suffered To suffer that we might not suffer and to suffer that we may be accounted to have suffered is a contradiction For the Matter I deny not but hold That it is through Christ's Righteousness we are justified yet that Faith and Repentance are not only required as the Condition but when the Condition is performed it is our Gospel-Righteousness so that though it be Christ's Righteousness is that propter quod it is the Righteousness of Faith is that per quod we are justified There is therefore here a double Righteousness and twofold Concurrence to be distinguished and received The double Righteousness is the Righteousness of Christ and Righteousness of Faith the double Concurrence is a Concurrence per modum meriti or per modum causae formalis Now the Righteousness of Christ I must affirm concurs per modum meriti and the Righteousness of Faith per modum Causae formalis to our Justification This is the Doctrine which in opposition both to the Papists and the Absurdity brought into it by the Protestants I do maintain as you see in my late Book and may see farther The Papists say That Justification is by the infusion of Inherent Grace and that Inherent Grace therefore is the Form or Formal Cause of Justification The Protestants in opposition to them say That it is by the Righteousness of Christ we are justified and that it is Christ's Righteousness imputed is the Formal Cause of it I say it is by neither of these but by the Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel in opposition to Works which is God's Gracious Condescention in his accepting of our Faith and imperfect Obedience through the Satisfaction and Merit of Christ unto Life that we be justified and that it is Faith imputed for Righteousness is the Form or Formal Cause of our Justification It is not then I say the infusion of Faith and Grace into us which distinguishes it from the Papists but it is the imputing that Faith and Grace infused which distinguishes it from the common Protestant for Righteousness that is our formal Justification Alas Mr. Report What an absurd thing was it at first to the Papists that the Protestants should hold That a Sinner was made or accounted Righteous without a Righteousness or by another's Righteousness whieh is all one as to be Learned with another's Learning or Holy by another's Holiness Now let me tell you in good earnest which perhaps you have never throughly reflected upon that the same Absurdity remains if we say That we are Formaliter made Righteous or Formaliter Justified by Christ's Righteousness which our former Divines having taught we must now leave them And one thing more which I am more sure you never thought on I will tell you That the Doctrine which I substitute in the room of this is that I conjecture which was indeed the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Luther as appears by his words and those of his immediate Followers I have quoted in my Book pag. 10. and 20. Justification with them consists in two things Faith in the Heart or inchoate Obedience and God's Imputation Our Faith and inchoate Grace being imperfect and so no Righteousness according to the Law God does for the sake of Christ or through his Satisfaction and Merits accept of it so as by his Gospel Law to impute constitute and allow it to us for Righteousness and thereby give us Right to Impunity and Salvation This first true notion not sufficiently digested by Luther others seeking to advance through the interpreting it by an application of Christ's Righteousness to the Believer's Person instead of applying it to his Performance came to pervert it and our former Divines took it up and stood upon it so much against the Papists that Bellermine accounts the Difference with the Protestants about Jâ—stification to be as nothing besides and yet is this term Form or Formal Cause so much out of use of late in our present Divinity that many of our Brethren being not sensible of their grand importance as to the Negation of the Doctrine so held and of the Absurdity in the root they do retain the Sense without the Words or at least maintain so much of it as the rest does follow and yet do so seriously fall upon them that own the Consequences that I cannot wonder if you and that Brother of yours that have undertaken the cause should have such a kind of Spirit rais'd in you as was in Elihu when he was angry with Job's Friends who were ready to accuse him when they had nothing they could say without blame in themselves Then was kindled the Wrath of Elihu the Son of Barachael against Job and against his three Friends was his Wrath kindled because they had found no answer and yet had condemned Job There is one thing I will say therefore of that Brother of yours which is more kind perhaps than others will which is That in that Language of his which is so harsh and in that Matter as quoted by others which is so broad that they are beyond enduring yet do I apprehend methinks a Zeal in the one and an Integrity in the other A Zeal in that Heat and Wrath he hath against any that shall gainsay a Doctrine which he hath imbibed from his Youth and places his Salvation upon and a sincerity in that he being a rational Man and seeing more deeply than others into the Consequences of