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
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
us for our Righteousness is the Form of our justified State or Condition Argu. 4. Divines do generally fix it upon some Righteousness The Righteousness of Inherent Grace say the Papists The Righteousness of Christ saith Davenant and the Protestants generally The Righteousness of Pardon saith Mr. Wotton Answ 1. I do not pretend to compare my self in the least with those Learned Men who maintain any of the former Particulars to be the formal Cause of Justification but I am willing to suspect my own Judgment rather than theirs Perhaps it may be my m Ignorance in the proper Notion of a formal Cause that hinders me from assenting to them And yet m The Form of a thing you know is that whereby the thing is that which it is that which differences the thing defines denominates it A Defini-nition is made of a Genus Differentia call'd by others the Form a Genus and a Form to wit that which specifies and differences the thing from others that which makes the Ens unum Vnum is indivisum in se divisum ah aliis The Form makes the thing divisum ab omnibus aliis and whatsoever differs from another must have its Form its Deffinition that makes it differ or else it is nothing It is not for want of Knowledge of this but the want of Consideration of it makes you here disagree with me for so long as there is no Distinction without a Difference and Justification is thus distinguished into Active and Passive they must have their different Forms and if that be acknowledged our Contest is at an end 2. You n agree with me that it is Gods Imputation or judging us Righteous But yet that I may yield to you as far as I can I add n How I agree with you it is manifest as to justification Active and that you may agree with me as to Justification Passive you say enough in that which follows 3. That upon the o same ground that any of these may be said to be the formal Cause of Justification I see not but that the Righteousness of Faith or the Righteousness of God by Faith may be allowed to be the formal Cause of it If it be proper in any of the other Cases or Instances for ought that I know it is proper also in this If it be proper to call Christs Righteousness the formal Cause or Pardon the formal Cause of Justification it is proper I think to call Faith so too There is the same Reason for one as for the other in my apprehension o As for what you yield here to me it is but honest and tho' condescending no more than what cann't be denyed If we use the Terms of other Divines we must use them in their sense or we cannot else be in the right I thank you for your sincerity in this Argu. 5. But the most plausible Argument of all because it is Scriptural you have omitted which is That the Scripture saith expresly p We are are justi-fied by Faith p This is what is to be understood in my Book all over when I say that tho' the Id propter quod be Christs Righteousness the Id per quod we are justified is Faith and Faith therefore as imputed for Righteousaess is the formal Cause of our Justification Here then we must consider What interest Faith has in our Justification This I have said in my Book is as the q Condition Way or Means whereby we come to have an interest in this Priviledge q That Faith Repentance and New Obedience are the Condition and Way of Life as to the Exercise and Practice of them does not hinder but that performed and imputed by God for Righteousness they become the Form its self of our Justification You say As the formal Cause but at last upon mature deliberation you make it to be the material Cause and Imputation the formal and so at last you seem to r give up the Cause you are contending for your words being these The Efficient Cause is God The Meritorious Christs Righteousness The Material is not the same with that coming under the Efficient but is I count our inherent Grace or Faith infused in our Regeneration The formal then is the imputing this Faith or Grace inherent as the Evangelick Condition performed by it to us for Righteousness when being imperfect otherwise it were none Inherent Grace is the Matter and the Form is brought in by this Imputation s This is not well observed that when I set my Cause in its true Light and evince the truth of it so to your self that you cannot but assent to it you should count that I give you my Cause when I give you my Light and when the Cause which I and you intend and defend is the same in this particular altogether And why do you contend Do not you know that in such Collisions that are only for Light whenever there is struck one Spark that does take the work is done for what is but rightly said in one place is to regulate all that is said besides otherwhere when the Reader deals ingenuously with him he Reads But then to s bring your self off you make it to be the formal Cause only of Justification Active and Faith to be the formal Cause of Justification Passive and so you make two Justifications distinct from each other because they have different Forms So that all the Controversie between us now is reduced to this one single Point whether there be two Justifications distinct from each other For if Faith be the formal Cause only of Justification Passive and there be no such thing as Justification Passive distinct from Justification Active then Faith is cashier'd and put out of its Office of being Causa formalis of Justification s It is not to bring my self off but to keep the truth on foot that I distinguish as other Divines do Who knows not that Justificare Justificari are distinguished or that Justification is actively and passively taken Alas that you should not consider that all the Disputes of our Divines Whether we be justified by Faith or Works are and can be about Justification no otherwise but as passively taken As for the Question Whether Justification Active and Passive be one or two I have given a brief determination in this second Letter as now printed p. 28. and did not do so in my Cursory Letter because I was indeed puzzled with it at first starting and could not at present tell what well to say to it It is very true and judiciously declared here by you that upon this one would have thought but nice thing does depend all our difference so that if Justification Passive have a distinct Form from Justification Active then my all you say be true as it is of the One and what I say to be true too of the Other Now whether they have two Forms or no seeing you and I were at present in doubt and came very strangely to be resolved
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
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
have no right to Heaven we cannot be freed from the poena damni also the loss of the Reward but we must have right to Heaven together with our freedom from Condemnation It may be said further a man may be forgiven but yet not reputed never to have broken the Law God cannot account any thing other than it is and the man was a sinner This now being true it appears how Christ's Righteousness therefore cannot be thus imputed as our formal Righteousness because then as he we should be look'd on as if we had never sinned when we shall ever even in Heaven be judged as such that once had sinned but now forgiven The root of the Errour as I have said ever lies here to think we must be justified by the Law of Innocency as Christ himself which does subvert the Gospel Your assured Friend and loving Brother John Humfrey To Mr. Humfrey Reverend and dear Sir THAT you have taken so much pains to open my Understanding and to make an Eye-salve to clear my sight I count a great favour and take my self to be much obliged to you for it For I desire to understand my Errors in every sense I am willing to open my eyes and all my Powers to let in Light which is so sweet and grateful Eccles 11.7 I say not vale as he but salvelumen amicum Some points indeed are clog'd with Interest which dims the sight or bribes and biasses the Judgment that either it cannot discern the Truth or at least not entertain and embrace it Either secular Interest lies in the way as in the Controversie about Conformity or carnal Interest as in the Antinomian Opinions which serve to gratifie Persons in a Licentious Course of Life and so they find it agreeable to espouse them for as what we would have to be true we are easily perswaded that it is true so what we would have not to be true we are hardly convinc'd that it is true Here it must be a strong and a clear Light that will pierce a Mans eyes which he purposely shuts against it But that is not the case here There is nothing but the power of Truth to sway the Judgment either one way or other which unto those that dig and delve for it as for bid Treasures that do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 12.14 hunt and pursue after it by an impartial Examination and Consideration it will be found one time or other and manifest it self in its native Beauty Prov. 2. v. 1 5. How far forth the Light in your Papers has cleared my Eye-sight and contributed towards a cure of my Mistakes will be seen in what follows Only premising this That besides what I have said by way of Answer or Reply I have added some Figures at the beginning of every Break in your Letter without reference to the sense and not considering whether that will bear them or no but only for convenience of Quotation that the Passages I reply to may be more readily found out In the beginning you tell me that my Discourse is very concordant in the main with my Sentiments I am sure we did not confer Notes nor play the Plagiaries one with another my Discourse being writ almost twenty Years ago and with little assistance from Books more than the Bible and Concordance as is exprest in the Epistle § 1. You observe my shiness to admit of Faith or Gospel-righteousness to be the Form of Justification I granted it may be Formal-righteousness or Gospel-righteousness and yet not the formal Cause of Justification for Love Hope Fear of God c. are Gospel-graces and consequently Gospel-righteousness and yet none of our Protestants say that they are the formal Cause of our Justification though you say Faith working by Love is and therefore I thought there might be a distinction between them and that one did not necessarily infer the other But upon further consideration of what you say upon that point I don't see at present how I can evade or avoid the dint and force of your Reasoning to prove that Faith is the formal Cause of Justification But however I would not lay too much stress upon a Logical Notion or Term of Art He that will grant we are justified by Faith in a plain sense without Tropes or Figures shall pass for found in the Faith with me whether he will call it the Form or formal Cause of Justification or no I 'll contend with no Body about such Terms and why you should insist so vehemently upon that Term I know not This serves for Answer also to § 2. and § 3. which do but persesecute the same point § 4. Herein you seeing more I believe than Mr. Baxter there is one thing that he saw and you see not Justification you say is Gods accounting and using us as just but you have not taken in what he saith further That it is also the making of us just How is that Not by Infusion as the Papists nor by Non-imputation as Mr. Wotton but by Imputation God imputing our Faith for Righteousness To this I Reply In my Explication of Justification Active as you call it or bestowed by God say I I took in every thing that I found any ground in Scripture for for I fetch'd it wholly out of those places of Scripture there quoted And whereas it is commonly said to be a Law Term and therefore we must have recourse to Lawyers to understand the true sense of it I have there I think fully opened the nature of it purely out of Scripture and if I mistake not more fully and plainly than was done before and I have sometimes thought that that was one of the clearest things in all my Book If you think my account defective and would have any thing else added to it give me your Scripture for it as I have done for what I say and I 'll add it Till then here I stick But to make my sense more plain I 'll give you a Scheme according to my conception of the whole Matter There are these several things which must be carefully distinguish'd and considered as distinct in this case 1. Christ has obtained at Gods hands That Faith should be accounted for Righteousness This is enacting the Law fixing and establishing the Rule according to which Judgment must pass None can say that this is either making us just or justifying us because it is but a General as all Laws are 2. There is the bestowing of Faith upon us which is our Gospel righteousness and this now is making us just with the righteousness of Sanctification or enduing us with the Righteousness of God whereby we become conformable to the Rule Neither is this Justification but Sanctification or effectual Calling Regeneration Conversion Forming Christ in us all which with some other such Expressions I take to be Synonymous and to signifie the first Grace 3. Then comes Justification which is judging us conformable to the Rule or to have performed the
