say thus but not others Our Divines say Faith is the Condition or the Instrument but not the Form or formal Cause of our Justification This I acknowledge and Answer that the Reason is apparent because our former Divines did apprehend that it is by the Law of Works that we are to be justified and there being no Righteousness but Christs which Answers that Law it must be his alone that can justifie us But this being a mistake the fundamental mistake of our Divines formerly Protestant and Papist and it being not by the Law or according to the Law of Works but by the Law of Grace or according to the Gospel that we are to be judged and justified it is impossible that Christ's Righteousness which is a Righteousness according to the Law should be that Righteousness that justifies us according to the Gospel It is impossible that Christs Righteousness should be that Righteousness of God which in opposition to Works does justifie us according to the Apostle or that Righteousness of God which without the Law is manifested seeing this is a Righteousness with the Law being perfectly conformable to it And it is impossible Logically impossible but Faith which is that which the Gospel requires as the Condition of Life instead of the perfect Obedience of the Law when performed and imputed for Righteousness should be and must be that Righteousness which is the Form or formal Cause of our Evangelical Justification I will now speak to a Passage that put me to many Thoughts in another Letter in regard to our speaking of Justification as passively taken You seem say you to make Justification Active and Passive two things The former Gods imputing the latter Faith imputed for Righteousness If they are different you make two Justifications which you condemn in me If they are one they must both have the same Form or formal Cause But Justification is Gods Act and it is impossible Faith or any thing should be the formal Cause of Gods Act it may be the Condition not formal Cause As for this Passage I did wonder to see you so much in earnest which may be objected against Christs being the meritorius Cause as well against our Faith being the formal Cause and against its being the Condition of our Justification What Because I am not for making a double Justification which are of two kinds one by the Law another by the Gospel do you think I may not therefore distinguish Justification into Active and Passive when we mean nothing else by it but that Justification may be Actively and Passively taken And as for the Metaphysical Point you are concern'd alike with me It is the Will of God by giving us his Law of Grace that when a Man believes he shall by that Law be Made Accounted and Used as a righteous Person and so be free from Punishment and Saved Of this Will of God now ex parte Agentis we must know there is nothing without him can be Cause or Condition God is Actus purus God acts only by his Essence and his Essence is immutable yet does that Will which is one and the same cause all Diversity and he that is immutable cause Mutations And as that Act of his Will or Will which is all one is terminated on the Object and recipitur in passo it causeth its effects and is extrinsecally denominated by them In these Effects there is an Order and one thing the cause of another according to that of Aquinas Deus vult hoc propter hoc tho' propter hoc he does not velle hoc Now when in our Justification which is Gods Act the Will of God by his Law of Grace does make that Change of State in a Believer or of his Relation toward God so as to have thereby a Right conferred to Pardon and Life there are Causes of that Change and Right which being new in the Object Ex connotatione Objecti Effectus denominate Gods Act. It is impossible say you that Faith or anything should be the formal Cause of Gods Act. Very good that were absurd indeed But what is Gods Act here His Act here is exprest in the word Imputing and who thinks Faith the Form of that Nothing in us can be the cause of Gods Act it 's true but something in us may be the Object upon which Gods Act is terminated and that here is our Faith as he imputes it for Righteousness and this being the Effect of that Act in passo this Faith so imputed is the formal Cause of our Justification so effected As for the Question Whether Justification Active and Passive Justificare and Justificari be one or two Justifications it is a nicer Matter I thought than need be answered but seeing it falls in and must I say There is no distinction without a difference and where things differ and are diverse their Form and Definition must be diverse Justification Active and Passive therefore must have two Forms but the Matter is the same Faith in the Imputation of it and in its being imputed to us for Righteousness is the same So that formally they are two materially they are one and the same Justification Well Justification to proceed upon what hath been said tho' Gods Act yet passively taken as other things in the sense shewn must have its Causes Sanctification is an Act of Gods Grace as well as Justification and you will not deny our inherent Grace to be the formal Cause of Sanctification for all that But how Not as Actively but Passively taken As for the Causes then of Passive Justification Of the Efficient the Final the Meritorious there is no dispute but of the Material and Formal there is and it is fit to be considered Mr. Baxter hath taught that Christs Righteousness is not only the Meritorious but Material Cause of our Justification And you have cited Mr. Anthony Burgesse holding Christs Active Obedience as well as Passive to be the Matter but denying that we are formally justified by it Where he speaks after Amesius I suppose seeing it is upon the same Reason that if it were so we must be as righteous as Christ which I have mentioned before as Bellarmine's Objection against that Doctrine and which by Ames his waving it he acknowledges unanswerable when yet we know that Doctrine to have been the Common Protestants formerly as Davenant before tells us and some more weighty Divines than Mr. Burgesse tells us yet thus much further Mirum hic videri non debet Christi justitiam non Meritoriae solum sed Materialis immo formalis causae rationem habere cum id fiat diversimodè nempe qua illa est propter quod in quo sive ex quo per quod justificamur So the Leiden Divines For my own part I have in my Book taken up with Mr. Baxter upon trusting to his profounder Judgment but I will now shew also my Opinion The Meritorius Cause comes under the Efficient and is the
