acceptation of Punishment in Scripture always used in which sence Christ was Punished because he saith the nature of the Expressions that is of the use of the word Punishment doth imply as it were an impulsive cause when indeed there was none but something that God appointed and accepred in order to Atonement but was not Punishment in strict and proper Sense But yet becomes meritorious by his voluntary undertaking R. That is as much as to say there was nothing in Christ's Sufferings themselves that made them Meritorious but something Antecedent to them viz. The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in giving himself to be a ransom but the ransom it self and what he suffered had no merit in it Here the Bp doth basely Baxterize to cast Mr. Lob in this Cause To which I briefly return that Punishment which was appointed by God and accepted for full Satisfaction to his offended Justice was strict and proper Punishment and of it self meritorious but Christ's Punishment was such The Major is true else the Judge of all the World did not deal Righteously in putting his Son to grief for if he put him not to as much as the Law required the Law was not satisfied if he made only a shew of Punishing him and did not do it then the Scripture hath given us but a kind of Romantick account of Christ's Punishment when indeed there was no such thing nor any such cause as the Scripture acquaints us with He acquaints us that Mr. B. not content with Scripture terms falls to enquire into the Nature and Reason of the thing it self suggesting that he would dive deeper into the thing than Scripture 1. That Punishment is a Natural Evil inflicted for a Moral 2. That the Name of Punishment is ambiguous because it relates to Punishment justly inflicted and that which is not the former Proper the latter Analogical So that this Analogical Punishment is that which hath a representation and looks like it but is not so Similia non sunt Idem things alike are not the same And that which is improper is unjustly inflicted ergo and hence Christ's Sufferings would be unjust But he saith the first and most natural Sense of punishment is when the Offender suffers for his own fault but there may be other reasons of Punishment which he calls Analogical and those from nearness of Relation as Subjects for Princes or Vicarious and why I pray must these be called Analogical and Improper Punishments Because it 's Mr. B's pleasure Why would it not be better distributed unless to serve a turn Punishment is either just or unjust Just is either that which falls on the Person committing the fault or on another Relation or Sponsor that suffers on his behalf voluntarily subjecting to the Law in his Place and what need we Analogical when Proper payment is made to the Law Bp From whence he inferrs that since Christ did not Die as a Sinner therefore his Punishment could not be proper in the strictest sense R. But if Christ Died for Sin he Died as Sinners Die though he did no Sin and in that sense was not a Sinner yet he Died for our Sins as the reason of judicial proceeding against him and this being done by a just God for the honour of his Law it could not be but proper Punishment For all just Punishment is proper Punishment The Bp himself shews that this will not hold Water for whereas Mr. B. distinguisheth of Punishment by false imputation and calls it unjust but Analogical and the Punishment of another by consent he calls Analogical but not unjust the Bp Answers If the Punishment be just the Cause must be just and Christ's could not be just with Relation to his own fault for none is supposed therefore there may be a just Punishment for another's fault and if so that viz. the fault of another may be truly said to be the Meritorious cause of it and the Punishment a proper Punishment although for another's fault What can be said more directly and demonstratively against Mr. B. in this Point The Argument is this That Punishment which is just must have a just cause of fault either in the Person suffering or some other and that cause is truly meritorious and the Punishment a proper Punishment But the Punishment of Christ was such therefore a proper Punishment Having thus thrown Mr. B. on his Back he endeavours to make some little excuses for him That which led Mr. B. in denying of it was the Antinomians making Christ to undergo the proper Punishment of our Sin because our Personal Guilt was according to them transferred upon him R. Hence it appears that in the Bp's Judgment Mr. B. was more excuseable in being a Socinian than in being an Antinomian for he finding saith the Bp this Principle to be the Foundation of Antinom that this could not be true and therefore denied Christ's Punishment to be proper But let me speak what is truth as to Mr. B. that I believe he had a further insight into this Controversie than it appears the Bishop had and would have told him that these two Principles are inconsistent and overthrow one another Christ's Suffering was proper Punishment And Christ bore no Personal guilt of any so that the Bp's Argument that refutes Mr. B. redounds back upon himself So that instead of fetching off Mr. B. they both fall irrecoverably together by one blow and it 's easie to take notice how he buffets Mr. B. afterwards quoting Mr. B's words upon this reason he saith But then as you Mr. Lob truly cite his words he makes our Sins not to be the meritorious Cause of Christ's Sufferings but a kind of promeritorious or occasional Cause Therefore he means no more by promeritorious than occasional and in the Bp's Judgment falls under Mr. L's Charge Yea he saith we must do him right is it to acquit or condemn Mr. B Sure to pass sentence against him So far as to take notice that in stating the Socinian Controversie he makes it to consist in denying that Christ did undergo any Penalty for our Sins as the meritorious or promeritorious Cause but only as occasions and yet here he makes the pro-meritorious cause and the occasional the same and he denies that our Sins were the meritorious cause but only because if we had not Sinned he had not suffered What is this any more than an occasional cause If the World had not been created Man had not fell if there had been no Law there had been no Sin and what saith the Bp truly he is necessitated to give Sentence against Mr. B. though in as soft terms as may be P. 156. These Expressions I grant taken alone yield too much to the Socinians who do not deny our Sins to have been a remote impulsive and occasional cause of Christ's Sufferings but deny them to be the meritorious cause of them What can be more plain and full to prove Mr. B. Socinianizing in these Points For
said and only take notice of the things of weight But first it is necessary to shew how we understand this Question 1. In what capacity Christ stood when he bore sin and punishment 2. In what sense he bore sin 3. What personal guilt is 4. How Christ came to bear personal guilt A. As to the first that Christ stood in the capacity of a publick person representing the whole body of the Elect under the consideration of the lapsed Estate and Condition in the first Adam As to the second when we say Christ bore Sin it 's neither treason or blasphemy as our Adversaries would have it because we speak in the language of the Spirit of God however to prevent cavilling we will vouchsafe to yeild to the Bp's term personal guilt which can import nothing but the committed Sin remaining on the sinner's person and conscience as a forbidden and condemned fault by the law neither do we say that Christ committed these Sins or was made to have committed them when our Sins were laid upon him neither that his Nature was physically or morally corrupted thereby Lastly We cannot but adore the wisdom of God in calling personal guilt Sin because 1. A bare physical Act as such is not Sin and as all killing is not sin but Sin is a physical Act cloathed with a moral Exorbitancy arising from its relation to and comparing with the law of God therefore to say the substratum of the physical act or defect is transferred from one subject to another is most absurd but the guilt of this fact and its moral relation to the law may be transferred and taken away from the subject transgressor as we shall make it appear As to the third the Bp. tells us what he means by personal guilt and it 's very plain David's personal guilt was of Murder and Adultery so Peter's of denying his Master Now the Bp. will not have personal guilt ever to be taken off from any but that David continues in Heaven under personal guilt of Murder and Adultery to this Day and for ever Lastly Christ came to