just by bestowing Faith is Regeneration which I distinguish from Justification as you and all Protestants do Justification makes just otherwise In the next place you tell me of Relative Grace being founded on Real Grace but I see not wherein that serves you or opposes me Real Grace I take it is that which makes a change on the Person but Relative Grace only on the State giving right to the benefits which belongs to the Person I apprehend so of that Distinction and if I do not apprehend you right you must help my Understanding Well now Regeneration I count with you must precede Justification that is Real Grace Upon this Real Grace then is founded that making us righteous which is Relative There is Faith already wrought and presupposed and God in justifying us does by his Gospel-Law I count constitute or make that Faith to be a Righteousness which otherwise it was not that gives right to the benefits that a perfect Righteousness if performed would give The Regenerate Man I say believes Upon his believing the Gospel-Law or God by that Law does impute that believing to him for Righteousness By which Imputation be is made accounted and used as a righteous Person and so reaps the benefit All which together is his Justification Let us here set our Horses together There is a Righteousness or the Grace of Regeneration or a Righteousness or the Grace of Justification One is Real Grace and the other Relative you say and therefore two Nevertheless when you say the Righteousness that makes us just is Regeneration you do not see that this Righteousness must not therefore be that which justifies us or that which I say is the formal Cause of our Justification It is true that our Righteousness or Faith wrought in us by Vocation Regeneration or Sanctification is the same Righteousness materially but not the same formally with this Righteousness of Justification for if a Man were the most righteous Person upon Earth there were no reward due to it being imperfect and it could not be this Righteousness in Gods sight giving right to the benefit that is this Relative Grace but for the Law of Grace and his Institution by it A right to Impunity and Life is Righteousness and that is not the Righteousness of Regeneration You say God Regenerates us and that makes us righteous Very well and I tell you that this is the Righteousness of the Person which justifies not and so I am no Papist but it is a Righteousness of the State the Righteousness I say which is made so by the Gospel-Law or that Relative Righteousness which does give right to the reward or benefit when the other imperfect cannot is the Righteousness we intend When a Man then is made righteous by God or by his Law upon his believing who was made righteous before by Regeneration or when a Man hath Faith bestowed on him in his effectual Vocation and that Faith after is imputed to him for Righteousness it is not his Faith and Righteousness as inherent but as so imputed is that Righteousness which justifies him or that Righteousness that is the Form or formal Cause of his Justification You may see here how by going to avoid Popery by denying that we are made just by Justification you take away that Medium which by the granting and maintaining we must obtain our purpose God says Mr. Baxter as Law-giver above his Laws maketh us just by his pardoning Law or Covenant and as determining Judge be justifies us by Esteeming and Sentencing us just and as Executioner he uses us as just All know such things are spoken in order of nature not of time which I need not mention before or now but to avoid Cavil You deny this Constitutive Justification but what say you to the Matter Does God by his Law of Grace make a Man just upon his believing To be made righteous is to be justified in Law-sense and justifiable by Sentence If God do so as the Law is general then must a particular Man believing be in the applying only that Law to him made righteous made so in order to his being accounted and used as such And if God by that Law applyed to him makes the Person righteous it is that Righteousness must be and is the formal Cause of his Justification This my dear Brother you did not perceive nor as I think Mr. Baxter quite who came so near it He never let the right understanding of the Righteousness of God preceding actual Pardon sink into his Thoughts if he had he would have set it into such a Light as there would have been no need of my Book and if he had roundly told you as I what is the formal Righteousness that justifies the Believer notwithstanding other Protestants say it not you might have received it Though as to that Particular Justification or Part of Justification against the Gospel-charge that a Man is an Unbeliever and Impenitent and hath no right to Pardon and Life he accounts that his Faith and Repentance is that Subordinate Righteousness which justifies him and that must be formaliter as I say And to satisfie Mr. Baxter fully there is and there can be no charge but this against any for the Gospel-Law it self the Universal Pardon or Grace of the Gospel it self which in the Righteousness of God as to Gods part is included does alone take off or answers all others But now seeing I am yet in doubt that your fear of me and therefore of other Friends is not yet gone in regard to my allowing that we are justified by a Righteousness within us or by our inherent Grace for that I percieve it is you fear even as rank Popery under the present apprehension when Justification yet by Works you maintain without scruple I will endeavour over again to deliver you and them out of it Faith you know and conceive to be Grace inherent and a Righteousness in us and you are not afraid I hope to affirm that we are justified by Faith Well then there is according to your Self before and the Truth a double Grace Real Grace and Relative Grace and Justification you say is Relative Grace Regeneration Real I say again accordingly there must be a double Righteousness the Righteousness of Sanctification or Regeneration and the Righteousness of Justification 0103 0 The one entitles to no Reward being short of perfect the other through the imputation of Christs Merits entitles to Impunity and Life for the imputing Christs Merits to our Faith or inherent Grace to make it accepted as hath already been intimated for Righteousness which else were none is to be understood in Gods imputing our Faith for Righteousness It is the Righteousness of the last now be it known and not of the former by which we are justified It is the Righteousness of the last not of the former which is the formal Cause of our Justification Here then do I at once discharge you from your Fear The Papists say
we are justified by the Righteousness of Regeneration and they are out We say and are right by the other Let me say this yet fuller again for when the Mind is prepossest with a contrary belief and the Intùs existens does prohibit alienum there is no hope for a New Notion to be received without inculcation which therefore is to be used and approved Thus far for certain you and I do agree Regeneration is one thing and Justification another when the Papist say they are the same We agree consequently that there is a double Grace and Righteousness of the one and of the other We agree still that one is Real Grace the other Relative and must be different The one I have said makes a change on the Person the other on the State only or Condition that is the one does endue the Soul with a New Quality which of a wicked Man makes him godly the other confers no New Quality but a New Relation upon that Quality Relative Grace as you say being founded on Real that is the Relation of a justified Person or righteous Man in Gods sight which brings a right to the Benefits or Reward due to a righteous Person or due to one if he had perfectly fulfill'd the Law of God This sure are we agreed in that Justification does confer a right of Impunity and Glory which is the Summ of those Benefits to a Person which was not due to his Faith and imperfect Obedience but that God does impute them to him for Righteousness so that this Right therefore does come to him not by Infusion I say in my Book but Imputation To be short and full Righteousness consists in a Conformity to a Law A Law hath its Precepts and Sanction Faith is a Conformity to and a Righteousness according to the Precept of the Law of Grace A Right to pardon and Glory is a Conformity to and Righteousness according to the Premium Sanction When a Man believes the Law of Grace or God by that Law does impute his Faith to him for Righteousness and thereby constitutes him righteous and with that Righteousness confers on him a Right to the Reward of it This Right to the Reward or Righteousness consisting in this Right is and can be only Relative Grace not Regeneration or Sanctifification which is Real Grace but the Righteousness of Justication and this distinguishes our Doctrine from the Papists A Right I must say it again to Impunity and Life is a Righteousness and that Righteousness not the Righteousness of Regneration but Justification The Papists I repeat do say it is by the One that we are justified We say it is by the Other Here you have my account of Justification Constitutive and hence you may have an account of that Text which is else so hard in Words and various in the Interpretation God justifies the Vngodly The Man who is justified is a Believer but notwithstanding his Faith and imperfect Obedience he is legally Unrighteous Ungodly a Sinner Now if Justification be only the Accounting not Making a Man Righteous how can God justifie the Unrighteous or him that is Ungodly The Judgment of God is according to Truth and it were impossible But when Justification is the Making or Constituing a Man righteous to wit not by Infusion I say but by Imputation and propterea as Contarenus before hath it the