Animadversions On that part of Mr. ROBERT FERGVSON'S BOOK Entituled The INTEREST of REASON IN RELIGION Which Treats of JUSTIFICATION In a LETTER to a Friend LONDON Printed by T. R. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1676. SIR I Return you with Mr. Ferguson's Book my hearty thanks for the Loan of it I have read it and find many things well said in it And where I find anything otherwise I impute it not to his want of ability if the Cause would bear it but the Cause it self in those particular Instances which I suspect him to be defective in For neither he nor any other of what ability soever he be can as Solomon sayes make that streight which God hath made crooked Eccles. 7.13 And therefore the greater the parts be of any man who yet cannot make work of a Cause he undertakes it doth but make me so much the more doubtfull of the goodness of that Cause if it were any whit doubtfull to me before I will give you one instance of this nature out of Mr. Ferguson's book Chap. 2 Sect 10. Where he asserts that Mr. Sherlock's Notion as he calls it of Justification is not any wayes maintainable but by perverting innumerable texts from their plain and naturall Sense to a Metaphorick and that it is accompanied with this fatall unhappiness of turning agreat part of the Bible into mere insignificant and empty Metaphors P. 402. 403. And then represents Mr. Sherlock's notion thus That we are only justified by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ That the Sacrifice of Christ's death and the Righteousness of his life have no other influence upon our acceptance with God but that to them we owe the Covenant of Grace That is God being well pleased with the obedience of Christ's life and the Sacrifice of his death entered into a new Covenant with mankind wherein he promiseth pardon of Sin and eternal life to those who believe and obey the Gospel So that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal cause of our Justification but the Righteousness of his life and death is the Meritorious Cause whereby we are declared Righteous and rewarded as Righteous persons The Covenant of Grace which God for Christs sake hath made pardoning our past sins and follies and rewarding a sincere though imperfect Obedience The Gospel by its great arguments and motives and powerfull assistances forms our minds to the love and practice of Holiness and so makes us inherently righteous and the Grace of the Gospel accepts and rewards that sincere Obedience which according to the Rigor and Severity of the Law could deserve no reward P. 404. Mr. Ferguson having made this recital out of Mr. Sherlock's book knew not how as it seems to make good his charge there-from unless Mr. S. would be so kind as to grant what Mr. F. doth affirm but Mr. S. himself no where asserts And therefore although he grants in P. 416. That in reserence to the mere demands of the Gospel we may in a proper sense be said to be justified Yet he saith that in reference to the Law which is that alone which accuseth us we cannot in any prepriety of speech be said to be justified but that justification wheresoever it regards our discharge from the accusation of the Law must be taken Metaphorically he meanes I suppose unless we are discharged from that accusation by having the righteousness of Christ imputed to us Whether this be true or no I shall put to the Tryal afterwards But in the mean time pray you consider how little reason Mr. F. had to go about to charge Mr. S. with holding Justification in a Metaphorick sense unless he had first shewed us that according to M. S's sentiment of Justification before represented he had made somthing else necessary to it than that which is an answering of the demands of the Gospel which yet he hath not done that I can see But indeed M. F. is so far from doing that as that he hath done the quite contrary as you cannot but perceive when you compare Mr. F's concession and Mr. S 's notion touching Justification together for Mr. F. acknowledgeth as I said before that in reference to the mere demands of the Gospel we may in a proper sense be said to be Justified and M. S. saith no more as M. F. recites him but that we are only Justified by believing and obeying the Gospel And if to believe and obey the Gospel be not to answer the demands of the Gospel and no more pray you get Mr. F. to tell us what is But if it be then Mr. F. instead of making good his charge against M. S. hath himself even fairly acquitted and discharged him from it and might well have taken himself off here and saved himself the labour of further prosecution But however though M. S. doth not yet it seems Mr. F. doth hold that we must be Justified if Justified at all by answering the demands of the Law as well as of the Gospel although the Scipture tells us that he that abideth in the Doctrine of Christ which is the Gospel he hath both the Father and the Son Rep. Jo. 9. And because Mr. F. is of opinion that the demands of the Law must be answered or else we cannot be Justified therefore he thinks Mr. S. ought to be so too which if he can perswade him to be then he doubts not but that he shall be able to make good his charge against him And therefore to lay a foundation for a necessity of a perfect legal Righteousness unto Justification though not inherent in our selves yet by derivation