condition of our Iustification yet it is the way appointed by God for us to walk in for the obtaining of Salvation The meaning of which is not that Holiness contributes any thing either to our Justification or Salvation but that God has ordained that he will first sanctifie men before he will save them This is the method God hath designed in the execution of his Decrees that he will first justifie and then sanctifie and then save and glorifie Now all this Dr. Crispe will readily own For he asserts that Christ will take care to sanctifie those whom he justifies And that our Righteousness is useful as it is the Ordinance of God wherein the Lord hath appointed to meet with us and wherein he will make good those things which before he hath promised which is all that can be meant by Dr. Owen's way which is neither the cause nor matter nor condition of our Justification nor of our Salvation neither as he elsewhere tells us that we must not work for Everlasting life And therefore when Dr. Crispe elsewhere tells us That Sanctification of life is not a jot the way of the justified person to Heaven it is the business of a person that he hath to do in his way to Christ but it is not the way it self to Heaven He only means that Holiness is not such a way as Christ is but would never scruple to own it such a way as Dr. Owen makes it What Dr. Owen adds that this Holiness is the whole expression of our thankfulness to God is so often repeated by Dr. Crispe that I need not direct to any particular places From all this it evidently appears that as great a Friend as Dr. Owen would seem to be to Holiness Dr. Crispe is as great to the full and that any Antinomian may own the necessity of Holiness upon the same accounts that Dr. Owen does Indeed the parting Line is the Antecedent necessity of Holiness to our Justification and Salvation and whoever will not own this I will be bound to make it good against him that he is an Antinomian though he may not have courage enough openly to defend all the fulsom consequences of that Doctrine And for a conclusion of this Argument I shall only observe these two things First What great reason these men have to assert a natural and irresistible efficacy of Grace in the Conversion of a Sinner For they having taken away all those Arguments which should work upon our Hopes and Fears which are the natural springs of action there is nothing left but an Omnipotent and irresistable Power to make men good And therefore as I observed before Dr. Crispe honestly acknowledges That this were the way to take the bridle from men and make them kick up their heels as the wild Asses upon the Mountains were a man to be guided by himself and to order his own way according to the pleasure of his own will and therefore resolves the bridling of mens Passions solely into the over-ruling power of Christ which restrains and keeps in their Spirits Which he explains by this similitude Although a wild Ass upon the Mountains being loose runs at random yet this Ass may be taken and so tamed that he may be set as loose as he was before yet he will not run unrulily as he did before by virtue of that â—aming that is upon him It is true our natures themselves are mad and if they had the reins would run wild but you must know that Christ breaks this wildness and then he dare let a Believer loose to that in respect of which an Unbeliever a wicked man would take advantage to sin This is a plain confession that the only security against the evil consequences of this Doctrine consists in the restraints of Omnipotent Grace The Doctrine is apt in it self to give the reins to mens ungoverned Lusts and Passions but Christ so tames the Spirit of a man that he shall not run away though there be no bridle to keep him in which though it be much for the necessity and commendation of irresistible Grace is not much for the credit of the Christian Religion Secondly I observe also what great reason these men have to cry out against Selfishness or Self-love or against serving God in hope of a Reward or for fear of Punishment because they have taken away all the Objects of our Hopes and Fears for if as Dr. Crispe well says Christ have done all that may be done for us then there needs no doing at all for our selves If our Justification and Eternal Life be wholly owing to what Christ hath done for us then we must not work either for Justification or Eternal Life as Dr. Crispe and Dr. Owen both assert For what reason then shall we serve God If we get nothing by all the righteousness we perform then we had as good sit still and do nothing This says Dr. Crispe is a carnal reasoning and there is Selfishness at the botom of it and such a man had as good do nothing for if he design his own good and happiness he serves himself not God and though he doth perform Righteousness never so exactly if he serves himself God will never reckon that he serves him At this rate Mr. Shephard and others talk as I shewed in my former Discourse and here we see the plain reason of it For it is not imaginable what should force men into such wild conceits as to banish all the natural principles of Action out of Religion but that they had first formed such uncouth Notions of Religion as were inconsistent with all the Principles of Human Nature They first ascribe our Justification and Salvation entirely to what Christ hath done and suffered without requiring any condition on our part and then they were forced either to assert that there was no need of serving God at all which they durst not own or that we must serve God without designing any benefit and advantage to our selves in doing so because in their way there is nothing to be gained by it and therefore unless we will serve God for nothing we must not serve him at all And I cannot but acknowledge that it was very craftily done of them to cry up that as the very hight and perfection of Christianity which how absurd and contradictory soever to the Principles of Humane Nature yet they were forced to own unless they would renounce their darling and beloved Notions Thus I have given a plain and full account of the Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Justification of a sinner and shewed what little reason these men have to talk of Articles and Homilies All which I willingly submit to the judgment of my Superiours but neither expect nor fear an Answer from my Adversaries CHAP. IV. Concerning an acquaintance with Christ's Person THe Sum of what I charge Dr. Owen with in this matter is this that as far as I can discover his
endeavoured to misrepresent the Doctrine and Design of my Book and by affixing ill names to it deter their followers from looking on the inside or once considering what it is they are afraid of I shall here give a short Abstract of the whole Doctrine and do earnestly beg that favour of every man if he will not be at the trouble to read and consider the Discourse it self at least to peruse this short Account of it before he allow himself the liberty of reviling Only I must observe by the way how the state of things is already altered since the appearing of my Discourse before the great noise and clamour was against Moral and Legal Preachers who preach'd up Holiness but left out Christ and the Grace of God now when they are charg'd on the other hand with as much undervaluing a holy Life and with advancing the Person of Christ to the prejudice of his Laws and Religion they change their note and would perswade the world that there is no real difference between us but that I force their Expressions to a sense which they never intended they are now grown great Patrons of Holiness and whatever they talk of the Excellency of Christs Person or of his boundless and bottomless compassion and of such an infinite mercy which all the sins in the world cannot equal and of such a Patience as will save us notwithstanding our sins they mean no more than what we believe as heartily as they that Christ is able and willing to save all those who repent and believe and reform their lives and that he will save none but upon these terms I am glad with all my heart to hear this for I designed no more than to establish this Doctrine but what account can they give after this of their general out-cry against Legal and Moral Preachers Were there any men who taught the People that Holiness would save them without the Merits of Christ I know no such they were none of my Companions and Complices at whom the Doctor so often flurts And if there be no real difference between us but only a different phrase and manner of expression I wonder why they should be so angry with those men who speak that so plainly that the People cannot mistake them which they affect to obscure in uncouth and mystical phrases There can be no account given of this but that they are willing at least that the People should believe there is a difference and are not so faithful to Mens Souls as to prevent such dangerous mistakes Were these phrases of coming to Christ and closing with Christ and leaning and resting and rolling our Souls on Christ for Salvation and such like generally understood not only by some cunning Sophisters when they are forc'd by reason and argument to put a sober sense on them but by the common people to signifie no more than expecting to be saved by Christ according to Gospel-terms that is upon the conditions of Faith and Repentance and a new Life I should think him very ill imployed who should disturb the peace of the Church for the sake of any modes of speaking but when it is so evident that the Preachers themselves when they have no adversary expound these phrases to a very different if not contrary purpose and that the generality of Hearers never suspect that coming to Christ and closing with Christ include Obedience and a holy Life but that this is rather a hinderance to their closing with Christ as their Preachers tell them This makes it necessary to oppose those forms of speech which are generally abused to evil purposes and it is an argument of no great honesty to be fond of words and phrases to the prejudice of mens souls And yet after all this the Doctor cannot forget his old grudge against these Preachers of holiness He tells us I know there are not a few who in the course of a vain worldly conversation whilst there is scarce a back or belly of a Disciple of Christ that blesseth God upon account of their bounty or charity the footsteps of levity vanity scurrility and prophaness being moreover left upon all the paths of their haunt are wont to declaim about holiness good works and justification by them which is a ready way to instruct men to Atheism or the scorn of every thing that is professed in Religion No doubt but there is a great mixture of truth and modesty in this censure I thank God I know no such persons and if I did I should abhor them as much as he can but the Doctors quarrel seems to be not so much at the vanity and prophaness c. of their Conversation for it is a known Maxim among them The worse the better as at their preaching Holiness c. Good Sir if such men are permitted to preach what would you have them preach Should they cry down holiness and preach up debauchery Is this the way to cure the world of Atheism Or should they teach men to trust wholly in the righteousness of Christ without any righteousness of their own I confess this would much more become them and I wonder all bad men are not of this perswasion though I hope the Doctor and his Friends have some better reason for their Zeal For the same cause these men persecute my Discourse the whole design of which is no more than to convince men of the absolute necessity of a universal Righteousness in order to please God and to save their souls that no man must expect to be saved by Christ without obeying the Gospel and imitating the example of his Lord and that this is the meaning of all those phrases of Scripture of believing in Christ and coming to him and receiving him and being united to him and ingrafted in him and the like which are expounded by some men to the prejudice of obedience and to encourage sinners to expect justification by Christ and those who are justified are actually in a state of salvation while they are in their filth and impurities I cannot but think it very glorious to suffer in such a cause this was the very reason why the Pharisees persecuted our Saviour himself because he rejected all their external and ceremonial righteousness and exacted from them a sincere and internal obedience to the divine Laws and plainly told them That nothing would carry them to Heaven but such a renovation of their minds and spirits as transformed them into the likeness and image of God This is the great fault of my Book and the true reason of all this noise and clamour as will appear by taking a summary account of the whole Design and Doctrine of it CHAP. I. Containing a short Account of the Design and Doctrine of the Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Christ c. THe Design I proposed to my self in that Discourse was to reconcile that Love and Honour and Adoration Trust and Affiance which all Christians owe to their Lord and