Accounting and Using him as such we see how the Believer though Ungodly is justified If any Catholick hereupon shall receive this and will express his Doctrine of Inherent Grace as I do and say that it is not by a Righteousness according to the Law of Nature which though insused and by the Spirit is Mans Righteousness still and imperfect but by the Righteousness of God which is ours and yet not ours as to what is imputed to it that is by a Righteousness of Gods making or instituting by the law of the Gospel that he is justified then were he in the right and I should embrace that Papist as I do you and Mr. Baxter Let a Man be a Calvinist or Arminian or Papist or Socinian the truth in his Mouth is truth as well as in the Mouth of our Dr. Bates or in the Confession of the Assembly As for the Scheme you offer in laying matters together upon supposition that Justification is not Constitutive or Making but only the accounting and using us as just I acknowledge it very agreeable but we must not yield to you you see all this while we must not that supposition it would undo us No we must for the fuller comprehending this Frame or Order of Things take more compass than you do and which may confirm what is spoken We must first then consider that there is an Act of Grace procured for us by Christ which is the Law of the Gospel whereby all Persons notwithstanding our sins shall upon their Faith and Repentance be pardoned and saved and in order hereunto this Law does Enact That such Persons as believe and repent shall as set before God be judged righteous according to this Act notwithstanding there is no Man but is unrighteous according to the Law of Nature and upon that Judgment of him to be righteous or upon that judicial Proceeding in the mind of God as we must suppose Justification to be he shall have the Benefit of the Act and no otherwise Now Sir the first thing in the applying the Act to the Believer therefore is this that upon his believing and repenting it Makes him righteous for else his being a sinner notwithstanding his Faith he could not be judged righteous but being made so he is judged so by the same Acts and is to be so used It is not the Pardon which makes him righteous because he must be judged by the Law and found righteous before he have that Pardon or Benefit of the Act which is That and Life And it is not Regeneration or Faith makes him righteous because that is prerequired as the Condition to his being made so and that is no Righteousness as yet But it is God by this Act imputing this Faith and Repentance which is wrought in our Regeneration for Righteousness that makes him righteous and being I say so made he does judge account and use him so in conferring the Benefits which altogether go in to Justification I proceed to another passage in your Letter I do not see at present say you how to avoid the dint and force of your Reasoning that Faith is the formal Cause of our Justification However I would not lay too much stress upon a Logical or Metaphisical Term. They that will grant we are justified by Faith is aplain sense without Tropes or Figures shall pass for sound in the Faith for me whether they call it the Form or formal Cause or no. I thank my Friend for this Item It is by Tropes and Figures our Protestants speak or dinarily when they say we are justified by Faith Objectivè in sensu
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
three parts of One Constitutive Justification In your Denyal at first that Justification makes us Righteous you forgot your own Book where are these words As condemning the righteous is taking away his righteousness Is 5.23 So justifying the righteous must be a conferring a Righteousness upon him viz Not in a Physical or moral Sense but Judicial that is he shall be righteous in the Eye of the Law Scrip. Just P. 12. By Righteous and not Guilty I hope you do not mean Innocent as Mr. Gilbert in your Quotation of him seems to understand and to make Christs Righteousness which is a Righteousness according to the Law of Innocency to be that by which we are justified I do not know his Book whether it be so but there is indeed no Legal Justification and Justification by the Gospel is the Justification of a Sinner one Ungodly still in the Eye of the Law and Righteous or Not guilty only Quoad hoc in respect to the Law of the Gospel and that not but he hath sinned against the Law and against the Gospel but yet is Not guilty in regard to the Accusation of his Non-performance of the Condition If God looks on him as cloathed with Christs Righteousness he must be look'd on as one that never sinned when he shall be look'd on as never innocent but pardoned as I have had it even in Heaven For the other Point wherein you were at first more near and grew farther off in your latter Letters our Difference appears by your Words and my Notes to depend at last altogether upon this nice Matter Whether Justification Active and Passive be one or two Justifications And by my Notes and your Words or Grant too it appears they may be both They are one to please you they are two to please me For the Matter is the same in both but being distinguished and so different their Forms must be two They are Materally one threefore but Formally two they are Formally two but Materially one and the same Justification I will end now after all with the Confession That what I offer in these two Letters and my late three Books on this Subject is but Digging It is but the Ore I say there I turn up which must be refined and made good Metal if it can by better Workmen wherein you for one have not been wanting in your Endeavour For my own part it is Truth and Peace and no Interest that I seek I will conclude therefore with that Passage of Dr. Owen However our Protestants have differed in the Way and Methods of its Declaration yet in this they are generally agreed that it is the Righteousness of Christ and not our own Merits on Account whereof we receive pardon of sin acceptance with God are declared righteous by the Gospel and have a title to the heavenly Inheritance There is but this one Word Merit I put in and I also can accord with them and add this That the whole merit of our Salvation from first to last is by you and I as well as by him and our other Brethren attributed not to our own Works but wholly to the Obedience Active and Passive as they go both into his Satisfaction of our Saviour Jesus Christ The Dr. goes on Herein I say they were generally agreed first against the Papist and afterwards against the Socintan And when this is granted I will not contend with any Man about his way of declaring the Doctrine of it For this benevolence of the Doctor I thank him The Digger must needs put off his Cap and shall therefore for the present lay down his Mattock and leave Work Deo gloria Mihi condonatio John Humfrey Sir Charles Wolseley TO Mr. Humfrey UPON His sight of the foregoing LETTERS My very worthy Friend THE Sheets you were pleased to send me containing your Letters and Mr. Clark's please me very well and you have obliged me by them I know no Man has travelled into the Controversie of Justification with better success than your self You have I think with great Accuracy and Judgment searched into and found out the genuine Meaning of St. Paul's Expressions touching that important Point And particularly in your clearing to us what is meant by the Righteousness of God so often mentioned by St. Paul It has generally been taken for the Righteousness of Christ you have made it very evident to me to be meant of the Righteousness of Faith and that is a Key of singular use to unlock us into the true Notion of Gospel-Justification I like what you have written so very well that what I have to say to it will be contained in these two words Probatum est I am not a little satisfied to find that what I have formerly written on that subject does so perfectly Coalesce with your Sentiments throughout There is only one thing wherein you and I seem any thing to differ either in Sense or Expression and that is touching Pardon of Sin to which you may possibly think I do allow a greater share in Justification than I ought but I think you will find that you and I are upon very good Terms of concord therein Faith and Gospel obedience I acknowledge do constitute us Evangelically Righteous but are not such a Righteousness as to make God reckon us for innocent Persons for so we are not for every Man that is in Heaven is there as a pardoned Sinner as well as a righteous Person in Gospel Sense for that is a Righteousness contrived by God to qualifie an Offender for Pardon and stands in direct opposition to that Righteousness by Works St. Paul inveighs so much against but it serves us in as much stead as if we were so for it entitles us to all the Benefits of Christs Satisfaction qualifies us for helps us to Pardon of Sin and Acceptance with God and so our Gospel-righteousness in effect is but to procure Pardon and therefore it is that the Scriptures that were not writ with any Relation to those nice and subtle distinctions which Men have since used in interpreting of them do chiefly intend to express their plain and genuine Meaning of Things and in an especial manner by various Expressions of the same thing do set forth the amplitude of Gospel-salvation 'T is evident from the 4th of the Romans and the 7th that imputing Righteousness and Forgiveness of Sin are inseparable and therefore sometimes Justification is spoken of in Scripture in its Cause which is imputing Righteousness by Faith and sometimes in its Effect which is Pardon Therefore I am well pleased to say with you to adjust and comprehend that matter right that the formalis ratio of Justification is gospel-Gospel-faith and Obedience and Pardon of sin the necessary Consequent Concomitant and Effect of it and he that will give any other account of it must I believe make use of some other Doctor than St. Paul To think of obtaining Pardon any other way than by performing the Gospel-conditions of Faith and