Own per modum meriti is Sound Protestantism Justification by Christs Righteousness and not our Own formaliter is fundamentally Antinomianism This many of our Brethren having not understood so well as they should hitherto have been but wildred and not found their way out to an Orthodox Coalition Not that I say such a Union a Union in Doctrinals is to be sought in the present case of our Brethrens many of whom have scarce thought of this Term formal Cause so far have they been from the use of it in this Point The Form of a Thing is illud per quod res est id quod est and denominates the Thing If we know not the Form of Justification we know not what Justification is and how then can we tell when we say any thing right about it To be justified hath a Form passively denominating a Man just from some Righteousness according to all Divines that understand themselves Protestants or Papists What that Righteousness is is the Question The Papists say one thing the Common Protestants another You and I come between them and what it is we have shewn Christian Righteousness says Luther on Gal. 3.6 consists in two things Faith in the Heart and Gods Imputation Faith is indeed a formal Righteousness yet this Righteousness is not enough it is imperfect wherefore the other part of Righteousness must needs be added to finish the same to wit Gods Imputation There are more the like words from whence I have been thinking since I wrote my Book See Righteousness of God Pag. 10. and 20. that it was happily such a kind of Notion as ours that Luther had in his first Thoughts arising from the Scripture howsoever himself or others after him came to run it up to that exorbitancy as from an Acceptation of our Faith and inchoate Obedience so long as it is sincere through the Merits of Christ unto Life instead of the Righteousness of the Law it is come or came to the cloathing the Person with the Righteousness of Christ which is a Righteousness according to the Law Meritorious and Perfect so that he does stand as just in the sight of God and as in Christs Person to be justified by the Law of Works altho' the holy Prophet does tell us Ps 143.2 that in the sight of God and the holy Apostle Gal. 3.11 by the Law shall no Flesh living be justified This Opinion therefore being so carried as to subvert the Gospel we leave it Your assured Friend And loving Brother John Humfrey To Mr. Humfrey Reverend and Dear Sir THere hath passed many Letters and there hath been long Debate between us about two Points One is of Constitutive Justification the other is of the Form or the formalis Causa of it This Letter shall speak of those two Points there being little or no Disagreement in regard to others I will begin with the last as having cost more pains in regard to the many Arguments and Answers bandied and tossed to and fro concerning it The result of all which is contained and will be found in what follows 1. We are fully agreed as to the Nature of Justification only differ about applying this Term Formal Cause as to the Point 2. You grant that Faith or Gospel-righteousness is not accounted by other Divines that are Protestants to be the Form or formal Cause hereof so that this is I have said a Vestrum as some Physitians have their Nostrum and therefore requires so much more caution 3. You apply it to Justification Passive and make our Faith to be only the Form of Justification passively taken and assign another Form or formal Cause to Justification Active for you say Gods making or constituting us just by the imputation of Faith to us for Righteousness is Justification Active Our being made just or constituted righteous by that imputation is Justification Passive Which you further explain thus Justification may be taken either Subjectivè as in God so it is his gracious condescention to accept our Faith or imperfect Obedience unto Pardon and Life Or Terminativè as in us and so it is nothing else but this Faith imputed for Righteousness as so imputed and this is the Causa formalis of our passive Justification 4. Against this I argue thus 1. a Hereby you make two Justifications or Justification Active and Passive to be two different Things because they have two Forms one Gods imputing or accepting Faith for Righteousness the other Faith imputed or so accepted for Righteousness Of which more anon a It is true and if you hold there and when you cite me as saying Faith is the formal Cause of our Justification you will supply what you find here that I mean Faith only as so imputed and also that I understand Justification passively taken I shall have little to answer to all that follows for Justification Active and Passive have indeed two Forms and must have or else they could not be distinguished and it is your fundamental if not only Mistake that you have a belief to the contrary 2. Justification is Gods Act but nothing in us can be the Causa formalis of Gods Act. To this you return several Answers 1. Sanctification is Gods Act as well as Justification But I hope you doubt not to say our inherent Grace is the formal Cause of our Sanctification But how Not as actively but passively taken The same is to be said of the other Answ God is the Efficient Grace infused the Material the Act of infusing or bestowing the b Formal b Right And if the infusion or bestowing of Grace or Holi-Holiness on a Man be the Form of Gods Sanctifying Act then must this Grace or Holiness infused or bestowed be the Form of his Sanctified State Vocabulum formae usurpari solet non modo de formis substantialibus quae dant esse simpliciter sed de Accidentalibus quae dant Esse tale Hoc sensu dicimus Doctrinam esse illam formam per quam homo Doctus justitiam per quam Justus efficitur I hope you can trust Davenant thought 〈◊〉 me for this Information Dav. De. Jus Val c. 27. 