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A45162 Ultimas manus being letters between Mr. John Humphrey, and Mr. Samuel Clark, in reference to the point of justification : written upon the occasion of Mr. Clark's printing his book upon that subject, after Mr. Humfrey's book entituled The righteousness of God, and published for vindication of that doctrine wherein they agree, as found, by shewing the difference of it from that of the Papist, and the mistakes 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. Humfrey, John, 1621-1719. 1698 (1698) Wing H3715; ESTC R16520 84,030 95

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that is to be tender-mouth'd as most I perceive are apt to be I mean not you my worthy Brother when they come over to any such hard saying as they see will make their Disciples draw back and walk no more with them I must add that although an abstracting this great Doctrine from Logical or Metaphisical Terms according to the Bishop of Wrocester and you may be adviseable with the limitation as much as we can in regard to the Vulgar or in our Preaching to the People yet in regard to the Learned and the Versed in this Controversie it is quite otherwise or at least there must be an exception as to this Particular which is not here only necessary in regard to such but is the all in all in the business The point is hereby brought as it were to a word as in the matter of the Trinity it was brought to that of Homoousios no more to be discarded I will yet say that here is the Criterion according to a more shallow or deep imbibing whereof I do reckon for my own part such or so much to be the measure of knowledge that I have attained as to the critical bottom of this Matter With reverence be it spoken to extraordinary Men who being above all mean or colloguing ends do we may suppose very throughly see the same when prudentially they decline to say it and when they yet would be more generous too in a Contribution of their Testimony to it To this end was I born saith our Saviour and for this cause came I into the World that I should bear witness to the Truth 11. I will yet instance for your Conviction The Scripture in one place is express By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous One may ask here Is not Christs Obedience therefore ours Is not the being made righteous to be justified I Answer Yes Christs Obedience is ours in the Effects and as to this effect in making us righteous upon our Faith and so justifying us But here is the resolution of the point Christs Obedience does make us righteous or justifies us per modum cousae meritoriae but not per modum causae formalis which the Doctrine of Imputation intended at first nostrae justificationis We are to enlarge here by shewing how Adam's sin brought in death which passes upon all Men and so is imputed to all as to that effect Likewise how Christ's obedient suffering or suffering obedience has procured the Grace that we may be justified by Faith without Works and are so upon our believing We are made sinners then by Adam's sin and made righteous by Christs obedience per modum meriti not otherwise This is satisfaction to this Text this the core of the Controversie Again Christ is made sin for us in another place our sins procuring his sufferings and we the righteousness of God in him How is that Per modum meriti I say still Effective in short non Formaliter See what need we have of such Terms See how speedily and compleatly they do our business when a whole Book at once is as good as wrapt up in them 12. As for your Dissertation upon the Question whether Christ's Active as well as Passive Obedience is imputed in our Justification I did think to advise you to be content with what is said in the Book and so leave it My Reasons are two 1. Because this Dispute is a Point not proper for you and I but needless They that hold a Formal Justification by Christ's Righteousness may contend which of the two is imputed But we that say it is not Christ's Righteousness imputed but the Righteousness of God that justifies us may leave them fighting and we be quiet 2. Because as to the Point I think such may with Anth. Burgesse be well at a stand about it You say Christ being a Divine not Human person was under no obligation of duty How then does Christ say His Father was greater than He and that in regard to his Authority How came he down to do his Fathers Commandment and yet be under no Obligation Here you must come off and say He was not bound on his own account but for Vs he was Well then for us he was bound to obey and how then do you say he only suffered for us and not obeyed for us You must come off again and say For us may be taken for our Benefit or in our stead He was indeed bound to obey for our benefit but not in our stead Well! but what if you are out here at last Let me mind you that Christ who redeemed us from the Condemnation of the Law redeemed us also from the Obligation of perfect fulfilling it as the Condition of Life And as by his sufferings he freed us not from all suffering but Eternal so by his Obedience though he freed us not from obeying God according to the Gospel yet he did from obeying him according to the Law as the Condition of Salvation In this sense and to this purpose he obeyed that we might not so obey as well as he suffered that we might not so suffer that is upon this account not all accounts obeyed and suffered both in our stead Before I leave you for the sake of the Reader when this is Printed I must wish you again to take heed that when I say that Christ hath obeyed for us in the sense of in our stead you do not misconstrue me To do a thing in ones stead is to do it so as to free the other from doing it Though Christ's perfect obeying the Law did I apprehend free us from those Terms yet did he not obey the Law for us so as some would have it that no other Obedience is necessary to our Justification or that his Obeying does thereby become ours or is in se imputed to us as formally to justifie us This is that Doctrine you dispute against in your Dissertation and I find in some Notes which I writ for a Memor andum to my self upon reading some Author whether the words be my own or his or mixt thus much which I will set down to confirm your Determination There is a double Debt the Principal perfect Obedience and Nomine poena satisfaction for our failing It is said Christ paid both for us and both imputed But if his Obedience being such as that he omitted no duty and committed no sin be imputed there is no need of his suffering It is replied we must suppose his satisfaction for sin to precede and when we are pardoned and freed from punishment then must his Active Obedience be also imputed to give us right to Heaven It is answered 1. Supposing a Righteousness now required it must not be his Righteousness imputed for then we must be reputed as never lapsed nor once omitted any duty and that is inconsistent with his Satisfaction preceding 2. Punishment is Damni or Sensus Though one might be freed from the poena sensus and yet