faith in his Blood to shew his Righteousness And in the Tenth Chapter Christ is the end of the Law unto Righteousness to every man that believeth And in the Eighth Chapter That which was impossible by the Law in as much as it was weak by the flesh God sending his own Son in the similitude of sinful flesh by sin damned sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us which walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Which Texts are alledged by our Modern Divines to prove the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us as the formal cause of our Justification but our Church expresly tells us that she understands these Texts to signifie no more on Christs part but Iustice or the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice. And whereas these new Divines make such a difference between the Active and Passive Righteousness of Christ that by his Death and Sufferings he expiated our Sins and by his Active Obedience makes us righteous Our Church knows no difference in this matter but assures us that they both concur to the same effect to make satisfaction for our sins He made satisfaction to Gods Iustice by the offering of his Body and shedding his Blood with fulfilling the Law perfectly and throughly Which account I expresly gave of it in my former Discourse p. 330. Edit 2. p. 231. In this sense we are taught that Christ is now the Righteousness of all them that truly believe in him he for them paid their Ransom by his Death he for them fulfilled the Law in his Life So that now in him and by him every true Christian Man may be called a fulfiller of the Law for asmuch as that which their infirmity lacked Christs Iustice hath supplied Which last clause the Looking-Glass-Maker thought fit to leave out for he had so much wit in his anger as to see that it did not make to his purpose for the meaning of it is this that Christs active and passive Righteousness is imputed to us to procure the pardon of our sins thereby to supply the defects of our Righteousness not to make us formally righteous though our Righteousness be imperfect and defective yet Christ by his Righteousness having obtained the pardon of our sins we may be said in him to fulfil the Law in as much as that which our Infirmity lacked Christs Iustice his Merit and Satisfaction as it is before explained hath supplied And once for all our Church tells us what she means by being justified by Christ only We put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no vertue and good works of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do to deserve the same Christ himself being the only cause meritorious thereof So that the plain sense of our Church is that Christs part in our Justification is only to be the meritorious cause of it to merit Pardon and Justification for all those who heartily believe in him And who-ever of our Communion have affirmed any more they have in so doing plainly deserted the Doctrine of our Church And therefore Doctor Prideaux himself does expresly disown the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ in any other sense than that of Merit Iustificamur per justitiam Christi non personae quâ ipse vestitus est sed meriti quâ suos vestit nobis imputatam that is We are justified by the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us not by his Personal Righteousness as Dr. Owen affirms with which he is cloathed himself but with the Righteousness of Merit with which he cloaths those who belong to him And in answer to a passage out of Bellarmine he adds Quis unquam è nostris nos per justitiam Christi imputatam formaliter justificari asseruit that is Who among us ever affirmed that we were formally justified by the imputed Righteousness of Christ. And as the learned Forbs observes it sounds very like a contradiction to assert that the Righteousness of Christ is both the meritorious and the formal cause of our Justification Nequit enim fieri ut eadem res simul fit causa efficiens ad quam meritum reducitur formalis ejusdem effecti quia sic simul de essentia effecti foret non foret cùm causa formalis interna sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 efficiens autem externa tantum ut constat that is It cannot be that the same thing should be both the efficient as Merit is and the formal cause of the same effect for so it must both be of the essence and not of the essence of the effect for a formal cause is internal and belongs to the nature and essence of the thing but an efficient is an external cause as every one knows And therefore when the Learned Bishop Davenant asserts the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us to be the formal cause of our Justification and explains it by our being justified ex intuitu meritorum Christi propter Christum with respect to the Merits of Christ and for Christs sake though he uses a different phrase which too many since have abused to bad purposes yet he seems to mean no more by it than we do who say that the Righteousness of Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification for that must be explained by the same phrases of being justified for Christs sake and with respect to the Merits of Christ and indeed the only difference the Bishop makes between the Righteousness of Christ being the meritorious and the formal cause of our Justification is no more but this that in the first case he considers the Merits of Christ absolutely as the price of our Redemption in the second he considers those same Merits of Christ applied to particular persons for the pardon of their particular sins which still makes it no more than a meritorious cause His words are these Eadem unica justitia Christi in se suo valore considerata est meritoria causa humanae justificationis considerata autem quatenus imputatur donatur applicatur tanquam sua singulis credentibus in Christum insitis subit vicem causae formalis And that he intends no more by a formal cause than what others express by a meritorious cause is plain in this that he acknowledges the imputation even of Christs active Righteousness only in the sense of Merit He expresses his agreement with Vasques in this matter who acknowledges the imputation of the Merit of Christs active Obedience Cùm dicimus Merita Christi nobis imputari idem de justitia sanctitate illius existimamus nam cùm Merita Christi ex sanctitate ejus dignitatem accipiant eodem sensu quo Merita nobis dicuntur imputari ipsa etiam Iustitia Christi imputari dicitur that is When we say that
Homily by many Scripture-Promises and Examples and therefore we must consider what our Church means by Repentance and the explication of this is reduced to four principal Points From what we must return to whom we must return by whom we may be able to convert and the manner how to turn to God First From whence or from what things we must return and that is From all our sins not only grosser vices but the filthy lusts and inward concupiscences of the Flesh. All these things must they forsake that will truly turn unto the Lord and repent aright For sith for such things the wrath of God cometh upon the Children of Disobedience no end of punishment ought to be look'd for as long as we continue in such things But this must be done by Faith for sith that God is a Spirit he can by no other means be apprehended and taken hold upon That is God being a Spirit we cannot see him with bodily Eyes nor go to him on our Legs nor take hold of him with an Arm of Flesh and therefore this Metaphor of returning to God and going to him and taking hold of him must be expounded to a spiritual sense is the work of Faith which discovers him who is invisible and unites our Souls and Spirits to him And We have need of a Mediator for to bring and reconcile us unto him who for our sins is angry with us the same is Jesus Christ who being true and natural God c. took our nature upon him that so he might be a Mediator between God and us and pacifie his wrath In the second part of the Homily we have this general Description of Repentance That it is a true Returning unto God whereby men forsaking utterly their Idolatry and Wickedness do with a lively Faith embrace love and worship the true living GOD only and give themselves to all manner of good Works which by Gods Word they know to be acceptable unto him And we are there informed That there are four Parts of Repentance the first is Contrition of the Heart For we must be earnestly sorry for our sins and unfeignedly lament and bewail that we have by them so grievously offended our most bounteous and merciful God c. The second is an unfeigned Confession and acknowledging of our sins to God The third is Faith whereby we do apprehend and take hold upon the Promises of God touching the free pardon and forgiveness of our sins which Promises are sealed up unto us with the death and blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Reason of this is because Contrition and Confession will avail us nothing unless we stedfastly believe and be fully perswaded that God for his Son Jesus Christs sake will forgive us all our sins for though we be never so earnestly sorry for our sins and acknowledge and confess them yet all these things shall be but means to bring us to utter desparation except we do stedfastly believe that God our heavenly Father will for his Son Jesus Christs sake pardon and forgive us our Offences and Trespasses and utterly put them out of remembrance in his sight therefore they that teach Repentance without Christ and a lively Faith in the Mercy of God do only teach Cains or Iudas Repentance That is they teach men to be sorry for their sins without any hopes of Pardon and Forgiveness which is only to be obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ. The fourth part of Repentance is an amendment of Life in bringing forth fruits worthy of Repentance for they that do truly repent must be clean alter'd and changed they must become New Creatures they must be no more the same that they were before As appears from Iohn the Baptists Exhortation to the Scribes and Pharisees whereby we do learn that if we will have the wrath of God to be pacified we must in no wise dissemble but turn unto him again with a true and sound Repentance which may be known and declared by good Fruits as by most sure and infallible signs thereof This I think is as plain as words can make it that Repentance which consists in a hearty sorrow for all our sins and in a humble Confession of them to Almighty God and in a sincere Faith and Trust in the Mercies of God through our Lord Jesus Christ together with an actual amendment of our lives is according to the sense of our Church absolutely necessary to obtain the pardon of our sins that is Iustification by the free Grace of God This has often made me wonder that any one should affix such a Doctrine as this to the Church of England That Repentance it self is not antecedently necessary to our Iustification I am sure the Learned Bishop Davenant was of another mind in this point for he expresly asserts that there are some Works sine quibus Iustificatio nunquam fuit ab ullo mortalium obtenta nunquam obtinebitur without which Justification never was and never shall be obtained by any mortal man among which he reckons true Repentance and Faith and the love of God and of our Neighbour Haec hujusmodi opera cordis interna sunt omnibus justificatis necessaria non quod contineant in se efficaciam seu meritum Iustificationis sed quod juxta ordinationem divinam vel requiruntur ut conditiones praeviae seu concurrentes sicuti poenitere credere vel ut effecta à fide justificante necessario manantia ut amare Deum c. i. e. These and such-like internal Works of the Heart are necessary to all that are justified not that they are meritorious Causes of Justification but because according to the Divine Appointment they are required either as previous or concurring conditions such as Repentance and Faith or as effects which necessarily flow from a justifying Faith such as to love God c. Where this Learned Prelate doth expresly assert that Repentance as well as Faith is a previous Condition of our Justification and I fear will hereafter be accounted one of our Innovators And that distinction which the Bishop makes between those Works which are required as previous Conditions of Justification as to repent and believe and those Works which are necessary Effects of justifying Faith which must always be present in the justified Person as to love God c. gives a plain and easie answer to the grand Exception against the antecedent necessity of Repentance to our Justification viz. Because then it must precede Faith it self I suppose because every true Believer is actually justified in the first instant of his being a true Believer whereas all good Works and therefore Repentance and Contrition which are certainly good Works are the Effects and Fruits of Faith and so consequently must follow our Justification by Faith unless we will place the Effects before their Cause But this is absolutely false that all good Works are the effects and fruits of justifying Faith for there are some good Works which