bear Sin 1. By God's call and his acceptance voluntarily obeying his Father's command 2. In submitting himself to a legal way of proceeding with him when he came under the same law the transgressor was under 3. By a legal accounting and imputing our Sin to him he coming in forum Justitiae and writing himself debtor in the room and stead of all the insolvent debtors to the Law of God Justice accepts of him as a sufficient Paymaster Hence in the law sense Christ was called by God what he was not in a natural sense Rom. 4. He was made Sin who knew no Sin and God calls things that are not as tho' they were both in calling Christ Sin and us Righteous § 3. Now we say that Commutation of Persons was so far and no more nor less than God hath made it to be in his legal way of proceeding in this great mystery That Christ should according to the Preordination and Constitution of the Father freely put himself under a judicial Process for the Sins of all the Elect under the same law that they transgressed and that Justice should deal with him as if he had been the original transgressor and in the stead thereof in transferring the charge upon him and punishing him for Sin Hereupon follows the change that he is made Sin and we Righteousness in him Justice receiving full satisfaction for our Sins Hence we shall not much trouble our selves with the many odious Inferences that the Neonom would draw upon this glorious Mystery nor the dirty Reflections on the unsearchable Wisdom of God the Truth being as fully and plainly made manifest in Holy Writ as any doctrine of Godliness 1. It is plain that Sin was laid on Christ in some sence or other the Scripture being so express in it 2. It 's granted on all hands the physical part of the Act was not transferred to Christ after which that which remains on the Sinner is the guilt of it which is his relation to the law in the moral sense as a transgressor and must be his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the laws condemnation of the Fact making his guilt or desert of punishment 3. The Spirit of God calls this Merit or Desert Sin and shall we call it contrary to Scripture Where doth the Scripture say it was not It saith again and again that it was and what if contrary to the Bp's reason Are we to believe God or Man Is the Bp's reason the rule of our Faith What if the same word be used in Scripture for Sin and Punishment I grant that one word in Hebrew is used for Sin and the Sacrifice for Sin sometimes but when it 's used for the Sacrifice it 's therefore used because Sin was judicially transferred to the Sacrifice that it bore the Sin of the Transgressor so that it became the formalis ratio of its Suffering and therefore it 's denominated from its most essential cause To say it 's a tropical word is not much to the purpose it being such as expresseth the very nature of the thing as often in Scripture by a Metonimy Sensus pornitur pro sensili a Grace of the Spirit put for the Object Faith for the Object and Hope for its Object so here Sin for the personal guilt of Sin the Subject put for an essential or proper Production It 's a Metan of another nature from that this is my Body where Signum is put for Signatum and its true the Scripture doth always denote the guilt of Sin by Sin and the Bp. doth concede that Punishment is not Sin but a Consequent of guilt we say it 's more than a mere Consequent it is a merited effect and Sin always deserves and merits Punishment tho' no Sinner merited that a Surety should be punished for him this is by Gracious Surrogation or Substitution And it 's to contradict Scripture to make Punishment separable from guilt and for good reason to for no just Law punisheth any one but the guilty whereby it 's always said that Sin lyes upon him i. e. the just charge of Sin § 4. Bp. Obj. But Punishment must have relation to Sin as to the same Person This is true it must and always hath Sin is inseparable from Punishment in the same Person according to the just Terms and Constitution of any Law by which any Person is punished To this the Bp. saith he answers distinctly that there are three ways our Sins are said to have relation to Christ's Sufferings 1. As an external impulsive cause no more than occasional no proper reason of Punishment and so for the Socinians This I suppose he leaves to the Socinians with whom Mr. B. is one in this point 2. As an impulsive cause becomes meritorious by the voluntary Act of Christ's undertaking to satisfie Divine Justice for our Sins and not as his own 3. As to the Personal guilt of our
Blood of Christ is purged from all his Sins and is perfectly Righteous in the sight of God in Christ though not in himself notwithstanding all the inherency of remaining corruption in him after he is partaker of Regenerating and Sanctifying Grace Bp For God may see cause to forgive a Sinner and receive him into favour although he still continues to hate and abhor the Sin A. What cause can God have to forgive a Sinner and receive him into favour besides his Free-Grace and the Satisfaction of his Son which he hath made to his Justice in bearing his Sin and suffering for it And this God doth and yet hates and abhors Sin for though Christ bore Sin it was not in kindness to it but to condemn it in his Flesh And though God loves and saves the Person of the Sinner yet he always hated Sin both of the Elect and Reprobate § 13. Bp As to the Guilt of Sin as it relates to Punishment these things are to be considered He should have told us what Guilt of Sin he means for obligation to Punishment he told us is in the Law not in the Delinquent therefore his Guilt is not of Sin but of the Law I have not much to say to the three particulars provided they be rightly meant viz. 1. Although a Divine Justice require satisfaction for Sin it is not necessary the actual Transgressors should undergo the Punishment which they have deserved i. e. if another undergo their deserved Punishment by a substitution legally in their stead in regard of Desert and Punishment for then there would be no room for Grace and Favour which is not shewed by God to any absolutely in a dispensation with Justice but in such a way as may glorifie Divine Justice 2. That it is consistent with the Wisdom and Justice of God to accept of a Mediator such an one as is a Surety to interpose between the Severity of the Law and the Punishment of the Transgressor upon terms agreeable to Divine Wisdom and Mercy A. 1. The Mediator ought to be between God and Man in respect of Sin especially the cause of Punishment for it's Sin that 's contrary to God's Law Punishment of the Sinner is agreeable to God's Law 2. He speaks of terms upon which God accepted of a Mediator I cannot understand what he means by it for Christ's Mediatorship was the condition of God's acceptance of us Christ in respect of himself was absolutely accepted not upon any previous conditions performed by him or after-conditions to be performed by us Which latter I find he intends 3. That such a Mediator undertaking to make Atonement for our Sins by Suffering in our stead and Place as Sinners may truly and properly be said to undergo the Punishment of our Sins and our Sins to be the Meritorious cause of it By no means in Suffering only upon an occasional remote reason from Sin but he must suffer judicially taking upon him a Legal Charge of Merit and Desert in the place and stead of the Sinner Now he seems to suspect himself in this Doctrine of his to fall upon the Shelves of marvellous inconsistency and therefore indeavours to forestall the following Objection If Desert adhere to Personal Guilt inseparably as before asserted how can our Sins be the Meritorious cause of another's Punishment The Argument against his Doctrine he can't Answer for where there 's no Guilt there 's no Desert and where there 's no Desert there 's no Punishment in legal Sense He riggles up and down under the pressure of this Objection but can't get it off I answer that a meritorious cause may be considered two ways 1. In a Natural Course of things and so Desert follows the Fact so that the Sinner always deserves Punishment and no interposition nor forgiveness can take off the Desert c. A. The subject Act to Sin is Natural but the formal Nature of Sin as Guilt is Moral as it stands in Relation to the Law So that supposing that Ordine naturae the Guilt or Desert follows the Fact yet it 's not in a Physical course of things 2. His after Assertion implies that no Sin is pardoned in and through the Satisfaction of Christ that whether the Sin be Pardon'd in a way of Grace or satisfied for in a way of Justice the Sin remains in its full strength