any Work and Merit of man And his death and blood alone is sufficient to abolish expiate all the sins of all men All must come to Christ for pardon and Remission of Sin Salvation and every thing All our trust and hope is to be fastened on him alone Through him only and his merits God is appeas'd and propitious Loveth us and giveth us Life eternal XI The Palatinate Confession ib. pag. 149. I believe that God the Father for the most full Satisfaction of Christ doth never remember any of my sins and that pravity which I must strive against while I live but contrarily will rather of grace give me the righteousness of Christ so that I have no need to fear the judgment of God And pag. 155. If he merited and obtained Remission of all our sins by the only and bitter passion and death of the Cross so be it we embracing it by true Faith as the satisfaction for our sins apply it to our selves I find no more of this XII The Polonian Churches of Lutherans and Bohemians agreed in the Augustane and Bohemian Confession before recited XIII The Helvetian Confession To Justifie signifieth to the Apostle in the dispute of Justification To Remit sins to Absolve from the fault and punishment to Receive into favour and to Pronounce just For Christ took on himself and took away the sins of the World and satisfied Gods Justice God therefore for the sake of Christ alone suffering and raised again is propitious to our sins and imputeth them not to us but imputeth the righteousness of Christ for ours so that now we are not only cleansed and purged from sins or Holy but also endowed with the Righteousness of Christ and so absolved from sins Death and Condemnation and are righteous and heirs of life eternal Speaking properly God only justifieth us and justifieth only for Christ not imputing to us sins but imputing to us his Righteousness This Confession speaketh in terms neerest the opposed opinion But indeed saith no more than we all say Christs Righteousness being given and imputed to us as the Meritorious Cause of our pardon and right to life XIV The Basil Confession Art 9. We confess Remission of sins by Faith in Jesus Christ crucified And though this Faith work continually by Love yet Righteousness and Satisfaction for our Sins we do not attribute to works which are fruits of Faith but only to true affiance faith in the blood shed of the Lamb of God We ingenuously profess that in Christ who is our Righteousness Holiness Redemption Way Truth Wisdom Life all things are freely given us The works therefore of the faithful are done not that they may satisfie for their sins but only that by them they may declare that they are thankful to God for so great benefits given us in Christ XV. The Argentine Confession of the four Cities Cap. 3. ib. pag. 179. hath but this hereof When heretofore they delivered that a mans own proper Works are required to his Justification we teach that this is to be acknowledged wholly received of God's benevolence and Christ's Merit and perceived only by Faith C. 4. We are sure that no man can be made Righteous or saved unless he love God above all and most studiously imitate him We can no otherwise be Justified that is become both Righteous and Saved for our Righteousness is our very Salvation than if we being first indued with Faith by which believing the Gospel and perswaded that God hath adopted us as Sons and will for ever give us his fatherly benevolence we wholly depend on his beck or will XVI The Synod of Dort mentioneth only Christs death for the pardon of sin and Justification The Belgick Confession § 22. having mentioned Christ and his merits made ours § 23. addeth We believe that our blessedness consisteth in Remission of our sins for Jesus Christ and that our Righteousness before God is therein contained as David and Paul teach We are justified freely or by Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus We hold this Foundation firm and give all the Glory to God presuming nothing of our selves and our merits but we rest on the sole Obedience of a Crucified Christ which is ours when we believe in him Here you see in what sence they hold that Christs merits are ours Not to justifie us by the Law that saith Obey perfectly and Live but as the merit of our pardon which they here take for their whole Righteousness XVII The Scottish Confession Corp. Conf. pag. 125. hath but that true Believers receive in this life Remission of Sins and that by Faith alone in Christs blood So that though sin remain yet it is not Imputed to us but is remitted and covered by Christs Righteousness This is plain and past all question XVIII The French Confession is more plain § 18. ib. pag. 81. We believe that our whole Righteousness lyeth in the pardon of our sins which is also as David witnesseth our only blessedness Therefore all other reasons by which men think to be justified before God we plainly reject and all opinion of Merit being cast away we rest only in the Obedience of Christ which is Imputed to us both that all our sins may be covered and that we may get Grace before God So that Imputation of Obedience they think is but for pardon of sin and acceptance Concerning Protestants Judgment of Imputation it is further to be noted 1. That they are not agreed whether Imputation of Christ's perfect Holiness and Obedience be before or after the Imputation of his Passion in order of nature Some think that our sins are first in order of nature done away by the Imputation of his sufferings that we may be free from punishment and next that his perfection is Imputed to us to merit the Reward of life eternal But the most learned Confuters of the Papists hold that Imputation of Christs Obedience and Suffering together are in order of nature before our Remission of sin and Acceptance as the meritorious cause And these can mean it in no other sence than that which I maintain So doth Davenant de Just hab et act Pet. Molinaeus Thes Sedan Vol. 1. pag. 625. Imputatio justitiae Christi propter quam peccata remittuntur censemur justi coram Deo Maresius Thes Sedan Vol. 2. pag. 770 771. § 6 10. maketh the material cause of our Justification to be the Merits and Satisfaction of Christ yea the Merit of his Satisfaction and so maketh the formal Cause of Justification to be the Imputation of Christs Righteousness or which is the same the solemn Remission of all sins and our free Acceptance with God Note that he maketh Imputation to be the same thing with Remission and Acceptance which is more than the former said 2. Note that when they say that Imputation is the Form of Justification they mean not of Justification Passively as it is ours but Actively as it is Gods Justifying
through the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ 39. Yet the Reatus Culpae is remitted to us Relatively as to the punishment though not in it self that is It shall not procure our Damnation Even as Christ's Righteousness is though not in it self yet respectively as to the Benefits said to be made ours in as much as we shall have those benefits by it 40. Thus both the Material and the Formal Righteousness of Christ are made ours that is Both the Holy Habits and Acts and his Sufferings with the Relative formal Righteousness of his own Person because these are altogether one Meritorious cause of our Justification commonly called the Material Cause Obj. But though Forma Denominat yet if Christs Righteousness in Matter and Form be the Meritorious Cause of ours and that be the same with the Material Cause it is a very tolerable speech to say that His Righteousness is Ours in it self while it is the very matter of ours Ans 1. When any man is Righteous Immediately by any action that action is called the Matter of his Righteousness in such an Analogical sense as Action an Accident may be called Matter because the Relation of Righteous is founded or subjected first or partly in that Action And so when Christ perfectly obeyed it was the Matter of his Righteousness But to be Righteous and to Merit are not all one notion Merit is adventitious to meer Righteousness Now it is not Christs Actions in themselves that our Righteousness resulteth from immediately as his own did But there is first his Action then his formal Righteousness thereby and thirdly his Merit by that Righteousness which goes to procure the Covenant-Donation of Righteousnass to us by which Covenant we are efficiently made Righteous So that the name of a Material Cause is much more properly given to Christs Actions as to his own formal Righteousness than as to ours But yet this is but de nomine 2. Above all consider what that Righteousness is which Christ merited for us which is the heart of the Controversie It is not of the same species or sort with his own His Righteousness was a perfect sinless Innocency and Conformity to the preceptive part of the Law of Innocency in Holiness Ours is not such The dissenters think it is such by Imputation and here is the difference Ours is but in respect to the second or retributive part of the Law a Right to Impunity and Life and a Justification not at all by that Law but from its curse or condemnation The Law that saith Obey perfectly and live sin and die doth not justifie us as persons that have perfectly obeyed it really or imputatively But its obligation to punishment is dissolved not by it self but by the Law of Grace It is then by the Law of Grace that we are judged and justified According to it 1. We are not really or reputatively such as have perfectly fulfilled all its Precepts 2. But we are such as by Grace do sincerely perform the Condition of its promise 3. By which promise of Gift we are such as have right to Christs own person in the Relation and Union of a Head and Saviour and with him the pardon of all our sins and the right of Adoption to the Spirit and the Heavenly Inheritance as purchased by Christ So that besides our Inherent or Adherent Righteousness of sincere Faith Repentance and Obedience as the performed condition of the Law of Grace we have no other Righteousness our selves but Right to Impunity and to Life and not any imputed sinless Innocency at all God pardoneth our sins and adopteth us for the sake of Christ's sufferings and perfect Holiness But he doth not account us perfectly Holy for it nor perfectly Obedient So that how-ever you will call it whether a Material Cause or a Meritorious the thing is plain Obj. He is made of God Righteousness to us Ans True But that 's none of the question But how is he so made 1. As he is made Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption as aforesaid 2. By Merit Satisfaction Direction Prescription and Donation He is the Meritorious Cause of our Pardon of our Adoption of our Right to Heaven of that new Covenant which is the Instrumental Deed of Gift confirming all these And he is also our Righteousness in the sense that Austin so much standeth on as all our Holiness and Righteousness of Heart and Life is not of our natural endeavour but his gift and operation by his Spirit causing us to obey his Holy precepts and Example All these ways he is made of God our Righteousness Besides the Objective way of sense as he is Objectively made our Wisdom because it is the truest wisdom to know him So he is objectively made our Righteousness in that it is that Gospel-Righteousness which is required of our selves by his grace to believe in him and obey him 41. Though Christ fulfilled not the Law by Habitual Holiness and Actual Obedience strictly in the Individual person of each particular sinner yet he did it in the nature of Man And so humane nature considered in specie and in Christ personally though not considered as a totum or as personally in each man did satisfie and fullfil the Law and Merit As Humane Nature sinned in Adam actually in specie and in his individual person and all our Persons were seminally and virtually in him and accordingly sinned or are reputed sinners as having no nature but what he conveyed who could convey no better than he had either as to Relation or Real quality But not that God reputed us to have been actually existent as really distinct persons in Adam which is not true Even so Christ obeyed and suffered in our Nature and in our nature as it was in him and humane sinful nature in specie was Universally pardoned by him and Eternal life freely given to all men for his merits thus far imputed to them their sins being not imputed to hinder this Gift which is made in and by the Covenant of Grace Only the Gift hath the Condition of mans Acceptance of it according to its nature 2 Cor. 5.19 20. And all the individuals that shall in time by Faith accept the Gift are there and thereby made such as the Covenant for his merits doth justifie by that General Gift 42. As Adam was a Head by Nature and therefore conveyed Guilt by natural Generation so Christ is a Head not by nature but by Sacred Contract and therefore conveyeth Right to Pardon Adoption and Salvation not by Generation but by Contract or Donation So that what it was to be naturally in Adam seminally and virtually though not personlly in existence even that it is in order to our benefit by him to be in Christ by Contract or the new Covenant virtually though not in personal existence when the Covenant was made 43. They therefore that look upon Justification or Righteousness as coming to us immediately by Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us without the
Righteousness consisting in 1. perfect Innocency 2. And that in the Works of the Jewish Law which bind us not 3. And in doing his peculiar Works as Miracles Resurrection c. which were all His Righteousness as a conformity to that Law and performance of that Covenant which was made with and to him as Mediator But his Righteousness is the Meritorious Cause and Reason of another Righteousness or Justification distinct from his freely given us by the Father and himself by his Covenant So that here indeed the Similitude much cleareth the Matter And they that will not blaspheme Christ by making guilt of sin it self in its formal Relation to be his own and so Christ to be formally as great a sinner as all the Redeemed set together and they that will not overthrow the Gospel by making us formally as Righteous as Christ in kind and measure must needs be agreed with us in this part of the Controversie Object 9. When you infer That if we are reckoned to have perfectly obeyed in and by Christ we cannot be again bound to obey our selves afterward nor be guilty of any sin you must know that it 's true That we cannot be bound to obey to the same ends as Christ did which is to redeem us or to fulfil the Law of Works But yet we must obey to other ends viz. Ingratitude and to live to God and to do good and other such like Answ 1. This is very true That we are not bound to obey to all the same ends that Christ did as to redeem the World nor to fulfil the Law of Innocency But hence it clearly followeth that Christ obeyed not in each of our Persons legally but in the Person of a Mediator seeing his due Obedience and ours have so different Ends and a different formal Relation his being a conformity proximately to the Law given him as Mediator that they are not so much as of the same species much less numerically the same 2. And this fully proveth that we are not reckoned to have perfectly obeyed in and by him For else we could not be yet obliged to obey though to other ends than he was For either this Obedience of Gratitude is a Duty or not If not it is not truly Obedience nor the omission sin If yea then that Duty was made a Duty by some Law And if by a Law we are now bound to obey in gratitude or for what ends soever either we do all that we are so bound to do or not If we do it or any of it then to say that we did it twice once by Christ and once by our selves is to say that we were bound to do it twice and then Christ did not all that we were bound to but half But what Man is he that sinneth not Therefore seeing it is certain that no Man doth all that he is bound to do by the Gospel in the time and measure of his Faith Hope Love Fruitfulness c. it followeth that he is a sinner and that he is not supposed to have done all that by Christ which he failed in both because he was bound to do it himself and because he is a sinner for not doing it 3. Yea the Gospel binds us to that which Christ could not do for us it being a Contradiction Our great Duties are 1. To believe in a Saviour 2. To improve all the parts of his Mediation by a Life of Faith 3. To repent of our sins 4. To mortifie sinful Lusts in our selves 5. To fight by the Spirit against our flesh 6. To confess our selves sinners 7. To pray for pardon 8. To pray for that Grace which we culpably want 9. To love God for redeeming us 10. Sacramentally to covenant with Christ and to receive him and his Gifts with many such like which Christ was not capable of doing in and on his own Person for us though as Mediator he give us Grace to do them and pray for the pardon of our sins as in our selves 4. But the Truth which this Objection intimateth we all agree in viz. That the Mediator perfectly kept the Law of Innocency that the keeping of that Law might not be necessary to our Salvation and so such Righteousness necessary in our selves but that we might be pardoned for want of perfect Innocency and be saved upon our sincere keeping of the Law of Grace because the Law of Innocency was kept by our Mediator and thereby the Grace of the New-Covenant merited and by it Christ Pardon Spirit and Life by him freely given to Believers Object 10. The same Person may be really a sinner in himself and yet perfectly innocent in Christ and by imputation Answ Remember that you suppose here the Person and Subject to be the same Man And then that the two contrary Relations of perfect Innocency or guiltlesness and guilt of any yea much sin can be consistent in him is a gross contradiction Indeed he may be guilty and not guilty in several partial respects but a perfection of guiltlesness excludeth all guilt But we are guilty of many a sin after Conversion and need a Pardon All that you should say is this We are sinners our selves but we have a Mediator that sinned not who merited Pardon and Heaven for sinners 2. But if you mean that God reputeth us to be perfectly innocent when we are not because that Christ was so it is to impute Error to God He reputeth no Man to be otherwise than he is But he doth indeed first give and then impute a Righteousness Evangelical to us instead of perfect Innocency which shall as certainly bring us to Glory and that is He giveth us both the Renovation of his Spirit to Evangelical Obedience and a Right by free gift to Pardon and Glory for the Righteousness of Christ that merited it And this thus given us he reputeth to be an acceptable Righteousness in us CHAP. VI. Animadversions on some of Dr. T. Tullies Strictures § 1. I Suppose the Reader desireth not to be wearied with an examination of all Dr. Tullies words which are defective in point of Truth Justice Charity Ingenuity or Pertinency to the Matter but to see an answer to those that by appearance of pertinent truth do require it to disabuse the incautelous Readers Though somewhat by the way may be briefly said for my own Vindication And this Tractate being conciliatory I think meet here to leave out most of the words and personal part of his contendings and also to leave that which concerneth the interest of Works as they are pleased to call Man's performance of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace in our Justification to a fitter place viz. To annex what I think needful to my friendly Conference with Mr. Christopher Cartwright on the Subject which Dr. Tullies Assault perswadeth me to publish § 2. pag. 71. Justif Paulin. This Learned Doctor saith The Scripture mentioneth no Justification in foro Dei at all but that One which is Absolution from