it he scorns to baulk any of them and so is broad when others shift which he I perceive abominates And this does prompt me therefore to say something in regard to you and him and that Presbyterian Brother you both have writ against In general I would ask all three Whether before reading this you had come to any such Consideration of this Matter that if I had ask'd you the Question What is the Form or Formal Cause of Justification you would have given me a fix'd Answer to it I do suppose you would acknowledge you had not nor thought it so material to know But you and some greater Men than you are out there The Form of a Thing is that by which the Thing is that which it is If you know not the Form of Justification you know not what Justification is and when it may be known and you don't know it How can you tell as another that does what is right or wrong that you say about it The Form does Dare the Nomen and the Esse as it gives the Being it denominates the Thing Justificatus accordingly hath his Form passively denominating him so from Justitia and that Righteousness which makes and denominates us Righteous must be the Form of our Justification Now what that Righteousness is I have here and in my Book discoursed and told it you as to my Opinion and that of the common Protestant And as for you then and your Reverend Brother who have I suppose taken up the Protestant Doctrine as formerly received without questioning whether
so long as any such Term Word or Phrase was like to tend to the procuring Peace he is free to let you make as much of it as you could but when he sees it not conducive to the end but the contrary he is free to speak out himself and make as little of it If they were Words of Scripture he would captivare intellectum to some right Construction of them but when they are only Terms of Men he will be no Slave to any but use them or leave them as Good or Evil is like to come of them But to go on Mr. Rebuke tells us that there is neither in the Assemblies nor any Confession of the Reformed Churches any such Phrase to be found and I take it upon trust from him because Grotius himself has not this Phrase full out who says indeed there is a Commutatio a subrogatio a substitutio these Words he uses of Christs Person in our room as to his Sufferings for us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vice nostra in our stead as the Sacrifice died in the stead of the Sinner that Sacrificed it but a Commutation of Persons full out he has not nor any authority from the Ancients any farther than thus Deus pro animabus omnium dedit Commutationem pretiosum sanguinem filii sui which is Origen Dominus noster Jesus Christus communicando nobiscum sine culpa poenam culpam solvit poenam which is Augustine There is not a Quotation of his else hath any touch of such a Phrase and who shall come after Grotius to look for any thing he hath mist I close therefore here with this Reverend Brother This Phrase says he of Christ's taking on him the Person of Sinners does signifie more or less than Christ's taking on him our Sins and suffering for them in our place or stead or it does signifie neither more nor less but is just commensurate with it If you make it signifie less then it limits and narrows the end of Christ's Suffering and will be a sense only serving the turn of the Socinian If you make it signifie more than that it leads to Antinomianism If it signifies or be made to signifie neither more nor less I embrace it with all my Heart This Gentleman does still speak wittily but here wittily and solidly and I fully assent to it I won't say that you do when we are now come from what he hath had ad hominem to what he should have ad rem A Difference there is in Doctrinals as to this point among the Brethren and the business to be done is to find the bottom of it and to say something which is not said by this Brother for satisfaction to it It is true that though there be no more to be put upon these Phrases I believe than Grotius and the aforesaid Bishop puts upon them yet are there very Learned Men such as among us are Rutherford and Dr. Owen who I suppose together with you do lay more upon them than so when there are others if not they do carry them so far as to hold this Commutation to be such that from thence it is they account not only that our Sins are laid upon Christ but his Righteousness is communicated to us which is making us to sustain his Person as well as he ours and we thereby made Righteous as he in the Eye of the Law or in Law-sense for our Justification And this now I take to be another Matter If Christ obey'd the Law and suffer'd for us in our behalf or in our stead so as God looks upon us to have suffered the Penalty of the Law in him to free us from Condemnation and to have obeyed the Law in him to give us right to Heaven which your Commutation of Persons at the least must signifie then are we in Christ indeed Legally righteous for this is to be righteous in Law-sense or in the Eye of the Law that is Legally so if they know what to be Legally Righteous is and accordingly justified by the Law with his Righteousness as our formal Righteousness or as the Form or Formal Cause or Reason of our Justification This is the Opinion which in behalf of