upon the Sinner for ever for he that deserves Punishment doth so by the Law for the strength of Sin is the Law and therefore must of necessity for fear of Death the Wages of Sin be all the Day long subject unto Bondage this is a sad Gospel 2. He saith As Desert implies only a just reason of Punishment and so there may be a Meritorious cause in extraordinary Cases when the Legislator consents that another bear the Punishment which others have deserved Immerito quemque punire est injuste punire as Johns out of Cret Immerito is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 merito 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Cic. Jure merito are most commonly put together A. Here we have the cause given The Question is in plain terms whether Christ Died merito for our Sins He here plainly grants those things 1. That Desert implies a just reason of Punishment then I argue if Christ was punished justly then he Died with a just reason thereof and there can be no just reason of Punishment but Desert and if this was on Christ it came from Christ's own Personal Sins or from ours The Bp would not say from his therefore from ours 2. He grants there may be a meritorious Cause in extraordinary Cases when the Legislator consents that another shall undergo the Punishment What 's that 1. Was any Case more extraordinary than this we are speaking of 2. He must needs mean that when the Legislator consents that another shall undergo the Punishment that then the said Person so undergoing stands under the Desert of that Person for whom he is punished 3. He grants the truth and none can deny it that Immerito aliquem punire est injuste punire it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 punire sine ratione in juditio Nothing of Suffering can be reasonable in Judicial Proceedings unless there be a desert therefore he saith that Cic. puts jure merito together Now this is the Mystery that the Bp is to reveal to shew how Christ was Punished for a meritorious Cause and yet stood not under any of our Personal Deserts § 14. He comes now to Answer what is said for Christ's bearing our Personal Guilt and the most that he saith is to resay what he said before and is sufficiently Answered already but to do him right we will briefly weigh his strength The first is The injustice of Punishing any immerito this is the summ of it His Answer lyes chiefly in asserting that this is the Socinian way of Arguing and so we see the Antinomians join with the Socinians But how the same way of Arguing May not one and the
all this he will not give up Mr. B. to the Socinians why Because he hath writ of the Doctrine of the Trinity that he might do and yet be a Socin in the Doctrine of Satisfaction But he hath written of the Doctrine of Satisfaction yes he hath retained the word to make his Doctrine go down the better but hath endeavoured to destroy the thing to all intents and purposes Bp. These may be said for his Vindication 1. By laying all the passages together he must mean something more by his promeritous Cause than meerly a remote occasional Cause A. This supposition is very unreasonable when the Bp hath told us from Mr B's own Mouth what he means by his promeritorious Cause It is not hard to conceive what Mr. B. meant by promeritorious it is only that Sin Antecedently to Christ's Death was meritorious of Death but this merit terminated there and never reached as a Cause meritorious of the Sufferings of Christ This merit the Bp saith is antecedent to the Legislator's act in accepting a Sponsor and is but an occasional Cause and what saith he of an occasional Cause It 's really no Cause at all c. just as if a Man said the Fire of London was the occasional Cause of the Monument p. 169. Bp. Now no Man can say the fault antecedently was any more than an occasional cause of the innocent Person 's Suffering A. This is true in Mr B's sense that the fault of the Offender makes him only guilty and deserving of Punishment in general but is not transferred to the Sponsor to be any Guilt or desert of his Punishment which is truly Mr. B's meaning of his term promeritorious And therein Mr. B. is consonant to himself in saying it's but an occasional Cause and that Sin is a remote impulsive Cause viz. remote from Christ tho' immediate and impulsive to Punishment 2. This is true in the Bp's Sense who saith Christ suffered Punishment for Sin and bear the Personal Guilt of none is to make the Sin of Man no more than an occasional Cause But the consistency of the assertion lyes more on Mr. B's side because he knew it to be a great inconsistency to say that Christ bore proper Punishment when he bore the guilt of no Sin Bp. But taking all together when he is admitted to suffer in the place of the Guilty the Law with the Punishment makes the impulsive Cause become meritorious and it is the immediate Reason of his Sufferings R. This the Bp speaks as the truth and intimates as if he would have it Mr. B's Sense but gives no proof that it is so neither is it likely he should being not consonant at all to what Mr. B. every-where maintains and what if the Bp saith so it 's not consonant at all to the Tenet he defends that Christ bore no Personal Guilt For then how can the Guilt of any become the meritorious and immediate reason of his Sufferings Bp. The only question then is whether this can properly be called a meritorious cause A. That may be taken in two Senses 1. In a strict and proper sence so your self deny that Christ merited by his own Sin 2. In the sense of the Law i. e. Sin was legally charged on Christ and so that which was the near impulsive cause the fault of the Transgressor may be truly said to be meritorious as to his sufferings because they made it an act of Justice which otherways had been an act of Power and Dominion R. See now the Bp's clear concession 1. That what is here spoken of Christ it 's in the sense of the Law not in a Physical or Moral sense 2. He makes the near impulsive cause Sin and here Sin in its merits or deserts the immediate reason of Christ's suffering can that be any thing but the Guilt of Men's Persons 3. Sin is such a reason as may distinguish Christ's Punishment from an Act of Dominion and make it an Act of Justice How is it possible that any Man that saith this can say that the guilt of Man's Sin was not charged on Christ as our Representative in a legal Sense i. e. in a way of Judicial proceeding Now doth the Bp lay down this as Mr. B's sense No he dare not for if he did Mr. B. were he living would say he had laid therein the Foundation of Antinomianism Bp. The question between us and the Socinians is not about meritorious and promeritorious Cause R. I wonder the Bp should insinuate so great a falshood when he knows the question between us and the Socinians is whether our Sins were the meritorious cause of Christ's sufferings or occasional And it 's that which hath been at present under hand Promeritorious being a word of Mr. B's bringing in it may be they might not think of it to hide occasional under it as he doth to make Men think he did not deny all merit in this Case Bp. But the question is whether Christ did really undergo the Punishment of our Sins in order to be a Sacrifice of Atonement for them And in this we have Mr. B 's consent express'd on all occasions R. I wonder the Bp can speak thus why doth he not acquaint us then with his consent in one passage if he hath any such passage doth he mean as he speaks No no more than the Bp who could not as long as he held that Christ bore the personal guilt or desert of none It is now evident the Bp hath said nothing to the purpose for vindication of Mr. B. what hath been said hath been for a greater confirmation of the Charge and wounding his own Cause He saith little further but to excuse 1. Liberty must be given to Metaphysick Heads 2. Tells a Story of Lubbertus and Mcacovius 3. He tells us of favourable interpretations that are to be given to Persons that keep to the main point as if this were but a trifling matter between the Socin and us 4. Mr. L. argues that Mr. B. speaks after the Unitarians That Christ did not undergo punishment properly so called but in a popular sense of Punishment The Bp in answer doth fill up p. 162 163 164 165 166. in shewing what slippery Gentlemen the Writers of the Unitarian Doctrine are but nothing to Mr. L's Charge of Mr. B. therefore yields the truth thereof and agrees with Mr. L. in these words Bp. you say Rectoral Justice doth essentially respect the Law in its distributions Whatever a Soveraign may do in acts of Dominion A Rector cannot justly inflict Sufferings on an innocent person as such Here I grant you have come up to the true state of the Case between the Socin and us and therefore we shall leave it and let the Reader judge who is cast at the Bp's Bar. But before I end it 's necessary to consider how the Bp. doth reconcile his two Principles 1. That the Sin of Man was the immediate impulsive and meritorious Cause of Christ's Sufferigns This he holds