2. You answer further thus God is Actus purus and nothing is the Cause or Condition of his Will Ex parte Agentis but as Gods Acts are denominated in regard of the effects upon us these Effects must have their formal Cause or else be nothing Answ The formal Cause is Gods c Imputation c Right again The Imputation of our Faith for Righteousness is the Form of Gods Justifying Act and Faith imputed for Righteousness is therefore the Form of our justified State It is strange that the Intus existens should keep out such open Evidence 3. Another Answer you give is this It is impossible say you that Faith or any thing in us should be the Cause of Gods Act. Very good That were absurd indeed Nothing in us can be the Cause of Gods Act. True but something in us may be the Object about which
Gods Act is conversant and that here is Faith as he imputes it for Righteousness and this being the effect of that Act in passo this Faith so imputed I say is the formal Cause of our Justification so effected Answ The Object of Gods Act is Faith or the Believer The Effect of it in us Justification Imputation is the formal Cause as has been (d) And already satisfied already said 5. The Arguments which you produce for the proof of it I have gathered together out of the several places of their dispersion and they are these Argu. 1. All our Divines both Protestant and Papist do agree upon it that that Righteousness whatever it be that denominates and makes us righteous in Gods sight is and must be the Form or formal Cause of Justification And certainly these Divines understood this Metaphysical Term better than you or I. And when wee use it in their Sense and no otherwise there can be no fear But neither Regeneration nor Christs Righteousness nor Pardon is that which justifies us per modum causae formalis and therefore it must be (e) As imputed for Righteousness that is with Luther Faith and Gods Imputation together not Faith of its self Faith Not Christs Righteousness for that is the meritorious Cause Not Regenerating Grace for that must precede Justification not Pardon for that comes after it And therefore if Justification has any formal Cause which it must have or it is nothing for forma dat esse it must be one of these or something else What is that Why the Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel as that Righteousness alone which justifies the Believer Answ It is something else viz. Gods f Imputation f To this and the former Answer I say that is true it is Imputation as to Active Justification or as to God justifying us Therefore something imputed must be the formal Cause of the Persons being Justified And what is that Christs Righteousness or the Righteousness of Faith We agree as to the last Argu. 2. As Adam if he had perfectly obey'd his Obedience had been his formal Righteousness in regard to the Law so is this ours in regard to the Gospel Right of God p. 20. So again Works were the formal Righteousnest of Justification by the Law Therefore Faith is the formal Righteousness of Justification by the Gospel Right of God p. 20. Again presently after Two things go to this formal Righteousness Faith and the Imputation of it To these I answer in order Answ To the first and second 1. It 's without doubt that Adams Obedience was g formal Righteousness and so Faith is now but so it might be and yet not be the Form of his Justification as I at first said The formal Cause of Adam's Justification was Gods owning accounting or judging him righteous upon the account of his perfect Obedience as Gods Imputation of Faith for Righteousness is the Formal Cause of our Justification g To be our formal Righteousness and to be the Righteousness and to be the Righteousness that is the Form of our Justification is all one so spoken and understood by Divines Gods accounting Adam perfectly righteous was Active Justification Adam's being righteous and so accounted was Justification Passive and Gods imputing our Faith for Righteousness and our Faith imputed is the same likewise Here is nothing but what is prevented already 2. I deny the Consequence in the first Assertion That if Adam's Law-obedience was his formal Righteousness then our Gospel-Obedience is our formal Righteousness because though Faith comes in the room of Law-Works in some respects yet not in all for it doth not h merit the reward as Law-Works would have done h Whether the reward be of Grace or Merit that is nothing to the purpose so long as Faith is the Condition of the Covenant of Grace as perfect Obedience was of the Covenant of Works The Performance of the Evangelick Condition is the formal Righteousness of the one The Performance of the Legal was the formal Righteousness of the other The formality lies in the Condition performed not in the Meritoriousness or Nonmeritoriousness of the Performance Answ To the third If Faith and Imputation i both go to this formal Righteousness then Faith alone is not the Form of it i By this you see that we are agreed I say and you say that Faith is the Matter as will appear more hereafter and Imputation that which