and the Fear of God to be joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but it shutteth them out from the Office of Iustifying So that although they be all present together in him that is justified yet they justifie not all together So that no man must expect this great Blessing of Justification unless together with Faith he have Repentance Hope Love Dread and the Fear of God which supposes that a man must be a true Penitent and a true Lover of God before he is justified Though Repentance and Hope c. have no actual influence upon our Justification yet they are causae sine quibus non such causes without which the effect will never follow which necessarily intitles them to the nature of Conditions for a Condition which hath no natural or meritorious Efficiency is only a causa sine quâ non and though it is true that the accidental presence of one thing with another which produces any Effect will not entitle it to any degree of Efficiency yet where there is such a natural Union between two things that neither of them can act alone though the effect may more immediately belong to one than to the other yet they both concur to it though the hand does immediately apprehend any thing or lay hold on it yet the Shoulder and the Arm is naturally necessary to produce this action because the Hand cannot move of it self And if they will allow us this similitude which they themselves sometimes use that Good VVorks be the Shoulder and Arm that upholds Faith we will allow Faith to be the Hand And thus it is in Moral Causes where the presence of two things of Faith suppose and Works is necessarily required in order to the same Effect there must be a concurrence of both though it may be in different manners When our Church asserts the necessary presence of some internal Graces and Vertues together with Faith in him who is to be justified she plainly acknowledges that we shall never be justified without them though not for them which is all that any one desires who denies and rejects the Merits of Good Works And as these internal Acts of Repentance Hope c. are antecedently necessary to Justification so Good Works must necessarily follow as we are taught in the same place Nor the Faith also doth not shut out the Iustice of our Good Works necessarily to be done afterwards of Duty towards God for we are most bounden to serve God in doing Good Deeds commanded by him in his holy Scripture all the days of our Life but it excludeth them so that we may not do them to this intent to be made good by doing of them that is to be justified by them And this we are taught is so necessary that unless these Good Works follow as the necessary Fruits of Faith we shall loose our Justification again as you heard above In what sense then does our Church reject good Works and attribute our Justification to Faith alone And that we are told over and over in the most plain and express words that it is only to take away the Merit of Good Works and to attribute our Justification to the free Mercy of God and Merits of Christ not to our own Works and Deservings Hence it is that Justification by Works is so often opposed to our Justification by the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ which are inconsistent in no other sense but that of Merit for though Good Works be supposed the necessary Conditions of Justification yet if they be acknowledged so imperfect as not to merit we shall still need the Merits of Christ to expiate our sins and the Mercy of God to pardon them and to accept of our imperfect Services But the words of the Homily are very express where after alledging the concurrent Testimonies of the ancient Fathers for Justification without Works by Faith alone we have this Explication given of them Nevertheless this Sentence that we be justified by Faith only is not so meant of them that the said Justifying Faith is alone in man without true Repentance Hope Charity Dread and Fear of God at any time and season nor when they say we be justified freely they mean not that we should or might afterward be idle and that nothing should be required on our parts afterward neither they mean not so to be justified without Good Works that we should do no Good Works at all But this saying that we be justified by Faith only freely and without Works is spoken for to take away clearly all Merit of our Works as being unable to deserve our Justification at Gods hands and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of Man and the goodness of God the great infirmity of our selves and the might and power of God the imperfectness of our own Works and the most abundant Grace of our Saviour Christ and therefore wholly to ascribe the Merit and Deserving of our Justification to Christ only and his most precious blood-shedding Hence for a man to be justified by his own Works is expounded as if we should affirm That a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own sins and so justifie himself That is when they reject Justification by Works they understand by it a meritorious Justification Thus in the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we are expresly taught That the true meaning of this Proposition or Saying We be justified by Faith in Christ only according to the meaning of the old ancient Authors is this We put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods free Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no vertue or Good Works of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do for to deserve the same Christ himself only being the Cause meritorious thereof This is so expresly the Doctrine of the Homilies that I need not multiply Testimonies for the proof of it from whence it is evident that our Church owns the necessity of Good Works to all intents and purposes excepting Merit and in this sense they reject Faith too as it is our own Work But now because our Church and all the Reformed Churches expresly reject Works in the matter of Justification under the notion of Merit and Deserving in which sense alone they are injurious to the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ from whence we argue that they own the necessity of Works upon all other Accounts and reject only the Merit of them Some tell us that we should rather argue that they put no difference between Works and the Merit of Works in the matter of Justification but equally reject them both But pray why so Truly for no Reason that I know but that it best serves their Hypothesis They acknowledge that there is a difference between Works and the Merit of Works but will by no means own that
we either have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve Remission of our Sins and our Iustification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Iesus Christ the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby Gods Grace and Remission as well of our Original Sin in Baptism as of all actual Sins committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and unfeignedly turn to him All this is called being justified by Faith only which includes a renouncing the Merits and Deserts of our own Works but first requires that we should do good Works before we renounce the Merit of them and an affiance in the Mercy of God for Pardon and Forgiveness upon the conditions of Repentance and a new Life This is all I contend for which is the Antient Catholick Doctrin of our Church against those modern notions of Reliance and Recumbency or the virtue of any particular Act of Faith in the Justification of a Sinner Thirdly I observe that should any man affirm in express words that we are justified by Works as well as by Faith meaning no more by it than that good Works are the necessary Conditions not the meritorious Causes of our Justification though he would differ in the manner of expression yet he would agree with our Church in the true notion of Justification whereas those who use the same phrase of being justified by Faith only and by Faith without Works thereby excluding the antecedent necessity of Repentance and Holiness to our Justification though they retain the same form of words yet renounce the constant Doctrin of our Church and are the only Apostates and Innovators Which may satisfie any man how unjustly I am charged with corrupting the Doctrin of our Church when I have only expressed the true sense and meaning of it in such words as are less liable to be mistaken and how vainly my Adversaries pretend to be such Obedient Sons of the Church of England when under an Orthodox Form of Words they have introduced such Doctrins as are diametrically opposite to the declared sense of this Church After this large and particular Account of the Doctrin of the Church of England concerning the Justification of a Sinner it is time in the second place to consider how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and how those men whom I oppose have corrupted the Doctrin as well as rejected the Authority of our Church And though I have already given sufficient Intimations of this yet it may be of great use more particularly to shew how directly opposite these new and fantastick Notions are to the establisht Doctrin contained in our Articles and Homilies which though it would admit of a very large Discourse I shall comprize in as few words as may be And first whereas our Church expresly asserts that in the Justification of a Sinner on Gods part is required Mercy and Grace Justification consisting in the free Pardon of all our sins Mr. Ferguson very agreeably indeed to his own Principles expresly asserts that Justification does not consist in the Pardon of sin nor is it the result of Mercy but the off-spring of Justice Remission as he acknowledges is the result of Mercy and the act of one exercising Favour but Iustification is the off spring of Iustice and imports one transacting with us in a juridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity This Notion I have examined already and shall add nothing further for the Confutation of it It is directly contrary to the Doctrin of our Homilies and I hope that is Argument enough with these men who pretend such a mighty veneration for the Antient and Catholick Doctrin of our Church But then if any man should wonder as well he may how a Sinner should be justified in this Law-notion according to the strict Rules of Justice that is that a Sinner is justified not by being pardoned but by being acquitted and absolved as an innocent man who has never offended the account of this will farther discover what Friends they are to the Doctrin of our Church For secondly whereas the Church of England requires no more on Christs part but Iustice or the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the Price of our Redemption which makes him the meritorious Cause of our Iustification that God for Christs sake forgives the sins of true Penitents these men place our Justification in the Imputation of Christs personal Righteousness to us They tell us that Christ as our Surety