ULTIMA MANUS BEING LETTERS BETWEEN Mr. John Humfrey and Mr. Samuel Clark In reference to the Point of Justification Written upon the Occasion of Mr. Clark's Printing his Book on that Subject after Mr. Humfrey's Book entituled The Righteousness of God and published for Vindication of that Doctrine wherein they agree as sound by shewing the difference of it from that of the Papist and the Mistake of our common Protestant In order to an impartial and more full understanding of that great Article by the Improvement of that whereto they have attained or Correction of any thing wherein they err by better Judgments Together with Animadversions on some late Papers between Presbyterian and Independent in order to reconcile the Difference and fix the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction Mediocria firma LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns the lower End of Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1698. THE LETTERS To Mr. CLARK My very worthy Brother I Received your Letter and your Book that elaborate Book writ long since and desir'd to be printed by Mr. Baxter and which I longed to see And whereas I find it upon reading it twice over to be an industrious clear honest and faithful Work so methodical easie for the Reader profitable and full in exhausting its Subject besides so concordant in the main with my Sentiments and when we differ so much more entertaining for the variety you may be sure that for all these Faults I can do no less than judge it to the Press where it must confess them seeing you committed it to my Judgment As for your Letter and Remarks with it on mine I thank you I shall at present say two things to you 1. The one is That whereas I make our Gospel-righteousness the Form or formal Cause of our Justification which you can hardly swallow the reason of the stop is not really I judge because you have considered more of the matter but less I wonder not at you to be shy about this when Mr. Baxter himself has not spoken here so fully as being against the stream of our Protestants and he had never digested the Notion I think of the Righteousness of God which you have done Faith you acknowledge to be our formal Righteousness and understand it clearly as you seem to do all you assent to Your words are I freely grant that Faith or Gospel obedience is formal Righteousness that is It has the Form of Righteousness to wit Conformity to the Law of the Gospel or Covenant of Grace And yet you are so maidenly modest for all that as you dare not say it doth justifie us formaliter or is the formal Reason of our Justification It is in regard to the common Sentiment and what you have not found asserted that you are so tender about it 2. There is a Sentence you will find somewhere in my Book which has not I perceive entred your Mind as it has mine that does bring light with it It could not have been said at first but by one more thoroughly studied Academically in the Learned part of this Controversie than you or I and accordingly is worthy your reception The Sentence is this Performalem justificationis causam justi constituimur It is profound Truth Consider now I pray what is that Righteousness which you believe indeed to be it quâ or per quam justi constituimur Is it Christs Righteousness or our performance of the Evangelick Condition If with you and I it be the last what then is Justification active or the Form of it but Gods imputing this to us for Righteousness And what Justification Passive but this Evangelick Performance so imputed Certainly my Brother till you come up to this you do but grope in the dark You and but in fear of all you say and can have no stedfastness or foundation in the point 3. Mr. Anthony Wotton who understood himself so thoroughly and was the Man who broke the Ice in the denial of Christs Righteousness to be our formal Righteousness does set up therefore as he must another thing in the room of it A Righteousness there must be that constitutes us Righteous and if it be not Christs what is it Why Mr. Wotton makes this to be Pardon the Righteousness of Pardon Righteousness I say is the Form of Justification or the Form of Justification does consist in a Righteousness and Mr. Wotton sets himself to prove that Pardon is it which others avouch after him as the only Righteousness whereof a Sinner is capable It is this therefore is another saying of the same Sort and Author which must be here taken in as it is also in my Book Justifications forman justitiâ constare cerium est Well this Justitia which is Justificationis forma our former learnedst Protestant Divines have generally own'd and held to be the Righteousness of Christ imputed A conceit very strangely hard I believe at first to be let in and too crude at last to be digested To make Pardon it has a great deal of sense in it but the Scripture never calls this our Righteousness nor will the word it self allow it It being a third thing which is it you have hit on the right and that is the Righteousness of God which you understand so well and you define The way or method of becoming righteous which is of Gods ordaining or appoinring A Righteousness which is of on which we attain by Faith This is that Righteousness in opposition to Works when the righteousness of Christ can't be so opposed that Paul has reveal'd This is that justitia which is the Justificationis forma we seek in the business 4. And herein you seeing more I believe than Mr. Baxter there is one thing that he saw and you see not Justification you say is Gods accounting and using us as just but you have not taken in what he saith further That it is also the making us just I apprehend the first thoughts of Mr. Baxter here sprang from his reading Mr. Wotton who will have such a Righteousness to justifie us as makes us righteous that is I have told Pardon which by Constituting a man just I think Mr. Baxter at first understood too But whatsoever he thought first or last I am come to see what you must come to see also that by Constitutive Justification God must first both make and account us just or by Sentential he cannot declare us so at the great Day Now how that is you have in my Book p. 24. Not by Infusion as the Papist nor by Non-imputation as Wotton but by Imputation God imputing our Faith for Righteousness God by his Evangelick Law has constituted Faith and Repentance to be a Righteousness to serve us instead of perfect Works When a Man then believes and repents he is thereby constituted Righteous By vertue I say of that Law he is made such or accepted as such in regard to the benefit as if he were such by the Law of Works when yet
Conditions of the Covenant and this includes three things which are so many Branches or Ingredients of which it does consist 1. Counting us just 2. Dealing with us as just by bestowing the benefits of the Covenant viz. Pardon that comes in here and a Right or Title to the heavenly Inheritance 3. Solemnly pronouncing us just at the day of Judgment or to have performed the Conditions of the Covenant and so absolving or acquitting us from the Curse or penalty of the Law and Adjudging us to Life Eternal § 5. The substance of your Discourse in this Paragraph is spoken to already in § 4. and your Conclusion in § 1. § 6. You have hit the Nail on the Head and guest very right both that those two Leaves were inserted after it was many Years after the Book was finished As also that I am afraid of speaking the least tittle that may be derogatory to the Righteousness of Christ I say it again and can never inculcate it often enough That I am afraid of speaking any thing that may be derogatory to the Honour of Christ in any respect and would not for all the World be guilty of it And therefore if any thing said by me here or there or any where be really so I renounce revoke recal and condemn it all Upon this account I added those Leaves to clear the Point as I thought under consideration I cannot call to mind particularly all that is in them but I think the Scheme in general may be useful though that particular of two Justifications should not pass the Test And indeed as to that your Argument § 7. is good The freeing as from the Law say you is freeing us from it as a Rule of Judgment whenas it remains a Rule of Life this is so plain that there can be no scruple about it being understood of Believers and seeing we are not to be judged by it we cannot be condemned or justified by it By the Law shall no flesh living be justified Since therefore it is by the Gospel that we are to be judged there can be no other but one Evangelical Justification This Argument has fully satisfied me that but one Justification is to be admitted and so I assent to what you add § 8. § 9. If I apprehend your Notion and Sense aright it plainly amounts to this That Christ by his Sufferings obtained of God there is his Impetration that Faith should be counted for Righteousness When we believe all the saving benefits of his Death or Sufferings which is his Righteousness or Obedience are actually applied to and bestowed on us And this I take to be the plain truth also § 10. Your Answer to my Question does not satisfie me You don't show what intents and purposes the phrase of formal Righteousness serves for which the word Way or Condition will not answer surely there is not as wide a difference between Form and Condition in this case as between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the point of the Deity of the Son of God Neither doth so great a weight in point of Doctrine hang upon our difference as doth upon that Certainly forbearing to use a word that may be offensive and substituting another less exceptionable in the room of it may be done without deserting the Truth or deserving a blot I grant an apt word doth sometimes decide a Controversie where there is a good foundation for it but that is the Question here and there does not appear to me any such necessity for the use of it Tho' that you maintain should be a Truth yet all Truth is not to be insisted upon at all times especially when it is but a fourth or fifth-rate Truth What I have said in my Discourse concerning the interest of Faith in Justification I think is both safe inoffensive and satisfactory § 11. I fully agree to all § 12. To what you say about the Thesis or Dissertation I conceive it may very fitly be annexed to the Discourse of Justification not only for the clearing of that Question which is there handled but for what you can't deny to wit the strengthening of what is there delivered Your Reasons for me to omit them don't satisfie me Not the first for tho' we don't hold that Christ's Righteousness imputed is the formul Cause of our Justification yet we hold it is the meritorious Cause and so 't is as proper for us to discuss this point as for them For whatsoever difficulty occurs concerning the Righteousness of Christ considered as the formal Cause of Justification the same occurs also concerning it considered as the meritorious Cause Nor the second for when I say that Christ being a Divine not Human Person was under no obligation of duty I understand it Originally purely upon the account of his being Man and antecedently to his own voluntary undertaking You Object How doth Christ say his Father was greater than he Tell me how you will reconcile that with Phil. 2.6 He thought it no robbery to be equal with God and you will answer your self Here you must come off and say I thank you for the Assistance you lend me but I am of Age to Answer for my self which with your leave I do thus 1. How came he down say you to do his Fathers Commandement and yet be under no Obligation I answer Because he voluntarily took that work upon himself for that is it as far as I remember that I am there speaking of That he was not bound by vertue of his Assumption of the Humane Nature to obey the Law but only because he agreed so to do 2. How do you say he only suffered for us and not obeyed for us I answer I deny not his obeying for us in some Sense but reckon it to his Sufferings 3. Well but what if you are out here at last I answer It 's possible I may but how does it appear that I am out at last Your enlargement afterwards for it does not seem to me to have the force of a Reason or Argument which if it were to the purpose must be formed thus Christ was obliged to obey the Law for us because he redeemed us from the Obligation of perfect fulfilling it as the Condition of Life for that is it you insist upon to prove that I am out But this say I is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing to the purpose That Christ redeemed us from the Obligation of perfect fulfilling the Law as the Condition of Life I agree but how does that prove that he obeyed the Law in our stead However as to the thing it self his freeing us from perfect obedience to the Law as the Condition of Life I don't take to be the immediate effect of his Obedience I don't reckon that that was obtain'd immediately by his obeying the Law in our stead but by his obtaining the New Covenant for us which promises Life upon easier Terms than the Law or Old one did He