Justified by this Law here 's Christs law causa sine qua non with a Witness As to the consequence if Justification be an effect of Merits and it be a Juridical effect then Merits which is the cause must be imputed to the person on whom these effects must fall What moves the Court or Judge to justify this or that person his own Merits or the Merits of another Not his own but the Merits of another Then these Merits are imputed for it quickly and plainly appears what is imputed to any whether merits of Condemnation or merits of Justification for Justice goes by nothing but Merit and therefore mens own righteousness cannot justify-because it cannot Merit And do not our Neonomians speak as the Socinians in this point and mumble as if their mouths were full of plumbs Now therefore if Christs Merit be brought into Court as a meritorious cause of the Sinners Justification they are imputed to him for his Justification as if he had merited himself § Arg. 5. They say Christs Merits cannot be Imputed but the Effects are Imputed And I Argue If Christs Righteousness be Imputed its Imputed as a cause of Justification or in the Effect It should be as an Effect or the Disjunction is ridiculous but it s not Imputed in the Effect Ergo. In and as the Cause for the Effect is not the Cause but contrary it s another thing so that to say Christs Merits are imputed and so imputed to the person Justified is nonsense But what are the effects imputed All the Benefits purchased by Christ For is Justification an effect imputed Sure not Is Justification imputed to Justification Sure that 's most absur'd Is Mortification imputed to Justification That looks very odd Is Vocation and Adoption or Glorification all or any of them Imputed to Justification for they are Effects of Christs Merits But suppose they say some of these or all are to us imputed for righteousness unto Justification I then Query Whether the Righteousness perform'd by us in the new law Justification be merited by Christ as an Effect Do not I see them sneak away now and give no Answer but upon another Subject they will tell you that Faith and the condition of the New law was not purchased by Christ but are by the gift of Election only And now I pray what 's become of Justification by Effects of Christs Merits They will say we are Justified by Imputing the Spirits operations to us for righteousness Now this cannot be 1. The Spirit never was incarnate nor his Office to work a Righteousness for Justification this was peculiar to Christ 2. The fruits of the Spirit when they come to be exerted are called our works and justly so because Graces exercised or Duties performed by us are so these are all renounced as such by the Apostle Paul Phil. 3.8 and elsewhere 3. What the Spirit doth in Justification its office is by way of Application it takes of Christs and gives it to us it applies and brings home to a sinner the Impetration of Christ as Righteousness unto his Justification hence the Spirit is said to justifie 1 Cor. 6.11 in bringing to the Soul the Grace of Justification and enstating him therein by faith as he sanctifies by bringing in the Grace of Sanctification Now then if Christ's Righteousness cannot be imputed in the effect and is imputed at all then as the cause meritorious of Justification But they say God cannot impute Christs Righteousness to us because we did not perform it and God is a God of Truth he cannot impute that to us which we did not To which I answer 1. That God doth not reckon we performed Christs Righteousness 2. God may give us his Son for righteousness Rom. 8. and give us this righteousness Rom. 5.5 3. He may accept it for us on law terms as our righteousness to Justification and all this is according to Truth and Righteousness imputing it to us in a Law Sense 4. The Argument will fall upon Neonomian Justification for that 's to call that righteousness which is unrighteousness and not according to Truth as hath been shewed Mr. Cl. makes it a great Argument that the active righteousness of Christ must not be imputed because Christ did not obey that we should not obey and where 's the Antinomian that says so but we say that Christ did and suffered all that the law required of him as a Second Adam and our Surety and his obeying in doing is no hindrance but a Gospel ground and reason of our doing and obeying As Christ did not suffer that we should not suffer but not suffer the Penally so Christs doing was not that we should not obey Evangelically but that we should but not obey legally with expectation of our Justification by our works or from a law for that is to be under a Law and not under Grace and to sin instead of obeying Rom. 6 c. Lastly If Christ's righteousness be taken as a meritorious cause in a sinner's Justification it is imputed as such to the person justified the effect of this cause is the sinner's Justification which is his proper Discharge and this is not Imputation but Judgment upon it and Delivery in Law and suppose the effects of Merit could be imputed the cause and reason thereof must be first imputed for the Law doth nothing in way of Condemnation or Justification but upon a meritorious cause imputed unto Condemnation or Justification and how absurd is it to say Condemnation is imputed but its proper to say the sin that merits it is imputed § 6. Arg. 6. That Righteousness which is accepted in law unto Justification is imputed to the person justified but Christ's Merits are accepted of God to the Sinner's Justification The major must be owned for Truth by the Neonomians otherwise they could not assert their Justification by Works The minor hath been counted sound Divinity by most Protestants and many Papists but whether it be or be not the Scripture affirms it roundly see for a taste Eph. 5.2 chap. 1.6 for an acceptation in law must be an imputation of Merit to Justification and can be upon no other account either of a man 's own or of another's for him the law looks at the value of his Money or Works that he brings into Court not how he came by either whether by Gift or otherwise § 7. Arg. 7. That righteousness through which Sin is not imputed to condemnation is the righteousness through which a man is imputed righteous unto Justification But Christs righteousness is that through which sin is not imputed to condemnation Ergo. The minor is very clear from Rom. 8.1.34 who is he that condemneth it is Christ that died chap. 4.6 7 8 Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven to whom God doth not impute sin and this is told us is a righteousness without works that which comes on Jews and Gentiles that which covers Sin from the Eye of God's Justice therefore that which
meritorious Cause of Christ's Sufferings they were only premeritorious or occasional Causes For although the Bp would have Mr. B. mean something more than occasional by promeritorious yet he acquits us with Mr. B's own Explication of his meaning of premeritorious that it is only occasional which the Bp saith is no cause at all and Socinianism and yet he good Man would defend him though he finds it hic labor hoc opus and fain to leave it re infecta The first proof which he would make is from Mr. B's Confession wherein all that he saith is no more than what a Socinian will say in this Point That Christ gave up himself a Sacrifice for our Sins and a Ransom for us in suffering for us upon the Cross which he doth make according to his way of moulding of Doctrine comport well enough with Socinian Principles See what he gives for Antinomianism 1. That Christ satisfied God's Justice as in the Person of all the Elect this one Error whereby he denies Jesus Christ to be a Publick Person 2. That in a Law-sence and God's account they themselves did satisfie in and by Christ Here he denies Christ to have Suffered in our stead or to have made Payment to Justice for our Sins either in a Law-sense nor in God's account and therefore he made no payment for us neither can we say we satisfie in and by him Whereas every Debtor can say so who hath a Surety that makes payment in his stead the Law accounting this payment to the Original Debtor neither is it untrue that he paid in and by his Surety but an honour to his Surety and detraction from himself when he saith he paid in and by his Surety 3. That Christ's