liberal Dictates The Reformed Divines are all I think before you agreed about the nature of Justification its Causes c. and consequently cannot differ about the Definition Answ 1. But what if all Divines were so agreed So are not all honest Men and Women that must have Communion with us Therefore make not Definitions more necessary than they are nor as necessary as the Thing 2. You must be constrained for the defending of these words to come off by saying that you meant That though they agree not in the Words or Logical terms of the Definition but one saith This is the Genus and this is the Differentia and another that it is not this but that one saith this and another that is the Formal or Material Cause c. yet de re they mean the same thing were they so happy as to agree in their Logical defining terms and notions And if you will do in this as you have done in your other Quarrels come off by saying as I say and shewing Men the power of Truth though you do it with never so much anger that you must agree I shall be satisfied that the Reader is delivered from your snare and that Truth prevaileth what ever you think or say of me 3. But because I must now answer what you say and not what I foresee you will or must say I must add that this passage seemeth to suppose that your Reader liveth in the dark and hath read very little of Justification 1. Do all those great Divines who deny the Imputation of Christs active Righteousness and take it to be but Justitia Personae non Meriti and that we are Justified by the Passive only agree with their Adversaries who have written against them about the Definition and Causes of Justification Will any Man believe you who hath read Olevian Vrsine Paraeus Scultetus Piscator Carolus Molinaeus Wendeline Beckman Alstedius Camero with his followers in France Forbes with abundance more who are for the Imputation of the Passive Righteousness only Were Mr. Anth. Wotton and Mr. Balmford and his other Adversaries of the same Opinion in this Was Mr. Bradshaw so sottish as to write his Reconciling Treatise of Justification in Latine and English to reduce Men of differing minds to Concord while he knew that there was no difference so much as in the Definition Was he mistaken in reciting the great differences about their Senses of Imputation of Christs Righteousness if there were none at all Did Mr. Gataker agree with Lucius and Piscator when he wrote against both as the extreams Did Mr. Wotton and John Goodwin agree with Mr. G. Walker and Mr. Roborough Doth Mr. Lawson in his Theopolitica agree with you and such others Doth not Mr. Cartwright here differ from those that hold the Imputation of the Active Righteousness What abundance of Protestants do place Justification only in Fogiveness of Sins And yet as many I know not which is the greater side do make that Forgiveness but one part and Imputation of Righteousness another And how many make Forgiveness no part of Justification but a Concomitant And many instead of Imputation of Righteousness put Accepting us as Righteous for the sake or merit of Christs Righteousness imputed viz. as the Meritorious Cause And Paraeus tells us that they are of four Opinions who are for Christs Righteousness imputed some for the Passive only some for the Passive and Active some for the Passive Active and Habitual some for these three and the Divine And who knoweth not that some here so distinguish Causes and Effects as that our Original Sin or Habitual say some is pardoned for Christs Original and Habitual Holiness Our Omissions for Christs Active Obedience and our Commissions for His Passive Or as more say that Christs Passive Righteousness as Satisfaction saveth us from Hell or Punishment and His Active as meritorious procureth Life as the reward When many others rejecting that Division say That both freedom from Punishment and right to Glory are the conjunct effects of His Habitual Active and Passive Righteousness as an entire Cause in its kind as Guil. Forbes Grotius Bradshaw and others truly say Besides that many conclude with Gataker that these are indeed but one thing and effect to be Glorified and not to be Damned or Punished seeing not to be Glorified is the Paena damni and that the remitting of the whole Penalty damni sensus and so of all Sin of Omission and Commission is our whole Justification And I need not tell any Man that hath read such Writers that they ordinarily distinguish of Justification and give not the same Definition of one sort as of another nor of the Name in one Sense as in another Many confess whom you may read in Guil. Forbes and Vinc. le Blanck that the word Justifie is divers times taken in Scripture as the Papists do as including Sanctification And so saith Beza against Illyricus pag. 218. as cited by G. Forbes Si Justificationem generaliter accipias ut interdum usurpatur ab Apostolo Sanctificatio non erit ejus effectus sed pars aut species And as I find him mihi pag. 179. Quamvis Justificationis nomen interdum generaliter accipiatur pro omni illius Justitiae dono quam a patre in Christo accipimus c. And how little are we agreed whether Reconciliation be a part of Justification or not Yea or Adoption either Saith Illyricus Hoc affirmo recte posse dici Justificationem esse Causam omnium beneficiorum sequentium Nam justificatio est plena Reconciliatio cum Deo quae nos facit ex hostibus filios Dei To which Beza ibid. saith distinguishing of Reconciliation Neutro modo idem est Reconciliatio ac Justificatio Si Remissio peccatorum est Justificationis Definitio quod negare non ausis c. Of the three sorts or parts of Christs Righteousness imputed to make up three parts of our Justification see him de Predest pag. 405. Col. 2. which Perkins and some others also follow Olevian as all others that grosly mistake not herein did hold that God did not judg us to have fulfilled all the Law in Christ and that our righteousness consisteth only in the Remission of Sin and right to Life as freely given us for anothers Merits But Beza insisteth still on the contrary and in his Epistle to Olevian pag. 248. Epist 35. saith Quid vanius est quam Justum arbitrari qui Legem non impleverit Atqui lex non tantum prohibet fieri quod vetat verum praecipit quod jubet Ergo qui pro non peccatore censetur in Christo mortem quidem effugerit sed quo jure vitam praeterea petet nisi omnem justitiam Legis in eodem Christo impleverit This is the Doctrine which Wotton and Gataker in divers Books largely and Bradshaw after many others do Confute Yet saith he Nâ—que vero id obstat quominus nostra Justificatio Remissione peccatorum apte recte
definiatur Which is a contradiction Yet was he for Love and Gentleness in these differences ibid. Yet Qu. Resp Christ pag. 670. He leaveth out Christs Original Habitual Righteousness Non illa essentialis quae Deitatis est nec illa Habitualis ut ita loquar Puritas Carnis Christi Quae quum non distingueret Osiander faedissime est hallucinatus And ibid. 670. he giveth us this description of Justification Qu. Quid Justificationem vocat Paulus hoc loco R. Illud quo Justi fimus id est eousque perfecti integri 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut plenissime non tantum aboleatur quicquid in nobis totis in est turpitudinis qua Deus summe purus offendi ullo modo possit verum etiam in nos comperiatur quicquid in haâ— humana naturae usque adeo potest eum delectare ut illud vita aeterna pro bona sua voluntate coronet Yet as in his Annot. in Rom. 8.30 alibi he confesseth that Justification in Scripture sometime is taken for Sanctification or as including it so he taketh our Sanctification to contain the Imputation of Christs Sanctity to us Qu. Resp pag. 671. 1. Dico nostras Personas imputata ipsius perfecta sanctitate integritate plene sanctas integras ac proinde Patri acceptas non in nobis sed in Christo censemur 2. And next the Spirits Sanctification and thus Christ is made Sanctification to us Dr. Twisse and Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. distinguish of Justification as an Immanent Act in God from Eternity and as it is the notice of the former in our Consciences But doubtless the commonest Definitions of Justification agree with neither of these And Pemble of Justification otherwise defineth it as Mr. Jessop saith Dr. Twisse did Lud. Crocius Syntag. pag. 1219. thus defineth it Justificatio Evangelica est actus Divinae gratiae qua Deus adoptat peccatorem per approbationem obedientiae Legis in sponsore atque intercessore Christo per Remissionem peccatorum ac Justitiae imputationem in eo qui per fidem Christo est insitus And saith pag. 1223. Fides sola justificat quatenus notat Obedientiam quandam expectantem promissionem ut donum gratuitum apponitur illi Obedientiae quae non expectat promissionem ut donum omnino gratuitum sed ut mercedem propositam sub Conditione operis alicuâ—us praeter acceptationem gratitudinem debitam quae sua Natura in omni donatione quamvis gratuita requiri solet Et ejusmodi Obedientia peculiariter opus ab Apostolo Latinis proprie Meritum dicitur qui sub hac conditione obediunt Operantes vocantur Rom. 4.4 11.6 This is the truth which I assert Conrad Bergius Prax. Cathol dis 7. pag. 983. tells us that the Breme Catâ—chism thus openeth the Matter Qu. Quomodo Justificatur Homo coram Deo R. Accipit Homo Remissionem peccatorum Justificatur hoc est Gratus fit coram Deo in vera Conversione persolam fidem per Christum sine proprio Merito dignitate Cocceius disp de via salut de Just pag. 189. Originalis Christi Justitia correspondet nostro Originali peccato c. vid. coet plura vid. de foeder Macovius Colleg. de Justif distinguisheth Justification into Active and Passive and saith Justificatio Activa significat absoluâ—ionem Dei que Hominem reum a reatu absolvit And he would prove this to be before Faith and citeth for it abusively Paraeus and Tessanus and thinketh that we were absolved from Guilt from Christs undertaking our Debt Thes 12. thus arguing Cujus debita apud Creditorem aliquis recepit exsolvenda Creditor istius sponsionem ita acceptat ut in ea acquiescat ille jam ex parte Creditoris liber est a debitis Atque Electorum omnium in singulari debita apud Deum Patrem Christus ex quo factus est Mediator recepit exolvenda Deus Pater illam sponsionem acceptavit c. Passive Justification which he supposeth to be our application of Christs Righteousness to our daily as oft as we offend Th. 5. And part 4. disp 22. he maintaineth that There are no Dispositions to Regeneration Others of his mind I pass by Spanhemius Disput de Justif saith that The Form of Passive Justification consisteth in the apprehension and sense of Remission of Sin and Imputation of Christs Righteousness in capable Subjects grosly Whereas Active Justification Justificantis ever immediately causeth Passive Justificationem justificati which is nothing but the effect of the Active or as most call it Actio ut in patiente And if this were the Apprehension and Sense as aforesaid of Pardon and imputed Righteousness then a Man in his sleep were unjustified and so of Infants c. For he that is not Passively justified is not at all justified I told you else-where that the Synops Leidens de Justif pag. 413. Th. 23. saith That Christs Righteousness is both the Meritorious Material and Formal Cause of our Justification What Fayus and Davenant and others say of the Formal Cause viz. Christs Righteousness imputed I there shewed And how Paraeus Joh. Crocius and many others deny Christs Righteousness to be the Formal Cause Wendeline defineth Justification thus Theol. Lib. 1. c. 25. p. 603. Justificatio est actio Dei gratuita qua peccatores Electi maledictioni legis obnoxii propter justitiam seu satisfactionem Christi fide applicatam a Deo imputatam coram tribunali Divino remssis peccatis a maledictione Legis absolvuntur justi censentur And pag. 615 616. He maintaineth that Obedientia activa si proprie accurate loquamur non est materia nostrae Justificationis nec imputatur nobis ita ut nostra censeatur nobis propter eam peccata remittantur debitum legis pro nobis solvatur quemadmodum Passiva per imputationem censetur nostra c. Et post Si dicus Christum factum esse hominem pro nobis hoc est nostro bono conceditur Si pro nobis hoc est nostro loco negatur Quod enim Christus nostro loco fecit factus est id nos non tenemur facere fieri c. Rob. Abbot approveth of Thompsons Definition of Evangelical Justification pag. 153. that it is Qua poenitenti Credenti remittuntur peccata jus vitae aeternae conceditur per propter Christi obedientiam illi imputatam Which is sound taking Imputatam soundly as he doth Joh. Crâ—cius Disp 1. p. 5. thus defineth it Actio Dei qua ex gratia propter satisfactionem Christi peccatoribus in Christum totius Mundi redemptorem unicum vere credentibus gratis sine operibus aut meritis propriis omnia peccata remittit justitiam Christi imputat ad sui nominis gloriam illorum salutem aeternam And he maketh only Christs full satisfaction for Sin to be the Impulsive-External Meritorious and Material Cause as being that which is imputed to us and the Form
of Justification to be the Remission of Sin Original and Actual or the Imputation of Christs Righteousness which he maketh to be all one or the Imputation of Faith for Righteousness Saith Bishop Downame of Justif p. 305. To be Formally Righteous by Christs Righteousness imputed never any of us for ought I know affirmed The like saith Dr. Prideâ—aux when yet very many Protestants affirm it Should I here set together forty or sixty Definitions of Protestants verbatim and shew you how much they differ it would be unpleasant and tedious and unnecessary And as to those same Divines that Dr. Tully nameth as agreed Dr. Davenants and Dr. Fields words I have cited at large in my Confes saying the same in substance as I do as also Mr. Scudders and an hundred more as is before said And let any sober Reader decide this Controversie between us upon these two further Considerations 1. Peruse all the Corpus Confessionum and see whether all the Reformed Churches give us a Definition of Justification and agree in that Definition Yea whether the Church of England in its Catechism or its Articles have any proper Definition Or if you will call their words a Definition I am sure it 's none but what I do consent to And if a Logical Definition were by the Church of England and other Churches held necessary to Salvation it would be in their Catechisms if not in the Creed Or if it were held necessary to Church-Concord and Peace and Love it would be in their Articles of Religion which they subscribe 2. How can all Protestants agree of the Logical Definition of Justification when 1. They agree not of the sense of the word Justifie and of the species of that Justification which Paul and James speak of Some make Justification to include Pardon and Sanctification see their words in G. Forbes and Le Blank many say otherwise Most say that Paul speaketh most usually of Justification in sensu forensi but whether it include Making just as some say or only Judging just as others or Nolle punire be the act as Dr. Twisse they agree not And some hold that in James Justification is that which is eoram hominibus when said to be by Works but others truly say it is thay coram Deo 2. They are not agreed in their very Logical Rules and Notions to which their Definitions are reduced no not so much as of the number and nature of Causes nor of Definitions as is aforesaid And as I will not undertake to prove that all the Apostles Evangelists and Primitive Pastours knew how to define Efficient Material Formal and Final Causes in general so I am sure that all good Christians do not 3. And when Justification is defined by Divines is either the Actus Justificantis and this being in the predicament of Action what wonder if they disagree about the Material and Formal Causes of it Nay it being an Act of God there are few Divines that tell us what that Act is Deus operatur per essentiam And Ex parte agentis his Acts are his Essence and all but one And who will thus dispute of the Definition and Causes of them Efficient Material Formal Final when I presumed to declare that this Act of Justifying is not an immanent Act in God nor without a Medium but Gods Act by the Instrumentality of his Gospel-Covenant or Promise many read it as a new thing and if that hold true that the First