obeyed and suffered both in our stead That Notion I cannot swallow I cannot apprehend that we are bound to obey and suffer both But I think this is spoken to in the Thesis whither I refer you Thus I have gone through the several Paragraphs in your Letter whereby you will find your labour has not been in vain but has had some success upon me I am a Searcher after and a Servant of Truth and don 't count my self too old to learn especially of you who have look'd so throughly into and round about this Point of Justification How far forth my Reply in those things wherein we differ will approve it self to you and find acceptance with you must be left to the Tryal In the whole I have design'd nothing but words both of Truth and Kindness and so do hope that you will find no reason to judge otherwise of me than that I am Your respectful Friend and Fellow-labourer Samuel Clark To Mr. Clark Dear and worthy Brother JUstification is Constitutive and Sentential Juris and Judicis Constitutive is making accounting and using us as just Sentential declares us so at the great day This I hold to be good from Mr. Baxter who in all his Books says the like but in his own manner and words See Cath. Theol. Book I. Part. II. Pag. 69 70. Life of Faith Pag. 326. End of Controversies Pag. 242. Justification then with us is Making Esteeming and Using us as Righteous which are distinguished but not to be divided Constitutive Justification you say is a phrase of Mr. Baxter's coyning and the word Justifie which you have so throughly canvased neither in the Hebrew or Greek will bear it For my part so long as the English and Latine word Justify as Sanctifie Glorifie does speak making just and we have the very term expressed Rom. 5.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made righteous which is all one as to be justified I think that place alone ground enough for Mr. Baxter's word Constitutive and whether the word will or no the matter will bear it When I read Contarenus de Justificatione I admired to see the Doctrine of the Protestant so fully embraced by a Cardinal who telling us of a twofold Righteousness we attained by Faith a Justitia inbarons and a Justitia donata imputata Christi and proposing the Question Utra num debeamus niti existimal nos justificari coram Deo id est sanctos justos haberi an hac an illa he cleaves to the last with these words I have quoted Pacif. p. 15. Ego prorsus existimo And moreover he tells us Fide justificamur non formaliter but †It is false that Faith justifies us Efficiently but it is true that Faith justifieth Constitutively so far as it is it self our personal inherent rightcousness Bax. End of Cont. p. 270. Efficienter which is directly against my Judgment yet do I observe that this he lays down at first as a thing unquestionable that Justificari is Justum fieri propterea justum haberi I confess my self was long before I could assent to Mr. Baxter in this because he seemed to me uncertain or confused when by making just he sometimes understands as you Regeneration sometimes Pardon after Mr. Wotton from whom I believe he took it and sometimes both as appears in the place you cite Cath. Theol. Book II. Pag. 239. By and upon believing we are first made just by free-given Pardon and Right to Life and true Sanctification with it and we are sentenced just because so first made just The Papist say Justification makes us just by the infusion of inherent Holiness and that this infused Grace or inherent Holiness is therefore the formal Cause of our Justification which we know confounds Justification and Sactification The Protestant in opposition to this have generally said that we are made just Rom. 5.19 by Christs Righteousness and that his Righteousness imputed must be consequently our formal Righteousness tho' several of late more cautious take heed how they say that Sententia illorum qui Christi Obedientiam justitiam nobis imputatam statuunt esse formalem causam justificationis communis est nostrorum omnium sententia says Davenant Mr Wotton that Scholastically deep Man in opposition to both does say that it is Pardon makes the sinner righteous and consequently that Pardon is the Form or formal Reason of our Justification Mr. Baxter you see before accounts we are made righteous by Regeneration and Pardon both our Evengelical Righteousness must be with him both the formal Cause though the Righteousness of Christ be the material he says and meritorius Cause of it Leading Calvin hath gone before our Assembly and tells us Nos Justificationem simpliciter interpretamur acceptionem qua nos Deus in gratiam receptos pro justis habet Eamque in peccatorum remissione ac justitiae Christi imputatione positam esse dicimus Inst l. 3. c. 11. For my own part I am here exactly for neither of these but say that it is the Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel that makes us just and that this is the formal Reason of our Justification I will recite it The Infusion of inherent Grace is Justification Active with the Papist and this inherent Grace infused Justification Passive The Imputation of Christs Righteousness is Justification Active with the Protestant and that Righteousness imputed Justification Passive Pardon with Mr. Wotton Both Pardon and a Righteousness subordinate to Christs with Mr. Baxter But as to me I continue and say the Imputation of the Righteousness of God or of Faith for Righteousness is Active Justification and the Righteousness of God or Faith so imputed is Justification Passive or the formal Cause as Passive of it This one thing I take to be certain that the Righteousness of God which the Apostle tells us is now revealed and therefore before tho' occult in the World as Austin hath it is that Righteousness in opposition to any other whereby we are justified and you having given us so good an account and right Notion of it in your Annotations on the Old and on the New Testament besides what you have said in your present Book it is fit you go thro' and perfect it By this Righteousness of God you understand not the Righteousness of Christ with the Protestants ordinarily nor yet the Righteousness Inherent the Papists contend for whereof indeed you are over-afraid Not by the Works of Righteousness we have done says the Apostle in one place where he means the Righteousness according to the Law of Nature or our Natural Righteousness which is Mans not this Righteousness of God but that which by Adam's Fall we have quite lost insomuch as there could be no Righteousness in the Earth any more as I say in my Books if it were not for another brought in and there is one brought in by the Messiah and as slain in Daniel that is procured by Christs Death and which you in your
Annotations tells us right is this Righteousness of God intended by the Apostle Of God being of his institution in distinction to that of Nature or of Man and is otherwhere call'd the Righteousness which is of Faith and the Righteousness of Faith Which is of Faith that is say you obtained by Faith and of Faith Faith it self being it as imputed to us for Righteousness by the Law of the Gospel which is styled therefore the Ministration of Righteousness Now when we shall find this Notion in the particular places of your Annotations so well proposed you must give me leave to carry it thro' to what it leads and let you know which indeed makes it signifie that it is this Righteousness and no other is that which is the Form formal Cause or formal Reason of our Justification Note I pray once for all that in putting in the word our Justification by me is signified to be passively taken as it must be taken and is by Protestants and Papists in their Dispute about it and by the Apostle when he disputes that it is by Faith and not Works that Abraham was and we are justified And here then have we indeed an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing you have found out wherein the Cautious of our Protestants of late have been and are at a loss even the knowledge when they durst neither allow Christs Righteousness nor our own to be the formal Cause what indeed the formal Cause is For making which appear and that I speak not without Book be pleased to know It is an Objection which must needs be ready to come into every ones mind that if we be justified by Christs Righteousness imputed that is so as his Righteousness be accounted ours formally to justifie us then must we be thereby as righteous in Law sense as Christ himself This Argument being urged by Bellarmine our Amesius thus Answers Has non est nostra sententia sed Christi justitiam eatenus robis imputari ut ejus virtute nos perinde justi censeamur coram Deo ac si nosmetipsi in nobis haberemus quo justi censeamur See here the streight this throwly vers'd Man in these Disputes is brought to He must deny this at first that Christs Righteousness is nostra formalis justitia which Davenant with others maintain And if Christs be not what is A Righteousness there must be to make us Righreous and to be the Form of our Justification and what is it Note Secondly That Christs Righteousness must be imputed but nor imputed as ours for then it will be our formal Righteousness But so far imputed Note Thirdly that by verture of it we shall be accounted just before God Well then Note fourthly I must ask what Righteousness that is wherein or whereby we are accounted righteous before God Is it his No for then it were imputed to us as ours and it were our formal Righteousness which at first he renounces as not the Protestant Opinion It it our own inherent Righteousness He dares not own that as supposing it altogether the Papists Opinion What Righteousness then Why such whatsoever it be that is all one as if we our selves had in us that whereby we may be adjudged righteous before God Note it it is not qua referring to Christs Righteousuess but quo referring to one understood that is not in us but as good as if it were in us and that not Christs I say neither but one by vertue of his Righteousness imputed and is not If Dr. Ames had known our middle way there needed no such shifting as this to make us justified without a Righteousness or formal Righteousness neither in Christ for fear of this Objection nor in our selves for fear of Popery For God be thanked there is a Righteousness and that whereby we are justified that is neither of them even the Righteousness of God which is not the Righteousness of Christ who is God nor the Righteousness of Works or Papistical Righteousness but a Righteousness revealed in the Gospel in opposition to Works or the Righteousness of Faith imputed to the Believer for Righteousness through the vertue or merit of our Redeemer for his Justification and Salvation Whenever we read if imputing or accounting to a Man a thing that is good it is an Act of Grace and signifies something which is not says Mr. Truman It is so in the imputing Faith for Righteousness for there is a donation of two things by it which in us are not One is Christs Merit or the virtue of it to render our Faith accepted and the other a Right to the benefits or reward which a perfect Righteousness would give us if we had it Our Faith or Evangelical Righteousness being imperfect and no Righteousness by the Law it is upon these two things conferred made such a Righteousness being imputed to us for Righteousness by the Law of the Gospel I hope now Brother you will be less afraid of our falling in with the Papists though Justification is the making us just as well as accounting us just and though our inchoate