Sufferings were full and proper Executions of the threatning of the Law to Man Here he denies Christ's Suffering under the Law that Man brake and that his Punishment was no proper execution of the threatning of the Law and therefore no proper Punishment 4. And so acquits them ipso facto on the meer Suffering Here he makes up his charge by ambiguous Expressions without any further means of conveyance to give them right in it by Application 1. Here he insinuates that there was no Discharge of Christ from the Sins of the Elect which he suffered for If so no satisfaction 2. He makes as if some held that Men have an Actual and Personal discharge before their being by Grace or Nature which is a false Charge and a male Consequent drawn by himself on the Doctrine As if those that held Christ's full and compleat Satisfaction by impetration denied application 3. He would have us believe it an Error that Christ purchased a right to Eternal Life for all the Elect as the immediate effect of his purchase and that our right comes by application whereas our right lyes in the purchase only and our claim of that right and possession is by application The Socin Error he thus represents That Jesus Christ did not undergo any Penalty for our Sins as meritorious or promeritorious Cause but only as occasional And doth not Mr. B. say the same thing again and again in his Writings only he foacheth in his promeritorious which if the Socin either did not use or if they did they would not deny it in the Sense Mr. B. useth it and as he hath explain'd himself And that he did not make any Satisfaction to God's Justice for us c. there is nothing plainer in Mr. B's Writings both in his Methodus and Universal Redemption He puts for Truth as follows That Jesus Christ as a Publick Sponsor did bear the Punishment deserved by the Sins of the World he means of all and every Man and made to his Father a Satisfaction sufficient for all It is strange a Bishop of the Church of England should look upon this as an Orthodox and Plain Confession to distinguish a Man from a Socinian for it 's plain he prevaricates in speaking of Christ as a Publick Person for in the Antin charge he makes it a marvelous Error to say Christ satisfied Justice in the Person of all the Elect so he must mean here that Christ was such a Publick Person that was no Representative or Surety which is no publick Person at all 2. In that he saith Christ did bear the Punishment deserved by Sin he also prevaricates for he doth every-where deny that our Sins were imputed to Christ that he suffered the Punishment of our Sins in any proper Sense and that Sin was but an occasional no proper Cause thereof and therefore his Punishment was but Analogical Equivalent to the Socinian's Metaphorical He cann't mean in respect of proportion in a Mathematical Sense for that would overthrow his whole Hypothesis Mr. Lob quotes enough to overthrow all that the Bp pleads on his behalf He shews that in his Methodus he expresly declares that the Sufferings of Christ were only a Natural Evil undergone by occasion and the remote causality of the Sins of Mankind and that Christ's sufferings are only sufferings in an Improper and Analogical Sense These things saith the Bp were long since written The chief Expression is Christ's Sufferings had no proper meritorious Cause but yet Man's Sins were the Pro causa meritoria c. and saith nothing to defend it p. 151. He considers whether Mr. B's own words do lay him open to the suspicion of going too far towards the Socinians in this matter Now let us see whether Mr. B. hath a fair deliverance at the Bp's Bar. Bp In this case we must distinguish the Scripture Notion of Punishment from a Strict and Philosophical Sense of Punishment R. This is a strange distinction of a Learned Bp what means he by a Philosophical Punishment Is it morally Philosophical i. e. such Punishment as belongs to the breach of a Moral Law If so sure the Scripture Punishment cann't be distinguished from it for that is legal Punishment but he saith it's strict Punishment i. e. according to the exact tenor of a Moral Law if he mean so it cannot be excluded from Scripture Punishment Bp The Scripture speaks in General of Christ's bearing our Sins c. but not a word of strict and proper Punishment R. No sure the Bp is mistaken greatly when he might see in the same Chapter that Christ was wounded for our Transgressions was not that proper Punishment Doth the Scripture say nothing of strict and proper Punishment when it saith the Wages of Sin is Death Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the Book of the Law Is not the Curse of the Law strict and proper Punishment If this be his Philosophical Punishment there 's much of it in Scripture and it cann't be distinguish'd from it Bp. But of that which was appointed and accepted in order to atonement for our Sins as the impulsive Cause which become meritorious by his voluntary undertaking R. The Bp would suggest that there 's some general improper
Distinctions or Explications Doth this become learned Divines The Rebukers Articles which he brought into Court were I find to the number of 21 but it seems the judicious Bp. contracted them to Six which he hath called us to appear to looking upon the rest I suppose as frivolous illiterate or spiteful the Six with my respective Answers are as follows Er. 1. That Pardon is rather the Condition of Faith having a causal Influence thereunto then Faith and Repentance are of Pardon A. The Words were mine in transitu of a Discourse and therefore it is very unfair to expose them without shewing their Dependance 1. I have shewn and proved and will stand by it that Pardon Faith and Repentance belong not to the conditional Part of the new Covenant but to the Promisory 2. That Pardon Faith and Repentance altho' they are not Foederal Conditions yet being connected in the Promise may have a Connexion conditional given to them as if a Man believe he receiveth Pardon in believing if he repent he will believe if he repent and believe he shall be saved and I renounce not the Scripture Language in anything but desire to understand and explain it in its true and genuine Sense 3. I say that if we talk of the Foederal Conditionality of Faith to Pardon Pardon is rather a Foederal Condition of Faith and Repentance than Faith of Pardon I say not that it is but rather because distinguishing Pardon aright into Active and Passive I say Pardon Passive received can't be without Faith to receive it but Pardon Active must be before Faith 1. Because the Object that the Hand receives must be before the Instrument that receives it 2. The Grace of Pardon is in God to be bestowed before we receive it 3. There is Pardon in Christ for all that shall believe Jo. 17.20 See what Mr. Capel saith on this point It is one thing for all the Sins of all the Elect to be pardoned to Christ for them that was done before we were or our Sins were another thing to be pardoned to them Christ was made a Curse for us by Imputation for that the Father did impute all our Sins as a Judge to Christ as our Surety the true notion of Imputation that it is not an Act of Grace but a Judicial Act and God did exact all of him as guilty by that Law c. 3. Pardon in God and in Christ hath a causal Influence on Faith and Repentance 1. Pardon is an essential cause of a pardoned Person the Abstract being the formal cause of the Concrete pardoning Grace doth effectually work all Graces of the Spirit in us the pardoning Grace of the Father Son and Spirit 2. The Gospel preached to Sinners which is Pardon of Sin the Gospel preached to Abraham is that which works Faith thro' the effectual Operation of the Spirit Act. 13.39 Rom. 10.15 And it was preached to David by Nathan 2 Sam. 12.17 as done before his particular Repentance express'd Psal 51. therefore if we talk of Foederal Conditions Pardon is rather such than Faith and Repentance because it 's in Nature as well as Time antecedent and such an antecedent as hath a causal Influence And hence I also assert that every necessary antecedent tho' with causal Influence upon the consequent is not a Foederal Condition Er. 2. That Sin it self as opposed to Guilt was laid on Christ and Christ was reputed a Criminal not only by Man but God A. As to the first clause they should have pointed out the Person that said it If I spake it or writ it I was asleep then for when we say Sin was laid on Christ we speak not of it by way of Opposition unto Guilt but by way of Identity or Sameness with Guilt in the Dialect of the Spirit of God our use of the Word Guilt being but an apt Exegetical Term to express the meaning of Sin in this