of it from our Saviour in whom it was he does in effect assert the Original Legal Covenant to remain still in force notwithstanding the establishing with men the Evangelical and that in order to our Justification it is not enough to have an Evangelical Righteousness to answer the demands of the Gospel but that we must also have a perfect legal Righteousness to answer the demands of the Law though not in our selves but by derivation from another as was said before Whether this be not so judge I pray you by his own words comparing what he sayes in P. 411. and P. 414. which are these Now as the introduction of the law of faith hath not abrogated the law of perfect obedience but this as well as that doth remain in force each of them requiring a conformity to its own demands So supposing us to answer all that the Gospel requires yet the other law abiding uncancelled and we being all guilty of the violation of its terms there lies accordingly a charge against us from which by Justification we are to be acquitted p. 414. And again p. 411. That secluding not only the righteousness of Christ's life but the satisfaction of his death as the Matter and the imputation of it as the formal Cause of justification it seems repugnant to the immutability and essentiall Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure By all which you will perceive I suppose that Mr. F. holds that the Law remains still in force requiring a perfect obedience unto justification and for want thereof and in case of every failure denounceth wrath And that therefore unles the satisfaction of Christ's death and the righteousness of
one in conjunction with Faith in Christ to be sufficient to that end Now whether Mr. F. himself doth deny inherent Grace to be at all imputed for Righteousness in our Justification or whether that it only is so I confess I cannot say But certain it is that he denies it to be sufficient without the imputation of Christ's Righteousness in the sense of imputation wherein he is opposed One while he grants that in reference to the mere demands of the Gospel we may in a proper sense be said to be justified p. 416. At another turn he saith that secluding not only the righteousness of Christ's life but the satisfaction of his death as the matter and the imputation of it as the formal Cause of Justification it seems repugnant unto the immutability and essential Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience such as he accounts Evangelical obedience to be the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure By which he seems to hold how consistently with what I before recited do you judge that it is inconsistent with the Holiness of God to justifie us upon an Evangelical Righteousness because imperfect But whether Mr. F. joyns the imputation of Christ's Righteousness and the imputation of inherent Grace together in the business of Justification or whether he wholly denies the imputation of the latter and affirms only the imputation of the former I shall not further enquire But it 's well known that those who are wont to plead the same cause with Mr. F. touching the necessity of the imputation of Christ's Righteousness unto Justification and in that sense wherein he is opposed are wont also to exclude inherent Grace as being neither imputed for Righteousness in Justification nor as necessary thereunto antecedently Mr. E. Polhill a Gentleman doubtless of a good Spirit another of Mr. S's Antagonists in his answer to him saith in p. 75. In Justification no other Righteousness can take place but the active and passive one of Christ which answers the pure and righteous Law in every thing And in p. 321. he saith Obedience to God's commands is indeed the way to Heaven but it s no where made an ingredient into our Justification And p. 365. speaking of Phil. 3.9 saith that the Apostle in this place doth not only exclude external Pharisaical righteousness but even inherent Graces in the matter of Justification And the common opinion of those that have gone that way hath been That Sanctification is subsequent to Justification and not so much as in order of Nature going before it or to be any ingredient in it and consequently not essentially necessary to it Now then that which I say is this that if I can make it appear that the denying the necessity of internal righteousness unto Justification was one part of the grievous errour of the Judaising Christians it will be enough to spoil the reputation of the same opinion though found in better men than they were And whether I shall not make it evidently to appear so to be I shall leave you to judge after you have weighed what I shall now lay before you Their Crime was I conceive a partial revolt or turning unto the worst of Judaism saving their retaining a profession of Faith in Christ to think that an external righteousness without an internal was available to justification and salvation The unbelieving Jews to whom they turned in part were quite degenerated from their worthy Ancestors and all that remained faithful among them who all held the internal Grace of Love to God fear of him uprightness of heart towards him truth in the inward parts necessary to interest them in his favour and the blessing of the everlasting Covenant But the degenerate Jews thought an external Righteousness such as Paul had while a Pharisee and such as would justifie them in the sight of men according to the terms of the political Covenant by which they were externally governed by God as they were his Commonwealth would justifie them as to their eternal estate Of which grand mistake our Saviour Matth. 