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
had performed it all and of Faith whose Office it is to embrace that Righteousness so imputed there is not one word in the Sacred Letters says the Learned Grotius If the Bishop before praised dare follow that leading Man in the one Point as in the other I will come now therefore to this new Book of Mr. Lobb which he calls An Appeal that is from the Presbyterian Brethren to the Bishop of Worcester as Moderator between them They produce the Bishops Letter in their Vindication and Mr. Lobb sticks to that Letter as vindicating him and both are in the right for when they agree to the Bishop they must agree also with one another In this Appeal Mr. Lobb looking on Mr. Williams as in the Chair of Mr. Baxter to maintain his Doctrine does collect many Pussages out of Mr. Baxter which are approaching to the Socinians and supposes such Doctrine to be inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Bishop that he maintains against Crellius in his Book of the Sufferings of Christ We shall see if the Bishop writer whether he judges as Mr. Lobb or rather shall see cause of Agreement not Difference with Mr. B. in this Point That which I have to say is this There is a vast difference in the account that must be given of two Men speaking the same things about a Doctrine which is in Controversie between them when one does bring them by way of Objection for Confutation of it and the other by way of Explication for the better clearing and maintaining it in Answer to those Objections And there is a double Answer to an Objection One is by Negation when the matter is false and the other is by Concession when the matter is true and reasonable but shewing that it affects not that Doctrine which remains firm notwithstanding that Concession This is the Case of Mr. Baxter in regard to the Socinian The Socinians say many things rationally and which are true and Mr. Baxter in such matters spares not to say the like but the one says them for the Enervating the other for the Elucidating the Doctrine of Satisfaction It is most certain that Mr. Baxter holds the same Doctrine which Grotius does and follows him in the Explication shewing the consistency of it with Gods Free Grace in the remission of sin which two things Socinus thinks incompatible To wit in that when it is alius that suffers it is aliud solvitur and also it being not the Idem but the Tantundem which Christ suffered and that it was not therefore the Law it self but the Law-giver he satisfied Upon which accounts the Satisfaction was in it self refusable a Solutio recusabilis as he after Grotius does call it that is such as God in Justice was not bound to accept but in Mercy through Grace he did accept it and what is more found out this way of Satisfaction himself for us which makes it so much more of Grace so that a Free Pardon I say appears notwithstanding this Satisfaction as in the Sacrifices of the Jews for sin there was an Attonement made by their Blood in order to the Remission That Mr. Baxter does maintain this Doctrine of Grotius this Doctrine that is the Marrow of the Old and New Testament to wit the Doctrine of Pardon upon Satisfaction against the Socinian it is apparent I say as that Mr. Lobb does hold Justification upon believing against Dr. Crisp And if it shall farther appear that there is nothing of all that he hath alledged against Mr. Baxter is dissonant to the mind of Grotius and Bishop Stillingfleet he will I hope come off at last To this end let us observe that this Learned Bishop in his Letter speaking of Christs bearing our sins and distinguishing the desert of punishment from the Punishment and affirming rightly that though Christ took on him the Obligation to undergo the Punishment the Desert could not be transferr'd upon him he hath these words No Man can cease to deserve Punishment for his own Faults nor Deserve that another should be punished for them This Saying is so true plain and reasonable that though Socinus Crellius or any of their Followers shall stand upon it never so much it is not to be denied but granted for all that Upon this Foundation it follows If no Man can deserve that another be punished for him then cannot we by our sins deserve Christs sufferings We deserved the Punishment it was a deserved Punishment but we deserved not that he should bear it If our sins then deserved not that Christ should suffer they are not the Meritorious Cause of his Sufferings If not the Meritorious Cause no proper Cause but the Occasion as Mr. Baxter is cited by Mr. Lobb And to go on the reason appears It was not from the Law his Obligation to suffer did arise for the Law punishes only the Transgressor Noxu caput siquitur It was not our Obligation therefore he took on him for our Obligation is an Obligation of desert Obligatio Criminis as it is call'd but his only Ex contractu And seeing it was not Obligatio ex Lege it follows that the Sufferings he bore were Materially not Formally Punishment It was the sins of Mankind says Mr. Baxter that were the Occasion of Christs Sufferings called by some an assumed Meritorious Cause because by his consent they were loco causae Meritoriae End of Contro C. 13. In which Words and all other Passages collected by Mr. Lobb what is there to be found fault with unless an over perspicacity tightness and consonancy of Judgment in all his Pieces alike made good all by the reason of that undeniable Concession that One Man cannot deserve that another should be punished for his Faults as the Bishop has it And now to come from the Bishop to Grotius It must be acknowledged that Grotius hath made it his business to shew that our sins were the Impulsive the Meritorious Impulsive Cause of Christs Sufferings in his dying for us which he hath proved no less substantially than critically by the Prepositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 15.3 Heb. 11.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 3.18 Gal. 1.4 Pro peccatis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum accusativo Rom. 4.25 Propter peccuta and Isa 53.5 Ob peccata nostra which all denote the Impulsive Cause says he and not the Final against Socinus Upon this it is supposed by Mr. Lobb that what is mentioned before as said by Mr. Baxter is contrary to this Doctrine and he hath cited such Passages therefore as Heterodox But Grotius himself must be the Man to Answer and Reconcile what he says with what is said by Mr. Baxter which he does very sufficiently with one word that Mr. Lobb hath not observed at least to make so good an use of it For Socinus in opposition to the Doctrine of Satisfaction denying that Christ could dye for sin as the Meritorious Cause of his Death which he will have to be only the Final Cause