and Mediator hath fulfilled all Righteousness for us and in our stead and that by being clothed with his perfect Righteousness we are accounted perfectly righteous and so are justified not as Malefactors when they are pardoned but as righteous and innocent men who are acquitted and absolved And I have already informed Mr. Ferguson how effectually this Notion undermines the necessity of an inherent Righteousness To be justified by the Merits of Christ signifies no more than to be justified by the gracious Terms and Conditions of the Gospel which is founded on the Merits of Christ which was purchased and sealed with his meritorious Bloud For the Merits of Christ do not immediately justifie any man but whereas strict Justice will not admit of Repentance nor accept of an imperfect though sincere Obedience God has for the sake of Christ who hath expiated our sins by his Death entered into a Covenant of Grace and Mercy wherein he promises Pardon to true Penitents and this necessarily requires an inherent Holiness not to merit but to qualifie us for the Grace of God But if we be made righteous by a perfect Righteousness imputed to us if this will answer all the demands of Law and Justice what need is there of an imperfect Righteousness of our own The Righteousness of Christ imputed to us makes us righteous as Christ is and what need is there then of any Righteousness of our own which would be according to the Proverb to burn day and to light up Candles in the Sun Dr. Owen takes notice of this Objection and pretends to give an Answer to it which must be a little considered for a little will serve the turn And first he observes that here is a great difference if it were no more than that this Righteousness was inherent in Christ and properly his own it is only reckoned and imputed to us or freely bestowed on us But does not this Imputation make it ours How then can we answer the demands of the Law with it Is any thing the less ours because it is not originally ours but so by Gift And the Doctor was sensible that this Answer would not do and therefore secondly he tells us the Truth is that Christ was not righteous with that Righteousness for himself but for us How plain are things when men will speak out So that now
Fears The Hope of Heaven and the Fear of Hell are the great Motives of the Gospel but are of no use in this new Religion since a justified Person who yet may be very wicked is in no danger of Hell and is secure of his Inheritance in Heaven For if a justified person may miss of Heaven and fall into Hell his Justification is worth nothing a man had as good be Unjustified as to perish with his Justification And therefore though God if he pleases may sanctifie whom he first justifies yet there is no Argument left to perswade a justified person to be holy if he may be justified without it This I particularly shewed in my former Discourse where I examined Dr. Owens Reasons for the necessity of Holiness which either prove nothing or prove only the necessity of Event that God will necessarily make men holy not such a necessity of Duty as will make every considering man who hath any value for his Soul freely chuse Holiness But instead of answering what I there urged the Doctor in his Vindication transcribes a long Paragraph concerning the necessity of Holiness and leaves it to the judgment of his Readers which I must needs say was very boldly done if he thought his Readers had any judgment though it argued more craft to give me a fresh challenge as if I had yet said nothing to him The Doctor only takes notice of two or three things which I answered to his Reasons for the necessaty of Holiness and passes over all the rest as unanswerable scoffing which is his way to call that scoffing which he cannot answer As first he proved the necessity of Holiness from the command of God which had been a good Argument had it been used by another man but the Doctors Notion of Justification by the imputed Righteousness of Christ only evacuates this command and therefore I enquired where is the Sanction of this Law will he damn those who do not obey for their disobedience And will he save and reward those who do obey for their obedience Not a word of this for this destroys our Iustification by the Righteousness of Christ only And if after all these Commands God hath left it indifferent whether we obey or not I hope such Commands cannot make Obedience necessary This last Clause the Doctor recites and cries out Wonderful Divinity A man must needs be well acquainted with God and himself who can suppose that any of his Commands shall leave it indifferent whether we will obey them or no. This I confess is wonderful Divinity but I know no reason the Doctor should wonder at it because it is his own For such indifferent things he makes all the Divine Commands while he makes them unnecessary to our Justification which quite destroys their Authority and Sanction For a Law if it may be so called without Rewards and Punishments is left at the liberty of the Subject to obey it or not and such a Command cannot make Obedience necessary But the Doctor proceeds But may we not notwithstanding this Command be justified and saved without this Holiness Wherein he designs to represent my Sense though he have changed the words and answers false and impertinent we are neither justified nor saved without them though we are not justified by them nor saved for them This is warily expressed but will not serve his purpose for by our not being justified without Holiness he means no more than that God at the same time when he justifies infuses the Habits of Grace and Holiness renews and sanctifies us too and therefore we cannot be said to be justified without Holiness because we are justified and sanctified at the same instant though in order of nature we are Justified before we are Sanctified and therefore in our Justification God had no respect to any sly Antecedent Holiness which as to the present Dispute is the same thing as to be Justified without Holiness The Doctor professes it as his avowed Doctrine That Holiness and Obedience is neither the Cause Matter nor Condition of our Iustification and therefore not Antecedently necessary And expresly tells us That the Passive Righteousness of Christ only is imputed to us in the non-imputation of Sin and that on the condition of our Faith and new Obedience so exalting them into the room of the Righteousness of Christ is a thing which in Communion with the Lord Iesus I have as yet no acquaintance withal And a little before Are we then freed from this Obedience Yes But how far From doing it in our own strength from doing it for this end That we may obtain Life Everlasting It is vain that some say confidently that we must yet work for Life it is all one as to say That we are yet under the Old Covenant Hoc fac vives we are not freed from Obedience as a way of walking with God but we are as a way of working to come to him So that Holiness contributes nothing to our Justification and Eternal life and therefore we may as well be justified and saved without them which destroys the Necessity and Sanction of the Divine Laws and leaves it at every mans liberty to Obey or not to Obey were they not over-ruled like spiritual Machines and Engines by an irresistible Power In the next place the Doctor proves the necessity of Holiness from the Ends of God in Election and Redemption God Elected us and Christ Redeemed us that we might be holy This is a very good Argument too if it be rightly managed but that it can never be upon the Doctors Principles that is if we deny the Antecedent necessity of Holiness to our Justification For if God have absolutely Elected us to Eternal Life without any condition required on our part only purposing to make those holy by an irresistible Power whom he hath Elected this only proves the necessity of the Event that those who are Elected shall be holy but can be no Argument to engage any man to press after Holiness For this Election to Holiness doth not make Holiness necessary on our part with the necessity of Duty or of a Condition without which we shall not be saved but only makes it necessary on Gods part as to the regular execution of his Decree of Salvation And the same may be said of Redemption if we are so absolutely Redeemed by the Death of Christ as to have a right to all the benefits of it as Justification and Eternal Life without any condition required on our part If we are justified freely by the Grace of God through the Redemption which is in Christ Iesus without any regard to Repentance or New Obedience to qualifie us for this Grace then our Redemption by Christ cannot make it a necessary Duty in us to be holy though Holiness may follow as a necessary Effect This I expressed in fewer words but to the same sense in my former Discourse Will the Father Elect and the
patientem It becomes no man to be tame and gentle when he is charged with Heresie and therefore I did not think fit wholly to pass over this charge in silence nor yet shall I insist long on it since there is no other foundation for it but unchristian spight and malice I suppose it will signifie no great matter to vindicate my self nor those who suffer with me under the same Imputation by a publick abrenunciation of Socinianism for if this would do it our Subscription to the Articles of our Church our constant use of the Liturgy especially the Litany and Gloria Patri the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds the old and allowed Tests of Orthodox Christians which no Socinian will allow and is the true cause why they renounce our Communion would be a sufficient justification both of my self and them But they who have made such a familiar practice of it to dispense with the most Sacred Oaths and Promises are apt to suspect all men to be as faithless as they have proved themselves But however because the clamours of these men have abused some innocent persons and betrayed them to very unjust apprehensions of my self and many others I do heartily declare that I am no Socinian and that I do not know any Divine of the Church of England who can reasonably be suspected of that Heresie though it is notoriously evident that those Sectaries who are so ready to charge us with Socinianism have derived the greatest strength of their cause from Socinian Writers especially in the case of Anabaptism Liberty of Conscience and unlimited Toleration and rejecting the Authority of Civil Magistrates in the External Conduct of Religious Affairs as they have borrowed their other Principles of Rebellion and deposing Princes from the worst of Papists The reason why Socinus has so ill a Character in the Christian Church is his denial of the Eternal Godhead and satisfaction of our Saviour but both these I own and make them the foundation of my Religion I expresly call him the Eternal Son of God that Eternal Son of God by whom the worlds were made I acknowledge that Christ died as a Sacrifice and Expiation for sin that by his Death he made Atonement for sin That he purchased and procured and scaled the Covenant of Grace in his own bloud That Christ by his Death expiated our sins and confirmed an Everlasting Covenant and being ascended up into Heaven he there appears in the presence of God for us and perpetually intercedes in the vertue of his bloud once offered which is of infinite more value than the repeated Sacrifices of the Law At this rate I discoursed not once or twice but as often as occasion served and if this be Socinianism I acknowledge my self to be a Socinian and if it be not let others judge what my Adversaries are But let us consider what pretences they have for charging me with Socinianism And first Dr. Owen affirms that I maintain the Socinian Notion of Iustification And now I am very well contented to be a Socinian for I have very good company in it even the Church of England her self as I have made appear above For my notion of Justification is no other than what the Church of England does own and assert But what is this Socinian Notion of Justification That we are justified by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ. This indeed the Socinians do assert and so do I and yet there is a vast difference between us because they reject the satisfaction of Christ as the meritorious cause of our Justification which I own Upon the same account Ravenspergerus such another zealous Bigot as my Adversaries