Justification by Faith is that which Gods Gospel-Donation is the Instrument of as the Titulus seu Fundamentum Juris being but a Virtual and not an Actual Sentence then the Definition of it as to the Causes must differ much from the most common Definitions But most Protestants say that Justification is Sententia Judicis And no doubt but there are three several sorts or Acts called Justification 1. Constitutive by the Donative Covenant 2. Sentential 3. Executive And here they are greatly at a loss for the decision of the Case what Act of God this Sententia Jucis is What it will be after death we do not much disagree But what it is immediately upon our believing It must be an Act as in patiente or the Divine essence denominated from such an effect And what Judgment and Sentence God hath upon our believing few open and fewer agreee Mr. Tombes saith it is a Sentence in Heaven notifying it to the Angels But that is not all or the chief some run back to an Immanent Act most leave it undetermined And sure the Name of Sentence in general signifieth no true Conception of it at all in him that knoweth not what that Sentence is seeing Universals are Nothing out of us but as they exist in individuals Mr. Lawson hath said that wihch would reconcile Protestants and some Papists as to the Name viz. that Gods Execution is his Sentence He Judgeth by Executing And so as the chief punishment is the Privation of the Spirit so the Justifying Act is the executive donation of the Spirit Thus are we disagreed about Active Justification which I have oft endeavoured Conciliatorily fullier to open And as to Passive Justification or as it is Status Justificati which is indeed that which it concerneth us in this Controversie to open I have told you how grosly some describe it here before And all agree not what Predicament it is in some take it to be in that of Action ut recipitur in passo and some in that of Quality and Relation Conjunct But most place it in Relation And will you wonder if all Christian Women yea or Divines cannot define that Relation aright And if they agree not in the notions of the Efficient Material Formal and Final Causes of that which must be defined as it is capable by its subjectum fundamentum and terminus I would not wish that the Salvation of any Friend of mine or any one should be laid on the true Logical Definition of Justification Active or Passive Constitutive Sentential or Executive And now the Judicious will see whether the Church and Souls of Men be well used by this pretence that all Protestants are agreed in the Nature Causes and Definition of Justification and that to depart from that one Definition where is it is so dangerous as the Doctor pretendeth because the Definition and the Definitum are the same § XX. P. 34. You say You tremble not in the audience of God and Man to suggest again that hard-fronted Calumny viz. that I prefer a Majority of Ignorants before a Learned man in his own profession Answ I laid it down as a Rule that They are not to be preferred You assault that Rule with bitter accusations as if it were unsound or else to this day I understand you not Is it then a hard-fronted Calumny to defend it and to tell you what is contained in the denying of it The audience of God must be so dreadful to you and me that without calling you to
about the Imputation of Adam's Sin Dr. Gell Mr. Thorndike c. vehemently accusing the doctrine of Imputed Righteousness The Consent of all Christians especially Protestants about the sense of Imputed Righteousness 1. The form of Baptism 2. The Apostles Creed 3. The Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creed 4. Athanasius's Creed 5. The Fathers sense Laurentius his Collections Damasus his Creed 6. The Augustan Confession 7. The English Articles Homilies and Confession 8. The Saxon Confession 9. The Wittenberg Confession 10. The Bohemian Confession 11. The Palatinate Confession 12. The Polonian Confessions 13. The Helvetian Confession 14. The Basil Confession 15. The Argentine Confession of the four Cities 16. The Synod of Dort and the Belgick Confession 17. The Scottish Confession 18. The French Confession Whether Imputation of Passion and Satisfaction or of meritorious Perfection go first How Christ's Righteousness is called the formal Cause c. That it is confessed that Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us as our sin was to him Molinaeus Maresius Vasseur Bellarmine is constrained to agree with us A recommendation of some brief most clear and sufficient Treatises on this subject viz. 1. Mr. Bradshaw 2. Mr. Gibbon's Sermon 3. Mr. Truman's Great Propitiation 4. Placeus his Disput in Thes Salmur 5. Le Blank 's Theses And those that will read larger Mr. Watton John Goodwin and Dr. Stillingfleet Chap. 2. The opening of the Case by some Distinctions and many Propositions Joh. Crocius Concessions premised Mr. Lawson's Judgment Chap. 3. A further Explication of the Controversie Chap. 4. My Reasons against the denied sense of Imputation and personating The denied sense repeated plainly Forty three Reasons briefly named Chap. 5. Some Objections answered Chap. 6 7 8. Replies to Dr. Tully and a Defence of the Concord of Protestants against his Military Alarm and false pretence of greater discord than there is Of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness Material or Formal to Believers Whether we are Reputed personally to have suffered on the Cross and to have satisfied God's Justice for our own sins and to have been habitually perfectly Holy and Actually perfectly Obedient in Christ or by Christ and so to have merited our own Justification and Salvation And whether Christ's Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive be strictly made our own Righteousness in the very thing it self simply Imputed to us or only be made ours in the effects and Righteousness Imputed to us when we believe because Christ hath satisfied and fulfilled the Law and thereby merited it for us The last is affirmed and the two first Questions denied I Have said so much of this subject already in my Confession but especially in my Disputations of Justification and in my Life of Faith that I thought not to have meddled with it any more But some occasions tell me that it is not yet needless though those that have most need will not read it But while some of them hold that nothing which they account a Truth about the Form and Manner of Worship is to be silenced for the Churches peace they should grant to me that Real Truth so near the Foundation in their own account is not to be silenced when it tendeth unto Peace In opening my thoughts on this subject I shall reduce all to these Heads 1. I shall give the brief History of this Controversie 2. I shall open the true state of it and assert what is to be asserted and deny what is to be denied 3. I shall give you the Reasons of my Denials 4. I shall answer some Objections CHAP. I. The History of the Controversie § 1. IN the Gospel it self we have first Christ's Doctrine delivered by his own mouth And in that there is so little said of this Subject that I find few that will pretend thence to resolve the Controversie for Imputation in the rigorous sence The same I say of the Acts of the Apostles and all the rest of the New Testament except Pauls Epistles The Apostle Paul having to do with the Jews who could not digest the equalizing of the Gentiles with them and specially with the factious Jewish Christians who thought the Gentiles must become Proselytes to Moses as well as to Christ if they would be Justified and Saved at large confuteth this opinion and freeth the Consciences of the Gentile Christians from the Imposition of this yoke as also did all the Apostles Act. 15. And in his arguing proveth that the Mosaical Law is so far from being necessary to the Justification of the Gentiles that Abraham and the Godly Jews themselves were not Justified by it but by Faith And that by the works of it and consequently not by the works of the Law or Covenant of Innocency which no man ever kept no man could ever be justified And therefore that they were to look for Justification by Christ alone and by Faith in him or by meer Christianity which the Gentiles might have as well as the Jews the Partition-wall being taken down This briefly is the true scope of Paul in these Controversies § 2. But in Paul's own days there were somethings in his Epistles which the unlearned and unstable did wrest as they did the other Scriptures to their own destruction as Peter tells us 2 Pet. 2. And it seemeth by the Epistle of James that this was part of it For he is fain there earnestly to dispute against some who thought that Faith without Christian works themselves would justifie and flatly affirmeth that we are Justified by Works and not by Faith only that is as it is a Practical Faith in which is contained a Consent or Covenant to obey which first putteth us into a justified state so it is that Practical Faith actually working by Love and the actual performance of our Covenant which by way of Condition is necessary to our Justification as Continued and as Consummate by the Sentence of Judgment Against which sentence of James there is not a syllable to be found in Paul But all the Scripture agreeth that all men shall be Judged that is Justified or Condemned according to their works But it is not this Controversie between Faith and Works which I am now to speak to having done it enough heretofore § 3. From the days of the Apostles till Pelagius and Augustine this Controversie was little meddled with For the truth is the Pastors and Doctors took not Christianity in those days for a matter of Shcolastick subtilty but of plain Faith and Piety And contented themselves to say that Christ dyed for our sins and that we are Justified by Faith and that Christ was made unto us Righteousness as he was made to us Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption § 4. But withal those three first Ages were so intent upon Holiness of Life as that they addicted their Doctrine their Zeal and their constant endeavours to it And particularly to great austerities to their Bodies in great Fastings and great contemp◠of the World and exercises of Mortification to kill their fleshly
might not be necessary to our Justification and this in the person of a Mediator and Sponsor for us sinners but not so in our Persons as that we truely in a moral or civil sence did all this in and by him Even so God reputeth the thing to be as it is and so far Imputeth Christ's Righteousness and Merits and Satisfaction to us as that it is Reputed by him the true Meritorious Cause of our Justification and that for it God maketh a Covenant of Grace in which he freely giveth Christ Pardon and Life to all that accept the Gift as it is so that the Accepters are by this Covenant or Gift as surely justified and saved by Christ's Righteousness as if they had Obeyed and Satisfied themselves Not that Christ meriteth that we shall have Grace to fulfil the Law our selves and stand before God in a Righteousness of our own which will answer the Law of works and justifie us But that the Conditions of the Gift in the Covenant of Grace being performed by every penitent Believer that Covenant doth pardon all their sins as Gods Instrument and giveth them a Right to Life eternal for Christs Merits This is the sence of Imputation which I and others asserted as the true healing middle way And as bad as they are among the most Learned Papists Cornelius a Lapide is cited by Mr. Wotton Vasquez by Davenant Suarez by Mr. Burges as speaking for some such Imputation and Merit Grotius de Satisf is clear for it But the Brethren called Congregational or Independant in their Meeting at the Savoy Oct. 12. 1658. publishing a Declaration of their Faith Cap. 11. have these words Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth not by infusing Righteousness into them but by pardoning their Sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as Righteous not for any thing wrought in them or done by them but for Christs sake alone not by imputing Faith it self the act of believing or any other evangelical Obedience to them as their Righteousness but by Imputing Christs Active Obedience to the whole Law and Passive Obedience in his death for their whole and sole Righteousness they receiving and resting on him and his Righteousness by Faith Upon the publication of this it was variously spoken of some thought that it gave the Papists so great a scandal and advantage to reproach the Protestants as denying all inherent Righteousness that it was necessary that we should disclaim it Others said that it was not their meaning to deny Inherent Righteousness though their words so spake but only that we are not justified by it Many said that it was not the work of all of that party but of some few that had an inclination to some of the Antinomian principles out of a mistaken zeal of free Grace and that it is well known that they differ from us and therefore it cannot be imputed to us and that it is best make no stir about it lest it irritate them to make the matter worse by a Defence give the Papists too soon notice of it And I spake with one Godly Minister that was of their Assembly who told me that they did not subscribe it and that they meant but to deny Justification by inherent Righteousness And though such men in the Articles of their declared Faith no doubt can speak intelligibly and aptly and are to be understood as they speak according to the common use of the words yet even able-men sometimes may be in this excepted when eager engagement in an opinion and parties carryeth them too precipitantly and maketh them forget something that should be remembred The Sentences here which we excepted against are these two But the first was not much offensive because their meaning was right And the same words are in the Assemblies Confession though they might better have been left out Scriptures Declaration Rom. 4.3 What saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness Ver. 5. To him that worketh not but believeth on him that Justifyeth the Vngodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness Ver. 9. For we say that Faith was reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness How was it then reckoned Ver. 11. And he received the sign of Circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the Faith which he had yet being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of all them that believe that Righteousness might be imputed to them also Ver. 13. Through the Righteousness of Faith Ver. 16. Therefore it is of Faith that it might be by Grace vid. Ver. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24. He was strong in Faith fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform and therefore it was Imputed to him for Righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we or who believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Gen. 15.5 6. Tell the Stars so shall thy seed be And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for Righteousness Jam. 2.21 22 23 24. Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness Luk. 19.17 Well done thou good Servant Because thou hast been Faithful in a very little have thou authority over ten Cities Mat. 25.34 35 40 Come ye blessed For I was hungry and ye gave me Meat Gen. 22.16 17 By my self I have sworn Because thou hast done this thing Joh. 16.27 For the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God Many such passages are in Scripture Our opinion is 1. That it is better to justifie and expound the Scripture than flatly to deny it If Scripture so oft say that Faith is reckoned or Imputed for Righteousness it becometh not Christians to say It is not But to shew in what sence it is and in what it is not For if it be so Imputed in no sence the Scripture is made false If in any sence it should not be universally denied but with distinction 2. We hold that in Justification there is considerable 1. The Purchasing and Meritorious Cause of Justification freely given in the new Covenant This is only Christ's Sufferings and Righteousness and so it is Reputed of God and Imputed to us 2. The Order of Donation which is On Condion of Acceptance And so 3. The Condition of our Title to the free Gift by this Covenant And that is Our Faith or Acceptance of the Gift according to its nature and use And thus God Reputeth Faith and Imputeth it to us requiring but this Condition of us which also he worketh in us by the Covenant of Grace whereas perfect Obedience was required of us by the Law of Innocency If we err in this explication it had been better to confute us than deny
