryers in a Sermon Printed in the Lectures at St. Giles in the Fields By such endeavours the before-prevailing Antinomianism was suddenly and somewhat marvelously suppressed so that there was no great noise made by it About Imputation that which I asserted was against the two fore-described extremes in short That we are Justified by Christ's whole Righteousness Passive Active and Habitual yea the Divine so far included as by Vnion advancing the rest to a valuable sufficiency That the Passive that is Christ's whole Humiliation is satisfactory first and so meritorious and the Active and Habitual meritorious primarily That as God the Father did appoint to Christ as Mediator his Duty for our Redemption by a Law or Covenant so Christ's whole fulfilling that Law or performance of his Covenant-Conditions as such by Habitual and Actual perfection and by Suffering made up one Meritorious Cause of our Justification not distinguishing with Mr. Gataker of the pure moral and the servile part of Christ's Obedience save only as one is more a part of Humiliation than the other but in point of Merit taking in all That as Christ suffered in our stead that we might not suffer and obeyed in our nature that perfection of Obedience
might not be necessary to our Justification and this in the person of a Mediator and Sponsor for us sinners but not so in our Persons as that we truely in a moral or civil sence did all this in and by him Even so God reputeth the thing to be as it is and so far Imputeth Christ's Righteousness and Merits and Satisfaction to us as that it is Reputed by him the true Meritorious Cause of our Justification and that for it God maketh a Covenant of Grace in which he freely giveth Christ Pardon and Life to all that accept the Gift as it is so that the Accepters are by this Covenant or Gift as surely justified and saved by Christ's Righteousness as if they had Obeyed and Satisfied themselves Not that Christ meriteth that we shall have Grace to fulfil the Law our selves and stand before God in a Righteousness of our own which will answer the Law of works and justifie us But that the Conditions of the Gift in the Covenant of Grace being performed by every penitent Believer that Covenant doth pardon all their sins as Gods Instrument and giveth them a Right to Life eternal for Christs Merits This is the sence of Imputation which I and others asserted as the true healing middle way And as bad as they are among the most Learned Papists Cornelius a Lapide is cited by Mr. Wotton Vasquez by Davenant Suarez by Mr. Burges as speaking for some such Imputation and Merit Grotius de Satisf is clear for it But the Brethren called Congregational or Independant in their Meeting at the Savoy Oct. 12. 1658. publishing a Declaration of their Faith Cap. 11. have these words Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth not by infusing Righteousness into them but by pardoning their Sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as Righteous not for any thing wrought in them or done by them but for Christs sake alone not by imputing Faith it self the act of believing or any other evangelical Obedience to them as their Righteousness but by Imputing Christs Active Obedience to the whole Law and Passive Obedience in his death for their whole and sole Righteousness they receiving and resting on him and his Righteousness by Faith Upon the publication of this it was variously spoken of some thought that it gave the Papists so great a scandal and advantage to reproach the Protestants as denying all inherent Righteousness that it was necessary that we should disclaim it Others said that it was not their meaning to deny Inherent Righteousness though their words so spake but only that we are not justified by it Many said that it was not the work of all of that party but of some few that had an inclination to some of the Antinomian principles out of a mistaken zeal of free Grace and that it is well known that they differ from us and therefore it cannot be imputed to us and that it is best make no stir about it lest it irritate them to make the matter worse by a Defence give the Papists too soon notice of it And I spake with one Godly Minister that was of their Assembly who told me that they did not subscribe it and that they meant but to deny Justification by inherent Righteousness And though such men in the Articles of their declared Faith no doubt can speak intelligibly and aptly and are to be understood as they speak according to the common use of the words yet even able-men sometimes may be in this excepted when eager engagement in an opinion and parties carryeth them too precipitantly and maketh them forget something that should be remembred The Sentences here which we excepted against are these two But the first was not much offensive because their meaning was right And the same words are in the Assemblies Confession though they might better have been left out Scriptures Declaration Rom. 4.3 What saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness Ver. 5. To him that worketh not but believeth on him that Justifyeth the Vngodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness Ver. 9. For we say that Faith was reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness How was it then reckoned Ver. 11. And he received the sign of Circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the Faith which he had yet being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of all them that believe that Righteousness might be imputed to them also Ver. 13. Through the Righteousness of Faith Ver. 16. Therefore it is of Faith that it might be by Grace vid. Ver. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24. He was strong in Faith fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform and therefore it was Imputed to him for Righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we or who believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Gen. 15.5 6. Tell the Stars so shall thy seed be And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for Righteousness Jam. 2.21 22 23 24. Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness Luk. 19.17 Well done thou good Servant Because thou hast been Faithful in a very little have thou authority over ten Cities Mat. 25.34 35 40 Come ye blessed For I was hungry and ye gave me Meat Gen. 22.16 17 By my self I have sworn Because thou hast done this thing Joh. 16.27 For the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God Many such passages are in Scripture Our opinion is 1. That it is better to justifie and expound the Scripture than flatly to deny it If Scripture so oft say that Faith is reckoned or Imputed for Righteousness it becometh not Christians to say It is not But to shew in what sence it is and in what it is not For if it be so Imputed in no sence the Scripture is made false If in any sence it should not be universally denied but with distinction 2. We hold that in Justification there is considerable 1. The Purchasing and Meritorious Cause of Justification freely given in the new Covenant This is only Christ's Sufferings and Righteousness and so it is Reputed of God and Imputed to us 2. The Order of Donation which is On Condion of Acceptance And so 3. The Condition of our Title to the free Gift by this Covenant And that is Our Faith or Acceptance of the Gift according to its nature and use And thus God Reputeth Faith and Imputeth it to us requiring but this Condition of us which also he worketh in us by the Covenant of Grace whereas perfect Obedience was required of us by the Law of Innocency If we err in this explication it had been better to confute us than deny
through the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ 39. Yet the Reatus Culpae is remitted to us Relatively as to the punishment though not in it self that is It shall not procure our Damnation Even as Christ's Righteousness is though not in it self yet respectively as to the Benefits said to be made ours in as much as we shall have those benefits by it 40. Thus both the Material and the Formal Righteousness of Christ are made ours that is Both the Holy Habits and Acts and his Sufferings with the Relative formal Righteousness of his own Person because these are altogether one Meritorious cause of our Justification commonly called the Material Cause Obj. But though Forma Denominat yet if Christs Righteousness in Matter and Form be the Meritorious Cause of ours and that be the same with the Material Cause it is a very tolerable speech to say that His Righteousness is Ours in it self while it is the very matter of ours Ans 1. When any man is Righteous Immediately by any action that action is called the Matter of his Righteousness in such an Analogical sense as Action an Accident may be called Matter because the Relation of Righteous is founded or subjected first or partly in that Action And so when Christ perfectly obeyed it was the Matter of his Righteousness But to be Righteous and to Merit are not all one notion Merit is adventitious to meer Righteousness Now it is not Christs Actions in themselves that our Righteousness resulteth from immediately as his own did But there is first his Action then his formal Righteousness thereby and thirdly his Merit by that Righteousness which goes to procure the Covenant-Donation of Righteousnass to us by which Covenant we are efficiently made Righteous So that the name of a Material Cause is much more properly given to Christs Actions as to his own formal Righteousness than as to ours But yet this is but de nomine 2. Above all consider what that Righteousness is which Christ merited for us which is the heart of the Controversie It is not of the same species or sort with his own His Righteousness was a perfect sinless Innocency and Conformity to the preceptive part of the Law of Innocency in Holiness Ours is not such The dissenters think it is such by Imputation and here is the difference Ours is but in respect to the second or retributive part of the Law a Right to Impunity and Life and a Justification not at all by that Law but from its curse or condemnation The Law that saith Obey perfectly and live sin and die doth not justifie us as persons that have perfectly obeyed it really or imputatively But its obligation to punishment is dissolved not by it self but by the Law of Grace It is then by the Law of Grace that we are judged and justified According to it 1. We are not really or reputatively such as have perfectly fulfilled all its Precepts 2. But we are such as by Grace do sincerely perform the Condition of its promise 3. By which promise of Gift we are such as have right to Christs own person in the Relation and Union of a Head and Saviour and with him the pardon of all our sins and the right of Adoption to the Spirit and the Heavenly Inheritance as purchased by Christ So that