brings the Form into the Matter so that it is not Faith alone but Faith as imputed for Righteousness is the formal Cause of Justification Argu. 3. If Justification has a Form and that Form must be some Righteousness Justificationis formam justicia constare certum est What Righteousness is that It is Gods counting or judging us Righteous say you But is this an Answer to the Question What Righteousness is it whereby we are justified When I ask What Righteousness it is whereby we are justified or what Righteousness that is which is the Form of Justification I ask What Righteousness that is whereby or wherewith or by reason of which God accounts or judges us righteous It is not regenerating Grace infused but regenerating Grace imputed that is Faith imputed for Righteousness That which makes a Man righteous in Gods sight according to the Gospel is that which justifies us so as to be the Causa formalis of it Per formalem Justificationis causam justi constituimur What then is that Righteousness which makes or constitutes us just It is Gods imputing this Faith before infused that makes us righteous and consequently is the Causa formalis of our Justification Answ 1. I say the Causa formalis of Justification is Gods counting or judging us righteous so say you too Your Words are these Gods judging us righteous upon believing is the k Form k The Form of a thing does constitute and denominate the thing If Gods judging us righteous or imputing our Faith for Righteousness does actually make and denominate God our Justifier then must our being judged righteous and our Faith imputed for Righteousness make and passively denominate us justified There is the same Efficient and Material Cause in both but the Form double Answ 2. I answer directly The Righteousness whereby we are justified as the meritorious Cause of our Justification is the Righteousness of Christ The Righteousness of Faith the material Cause But the formal is l Gods judging us righteous as you agree l Here you are plainly gone I ask what Righteousness that is and you Answer Gods judging There is some Righteousness as all our Divines agree that does make and denominate us righteous and that which so makes and denominates us according to the Gospel is that which justifies us When you don't tell this you are gone I say as I have said It is true that Gods judging or imputing something to us for Righteousness is the Form of Gods justifying Act but that something that is judged and imputed to
dispatch'd I must say this over Here is Punishment and deserved Punishment deserved by our sins as the Meritorious Cause of it and therefore Punishment not Pain only but proper Punishment and that to be inflicted sed Impersonaliter with Grotius and there is our Point maintained But that this Punishment is inflicted on Christ and not on the sinner there is no Cause besides the fitness of the Person can be rendred but only the will the good will of Father and Son in pitty to Mankind which is said also by Grotius and in effect acknowledged by the Bishop when he says That One Man for his sin cannot deserve anothers Punishment and therefore when Mr. Baxter says our sins were the Occasion of Christs sufferings with those other Expressions the Occasion and Occasion only but of what the Occasion only Of the Punishment No there was Cause of that an Impulsive Cause that is an Efficient Protatarctick or Meritorious Cause to wit our sins but of the laying it on Christ and not us take it so and there is nothing to be found fault with in what Mr. Baxter says unless it be that his deeper Judgment than others I have said be faulty by Mr. Lobb or any other ingenuous Man any more than there was in what Grotius says by Revensperg who falls upon him as Socinianizing against the Orthodox because he did not maintain that Christ underwent the very infernal Pains which we were to suffer seeing Calvin and some others after him did so teach and construe Christs descent into Hell by his enduring such Pains in his Agony as those are there which is a private Opinion and Grotius accounts Christs sufferings not the Idem but Tantundem and thereupon I say did Ravensperg fall upon him as one that did but betray our Cause and agree with Socinus which he hath so substantially defended against him in his excellent Book of Satisfaction There remains two or three Notes more I must have upon Mr. Lobb One is that whereas he observes that Mr. Williams does make the Obligation that lay upon Christ to suffer for us or to make Satisfaction by his sufferings to arise from the Mediatorial Law only the Law of Redemption or Commandment of his Father which was proper to him through his voluntary Sponsion or Submission to it and not from the Law of Works which was a Bond that he never was in neither at first as Mr. Lobb grants nor at last in regard to his sufferings because he never brake it he argues from thence both sagaciously as industriously that Mr. Williams must hold therefore with Mr. Baxter that the sufferings of Christ was not properly or formally penal and when this is the only Accusation in these Sheets which he aims at if Mr. Williams denies the Accusation Mr. Lobb hath carried his Cause for the Accusation is true the Consequence being irrefragible But will Mr. Williams deny that he herein agrees with Mr. Baxter I suppose he will not What though Dr. Edwards and Bishop Stillingfleet by whose Letters he is vindicated do say that Christs sufferings were a proper Punishment and stand upon it so much as if the holding thereof was necessary to the maintaining the Doctrine of Satisfaction if Mr. Lobb be not mistaken in his Construction of them will he for all that stand by Mr. Baxter Yes I think he will because he must the Consequence does hold him I must confess Mr. Lobb hath put these three Persons here hard