5. laboured to convince them by shewing that no less was required by God in order to that than an inward purity and upbraided them with their making clean the outside of the Cup and Platter when within they were full of extortion and excess of ravening and wickedness with their appearing outwardly Righteous unto men when within they were full of Hypocrisie and iniquity and told his hearers that except their Righteousness exceeded theirs they should never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that except they were born again they could not see the Kingdom of God Now it was to this monstrously corrupt part of Judaism to which the Judaising Christians did revolt or turn rather for many of them were Gentiles because without this their errour in adhering to the Law of Moses as necessary to be observed would not have been so damnable as the Scripture represents it to be calling it a perverting the Gospel of Christ a being removed to another Gospel a falling from Grace a making of Christ to become of none effect to them Gal. 1.7 and 5.2 4. which it would not have been if there had been nothing else in it than a perswasion that they were under an obligation of observing the Law of Moses as well as the Law of Christ For there were many thousands of the Jews which believed who were yet zealous of the Law of Moses and thought themselves still under the obligation of it Acts 21. who yet could never be said upon that account to be fallen from Grace or to be removed from the Gospel of Christ to another Gospel so long as they were really for an internal Righteousness as necessary to Justification and Salvation as well as an external For all the faithful Jews under the Law before the Law and after the Law yea and all the Gentiles too that had this internal Righteousness as well as an external were all justified through the Grace of God exhibited in the universal Covenant made in Christ and granted for his sake whether they had any explicite or distinct knowledge of that Covenant or not or of Christ in whom it was confirmed In every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him and if the Uncircumcision did but keep the righteousness of the Law the internal Righteousness designed by it their Uncircumcision was counted for Circumcision When on the other hand he was not a Jew at any time in the sense there spoken of who was one outwardly in the flesh only but he was a Jew which was so inwardly and Circumcision was that of the heart in the Spirit of the Law and not in the Letter only whose praise or approbation was from God whether it were from men or no Rom. 2. St. Paul would never have become as a Jew to the Jews to gain the Jews as he did in observing
any other Grace is said to be imputed to us for Righteousness For we are told expresly that it is of Faith that it might be by Grace Rom. 4.16 That is to cut off all pretence of merit the same saving benefits are promised and on the same Condition to wit that of Faith to Heathen Idolaters Sinners of the Gentiles as was to the strictest observers of the Law of Moses The reason in the close of the verse gives that to be the meaning And accordingly Faith whether it be in one that hath been a great sinner or in one of a more inoffensive life hath God's Grace not Man's merit for its object on which it doth depend for all and accordingly attributes and ascribes all to it Gal. 2.15 16. Which is one reason we see of God's electing of it to be the Condition on which his great and precious promises are made and may well be a reason also of his imputing it to men for Righteousness when they do believe For by the account we have why Abraham's Faith was imputed to him for Righteousness we have reason to believe that our giving to God the glory of his Grace and Goodness Truth and Power by this belief and affiance and to Christ the honour of his undertaking is of such high acceptation with God as that he of his goodness is pleased to honour and reward it by imputing it to us for Righteousness For we see when Abraham's Faith in God's promise touching a numerous Issue had nothing to lean upon but the Goodness Veracity and Power of God and that these carried it with Abraham against all doubts and objections that might arise from the utmost humane and natural improbabilities of ever coming to pass so that he gave glory to God in being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform that St. Paul hath told us that therefore or for this very cause his Faith was imputed to him for righteousness Rom. 4.21 22. But the glorifying the riches of his Grace was not all that God had in design in our recovery but also the Renovation of our nature and the restoring us to happiness thereby And Faith is as necessary and useful for the accomplishing this part of God's design as it was to effect the other and therefore secondly this may be another Reason why Faith is imputed for Righteousness and why it 's said to be so rather than any other Grace Without believing we cannot comply with the terms and condition on which Pardon and Salvation