charged Grotius with Socinianism even when he writ against Socinus at a better rate than these men are acquainted with because he attributed our Justification and pardon of sin to Faith in Christ and repentance from dead works as Socinus does and the answer which Vossius gives to him may serve my Adversaries Socinus â—t ipse censor agnoscit nullo alio medio interveniente hanc fidel attribuit securitatem id est liberationem a poena Grotius vero aliud statuit medium intervenire nempe perpessiones Christi habentes rationem poenae propter quas Deus nos à poenis velit liberare Grotio igitur prius est medium satisfactionis quam fidei at Socino solum medium est fides non satisfactio i. e. Socinus attributes our security from the wrath of God or our deliverance from punishment only to Faith without any other medium i. e. Without the intervention of the Death and Sacrifice of Christ But Grotius asserts another medium of our Pardon and Iustification viz. the sufferings of Christ under the notion of punishments for which God was pleased to deliver us from punishment And therefore Grotius first attributes our Iustification to the satisfaction of Christ as the meritorious cause of it and then to Faith as the Condition But Socinus acknowledges Faith but rejects Satisfaction And therefore Dr. Owen himself when he formerly charged Mr. Baxter with Socinianism upon the very same score and drew a parallel between that account which Mr. Baxter gave of justification and what is given by Slitchtingius and some other Socinians was so modest then as to confess that he was a Socinian in this point as far as any one could be who acknowledges satisfaction which is as much as to say that he was no Socinian Thus to proceed they almost every where charge me with transcribing my interpretations of Scripture out of the Socinian Expositors and therefore I must be a Socinian Now suppose this were true that I did make use of those Expositions which the Socinians give of many places of Scripture what hurt is there in it if there be no Socinianism in them For I have heard men who understand very well what belongs to expounding Scripture acknowledge the Socinians to be excellent Expositors where their own peculiar Notions are not concerned though no men play more tricks with Scripture where they are I do very often make use of Mr. Calvin's Expositions and why do not they hence conclude me to be a Calvinist And indeed in most of those places where they charge me with transcribing out of the Socinians they might as justly have charged me with transcribing out of Calvin and had they known all with greater reason too For Calvin I did consult upon all occasions but the Socinians I never did I have already taken notice of and vindicated most of those Expositions which my Adversaries charge with Socinianism as I have occasionally met with them but Mr. Ferguson has put together some Texts which he thinks I have so expounded as to destroy their evidence for the Godhead of Christ. I would not says our Author be thought to impeach Mr. Sherlock of opposing the God-head of Christ but this I affirm that if his glosses of Col. 1. 19. Col. 2. 3 8. Joh. 14. 20. Joh. 1. 14. which are
whatever becomes of this Exposition of which more hereafter did ever any man before Mr. Ferguson imagine that the Fulness of Christ of which we receive Grace for Grace was a proper Expression without the least Trope or Figure Fulness properly belongs only to space as filled with matter and is a metaphorical Expression when applied to Spirits or spiritual things and therefore I thought that instead of turning a proper Expression into Tropes and Figures I had expounded a figurative Expression to the most proper sense when by the Fulness which is in Christ I understood the most perfect Knowledge of the Divine Will and by this Fulness communicated to us the most perfect Declarations of the Divine Will in the Gospel which is a Dispensation of Grace and Truth But let us consider what proper work Mr. Ferguson makes of it By that Fulness in Christ of which we all receive Grace for Grace he understands a participation of renewing sanctifying Grace according to the plain and proper import of the words So that Christ is in a proper sense full of renewing and sanctifying Grace that is according to Mr. Ferguson's notion of it of infused habits of Grace and we receive this renewing Grace out of Christ's Fulness as Water flows out of a Fountain And thus either Grace passes from one Subject to another which the Philosopher would have told him no Habit or Quality can do or the very Substance of Christ is communicated to Christians together with these infused Habits of Grace which is a more ridiculous conceit than the Popish Transubstantiation or the Lutheran Consubstantiation The inherent Grace of Christ according to this notion is of the same identical nature with the infused Habits of Grace in Christians and the Essential Holiness of Christ is separable from his Person and may be transmitted into another Subject and may there be capable of increase and diminution Mr. Ferguson must necessarily allow all this if he take these words in a proper sense for it is not sufficient to say that Christ is endowed with power to renew and sanctifie us to deliver this Expression from Tropes and Figures but the very same Grace which is in Christ must be infused into Believers which is an excellent way of expounding Scriptures to a proper sense by turning them into Nonsense But these are but some slight Skirmishes in pag. 387. he draws forth his whole strength and force to make good this Charge against me That I pervert the Scripture by turning Plain and Proper Expressions into a Metaphorical Sense Of this he gives two instances the first is concerning the Priestly Office of Christ which he says I confound with his Regal Office and consequently make Christ only a metaphorical Priest and then he tells us That there is not one Text in the Bible where Christ is called a Priest which can be understood in a proper sense but they must all of necessity be interpreted in a metaphorick as the Socinians expound them Now though I doubt it would puzzle Mr. Ferguson to give an intelligible account what he means by a proper and a a metaphorical Priest yet at least one might reasonably expect from him that in order to make good this Charge he should produce some express place where I make Christ a metaphorical Priest or some express Texts which I expound to such a metaphorical sense but he can do neither of these and therefore he first perverts my words as well as sense and then argues by consequence that I make Christ only a metaphorical Priest and then by as good consequence I must expound those Texts which concern the Priesthood of Christ in a metaphorick sense and thus by consequence our Author loses his labour For I have already made it sufficiently appear how childishly he has mistaken or maliciously perverted my words and sense whereon this Charge is grounded only I am very glad to find upon this occasion that he has so much alter'd his Judgment of Dr. Stillingfleet and his Discourse concerning the Reason of the Sufferings of Christ for time was when he charged that Learned Person with betraying the Cause for the same Reasons for which I am now charged with Socinianism But our Author never commends any one unless it be to insinuate some commendation of himself or to reflect some disparagement and odium upon his Adversary His next instance concerns that account which I give of the nature of Justification And here he first lays down my sense of it and then makes some few cavilling exceptions against it then admirably proves that I pervert plain and proper expressions of Scripture to a metaphorical sense As for the first I own my words but dislike that blundering method into which he has cast them and therefore I shall beg leave to represent my own Conceptions in such order and method as may more easily and naturally express my sense I assert That our Justification and Acceptance with God depends wholly upon the Gospel-Covenant which does not exact from us a perfect and sinless Obedience but promises Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life upon the Conditions of Faith and Repentance and new Obedience that this Gospel-Covenant is wholly owing to the Merits of Christ who by the Sacrifice of his Death hath expiated our Sins and both in his Life and Death hath given a Noble Demonstration of his entire Obedience and Submission to the Divine Will for God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christs Life and with the Sacrifice and Expiation of his Death entered into a New Covenant of Grace and Mercy with Mankind that the only way to partake of the blessings of this New Covenant is by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ that is in other words by acknowledging the Divine Authority of our Saviour believing his Revelations obeying his Laws trusting to the Merits of his Sacrifice and the Power of his Intercession and depending on the supplies and influences of his Grace So that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal cause of our Righteousness or Justification but the Righteousness of his Life and Death is the meritorious cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared righteous and rewarded as righteous Persons our Righteousness is wholly owing to the Righteousness of Christ which in this sense may be said to be imputed to us because without this Covenant of Grace which is founded on the Righteousness of Christ the best man living could lay no claim to Righteousness or future Glory The Righteousness of Christ is our Righteousness when we speak of the Foundation of the Covenant by which we are accepted but if we speak of the Terms of the Covenant i. e. What it is that will intitle us to all the Blessings of the Covenant then we must have a Righteousness of our own for the Righteousness of Christ will not serve the turn This is a plain and easie Account of my sense concerning the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in
put to it when they are forc'd to take Sanctuary in the Authority of that Church which they so much reproach and vilifie when they dare not trust to any other Weapon to defend their Cause but the despised name of the Church of England Those I am sure must be very blind who cannot see through so transparent a Cheat. The meaning then of all this noise about the Church of England is no more but this They are conscious to themselves of a bad Cause which they can no longer defend by plain Scripture and Reason and therefore shelter themselves in the Authority of the Church and would fain perswade the Bishops and the Church of England to defend them since they cannot defend themselves and having little else to say they make long Harangues about Articles and Homilies and pretend a mighty Zeal for the True Ancient and Catholick Doctrine of the Church of England And now methinks the Church of England and the Reverend Bishops are very much beholden to me for they have not had so many good words from these men in many years before and must never expect the like again but upon such another occasion and I hope the People will begin to consider what a Church they have forsaken whose Authority is much greater than all other Arguments with their own Teachers But I see it is very dangerous to be too much in love with any thing for this great zeal and passion for the Doctrine of the Church of England has betrayed the Doctor and his good Friend the Author of the Speculum to some hasty Sayings of which it may be they may see cause to repent when they are better advised They are great Friends you must know to Liberty and Indulgence and take it very ill if they may not only think and act as they please in matters of Religion but make Parties and Factions too and controul the Commands of Secular Powers and yet these very men who so much extol and magnifie an Indulgence and so much need it give plain intimations how far they would be from granting that Liberty to others which they challenge to themselves The Doctor tells me There is great reason to pity the People committed to my Charge what regard soever ought to be had unto my self i. e. though I should starve for want of my Rectorship as he expresses himself elsewhere Had this man in their days treated this Doctrine with his present scoffing petulancy he had scarce been Rector of St. George