to it He hath put Mr. Williams to it who must either forsake Mr. Baxter and so himself or else disagree here with those two worthy Men his Vindicators He hath put the Bishop to it who must forsake his Reason in what he hath so clearly and truly asserted That one Man cannot deserve that another should be punished for his Faults or else he must consent with Mr. Baxter and consequently acknowledge that seeing Christ himself never sinned and our sins in the Merit of them could not be laid on him his sufferings were Materially but Formally no Punishment And he hath put the worthy Dr. to it who being willing to shew his kindness to Mr. Williams in bringing him off is carried whether he will or no to stand by Mr. Lobb And notwithstanding this there is no hurt done unless the giving occasion of letting out more Light be any hurt for Mr. Williams and Mr. Baxter as well as Mr. Lobb Dr. Edwards and the Bishop and Grotius do all maintain the Doctrine of Satisfaction against Socinus one as well as the other That Mr. Williams does the Doctor the Bishop and his Preabyterian Brethren do quote such Passages as justifies him besides his own constant Profession That Mr. Baxter does I shall quote one Passage only in his Methodus Theol. In his Aphorisms he proposed the Question as I remember What is that which is the first immediate or chief End or Benefit of Christs Death And he speaking then with Hesitancy he does here in his 17th Determination Part 3. Cap. 1. after so long study give this peremptory Resolution Proximum mortis Christi Effectum seu finemesse satisfactionem Deo offenso per Justitiae ejus demonstrationem Remotiorem peccatorum nostrorum remissionem salutis donum sub conditione fideist paenitentiae per foedus Gratiae That Man who understood himself so well as he did that does declare this for his settled and determined Judgment that the chief and most immediate End Effect Fruit or Benefit of Christs Death is the satisfaction of an Offended God through the demonstration of his Justice thereby must be acquitted from Socintanism by all the World that know what Socinus wrote And that Man I will add that does maintain the Doctrine of Election according to Augustine and the Synod of Dort however free and conciliating he be otherwise in the five Points must be acquitted also from Arminianism by all those that know what Arminius Episcopius Curcelleus Limborch and the Antisynodalists have wrote And therefore I do acknowledge here the Honesty that is Truth and Candour of Mr. Lobb in his Epistle where he discharges Mr. Baxter from such Accusations and though he looks in his Sheets like one that read Mr. Baxter only to carp and find fault with him when in my Reading the same things I must confess I did look and do still on all as light and Instruction I do yet for all that apprehend and hope a better end in it to wit that upon his proposing these Expressions to such worthy and ingenuous Persons as the Doctor and the Bishop he may by their return in time have such a moderated and smoothed State of the whole Matter they taking in the light Mr. Baxter offers with them as shall be reconciliatory both to himself and to his Brethren with him If by Christs dying for us and for our sins there is nothing will serve the Common Doctrine which is that Mr. Lobb upholds in the behalf of his Brethren reserving I will suppose the Liberty
by this he is still unrighteous And when you believe this so you need no further consideration to understand what that Righteousness is and how it so becomes which is the Form formal Cause or formal Reason of our Justification If this term formal cause will not yet pass with you I will make it pass The imputing of our Faith to us for Righteousness I have said is Justification I will more unfold these words and say thus Gods making or constituting us just by the imputing our Faith to us for Righteousness is Justification Active Our being made just or constituted righteous by that Imputation is Justification Passive This I hope is plain and undeniable Now this Faith then thus imputed being the Righteousness whereby God constitutes and we are constituted righteous which is instrumentally by his Law of the Gospel it must be the Form or formal Cause of our Justification According to the saying mentioned Performalem Justificationis causam justi constituimur which I take to be as good as any Oracle to declare to us how that Term was formerly and is still to be understood The Protestants I will repeat say Christ's Righteousness being imputed is that whereby we are made just in Gods sight and so becomes our formal Righteousness I say it is the Righteousness of God in him that is through him or through his Merits imputed to us for Righteousness that makes us so and is this formal Righteousness and it is but an absurd thing to say the other for which Time alone will give satisfaction 5. Let me yet inculcate this The Papists you know say Justification is making us just the first way before by Infusion and that our inherent Righteousness therefore it the Form of our Justification You say that this making us just in their sense is Sanctification and our inherent Righteousness is indeed the Form formal Cause or formal Reason of our Sanctification Well now the Papists and we do not differ in our Notion of the Term Form or formal Cause For if Justification was that they say it is the making us just you grant it were the Form formal Cause or formal Reason thereof You understand me Brother when I tell you that which you knew not before that Justification is the making us just and I tell you how as well as the accounting us just I tell you also and I tell you how this Righteousness is and must thereby become the formal Cause of it Our Terms we take from the Papists and the Schools And when our Learnedst Protestants have