besides our Inherent or Adherent Righteousness of sincere Faith Repentance and Obedience as the performed condition of the Law of Grace we have no other Righteousness our selves but Right to Impunity and to Life and not any imputed sinless Innocency at all God pardoneth our sins and adopteth us for the sake of Christ's sufferings and perfect Holiness But he doth not account us perfectly Holy for it nor perfectly Obedient So that how-ever you will call it whether a Material Cause or a Meritorious the thing is plain Obj. He is made of God Righteousness to us Ans True But that 's none of the question But how is he so made 1. As he is made Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption as aforesaid 2. By Merit Satisfaction Direction Prescription and Donation He is the Meritorious Cause of our Pardon of our Adoption of our Right to Heaven of that new Covenant which is the Instrumental Deed of Gift confirming all these And he is also our Righteousness in the sense that Austin so much standeth on as all our Holiness and Righteousness of Heart and Life is not of our natural endeavour but his gift and operation by his Spirit causing us to obey his Holy precepts and Example All these ways he is made of God our Righteousness Besides the Objective way of sense as he is Objectively made our Wisdom because it is the truest wisdom to know him So he is objectively made our Righteousness in that it is that Gospel-Righteousness which is required of our selves by his grace to believe in him and obey him 41. Though Christ fulfilled not the Law by Habitual Holiness and Actual Obedience strictly in the Individual person of each particular sinner yet he did it in the nature of Man And so humane nature considered in specie and in Christ personally though not considered as a totum or as personally in each man did satisfie and fullfil the Law and Merit As Humane Nature sinned in Adam actually in specie and in his individual person and all our Persons were seminally and virtually in him and accordingly sinned or are reputed sinners as having no nature but what he conveyed who could convey no better than he had either as to Relation or Real quality But not that God reputed us to have been actually existent as really distinct persons in Adam which is not true Even so Christ obeyed and suffered in our Nature and in our nature as it was in him and humane sinful nature in specie was Universally pardoned by him and Eternal life freely given to all men for his merits thus far imputed to them their sins being not imputed to hinder this Gift which is made in and by the Covenant of Grace Only the Gift hath the Condition of mans Acceptance of it according to its nature 2 Cor. 5.19 20. And all the individuals that shall in time by Faith accept the Gift are there and thereby made such as the Covenant for his merits doth justifie by that General Gift 42. As Adam was a Head by Nature and therefore conveyed Guilt by natural Generation so Christ is a Head not by nature but by Sacred Contract and therefore conveyeth Right to Pardon Adoption and Salvation not by Generation but by Contract or Donation So that what it was to be naturally in Adam seminally and virtually though not personlly in existence even that it is in order to our benefit by him to be in Christ by Contract or the new Covenant virtually though not in personal existence when the Covenant was made 43. They therefore that look upon Justification or Righteousness as coming to us immediately by Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us without the
by degrees Many sins may be said to be Remissible by vertue of this Sacrifice which never shall be remitted So far Mr. Lawson Here I would add only these Animadversions 1. That whereas he explaineth Christs personating us in suffering by the similitude of a Debtor and his Surety who are the same person in Law I note 1. That the case of Debt much differeth from the case of Punishment 2. That a Surety of Debt is either antecedently such or consequently Antecedently either first one that is bound equally with the Debtor 2. or one that promiseth to pay if he do not I think the Law accounteth neither of these to be the Person of the principal Debtor as it doth a Servant by whom he sends the Debt But Christ was neither of these For the Law did not beforehand oblige him with us nor did he in Law-sence undertake to pay the Debt if we failed Though God decreed that he should do so yet that was no part of the sence of the Law But consequently if a friend of the Debtor when he is in Jayl will without his request or knowledg say to the Creditor I will pay you all the Debt but so that he shall be in my power and not have present liberty lest he abuse it but on the terms that I shall please yea not at all if he ungratefully reject it This Consequent Satisfyer or Sponsor or Paymaster is not in Law-sence the same Person with the Debtor But if any will call him so I will not contend about a word while we agree of the thing the terms of deliverance And this is as near the Case between Christ and us as the similitude of a Debtor will allow 2. I do differ from Mr. Lawson and Paraeus and Vrsine and Olevian and Scultetus and all that sort of worthy Divines in this that whereas they make Christs Holiness and perfect Obedience to be but Justitia personae necessary to make his Sacrifice spotless and so effectual I think that of it self it is as directly the cause of our Pardon Justification and Life as Christs Passion is The Passion being satisfactory and so meritorious and the personal Holiness Meritorious and so Satisfactory For the truth is The Law that condemned us was not fulfilled by Christs suffering for us but the Lawgiver satisfied instead of the fulfilling of it And that Satisfaction lyeth in the substitution of that which as fully or more attaineth the ends of the Law as our own suffering would have done Now the ends of the Law may be attained by immediate Merit of Perfection as well as by Suffering but best by both For 1. By the perfect Holiness and Obedience of Christ the Holy and perfect will of God is pleased whence This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased 2. In order to the ends of Government Holiness and perfect Obedience is honoured and freed from the contempt which sin would cast upon it and the holiness of the Law in its Precepts is publickly honoured in this grand Exemplar In whom only the will of God was done on Earth as it is done in Heaven And such a Specimen to the World is greatly conducible to the ends of Government So that Christ voluntarily taking humane nature which as such is obliged to this Perfection He first highly merited of God the Father hereby and this with his Suffering went to attain the ends that our suffering should have attained much better So that at least as Meritorious if not secondarily as satisfactory I see not but Christs Holiness procureth the Justifying Covenant for us equally with his Death A Prince may pardon a Traitor for some noble service of his Friend as well as for his suffering much more for both This way go Grotius de satisf Mr. Bradshaw and others 3. When Mr Lawson saith that the Law binds not to Obedience and Punishment both he meaneth as to the same Act which contradicts not what Nigrinus and others say that it binds a sinner to punishment for sin past and yet to Obedience for the time to come which cannot be entire and perfect So pag. 311. Cap. 22. Qu. 2. Whether there be two parts of Justification Remission and Imputation of Christs Righteousness 1. He referreth us to what is aforecited against Imputation of Christs Active Righteousness separated or abstracted for Reward from the Passive 2. He sheweth that Paul taketh Remission of sin and Imputation of Righteousness for the same thing So say many of ours In conclusion I will mind the Reader that by reading some Authors for Imputation I am brought to doubt whether some deny not all true Remission of sin that is Remission of the deserved punishment Because I find that by Remission they mean A non-Imputation of sin under the formal notion of sin that God taketh it not to be our sin but Christs and Christs Righteousness and perfection to be so ours as that God accounteth us not as truly sinners And so they think that the Reatus Culpae as well as Poenae simply in it self is done away Which if it be so then the Reatus Poenae the obligation to punishment or the dueness of punishment cannot be said to be dissolved or remitted because it was never contracted Where I hold that it is the Reatus ad Poenam the Dueness of punishment only that is remitted and the guilt of sin not as in it self but in its Causality of punishment And so in all common language we say we forgive a man his fault when we forgive him all the penalty positive and privative Not esteeming him 1. Never to have done the fact 2. Or that fact not to have been a fault and his fault 3. but that punishment for that fault is forgiven him and the fault so far as it is a cause of punishment We must not feign God to judg falsly This maketh me think of a saying of Bp. Vshers to me when I mentioned the Papists placing Justification and Remission of sin conjunct he told me that the Papists ordinarily acknowledg no Remission And on search I find that Aquinas and the most of them place no true Remission of sin in Justification For by Remission which they make part of Justification they mean Mortification or destroying sin it self in the act or habit But that the pardon of the punishment is a thing that we all need is not denyable nor do they deny it though they deny it to be part of our Justification For it 's strange if they deny Christ the pardoning power which they give the Pope And as Joh. Crocius de Justif oft tells them They should for shame grant that Christs Righteousness may be as far imputed to us as they say a Saints or Martyrs redundant merits and supererogations are But if the Guilt of Fact and Guilt of Fault in it self considered be not both imputed first to us that is If we be not judged sinners I cannot see how we can be judged Pardoned sinners For he