Point because the Physical Substratum of Sin can't be transferred to another but the Law Relation may As to the second charge 1. It will be easily granted by the Accusers that a Sinner's Debts to the Law are Crimes 2. To say he was a reputed Criminal in Law only is by a received Sense to justifie the personal and absolute Innocency of Christ in himself 3. I suppose they will not deny that if Sin was charged on Christ for the delivery of Sinners it was done by God as his Act and not by the false Accusation of Satan or his Instruments for the Salvation of Sinners by his bearing Sin was never their Design and it 's said God laid upon him the Iniquity of us all Isa 53.4 The term Criminal might possibly be used by some or other with a good Meaning but I look not upon it as proper and I don't know that I have used it if I have I have better considered of it 1. Because tho' the Scripture saith Sin was laid on Christ and that he was made Sin yet it saith not that he was a Sinner or a Criminal 2. Because his bearing Sin and being made so it plainly implies that he was not so in himself but made so by Law Imputation and by standing in a Surety relation to the Law for us 3. A Sinner or Criminal doth in an ordinary and common Acceptation import a Committer or Perpetrator of Sin which Christ never was not reputed by God so to be Therefore herein God shews his wonderful Wisdom in teaching us to speak of Christ in this great Mystery with so much Exactness Er. 3. That the Doctrine of Justification before Faith is not an Error but a great and glorious Truth and therefore we believe that we may be justified declaratively A. It is an Error and it is not an Error it is an Error to say Justification by Faith is before Faith in time and a contradiction in Adjecto therefore I never said so for Justification by Faith can't be before Faith is in the Receiver to receive it by But that Justification is before Faith is a glorious Truth and this I must affirm for Truth that there is Justification before Faith if we distinguish of Justification aright as of Pardon and say it 's actively and passively to be understood active Justification is in God that justifieth Rom. 8. the Grace of Justification a Gift to us 2. Christ as the Head and Representative of the Elect was justified and all the Elect fundamentally in him else Jesus Christ's suffering as a publick Person could not have been he was taken from Prison and Judgment 3. Justification in Application is by Nature before Faith because all Grace apprehends the Sinner before he apprehends it and is the immediate cause of a Sinner's apprehending it Again the Grace of Justification is in nature before Sanctification and the Foundation of it by the consent of Protestants and therefore it 's said in that Sence that God justifies the ungodly not that we should be ungodly but that he finds and takes us in that
have detected that ignorant Person and not charged it on their dissenting Brethren surely they are not such pitiful Wretches as not to distinguish between the mystical Body of Christ and his Person and to talk of a mystical Person 3. This mystical Person must be distinguished from a legal Union before Faith Where is this Stuff put together I challenge these Men to tell the Man and quote the Place where such a Mess of Nonsense is put together if they do not it must pass for one of the horrid Defamations wherewith they have bespattered their dissenting Brethren to render them odious unto the World I suppose the Bp could make nothing of it The Lord give them Repentance and Remission of these great Sins of the first Magnitude and that they persist not thus to fly in the Face of Christ and his faithful Members and that he leave them not to a reprobate Mind as well as such a persecuting false Tongue whereby we shall be engaged to pray the 120th Psalm against them A POSTSCRIPT BEcause we are so highly reproached by our Adversaries for Antinomians in the great Point of Justication I thought it very needful to transcribe some few Passages out of the Writings of that renowned Servant of Jesus Christ Mr. Tho. Shephard whom none of our bitterest Opponents can call an Antinomian He shews how Christ redeems 1. By Satisfaction 2. By strong Hand 1. By Satisfaction in paying a Price for us 1 Cor. 6. ult Hence Christ satisfieth Justice 1. By standing in the room of all them whom Mercy decreeth to save A Surety standeth in the room of a Debtor Heb. 7.22 As the first Adam stood in the room of all Mankind fallen so Christ standeth in the room of all Men rising or to be restored again 2. By taking from them in whose room he stood the eternal Guilt of all their Sins and by assuming the Guilt of all their Sins unto himself 2 Cor. 5.22 Hence Luther said Christ was the greatest Sinner by Imputation 3. By bearing the Curse and Wrath of God kindled against Sin for God is so holy that when he seeth Sin sticking only by Imputation to his own Son he will not spare him but his Wrath and Curse must he bear Gal. 3.13 Christ drinks up the Cup of all the Elect at one Draught which they should have been sipping and drinking and tormented with Millions of Years 4. By bringing into the Presence of God perfect Righteousness Rom. 5.11 For this also God's Justice required Perfection Conformity to the Law as well as perfect Satisfaction in suffering for the Wrong offered to the Lawgiver Justice requiring these Four Things Christ satisfies Justice by performing them and so pays the Price 2. Christ is a Redeemer by a strong Hand The first Redemption by Price finished in Christ's Person at his Resurrection the second is begun by the Spirit in Man's Vocation and ended at the Day of Judgment c. Sinc. Conv. p. 102 103. By Satisfaction I understand the whole Obedience of Christ unto the very Death both Active and Passive by which we are justified Heb. 10.10 Phil. 2.8 c. This Righteousness of Christ is not that of the Godhead for then what need was there for Christ to do or suffer but that which was wrought in the Manhood And hence it is finite in it self tho' infinite in value in that it was the Righteousness of such a Person This Righteousness of God may be consider'd two ways 1. Absolutely in it self 2. Respectively as done for us Christ's absolute Righteousness is not imputed to us as he is Mediator Head of the Church having the Spirit without measure c. These things are applied for our Good but are not imputed as our Righteousness Here the Objections such as these if Christ's Righteousness be imputed to us then we are Mediators Heads of the Church c. vanisheth 2. The respective or dispensative Righteousness of Christ which some call Justitia fide jussoria Suretiship Righteousness is that whereby Christ is just for us in fulfilling the Law in bearing God's Image we once had and have now lost by Sin And thus we are truly said to be as Righteous as Christ by Imputation because he kept the Law for us and here observe that the Question is not whether all that Christ did or had is imputed to us as our Righteousness But whether all that he did for us as a Surety in fulfilling the Law be not in Substance our Righteousness Because then we are justified by his working Miracles preaching Sermons c. Which is to cast Stumbling-blocks before the Blind so that tho' Christ doth not bestow his Personal Wisdom and Justice upon another yet what hinders but that which Christ doth by his Wisdom and Righteousness for another the same should stand good for him for whom it is done For thus it is among Men. Christ's Essential Righteousness Infinite Wisdom Fulness of the Spirit without Measure c. is not imputed to us yet these have conspired together to do that for us and suffer that for us whereby we come to be righteous before God Jer. 23.6 This Righteousness therefore imputed to us justifies us Rom. 5.18 we are said to be made righteous in him not the Righteousness of God whereby God is just but whereby we are just opposed to the Righteousness of Man called our own Rom. 10.3 Rom. 1.17 Not Righteousness from him as the Papists dream but Righteousness in him Sound Believer p. 265 266. ERRATA PAge 14. l. 2. ab ult r. appealed p. 15. l. 5. r. what necessary p. 16. l. 13. r. not taken p. 20. l. 5. ab ult r. ponitur p. 23. l. 6. ab ult r. not found p. 24. l. 22. f. Men r. more p. 43. l. 13. r. to the Sinner p. 49. l. 1. r. Gods p. 61. l. 8. r. Acquaints p. 69. l. 18. r. meritorious p. 76. l. 7. r. so as to bare l. 16.19.20 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 21. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 87. l. 6. r. 23.21 l. 9. dele at Sins l. 21. r. so as To my old Acquaintance Mr. John Humphry Reverend Sir THE former Civilities that I have receiv'd from you in sending your Books concerning the Doctrine of Justification to me which I always read and seriously considered knowing you to be a Man of Thought and plain-hearted sine fuco which some Men are too much starch'd with These I say first engaged me in this Undertaking for which I must crave your Excuse looking upon this as the best Returns that I am your Apponent in the Doctrine you have deliver'd in the said Books and laboured strenuously to defend for you know the old proverbial Saying Amicus Plato Amicus Aristotiles sed magis Amica Veritas I hope you will not nor Mr. Clerk whom I join with you as one that pleadeth the same bad Cause have any reason to complain of uncivil Treatment for if you find any