made Christ's Righteousness the formal Cause in the sense they made that so you and I must make the Righteousness of God so or we stand not to our tackle but fail in Judgment 6. The other thing I must tell you is That there are two leaves inserted in your Book at the end of the ninth Chapter which you call a Scheme of Justification which was a puzling Matter to my self when I wrote my own Book They speak of a twofold Charge of the Law and of the Gospel and accordingly of a twofold Justification Principal and Primary you say Subordinate and Consequent You seem to me to have put this into your Book after another rate than the rest which you weighed so well before you wrote Something there is you are afraid of but do you know what Mr. Baxter and others have said some such thing and you have some misgiving lest a disrespect be offer'd to Christ's Righteousness if you say not the like too Thus the ingenuous Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Williams when they have made and held out a Gospel-righteousness and Justification accordingly must have a Legal one also that Christ's Righteousness may be imputed or else their Doctrine will not down The Brethren else will be offended and that is it 7. It is true that Christ by his Satisfaction consisting of his Passive and Active Obedience both for performing the Law of our Redemption has freed us from the Law of Works and Condemnation by it but is this Justification No it is not This is Redemption which precedes and is in order as a means to our Justification which is plain by the Text Being justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus The freeing us from the Law is freeing us from it as a Rule of Judgment when it remains a Rule of Life as you may see at large in my Pacification and seeing we are not to be judged by it we cannot be condemned and justified by it By the Law shall no flesh living be justified When it is by the Gospel therefore that we are to be judged there can be no other but one Evangelical Justification 8. The truth is Mr. Baxter has confounded us with two Justifications Principal and Subordinate or else you and others confound your selves by understanding him so when there is indeed according to Him and the Truth a double Righteousness you may call them Principal and Subordinate with him if you please but this double Righteousness must not make a double Justification as you apprehend seeing they both go or are fellow-ingredients into one and the same Justification The one as the Meritorions the other as the Formal Cause of it You see what need there is when a Man has wrote a Book for himself or some other to come after to enlighten and confirm the same Doctrine 9. Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Williams especially are gravel'd here about the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness which sticks so much with that considerable Man Let me therefore tell you truly what there is in it There are these two things in it The one is that God did account or allow indeed of what Christ did and suffered to be really in our behalf for our sakes for us in our stead so as it may be said in se imputed as to the Impetration of the benefits we have by him upon condition And the other is our having those benefits as to the Application upon the performance and that is the having his Righteousness to be ours really in the Effects and relatively in regard to them This is all and no more in it Pray see my Pacification p. 30 31 32. or my last Book p. 35 36. where in the Margin the same is repeated and give me your considered and impartial Judgment thereupon which before this I expected in print from Mr. Williams but am frustrate of that Satisfaction 10. As for your Remarks our difference is not tanti that I should examine them Only one Question you ask me that I must not pass over Will it not serve as well to all intents and purposes to say That we are justified by Faith as the condition or way only as by the term Causa formalis of our Justification I Answer No by no means my prudential Brother If I should rest there when I acknowledge both I should account my self one that sought to please Men or save my self rather than serve the Truth
Efficient Protatarctick or Impulsive Cause according to my first Oxford-Learning and the Efficient Material Formal and Final Causes being the different Species of Cause in general I cannot but think they are to be so held in this Point of Justification The Efficient Cause then I say is God The Meritorius is Christs Righteousness The Material is not the same with that coming under the Efficient but is I count our inherent Grace or Faith as infused in our Regeneration The Formal then is the imputing this Faith or Grace inherent as the Evangelick Condition is performed by it to us for Righteousness when being imperfect otherwise it were none Inherent Grace is the Matter and the Form is brought into it by this Imputation This I have before though transiently fuller explained I think and as for my giving way to Mr. Baxter I am sensible that he understanding how nothing ab extra not Christs Merits is possible to move God or be impulsive to any Act in him who is uncapable of Mutation did apprehend Christs Merits to fall under the same Cause as our Merits would if we had them which is only a Dispositio Recipientis according to him and so the Material Cause because there can be no impulsive Cause in regard to God But seeing our Divines do commonly and the Holy Scripture speak of God Justifying Pardoning Saving and continually Blessing us for the sake of Christ or his Merits for all that there is nothing indeed ab extra can move him and this kind of speaking is warranted by the extrinsick denomination of Gods Law yea his Will by meer Connotation of the various and new Effects