it for us For it said not in words or sense Thou or one for thee shall Perfectly Obey or Suffer It mentioned no Substitute But it is the Law-giver and not that Law that justifieth us by other means § 28. But we have another Righteousness imputed to us instead of that Perfect Legal Innocency and Rewardableness by which we shall be accepted of God and glorified at last as surely and fully at least as if we had never sinned or had perfectly kept that Law which therefore may be called our Pro-legal Righteousness § 29. But this Righteousness is not yet either OURS by such a propriety as a Personal performance would have bin nor OURS to all the same ends and purposes It saveth us not from all pain death or penal desertion nor constituteth our Relation just the same § 30. It is the Law of Grace that Justifieth us both as giving us Righteousness and as Virtually judging us Righteous when it hath made us so and it is Christ as Judg according to that Law and God by Christ that will sentence us just and executively so use us § 31. The Grace of Christ first giveth us Faith and Repentance by effectual Vocation And then the Law of Grace by its Donative part or Act doth give us a Right to Vnion with Christ as the Churches Head and so to his Body and with him a right to Pardon of past sin and to the Spirit to dwell and act in us for the future and to the Love of God and Life eternal to be ours in possession if we sincerely obey and persevere § 32. The total Righteousness then which we have as an Accident of which we are the Subjects is 1. A right to Impunity by the free Pardon of all our sins and a right to Gods Favour and Glory as a free gift quoad valorem but as a Reward of our Obedience quoad Ordinem conferendi rationem Comparativam why one rather than another is judged meet for that free gift 2. And the Relation of one that hath by grace performed the Condition of that free Gift without which we had been no capable recipients which is initially Faith and Repentance the Condition of our Right begun and consequently sincere Obedience and Perseverance the Condition of continued right § 33. Christs personal Righteousness is no one of these and so is not our Constitutive Righteousness formally and strictly so called For Formally our Righteousness is a Relation of right and it is the Relation of our own Persons And a Relation is an accident And the numerical Relation or Right of one person cannot be the same numerical Accident of another person as the subject § 34. There are but three sorts of Causes Efficient Constitutive and Final 1. Christ is the efficient cause of all our Righteousness 1. Of our Right to Pardon and Life 2. And of our Gospel-Obedience And that many waies 1. He is the Meritorious Cause 2. He is the Donor by his Covenant 3. And the Donor or Operator of our Inherent Righteousness by his Spirit 4. And the moral efficient by his Word Promise Example c. 2. And Christ is partly the final cause 3. But all the doubt is whether his personal Righteousness be the Constitutive Cause § 35. The Constitutive Cause of natural bodily substances consisteth of Matter disposed and Form Relations have no Matter but instead of Matter a Subject and that is Our own persons here and not Christ and a terminus and fundamentum § 36. The Fundamentum may be called both the Efficient Cause of the Relation as commonly it is and the Matter from which it resulteth And so Christs Righteousness is undoubtedly the Meritorious efficient Cause and undoubtedly not the Formal Cause of our personal Relation of Righteousness Therefore all the doubt is of the Material Cause § 37. So that all the Controversie is come up to a bare name and Logical term of which Logicians agree not as to the aptitude All confess that Relations have no proper Matter besides the subject all confess that the Fundamentum is loco efficientis but whether it be a fit name to call it the Constitutive Matter of a Relation there is no agreement § 38. And if there were it would not decide this Verbal Controversie For 1. Titulus est fundamentum Juris The fundamentum of our Right to Impunity and Life in and with Christ is the Donative act of our Saviour in and by his Law or Covenant of Grace that is our Title And from that our Relation resulteth the Conditio tituli vel juris being found in our selves 2. And our Relation of Performers of that Condition of the Law of Grace resulteth from our own performance as the fundamentum compared to the Rule So that both these parts of our Righteousness have a nearer fundamentum than Christs personal Righteousness § 39. But the Right given us by the Covenant and the Spirit and Grace being a Right merited first by Christs personal Righteousness this is a Causa Causae id est fundamenti seu Donationis And while this much is certain whether it shall be called a Remote fundamentum viz. Causa fundamenti and so a Remote Constitutive Material Cause or only properly a Meritorious Cause may well be left to the arbitrary Logician that useeth such notions as he pleases but verily is a Controversie unfit to tear the Church for or destroy Love and Concord by § 40. Quest 1. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS Ans Yes In some sense and in another not § 41. Quest 2. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS Ans Yes In the sense before opened For all things are ours and his righteousness more than lower Causes § 42. Quest 3. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS as it was or is His own with the same sort of propriety Ans No. § 43. Quest 4. Is the formal Relation of Righteous as an accident of our persons numerically the same Righteousness Ans No It is impossible Unless we are the same person § 44. Quest 5. Is Christ and each Believer one political person Ans A political person is an equivocal word If you take it for an Office as the King or Judg is a political person I say No If for a Society Yea But noxia noxa caput sequuntur True Guilt is an accident of natural persons and of Societies only as constituted of such and so is Righteousness Though Physically Good or Evil may for society-sake befal us without personal desert or consent But if by Person you mean a certain State or Condition as to be a subject of God or one that is to suffer for sin so Christ may be said to be the same person with us in specie but not numerically because that Accident whence his Personality is named is not in the same subject § 45. Quest 6. Is Christs Righteousness imputed to us Ans Yes If by imputing you mean reckoning or reputing it ours so far as is aforesaid that is such a Cause of ours §
person And if any will improperly call that the Personating and Representing of the sinner let them limit it and confess that it is not simply but in tantum so far and to such uses and no other and that yet sinners did it not in and by Christ but only Christ for them to convey the benefits as he pleased And then we delight not to quarrel about mere words though we like the phrase of Scripture better than theirs 21. If Christ was perfectly Holy and Obedient in our persons and we in him then it was either in the Person of Innocent man before we sinned or of sinful man The first cannot be pretended For man as Innocent had not a Redeemer If of sinful man then his perfect Obedience could not be meritorious of our Salvation For it supposeth him to do it in the person of a sinner and he that hath once sinned according to that Law is the Child of death and uncapable of ever fulfilling a Law which is fulfilled with nothing but sinless perfect perpetual Obedience Obj. He first suffered in our stead and persons as sinners and then our sin being pardoned he after in our persons fulfilled the Law instead of our after-Obedience to it Ans 1. Christs Obedience to the Law was before his Death 2. The sins which he suffered for were not only before Conversion but endure as long as our lives Therefore if he fulfilled the Law in our persons after we have done sinning it is in the persons only of the dead 3. We are still obliged to Obedience our selves Obj. But yet though there be no such difference in Time God doth first Impute his sufferings to us for pardon of all our sins to the death and in order of nature his Obedience after it as the Merit of our Salvation Ans 1. God doth Impute or Repute his sufferings the satisfying cause of our Pardon and his Merits of Suffering and the rest of his Holiness and Obedience as the meritorious cause of our Pardon and our Justification and Glory without dividing them But 2. that implyeth that we did not our selves reputatively do all this in Christ As shall be further proved 22. Their way of Imputation of the Satisfaction of Christ overthroweth their own doctrine of the Imputation of his Holiness and Righteousness For if all sin be fully pardoned by the Imputed Satisfaction then sins of Omission and of habitual Privation and Corruption are pardoned and then the whole punishment both of Sense and Loss is remitted And he that hath no sin of Omission or Privation is a perfect doer of his duty and holy and he that hath no punishment of Loss hath title to Life according to that Covenant which he is reputed to have perfectly obeyed And so he is an heir of life without any Imputed Obedience upon the pardon of all his Disobedience Obj. But Adam must have obeyed to the Death if he would have Life eternal Therefore the bare pardon of his sins did not procure his right to life Ans True if you suppose that only his first sin was pardoned But 1. Adam had right to heaven as long as he was sinless 2. Christ dyed for all Adams sins to the last breath and not for the first only And so he did for all ours And if all the sins of omission to the death be pardoned Life is due to us as righteous Obj. A Stone may be sinless and yet not righteous nor have Right to life Ans True because it is not a capable subject But a man cannot be sinless but he is Righteous and hath right to life by Covenant Obj. But not to punish is one thing and to Reward is another Ans They are distinct formal Relations and Notions But where felicity is a Gift and called a Reward only for the terms and order of Collation and where Innocency is the same with perfect Duty and is the title-Condition there to be punished is to be denyed the Gift and to be Rewarded is to have that Gift as qualified persons and not to Reward is materially to punish and to be reputed innocent is to be reputed a Meriter And it is impossible that the most Innocent man can have any thing from God but by way of free-Gift as to the Thing in Value however it may be merited in point of Governing Paternal Justice as to the Order of donation Obj. But there is a greater Glory merited by Christ than the Covenant of works promised to man Ans 1. That 's another matter and belongeth not to Justification but to Adoption 2. Christs Sufferings as well as his Obedience considered as meritorious did purchase that greater Glory 3. We did not purchase or merit it in Christ but Christ for us 23. Their way of Imputation seemeth to me to leave no place or possibility for Pardon of sin or at least of no sin after Conversion I mean that according to their opinion who think that we fulfilled the Law in Christ as we are elect from eternity it leaveth no place for any pardon And according to their opinion who say that we fulfilled it in him as Believers it leaveth no place for pardon of any sin after Faith For where the Law is reputed perfectly fulfilled in Habit Act there it is reputed that the person hath no sin We had no sin before we had a Being and if we are reputed to have perfectly obeyed in Christ from our first Being we are reputed sinless But if we are reputed to have obeyed in him only since our believing then we are reputed to have no sin since our Believing Nothing excludeth sin if perfect Habitual and Actual Holiness and Obedience do not 24. And consequently Christs blood shed and Satisfaction is made vain either as to all our lives or to all after our 〈◊〉 believing 25. And then no believer must confess his sin nor his desert of punishment nor repent of it or be humbled for it 26. And then all prayer for the pardon of such sin is vain and goeth upon a false supposition that we have sin to pardon 27. And then no man is to be a partaker of the Sacrament as a Conveyance or Seal of such pardon nor to believe the promise for it 28. Nor is it a duty to give thanks to God or Christ for any such pardon 29. Nor can we expect Justification from such guilt here or at Judgment 30. And then those in Heaven praise Christ in errour when they magnifie him that washed them from such sins in his blood 31. And it would be no lie to say that we have no sin at least since believing 32. Then no believer should fear sinning because it is Impossible and a Contradiction for the same person to be perfectly innocent to the death and yet a sinner 33. Then the Consciences of believers have no work to do or at least no examining convincing self-accusing and self-judging work 34. This chargeth God by Consequence of wronging all believers whom he layeth