Buttolph-Lane c. Nor should I be so now could he hinder it But what becomes of Liberty and Indulgence then in matters of Religion Must the Conscience be set free in matters of External Order and Government but tied up in Doctrines and Opinions This indeed is the Doctors avowed Principle as great a Friend as he is to Liberty He would be excused himself from subscribing Three of the XXXIX Articles but as for the other XXXVI he would have no man suffered to live in England who will not subscribe them and the Doctor can remember when he proposed this very unseasonably The Author of the Speculum desires his Friend to bid me consider whether if the Parliament should meet they might not find leisure enough to censure my Discourse as they did Mr. Mountague ' s who in vain pleaded for himself that he had writ against the Puritans and was left alone to suffer though others had instigated him to write The Commons of England will scarce endure to find the Doctrine of the Church of England struck at though it be through the sides of Dr. Owen and Dr. Jacomb But now suppose the Commons of England should think it as reasonable to secure the Government and Discipline as the Doctrine of the Church what would become then of Indulgence Would not our Author then change his Note and repent of such Intimations as these Or if the Commons of England should happen to have other thoughts of that Discourse than our Author has and should think it necessary to prevent the Debauching of Mens Minds by such corrupt Doctrines as are there opposed what would become of most of the Conventicles in England Could he with any Confidence then cry out of Persecution when he himself hath sounded the Alarm to it This it is to fence with a two-edged Sword which cuts both ways and may wound a Friend as soon as an Enemy This is sufficient in answer to my Adversaries who are well skill'd at drawing up a Charge but have no faculty at proving it But I think my self upon this occasion concerned to vindicate the Doctrine of the Church of England from the mis-representations of these men as if it favoured such uncouth and absurd notions as besides the ill consequences of them have no foundation in Scripture or Reason which I doubt may represent the best Church in the World to great disadvantage with many I mean with all wife and considering men The principal thing which these Men object against me is the Doctrine of Justification as it is explained in the Articles and Homilies of our Church And I am contented the Controversie should be put upon this issue whether they or I speak most consonantly to the Doctrine of the Church of England in this matter The Doctrine of Justification is contained in Article XI which is this We are accounted Righteous before God only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ by Faith and not for our own Merits and Deservings Wherefore that we are Iustified by Faith only is a most wholsom Doctrine and very full of comfort as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Iustification The Article is plain and expressed in a few words without any Scholastical Subtilties we are not clogged here with the several Modes of Causality with the Efficient Formal Material Instrumental Causes of Justification which fill up every Page in the Books of Modern Divines All that our Church requires us to profess is only this that we are accounted Righteous before God only by Faith and for the Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that neither Faith nor Works are the Meritorious Cause of our Justification but that all the Merit of it is to be attributed to Christ who died for our sins and fulfilled the Law so that whoever acknowledges the Merits of Christ and denies the Merits of Good Works answers the end and design of this Article For this was the great Controversie of those days between the Papists and Protestants whether we were Justified freely by the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ or by the Merits of our own Works and the principal design of this Article was to oppose the Popish Doctrine of the Merit of Good Works But we are referred to the Homily of Justification for a larger Account of this Doctrine and thither I willingly appeal And to proceed with all possible ingenuity I readily acknowledge that there are several Expressions in
that Homily which seem to favour that notion of our Justification by the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness though that phrase of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness is nowhere used throughout the whole Homily but if we will take that Explication which the Homily it self gives of them it will evidently appear that there was no such thing intended by them I shall produce these expressions in their proper places and in the management of this Argument shall First explain the sense of our Church concerning the Doctrine of Justification out of the Homilies of Salvation Faith Good Works and Repentance And Secondly Show you how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and what a just reason this is for a more particular explication of those Expressions which occasioned the corruption of the wholsom Doctrine of our Church First I shall enquire what is the true sense of the Church of England concerning the Doctrine of Justification And first I observe that our Church places the nature and essence of Justification in the forgiveness of sins This is evident from the very first words of the Homily Because all men be Sinners and Offenders against God and Breakers of his Law Commandments therefore can no man by his own Acts Words and Deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God but every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another Righteousness or Iustification to be received at Gods own hands that is to say the forgiveness of his sins and trespasses in such things as he hath offended And this Iustification or Righteousness the forgiveness of sins which we so receive of Gods Mercy and Christs Merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of God for our perfect and full Iustification So that our full and perfect Justification consists in the forgiveness of our sins whereby God over-looking what we have done amiss deals with us as with Righteous Persons that is bestows Eternal Life on us The Homily takes notice of two ways of Justification The first is by our own Works when we live so innocently and vertuously as to be acquitted and absolved by God according to the strict Rules of Law and Justice But in this way no Sinner can be justified for the Law justifies no man who is a Transgressor of the Law and therefore since we are all Sinners and can neither expiate our past sins nor perfectly keep the Law for the future it is impossible that we should be justified by our own Acts and Deeds It remains therefore that no Sinner can be justified or accounted Just and Righteous before God without the pardon and forgiveness of his Sins this is the Justification and Righteousness of a Sinner that God forgives his wilful sins and covers all the defects of his good Actions for when the sin is pardoned and covered the man is innocent and righteous Now this Account I am sure cannot please Dr. Owen and his Friends who look upon the forgiveness of sin but as one part of our Justification and that the most inconsiderable too which only makes us innocent and delivers us from the condemnation of the Law but cannot entitle us to future Happiness besides Innocency as they tell us there is required a perfect Righteousness the first is owing to the Death of Christ which expiates our sins the second to the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness to us which makes us perfectly just and righteous this is a down-right contradiction to the Doctrine of our Church which teaches us that God accepts and allows of this forgiveness of sin for our full and perfect Iustification And indeed forgiveness of sins is a true Evangelical way of Justification in opposition to a Legal Justification which consists in perfect and unsinning Obedience the first our Church requires but the Doctor and his Friends exact the latter a perfect Righteousness of Works for as the Doctor observes Life is not to be obtained unless all be done that the Law requires that is still true If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments they must be kept by us or by our Surety All the difference the Doctor knows between the Law and the Gospel is only this that the Law required a perfect Righteousness from every man in his own Person the Gospel accepts of a perfect Righteousness in the Person of our Mediator but still we are justified by a Legal not Evangelical Righteousness that is by a Righteousness of Works not by pardon and forgiveness And it has been before observed by some learned men that to place our Justification in the forgiveness of our sins as our Church doth and in the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness to us as others do are not very consistent For by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us we are Legally Righteous or have a perfect Righteousness of Works and Forgiveness of sins and a perfect Righteousness destroy each other for if we are perfectly Righteous whether in our own Persons or by Imputation we need no Forgiveness and if we need Forgiveness it is plain that God does not so much as impute a perfect Righteousness to us So that when our Church places the whole nature of our Justification in the Forgiveness of sins it is a good Argument that she never thought of a Legal Righteousness of Works of the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness and Obedience to make us righteous before God But for a fuller Explication of this Doctrine of Justification we are taught in that Homily that there are especially three things which must go together in our Iustification upon Gods part his great Mercy and Grace upon Christs part Iustice that is the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and sheddidg his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly and upon our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Iesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us This is a much more intelligible way of explaining the Doctrine of Justification than by the Material Formal Efficient Instrumental Causes and such-like terms of Art which need more explication than the Doctrine it self and therefore I shall follow this method and reduce the Doctrine of the Homilies under these three Heads What is Gods part what is Christs part and what is required on Mans part in the business of Justification First Let us consider what is Gods part in the Justification of a Sinner and that is the Mercy and Grace of God which expresses it self first in providing a Ransom for us as it is expressed in the Homily That our Iustification doth come freely by the meer Mercy of God and of so great and free mercy that whereas all the World was not able of themselves to pay any part towards their Ransom it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite mercy without any our Desert or Deserving to prepare for us the