are promised and without which they are not to be had and that is in being renewed in our nature For without believing those Motives that tend to perswade us to comply with and submit to the terms or condition on which God for Christ's sake hath promised to pardon us to receive us into favour and finally to save us we can never actually comply with those terms or that condition and consequently without that can never be capable of receiving the benefits promised on that condition For it is Faith as it takes in those Motives in their strength and perswasive efficacy that becomes a vigorous and operative principle of all other Graces Repentance Love Obedience and the like by which our nature becomes renewed All which depend upon our believing And therefore well may our Faith be named and put for all the rest as comprehending them in it when it rather than any other Grace is said to be imputed for Righteousness To make this evident I shall suggest two things to you 1. That they are the great Motives of the Gospel the Grace of God and Love of Christ to lost man the good hoped for and the evil feared the good promised to those that are good and the evil threatned to those that are evil that operate upon the mind and will in men to the producing that change in them by which they become new men sincerely good men If we love God it is because he loved us first 1 John 4.19 If we live to Christ that died for us it is because the love of Christ constrains us 2 Cor. 5.14 If we are made partakers of a Divine Nature it is by the great and pretious promises that we are so 2 Pet. 1.4 And 2. the operation of these Motives of the Gospel upon the mind depends upon our believing and so consequently do all those happy effects in heart and life which are produced by the operation of those Motives For until the reality of those Motives are believed they have no existence or being in the Soul and where they have no being they have no operation The Word preached did not profit them not being mixed with Faith in them that heard it Heb. 4.2 The Love Grace and Favour of God to Sinners in giving Christ for us and of his Love in giving himself for us and intending and promising us the benefit of pardon and salvation thereby only upon condition of our Repentance and Conversion unto God being all of them things invisible and not objects of sense do not affect us or perswade us to repent and in good earnest turn to God that we may be pardoned and saved until we really believe these things It is our Faith or the credit we give to the Revelation which God hath made of these things that gives them an existence or being in the Soul and upon that depends the efficacy and power of their prevailing with us to become new men Faith is the substance or subsistence of things hoped for and the evidence or conviction of things not seen Heb. 11.1 Unless men first believe that God is so good merciful and gracious to men notwithstanding they have sinned against him as to pardon and save them if they repent and become sincerely obedient for the future and not otherwise they will never deny ungodliness and worldly lusts when they are sollicited thereby to gratifie the flesh Men must first believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him indeed before they will seek his Grace and Favour by becoming such and doing that upon which and not without which he hath more or less declared his Grace and Favour is to be obtained and found Without this Faith it is impossible to please God it is impossible to leave off those things by which they have displeased him and to betake themselves to do those things that are pleasing in his sight Heb. 11.6 It was the belief that all good men had before the Law and under the Law that God would keep Covenant and mercy with those that love him and keep his Commandments and not otherwise that brought them so to love him and to keep his Commandments It was their belief that there is forgiveness with him that he might be feared as an encouragement to men to fear him that prevailed with them to fear him indeed Psal 130.4 It was the hope which even the Heathen Ninevites had from the natural
God in the same sense in which the Christian life is called the life of God Ephes 4.18 not the life which he himself lives but the life which he commands and the life which by his Grace he enables men to live As the Sacrament is called the Supper of the Lord because it is of his institution so is this inherent Righteousness and Justification by it said to be the Righteousness of God for the same reason To restore fallen man to this Righteousness and to acceptation with God and Justification thereby and to render him capable of the happiness designed him in another World was the reason of sending Christ into the World and of his suffering for us and of all the rest of his Mediatory undertaking For that I take to be the plain meaning of 2 Cor. 5.21 * When I compare the foregoing verses therewith noting God's design of reconciling us to himself by Christ which is done by an inward change of mind and will He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him that is by means of him Parallel to which is 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God This inherent Righteousness is called the Righteousness which is of God by Faith because it proceeds from God by