the least punishment upon For he that hath perfectly obeyed or hath perfectly satisfied by himself or by another in his person cannot justly be punished But I have elsewhere fully proved that Death and other Chastisements are punishments though not destructive but corrective And so is the permission of our further sinning 35. It intimateth that God wrongeth believers for not giving them immediately more of the Holy Ghost and not present perfecting them and freeing them from all sin For though Christ may give us the fruits of his own merits in the time and way that pleaseth himself yet if it be we our selves that have perfectly satisfied and merited in Christ we have present Right to the thing merited thereupon and it is an injury to deny it us at all 36. And accordingly it would be an injury to keep them so long out of Heaven if they themselves did merit it so long ago 37. And the very Threatning of Punishment in the Law of Grace would seem injurious or incongruous to them that have already reputatively obeyed perfectly to the death 38. And there would be no place left for any Reward from God to any act of obedience done by our selves in our natural or real person Because having reputatively fulfilled all Righteousness and deserved all that we are capable of by another our own acts can have no reward 39. And I think this would overthrow all Humane Laws and Government For all true Governours are the Officers of God and do what they do in subordination to God and therefore cannot justly punish any man whom he pronounceth erfectly Innocent to the death 40. This maketh every believer at least as Righteous as Christ himself as having true propriety in all the same numerical Righteousness as his own And if we be as Righteous as Christ are we not as amiable to God And may we not go to God in our Names as Righteous 41. This maketh all believers at least equally Righteous in degree and every one perfect and no difference between them David and Solomon as Righteous in the act of sinning as before and every weak and scandalous believer to be as Righteous as the best Which is not true though many say that Justification hath no degrees but is perfect at first as I have proved in my Life of Faith and elsewhere 42. This too much levelleth Heaven and Earth For in Heaven there can be nothing greater than perfection 43. The Scripture no-where calleth our Imputed Righteousness by the name of Innocency or sinless Perfection nor Inculpability Imputed Nay when the very phrase of Imputing Christs Righteousness is not there at all to add all these wrong descriptions of Imputation is such Additions to Gods words as tendeth to let in almost any thing that mans wit shall excogitate and ill beseemeth them that are for Scripture-sufficiency and perfection and against Additions in the general And whether some may not say that we are Imputatively Christ himself Conceived by the Holy Ghost Born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate Crucified c. I cannot tell To conclude the honest plain Christian may without disquieting the Church or himself be satisfied in this certain simple truth That we are sinners and deserve everlasting misery That Christ hath suffered as a Sacrifice for our sins in our room and stead and satisfied the Justice of God That he hath by his perfect Holiness and Obedience with those sufferings merited our pardon and Life That he never hereby intended to make us Lawless have us Holy but hath brought us under a Law of Grace which is the Instrument by which he pardoneth justifieth and giveth us Right to life That by this Covenant he requireth of us Repentance and true Faith to our first Justification and sincere Obedience Holiness and Perseverance to our Glorification to be wrought by his Grace and our Wills excited and enabled by it That Christs Sufferings are to save us from suffering but his Holiness and Obedience are to merit Holiness Obedience Happiness for us that we may be like him and so be made personally amiable to God But both his Sufferings and Obedience do bring us under a Covenant where Perfection is not necessary to our Salvation CHAP. V. The Objections Answered Obj. 1. YOV confound a Natural and a Political person Christ and the several believing sinners are not the same natural Person but they are the same Political As are with us saith Dr. Tullie the Sponsor and the Debtor the Attorney and the Clyent the Tutor and the Pupil so are all the faithful in Christ both as to their Celestial regenerate nature of which he is the first Father who begetteth sons by his Spirit and seed of the Word to his Image and as to Righteousness derived by Legal Imputation Vid. Dr. Tullie Justif Paul p. 80 81. It 's commonly said that Christ as our surety is our Person Ans 1. The distinction of a Person into Natural and Political or Legal is equivoci in sua equivocata He therefore that would not have contention cherished and men taught to damn each other for a word not understood must give us leave to ask what these equivocals mean What a Natural Person signifieth we are pretty well agreed but a Political Person is a word not so easily and commonly understood Calvin tells us that Persona definitur homo qui caput habet civile For omnis persona est homo sed non vicissim Homo cum est vocabulum naturae Persona juris civilis And so as Albenius civitas municipium Castrum Collegium Vniversitas quod libet corpus Personae appellatione continetur ut Spigel But if this Definition be commensurate to the common nature of a civil person then a King can be none nor any one that hath not a civil head This therefore is too narrow The same Calvin in n. Personae tells us that Seneca Personam vocat cum prae se fert aliquis quod non est A Counterfeit But sure this is not the sence of the Objectors In general saith Calvin Tam hominem quam qualitatem hominis seu Conditionem significat But it is not sure every Quality or Condition Calvin therefore giveth us nothing satisfactory to the decision of the Controversie which these Divines will needs make whether each believer and Christ be the same Political Person Martinius will make our Controversie no easier by the various significations gathered out of Vet. Vocab Gel. Scaliger Valla Which he thus enumerateth 1. Persona est accidens conditio hominis qualitas quâ homo differt ab homine tum in animo tum in corpore tum in externis 2. Homo qualitate dictâ proditus 3. Homo insigni qualitate praeditus habens gradum eminentiae in Ecclesia Dei c. 4. Figura seu facies ficta larva histrionica c. 5. Ille qui sub hujusmodi figura aliquam representat c. 6. Figura eminens in aedificiis quae ore aquam fundit
Maledictory Sentence of the Law but also that we are first made and then accounted Persons first meet for Absolution and next meet for God's Acceptance of us as just and as Heirs of Life Eternal and meet for the great Reward in Heaven For when the Apostle denieth Justification by Works it is not credible that he meaneth only that By the Works of the Law no Man is absolved from the Curse of the Law But also No Man by the Works of the Law is before God taken for a Performer of the necessary Condition of Absolution and Salvation nor fit for his Acceptance and for the Heavenly Reward Answ 2. But let the Reader here note that the Doctor supposeth James to mean that By Works a Man is absolved from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law and not by Faith only For that James speaks of Justification in foro Dei is past all doubt And who would have thought that the Doctor had granted this of the Text of James But mistakes seldom agree among themselves Answ 3. And would not any Man have thought that this Author had pleaded for such an Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as justifieth not only from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law but also from the very guilt of sin as sin we being reputed not only pardoned sinners but perfect fulfillers of the Law by Christ and so that we are in Christ conform to the Fac hoc or preceptive part commanding Innocency Who would have thought but this was his drift If it be not all his angry Opposition to me is upon a mistake so foul as reverence forbids me to name with its proper Epithets If it be how can the same Man hold That we are justified as in Christ conform to the Precept of perfect Innocency And yet that The Scripture mentioneth no Justification at all in foro Dei besides that one which is Absolution from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law But still mistakes have discord with themselves Answ 4. It is the judgment indeed of Mr. Gataker Wotton Piscator Paraeus Vrsine Wendeline and abundance other excellent Divines that as sins of omission are truly sin and poena damni or privations truly punishment so for a sinner for his sin to be denied God's Love and Favour Grace and Glory is to be punished and to be pardoned is to have this privative punishment remitted as well as the rest and so that Justification containeth our Right to Glory as it is the bare forgiveness of the penalty of sin because Death and Life Darkness and Light are such Contraries as that one is but the privation of the other But this Learned Doctor seemeth to be of the commoner Opinion that the Remission of Sin is but one part of our Justification and that by Imputation of perfect Holiness and Obedience we must have another part which is our Right to the Reward and I think a little