most precious Iewels of Christs Body and Blood whereby our Ransome might be fully paid the Law fulfilled and his Iustice satisfied There is no Controversie between us about this matter that it was an expression of the undeserved Goodness of God to send Christ into the World to save Sinners And secondly The Mercy of God is seen in the very Act of Justifying us in accepting this Atonement and in forgiving our sins Thus we are informed in the second part of that Sermon of Salvation Justification is not the Office of Man but of God for Man cannot make himself righteous by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest arrogancy and presumption of Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own Sins and so Justifie himself But Justification is the Office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him but which we receive of him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his most dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Saviour and Justifier Jesus Christ. Bywhich words it is very plain what is understood by Justification being Gods Act and not Mans that is that it is an Act of Favour and Grace not of Merit and Desert Though God may be said to Justifie an Innocent Man when he pronounces him Just and Righteous according to Law which is the proper office of a Judge i. e. to acquit an Innocent Man when he is arraigned yet in this case an Innocent Man may be said to Justifie himself because he is Justified by his own Actions and God only like a Just and Righteous Judge pronounces the Sentence of Justification that is acquits and absolves him as his actions deserve which strict Justice requires But in the Justification of a Sinner who dares not stand the trial of strict Justice but appeals to the Grace and Mercy of God Justification is properly Gods Act and not Mans is owing to the Divine Grace and Mercy not to Mans Merit and Desert Upon the same account we are told in the same place that not our own Act to believe in Christ or that this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth not justifie us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves Which I confess sounds very like what some men say That Faith doth not justifie us as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and applies it to us by which Righteousness thus apprehended by Faith we are justified but there is nothing less meant in this place as will appear from considering the whole Sentence which is this So that the true understanding of this Doctrine We be justified freely by Faith without Works or that we be justified by Faith in Christ only is not that this our own Act to believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth justifie us and deserve our Justification unto us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves but the true understanding and meaning thereof is that although we hear Gods Word and believe it and do never so many Works thereunto yet we must renounce the Merit of all our said Vertues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Vertues and good Deeds which we have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve Remission of our Sins and our Justification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Christ Jesus the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby Gods Grace and Remission as well of Original Sin in Baptism as of all Actual Sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to him again The meaning of which is plain that we are not justified by Faith as our own act as we are not justified by Hope and Charity as our own acts that is that they cannot merit our Justification or the Forgiveness of our sins When we have done the best we can we must still fly to the Mercy of God through the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ that distinction of Faiths justifying not as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and cloaths us with the perfect Robes of his Righteousness for which God accounts us perfectly Righteous is of a later date than these Homilies and very inconsistent with the Doctrine contained in them Thus you see what Gods part is in the Justification of a Sinner viz. To provide a Ransom and to forgive sins in vertue of that Ransom that is to justifie those who according to the strictness and rigor of the Law are not Just and Righteous Persons Thus to conclude this in the words of the Homily You have heard the Office of God in our Iustification and how we receive it of him freely by his Mercy without our Deserts Let us now consider what is Christs part in our Justification and that is expressed by Iustice that is the satisfaction of Iustice or the Price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and shedding of his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly The plain meaning of which is that we are justified for the sake of Christs Merits that his Obedience in doing and suffering the Will of God in dying for our sins and in fulfilling the Law is the meritorious cause of our Justification that is did deserve at Gods hands that for Christs sake he should pardon all humble penitent and believing Sinners This is all the Imputation of Christs Righteousness which our Church acknowledges that the Righteousness of Christ is the meritorious Cause of our Justification Thus we are told That Infants being baptized and dying in their Infancy are by this Sacrifice washed from their sins brought to Gods favour and made his Children and Inheritors of his Kingdom of Heaven And they which in act or deed do sin after their Baptism when they turn again to God unfeignedly they are likewise washed by this Sacrifice from their sins in such sort that there remaineth not any spot of sin that shall be imputed to their damnation Which is to the same sense with that of St. Iohn that if we walk in the light as he is in the light if we are holy as God is we have fellowship one with another and the Blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin 1 Iohn i. 7. And to this sense our Church expounds those Texts Rom. iii. All have offended and have need of the Glory of God but are justified freely by his Grace by Redemption which is in Iesus Christ whom God hath set forth to us for a Reconciler and Peace-maker through
St. Paul or any of the Reformed Churches made any which is not very honourably said of them that they should make no difference where there is one which argues either a great deal of ignorance or meer Sophistry But pray why do they think so Why because St. Paul always opposes our Justification by Works whatever they are to Justification by Grace and therefore by Works he must understand the Merit of Works because only Merit is opposed to Grace So we say too but what follows from hence That the Apostle rejects all Works though they are separated from the notion of Merit This is to make the Apostle argue very absurdly that because he rejects Works when they are inconsistent with Grace therefore he should reject Works when they are not inconsistent with Grace as by this Argument they are not when they are separated from the notion and opinion of Merit And what they add That it is plain that the Apostle excludes all sorts of Works of what kind soever from our Justification is very true but then they are all sorts of Meritorious Works that is such a perfect legal unsinning Righteousness as needs not the Grace and Mercy of God not such an Evangelical Righteousness as ows its acceptance to the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ. The only Argument they have to prove that the Church of England and all the Reformed Churches make no difference between Works and the Merit of Works is because where-ever they reject Justification by Works they expresly mention their Merit and Deserving which is the best Argument that can be that they do make a difference otherwise there had been no need of that Explication especially when they assert the necessity of Good Works upon all other accounts as our Church expresly doth In the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we find these words Truth it is that our own Works do not justifie us to speak properly of our Iustification that is to say our Works do not merit or deserve Remission of our sins and make us of unjust just before God What need had there been of this Explication to speak properly of Iustification that is to say to merit and deserve if our Church had apprehended no difference between Works and Merit between a proper and improper Justification by Works I am sure the Learned Bishop Davenant makes a great difference between the necessity of Works and the Merit of Works in the Justification of a Sinner for in answer to that Question Utrum bona Opera dici possint ad Iustificationem vel Salutem necessaria Whether Good Works may be said to be necessary to Justification or Salvation In his first Conclusion he tells us that in dispute with the Papists it is not safe to say so because they always by necessary understand necessary as Causes vera propria sua dignitate meritorias humanae salutis which by their own proper worth and dignity merit Salvation What need had there been of this Caution if the necessity of Good Works to Justification and the Merit of Works had been the same In the fourth Conclusion he tells us That no Good Works are necessary to Justification if by necessary we understand sub ratione causae meritoriae necessariae as necessary meritorious Causes And in the fifth Conclusion he expresly tells us Bona quaedam Opera sunt necessaria ad Iustificationem ut conditiones concurrentes vel praecursoriae licet non sint necessaria ut causae efficientes aut meritoriae That some Good Works are necessary to Justification as previous or concurring Causes though not as efficient or meritorious So that it seems that this distinction between the Necessity and Merit of Works was known and defended by the great Patrons of our Church and we have no reason to think that when our Church does so expresly reject Works only under the notion of Merit she understood no difference between Necessity and Merit And I find in an ancient Book intitled Reformatio legum Ecclesiasticarum which was composed by Archbishop Cranmer and Peter Martyr and some other Bishops and Learned Men of this Church by the Authority of King Edward the Sixth that where they give an account of those Heresies which ought to be suppressed all they say about Justification is no more but this Deinde nec illi sunt audiendi quorum impietas salutarem in sacris Scripturis fundatam Iustificationis nostrae doctrinam oppugnant in qua tenendum est non operum momentis Iustitiam hominum collocari i. e. Neither must we hearken to them who impiously oppose that saving Doctrine of Justification which is founded on the Scriptures concerning which we must believe that the Righteousness or Justification of Men does not depend on the Merits of their Works So that they only reject the Merit of Works in the matter of Justification The Confessions of Foreign Reformed Churches are as plain and express in this matter as the Homilies of our Church In the Apology for the Augustan-Confession we are told That good Works are not pretium nec propitiatio propter quam detur remissio peccatorum They are not the price nor the propitiation for our sins And the reason they assign why they oppose Justification by Works is because it detracts from the Glory of Christ and sets up our Works in competition with Christ utrum fiducia collocanda sit in Christum an in opera nostra Whether we should put our trust in Christ or in our own Works which can be understood only in that sense of the Merit of Works and is no Argument against Works when they are subordinate to the Merit and Grace of Christ. But not to trouble my Readers with many quotations I shall add but one more which is their Answer to that Objection from St. Iames who expresly says That we are justified by Works and not by Faith only Si non assuant adversarii suas opiniones de meritis operum Iacobi verba nihil habent incommodi c. If our Adversaries would not annex their own opinions concerning Merit of Works there is no inconvenience in St. Iames his words So that they were not shy of this expression of being justified by Works so men would not imagine that their Justification were owing to the Merit of Works which is no less than a demonstration that they made a distinction between VVorks and Merit in the matter of Justification But there is one very surprizing Argument to prove that there can be no difference between Works and Merit in the matter of Justification and it is this That if we be justified by Works without respect to their Merit then we may as well be justified by Works of an indifferent nature which have no intrinsick worth and goodness in them as by the most real and substantial Righteousness for take away Merit and it is all one what the nature of the Work be Now the only difficulty of framing an Answer