it causes it was I think but an over deep curiosity in this excellent Man which turn'd him from the obvious and right Notion as commonly received that it is per modum Causae Efficientis Protatarcticae when we say Meritoriae and not per modum Materialis or Formalis that Christs Righteousness does conduce to our Justification It is true I will say again that Ex parte Volentis what Christ himself hath done for us procures no new Act of Grace toward us because the simplicity of the Divine Nature is not capable of any but Ex parte rei volitae to say it procured no new Effects of his Grace for us but only disposes and qualifies us for the receiving those Effects is a mater so nice so subtle and out of the way that if it were true it could not be taught and is most likely to be untrue both therefore and because it seems derogatory to Christs Satisfaction and Merits to his Sufferings and Obedience which the Scripture speaks of as a Price as a Ransom a Purchase not to dispose us for but to obtain for us our Redemption and consequently those other Effects of his Grace likewise our Justification and Salvation I have now no more to answer and it is time for me to have done Only I must summ up what I have here wrote as to the matter between us You and I my dear Brother agree in the main Doctrine of Justification by Faith but have been differing in two Points about it which you say are but little but I say are very momentous Matters The two Points are these One is Justification I say makes us just and does not only sentence us so You say or have said Justification is the accounting but not making us just The other Point is this As Justification makes us righteous I say there is a Righteousness within Faith or our Evangelical Righteousness which justifying us must therefore be and is the Form or formal Cause of our Justification And this you receive not or have very hardly received I will speak it more short Justification I say makes us righteous and that righteousness whereby we are made righteous is and must be the formal Cause of it Here are both Points wrapt together and you do or have questioned both I will offer you therefore one Argument and that is Ad hominem for your conviction You maintain Justification by Faith as our Evangelical Righteousness as I do Now if Justification do not make us righteous then must we be justified by that inherent Righteousness which is the Righteousness only of Regeneration there being with you no other And then are you the strongest Papist as to me as ever writ for here is a most convincing Book of yours which is all almost Scripture and yet maintains Justification by inherent Grace and Faith as the Papists do Here then you can by no means extricate your self from them when I thus say we are made righteous by Justificationâ— and by that Righteousness only justified do escape As for the Consequence now of these two Points I think fit before I come to it that it be first considered how these consist how necessary they are to and indeed sustain and infer one another For if Justification makes us just then must there be a Righteousness so made that is the Form of our Justification and the Righteousness which is that Form is the Righteousness that constitutes us just or justifies us This being asserted there are these two things then as the consequence of these two Points appears and has been shewn in this Letter One is for I must recal them that whereas our late Protestants who have been more wary and come to see the Absurdity of our former Divines who in opposition to the Papists making our inherent Grace the formal Cause of our Justification would put Christs Righteousness in its room so making the Righteousness of another our formal Righteousness are convincedly brought off from their Opinion they have been and are ever since at a loss and must be to pitch upon that which is indeed the formal Cause of our Justification And when you or I or you and I together have been so happy to have found out that Righteousness even the Righteousness of God which is this formal Cause for them Is this in earnest with you but a little matter What! And is the clearing the difference of your and my way from the Papists which was the great difficulty lay upon you before a little matter also It was otherwise at your first writing to me and it is an Archeivement now worthy our mutual Letters The other Consequence is That when the Protestants I say and have said and our Brethren are among themselves at difference so much about this Great Article there is by this means some thing found out yet further as may reconcile them and that as it were I say in my first Letter by a Word For if we can but tell any thing in such short Terms as does Characterize or is a Characteristical Note to distinguish the Sound Protestant from the Unsound then may the Sound presently Unite and Drop the other if they still will be Absurd Now here is such a Characteristical Note and let the World that please know the same Justification by Christs Righteousness and not our