Explication would end that difference But doth he here then agree with himself And to contradict the common way of those with whom he joyneth Do they not hold that Justification is more than an Absolution from the Maledictory Sentence of the Law Answ 5. But indeed his very Description by Absolution is utterly ambiguous 1. Absolution is either by Actual Pardon by the Law or Covenant of Grace which giveth us our Right to Impunity 2. Or by Sentence of the Judg who publickly decideth our Case and declareth our Right determinatively Or by execution of that Sentence in actual delivering us from penalty And who knoweth which of these he meaneth This is but confusion to describe by an unexplained equivocal word And who knoweth what Law he meaneth whose Maledictory Sentence Justification absolveth us from Doth he think that the Law of Innocency and of Moses and the Law of Grace are all one which Scripture so frequently distinguisheth Or that each of them hath not its Malediction If he deny this I refer him to my full proof of it to Mr. Cartwright and elsewhere If not we should know whether he mean all or which 3. And what he meaneth by the Sentence of the Law is uncertain Whether it be the Laws Commination as obliging us to punishment which is not a Sentence in the usual proper sense but only a virtual Sentence that is the Norma Judicis or whether he mean the Sentence of God as Judg according to the Law which is not the Sentence of the Law properly but of the Judg It 's more intelligible speaking and distinct that must edifie us and end those Controversies which ambiguities and confusion bred and feed Answ 6. But which-ever he meaneth most certainly it is not true that the Scripture mentioneth no other Justification in foro Dei For many of the fore-cited Texts tell us that it oft mentioneth a Justification which is no Absolution from the Maledictory Sentence neither of the Law of Innocency of Moses or of Grace but a Justification of a Man's innocency in tantum or quoad Causam hanc particularem Viz. 1. Sometimes a Justifying the Righteous Man against the slanders of the World or of his Enemies 2. Sometimes a justifying a Man in some one action as having dealt faithfully therein 3. Sometimes a judging a Man to be a faithful Godly Man that performeth the Conditions of Life in the Law of Grace made necessary to God's Acceptance 4. Sometimes for making a Man such or for making him yet more inherently just or continuing him so 5. Sometimes for Justification by the Apology of an Advocate which is not Absolution 6. Sometimes for Justification by Witness 7. And sometimes perhaps by Evidence As appeareth Isa 50.8 Rom. 8.33 and so God himself is said to be justified Psal 51.4 Rom. 3.4 and Christ 1 Tim. 3.16 1 King 8.32 Hear thou in Heaven and do and judg thy Servants condemning the Wicked to bring his way upon his Head and justifying the Righteous to give him according to his Righteousness where the Sentence is passed by the Act of Execution Is this absolving him from the Curse of the Law So 1 Chron. 6.23 so Mat. 12.37 Jam. 2.21 24 25. where Justification by our Words and by Works is asserted and many other Texts so speak Frequently to Justifie is to maintain one or prove him to be just It 's strange that any Divine should find but one sort of sense of Justification before God mentioned in the Scriptures I would give here to the Reader a help for some excuse of the Author viz. that by praeter unam illam quae est Absolutio he might mean which is partly Absolution and partly Acceptation as of a fulfiller of the Precept of Perfection by Christ and partly Right to the Reward all three making up the whole but that I must not teach him how to speak his own mind or think that he knew not how to utter it And specially because the Instances here prove that even so it is very far from Truth had he so spoken Answ 7. But what
Donation by the Gospel-Covenant or Grant And so that Grant or Gospel is the fundamentum of it But the Merits of Christ's Righteousness purchased that Gift and so those Merits are the remote fundamentum or efficient And thus my Justification by the Doctor 's confession is Evangelical 3. I must perish if I have not also a subordinate personal Righteousness consisting in my performance of those Conditions on which the New-Covenant giveth the former And the fundamentum of this Righteousness is the Reality of that performance as related to the Irrogation Imposition or Tenor of the Covenant making this the Condition This is my Heresie if I be heretical and be it right or wrong I will make it intelligible and not by saying and unsaying involve all in confusion § 6. He addeth Ex parte Termini Legalis est quia terminatur in satisfactione Legi praestanda Liberavit me à Lege mortis c. And hence he saith the denomination is properly taken Answ 1. The Reader here seeth that all this Zeal is exercised in a Game at Words or Logical Notions and the Church must be called for the umpirage to stand by in Arms to judg that he hath won the Day What if the denomination be properly to be taken from the Terminus Is it as dangerous as you frightfully pretend to take it aliunde 2. But stay a little Before we come to this we must crave help to understand what he talketh of Is it 1. Justificatio Justificans active sumpta Or 2. Justificatio Justificati passive 3. Or Justitia 1. The first is Actio and the Terminus of that Action is two-fold 1. The Object or Patient a believing Sinner 2. The Effect Justificatio passivè neither of these is the Law or its Malediction But which of these is it that we must needs name it from 2. The passive or effective Justification is in respect of the Subjects Reception called Passio In respect of the form received it is as various as I before mentioned 1. The Effect of the Donative Justification of the Law of Grace is Justitia data a Relation oft described 2. The Effect of the Spirits giving us Inherent Righteousness is a Quality given Acts excited and a Relation thence resulting 3. The Effect of Justification per sententiam Judicis is immediately a Relation Jus Judicatum 4. The Effect of an Advocates Justification is Justitia persona ut defensa seu vindicata 5. The Effect of Executive Justification is Actual Impunity or Liberation And are all these one Terminus or hence one name then These are the Termini of Justificatio Justificantis ut Actionis and nothing of this nature can be plainer than that 1. Remission of sin passively taken the Reatus or Obligatio ad poenam the first ad quem and the second à quo are both the immediate Termini of our Act of Justification 2. That the Terminus Justitiae as it is the formal Relation of a Justified Person as such is the Law as Norma Actionum as to Righteous Actions and the Law or Covenant as making the Condition of Life as to those Actions sub ratione Conditionis Tituli And the Promissory and Minatory part of the Law as Justitia is Jus praemii impunitatis First The Actions and then the Person are Just in Relation to the Law or Covenant by which their Actions and they are to be judged But the remoter Terminus is the malum à quo and the bonum ad quod And as à quo it is not only the evil denounced but also the Reatus or Obligation to it and the efficacious Act of the Law thus cursing and the Accusation of the Actor or Accuser real or possible that is such a terminus II. But when he saith Ex parte Termini Legalis est either still he taketh legal generally as comprehending the Law of Innocency of Works and of Grace or not If he do I must hope he is more intelligent and just than to insinuate to his Reader that I ever mention an Evangelical Justification that is not so legal as to be denominated from the Law of Grace as distinct from that of Works If not he was indebted to his intelligent Reader for some proof that no Man is justified against this false Accusation Thou art by the Law of Grace the Heir of a far sorer punishment for despising the Remedy and not performing the Conditions of Pardon and Life And also for this thou hast no right to Christ and the Gifts of his Covenant of Grace But no such proof is found in his Writings nor can be given III. But his Quia Terminatur in satisfactione Legi praestanda I confess it is a Sentence not very intelligible or edifying to me 1. Satisfactio proprie stricte sic dicta differâ— Ã solutione ejusdem quod sit solutio aequivalentis alias indebite Which of these he meaneth Satisfaction thus strictly taken or solutio ejusdem I know not Nor know what it is that he meaneth by Legi praestandâ Indeed solutio ejusdem is Legi praestanda but not praestita by us personally or by another For we neither kept the Law nor bare the full Penalty And the Law mentioned no Vicarium Obedientiae aut pâ—enae Christ performed the Law as it obliged himself as Mediator and as a Subject but not as it obliged us for it obliged us to Personal performance only And Christ by bearing that Punishment in some respects which we deserved satisfied the Law-giver who had power to take a Commutation but not the Law unless speaking improperly you will say that the Law is satisfied when the remote ends of the Law-giver and Law are obtained For the Law hath but one fixed sense and may be it self changed but changeth not it self nor accepteth a tantundem And Christ's suffering for us was a fulfilling of the Law which peculiarly bound him to suffer and not a Satisfaction loco solutionis ejusdem And it was no fulfilling the Penal part of the Law as it bound us to suffer For so it bound none but us so that the Law as binding us to Duty or Suffering was neither fulfilled nor strictly satisfied by Christ but the Law-giver satisfied and the remote ends of the Law attained by Christ's perfect fulfilling all that Law which bound himself as Mediator Now whether he mean the Law as binding us to Duty or to Punishment or both and what by satisfaction I am not sure But as far as I can make sense of it it seeneth to mean that Poena is satisfactio loco obedientiae and that Punishment being our Due this was satisfactio Legi praestandâ for he saith not Praestita But then he must judge that we are justified only from the penal Obligation of the Law and not from the preceptive Obligation to perfect Obedience And this will not stand with the scope of other Passages where he endureth not my Opinion that we are not justified by the fae hoc the Precept