God's Word Scriptures besides the former Declaration 1 Joh. 2.29 Every one which doth Righteousness is born of God 3.7 10. He that doth Righteousness is Righteous even as he is Righteous Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God 2 Tim. 4.8 He hath laid up for us a Crown of Righteousness Heb. 11.23 Through Faith they wrought Righteousness Heb. 12. The peaceable fruit of Righteousness Jam. 3.18 The fruit of Righteousness is sown in Peace 1 Pet. 2.24 That we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness Mat 5.20 Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees c. Luk. 1.71 In Holiness and Righteousness before him all the days of our Life Act. 10.35 He that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Rom. 6.13 16 18 19 20. Whether of sin unto death or of Obedience unto Righteousness 1 Cor. 15.34 Awake to Righteousness and sin not Eph. 5.9 The fruit of the Spirit is in all Goodness and Righteousness Dan. 12.3 They shall turn many to Righteousness Dan. 4.27 Break off thy sins by Righteousness Eph. 4.24 The new-man which after God is created in Righteousness Gen. 7.1 Thee have I seen Righteous before me Gen. 18.23 24 25 26. Far be it from thee to destroy the Righteous with the Wicked Prov. 24.24 He that saith to the Wicked thou art Righteous him shall the people Curse Nations shall abhor him Isa 3.10 Say to the Righteous it shall be well with him Isa 5.23 That take away the Righteousness from the Righteous Mat. 25.37 46. Then shall the Righteous answer The Righteous into life eternal Luk. 1.6 They were both Righteous before God Heb. 11.4 7. By Faith Abel offered to God a more excellent Sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his Gifts By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark by which he became heir of the Righteousness by Faith 1 Pet. 4.18 If the Righteous be scarcely saved Math. 10.41 He that receiveth a Righteous man in the name of a Righteous man shall have a Righteous mans reward 1 Tim. 1.9 The Law is not made for a Righteous man but for Many score of texts more mention a Righteousness distinct from that of Christ imputed to us Judg now Whether he that believeth God should believe that he Imputeth Christs Obedience and Suffering to us for our Sole Righteousness That which is not our sole Righteousness is not so Reputed by God nor Imputed But Christs Obedience and Suffering is not our sole Righteousness See Davenant's many arguments to prove that we have an Inherent Righteousness Obj. But they mean our Sole Righteousness by which we are Justified Answ 1. We can tell no mans meaning but by his words especially not contrary to them especially in an accurate Declaration of Faith 2. Suppose it had been so said we maintain on the contrary 1. That we are Justified by more sorts of Righteousness than one in several respects We are justified only by Christs Righteousness as the Purchasing and Meritorious Cause of our Justification freely given by that new Covenant We are Justified by the Righteousness of God the Father as performing his Covenant with Christ and us efficiently We are justified efficiently by the Righteousness of Christ as our Judg passing a just sentence according to his Covenant These last are neither Ours nor Imputed to us But we are justified also against the Accusation of being finally Impenitent Unbelievers or unholy by the personal particular Righteousness of our own Repentance Faith and Holiness For 2. We say that there is an universal Justification or Righteousness and there is a particular one And this particular one may be the Condition and Evidence of our Title to all the rest And this is our case The Day of Judgment is not to try and Judg Christ or his Merits but us He will judg us himself by his new Law or Covenant the sum of which is Except ye Repent ye shall all perish and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be condemned If we be not accused of Impenitence or Vnbelief but only of not-fulfilling the Law of Innocency that will suppose that we are to be tryed only by that Law which is not true And then we refer the Accuser only to Christ's Righteousness and to the Pardoning Law of Grace and to nothing in our selves to answer that charge And so it would be Christ's part only that would be judged But Matth. 25. and all the Scripture assureth us of the contrary that it 's Our part that it is to be tryed and judged and that we shall be all judged according to what we have done And no man is in danger there of any other accusation but that he did not truly Repent and Believe and live a holy life to Christ And shall the Penitent Believer say I did never Repent and Believe but Christ did it for me and so use two Lyes one of Christ and another of himself that he may be justified Or shall the Vnholy Impenitent Infidel say It 's true I was never a Penitent Believer or holy but Christ was for me or Christs Righteousness is my sole Righteousness that is a fashood For Christs Righteousness is none of his So that there is a particular personal Righteousness consisting in Faith and Repentance which by way of Condition and Evidence of our title to Christ and his Gift of Pardon and Life is of absolute necessity in our Justification Therefore Imputed Righteousness is not the sole Righteousness which must justifie us I cited abundance of plain Texts to this purpose in my Confession pag. 57. c. Of which book I add that when it was in the press I procured those three persons whom I most highly valued for judgment Mr. Gataker whose last work it was in this World Mr. Vines and lastly Arch-Bishop Vsher to read it over except the Epistles Mr. Gataker read only to pag. 163. and no one of them advised me to alter one word nor signified their dissent to any word of it But I have been long on this to proceed in the History The same year that I wrote that book that most Judicious excellent man Joshua Placaeus of Saumours in France was exercised in a Controversie conjunct with this How far Adams sin is imputed to us And to speak truth at first in the Theses Salmuriens Vol. 1. he seemed plainly to dispute against the Imputation of Adam's actual sin and his arguments I elsewhere answer And Andr. Rivet wrote a Collection of the Judgment of all sorts of Divines for the contrary But after he vindicated himself shewed that his Doctrine was that Adam's fact is not immediately imputed to each of us as if our persons as persons had been all fully represented in Adam's person by an arbitrary Law or Will of God or reputed so to be But that our Persons being
the debt of a Community deeply indebted to the King and thence bound to perpetual slavery This payment gets liberty for this and that and the other member of the Community For it is imputed to them by the King as if they had paid it But this Imputation transferreth not the honour to them but brings them to partake of the Benefit So when the price paid by Christ for all is imputed to this or that man he is taken into the society of the Benefit Pag. 503. Distinguish between the Benefit and the Office of Christ The former is made ours but not the latter Pag. 542. The Remission of sin is nothing but the Imputation of Christs Righteousness Rom. 4. Where Imputation of Righteousness Remission of Iniquities and non-imputation of sin are all one Pag. 547. God imputeth it as far as he pleaseth Pag. 548. Princes oft impute the merits of Parents to unworthy Children Pag. 551. He denyeth that we have Infinite Righteousness in Christ because it is imputed to us in a finite manner even so far as was requisite to our absolution But I will a little more distinctly open and resolve the Case 1. We must distinguish of Righteousness as it relateth to the Preceptive part of the Law and as it relateth to the Retributive part The first Righteousness is Innocency contrary to Reatus Culpae The second is Jus ad impunitatem ad praemium seu dâ—num Right to Impunity and to the Reward 2. We must distinguish of Christs Righteousness which is either so called formally and properly which is the Relation of Christs person to his Law of Mediation imposed on him 1. As Innocent and a perfect obeyer 2. As one that deserved not punishment but deserved Reward Or it is so called materially and improperly which is Those same Habits Acts and Sufferings of Christ from which his Relation of Righteous did result 3. We must distinguish of Imputation which signifyeth here 1. To repute us personally to have been the Agents of Christs Acts the subjects of his Habits and Passion in a Physical sence 2. Or to repute the same formal Relation of Righteousness which was in Christs person to be in ours as the subject 3. Or to repute us to have been the very subjects of Christ's Habits and Passion and the Agents of his Acts in a Political or Moral sense and not a physical as a man payeth a debt by his Servant or Attorney or Delegate 4. And consequently to repute a double formal Righteousness to result from the said Habits Acts and Passions one to Christ as the natural Subject and Agent and another to us as the Moral Political or reputed Subject and Agent And so his Formal Righteousness not to be imputed to us in it self as ours but another to result from the same Matter 5. Or else that we are reputed both the Agents and Subjects of the Matter of his Righteousness morally and also of the Formal Righteousness of Christ himself 6. Or else by Imputation is meant here that Christ being truly reputed to have taken the Nature of sinful man and become a Head for all true Believers in that undertaken Nature and Office in the Person of a Mediator to have fulfilled all the Law imposed on him by perfect Holiness and Obedience and Offering himself on the Cross a Sacrifice for our sins voluntarily suffering in our stead as if he had been a sinner guilty of all our sins As soon as we believe we are pardoned justified adopted for the sake and merit of this Holiness Obedience and penal Satisfaction of Christ with as full demonstration of divine Justice at least and more full demonstration of his Wisdom and Mercy than if we had suffered our selves what our sins deserved that is been damned or had never sinned And so Righteousness is imputed to us that is we are accounted or reputed righteous not in relation to the Precept that is innocent or sinless but in relation to the Retribution that is such as have Right to Impunity and Life because Christ's foresaid perfect Holiness Obedience and Satisfaction merited our Pardon and Adoption and the Spirit or merited the New-Covenant by which as an Instrument Pardon Justification and Adoption are given to Believers and the Spirit to be given to sanctifie them And when we believe we are justly reputed such as have Right to all these purchased Gifts 4. And that it may be understood how far Christ did Obey or Suffer in our stead or person we must distinguish 1. Between his taking the Nature of sinful man and taking the Person of sinners 2. Between his taking the Person of a sinner and taking the Person of you and me and each particular sinner 3. Between his taking our sinful persons simply ad omnia and taking them only secundum quid in tantum ad hoc 4. Between his suffering in the Person of sinners and his obeying and sanctity in the Person of sinners or of us in particular 5. Between his Obeying and Suffering in our Person and our Obeying and Suffering in his Person Natural or Political And now I shall make use of these distinctions by the Propositions following Prop. 1. The phrase of Christ's Righteousness imputed to us is not in the Scripture 2. Therefore when it cometh to Disputation to them that deny it some Scripture-phrase should be put in stead of it because 1. The Scripture hath as good if not much better phrases to signifie all in this that is necessary 2. And it is supposed that the Disputants are agreed of all that is express in the Scripture 3. Yet so much is said in Scripture as may make this phrase of Imputing Christ's Righteousness to us justifiable in the sound sence here explained For the thing meant by it is true and the phrase intelligible 4. Christ's Righteousness is imputed to Believers in the sixth sence here before explained As the Meritorious cause of our Pardon Justification Righteousness Adoption Sanctification and Salvation c. as is opened 5. Christ did not suffer all in kind much less in duration which sinful man deserved to suffer As e. g. 1. He was not hated of God 2. Nor deprived or deserted of the sanctifying Spirit and so of its Graces and Gods Image Nor had 3. any of that permitted penalty by which sin it self is a misery and punishment to the sinner 4. He fell not under the Power of the Devil as a deceiver and ruler as the ungodly do 5. His Conscience did not accuse him of sin and torment him for it 6. He did not totally despair of ever being saved 7. The fire of Hell did not torment his body More such instances may be given for proof 6. Christ did not perform all the same obedience in kind which many men yea all men are or were bound to perform As 1. He did not dress and keep that Garden which Adam was commanded to dress and keep 2. He did not the conjugal offices which Adam and millions
it for us For it said not in words or sense Thou or one for thee shall Perfectly Obey or Suffer It mentioned no Substitute But it is the Law-giver and not that Law that justifieth us by other means § 28. But we have another Righteousness imputed to us instead of that Perfect Legal Innocency and Rewardableness by which we shall be accepted of God and glorified at last as surely and fully at least as if we had never sinned or had perfectly kept that Law which therefore may be called our Pro-legal Righteousness § 29. But this Righteousness is not yet either OURS by such a propriety as a Personal performance would have bin nor OURS to all the same ends and purposes It saveth us not from all pain death or penal desertion nor constituteth our Relation just the same § 30. It is the Law of Grace that Justifieth us both as giving us Righteousness and as Virtually judging us Righteous when it hath made us so and it is Christ as Judg according to that Law and God by Christ that will sentence us just and executively so use us § 31. The Grace of Christ first giveth us Faith and Repentance by effectual Vocation And then the Law of Grace by its Donative part or Act doth give us a Right to Vnion with Christ as the Churches Head and so to his Body and with him a right to Pardon of past sin and to the Spirit to dwell and act in us for the future and to the Love of God and Life eternal to be ours in possession if we sincerely obey and persevere § 32. The total Righteousness then which we have as an Accident of which we are the Subjects is 1. A right to Impunity by the free Pardon of all our sins and a right to Gods Favour and Glory as a free gift quoad valorem but as a Reward of our Obedience quoad Ordinem conferendi rationem Comparativam why one rather than another is judged meet for that free gift 2. And the Relation of one that hath by grace performed the Condition of that free Gift without which we had been no capable recipients which is initially Faith and Repentance the Condition of our Right begun and consequently sincere Obedience and Perseverance the Condition of continued right § 33. Christs personal Righteousness is no one of these and so is not our Constitutive Righteousness formally and strictly so called For Formally our Righteousness is a Relation of right and it is the Relation of our own Persons And a Relation is an accident And the numerical Relation or Right of one person cannot be the same numerical Accident of another person as the subject § 34. There are but three sorts of Causes Efficient Constitutive and Final 1. Christ is the efficient cause of all our Righteousness 1. Of our Right to Pardon and Life 2. And of our Gospel-Obedience And that many waies 1. He is the Meritorious Cause 2. He is the Donor by his Covenant 3. And the Donor or Operator of our Inherent Righteousness by his Spirit 4. And the moral efficient by his Word Promise Example c. 2. And Christ is partly the final cause 3. But all the doubt is whether his personal Righteousness be the Constitutive Cause § 35. The Constitutive Cause of natural bodily substances consisteth of Matter disposed and Form Relations have no Matter but instead of Matter a Subject and that is Our own persons here and not Christ and a terminus and fundamentum § 36. The Fundamentum may be called both the Efficient Cause of the Relation as commonly it is and the Matter from which it resulteth And so Christs Righteousness is undoubtedly the Meritorious efficient Cause and undoubtedly not the Formal Cause of our personal Relation of Righteousness Therefore all the doubt is of the Material Cause § 37. So that all the Controversie is come up to a bare name and Logical term of which Logicians agree not as to the aptitude All confess that Relations have no proper Matter besides the subject all confess that the Fundamentum is loco efficientis but whether it be a fit name to call it the Constitutive Matter of a Relation there is no agreement § 38. And if there were it would not decide this Verbal Controversie For 1. Titulus est fundamentum Juris The fundamentum of our Right to Impunity and Life in and with Christ is the Donative act of our Saviour in and by his Law or Covenant of Grace that is our Title And from that our Relation resulteth the Conditio tituli vel juris being found in our selves 2. And our Relation of Performers of that Condition of the Law of Grace resulteth from our own performance as the fundamentum compared to the Rule So that both these parts of our Righteousness have a nearer fundamentum than Christs personal Righteousness § 39. But the Right given us by the Covenant and the Spirit and Grace being a Right merited first by Christs personal Righteousness this is a Causa Causae id est fundamenti seu Donationis And while this much is certain whether it shall be called a Remote fundamentum viz. Causa fundamenti and so a Remote Constitutive Material Cause or only properly a Meritorious Cause may well be left to the arbitrary Logician that useeth such notions as he pleases but verily is a Controversie unfit to tear the Church for or destroy Love and Concord by § 40. Quest 1. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS Ans Yes In some sense and in another not § 41. Quest 2. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS Ans Yes In the sense before opened For all things are ours and his righteousness more than lower Causes § 42. Quest 3. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS as it was or is His own with the same sort of propriety Ans No. § 43. Quest 4. Is the formal Relation of Righteous as an accident of our persons numerically the same Righteousness Ans No It is impossible Unless we are the same person § 44. Quest 5. Is Christ and each Believer one political person Ans A political person is an equivocal word If you take it for an Office as the King or Judg is a political person I say No If for a Society Yea But noxia noxa caput sequuntur True Guilt is an accident of natural persons and of Societies only as constituted of such and so is Righteousness Though Physically Good or Evil may for society-sake befal us without personal desert or consent But if by Person you mean a certain State or Condition as to be a subject of God or one that is to suffer for sin so Christ may be said to be the same person with us in specie but not numerically because that Accident whence his Personality is named is not in the same subject § 45. Quest 6. Is Christs Righteousness imputed to us Ans Yes If by imputing you mean reckoning or reputing it ours so far as is aforesaid that is such a Cause of ours §