on a contrary Judgment let us appeal to one that can tell us Justification says Mr. Baxter taken actively as the Act of the Justifier hath one Form Justification passively taken for the State of the Justified hath another Form And each of these are subdivided into many Acts and many Effects which have each their Form End of Contro p. 263. This was the reason of the variation in what I writ When I first propounded this Objection and thereby discovered this Consequence you wrote to me thus This distinction is a distribution of a Subject into its Adjuncts where the Form I apprehend to be the same only applyed diversly as the Subject is actively or passively taken But in your very next Letter you revoke this and say That upon further consideration Justification Active and Passive are two Things in earnest and have two Forms Seeing therefore this is that you stick to I will try my skill to drive you out of this hold 1. How t can Faith be the material Cause of one and the formal of the other t Very well Faith as infused and a part of our Regeneration is the Matter you agree to this Faith imputed for Righteousness is the Form I say of our Passive Justification 2. What u is the Efficient and Material Cause of Justification Passive u The Efficient and Material Cause is the same in Justification Active and Passive I say both but the Form is diverse and must be so long as they differ from one another 3. You x are certainly in the right when you make Justification Active and Passive to be but a distribution of a Subject into its Adjuncts and that they have the same Form Therefore the Subject is the same only diversified by its different respects to its Agent and Object x You are certainly in the wrong in your understanding this thus In a distribution of a Subject into its Adjuncts the Subject is one and hath one Form Vnius rei unica forma and the Adjuncts partake of that Form but their own Forms are diverse and must be as that by which they differ from one another I am sorry here I gave you occasion to be confirm'd in your mistake But this good shall come of it I will shew my Reason why I admit of two Justifications Active and Passive and not two by the Law and by the Gospel Justification by the Law and by the Gospel is a distribution of a Genus into its Species But Justification Active and Passive is a distribution of a Subject into its Adjuncts only When I can admit but of one kind of Justification only that is by the Gospel I may allow that to have diverse Considerations 4. When y I say God justifies Paul and Paul is justified of God can any one be so void of sense as to say these are two Things Is not the Act the same tho' the Agent and Object be different When I say the Sun enlightens the Air and the Air is enlightned by the Sun is not the enlightning the same in both The Propositions indeed are distinct in a Grammatical Construction but they are the same in a Physical Sense For y When you say God justifies Paul and Paul is justified of God here is a Justificare and a Justificari that is Justification Active and Passive and they must have two Forms But seeing the Matter is the same wherein you and I agree they are formally two but materially one and the same Justification 5. Justification z is only of a Person The Person to whom this Act of God is applyed is the Subject or Object of Gods Act about whom it is conversant Justification cannot possibly be considered but as referring to some Person and therefore there cannot be two Justifications z The Subject the Efficient the Material Cause are the same but the Form different in Active and Passive Justification I pray turn to my Determination at first I had not then thought enough and I did not think it so necessary as now you make it to determine this in my Cursory Letters which you must forgive You see then Brother where the deficiency of Sense does lye which seeing you have been able to say so much for and have so much presumption for may be excused even with some applause though you have been mistaken in it There is one thing in the forgoing Discourse that perhaps will need a little farther Explication and that is where Faith is said to be the (†) It is worth our Observation that in this Notion that our Faith or inchoate Grace is the Materal and Imputation the formal Cause of our Justification you and I should both in our Letters coincidere without any Item one from another material Cause of our Justification Those Terms in Matters of Morality are subject to much uncertainty as appears by the Learned in assigning the Material and formal Causes of Justification I apprehend it thus When Faith is said to be imputed for Righteousness here Imputing is the Act and Faith the Object Now we agree that this Act of Imputing is the Form and this Act falling upon this Object is the Form falling on the Matter as you express it very well or introduced into it The Act applyed to the Object is the Form introduced into the Matter For why may not the Act and Object in Morality correspond or be the same with the Form and Matter in Naturality I know some make the Righteousness of Christ to be the Material Cause of Justification but against that Assertion I have this Argument The Meritorious cannot be the Material But Christs Righteousness is the Meritorious Cause none can deny that Therefore it cannot be the Material The Major I prove thus The same thing cannot be both an External and Internal Cause But the Meritorious is an External Cause for it belongs to the Efficient as you have also observed the Material is an Internal Cause Therefore the Righteousness of Christ which is certainly the Meritorious cannot also be the Material And this Argument will also hold against its being the Formal Cause Mr. Banter seems to make Faith to be the Material Cause End of Cont. p. 250. This I have long inclined unto which may be illustrated thus When a Malefactor is Arraigned and Tryed the Law is the Efficient Cause of his Acquittal or Condemnation the Sentence pronounced by the Judge is the Formal Matter of Fact or what hath appeared upon Tryal is the Material So here Gods judging us righteous according to the Law of the Gospel is the formal Cause of our Justification and our Gospel-righteousness or Faith which is as it were Matter of Fact seems to be the Material But as I said there is no certainty in affixing or appropriating these Logioal Term in Morality at least in all Cases and therefore for my part I will contend with no Body about them I will add but one word more about this point Justification is Gods judging us righteous there 's the