Grace our Faith our Evangelick Performance acceped through Christ be our formal Righteousness which you are so backward to consent to because besides that this Righteousness hath not the same Rule to be judged by with theirs nor is of the same Quality as theirs for they measure the same by the Law and yet maintain a Meritorius Righteousness and Perfection which difference you find in my Book I say besides this the inherent Righteousness it self of our Justification is not the same with theirs of Regeneration It is the Righteousness of God which is of his institution to be distinguished from that of ours whether it be the Righteousness of Nature as before which we have not or of the inherent Grace we have the one coming to us by Infusion the other by Imputation God imputing I say to us that imperfect Grace for Righteousness by this Law of the Gospel This will appear yet further by my proceeding to your Animadversions I grant you say in one of your Letters that we must be made just before we can be accounted just but that is by bestowing Faith upon us Justification is relative Grace and that is founded in Real or supposes Real Grace as the Foundation of it and making us just which is Real Grace must not be reduced to Justification that is Grace Relative This is something in the Ore but let us melt it and improve it and I say that here is Confusion indeed but I hope not mine You mistake first in not distinguishing making just All making just is not Real Grace or by giving Faith but there is a making just also which is Relative Grace if Justification it self be Relative Grace and that is not by bestowing but by imputing Faith already bestowed to us for Righteousness You mistake next in thinking I reduce your making just to Justification by reducing you mean rendring them one for your making
There is a third Sense of this Commutation which implies a translation of our sins upon Christ and of his Righteousness upon us which admits of a double Sense one of Dr. Crisp and the Antinomians and the other of such we call Orthodox embracing the Common Protestant Doctrine of Justification This third Sense as owned by Dr. Crisp the Bishop hath in short words set out right which is in two Points differing from the Orthodox One is that Dr. Crisp accounts our sins to be translated on or imputed to Christ not only as to the Obligation of Punishment but in regard to the guilt of the Fault The other is that Christs Righteousness is translated on the Elect before they believe and consequently they are justified without Faith Now the Bishop sets himself against this third Crispian Sense and bestows a great part of his Letter to confute this known exploded Error so that as I have said of our Brethrens Distinction before that they did but beat the Air and confute no Body I must needs say of the Bishop that he does indeed beat some Body that is confute the Crispian but his beating is besides the Cushion This excellent Bishops Work were to consider whether he shall admit or confute Mr. Lobb Dr. Owen and those that hold such a translation of our sins on Christ and his Righteousness on us as is maintained without either of these Crispian Errors To prove that a Man must believe before he is justified needs no more than these words of the Apostle We have believed that we may be justified The elaborate proving such Doctrine to be against the Scripture is but a prudential declination of that difficult Task that calls here for his undertaking The common Protestant I will suppose when the Scripture speaks of our sins being laid on Christ or Christ bearing our sins on the Cross or the like do understand no other thing than the Bishop that is he took on him our sins in regard to the Legal Guilt not Personal to use his words understanding by those Terms reatum paenae not culpae in the ordinary distinction for when the Bishop makes Legal Guilt to imply desert of Punishment as well as the Obligation to it his personal Guilt is one with Legal besides the term Legal Guilt is dangerous lest any thereby should understand Christ to be our Legal Person so as to be in us Guilty and we righteous in him or to speak surest he took on him our Punishment without the desert of it and so neither I or the Bishop or our Presbyterian Brethren differ in the least as to this part of the Translation which is to be granted as necessary to the Explanation of the Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction But as to the other part of this Translation which is the transferring his Righteousness on the Believer not on the Elect before Faith for that is Antinomianism in such a sense as is necessary to the making out the Doctrine of Justification according to the Common Protestant here is the Point which requires the Determination of this most Learned Bishop whereof if he dare venture his Credit so as to tell his Judgment plainly which would tend to the establishment of many he shall do a great thing a daring matter wherein yet he is thus far advanced that he hath in this Letter made an on-set on the greatest strength of the Antagonist which is That they raise upon the words of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.21 He hath made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him Unto which Text the Bishop answers That by Christs being made sin is meant a Sacrifice for sin according the Scripture Sense And we are made the Righteousness of God in him in that God upon the account of his Sacrifice and our Reconciliation to him does treat us as Righteous Persons or receive us into his Grace and Favour upon our believing I add upon our believing as what is understood by him And this is all he says that he can find St. Paul understood by this Expression Here we see this Text brought off so cleverly as that there is no Arrow hath toucht him but withal so cautiously and prudentially for fear of shot that I cannot but take notice of that Learned Gentleman that hath wrote on this Subject Sir Charles Wolseley's greater Resolution who hath said the same thing upon this Text with the Bishop but without dread of the Bullets The meaning is says he this Christ that was without sin was ordained of God to be a Sacrifice for sin that we might thereby be made righteous with the Gospel-Righteousness for that is the general meaning every where of the Righteousness of God Sir C. W's Evan. Just p. 64. The direct answer to this Text is this That the Righteousness of God in him is not the Righteousness of Christ according to our Common Protestant Divines which is manifest because God and Him are two as I have it in my Right of God P. 11. with this Argument Justitia Dei est finis sive effectum ex eo quod Christus peccatum pro nobis factus est Hoc autem ipsum est Christs obedientia E'go justitia Dei non est Christi Obedientia Wotton The Common Protestant Opinion accounted Orthodox is that we are justified by Faith Objective that is by Christs Righteousness which is its Object received by Faith as the Instrument making it ours so that God looks upon us as righteous in his Righteousness or accounts us so which is our Justification The Opinion I hold as what I think those that go Mr. Baxter's way are to come to I declare to be that we are justified by Faith Formaliter and through Christs Righteousness Si justitia est opus Dei quomodo erit opus Dei ut credatur in eum nisi ipsa sit justitia ut credamus in cum Aug. in Jo. 6.29 as the Meritorious Cause only The Scripture is manifest that by Faith we are justified Was not Abraham justified by Faith The just shall live by Faith This is stedfastly attested by the Apostle By Faith so that Faith is the id per quod as the Righteousness of Christ the id propter quod the Believer is justified The Meritorious Cause is the Efficient Protatarctick and cannot be the Formal That Christs Righteousness therefore is not the Believers formal Righteousness I must lay down among the set of Notions as certainly appertaining to Mr. Baxters way of Justification so that the Maintenance of or Departure from that Assertion does assuredly make or marr the right conception of that Article There is no Point of moment but hath its set of Notions as I say belonging to it and whether the Bishop will go the Common way of the Protestant or a way of his own altogether or the way of Mr. Baxter which I and Mr. Williams do go as to the main I suppose that excellent Person who is able to
perceive that Concatenation of Notions belonging to the way he takes will lay them so together as to make the whole agreeable knowing well that if he break one of the Set one Link he breaks all the whole Chain The fundamental Notion in the way that Mr. Baxter and I and Mr. Williams go is this That it is not by the Law but the Gospel not by the Law of Works but the Law of Grace that we are to be judged and consequently justified or condemned One other Notion of his near to this is that the Righteousness of Christ is not cannot be imputed to us that is reckoned to us as ours any otherwise than in the Effects The Righteousness of Christ is a Righteousness that answers the Law and if that be imputed to us in se for our Justification then we are justified by the Law When Mr. Williams therefore says with us that it is by the Gospel not the Law we are to be judged and yet that Besides the effects the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer that thereby he may be justified which must be understood it is a plain Inconsistency a perfect Tergiversation As for what Mr. Williams offers in Made made righteous p. 76. to 83. I have answered Pacifica p. 35 36. Let me ask him upon it when he says The very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer does he understand by the Righteousness of Christ that which his Brethren do or not If he does he is held under this Inconsistency and can never come off If he do not then the Brethren are deceived in him He appears to be of their Judgment about the Imputation of Christs Righteousness and yet understands by Christs Righteousness another thing than they do What Man before him ever said or understood that Christs Right to his Reward is the Righteousness which is imputed to a Believer I argue against him The Righteousness which is imputed to a Believer is that Righteousness which is the Meritorious Cause of his Justification But it is not Christs Right to his Reward but the Obedience of his Life and Death which two things he distinguishes and makes a double Righteousness and brings himself off with the first instead of affirming the last which is the Meritorious Cause of our Justification And as for what he says in affirming Christs Right to his Reward to be the Believers His own Right and the Believers to be the same Right it is impossible according to the Rule of Accidents as I answer him in my Pacification There is another Distinction of Mr. Williams which Mr. Alsop uses in his Rebuke directly contrary to him in the Terms yet Neither differing in the Doctrine of it that I will take this occasion to remember Dr. Crisp's Phrase of Change of Person Mr. Williams impugnes but yet grants a Change of Persons By Change of Person I doubt not but the Dr. meant a Change on both sides as appears by his Explication that Christ became a sinner as we and we righteous as he and that is a Change of Persons There is a Change of Person on one side and a Change of Person on both sides A Change of both sides is all one with a Change of Persons When Mr. Williams then upon this distinguishes between a Change of Person and Change of Persons it is his own Distinction