by him Thus he states the Controversie And doth this Doctor fight for Truth and Peace by 1. passing by all this 2. Saying I am against Imputed Righteousness 3. And against the Reformed Were not all the Divines before named Reformed Was not Camero Capellus Placeus Amyrald Dallaeus Blondel c. Reformed Were not Wotton Bradshaw Gataker c. Reformed Were not of late Mr. Gibbons Mr. Truman to pass many yet alive Reformed Must that Name be shamed by appropriating it to such as this Doctor only 2. And now let the Reader judg with what face he denieth the Consequence that it supposeth us to have been in Christ legally c. When as I put it into the Opinion opposed and opposed no other But I erred in saying that most of our ordinary Divines hold it But he more in fathering it in common on the Reformed § 2. Dr. T. 2. Such Imputation of Righteousness he saith agreeth not with Reason or Scripture But what Reason meaneth he Is it that vain blind maimed unmeasurably procacious and tumid Reason of the Cracovian Philosophers Next he saith Scripture is silent of the Imputed Righteousness of Christ what a saying is this of a Reformed Divine so also Bellarmine c. Answ Is it not a doleful case that Orthodoxness must be thus defended Is this the way of vindicating Truth 1. Reader my words were these just like Bradshaws It teaâ—heth Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in so strict a sense as will neither stand with Reason nor the Doctrine of the Scripture much less with the PHRASE of Scripture which mentioneth no Imputation of Christ or his Righteousness 1. Is this a denying of Christ's Righteousness imputed Or only of that intollerable sense of it 2. Do I say here that Scripture mentioneth not Imputed Righteousness or only that strict sense of it 3. Do I not expresly say It is the Phrase that is not to be found in Scripture and the unsound sense but not the sound 2. And as to the Phrase Doth this Doctor or can any living Man find that Phrase in Scripture Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us And when he knoweth that it is not there are not his Exclamations and his Bug-bears Cracovian Reason and Bellarmine his dishonour that hath no better Weapons to use against the Churches Peace To tell us that the sense or Doctrine is in Scripture when the question is of the Phrase or that Scripture speaketh in his rigid sense and not in ours is but to lose time and abuse the Reader the first being impertinent and the second the begging of the Question § 3. Dr. T. The Greek word answering to Imputation is ten times in Rom. 4. And what is imputed but Righteousness we have then some imputed Righteousness The Question is only what or whose it is Christ's or our own Not ours therefore Christs If ours either its the Righteousness of Works or of Faith c. Answ 1. But what 's all this to the Phrase Could you have found that Phrase Christ's Righteousness is imputed why did you not recite the words but Reason as for the sense 2. Is that your way of Disputation to prove that the Text speaketh of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness when the Question was only In what sense What kind of Readers do you expect that shall take this for rational candid and a Plea for Truth 3. But to a Man that cometh unprejudiced it is most plain that Paul meaneth by imputing it for Righteousness that the Person was or is accounted reckoned or judged Righteous where Righteousness is mentioned as the formal Relation of the Believer so that what-ever be the matter of it of which next the formal Relation sure is our own and so here said And if it be from the matter of Christ's Righteousness yet that must be our own by your Opinion And it must be our own in and to the proper Effects in mine But sure it is not the same numerical formal Relation of Righteousness that is in Christ's Person and in ours And it 's that formal Relation as in Abraham and not in Christ that is called Abraham's Reputed Righteousness in the Text I scarce think you will say the contrary § 4. Dr. T. But Faith is not imputed to us for Righteousness Answ Expresly against the words of the Holy Ghost there oft repeated Is this defending the Scripture expresly to deny it Should not reverence and our subscription to the Scripture sufficiently rather teach us to distinguish and tell in what sense it is imputed and in what not than thus to deny without distinction what it doth so oft assert Yea the Text nameth nothing else as so imputed but Faith § 5. If it be imputed it is either as some Virtue or Humane Work the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere or as it apprehendeth and applyeth Christ's Righteousness Not the first If Faith be imputed relatively only as it applyeth to a Sinner the Righteousness of Christ it 's manifest that it 's the Righteousness of Christ only that is imputed and that Faith doth no more to Righteousness than an empty hand to receive an Alms. Answ 1. Sure it doth as a voluntarily receiving hand and not as a mere empty hand And voluntary grateful Reception may be the Condition of a Gift 2. You and I shall shortly find that it will be the Question on which we shall be Justified or Condemned not only whether we received Christ's Righteousness but whether by Faith we received Christ in all the Essentials of his Office and to all the essential saving Uses Yea whether according to the sense of the Baptismal Covenant we first believingly received and gave up our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and after performed sincerely that Covenant 3. But let me defend the Word of God Faith is imputed for Righteousness even this Faith now described 1. Remotely ex materiae aptitudine for its fitness to its formal Office And that fitness is 1. Because it is an Act of Obedience to God or morally good for a bad or indifferent Act doth not justifie 2. More specially as it is the receiving trusting and giving up our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost to the proper ends of Redemption or a suitable Reception of the freely offered Gift and so connoteth Christ the Object for the Object is essential to the Act in specie 2. But proximately Faith is so reputed or imputed as it is the performance of the Condition of the Justifying Covenant or Donation And to be imputed for Righteousness includeth That It is the part required of us by the Law of Grace to make us partakers of the Benefits of Christ's Righteousness which meriteth Salvation for us instead of a legal and perfect Righteousness of our own which we have not Or Whereas we fell short of a Righteousness of Innocency Christ by such a Righteousness hath merited our Pardon and Salvation and given title to them by a New Covenant of Grace which maketh
out all sin that he might confirm what he said both from the Faith of Abraham by which he was justified and from our Saviours Death by which we are delivered from sin But this is on the by 2. But saith Dr. T. The Orthodox abhor the contrary in sensu forensi Answ How easie is it to challenge the Titles of Orthodox Wise or good Men to ones self And who is not Orthodox himself being Judg But it seems with him no Man must pass for Orthodox that is not in so gross an error of his Mind if these words and not many better that are contrary must be the discovery of it viz. That will not say that in sensu forensi God esteemeth Men to have done that which they never did The best you can make of this is that you cover the same sense which I plainlier express with this illfavoured Phrase of Man's inventing But if indeed you mean any more than I by your sensus forensis viz. that such a suffering and meriting for us may in the lax improper way of some Lawyers speaking be called Our own Doing Meriting Suffering c. I have proved that the Doctrine denied by me subverteth the Gospel of Christ Reader I remember what Grotius then Orthodox thirty years before his Death in that excellent Letter of Church-Orders Predestination Perseverance and Magistrates animadverting on Molinaeus saith How great an injury those Divines who turn the Christian Doctrine into unintelligible Notions and Controversies do to Christian Magistrates because it is the duty of Magistrates to discern and preserve necessary sound Doctrine which these Men would make them unable to discern The same I must say of their injury to all Christians because all should hold fast that which is proved True and Good which this sort of Men would disable them to discern We justly blame the Papists for locking up the Scripture and performing their Worship in an unknown Tongue And alas what abundance of well-meaning Divines do the same thing by undigested Terms and Notions and unintelligible Distinctions not adapted to the Matter but customarily used from some Persons reverenced by them that led the way It is so in their Tractates both of Theology and other Sciences and the great and useful Rule Verba Rebus aptanda sunt is laid aside or rather Men that understand not Matter are like enough to be little skilful in the expressing of it And as Mr. Pemble saith A cloudy unintelligible stile usually signifieth a cloudy unintelligent Head to that sense And as Mr. J. Humfrey tells Dr. Fullwood in his unanswerable late Plea for the Conformists against the charge of Schism pag. 29. So overly are men ordinarily wont to speak at the first sight against that which others have long thought upon that some Men think that the very jingle of a distinction not understood is warrant enough for their reproaching that Doctrine as dangerous and unsound which hath cost another perhaps twenty times as many hard studies as the Reproachers ever bestowed on that Subject To deliver thee from those Learned Obscurities read but the Scripture impartially without their Spectacles and ill-devised Notions and all the Doctrine of Justification that is necessary will be plain to thee And I will venture again to fly so far from flattering those called Learned Men who expect it as to profess that I am perswaded the common sort of honest unlearned Christians even Plowmen and Women do better understand the Doctrine of Justification than many great Disputers will suffer themselves or others to understand it by reason of their forestalling ill-made Notions these unlearned Persons commonly conceive 1. That Christ in his own Person as a Mediator did by his perfect Righteousness and Sufferings merit for us the free pardon of all our sins and the Gift of his Spirit and Life Eternal and hath promised Pardon to all that are Penitent Believers and Heaven to all that so continue and sincerely obey him to the end and that all our after-failings as well as our former sins are freely pardoned by the Sacrifice Merits and Intercession of Christ who also giveth us his Grace for the performance of his imposed Conditions and will judg us as we have or have not performed them Believe but this plain Doctrine and you have a righter understanding of Justification than many would let you quietly enjoy who tell you That Faith is not imputed for Righteousness that it justifieth you only as an Instrumental Cause and only as it is the reception of Christ's Righteousness and that no other Act of Faith is justifying and that God esteemeth us to have been perfectly Holy and Righteous and fulfilled all the Law and died for our own sins in or by Christ and that he was politically the very Person of every Believing