as fulfilled or from the Reatus Gulpae in se but by Christ's whole Righteousness from the Reatus ut ad paenam 2. But if this be his sense he meaneth then that it is only the Terminus à quo that Justification is properly denominated from And why so 1. As Justitia and Justificatio passive sumpta vel ut effectus is Relatio it hath necessarily no Terminus à quo And certainly is in specie to be rather denominated from its own proper Terminus ad quem And as Justification is taken for the Justifiers Action why is it not as well to be denominated from the Terminus ad quem as à quo Justificatio efficiens sic dicitur quia Justum facit Justificatio apologetica quia Justum vindicat vel probat Justificatio per sententiam quia Justum aliquem esse Judicat Justificatio executiva quia ut Justum eum tractat But if we must needs denominate from the Terminus à quo how strange is it that he should know but of one sense of Justification 3. But yet perhaps he meaneth In satisfactione Legi praestitâ though he say praestandâ and so denominateth from the Terminus à quo But if so 1. Then it cannot be true For satisfacere Justificare are not the same thing nor is Justifying giving Satisfaction nor were we justified when Christ had satisfied but long after Nor are we justified eo nomine because Christ satisfied that is immediately but because he gave us that Jus ad impunitatem vitam spiritum sanctum which is the Fruit of his Satisfaction 2. And as is said if it be only in satisfactione then it is not in that Obedience which fulfileth the preceptive part as it bound us for to satisfie for not fulfilling is not to fulfil it 3. And then no Man is justified for no Man hath satisfied either the Preceptive or Penal Obligation of the Law by himself or another But Christ hath satisfied the Law-giver by Merit and Sacrifice for sin His Liberavit nos à Lege Mortis I before shewed impertinent to his use Is Liberare Justificare or Satisfacere all one And is à Lege Mortis either from all the Obligation to Obedience or from the sole malâ—diction There be other Acts of Liberation besides Satisfaction For it is The Law of the Spirit of Life that doth it And we are freed both from the power of indwelling-sin called a Law and from the Mosaical Yoak and from the Impossible Conditions of the Law of Innocency though not from its bare Obligation to future Duty § 7. He addeth a Third Ex parte Medii quod est Justitia Christi Legalis nobis per fidem Imputata Omnem itaque Justificationem proprie Legalem esse constat Answ 1. When I read that he will have but one sense or sort of Justification will yet have the Denomination to be ex termino and so justifieth my distinction of it according to the various Termini And here how he maketh the Righteousness of Christ to be but the MEDIVM of our Justification though he should have told us which sort of Medium he meaneth he seemeth to me a very favourable consenting Adversary And I doubt those Divines who maintain that Christ's Rigâ—teousness is the Causa Formalis of our Justification who are no small ones nor a few though other in answer to the Papists disclaim it yea and those that make it but Causa Materialis which may have a sound sense will think this Learned Man betrayeth their Cause by prevarication and seemeth to set fiercly against me that he may yeeld up the Cause with less suspicion But the truth is we all know but in part and therefore err in part and Error is inconsistent with it self And as we have conflicting Flesh and Spirit in the Will so have we conflicting Light and Darkness Spirit and Flesh in the Understanding And it is very perceptible throughout this Author's Book that in one line the Flesh and Darkness saith one thing and in the next oft the Spirit and Light saith the contrary and seeth not the inconsistency And so though the dark and fleshy part rise up in wrathful striving Zeal against the Concord and Peace of Christians on pretence that other Mens Errors wrong the Truth yet I doubt not but Love and Unity have some interest in his lucid and Spiritual part We do not only grant him that Christ's Righteousness is a Medium of our Justification for so also is Faith a Condition and Dispositio Receptiva being a Medium nor only some Cause for so also is the Covenant-Donation but that it is an efficient meritorious Cause and because if Righteousness had been that of our own Innocency would have been founded in Merit we may call Christ's Righteousness the material Cause of our Justification remotely as it is Materia Meriti the Matter of the Merit which procureth it 2. But for all this it followeth not that all Justification is only Legal as Legal noteth its respect to the Law of Innocency For 1. we are justified from or against che Accusation of being non-performers of the Condition of the Law of Grace 2. And of being therefore unpardoned and lyable to its sorer Penalty 3. Our particular subordinate Personal Righteousness consisting in the said performance of those Evangelical Conditions of Life is so denominated from its conformity to the Law of Grace as it instituteth its own Condition as the measure of it as Rectitudo ad Regulam 4. Our Jus ad impunitatem vitam resulteth from the Donative Act of the Law or Covenant of Grace as the Titulus qui est Fundamentum Juris or supposition of our Faith as the Condition 5. This Law of Grace is the Norma Judicis by which we shall be judged at the Last Day 6. The same Judg doth now per sententiam conceptam judg of us as he will then judg per sententiam prolatam 7. Therefore the Sentence being virtually in the Law this same Law of Grace which in primo instanti doth make us Righteous by Condonation and Donation of Right doth in secundo instanti virtually justifie us as containing that regulating use by which we are to be sententially justified And now judg Reader whether no Justification be Evangelical or by the Law of Grace and so to be denominated for it is lis de nomine that is by him managed 8. Besides that the whole frame of Causes in the Work of Redemption the Redeemer his Righteousness Merits Sacrifice Pardoning Act Intercession c. are sure rather to be called Matters of the Gospel than of the Law And yet we grant him easily 1. That Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law of Innocency and was justified thereby and that we are justified by that Righteousness of his as the meritorious Cause 2. That we being guilty of Sin and Death according to the tenor of that Law and that Guilt being remitted by Christ as aforesaid we are therefore justified
act so Maresius ibidem And many deny it to be the form And many think that saying improper 3. Note that it is ordinarily agreed by Protestants that Christs Righteousness is imputed to us in the same sence as our sins are said to be imputed to him even before they are committed many Ages which cleareth fully the whole Controversie to those that are but willing to understand and blaspheme not Christ so Maresius ubi supra Quemadmodum propter deliquia nostra ei imputata punitus fuit Christus in terris ita propter ejus Justitiam nobis imputatam coronamur in Caelis And Joh. Crocius Disput 10. p. 502. And Vasseur in his solid Disp Thes Sedan Vol. 2. pag. 1053 1054. While he mentioneth only Satisfaction for our Justification yet § 27. saith that Satisfaction is imputed to us and placeth Christs Imputed Righteousness in his Obedience to the death and saith that this satisfying Obedience in suffering is our Imputed Righteousness Ea igitur Obedientia Christi qua Patri paruit usque ad mortem crucis qua coram Patre comparuit ut voluntatem ejus perficeret qua a Patre missus ut nos sui sanguinis effusione redimeret justitiae ejus pro peccatis nostris abunde satisfecit ea inquam obedientia ex gratia Patris imputata donata illa justitia est qua justificamur And they ordinarily use the similitude of the Redemption of a Captive and Imputing the Price to him He addeth Hence we may gather that as Christ was made sin so we are made the Righteousness of God that is by Imputation which is true The plain truth in all this is within the reach of every sound Christian and self-conceited wranglers make difficulties where there are none Yea how far the Papists themselves grant the Protestant doctrine of Imputation let the following words of Vasseur on Bellarmine be judg Bellarm. ait Si solum vellent haeretici nobis imputari Merita Christi quia nobis donata sunt possumus ea Deo Patri offerre pro peccatis nostris quoniam Christus suscepit super se onus satisfaciendi pro nobis nosque Deo Patri reconciliandi recta esset eorum Sententia I doubt some will say it is false because Bellarmine granteth it but Vasseur addeth Haec ille sed an nostra longe abest ab illâ quam in nobis requireret sententia And I wish the Reader that loveth Truth and Peace to read the words of Pighius Cassander Bellarmine c. saying as the Protestants cited by Joh. Crocius de Justificat Disput 9. pag. 458. c. And of Morton Apolog especially Tho. Waldensis Nazianzen's sentence prefixed by the great Basil-Doctors to their Confession I do affectionately recite Sacred Theologie and Religion is a simple and naked thing consisting of Divine Testimonies without any great artifice which yet some do naughtily turn into a most difficult Art The History of the Socinians opposing Christs Satisfaction and Merits I overpass as being handled by multitude of Writers If any impartial man would not be troubled with needless tedious writings and yet would see the Truth clearly about Justification and Imputation in a very little room let him read 1. Mr. Bradshaw 2. Mr. Gibbon's Sermon in the Exercises at Giles's in the Fields 3. Mr. Truman's great Propitiation 4. Joshua Placeus his Disput de Justif in Thes Salmur Vol. 1. 5. And Le Blank 's late Theses Which will satisfie those that have any just capacity for satisfaction And if he add Wotton de Reconciliatione and Grotius de Satisfactione he need not lose his labour no nor by reading John Goodwin of Justification though every word be not approveable And Dr. Stillingfleet's Sermons of Satisfaction coming last will also conduce much to his just information So much of the Historical part CHAP. II. Of the true stating of the Controversie and the explication of the several points contained or meerly implyed in it I take explication to be here more useful than argumentation And therefore I shall yet fullier open to you the state of our differences and my own judgment in the point with the reasons of it in such necessary Distinctions and brief Propositions as shall carry their own convincing light with them If any think I distinguish too much let him prove any to be needless or unjust and then reject it and spare not If any think I distinguish not accurately enough let him add what is wanting and but suppose that I have elsewhere done it and am not now handling the whole doctrine of Justification but only that of Imputation and what it necessarily includeth THough a man that readeth our most Learned Protestants professing that they agree even with Bellarmine himself in the stating of the case of Imputation would think that there should need no further stating of it I cited you Bellarmine's words before with Vasseurs consent I here add Johan Crocius de Justif Disp 10. pag. 500.501 Vide hominis sive vertiginem sive improbitutem clamat fieri non posse ut Justitia Christi nobis imputetur eo sensu qui haereticis probetur Et tamen rectam vocat sententiam quam suam faciunt Evangelici Quod enim cum rectâ ratione pugnare dicit nos per Justitiam Christi formaliter justos nominari esse nos non tangit Non dicimus Non sentimus Sed hoc totum proficiscitur e Sophistarum officinâ qui phrasin istam nobis affingunt ut postea eam exagitent tanquam nostram yet some of our own give them this pretence Nos sententiam quam ille rectam judicat tenemus tuemur sic tamen ut addamus quod Genti adversariae est intolerabile non alia ratione nos justos censeri coram Deo But by Justification the Papists mean Sanctification And they count it not intolerable to say that the penalty of our sins is remitted to us by that Satisfaction to the Justice of God according to the Law of Innocency which Christ only hath made But though many thrust in more indeed and most of them much more in words yet you see they are forced to say as we say whether they will or not For they seem unwilling to be thought to agree with us where they agree indeed And the following words of Joh. Crocius pag. 506 507. c. shew the common sence of most Protestants When Bellarmine observeth that Imputation maketh us as righteous as Christ he saith If we said that we are Justified by Christs essential righteousness But we say it not Yea above all we renounce that which the Sophister puts in of his own even that which he saith of Formal Righteousness For it is not our opinion that we are constituted formally Righteous by Christ's Righteousness which we rather call the Material cause § 32. Christs satisfaction is made for all But it is imputed to us not as it is made for all but as for us I illustrate it by the like The Kings Son payeth
Instrumental Intervention and Conveyance or Collation by this Deed of Gift or Covenant do confound themselves by confounding and overlooking the Causes of our Justification That which Christ did by his merits was to procure the new Covenant The new Covenant is a free Gift of pardon and life with Christ himself for his merits and satisfaction sake 44. Though the Person of the Mediator be not really or reputatively the very person of each sinner nor so many persons as there are sinners or believers yet it doth belong to the Person of the Mediator so far limitedly to bear the person of a sinner and to stand in the place of the Persons of all Sinners as to bear the punishment they deserved and to suffer for their sins 45. Scripture speaking of moral matters usually speaketh rather in Moral than meer Physical phrase And in strict Physical sence Christs very personal Righteousness Material or Formal is not so given to us as that we are proprietors of the very thing it self but only of the effects Pardon Righteousness and Life yet in a larger Moral phrase that very thing is oft said to be given to us which is given to another or done or suffered for our benefit He that ransometh a Captive from a Conquerer Physically giveth the Money to the Conquerer not to the Captive giveth the Captive only the Liberty purchased But morally and reputatively he is said to give the Money to the Captive because he gave it for him And it redeemeth him as well as if he had given it himself He that giveth ten thousand pounds to purchase Lands freely giveth that land to another physically giveth the Money to the Seller only and the Land only to the other But morally and reputatively we content our selves with the metonymical phrase and say he gave the other ten thousand pound So morally it may be said that Christs Righteousness Merits and Satisfaction was given to us in that the thing purchased by it was given to us when the Satisfaction was given or made to God Yea when we said it was made to God we mean only that he was passively the Terminus of active Satisfaction being the party satisfyed but not that he himself was made the Subject and Agent of Habits and Acts and Righteousness of Christ as in his humane nature except as the Divine Nature acted it or by Communication of Attributes 46. Because the words Person and Personating and Representing are ambiguous as all humane language is while some use them in a stricter sense than others do we must try by other explicatory terms whether we agree in the matter and not lay the stress of our Controversy upon the bare words So some Divines say that Christ suffered in the Person of a sinner when they mean not that he represented the Natural person of any one particular sinner but that his own Person was reputed the Sponsor of sinners by God and that he was judged a real sinner by his persecuters and so suffered as if he had been a sinner 47. As Christ is less improperly said to have Represented our Persons in his satisfactory Sufferings than in his personal perfect Holiness and Obedience so he is less improperly said to have Represented all mankind as newly fallen in Adam in a General sense for the purchasing of the universal Gift of Pardon and Life called The new Covenant than to have Represented in his perfect Holiness and his Sufferings every Believer considered as from his first being to his Death Though it is certain that he dyed for all their sins from first to last For it is most true 1. That Christ is as a second Adam the Root of the Redeemed And as we derive sin from Adam so we derive life from Christ allowing the difference between a Natural and a Voluntary way of derivation And though no mans Person as a Person was actually existent and offended in Adam nor was by God reputed to have been and done yet all mens Persons were Virtually and Seminally in Adam as is aforesaid and when they are existent persons they are no better either by Relative Innocency or by Physical Disposition than he could propagate and are truly and justly reputed by God to be Persons Guilty of Adams fact so far as they were by nature seminally and virtually in him And Christ the second Adam is in a sort the root of Man as Man though not by propagation of us yet as he is the Redeemer of Nature it self from destruction but more notably the Root of Saints as Saints who are to have no real sanctity but what shall be derived from him by Regeneration as Nature and Sin is from Adam by Generation But Adam did not represent all his posterity as to all the Actions which they should do themselves from their Birth to their Death so that they should all have been taken for perfectly obedient to the death if Adam had not sinned at that time yea or during his Life For if any of them under that Covenant had ever sinned afterward in their own person they should have died for it But for the time past they were Guiltless or Guilty in Adam as he was Guiltless or Guilty himself so far as they were in Adam And though that was but in Causâ non extra causam Yet a Generating Cause which propagateth essence from essence by self-multiplication of form much differeth from an Arbitrary facient Cause in this If Adam had obeyed yet all his posterity had been nevertheless bound to perfect personal persevering Obedience on pain of Death And Christ the second Adam so far bore the person of fallen Adam and suffered in the nature and room of Mankind in General as without any condition on their part at all to give man by an act of Oblivion or new Covenant a pardon of Adams sin yea and of all sin past at the time of their consent though not disobliging them from all future Obedience And by his perfect Holiness and Obedience and Sufferings he hath merited that new Covenant which Accepteth of sincere though imperfect Obedience and maketh no more in us necessary to Salvation When I say he did this without any Condition on mans part I mean He absolutely without Condition merited and gave us the Justifying Testament or Covenant Though that Covenant give us not Justification absolutely but on Condition of believing fiducial Consent 2. And so as this Vniversal Gift of Justification upon Acceptance is actually given to all fallen mankind as such so Christ might be said to suffer instead of all yea and merit too so far as to procure them this Covenant-gift 48. The sum of all lyeth in applying the distinction of giving Christs Righteousness as such in it self and as a cause of our Righteousness or in the Causality of it As our sin is not reputed Christs sin in it self and in the culpability of it for then it must needs make Christ odious to God but in its