when the Doctor never thought of any and when it is his own he may make what Construction of it he please and that he puts on it be sure shall be Orthodox for by the one he will have Dr. Crisp's Commutation understood and deny it by the other the Bishop's Commutation and hold it Here is his Doctrine found but his Distinction as he uses the Terms so forced strained unnatural that it is useless altotether but to bring himself off and serve his occasion Whereas the Distinction as used by Mr. Alsop is so apposite easie proper natural in the Terms that if it be stood to no Distinction can be of more use for deciding the Controversie of our Brethren By Change of Person Mr. Alsop understands One coming in the room of another By Change of Persons Both coming in the room of one another and when Mr. Williams grants a Change of Persons and denies a Change of Person he Mr. Alsop does hold a Change of Person and denies a Change of Persons and yet both agree I have said in the Doctrine they make of it Mr. Alsop's Distinction then fuller explained is between Christs sustaining or putting on our Person his taking our State and Condition or his obeying and suffering in our room or stead and Our sustaining or putting on Christs Persen taking on us his Quality or Condition or coming in his room or place The one he maintains and denies the other I will add he does hold and it is to be held that Christ stood in our room and stead and so may be said to put on our Person in obeying and suffering for us as necessary to the Doctrine of Satisfaction but he denies or I do as that which is to be denied that we take on us Christs Person or come in his room or stead as necessary which others affirm to our Justification To make this appear as to the right sense of it we must know that to take anothers Person or to do or suffer any thing in the room or place of another is to do or suffer the thing to free the other from the doing or suffering When Christ then is said to dye for us or for our sins which is all one as taking our Person or suffering in our room place or stead it signifies that he obeyed the Law and suffered the penalty that we might not be bound to that perfect Obedience as the Condition of Life and that we might not suffer the Curse of it and this is necessary to the making God Satisfaction that we may be pardoned and escape the same But for us to put on Christs Person or come in his room or stead does signifie our doing and suffering in him as our Legal or Civil Person what he did and suffered and so be look'd on as having fulfilled the Law both in obeying and suffering so that his Obedience both of his Life and Death is imputatively ours and we in sensu forensi as righteous as he in the sight of God and justified by the Law as Christ was This Commutation of Person therefore we deny as that Doctrine which subverts the Gospel It was a deep mistake in the much reading of Mr. Report to apprehend that the Commutation of Persons in the Sense of Grotius is conducive to the Explanation of the Doctrine of Justification according to the Common Protestant as it is to that of Satisfaction There was a Surrogation of Christs Person in our room for his making Satisfaction there is no Surrogation of our Persons in his room for receiving Justification Of the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us as if we
he accounting the whole Office of his Priesthood that which did not respicere Deum but Vs not reconciling God to us but us to God for the obtaining our Impunity this seems to these Men not reasonable On the other hand the Antinomian upon this Satisfaction as made to God by Christs sufferings understands our sins to be so laid on Christ as that it was not only our Punishment that he bare but our Guilt our Fault our Desert And whereas we are apt to say this is blasphemous because Christ hereby is made a sinner and the greatest of Sinners they say No for this is to say but what Luther and our Orthodox Divines have said before them and there is no hurt in it understanding it only as they all do by way of Imputation For as in the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us we are accounted of God righteous as he for our Justification so in the Imputation of our sins he is made as sinful as we for making God Satisfaction This they take up as the Common Doctrine of our former Protestants which Mr. Lobb will do well to turn over and examine whether they who have wrote before Baxter among us do not ordinarily say thus That our sins were imputed to Christ so as to be counted his That he was not made only a Sacrifice for sin but even so sin for us that is by Imputation as we are made his Righteousness For seeing this is the perpetual rule of Gods Justice that the same Soul that sinneth should dye how can it stand with Gods Justice that Christ should suffer for our sins if they were not in some sort annexed to him The Scripture evidently affirms Isa 53.6 11 12 That Christ bare not only the punishment of our sins but our sins also what aileth then the Jesuite so boldly to deny that our sins are imputed to Christ Seeing then again the Scripture so speaks why should we doubt to speak as the Scripture does that Christ was for us counted a Sinner or Transgressâ—r yet in himself remained Holy Just and Righteous still So we in Christ are verily reputed righteous though by nature we are Unjust and Unrighteous This I quote out of Willet's Synopsis being Passages lying near together See Cont. 19. of Justification supposing the like to be common in others In such Passages then as these which we shall find in former Divines we see no such Distinction made between our Merit of the Punishment and the Punishment as we now make with the Bishop to whom Mr. Lobb does subscribe It is essential to Punishment that it be inflicted for sin but not essential that it be inflicted on the party himself that sinned says Grotius and in another place before quoted that sin is the cause of Punishment no otherwise but per modum Meriti Now Christ having himself never sinned if the Merit of our sins was not laid upon him together with the Punishment how was it per modum Meriti that he was punished Mr. Lobb knows whether Crellius does not urge something to this purpose against Grotius and if he can solve the difficulty to defend Grotius that which he must grant to do it will defend Mr. Baxter against him But as for the Antinomian who stands upon this as no less necessary to the Doctrine of Satisfaction than that Christs Righteousness be ours as necessary to the Doctrine of Justification and accounts it to be no other but the Common Opinion of the Protestant it does appear that some bank or bound must be set to this Sea lest the opinion formerly received as Orthodox over-flow into Antinomianism and I must give notice to Mr. Lobb and those that retain and uphold it that if they persist they must come thus far as to say that on one side the Believer is by Imputation as righteous as Christ himself and on the other that Christ by Imputation is a sinner as we which to put in Dr. Crisp's words is that Christ was as compleatly sinful as we and we as compleatly righteous as he wherein as before they conceived no hurt because understood by them only by way of Imputation If Mr. Lobb will recede from the Common Opinion here he must recede from all those Notions that are concatenated together in the Explication of it And what is meant by this Imputation in the Sense of our Common Protestant The Imputation of a thing to a Person is the accounting it his in regard to our dealing with him In Gods imputing our sins to Christ he does account as they say him to be a sinner or them to be his and does so deal with him in laying our Punishment upon him In Gods imputing to us Christs Righteousness he accounts his Righteousness to be ours and so deals with us in justifying us by it So they But how can God account our sins to be Christs and his righteousness Ours when really they are not so and Gods Judgment is according to Truth They must Answer If by really we mean Physically it is indeed impossible that our Qualities should become Christs and his ours there is none that understands it so but if by really we mean only legally in sensu forensi in conspectu fori or in Law-sense as Divines express it it is really so they will say that our sins are laid on Christ and his righteousness made ours or else that neither could Christ have suffered or We be justified But what yet is this Legally or in Law-sense which is to be conceived by a Quatenus as God deals with us according to Law Why our Divines suppose that Christ did take on him our Person and so our Sins and as acting in our Person what he did and suffered in our behalf is accounted of God to be done and suffered by us even as what my Attorney at Law does for me it is in Law or as I am to be dealt with according to Law all one as if it were done by me Here then we must make a stand and consider whether Christ indeed was such a Representative as that in him as our Legal or Civil Person we are accounted of God to have fulfilled the Law both in Obedience to the Precept and bearing the Punishment so as to be perfectly righteous in his Righteousness and accordingly justified We must come thus home or say nothing There is another Explication therefore that is made of this Imputation by Mr. Baxter There is a double sense of it There is an Imputation or accounting a thing to a Person as his either in se or in the Effect Mr. Baxter denies not Imputation but explains it An Imputation of our sins to Christ and his righteousness to us in this Law sense mentioned is the Imputation in se which as the former commonly received Doctrine and unsound Mr. Baxter disowns But an Imputation in regard to the Effects that the Righteousness of Christ being truly the Meritorious Cause of our Remission Justification Adoption is imputed imputatur datur