Sinner with more such like And as to this distinction which this Doctor will make a Test of the Orthodox that is Men of of his Size and Judgment you need but this plain explication of it 1. In Law-sense a Man is truly and fitly said himself to have done that which the Law or his Contract alloweth him to do either by himself or another as to do an Office or pay a Debt by a Substitute or Vicar For so I do it by my Instrument and the Law is fulfilled and not broken by me because I was at liberty which way to do it In this sense I deny that we ever fulfilled all the Law by Christ and that so to hold subverts all Religion as a pernicious Heresie 2. But in a tropical improper sense he may be said to be esteemed of God to have done what Christ did who shall have the benefits of Pardon Grace and Glory thereby merited in the manner and measure given by the free Mediator as certainly as if he had done it himself In this improper sense we agree to the Matter but are sorry that improper words should be used as a snare against sound Doctrine and the Churches Love and Concord And yet must we not be allowed Peace § 4. But my free Speech here maketh me remember how sharply the Doctor expounded and applyed one word in the retracted Aphorisms I said not of the Men but of the wrong Opinion opposed by me It fondly supposeth a Medium betwixt one that is just and one that is no sinner one that hath his sin or guilt taken away and one that hath his unrighteousness taken away It 's true in bruits and insensibles that are not subjects capable of Justice there is c. There is a Negative Injustice which denominateth the Subject non-justum but no◠injustum where Righteousness is not due But when there is the debitum habendi its privative The Doctor learnedly translateth first the word fondly by stolide and next he fondly though not stolidè would perswade the Reader that it is said of the Men though himself translate it Doctrina And next he bloweth his Trumpet to the War with this exclamation Stolide O
Take your selves to be neither of Roman or any other Church as Vniversal which is less than the Vniversality of all Christians headed by Christ alone 9. Make this Love of all Christians the second part of your Religion and the Love of God of Christ of Holiness and Heaven the first and live thus in the serious practice of your Covenant even of Simple Christianity For it 's this that will be your Peace in Life and at Death 10. And if Men of various degrees of Learning or Speaking-skill and of various degrees of Holiness Humility and Love shall quarrel about Words and forms of Speech and shall hereticate and revile and damn each other while the Essentials are held fast and practised discern Right from Wrong as well as you can but take heed that none of them make Words a snare to draw you injuriously to think hatefully of your Brother or to divide the Churches or Servants of Christ And suspect such a Snare because of the great ambiguity of Words and imperfection of Mans Skill and Honesty in all Matters of debate And never dispute seriously without first agreeing of the Sense of every doubtful term with him that you Dispute with Dr. Tully's Allarm and other Mens militant Course perswaded me as a Preservative to commend this Counsel to you § XI Pag. 19. You next very justly commend Method ordering and expressing our Conceptions of which you say I seem to make little account in Comparison Answ 1. Had you said that I had been unhappy in my Endeavours your Authority might have gone for Proof with many But you could scarce have spoken a more incredible word of me than that I seem to make little account of Method I look for no sharper Censure from the Theological Tribe than that I Over-do in my Endeavours after Method You shall not tempt me here unseasonably to anticipate what Evidence I have to produce for my acquittance from this Accusation 2. But yet I will still say that it is not so necessary either to Salvation or to the Churches Peace that we all agree in Methods and Expressions as that we agree in the hearty reception of Christ and obedience to His Commands So much Method all must know as to know the Beginning and the End from the Effects and Means God from the Creature and as our true consent to the Baptismal Covenant doth require and I will thankfully use all the help which you give me to go further But I never yet saw that Scheme of Theologie or of any of its Heads which was any whit large and I have seen many which was so exact in Order as that it was dangerous in any thing to forsake it But I cannot think meet to talk much of Method with a Man that talketh as you do of Distinguishing and handleth the Doctrine of Justification no more Methodically than you do § XII But pag. 19. you instance in the difference between Protestants and Papists about the Necessity of Good works which is wide in respect of the placing or ranking of them viz. The one stretching it to the first Justification the other not but confining it to its proper rank and province of Inherent Holiness where it ought to keep Answ Wonderful Have you that have so loudly called to me to tell how I differ about Justification brought your own and as you say the Protestants difference to this Will none of your Readers see now who cometh nearer them you or I 1. Is this distinction our proof of your accurateness in Method and Order and Expression What meaneth a distinction between First-Justification and Inherent Holiness Do you difference them Quoad ordinem as First and Second But here is no Second mentioned Is it in the nature of the things Justification and Inherent Holiness What signifieth the First then But Sir how many Readers do you expect who know not 1. That it is not to the First Justification at all but to that which they call the Second or Increase that the Church of Rome asserteth the necessity or use of Mans meritorious Works See what I have fully cited out of them for this Cath. Theol. Lib. 2. Confer 13. pag. 267. c. saving that some of them are for such Preparatives as some call Merit of Congruity and as our English Divines do constantly preach for and the Synod of Dort at large assert though they disown the name of Merit as many of the Papists do They ordinarily say with Austine Bona opera sequuntur Justificatum non praecedunt Justificandum 2. But I hope the word First here overslipt your your Pen instead of Second But suppose it did so What 's the difference between the Papists first or second Justification and the Protestants Inherent Holiness None that ever I heard or read of Who knoweth not that the Papists take Justification for Inherent Holiness And is this the great difference between Papists and Protestants which I am so loudly accused for not acknowledging viz. The Papists place Good-Works before Justification that is Inherent Holiness and the Protestants more rightly place them before Inherent Holiness Are you serious or do you prevaricate The Papists and Protestants hold that there are some Duties and common Grace usually preparatory to Conversion or Sanctification which some Papists de nomine call Merit of Congruity and some will not The Papists and Protestants say that Faith is in order of nature at least before that Habitual Love which is called Holiness and before the Works thereof The Papists and Protestants say that Works of Love and Obedience follow our First Sanctification and make up but the Second part of it which consisteth in the Works of Holiness If you speak not of Works in the same sense in each part of your Assignation the Equivocation would be too gross viz. If you should mean Papists rank the necessity of preparatory Common Works or the Internal act of Faith or Love stretching it to the First Justification and Protestants rank other Works viz. The fruits of Faith and Love with Inherent Holiness All agree 1. That Common Works go before Sanctification 2. That Internal Love and other Grace do constitute Sanctification in the First part of it 3. That Special Works proceeding from Inward Grace are the effects of the First Part and the constitutive Causes of the Second Part of Sanctification as the word extendeth also to Holiness of Life And whilst Papists take Justâ—fication for Sanctification in all this there is De re no difference But your accurate Explications by such terms as Stretching Confirming Province c. are fitter for Tully than for Aristotle And is this it in the Application that your Zeal will warn Men of that we must in this take heed of joyning with the Papists Do you mean Rank Good-Works with Inherent Holiness and not with the First Sanctification and you then do widely differ from the Papists Will not your Reader say 1. What doth Inherent Holiness differ from the First
Reasons and you presently feign a Retractation of the Doctrine and of about sixty Books of Retractions It 's well that pag. 23. you had the justice not to justifie your Nec dubito quin imputatam Christi justitiam incluserit But to confess your Injustice was too much It is not your own Retractation that you are for it seems § XIV Pag. 23 24. You talk as if my supposing that both Justice and Imputation are capable of Definitions which are not the Things were a Fallacy because or is a disjunctive viz. When I say that the Definition of the one or the other is not the Thing Do you grant it of them Disjunctively and yet maintain the contrary of them Conjunct Yes you say Imputed Justice cannot differ from its true definition unless you will have it to differ really from it self And pag. 34. you say I am ashamed you should thus over and over expose your self as if supposing Definitions true they were not the same Re with the Definitum Good Sir talk what you please in private to such as understand not what you say and let them give you a grand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for your pains but you may do well to use more Civility to the reason of a Scholar though he hath not yet worn out his Freshmans Gown Answ This is no light or jesting Matter The comfort of Souls dependeth on it I see some Men expect that Reverence of their Scholarship should give them great advantage But if one argued thus with me for Transubstantiation I would not turn to him to escape the Guilt of Incivility If the Definition and the Definitum as in question now be the same Thing wo to all the Unlearned World and wo to all Freshmen that yet have not learnt well to define and wo to all Divines that differ in their Definitions except those that are in the right I know that a Word and a Mental Conception are not Nothing They may be called Things but when we distinguish the Things from their Signs Names or Definitions we take not the word Things so laxly as to comprehend the said Signs Names c. When we say that the Thing defined is necessary but to be able to Define it or actually to Define it is not necessary to Salvation it