that is judged to have no sin is judged to deserve no punishment Unless they will say that to prevent the form and desert of sin is eminenter though not formaliter to forgive But it is another even Actual forgiveness which we hear of in the Gospel and pray for daily in the Lords prayer Of all which see the full Scripture-proof in Mr. Hotchkis of Forgiveness of sin CHAP. III. A further explication of the Controversie Yet I am afraid lest I have not made the state of the Controversie plain enough to the unexercised Reader and lest the very explicatory distinctions and propositions though needful and suitable to the matter should be unsuitable to his capacity I will therefore go over it again in a shorter way and make it as plain as possibly I can being fully perswaded that it is not so much Argumentation as help to understand the matter and our own and other mens ambiguous words that is needful to end our abominable Contentions § 1. THE Righteousness of a Person is formally a moral Relation of that Person § 2. This moral Relation is the Relation of that person to the Rule by which he is to be judged § 3. And it is his Relation to some Cause or supposed Accusation or Question to be decided by that judgment § 4. The Rule of Righteousness here is Gods Law naturally or supernaturally made known § 5. The Law hath a Preceptive part determining what shall be due from us and a Retributive part determining what shall be due to us § 6. The Precept instituting Duty our Actions and Dispositions which are the Matter of that duty are physically considered conform or disconform to the Precept § 7. Being Physically they are consequently so Morally considered we being Moral Agents and the Law a Rule of Morality § 8. If the Actions be righteous or unrighteous consequently the Person is so in reference to those Actions supposing that to be his Cause or the Question to be decided § 9. Unrighteousness as to this Cause is Guilt or Reatus Culpae and to be unrighteous is to be Sons or Guilty of sin § 10. The Retributive part of the Law is 1. Premiant for Obedience 2. Penal for Disobedience § 11. To be Guilty or Unrighteous as to the reward is to have no right to the reward that being supposed the Question in judgment And to be Righteous here is to have right to the reward § 12. To be Guilty as to the penalty is to be jure puniendus or Reus poenae or obligatus ad poenam And to be righteous here is to have Right to impunity quoad poenam damni sensus § 13. The first Law made personal perfect persevering Innocency both mans duty and the Condition of the Reward and Impunity and any sin the condition of punishment § 14. Man broke this Law and so lost his Innocency and so the Condition became naturally impossible to him de futuro § 15. Therefore that Law as a Covenant that is the Promissory part with its Condition ceased cessante capacitate subditi and so did the preceptive part 1. As it commanded absolute Innocency of act and habit 2. And as it commanded the seeking of the Reward on the Condition and by the means of personal Innocency The Condition thus passing into the nature of a sentence And punishment remaining due for the sin § 16. But the Law remained still an obliging Precept for future perfect Obedience and made punishment due for all future sin and these two parts of it as the Law of lapsed Nature remained in force between the first sin and the new-Covenant promise or Law of Grace § 17. The eternal Word interposing a Mediator is promised and Mercy maketh a Law of Grace and the Word becometh mans Redeemer by undertaking and by present actual reprieve pardon and initial deliverance and the fallen world the miserable sinners with the Law and obligations which they were under are now become the Redemers jure Redemptionis as before they were the Creator's jure Creationis § 18. The Redeemers Law then hath two parts 1. The said Law of lapsed nature binding to future perfect obedience or punishment which he found man under called vulgarly the Moral Law 2. And a pardoning Remedying Law of Grace § 19. Because man had dishonoured God and his Law by sin the Redeemer undertook to take mans nature without sin and by perfect Holiness and Obedience and by becoming a Sacrifice for sin to bring that Honour to God and his Law which we should have done and to attain the Ends of Law and Government instead of our Perfection or Punishment that for the Merit hereof we might be delivered and live § 20. This he did in the third person of a Mediator who as such had a Law or Covenant proper to himself the Conditions of which he performed by perfect keeping 1. The Law of Innocency 2. Of Moses 3. And that proper to himself alone and so merited all that was promised to him for Himself and Us. § 21. By his Law of Grace as our Lord-Redeemer he gave first to all mankind in Adam and after in Noah and by a second fuller edition at his Incarnation a free Pardon of the destructive punishment but not of all punishment with right to his Spirit of Grace Adoption and Glory in Union with Himself their Head on Condition initially of Faith and Repentance and progressively of sincere Obedience to the end to be performed by his Help or Grace § 22. By this Law of Grace supposing the Law of lapsed nature aforesaid inclusively all the World is ruled and shall be judged according to that edition of it to Adam or by Christ which they are under And by it they shall be Justified or Condemned § 23. If the question then be Have you kept or not kept the Conditions of the Law of Grace Personal Performance or nothing must so far be our Righteousness and not Christs keeping them for us or Satisfaction for our not keeping them And this is the great Case so oft by Christ described Mat. 7. 25. c. to be decided in judgment and therefore the word Righteous and Righteousness are used for what is thus personal hundreds of times in Scripture § 24. But as to the question Have we kept the Law of Innocency we must confess guilt and say No neither Immediately by our selves nor Mediately by another or Instrument for Personal Obedience only is the performance required by that Law Therefore we have no Righteousness consisting in such Performance or Innocency but must confess sin and plead a pardon § 25. Therefore no man hath a proper Vniversal Righteousness excluding all kind of Guilt whatsoever § 26. Therefore no man is justified by the Law of Innocency nor the Law Mosaical as of works either by the Preceptive or Retributive part for we broke the Precept and are by the Threatning heirs of death § 27. That Law doth not justifie us because Christ fulfilled
to be such a Person and another thing to have the Act Passion Merit c. Accepted for that other Person And this latter signifieth either 1. That it was done by the other person mediately as being a cheif Cause acting by his Instrument 2. Or that it was done for that other Person by another The first is our denyed sence and the second our affirmed sence Among us Sureties and Sponsors are of several sorts Grotius de Jure Belli tells you of another sense of Sponsion in the Civil Law than is pertinent to the objectors use And in Baptism the same word hath had divers senses as used by persons of different intentions The time was when the Sponsor was not at all taken for the Political Person as you call it of Parent or Child nor spake as their Instrument in their name But was a Third person who because many parents Apostatized and more Died in the Childs minority did pass his word 1. That the Parent was a credible Person 2. That if he Dyed so soon or Apostatized he himself would undertake the Christian Education of the Child But the Parent himself was Sponsor for the Child in a stricter sense as also Adopting Pro-parents were as some take God-fathers to be now that is they were taken for such whose Reason will and word we authorised to dispose of the Child as obligingly as if it had been done by his own reason will and word so be it it were but For his good and the Child did own it when he came to age And so they were to speak as in the Childs name as if Nature or Charity made them his Representers in the Judgment of many Though others rather think that they were to speak as in their own persons e. g. I dedicate this Child to God and enter him into the Covenant as obliged by my Consent But this sense of Sponsion is nothing to the present Case They that lay all upon the very Name of a Surety as if the word had but one signification and all Sureties properly represented the person of the Principal obliged person do deal very deceitfully There are Sureties or Sponsors 1. For some Duty 2. For Debt 3. For Punishment 1. It is one thing to undertake that another shall do a Commanded duty 2. It 's another thing to undertake that else I will do it for him 3. It 's another thing to be Surety that he shall pay a Debt or else I will pay it for him 4. It 's another thing to undertake that he shall suffer a penalty or else to suffer for him or make a Valuable Compensation 1. And it 's one kind of Surety that becometh a second party in the bond and so maketh himself a debtor 2. And it s another sort of Surety that undertaketh only the Debt afterward voluntarily as a Friend who may pay it on such Conditions as he and the Creditor think meet without the Debtors knowledg Every Novice that will but open Calvin may see that Fidejussor and Sponsor are words of very various signification and that they seldom or never signifie the Person Natural or Political as you call it of the Principal Sponsor est qui sponte non rogatus pro alio promittit ut Accurs vel quicunque spondet maximè pro aliis Fidejubere est suo periculo fore id de quo agitur recipere Vel fidem suam pro alio obligare He is called Adpromissor and he is Debtor but not the same person with the Principal but his promise is accessoria obligatio non principalis Therefore Fidejussor sive Intercessor non est conveniendus nisi prius debitore principali convento Fidejussores a correis ita differunt quod hi suo proprio morbo laborant illi vero alieno tenentur Quare fideijussori magis succurrendum censent Veniâ namque digni sunt qui alienâ tenentur Culpâ cujusmodi sunt fidejussores pro alieno debito obligati inquit Calv. There must be somewhat more than the bare name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once used of Christ as Mediator of Gods Covenant or the name of a Surety as now used among men that must go to prove that the Mediator and the several sinners are the same Legal Persons in Gods account But seeing Legal-Personality is but a Relation of our Natural person to another Natural person that we may not quarrel and tear the Church when really we differ not 1. Let our agreement be noted 2. Our difference intelligibly stated 1. It is granted not only by Dr. Tullie but others that accurately handle the Controversie 1. That Christ and the Believer never were nor are our Natural person and that no union with him maketh us to be Christ or God nor him to be Peter John or Paul c. That we know of no third sort of Natural person which is neither Jesus nor Peter John c. But composed of both united which is constituted by our Union For though it be agreed on that the same Spirit that is in Christ is operatively also in all his Members and that therefore our Communion with him is more than Relative and that from this Real-Communion the name of a Real-Vnion may be used yet here the Real-Vnion is not Personal as the same Sun quickeneth and illuminateth a Bird and a Frog and a Plant and yet maketh them not our person Therefore he that will say we are Physically one with Christ and not only Relatively but tell us ONE What and make his words Intelligible and must deny that we are ONE PERSON and that by that time we are not like to be found differing But remember that while Physical Communion is confessed by all what VNION we shall from thence be said to have this Foundation being agreed on is like to prove but a question de realitione nomine 2. Yea all the world must acknowledg that the whole Creation is quoad praesentiam derivationem more dependant on God than the fruit is on the Tree or the Tree on the Earth and that God is the inseperate Cause of our Being Station and Life And yet this natural intimateness and influx and causality maketh not GOD and every Creature absolutely or personally One 3. It is agreed therefore that Christ's Righteousness is neither materially nor formally any Accident of our natural Persons and an Accident it is unless it can be reduced to that of Relation 1. The Habits of our Person cannot possibly be the habits of another inherently 2. The actions of one cannot possibly be the actions of another as the Agent unless as that other as a principal Cause acteth by the other as his Instrument or second Cause 3. The same fundamentum relationis inherent in One Person is not inherent in another if it be a personal Relation And so the same individual Relation that is one Mans cannot numerically be another Mans by the same sort of in-being propriety or adherence Two Brothers have a Relation in kind
the same but not unmerically 4. And it is agreed that God judgeth not falsly and therefore taketh not Christ's Righteousness to be any more or otherwise ours than indeed it is nor imputeth it to us erroneously 5. Yet it is commonly agreed that Christ's Righteousness is OVRS in some sense And so far is justly reputed Ours or imputed to us as being Ours 6. And this ambiguous syallable OVRS enough to set another Age of Wranglers into bitter Church-tearing strife if not hindred by some that will call them to explain an ambiguous word is it that must be understood to end this Controversie Propriety is the thing signified 1. In the strictest sense that is called Ours which inhereth in us or that which is done by us 2. In a larger Moral sense that which a Man as the principal Cause doth by another as his Instrument by authorizing commanding perswading c. 3. In a yet larger sense that may be called OVRS which a third person doth partly instead of what we should have done had or suffered and partly for our use or benefit 4. In a yet larger sense that may be called OVRS which another hath or doth or suffereth for our Benefit though not in our stead and which will be for our good as that which a Friend or Father hath is his Friends or Childs and all things are Ours whether Paul or c. and the Godly are owners of the World in as much as God will use all for their good 7. It is therefore a Relation which Christ's Righteousness hath to us or we to it that must here be meant by the word OVRS Which is our RIGHT or Jus And that is acknowledged to be no Jus or Right to it in the foresaid denied sense And it is agreed that some Right it is Therefore to understand what it is the Titulus seu Fundamentum juris must be known 8. And here it is agreed 1. That we are before Conversion or Faith related to Christ as part of the Redeemed World of whom it is said 2 Cor. 5.19 That God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself not imputing to them their sins c. 2. That we are after Faith related to Christ as his Covenanted People Subjects Brethren Friends and Political Members yea as such that have Right to and Possession of Real Communion with him by his Spirit And that we have then Right to Pardon Justification and Adoption or have Right to Impunity in the promised degree and to the Spirits Grace and the Love of God and Heavenly Glory This Relation to Christ and this Right to the Benefits of his Righteousness are agreed on And consequently that his Righteousness is OVRS and so may be called as far as the foresaid Relations and Rights import II. Now a Relation as Ockam hath fully proved having no real entity beside the quid absolutum which is the Subject Fundamentum or Terminus he that yet raileth at his Brother as not saying enough or not being herein so wise as he and will maintain that yet Christ's Righteousness is further OVRS must name the Fundamentum of that Right or Propriety What more is it that you mean I think the make-bates have here little probability of fetching any more Fuel to their Fire or turning Christ's Gospel into an occasion of strife and mutual enmity if they will but be driven to a distinct explication and will not make confusion and ambiguous words their defence and weapons If you set your quarrelsome Brains on work and study as hard as you