Righteousness is the pâ—r the formal cause by which we are justified This Distinction Mr. H. having taken up from Bellarmine makes very much of More of it anon § 5. Take one or two for all to avoid tediousness to the Reader Mr. H. in Medioc p. 42. Herein doth appear the ground of reconciliation between the Papists and us in this point the sum of what he saith is Provided they say that the works they plead for our righteousness be the works of the new law and not of the old we are agreed and then tells us That Gods judging a man to have performed the condition of the Covenant i. e. the New Law is the accounting and declaring him righteous That righteousness which makes a man righteous and denominates him righteous is that righteousness which does make God account him righteous and that is the righteousness which he doth Note it for it is express and this he saith is not the righteousness of the law of works but of the law of grace which he saith is a righteousness which he doth but not work in doing which is pretty absurd that a man should do works of righteousness and not work but the meaning is he doth not work perfect works I will not wrong him But do not those that work imperfect works work Yea saith he they that do absolutely sinful works are called workers of iniquity A little after he tells us Christ's Redemption was to bring in a New Law for when Man fell it was impossible he should be righteous any more unless there were a new Law brought in by performance whereof he might attain to that again which he lost now this was the main business of Christ's Redemption the procuring a new law or another law with lower Terms which some men performing they do thereby become righteous and so have righteousness according to that Law imputed to them for Remission and life eternal And thus you see what everlasting righteousness Christ brought in Dan. 9. and in his Piece Of Righteousness which comes forth with Episco Approbation p. 3. It is true against the Papists there is no such righteousness inherent as to render God appeased with the sinner or that the Conscience can rest on it then it is good for nothing as that propter quod he is forgiven or saved by his favour Bellarmine doth not say it is but that Christ's righteousness is the propter quam Therefore the Papists and they are agreed in this sence It is true also against the common Protestant therefore the Neonomians are not Protestants unless such as have causa formalis of Papists that there is not any righteousness without us that can be made ours so as we should be accounted righteous in another's righteousness or be that thing per quod we are justified there is no such matter in reality but in notion only This righteousness as imperfect as it is wrought by the Spirit is that and must be that which is the form per quam he is accepted and justified we grant the righteousness of Christ is the meritorious cause per quam we are pardoned and saved § 6. About the New Law there 's little difference between the Papists and Neonomians tho the Papiste are on the surer side of the Notion Mr. Fox Mart. about the difference between Ancient Rome and present p. 34. tells us The Church of Rome teach the People that there 's no difference between Moses and Christ save only that Moses was the giver of the old law but Christ the giver of a new and more perfect law And it s most rational that the new law should be a more perfect law and not a law of imperfection we do not mend perfect things and if there be any reason for particular ends it s with those things that more perfectly answer those ends and therefore their remedying law ought to be perfecter and most compleat § 7. Next a-kin to these men are the Quakers in their most refined Doctrine put out in the name of Barclay but I heard Mr. Keath that was a Neonomian Quaker say Barclay's Book was chiefly his work Works are necessary to Justification as well as Faith James 2. both equally required to Justification works of the Law are excluded as done by us Tit. 3.5 6 7. this is Mr. H. just To be justified by Grace is to be justified or saved by Regeneration which cannot exclude Works wrought by Grace and by the Spirit 1 Cor. 6.11 The law gives not power to obey and so falls short of Justification but there 's power under the Gospel by which the Law comes to be fulfilled inwardly Rom. 8.3 4. Works are the Condition upon which Life is proposed under the New Covenant Tho we place Remission of Sins in the Righteousness and Obedience of Christ performed in the Flesh as to what pertains to the remote procuring cause and that we hold our selves formally justified by Christ formed and brought forth in us yet can we not as some Protestants have done unwarily exclude works from Justification for tho properly we are not justified for them yet are we justified in them c. § 8. The Socinians say No other Imputation is in our eternal Salvation than that whoever sincerely obeys the Commands of Christ is from them accounted of God righteous Socin de serv When God is said to impute Faith for Righteousness the meaning is that God hath so great a value for Faith that he esteems it for a Righteousness to Justification Crel on Gal. 3.6 And Mr. B. saith I abhor the Opinion that Christ's righteousness given us is all without us Preface to Doct. of Chr. p. 3. but more of this in what follows § 9. The Arminians bring up the Rear and I shall name the Man from whom I can prove Mr. B. hath taken up most of his corrupt Notions about General Redemption and Justification and its J. G. The Question in precise Terms is this Whether the Faith of him that truly believes in Christ or whether the righteousness of Christ himself be that which God imputes to a Believer for righteousness or unto Righteousness in his Justification J. G. of Justification p. 7. he concludes it is faith As a Merchant that grows rich by such a Commodity i. e. he grew rich by the Gain and Return he made of that Commodity So we may be said to be justified by the righteousness of Christ and yet not have the righteousness it self upon us by Imputation or otherwise but only a righteousness procured or purchased by it really and essentially differing from it p. 12. This Righteousness of Christ is not that that is imputed unto any man for righteousness but is that for which righteousness is imputed to every man that believeth Paul neither eat his Fingers nor spun out the flesh of his hands into cloathing and yet was both fed and cloathed with them Here 's the true sense of being justified by the effects of Christ's Righteousness So may a
Justification must be before any person can receive it the Assembly do most accurately tell us what Justification by faith is We say not that no man that says he believes not his Justification is not justified nor every one that says he believes it is justified but we say That every one that believes truly is justified and every one that 's justified shall believe God's Justification of a Sinner is his Juridical Sentence concerning his Eternal State and Condition which admits not of majus and minus in God but admits of different times of application and of degrees of manifestation it finds nothing in the creature nor makes any change but relative wherein God is first in relation justifying and applying that Grace to us and therefore we are wholly passive till by vertue of Union with Christ by the Spirit the Spirit of Life raising us from the dead we are enabled to believe whereby we make a sensible re-application of the Grace of Justification to our selves and being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ But more of this infra § 8. The Judge of all the World must judge righteously i. e. according to his righteous Law for as that is norma officii to us so it is of judicii to him now here is the Mystery How God can justifie a sinner according to most perfect law and do it