Sinners so by the Obedience of one shall many be made righteous This is true per modum Meriti but not per modum formae To wit we being all by the Fall of Adam become corrupt so that there is and can be no Righteousness according to the Law of Works in the World the Lord Jesus by what he hath done hath procured a Law of Grace and Righteousness thereby so that the sinner that repents and believes in Christ is by that Law made righteous and enjoys the Benefits as much as if he were as perfectly Righteous as the Law requires In this Sense we may say Christs Righteousness is imputed to us that is per modum meriti in the Effects For as to impute sin is to inflict punishment So to impute Righteousness is to confer the Priviledges to a Person as belongs to him that is righteous and such the Believer has Pardon and Life Eternal He hath made him sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him The Righteousness of God is the Righteousness of Faith and to be made the Righteousness of God in him is to be made righteous thro' him by believing or through his merits to be justified by our Faith As our sins are imputed to Christ which I say is only in the effect of his suffering for them so is his Righteousness imputed to us say our Divines But Christ is not made formally a sinner by our sins Nor therefore we made formally righteous by his Righteousness I might proceed to other Texts and then shew how upon this account though a Disciple of Christ must learn to deny himself take up his Cross and follow him yet are not his Commandments grievous but his Yoke easie and Burden light Because in that sweet recumbency trust or rest which the Soul has upon the goodness and mercy of God for Acceptance of his Performance though but Conatuâ—et Desiderio and notwithstanding all its Imperfection unto Life thro' the Merits of Christ there arises unspeakable Consolation The true and solid Benefit hereof by the other Doctrine upon an only pretended shew of more is Ecclipsed See Pacif. P. 27 28 29. THE Common Protestant Doctrine is that by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness we are justified where the Righteousness of Christ is the Matter and Gods Imputation the Form of our Justification actively taken and consequently the Righteousness of Christ imputed the Form of it passively taken The Righteousness of Christ is the Matter both of Active and Passive Justification but the Form of Active is the Imputation of it and the Form of Passive is that Righteousness imputed So it is said in our Protestant Schools Imputata Christi Obedientia est formalis causae nostrae Justificationis My Opinion now is different that it is not by the Righteousness of Christ but by the Righteousness of God imputed to us that we are justified The Righteousness of God is the Righteousness of Faith and Faith or the Evangelick Condition performed is the Matter and the Imputation of this Faith for Righteousness is the Form of our Justification Faith is opposed to Works and the Righteousness of Faith or Righteousness of God opposed to the Righteousness of Works Faith then cannot be taken Objectivè for Christs Righteousness because Christs Righteousness is not opposed to but is it self a Righteousness of Works It is not Christs Righteousness then is that which is imputed to the Believer for Righteousness that is to be his formal Righteousness but it is that for the sake of which or the meritorious Cause for which Righteousness is imputed to him upon his believing I deny not with Mr. B. an Imputation of Christs Righteousness to a Believer tho' there be no text for 't but I with him explain it Our Explication is that it is imputed no otherwise to us for our Justification than for our Salvation and other purchased Benefits This is what we intend by an Imputation not in se but in the Effects and that is to say imputed per modum meriti only To be imputed in the Effects only and not in se Note it at last is in the full meaning this that the Righteousness of Christ is the Meritorious Cause but not the Formal Cause of our Justification and that does determine all Controversie with the truly understanding FINIS AN APPENDIX With respect to the Reverend Mr. Williams THere is one thing in Mr. Williams Books remarkable as to me above any other because it is altogether de proprio and concerns me and Mr. Baxter and that is a laborate I may not say elaborate endeavour or contrivance for making good some Words of his to this Sense That the Righteousness of Christ is imputed to a Believer otherwise or more than in the effects which is Mr. Baxter's Explanation of that Phrase And having wrote what I have said by way of Opposition in one or two Places in these Sheets supposing that Mr. Williams might write and then be engaged to take notice of it so as to yield or Answer to it I let it stand But lest he should not I will my self say something to it The Original Words of Mr. VVilliams are these Gosp Truth P. 39. Besides the Effects being made ours the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to true Believers as what was designed for their Salvation Tea is pleadable by them as their Security and useful as if themselves had done and suffered what Christ did Not that God looks upon the Believer as having done in Christs Person what Christ did he never thought so but that it is as good or for his use as much as if he had The very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer Here I must ask first what he means by Imputed And I suppose he means Being made ours as he says of the Effects or Reckoned of God as ours for else he must understand by himself till we know what he means I ask secondly How is the very Righteousness of Christ Ours or reckoned to us as Ours And I answer It is ours in the Effects and can be no otherwise The Effects are ours Really and his Righteousness ours Relatively only in regard to those Effects Mr. Williams says somewhere The Effects are not imputed Very true There is no Man said they are but that Christs Righteousness is imputed or made ours in the Effects I ask thirdly When Mr. Baxter and I and he say thus much does Mr. Williams say more And seeing he does What is that more Does he account that Christs very Righteousness is made ours so as God does account us righteous in his Righteousness and that to be our Justification according to the Common Protestant No sure he does not for Gods Judgment being according to Truth he cannot look on that which is a Quality or Accident in Christ to be also in us for that is such an Imputation as the Antinomian himself is not to be supposed without wrong to believe But it is conceived that
he looks on us as having obeyed and suffered in Christ as our Legal Person and so to have his Righteousness reckoned to us as Ours in Law Sense for our Justification This is the Notion of the Common Protestant and Mr. Lobb as undertaking their Cause understandingly baulks it not But does Mr. Williams by his Imputation own this Certainly by all his Books he sets himself to beat this down as that which is or must lead to the Antinomian Error This being so I must begin here to open my Eyes and see that in this saying of Mr. Williams there lyes not any Opposition to Mr. Baxter or me and that therefore I may attend to what he offers to make it good and be glad if he can come off well in it That which he says we have in the Book and Place before quoted and in his Answer to the Report p. 87. The Righteousness of Christ he distinguishes into his Performance of the Conditions of Redemption and into his Right or Jus adjudicatum by that Covenant to the Believers Pardon and Salvation As to the one which is that our Divines all understand and speak of as including the Obedience of his Life and Death he says that it is imputed only Mediately which is all one as imputed only in the Effects with Mr. Baxter for he explains it by the very simile Mr. Baxter does The Redeemed Captive hath the Ransom or Money only in his Liberty But as to the other Righteousness of Christ which with him consists in his Right to his Reward he says it is imputed Immediately that is imputed in se in our phrase and upon that account makes good this saying that Besides the Effects being ours the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to Believers God promises Christ that if he perform these Conditions he shall see his Seed and by his Knowledge or Faith in him shall many be justified Mr. Williams now phrases this the Righteousness of Christ as it is his adjudged Right to the Believers Pardon and Salvation and this Right of Christs the very Right is also as he counts the Believers They have says he Christs Right They are invested in Christs Right to the Benefits By all which he must intend an Imputation in se for I argue for him upon this Supposition that if this Right of Christ is an Effect of his Performance and his Right be ours the Effects we all agree are ours in se ours really when the Performance it self is not ours but relatively in those Effects If his Invention then here be sound he hath brought himself clear off as to me and Mr. Baxter and this saying of his not hurting us I will say something in its behalf in answer to my own Objections One and the first is that Christs Righteousness is a perfect Righteousness and answered the Law If that be imputed in se for our Justification then we are judged and justified by the Law and not the Gospel The answer to this is that according to the Hypothesis of the Common Protestant the Righteousness of Christ which is imputed to us is his fulfilling the Law in our behalf and Mr. Williams agrees with us that this Righteousness of his is imputed only Mediately that is only in the Effects But it is the other Righteousness which is it self an Effect of Christs Perfor mance that is imputed to us in se so that upon the account thereof he hath affirmed that the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer We have not Christs own Performance which is a Real Righteousness but we have his Right which is a Relative Righteousness to be ours he counts for our Justification A second Objection is that the Brethren are hereby deceived in him who may think he means the same Righteousness as they and others do when it is another The Answer to this is It is true they are or may be deceived in him but not by him seeing he hath made his Explanation in six or seven Pages in the Book mentioned whereby he hath acquitted himself of this Accusation as to me and Mr. B. very well whether it be so well to them let themselves judge A third Objection is that the Right of Christ and the Right of the Believer cannot be one The Right of the Believer can be no more the very Right of Christ than the Believers Person can be Christ This is from my Pacification the answer to it is this It is true that Christs Right and the Believers Right cannot be the same Physically that is indeed impossible but they may be the same Legally as our Divines understand the Imputation of Christs Obedience to us and that is plainly Mr. Williams meaning here as appears by his Simile of a Man buying Part of a Purchase the Purchasers Right to the whole is in Law his Right for that Part he hath of it A last Objection is from the Argument here offered That Righteousness of Christ is imputed to us for our Justification which is the Meritorious Cause of it It is not this Right of Christ to his Reward but his Performance was that The answer to this which as to the Common Protestant that knows no other Righteousness of Christ but this Performance is unanswerable must be left to him to answer who hath found out another and the Major must be denyed It is true that Righteousness which is Meritorious is imputed but not that alone but Christs Right also This Immediately that Mediately but both together I suppose he intends it It must be ask'd therefore after this what we are indeed to judge of this Hypothesis of Mr. Williams as to the Reality and Truth of it Here is a prudential sober sort of Notion proposed not arising from any Scripture or Sense thereof constraining it but invented rather I say for the retaining that Phrase the gratifying the prepossessed and subscribing such Confessions as the Savoyes yet without forsaking any of the Doctrines which he owns after Mr. Baxter which being not an ordinary attempt but shewing a Person that studies Men what they can bear as well as Scripture what that enjoyns I cannot but in Interest approve and in Sincerity declare my suspicion of it It must be granted that there is a Covenant as our Divines conceive made between Christ and God as there is one made with us in the Gospel That there was a Promise of God to Christ as a Promise to us upon his Performance as upon ours and that a double Security may he had and pleaded from thence that upon believing we shall be pardoned and saved Mr. Williams may make as much of this as he pleases as a greater matter of Security than others who trust to the Gospel-promise only without more concernment for such Doctrine is innocent harmless affecting perhaps to some and unexceptionable so as to be received without Question But whether the Right to his Reward which Christ had by his Performance of the Commandment given him by his