can for matter of Contention it will not be easie for you to find it unless you will raze out the names of Popery Socinianism Arminianism or Solifidianism Heresie c. instead of real Difference But if the angriest and lowdest Speakers be in the right Bedlam and Billingsgate may be the most Orthodox places Briefly 1. The foresaid Benefits of Christ's Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive as a Meritorious Satisfactory Purchasing Cause are ours 2. To say that the Benefits are Ours importeth that the Causal Righteousness of Christ is related to us and the Effects as such a Cause and so is it self OVRS in that sense that is so related 3. And Christ himself is OVRS as related to us as our Saviour the Procurer and Giver of those Benefits And do you mean any more by OVRS If you say that we deny any Benefits of Christ's Righteousness which you assert name what they are If you say that we deny any true Fundamentum juris or reason of our title name what that is If you say that we deny any true Relation to Christ himself tell us what it is If you cannot say that you are agreed 1. If you say that the Benefit denied by us is that we are judged by God as those that habitually and actively have perfectly fulfilled the Law of Innocency our selves though not in our natural Persons yet by Christ as representing us and so shall be justified by that Law of Innocency as the Fulfiller of it we do deny it and say That you subvert the Gospel and the true Benefits which we have by Christ 2. If you say that we deny that God esteemeth or reputeth us to be the very Subjects of that Numerical Righteousness in the Habits Acts Passion or Relation which was in the Person of Christ or to have done suffered or merited our selves in and by him as the proper Representer of our Persons therein and so that his Righteousness is thus imputed to us as truly in it self our own propriety we do deny it and desire you to do so also lest you deny Christianity 2. If you blame us for saying That we had or have no such Relation to Christ as to our Instrument or the proper full Representer of each Believers particular Person by whom we did truly fulfil the Law of Innocency habitually and actively and satisfied merited c. We do still say so and wish you to consider what you say before you proceed to say the contrary But if you come not up to this where will you find a difference Object 2. Christ is called The Lord our Righteousness and he is made Righteousness to us and we are made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 c. And by the Obedience of one many are made Righteous Answ And are we not all agreed of all this But can his Righteousness be Ours no way but by the foresaid Personation Representating How prove you that He is Our Righteousness and his Obedience maketh us Righteous 1. Because the very Law of Innocency which we dishonoured and broke by sin is perfectly fulfilled and honoured by him as a Mediator to repair the injury done by our breaking it 2. In that he suffered to satisfie Justice for our sin 3. In that hereby he hath merited of God the Father all that Righteousness which we are truly the Subjects of whether it be Relative or Qualitative or Active that is 1. Our Right
to Christ in Union to the Spirit to Impunity and to Glory And 2. The Grace of the Spirit by which we are made Holy and fulfil the Conditions of the Law of Grace We are the Subjects of these and he is the Minister and the meritorious Cause of our Life is well called Our Righteousness and by many the material Cause as our own perfect Obedience would have been because it is the Matter of that Merit 4. And also Christ's Intercession with the Father still procureth all this as the Fruit of his Merits 5. And we are Related as his Members though not parts of his Person as such to him that thus merited for us 6. And we have the Spirit from him as our Head 7. And he is our Advocate and will justifie us as our Judg. 8. And all this is God's Righteousness designed for us and thus far given us by him 9. And the perfect Justice and Holiness of God is thus glorified in us through Christ And are not all these set together enough to prove that we justly own all asserted by these Texts But if you think that you have a better sense of them you must better prove it than by a bare naming of the words Object 3. If Christ's Righteousness be Ours then we are Righteous by it as Ours and so God reputeth it but as it is But it is Ours 1. By our Vnion with him 2. And by his Gift and so consequently by God's Imputation Answ 1. I have told you before that it is confessed to be Ours but that this syllable OVRS hath many senses and I have told you in what sense and how far it is OVRS and in that sense we are justified by it and it is truly imputed to us or reputed or reckoned as OVRS But not in their sense that claim a strict Propriety in the same numerical Habits Acts Sufferings Merits Satisfaction which was in Christ or done by him as if they did become Subjects of the same Accidents or as if they did it by an instrumental second Cause But it is OVRS as being done by a Mediator instead of what we should have done and as the Meritorious Cause of all our Righteousness and Benefits which are freely given us for the sake hereof 2. He that is made Righteousness to us is also made Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption to us but that sub genere Causae Efficientis non autem Causae Constitutivae We are the Subjects of the same numerical Wisdom and Holiness which is in Christ Plainly the Question is Whether Christ or his Righteousness Holiness Merits and Satisfaction be Our Righteousness Constitutively or only Efficiently The Matter and Form of Christ's Personal Righteousness is OVRS as an Efficient Cause but it is neither the nearest Matter or the Form of that Righteousness which is OVRS as the Subjects of it that is It is not a Constitutive Cause nextly material or formal of it 3. If our Union with Christ were Personal making us the same Person then doubtless the Accidents of his Person would be the Accidents of ours and so not only Christ's Righteousness but every Christians would be each of Ours But that is not so Nor is it so given us by him Object 4. You do seem to suppose that we have none of that kind of Righteousness at all which consisteth in perfect Obedience and Holiness but only a Right to Impunity and Life with an imperfect Inherent Righteousness in our selves The Papists are forced to confess that a Righteousness we must have which consisteth in a conformity to the preceptive part of the Law and not only the Retributive part But they say It is in our selves and we say it is Christ's imputed to us Answ 1. The Papists e. g. Learned Vasqueâ— in Rom. 5. talk so ignorantly of the differences of the Two Covenants or the Law of Innocency and of Grace as if they never understood it And hence they 1. seem to take no notice of the Law of Innocency or of Nature now commanding our perfect Obedience but only of the Law of Grace 2. Therefore they use to call those Duties but Perfections and the Commands that require them but Counsels where they are not made Conditions of Life and sins not bringing Damnation some call Venial a name not unfit and some expound that as properly no sin but analogically 3. And hence they take little notice when they treat of Justification of the Remitting of Punishment but by remitting Sin they usually mean the destroying the Habits As if they forgot all actual sin past or thought that it deserved no Punishment or needed no Pardon For a past Act in it self is now nothing and is capable of no Remission but Forgiveness 4. Or when they do talk of Guilâ— of Punishment they lay so much of the Remedy on Man's Satisfaction as if Christ's Satisfaction and Merits had procured no pardon or at least of no temporal part of Punishment 5. And hence they ignorantly revile the Protestants as if we denied all Personal Inherent Righteousness and trusted only to the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as justifying wicked unconverted Men The Papists therefore say not that we are innocent or sinless really or imputatively no not when they dream of Perfection and Supererrogation unless when they denominate Sin and Perfection only from the Condition of the Law of Grace and not that of Innocency 2. But if any of them do as you say no wonder if they and you contend If one say We are Innocent or Sinless in reality and the other we are so by Imputation when we are so no way at all but sinners really and so reputed what Reconciliation is there to be expected till both lay by their Errour Object 5. How can God accept him as just who is really and reputedly a Sinner This dishonoureth his Holiness and Justice Answ Not so Cannot God pardon sin upon a valuable Merit and Satisfaction of a Mediator And though he judg us not perfect now and accept us not as such yet 1. now he judgeth us Holy 2. and the Members of a perfect Saviour 3. and will make us perfect and spotless and then so judg us having washed us from our sins in the Blood of the Lamb. Object 6. Thus you make the Reatus Culpae not pardoned at all but only the Reatus Poenae Answ 1. If by Reatus Culpae be meant the Relation of a Sinner as he is Revera Peccator and so to be Reus is to be Revera ipse qui peccavit then we must consider what you mean by Pardon For if you mean the nullifying of such a Guilt or Reality it is impossible because necessiate existentiae he that hath once sinned will be still the Person that sinned while he is a Person and the Relation of one that sinned will cleave to him It will eternally be a true Proposition Peter and Paul did sin But if by Pardon you mean the pardoning of all the penalty which for that sin is due damni
vel sensus so it is pardoned and this is indeed the Reatus poenae Not only the Penalty but the Dueness of that Penalty or the Obligation to it is remitted and nullified 2. Therefore if by Reatus Culpae you mean an Obligation to Punishment for that Fault this being indeed the Reatus poenae as is said is done away So that we are I think all agreed de re And de nomine you may say that the Reatus Culpae is done away or remitted or not in several senses In se it is not nullified nor can be But as Dueness of Punishment followeth that is pardoned Object 7. You have said That though we were not personally but seminally in Adam when he sinned yet when we are Persons we are Persons guilty of his actual sin And so we must be Persons that are Partakers of Christ's Actual Righteousness and not only of its Effects as soon as we are Believers For Christ being the Second Adam and publick Person we have our part in his Righteousness as truly and as much as in Adam's sin Answ 1. We must first understand how far Adam's sin is ours And first I have elsewhere proved that our Covenant-Vnion and Interest supposeth our Natural Vnion and Interest and that it is an adding to God's Word and Covenant to say That he covenanted that Adam should personate each one of his Posterity in God's imputation or account any further than they were naturally in him and so that his innocency or sin should be reputed theirs as far as if they had been personally the Subjects and Agents The Person of Peter never was in Reality or God's Reputation the Person of Adam Nor Adam's Person the Person of Peter But Peter being virtually and seminally in Adam when he sinned his Person is derived from Adam's Person And so Peter's Guilt is not numerically the same with Adams but the Accident of another Subject and therefore another Accident derived with the Person from Adam and from nearer Parents The Fundamentum of that Relation of Guilt is the Natural Relation of the Person to Adam and so it is Relatio in Relatione fundata The Fundamentum of that natural Relation is Generation yea a series of Generations from Adam to that Person And Adam's Generation being the Communication of a Guilty Nature with personality to his Sons and Daughters is the fundamentum next following his personal Fault and Guilt charged on him by the Law So that here is a long series of efficient Causes bringing down from Adam's Person and Guilt a distinct numerical Person and Guilt of every one of his later Posterity 2. And it is not the same sort of Guilt or so plenary which is on us for Adam's Act as was on him but a Guilt Analogical or of another sort that is He was guilty of being the wilful sinning Person and so are not we but only of being Persons whose Being is derived by Generation from the wilful sinning Persons besides the guilt of our own inherent pravity That is The Relation is such which our Persons have to Adam ' s Person as make it just with God to desert us and to punish us for that and our pravity together This is our Guilt of Original sin 3. And this Guilt cometh to us by Natural Propagation and resultancy from our very Nature so propagated And now let us consider of our contrary Interest in Christ And 1. Our Persons are not the same as Christ's Person nor Christ's as ours nor ever so judged or accounted of God 2. Our Persons were not naturally seminally and virtually in Christ's Person any further than he is Creator and Cause of all things as they were in Adams 3. Therefore we derive not Righteousness from him by Generation but by his voluntary Donation or Contract 4. As he became not our Natural Parent so our Persons not being in Christ when he obeyed are not reputed to have been in him naturally or to have obeyed in and by him 5. If Christ and we are reputed one Person either he obeyed in our Person or we in his or both If he obeyed as a Reputed Sinner in the Person of each Sinner his Obedience could not be meritorious according to the Law of Innocency which required sinless Perfection And he being supposed to have broken the Law in our Persons could not so be supposed to keept it If we obeyed in his Person we obeyed as Mediators or Christ's of which before 6. But as is oft said Christ our Mediator undertook in a middle Person to reconcile God and Man not by bringing God erroneously to judg that he or we were what we are not or did what we did not but by being doing and suffering for us that in his own Person which should better answer God's Ends and Honour than if we had done and suffered in our Persons that hereby he might merit a free Gift of Pardon and Life with himself to be given by a Law of Grace to believing penitent Accepters And so our Righteousness as is oft opened is a Relation resulting at once from all these Causes as fundamental to it viz. Christ's Meritorious Righteousness his free Gift thereupon and our Relation to him as Covenanters or United Believers And this is agreed on Object 8. As Christ is a Sinner by imputation of our sin so we are Righteous by the imputation of his Righteousness But it is our sin it self that is imputed to Christ Therefore it is his Righteousness it self that is imputed to us Answ 1. Christ's Person was not the Subject of our personal Relative Guilt much less of our Habits or Acts. 2. God did not judg him to have been so 3. Nay Christ had no Guilt of the same kind reckoned to be on him else those unmeet Speeches used rashly by some would be true viz. That Christ was the greatest Murderer Adulterer Idolater Blasphemer Thief c. in all the World and consequently more hated of God for God must needs hate a sinner as such To be guilty of sin as we are is to be reputed truly to be the Person that committed it But so was not Christ and therefore not so to be reputed Christ was but the Mediator that undertook to suffer for our sins that we might be forgiven and not for his own sin real or justly reputed Expositors commonly say that to be made sin for us is but to be made a Sacrifice for sin So that Christ took upon him neither our numerical guilt of sin it self nor any of the same species but only our Reatum Poenae or Debt of Punishment or lest the Wrangler make a verbal quarrel of it our Reatum Culpae non qua talem in se sed quatenus est fundamentum Reatus poenae And so his Righteousness is ours not numerically the same Relation that he was the Subject of made that Relation to us nor yet a Righteousness of the same Species as Christ's is given us at all for his was a Mediators