your Independent Brethren you do and must maintain as that which hath been received for the common Protestant Opinion heretofore and if it be true must bring your Adversaries over to you or else if it be not true both you and they must look for a righter in a middle way between Protestant and Papist which I doubt the most of you are either too negligent to seek or too conceited through your own greater learning to receive at another's Hands Sententia illorum qui Christi obedientiam justitiam nobis imputatam statuunt esse formalem causam justificationis communis est nostrorum omnium sententia neque quod ad rem attinet quisquam è nostris aliter sensâ—t aut scripsit says Davenant ds Jus Hab. c. 22. Well now if the Righteousness of Christ be indeed the Formal Cause of our Justification as this Learned Man and most Judicious Man otherwise does maintain for the received Protestants Doctrine and which those Independent Brethren who upon the account of Doctrinals hang off from Vnion with the Presbyterians will approve or else they know not what they would have to strive for then must we be Legally righteous in Christ and so justified by the Law And if the Believer be in Christ Legally righteous then must Christ's Righteousness be the Formal Cause of his Justification They that say one must say the other and they that deny the one must deny the other if they understand fundamentally what they are to affirm or deny The Papists held inherent Grace as infused to be the Form or Formal Cause of our Justification The Protestants in opposition maintain'd That Christ's Righteousness without us and not ours within us imputed to us is that which formally justifies us To be justified then by Christ's Righteousness is to be righteous in Christ in Law-sense and to be righteous in Christ in Law-sense or in the Eye of the Law is to be look'd on by God to have undergone the Penalty of the Law in Christ's Sufferings and obeyed the Law in Christ's Obedience and this infers a Commutation of Persons in the highest sense which you and your Brethren do indeed intend by it Here then we are come to the bottom which the Reverend and Ingenious Mr. Rebuke has not sounded and here is the Question upon which the fundamental Difference between you in the behalf of the Independants and your Adversaries does bottom If this Doctrine be true then must the Consequences of it be true If the Consequences be not good the Doctrine must not be good neither Let us then come Hand to Hand to the Tryal If your Doctrine be true That there is such a Commutation of Persons as that God does look on us in Christ's Person to have suffered the Punishment and obeyed the
it were sound at the bottom or no I would have you both after my notice of its being forsaken of our latter more considerate Divines to exercise that Talent which that Brother has something above others in looking into those Consequences how far they do go and then I will conceive there is one of these two things he must come to Either he will judge them maintainable and the Doctrine good and if so let him go on and see if he can make the Antinomian White Or he will see the Consequences such that he cannot come to that conclusion and then he must reflect back on the Premises and come to another that the Doctrine must be changed and if so then retaining his Honesty that will not abide daubing the Doctrine I offer in the room of his having nothing of that kind in it and nothing I seek by it but Truth for Truth 's sake may happily stand fair with him for the making a Convert more likely of one most extream from me than of the Moderate and Wise and consequently the Cold that unless it came into vogue will never concern themselves about it And for that Noted Brother you two have wrote against as differing from you in several things especially in a sound Explication of some Scriptures opposing the Sentiments of your Brethren which as in gave them high offence so it stir'd up this Brother of yours to write vehemently against him as a Perverter of the Protestant Doctrine and verging towards Socinianism But he therein innocent being not concern'd so much about that as about the Doctrine he taught that it might not offend he did endeavour so to temper it with Complyance and over yielding that made me write against him as like to yield away our Cause I must instance in what particular The Independent Brethren accused him for holding that Christ's Righteousness was not imputed to us but only in the Effects when he had expresly said That besides the Effects the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to a Believer According to the Doctrine he otherwise maintain'd he should have held and owned that which the Brethren accused him for but his Words were otherwise and he thought I believe that his Words and Doctrine were consistent the Reason indeed being because he had not and fundamentally could not have considered what Justification is that is he knew not then what the Form of it is nor could my self being the first Protestant that have ventured here to speak out when yet it was to be known If Christ's Righteousness be imputed in se which those Words say then must God look upon us as Legally Righteous in him and we Formally Justified by his