Son Redeem none but those who are holy and reject and reprobate all others Doth this Election and Redemption suppose holiness in us Or is it without any regard to it For if we be Elected and Redeemed without any regard to our being holy our Election and Redemption is secure whether we be holy or not And so this cannot make Holiness necessary on our parts though it may be necessary on Gods part to make us holy but that is not our care This last Clause wherein the strength of the Argument lay the Doctor omits as not knowing what to answer but as for the rest cries out Wonderful Divinity again Methinks he should consider whose property it is so much to wonder But what is the reason of this wonder Why We are Elected and Redeemed with regard unto our own Holiness that is Antecedently to our Election and Redemption for Holiness being the Effect and Fruit of them is that which he opposes But pray Sir where do I oppose this Or what occasion had I to oppose it in this place My enquiry is only whether Election and Redemption include any necessary condition on our part without the performance of which we cannot lay claim to the benefits of them and whether Holiness be that Condition if they do not then our Election and Redemption can be no Argument on our part to live holily though it may be a sufficient reason for God to make us holy If they do then indeed Election and Redemption are a very necessary reason why we should live holily but such a reason as the Doctor dares not own Another reason which he assigned for the necessity of Holiness is That it is for our peace by it we have Communion with God wherein peace alone is to be enjoyed This is a very good Argument also in it self considered for if Holiness be the only way to enjoy peace and Communion with God there is an absolute necessity for every man who consults the peace of his Mind and the safety of his Soul to be holy as God is But this is not reconcilable with his darling Notion of Justification by the Righteousness of Christ only without any regard to our Holiness and Obedience for if we may be Justified without any respect to Holiness our Personal Righteousness cannot be necessary to our peace with God any more than it is to our Justification for all justified persons are in a state of peace and reconciliation with God And besides this I made it appear by two large quotations out of his Book of Communion that at other times he rejected our own Righteousness and Obedience and founded our Peace with God and Communion with him wholly and entirely on Christ and Justification by his Righteousness Here he expresses some indignation that I would offer to frame the appearance of a contradiction between what he saies on the one hand that there is no Peace with God to be obtained by and for sinners but by the Atonement that is made for them in the Bloud of Iesus Christ with the Remission of Sin and Iustification by Faith which ensue thereon and the necessity of Holiness and Fruitfulness in Obedience to maintain in our own Souls a sense of that peace with God which we have being justified by Faith Now though we should to bring him into a good humour again put the Controversie upon this Issue that our Peace with God is only to be obtained by the Atonement made by Christ and Justification by the imputation of his Righteousness but that the sense of this Peace with God is owing to Holiness and fruitfulness in Obedience yet I cannot see how to reconcile them For if nothing more be necessary to put us into a state of Peace and Friendship with God but the Atonement and Righteousness of Christ and we know that this alone and nothing else can do it How can our own Obedience and Righteousness which we know can contribute nothing to our Peace with God be necessary to give us a sense that is the knowledge of our Peace with God And therefore the Antinomians very agreeably to their own Principles which are the very same with the Doctor 's do reject our own Righteousness as well from being the Signs and Evidences as the Cause and Matter of our Peace with God And the Doctor and his Friends make Sanctification such a lame and imperfect Sign that we had as good have none as I have largely shewed in my former Discourse And though we should suppose Holiness to be a very good Sign and Evidence of our Peace with God yet this only makes Holiness necessary as a Sign not as our Duty It may be necessary on our part to our present Comfort not to our future Happiness And yet after all the Doctors swaggering I cannot understand that his words will bear this sense For in the first place he brings in a man enquiring after such a Righteousness as may be a sure foundation of hope and comfort and may settle and compose his mind with respect to a future judgment and shews the various ways men take in order to this That some labour to correct their Lives amend their ways perform the Duties required and so follow after Righteousness according to the Prescript of the Law And in this Course do many men continue long with much perplexity sometimes hoping oftner fearing sometimes ready to give quite over sometimes vowing to continue their Consciences being no ways satisfied nor Righteousness in any measure attained all their days So that here he rejects Holiness and Obedience correcting our Lives amending our Ways performing Duties from being able to give us a comfortable sense of our Peace with God this can by no means allay our Fears and satisfie our Consciences and I think no man who is a Christian who ever heard of Christs dying for our sins can understand this in any other sense than that our Holiness and Obedience is wholly useless not only to expiate our sins which every Christian knows to be the work of Christ and the Effect of his Death and Sufferings but to maintain any comfortable sense of the Pardon of our sins and the Love of God in our Souls I am sure he says the very same thing and assigns the very same reason for it which Dr. Crispe does and therefore there is some cause to think that they were of the same mind The Reasons Dr. Owen assigns why there is no hope no satisfaction of Conscience in correcting our Lives and performing Duties are first That men have already sinned and therefore there is a score and a reckoning upon them already which they know not how to answer for by their after Obedience That is their Righteousness though never so perfect cannot expiate past Offences Thus Dr. Crispe to the same purpose tells us The Christ is he that saves the Soul Christ is our Peace-maker that is by his Expiation and Atonement And as Christ is this
Christ and to this I will stand Let us hear then what Mr. Ferguson has to object against it And first he can by no means understand how the Righteousness of Christs Life and Death can be the meritorious cause of Gods forgiving our sins and follies he should have said of that Covenant wherein God promises to forgive our sins upon certain Conditions for asmuch as according to what I express elsewhere his Essential Goodness obliged him to it The words which he cites to this purpose are these That the natural notions which men have of God assure them that he is very good and that it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace Now I would know of Mr. Ferguson which of these three he will reject whether he will deny that the natural notion of a Deity includes infinite Goodness or that the notion of infinite Goodness includes Pardoning Grace when there is a just and honourable occasion for it or that the Merits of Christs Life and Death have purchas'd the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel If he believe all these he is as much concerned to answer this Objection as I am if he deny them he must either turn Atheist or Socinian But pray who told him that the Goodness of God did immediately oblige him to pardon Sinners or that the Goodness of God confers an antecedent title on Sinners to Grace and Pardon May not a good God consult the Reputation of his Holiness and of his Authority and Government and dispence his Pardons in such prudent Methods as his own Infinite Wisdom shall direct And may he not then require the intervention of a Sacrifice and of a very meritorious one too to purchase and seal his Pardon to Sincers The Essential Goodness of God only proves That he may pardon Sin without a Sacrifice but it does not prove that either he will or must The next Exception is very surprizing That because I elsewhere assert That the whole Mystery of the Recovery of Mankind consists only in repairing the Divine Image which was defaced by Sin that is in making all men truly good and vertuous c. He cannot imagine how the Covenant of Grace can be so much as necessary to the promising of Remession of Sins much less that the Death of Christ was needful to procure it to that end But pray why so Is not the Promise of Pardon purchas'd and sealed with the Blood of Christ absolutely necessary to encourage men to be good Does not the Gospel represent this to be the last and ultimate end of what Christ hath done and suffered to rescue Mankind from the Power of the Devil and Dominion of their Lusts and to renew them after the Image of God If Mr. Ferguson be ignorant in these matters I can direct him to a very good Book which will better instruct him But suppose he know no other end of Christs Death but to satisfie a natural vindictive inexorable Iustice yet if this must be done before any thing else can be done is it not absolutely necessary to the last and ultimate end which is to transform men into the Image of God and to bring them to the fruition of him For the satisfaction of Justice in what sense soever he pleases to understand it can only be a means in order to the Recovery of lost Man not the Recovery it self In the next place he tells us That it seems inconsistent with the Wisdom and Sapience of God to introduce a perfect Righteousness such as that of his Son was meerly to make way for his justifying us upon an imperfect Righteousness such as that of our Obedience is What force there may be in that phrase of introducing a perfect Righteousness I cannot tell but I can discover no inconsistency with the Wisdom of God to accept reward those who are sincerely but not perfectly righteous for the sake of one who is If God bestowed so many Blessings on the Posterity of Abraham for the sake of their Father who was not perfectly righteous I wonder our Author should think it any derogation to the Divine Wisdom to accept and reward our imperfect Obedience for the sake of the perfect Righteousness Obedience of Christ. Nay though we should suppose that God had sent Christ into the world upon no other design but to set a most perfect Example of Holiness Obedience to the Divine Will and to give a plain Demonstration how highly he is pleased with Obedience to his Laws should not only greatly reward him in his own Person but should promise for his sake to pardon and reward all those who imitate though imperfectly his Example which in our Authors Phrase is to introduce a perfect Righteousness meerly that he may justifie us upon an imperfect one this would be no greater blemish to the Wisdom of God than it is to chuse fit and proper ways of expressing his love to Holiness and encouraging the Obedience of his Creatures But our Author proceeds very Rhetorically Nor shall I â—â—gue how that the Righteousness of Christs Life and Sacrifice of his Death must be imputed to us for Iustification in proportion to our Sins having been imputed to him in order to his Expiatory Sufferings He may argue thus if he pleases and I shall perfectly agree with him in it Let us then consider how he manages this Argument Christs Sufferings must not be attributed meerly to Gods Dominion without any respect to Sin This I grant therefore our sins were imputed to him not only in the effects of them but in the guilt This I so far grant that the Sufferings of Christ had respect to the guilt of our Sins otherwise he could not have been a Sacrifice for Sin but whereas he adds That it is a thing utterly unintelligible I hope Mr. Ferguson thinks it never the less true for that how Christ could be made sin for us and have our punishment transferred to him without a previous imputation of sin and the derivation of its guilt upon him I am so far of another mind that I think it unintelligible how it should be so for besides that guilt cannot be transferred upon an innocent Person though punishment may I cannot understand how Christ should suffer for our sins if the guilt of our sins were transferred upon himself if he died for our sins it is plain that the guilt is accounted ours still though the punishment be transferred on him And this is essential to the nature of a Sacrifice that it dies not for it self but for another and therefore not for its own but for anothers guilt continuing anothers Christ was no Sinner in any sense but a Sacrifice for Sin which differ just as much as bearing the guilt and bearing the punishment of sin Were our sins transferred on Christ in Mr. Ferguson's way so that our sins become his and that he may be called a Sinner nay the greatest of Sinners the necessary consequence of this