Last Judgment is but a Logomachie According signifieth as much as I assert But ex is no unapt Preposition when it is but the subordinate part of Righteousness and Justification of which we speak and signifieth with me the same as According 6. His Tropical Phrase that Works pronouce us just is another ambiguity That the Judg will pronounce us just according to them as the foresaid second part of the Constitutive Cause or Matter of our Subordinate Righteousness is certain from Matth. 25. and the scope of Scripture But that they are only notifying Signs and no part of the Cause of the day to be tryed is not true which too many assert § 9. He proceedeth If there be an Evangelical Justification at God's Bar distinct from the legal one there will then also be in each an absolution of divers sins For if the Gospel forgive the same sins as the Law the same thing will be done and a double Justification will be unprofitable and idle If from divers sins then the Law forbids not the same things as the Gospel c. Answ It 's pitty such things should need any Answer 1. It 's a false Supposition That all Justification is Absolution from sin To justifie the sincerity of our Faith and Holiness is one act or part of our Justification against all possible or actual false Accusation 2. The Law of Innocency commanded not the Believing Acceptance of Christ's Righteousness and Pardon and so the Remnants of that Law in the hand of Christ which is the Precept of perfect Obedience de futuro commandeth it only consequently supposing the Gospel-Promise and Institution to have gone before and selected this as the terms of Life so that as a Law in genere existent only in speciebus commandeth Obedience and the Law of Innocency in specie commanded personal perfect perpetual Obedience as the Condition of Life so the Gospel commandeth Faith in our Redeemer as the new Condition of Life on which supposition even the Law of lapsed Nature further obligeth us thereto And as the Commands differ so do the Prohibitions There is a certain sort of sin excepted from pardon by the pardoning Law viz. Final non-performance of its Conditions And to judg a Man not guilty of this sin is part of our Justification as is aforesaid § 10. He addeth If Legal and Evangelical Justification are specie distinct then so are the Courts in which we are justified If distinct and subordinate and so he that is justified by the law is justified by the Gospel c. Answ 1. No Man is justified by the Law of Innocency or Works but Christ Did I ever say that That Law justifieth us who have voluminously wrote against it If he would have his Reader think so his unrighteousness is such as civility forbids me to give its proper Epithets to If not against what or whom is all this arguing 2. I call it Legal as it is that perfect Righteousness of Christ our Surety conform to the Law of Innocency by which he was justified though not absolved and pardoned I call it pro Legalis justitia because that Law doth not justifie us for it but Christ only but by it given us ad effecta by the New-Covenant we are saved and justified from the Curse of that Law or from Damnation is certainly as if we had done it our selves I call Faith our Evangelical Righteousness on the Reasons too oft mentioned Now these may be called Two Justifications or rather two parts of one in several respects as pleaseth the Speaker And all such Word-Souldiers shall have their liberty without my Contradiction 3. And when will he prove that these two Sorts or Parts or Acts may not be at once transacted at the same Bar Must there needs be one Court to try whether I am a true Believer or an Infidel or Hypocrite and another to judg that being such I am to be justified against all Guilt and Curse by vertue of Christ's Merits and Intercession Why may not these two parts of one Man's Cause be judged at the same Bar And why must your Pupils be taught so to conceive of so great a business in it self so plain § 11. He proceedeth The Vse of this Evangelical Justification is made to be that we may be made partakers of the Legal Justification out of us in Christ And so our Justification applyeth another Justification and our Remission of sins another Answ No Sir but our particular subordinate sort of Righteousness consisting in the performance of the Conditions of the free Gift viz. a believing suitable Acceptance is really our Dispositio receptiva being the Condition of our Title to that Pardon and Glory which for Christ's Righteousness if freely given us And our personal Faith and Sincerity must be justified and we in tantum before our Right to Christ Pardon and Life can be justified in foro 2. And to justifie us as sincere Believers when others are condemned as Hypocrites and Unbelievers and Impenitent is not Pardon of Sin These Matters should have been put into your excellent Catechism and not made strange much less obscured and opposed when laying by the quarrels about mere words I am confident you deny none of this § 12. He addeth Then Legal Justification is nothing but a bare word seeing unapplyed as to the Matter it is nothing as it is not called Healing by a Medicine not applyed nor was it ever heard that one Healing did apply another Answ Alas alas for the poor Church if this be the Academies best sorrow must excuse my Complaint If it be an Argument it must run thus If Legal or pro-legal Righteousness that is our part in Christ's Righteousness be none to us or none of our Justification when not-applyed than it is none also when it is applyed But c. Answ It is none till applyed Christ's Merits or Legal Righteousness justifie himself but not us till applyed Do you think otherwise or do you wrangle against your self But I deny your Consequence How prove you that it is none when applyed therefore Or the Cure is none when the Medicine is applyed Perhaps you 'l say That then our Personal Righteousness and subordinate Justification is ours before Christ's Righteousness and so the greater dependeth on and followeth the less Answ 1. Christ's own Righteousness is before ours 2. His Condition Pardon to fallen Mankind is before ours 3. This Gift being Conditional excepteth the non-performance of the Condition And the nature of a Condition is to suspend the effect of the Donation till performed 4. Therefore the performance goeth before the said Effect and our Title 5. But it is not therefore any cause of it but a removal of the suspension nor hath the Donation any other dependance on it And is not all this beyond denial with Persons not studiously and learnedly misled But you say It was never heard that one Healing applyed another Answ And see you not that this is a lis de nomine and
out all sin that he might confirm what he said both from the Faith of Abraham by which he was justified and from our Saviours Death by which we are delivered from sin But this is on the by 2. But saith Dr. T. The Orthodox abhor the contrary in sensu forensi Answ How easie is it to challenge the Titles of Orthodox Wise or good Men to ones self And who is not Orthodox himself being Judg But it seems with him no Man must pass for Orthodox that is not in so gross an error of his Mind if these words and not many better that are contrary must be the discovery of it viz. That will not say that in sensu forensi God esteemeth Men to have done that which they never did The best you can make of this is that you cover the same sense which I plainlier express with this illfavoured Phrase of Man's inventing But if indeed you mean any more than I by your sensus forensis viz. that such a suffering and meriting for us may in the lax improper way of some Lawyers speaking be called Our own Doing Meriting Suffering c. I have proved that the Doctrine denied by me subverteth the Gospel of Christ Reader I remember what Grotius then Orthodox thirty years before his Death in that excellent Letter of Church-Orders Predestination Perseverance and Magistrates animadverting on Molinaeus saith How great an injury those Divines who turn the Christian Doctrine into unintelligible Notions and Controversies do to Christian Magistrates because it is the duty of Magistrates to discern and preserve necessary sound Doctrine which these Men would make them unable to discern The same I must say of their injury to all Christians because all should hold fast that which is proved True and Good which this sort of Men would disable them to discern We justly blame the Papists for locking up the Scripture and performing their Worship in an unknown Tongue And alas what abundance of well-meaning Divines do the same thing by undigested Terms and Notions and unintelligible Distinctions not adapted to the Matter but customarily used from some Persons reverenced by them that led the way It is so in their Tractates both of Theology and other Sciences and the great and useful Rule Verba Rebus aptanda sunt is laid aside or rather Men that understand not Matter are like enough to be little skilful in the expressing of it And as Mr. Pemble saith A cloudy unintelligible stile usually signifieth a cloudy unintelligent Head to that sense And as Mr. J. Humfrey tells Dr. Fullwood in his unanswerable late Plea for the Conformists against the charge of Schism pag. 29. So overly are men ordinarily wont to speak at the first sight against that which others have long thought upon that some Men think that the very jingle of a distinction not understood is warrant enough for their reproaching that Doctrine as dangerous and unsound which hath cost another perhaps twenty times as many hard studies as the Reproachers ever bestowed on that Subject To deliver thee from those Learned Obscurities read but the Scripture impartially without their Spectacles and ill-devised Notions and all the Doctrine of Justification that is necessary will be plain to thee And I will venture again to fly so far from flattering those called Learned Men who expect it as to profess that I am perswaded the common sort of honest unlearned Christians even Plowmen and Women do better understand the Doctrine of Justification than many great Disputers will suffer themselves or others to understand it by reason of their forestalling ill-made Notions these unlearned Persons commonly conceive 1. That Christ in his own Person as a Mediator did by his perfect Righteousness and Sufferings merit for us the free pardon of all our sins and the Gift of his Spirit and Life Eternal and hath promised Pardon to all that are Penitent Believers and Heaven to all that so continue and sincerely obey him to the end and that all our after-failings as well as our former sins are freely pardoned by the Sacrifice Merits and Intercession of Christ who also giveth us his Grace for the performance of his imposed Conditions and will judg us as we have or have not performed them Believe but this plain Doctrine and you have a righter understanding of Justification than many would let you quietly enjoy who tell you That Faith is not imputed for Righteousness that it justifieth you only as an Instrumental Cause and only as it is the reception of Christ's Righteousness and that no other Act of Faith is justifying and that God esteemeth us to have been perfectly Holy and Righteous and fulfilled all the Law and died for our own sins in or by Christ and that he was politically the very Person of every Believing Sinner with more such like And as to this distinction which this Doctor will make a Test of the Orthodox that is Men of of his Size and Judgment you need but this plain explication of it 1. In Law-sense a Man is truly and fitly said himself to have done that which the Law or his Contract alloweth him to do either by himself or another as to do an Office or pay a Debt by a Substitute or Vicar For so I do it by my Instrument and the Law is fulfilled and not broken by me because I was at liberty which way to do it In this sense I deny that we ever fulfilled all the Law by Christ and that so to hold subverts all Religion as a pernicious Heresie 2. But in a tropical improper sense he may be said to be esteemed of God to have done what Christ did who shall have the benefits of Pardon Grace and Glory thereby merited in the manner and measure given by the free Mediator as certainly as if he had done it himself In this improper sense we agree to the Matter but are sorry that improper words should be used as a snare against sound Doctrine and the Churches Love and Concord And yet must we not be allowed Peace § 4. But my free Speech here maketh me remember how sharply the Doctor expounded and applyed one word in the retracted Aphorisms I said not of the Men but of the wrong Opinion opposed by me It fondly supposeth a Medium betwixt one that is just and one that is no sinner one that hath his sin or guilt taken away and one that hath his unrighteousness taken away It 's true in bruits and insensibles that are not subjects capable of Justice there is c. There is a Negative Injustice which denominateth the Subject non-justum but no◠injustum where Righteousness is not due But when there is the debitum habendi its privative The Doctor learnedly translateth first the word fondly by stolide and next he fondly though not stolidè would perswade the Reader that it is said of the Men though himself translate it Doctrina And next he bloweth his Trumpet to the War with this exclamation Stolide O
46. Quest 7. Are we reputed our selves to have fulfilled all that Law of Innocency in and by Christ as representing our persons as obeying by him Ans No. § 47. Quest 8. Is it Christs Divine Habitual Active or Passive Righteousness which Justifieth us Ans All viz the Habitual Active and Passive exalted in Meritoriousness by Union with the Divine § 48. Quest 9. Is it Christs Righteousness or our Faith which is said to be imputed to us for Righteousness Rom. 4. Ans 1. The text speaketh of imputing Faith and by Faith is meant Faith and not Christs Righteousness in the word But that Faith is Faith in Christ and his Righteousness and the Object is quasi materia actus and covenanted 2. De re both are Imputed that is 1. Christs Righteousness is reputed the meritorious Cause 2. The free-gift by the Covenant is reputed the fundamentum juris both opposed to our Legal Merit 3. And our Faith is reputed the Conditio tituli and all that is required in us to our Justification as making us Qualified Recipients of the free-Gift merited by Christ § 49. Quest 10. Are we any way Justified by our own performed Righteousness Ans Yes Against the charge of non-performance as Infidels Impenitent Unholy and so as being uncapable of the free-gift of Pardon and Life in Christ CHAP. IV. The Reasons of our denying the fore-described rigid sence of Imputation Though it were most accurate to reduce what we deny to several Propositions and to confute each one argumentatively by it self yet I shall now choose to avoid such prolixity and for brevity and the satisfaction of such as look more at the force of a Reason than the form of the Argument I shall thrust together our denyed Sence with the manifold Reasons of our denyal WE deny that God doth so Impute Christs Righteousness to us as to repute or account us to have been Holy with all that Habitual Holiness which was in Christ or to have done all that he did in obedience to his Father or in fulfilling the Law or to have suffered all that he suffered and to have made God satisfaction for our own sins and merited our own Salvation and Justification in and by Christ or that he was did and suffered and merited all this strictly in the person of every sinner that is saved Or that Christs very individual Righteousness Material or Formal is so made ours in a strict sense as that we are Proprietors Subjects or Agents of the very thing it self simply and absolutely as it is distinct from the effects or that Christs Individual Formal Righteousness is made our Formal Personal Righteousness or that as to the effects we have any such Righteousness Imputed to us as formally ours which consisteth in a perfect Habitual and Actual Conformity to the Law of Innocency that is that we are reputed perfectly Holy and sinless and such as shall be Justified by the Law of Innocency which saith Perfectly Obey and Live or sin and die All this we deny Let him that will answer me keep to my words and not alter the sense by leaving any out And that he may the better understand me I add 1. I take it for granted that the Law requireth Habitual Holiness as well as Actual Obedience and is not fulfilled without both 2. That Christ loved God and man with a perfect constant Love and never sinned by Omission or Commission 3. That Christ died not only for our Original sin or sin before Conversion but for all our sin to our lives end 4. That he who is supposed to have no sin of Omission is supposed to have done all his duty 5. That he that hath done all his duty is not condemnable by that Law yea hath right to all the Reward promised on Condition of that duty 6. By Christs Material Righteousness I mean those Habits Acts and Sufferings in which his Righteousness did consist or was founded 7. By his and our Formal Righteousness I mean the Relation it self of being Righteous 8. And I hold that Christs Righteousness did not only Numerically as aforesaid but also thus totâ specie in kind differ from ours that his was a perfect Habitual and Actual Conformity to the Law of Innocency together with the peculiar Laws of Mediator-ship by which he merited Redemption for us and Glory for himself and us But ours is the Pardon of sin and Right of Life Purchased Merited and freely given us by Christ in and by a new Covenant whose condition is Faith with Repentance as to the gift of our Justification now and sincere Holiness Obedience Victory and Perseverance as to our possession of Glory Now our Reasons against the denyed sence of Imputation are these 1. In general this opinion setteth up and introduceth all Antinomianism or Libertinism and Ungodliness and subverteth the Gospel and all true Religion and Morality I do not mean that all that hold it have such effects in themselves but only that this is the tendency and consequence of the opinion For I know that many see not the nature and consequences of their own opinions and the abundance that hold damnable errors hold them but notionally in a peevish faction and therefore not dammingly but hold practically and effectually the contrary saving truth And if the Papists shall perswade Men that our doctrine yea their 's that here mistake cannot consist with a godly life let but the lives of Papists and Protestants be compared Yea in one of the Instances before given Though some of the Congregational-party hold what was recited yet so far are they from ungodly lives that the greatest thing in which I differ from them is the overmuch unscriptural strictness of some of them in their Church-admissions and Communion while they fly further from such as they think not godly than I think God would have them do being generally persons fearing God themselves Excepting the sinful alienation from others and easiness to receive and carry false reports of Dissenters which is common to all that fall into sidings But the errors of any men are never the better if they be found in the hands of godly men For if they be practised they will make them ungodly 2. It confoundeth the Person of the Mediator and of the Sinner As if the Mediator who was proclaimed the Beloved of the Father and therefore capable of reconciling us to him because he was still well-pleased in him had not only suffered in the room of the sinner by voluntary Sponsion but also in suffering and doing been Civilly the very person of the sinner himself that sinner I say who was an enemy to God and so esteemed 3. It maketh Christ to have been Civilly as many persons as there be elect sinners in the World which is both beside and contrary to Scripture 4. It introduceth a false sence and supposition of our sin imputed to Christ as if Imputatively it were his as it is ours even the sinful Habits the sinful Acts and