Righteousness which with the Consequence following must drive him from his own Opinion and to come over to yours and lead him farther even to that Party he hath wrote so well against in the First of his deservedly commended Books So that I have more than hopes from him when I have hopes from you that he will because he must if he writes again come over to me or rather to the Apostle in the point To this end came I into the World says our Saviour that I might bear Witness to the Truth And here I will say something to the Quick in regard to Mr. Williams that considerable Brother and you too for I think both more worthy Men than you do of one another I have told you before That I believe if Mr. Williams had not seen my last Book or those Sheets or my Half-sheet forementioned and I had ask'd him or you the Question What is the Form or Formal Cause of our Justification It is like he and you would have ingeniously acknowledged both that you had not thought so much upon it or that it was scarce so pertinent as to be ask'd But seeing it is like to prove otherwise to him I must after all I have writ and his Thoughts on it ask the Question What is the Form or Formal Cause of our Justification I say our Justification which once for all I must tell you does denote Justification Passively taken as it must be taken and is by Papists and Protestants in their Dispute about it and by the Apostle when he disputes That it is by Faith and not Works that Abraham was and we are justified If one say here Justification hath no form he is beaten plainly off the Stage Justification it is true Actively taken is an Act of God a Judicial Act of him as the Efficient by the Gospel as his Instrument whereby he constitutes the sound Believer Righteous and thereby gives him a Right to Impunity and Glory As Justification then taken thus Actively being an Act of God Mr. Williams and you know I suppose that ex parte Agentis it can be nothing but God's Will and that his Will is his Essence and that God acts only by his Essence and that there can be no cause of nor any new Act in God's Essence and that it is in regard therefore to the Effect as that Act is terminated on its Object that God's Will hath that Denomination so that it is of the Effect our being justified there are Causes and a formal there must be as well as others Whereas our Protestants now do maintain against the Papists That it is the Righteousness of Christ imputed is this Formal Cause I ask again of that Reverend Brother Mr. Williams Whether according to the common Doctrine he does hold That the Righteousness of Christ imputed and received by Faith alone is the Form formal cause or reason of our Justification yea or no Here is a Question which is Joseph's Divining Cup that must tell Whether Mr. Williams be a True Man or a Spy If he answers Categorically either one or the other he is a True Man if he shuffles he is a Spy If then he says yea according to his Assertion that Besides the Effects the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer then does he come to you as the Maintainer of the commonly received Protestant Doctrine and you will be pleased I hope with such a Proselite If he says No then must he retract that saying as the good Saint Austin did Many and come over to Mr. Baxter and me and be welcome to the Truth as I judgé As for you then Mr. Report I must ask also the same Question but not to have an Answer till you see I desire it Whether you do really joyn with the common Protestant in this point as to the Formal Cause of our Justification If you say you do you see the Consequences Take them all draw out their Strength try if you can answer them One and an Elder Brother of yours forementioned is so openly Honest as when he sees to avow them but if you begin to shrug and must leave him I pray consider where you can stop unless you come to a Third Opinion for you and Mr. Williams to reconcile in when you
procatarcticae and Materialis also with Mr. Baxter per modum Meriti and no otherwise What is then let any one of them tell me That wherein the Formal Cause or Reason of Justification is to be placed or can Justification be or * Justificationis formam justitia constare certum est A Middle Way therefore here between Protestant and Papist desideratur constare without Any For this Advice now which according to my Natural Genius I should have given to Mr. Williams See 1 Pet. iii. 15. I apprehend not prejudicial to Gospel Truth if his Sence is upheld that is the Truth of his Book while the Quarrel about the Word be compos'd It is plain that Mr. Williams and I and They hold the same thing for he is no Socinian but holds Christ died for us in the Sence of in our stead That he was our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importing a Surrogation of Christ's Person in our room when he became a Sacrifice for us which is as much I say again as Grotius to whom they appeal did intend It is nothing therefore in my esteem for Mr. Williams to withdraw an Expression in that sence which offends seeing in the Antinomian sense wherein he denies a Change of Person the Brethren agree in the Negative with him and in the Orthodox sence which they own Mr. Williams agrees in the Affirmative with them It is not Base here