the means of Faith and not without it Rom. 3.22 Phil. 3.9 by believing that God will justifie and save men by Jesus Christ in this way and upon these terms of becoming inherently righteous and not otherwise men come to be so that they may be justified and saved I have the rather given this brief Gloss upon these Scriptures because I find Mr. Polhill still as others have done before him will needs understand that this Righteousuess is meant of the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and that it is called the Righteousness of God because it is the Righteousness of Christ which is God But methinks he and they should consider that because the Righteousness of Christ is the Righteousness of him that is God as well as Man that therefore it is nowise likely it should ever be imputed to us any otherwise than in its blessed effects and consequently that which they surmise cannot be the sense of the Scriptures aforementioned For as such it is a mediatorial righteousness a Righteousness resulting from his conformity to the Law of his Mediation which was a Law peculiar to himself alone And it seems very rational to think this righteousness no more communicable to us otherwise than in its happy effects than the acts and office of his Mediation are And although upon the account of its being so transcendent and glorious a righteousness it is a very great ground of consolation and of confidence to us that for the sake of it our Evangelical righteousness will be accepted with God and all our defects so far as consistent with sincerity freely pardoned yet it is a great question whether it will agree with Christian modesty to presume our selves invested therewith any otherwise than in the beneficial effects of it unless there were more ground for it than we can find in Scripture We may well bethink our selves whether it be not a Garment too rich and glorious for us to wear and proper only for the person of the Mediatour the Son of God himself If it shall yet be demanded that if this be true that we are justified upon account of all other inherent Grace as well as that of Faith then how comes it to pass that in Scripture Faith is still said to be imputed for righteousness and not love or humility or the like If there should be no other reason but this yet this might well satisfie us in this enquiry viz. in that this Grace of Faith above any other is in the nature of it adopted and fitted to subserve God's design in recovering us from the state of sin and misery into which we were sunk unto a state of holiness and happiness from which we were fallen God's design was to restore us to happiness by holiness and to make his own Grace glorious in the eyes of his Creatures in doing of it And when you have well considered it I think you will find that there is no one Grace or Vertue that could be so serviceable to God in this design as Faith Nay which is more that those Divine Vertues themselves which constitute the New Creature or Divine Nature without which we are not capable of being made happy could not have been introduced and brought again into the nature of fallen man but by Faith I will suppose that you cannot imagine how God should restore us to happiness without reconciling us to himself and being reconciled to us Nor how he should reconcile us to himself without making some Overtures of Grace to us Nor how he should be reconciled to us without our submitting to his terms of Grace And if not I can easily shew you that we cannot be affected and wrought upon by God's overture and offer of Grace so as to answer his end in making it nor submit to or comply with his terms of Grace without believing and consequently that the execution of God's design in restoring us to happiness and of glorifying the riches of his Grace therein depends very much upon Faith and more on that than on any other Grace or Vertue whatsoever First We cannot be affected and wrought upon with God's offer of Grace so as to give him the glory of it in thankful acceptance due acknowledgments and sutable returns in loving him that shewed such love to us without this Grace of Faith For the sense of God's Grace in offering to sinners through Christ pardon restauration to his favour and salvation at last upon condition of repentance cannot enter into the heart of man but by Faith And the reason hereof is because the offer of Grace and the things offered by Grace are matter of supernatural revelation which do not further affect than they are believed as I shall farther shew in the next particular But by believing that God of mere Grace in and by Christ hath promised pardon acceptance into favour the assistance of his Spirit and eternal life unto Sinners otherwise under condemnation upon condition of repentance and a sincere returning unto God I say by this belief we come to trust in and rely upon that Grace and on Christ as an All-sufficient Saviour for those promised benefits even in the performance of that Condition and that in opposition to all opinion of meriting them by that performance or by any thing we can do And it is by this belief and affiance that God receives from us the glory of his Grace and Christ the honour of his performance for us which answers one of the great ends designed by our recovery for which cause it may very well be one reason why this Faith rather than