is notorious that we take Definition as Defining actively as it is Actus definientis and Definire sure is not the same with the Thing defined I have heard before your Letter told me that Definitum definitio idem sunt But I pray you let us not quibble almost all the World under a sentence of Damnation As long ago as it is since I read such words I remember our Masters told us I think Schibler in his Topicks for one that when they are taken Pro terminis Logicis definitio definitum non sunt idem but only when they are taken Pro rebus per eos terminos significatis and that there they differ in Modo significandi essentiam the definitum signifying the Essence confusedly and the Definition distinctly If you will take the Res definita for that which is strictly nothing but Rei conceptus inadaequatus seu partialis that is a Species and that not as the thing is Existent extra intellectum but as the conception is an operation of the Mind so I confess that he that hath a true Conception of a Species as meerly denominated or as defined hath the same conception of it And also the Thing named and the Thing defined is the same thing in it self Homo Animal rationale are the same that is it is the same essence which is denominated Homo and defined Animal rationale And it is the same Conceptus mentis which we have if true when we denominate and when we define But as Things are distinct from the knowledg and signs of Things nothing is Res that is not existent and nothing existeth but in Singulars or Individuals And as nothing can be defined but a Species so a Species or any Vniversal is nothing but a Notion or Ens rationis save as it existeth in the said Individuals And in the Individuals it is nothing but their being as partially or inadequatly taken or a Conceptus objectivus partialis whether it be of a thing really or only intellectually partible or any thing which our narrow Minds cannot conceive of Vno simplici conceptu activo Now if you take the word Definition for the Species as existent in Individuals it is really a part of the thing that is a Partial objective conceptus or somewhat of the Thing as Intelligible But this is to take Definition in Sensu passivo for the Thing defined which our Case distinguisheth But Sir I crave your leave to distinguish Real objective Beings from 1. The Knowledg 2. and the Names and other Logical Organs by which we know them and express our knowledg of them God Christ Grace Glory Pardon Justification Sanctification the Gospel-Doctrine Precept Promises Faith Hope Love Obedience Humility Patience c. are the Res definitae in our Case not as they are in esse cognito or in the notion or idea of them but in esse reali To Define properly is either 1. Mentally to conceive of these things 2. or Expressively to signifie such Conceptions agreeably to the nature of the things known or Expressively defined Which is if the Definition be perfect under the notions of a Genus and Differentia The Definition as in Words is but a Logical Organ as Names are also Notifying signs Mental defining is but the said distinct knowledg of the thing defined and is neither really the Thing it self nor usually of necessity to the Thing Which two I shall prove distinctly as to the sense of our Case 1. The Definition of Justification is either our Distinct knowledg or Expression of it Justification is not our Distinct knowledg or Expression of it Therefore the Definition of Justification and Justification are not the same Justification In sensu activo is not an Act of God and In sensu passivo is the Relative state of Man thereby effected But the Definition of Justification is neither The Definition of Justification is a work of Art but Justification is a Work of Grace A wicked damnable Man or a damned Devil may define Justification and so have the Definition of it but not Justification it self The Definition of Justification Faith Love c. is Quid Logicum but Justification Faith Love c. are things Physical and Moral A Man is Justified or hath Christs Righteousness imputed to him in his sleep and when he thinketh not of it but he hath not the Active definition of Justification in his sleep c. Other things be not the same Really with their Dâ—finition therefore neither is Justification Faith c. The Sun is not really the same thing with a Definition of the Sun nor Light Heat Motion c. A Brute can see taste feel smell that cannot
definiatur Which is a contradiction Yet was he for Love and Gentleness in these differences ibid. Yet Qu. Resp Christ pag. 670. He leaveth out Christs Original Habitual Righteousness Non illa essentialis quae Deitatis est nec illa Habitualis ut ita loquar Puritas Carnis Christi Quae quum non distingueret Osiander faedissime est hallucinatus And ibid. 670. he giveth us this description of Justification Qu. Quid Justificationem vocat Paulus hoc loco R. Illud quo Justi fimus id est eousque perfecti integri 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut plenissime non tantum aboleatur quicquid in nobis totis in est turpitudinis qua Deus summe purus offendi ullo modo possit verum etiam in nos comperiatur quicquid in haâ— humana naturae usque adeo potest eum delectare ut illud vita aeterna pro bona sua voluntate coronet Yet as in his Annot. in Rom. 8.30 alibi he confesseth that Justification in Scripture sometime is taken for Sanctification or as including it so he taketh our Sanctification to contain the Imputation of Christs Sanctity to us Qu. Resp pag. 671. 1. Dico nostras Personas imputata ipsius perfecta sanctitate integritate plene sanctas integras ac proinde Patri acceptas non in nobis sed in Christo censemur 2. And next the Spirits Sanctification and thus Christ is made Sanctification to us Dr. Twisse and Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. distinguish of Justification as an Immanent Act in God from Eternity and as it is the notice of the former in our Consciences But doubtless the commonest Definitions of Justification agree with neither of these And Pemble of Justification otherwise defineth it as Mr. Jessop saith Dr. Twisse did Lud. Crocius Syntag. pag. 1219. thus defineth it Justificatio Evangelica est actus Divinae gratiae qua Deus adoptat peccatorem per approbationem obedientiae Legis in sponsore atque intercessore Christo per Remissionem peccatorum ac Justitiae imputationem in eo qui per fidem Christo est insitus And saith pag. 1223. Fides sola justificat quatenus notat Obedientiam quandam expectantem promissionem ut donum gratuitum apponitur illi Obedientiae quae non expectat promissionem ut donum omnino gratuitum sed ut mercedem propositam sub Conditione operis alicuâ—us praeter acceptationem gratitudinem debitam quae sua Natura in omni donatione quamvis gratuita requiri solet Et ejusmodi Obedientia peculiariter opus ab Apostolo Latinis proprie Meritum dicitur qui sub hac conditione obediunt Operantes vocantur Rom. 4.4 11.6 This is the truth which I assert Conrad Bergius Prax. Cathol dis 7. pag. 983. tells us that the Breme Catâ—chism thus openeth the Matter Qu. Quomodo Justificatur Homo coram Deo R. Accipit Homo Remissionem peccatorum Justificatur hoc est Gratus fit coram Deo in vera Conversione persolam fidem per Christum sine proprio Merito dignitate Cocceius disp de via salut de Just pag. 189. Originalis Christi Justitia correspondet nostro Originali peccato c. vid. coet plura vid. de foeder Macovius Colleg. de Justif distinguisheth Justification into Active and Passive and saith Justificatio Activa significat absoluâ—ionem Dei que Hominem reum a reatu absolvit And he would prove this to be before Faith and citeth for it abusively Paraeus and Tessanus and thinketh that we were absolved from Guilt from Christs undertaking our Debt Thes 12. thus arguing Cujus debita apud Creditorem aliquis recepit exsolvenda Creditor istius sponsionem ita acceptat ut in ea acquiescat ille jam ex parte Creditoris liber est a debitis Atque Electorum omnium in singulari debita apud Deum Patrem Christus ex quo factus est Mediator recepit exolvenda Deus Pater illam sponsionem acceptavit c. Passive Justification which he supposeth to be our application of Christs Righteousness to our daily as oft as we offend Th. 5. And part 4. disp 22. he maintaineth that There are no Dispositions to Regeneration Others of his mind I pass by Spanhemius Disput de Justif saith that The Form of Passive Justification consisteth in the apprehension and sense of Remission of Sin and Imputation of Christs Righteousness in capable Subjects grosly Whereas Active Justification Justificantis ever immediately causeth Passive Justificationem justificati which is nothing but the effect of the Active or as most call it Actio ut in patiente And if this were the Apprehension and Sense as aforesaid of Pardon and imputed Righteousness then a Man in his sleep were unjustified and so of Infants c. For he that is not Passively justified is not at all justified I told you else-where that the Synops Leidens de Justif pag. 413. Th. 23. saith That Christs Righteousness is both the Meritorious Material and Formal Cause of our Justification What Fayus and Davenant and others say of the Formal Cause viz. Christs Righteousness imputed I there shewed And how Paraeus Joh. Crocius and many others deny Christs Righteousness to be the Formal Cause Wendeline defineth Justification thus Theol. Lib. 1. c. 25. p. 603. Justificatio est actio Dei gratuita qua peccatores Electi maledictioni legis obnoxii propter justitiam seu satisfactionem Christi fide applicatam a Deo imputatam coram tribunali Divino remssis peccatis a maledictione Legis absolvuntur justi censentur And pag. 615 616. He maintaineth that Obedientia activa si proprie accurate loquamur non est materia nostrae Justificationis nec imputatur nobis ita ut nostra censeatur nobis propter eam peccata remittantur debitum legis pro nobis solvatur quemadmodum Passiva per imputationem censetur nostra c. Et post Si dicus Christum factum esse hominem pro nobis hoc est nostro bono conceditur Si pro nobis hoc est nostro loco negatur Quod enim Christus nostro loco fecit factus est id nos non tenemur facere fieri c. Rob. Abbot approveth of Thompsons Definition of Evangelical Justification pag. 153. that it is Qua poenitenti Credenti remittuntur peccata jus vitae aeternae conceditur per propter Christi obedientiam illi imputatam Which is sound taking Imputatam soundly as he doth Joh. Crâ—cius Disp 1. p. 5. thus defineth it Actio Dei qua ex gratia propter satisfactionem Christi peccatoribus in Christum totius Mundi redemptorem unicum vere credentibus gratis sine operibus aut meritis propriis omnia peccata remittit justitiam Christi imputat ad sui nominis gloriam illorum salutem aeternam And he maketh only Christs full satisfaction for Sin to be the Impulsive-External Meritorious and Material Cause as being that which is imputed to us and the Form