but Generous and to be Victor to give way it being enough that they both have declared themselves Besides if the Brethren be in earnest to search into the Matter and would order their Words so as we might come to Concord both in Words and Sence I have chalked out here from my late Book this Accommodation I will allow them a Change of Person in the Orthodox sence of the Word so as to grant Christ did sustain our Person in what he did and suffer'd And they shall allow to me that there is not a Change of Persons so as God did look on us to have done in Christ's Person what he did tho' he did it in our behalf and they shall henceforth frame their Words accordingly And that our Brethren may bend to some Reconciliation in this Proposal I do find since I wrote my Pacification the same Conception in Dr. Owen We do not say that God judgeth or esteemeth that we did and suffer'd in our Persons what Christ did and suffer'd but only that he did it and suffer'd it in our stead Of Justis pag. 295. As for the latter Passage That the Father was never displeased with Christ thus much must be premised and understood from what is said on the former That in the sence he sustain'd our Persons he was made Sin for us as the Apostle speaks though he knew no Sin that is to be understood Effectivè He was not made Sin or a Sinner formaliter but I say effectivè in regard to the Effect of Sin that is the bearing our Punishment as before Our Saviour therefore may be consider'd as bearing our Persons according to these Brethren and so our Sins or in his own Person God could not be displeased with him in the one no nor in the other Consideration because it was of his own appointment God in the Punishment on his Son not of his Son was displeased with the Sin and Sinners whose Person he bare but he was never displeased with the Person of his Son and much less now when he was fulfilling the Command of his Father in giving himself for us an Offering and a Sacrifice of a sweet-smelling Savour unto him He must have a witty Invention I think that can find any thing to make himself differ from Mr. Williams in this Point And what when they and he agree in Sence would our Brethren have Mr. Williams retract these Words Nay it is They must withdraw here or they may bid him next go contradict the voice of God from Heaven This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased J. H. FINIS These Books written by the Reverend Author Mr. John Humfrey And to be Sold by Tho. Parkhurst c. are as follow SEveral Papers about Four or Five Sheets apiece called the Middle Way of Election of Redemption of Justification of the Covenants Law and Gospel of Perfection with indifferency between the Orthodox and Quaker As also Peaceable Disquisitions which treat of the Natural and Spiritual Man of Praying by the Spirit of Preaching by Demonstration of it of Assurance of the Arminian Grace of the Possibility of Heathens Salvation of the Reconciliation of Paul and Jamos of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness with other incidental Matters One of which middle Papers viz. That of Justification was Reprinted two Years since with the Quotation of what concerns that Subject out of the other and since that one Sheet so called and his Six Sheets last Year called Pacification in which there is the Case of Non-Resistance and Passive-Obedience stated and resolved the Doctrine whereof abjured in the two former Reigns is here in this Kings Reign Recorded for a Memoriae Sacrum to those which are to come 4to's The Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel or an impartial Enquiry into the genuine Doctrine of St. Paul in the great but much controverted Article of Justification To which is prefixt the Epistles of the Right Reverend the Bishops of Ely Worcester and Chester 4to A Private Psalter or Manual of Devotion composed by a Minister under the Apprehension of the Stone 8to The Axe laid to the Root of Separation or the Churches cause against it 8to
imputes to us for Righteousness and that is our Justification I suppose here my Sheets will be fill'd and that I have room for no more but this Prayer That it may please the God of Truth to inlighten you by the Scripture so as to have the Knowledge and such a Sense of this Righteousness of God on your Spirit that falling down and Blesing his Name with me from the bottom of your Heart for this that it is not by a Righteousness of Works but by a Righteousness the failings whereof are pardoned and the little how little soever if sincere done accepted through Christ's Satisfaction and Merits that we are justified you may receive the Truth in the Experience and Love of it first in your self and then improve it to the good of others Amen Your True Friend and Servant in Christ JOHN HVMFREY The Half-sheet Writ in Reference to the Paper Printed by Mr. Report IN the Book of Mr. Williams called Gospel Truths there are two Expressions which the Brethren would have him Retract One is There is not a Change of Person between Christ and the Elect. The other is The Father was never displeased with Christ. I will humbly motion here a drawn Battel or mutual Condescention that is for Mr. Williams to withdraw one of these Passages they except against and for the Brethren to withdraw the other Exception As for the first Passage whatsoever is to be understood by Commutation of Persons the Brethren understand thus much That Christ put on the Person of Sinners for these are their Words Now Mr. Williams I suppose denies this and they would have him retract his Denial By Person therefore we are to consider that two things may be signified the Person of the Sinner himself Suppositum rationale or the Quality or Condition of a Sinner as when a Man acts a Drunkard on the Stage he personates Drunkenness if a King he personates Majesty Christ GOD-Man stood in the room of us Sinners in what he did and suffer'd for us quatenus He and we are Supposita rationalia and in this first sence of the Word Mr. Williams allows a Commutation of Persons so as when the Suffering was Christ's the Benefit was Ours which is that Grotius intends only against the Socinians But. Mr. Williams denies that Christ took upon him the Quality or Condition of Sinners which is that Doctrine he suppose Dr. Crisp to maintain and that is in the second sence of the Word he denies what they affirm to wit That He put on the Person of Sinners Christ did not represent or act the part of Sinners nor was look'd on by God as a Sinner when our Surety A commutatio Hominum there was no commutatio Actionum He represented Vs that are Sinners he represented not the Sinner A Sinner is one that breaks the Law of God and Christ did not so he acted no such Part and God never accounted that he did and there is therefore no Change of * The Distinction of these Terms is not made so far as I know by any Divines which excuses the Brethrens Citation of one for the other but I use it as peculiar for explaining Mr. Williams's Sence so that if any shall still chuse to confound them and express our Sence otherwise it is all one to me and may be to him Person though a Change of Persons according to Mr. Williams When in this sence therefore of the Word Person he is in the right let us consider further as to the other sence of it as it signifies our Humane Nature not our Sinful Nature or Sinful Qualities that tho' Christ did sustain our Persons giving the Brethren liberty of such Words as to what he did and suffer'd in our stead yet there is no one such thing wherein we reciprocally sustain his Person as he did ours nothing whereby we are to be said or accounted to have done what he did and therefore do I in my late Book Pacif. pag. 39. say That here is only a Change of Person but not of Persons A strange thing really that when the same Sence is intended by me and Mr. Williams the same Distinction used and both say true yet the Terms of that Distinction are contrarily apply'd by us I must desire Mr. Williams therefore to consider whether the use of the Word Person be not foreign to our Divines and it were not better to put what he means in such Terms as are easier of reception and that may be only by distinguishing of Christ's taking on him our Persons or bearing our Sins in regard to the Fault or the Punishment and to say he sustained not our Persons or took on him our Sins quoad reatum culpae in these known Words so as to be accounted of God a Sinner but quoad reatum poenae propter culpam nostram so only as voluntarily oblig'd to our Punishment Here is the same thing in sence and if so good an end as Re-union might be obtained by it he may understanding with me retract the Words in his Book There is not a Change of Person and grant a Change of Person so long as he maintains still no Change of Persons for his business is done thereby as well as by his sticking to a Word The Lord Jesus in what he did and suffer'd for us sustained our Persons I give way to such Phrases for Peace insomuch as we still say That what he did and suffer'd for us was accounted by God as done and suffer'd in our room that we might have the Benefit of it but not accounted by him as if we had done and suffer'd in Christ's Person what he did and suffer'd for us and so in that respect is there a Change of Person but not of Persons whereby I mean plainly not such a Change as to make Christ's Righteousness Legally or in Law-sence Ours or to be imputed in se for that let Mr. Williams know is all one which whoever affirms without Shifts let him be in as great Esteem as he will I say he speaks it in Ignorance hitherto of what this draws after it To wit that besides the Consequences I shew Pacif. pag. 36. he makes us to be justified by Christ's Righteousness per modum causae formalis which is an unadvised absurd and dangerous Position as that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our former great Divines which gave the rise to Antinomianism Be it known therefore to the deservedly-beloved Dr. Bates and the deservedly-envied Mr. Williams for there must be something overtopping others in the Man which is envied and the Worthy Brethren that drew or signed this Paper that here is the Point which I believe they have not bent their Minds to search into so far as to be willing to speak out and tell me if I ask When Faith which is our Evangelical Personal Righteousness does concur some way with the Righteousness of Christ to our Justification and Christ's Righteousness we know does concur sub genere causae Efficientis