freely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. H. in his Medio p. 5. hath this Quaery The Gospel requires Faith Repentance new Obedience how then are we justified and saved by Grace how is it free when it is not vouchsafed but upon condition This difficulty hath made some run into the Extream that the Covenant of Grace is without conditions Resp It is such an extream Argument against the Neonomian Doctrine that all their Skill and Sophistry neither hath nor can answer and the Argument stands thus If nothing doth essentially distinguish a Covenant of Works from a Covenant of Grace but the Conditionality of it then a Covenant of Grace must have no Condition and whatever Covenant hath a Condition is a Covenant of Works but there 's nothing can distinguish because the Antecedent is true therefore the Consequence There can be nothing in sense to invalidate either Proposition for the distinguishing formal difference between the one Covenant and the other must be Condition and no Condition where the true Opposition lieth for the promise of both Covenants are life therefore the special and formal difference lieth in conditionality none now to say it lies in the nature of the condition will appear most absurd 1. If it be the littleness of the Condition makes a Covenant of Grace this I deny for the promulgated Covenant of Works was laid upon the least condition imaginable the forbearing to eat in Apple but let us hear what Mr. H. will say to make a Covenant of Works a Covenant of Grace p. 5. I say readily the Grace of God and of the Gospel is free and therefore not conditional well but how wherein is the freedom In that it accepts of the sinners Faith and Repentance when he needs not or when according to the law he was not tied to it Resp Was the Man awake or asleep when he said this he says its free because God accepts of his Faith and Repentance that 's the same freedom whereby I may be said to give a Man a Horse when I accept of Money which he was to pay me for it Is not a Covenant a Bargain Was it not so to Adam Was it possible he should say he need not accept it What doth he make of his New-Law-Covenant need not God keep it where was God's Faithfulness and Truth when he made that Covenant doth not that bind him to accept our Faith and Obedience as the Condition According to the law he is not tied Why will an honest Man speak so equivocally to justifie a cause his Conscience tells him or ought to do that it is nought he says according to the law I pray what law the Old or New Doth he not say that Faith and Repentance is the Condition of the New Law and is not God bound to accept of them by that Law Oh but he is not bound to accept of them by the old law It is just as if a Man brings the Money that I sold such a Commodity for and I tell him I will not take the Money unless he will confess I gave him it freely no saith he I make a tender of the Money with which I bought it I will neverly for the Bargain and say you gave it me when I bought it to which I reply I am not bound by law to accept the Money What law the law that the King and Parliament made for the Pole-Tax H. Unless Man's Obedience were perfect but he is bound by the new law to accept imperfect Obedience H. our Divines say usually because it s not of merit but this labours with some defect of light if man had performed the condition of the covenant of Works it might have bin said upon this reason that Life and Salvation had bin still of Grace and Free as not merited while these considerations hinder merit How might Man's Obedience in the Covenant of Works be said to be of Free Grace because his were not proportionable to the reward no more are good Angels works to this day there was Grace in making the Covenant on easie Terms but when the Covenant is made the Reward is merited ex pacto by the performed Conditions Hence the Apostle's reasoning remains unshaked they that are justified of debt are not of grace § 9. Mr. Humphry makes a fearful bungling about this business and lends us for our help a distinction about merit and saith There is a debt or merit of Commutative Justice and of distributive it is impossible that any should engage the Almighty in the former Resp But the Almighty may engage himself in it to the creature may there not be place for commutative Justice between a superiour and inferiouur between a King and People all obligatory Covenants upon terms of mutual performances are primarily fulfilled in a way of commutative Justice distributive Justice comes in for redress in case of non-performance of mutual agreements or upon complaint thereof Of the latter i. e. distributive Justice there is a merit or debt upon compact or strict retaliation it is true that there is nothing Man does or can do in the state of innocency could merit upon strict retaliation Resp I suppose he means by his term of strict retaliation rewarding just so much as the value of the work more i. e. to reward man just as much as the value of not eating an Apple but the reward promised was infinitely more and it was promised upon so small a Condition therefore upon the performance of the condition the reward as great as it was would have become due ex pacto and hence a true debt But
Taste how the Quakers and Socinian fall in with this Doctrine of Justification by Works Quakers Works and Faith are equally required to Justifie Works of the Law are excluded as done by us to be justified by Grace is to be justified by Regeneration which cannot exclude Works wrought by Grace since the Law gives not Power to obey and so fall short of Justification there 's Power under the Gospel whereby the Law comes to be fulfilled inwardly Works through the Power of the Spirit is a Condition upon which Life is proposed under the New Covenant It appears from divers Scriptures that the Apostle excludes only our own Righteousness as being the Righteousness of the Law from being necessary to Justification Barcl Socinian There was never but one way of Justification by Faith This Faith is nothing else but under the hope of Eternal Life to obey the Commands of Christ and this we apprehend to be understood in Scripture where-ever we read of Salvation promised to them that believe in Christ Socin de offic Chr. Them 42.43 To believe in Christ is nothing else than to obey God according to the Rule and Prescription of Crist and in doing it to expect of Christ a Crown of Eternal Lise Socin de Servatori To the attaining Eternal Life not any Merits are required but the obeying Christs Precepts to which Eternal Life is the constituted Price or Reward not that Obedience it self deserved it but because it hath pleased the most gracious God to deal so with Mankind Socin Respon ad Obj. cut § 3. Now let us see how Consonant our Neonomians be to this Fraternity in the Doctrine we 'll take it from Mr. H. one of the honestest of the Pack and freest from Juggling Medeocr p. 16 17. Our Works do not Merit because they are not perfect i. e. therefore do not Merit as related to the Old-Covenant but Merit notwithstanding ex pacto in relation to the New-law-Covenant but we are justified by Works as we are by Faith because Faith justifies only as productive of Works thence you see he placeth the Righteousness of Faith in it self as a Work done and that it justifies only so and hath no more justifying Nature or End then the Fruits thereof It is Faith as productive of Works that receive the Reward of perfect Righteousness in that this imperfect stands in the Room of perfect but we are still to remember for Christs sake Bellarmine remembred that and the Council of Trent God judgeth and will judge all Men according to the Gospel those who perform the Condition of it he accounts and pronounceth righteous those whom he accounts righteous are justified I will add that the righteousness of Christ which is the meritorious cause of our Justification and always comes under the efficient cannot by the same reason be the formal and material cause of it It is not infusion of righteousness with the Papist which is our Sanctification nor the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness with the Protestant which is not to be understood in genere causae efficiente nor Remission of Sin with Protestant and Papist you see here how far he goes beyond the Papist but to impute to a person his performance of the New Covenant for Righteousness or pronouncing him righteous according to that Covenant is the formal cause of his Justification Med. p. 46. Here is to be remarkt that Mr. H. doth peremptorily exclude from our Justification the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness and Remission of Sins and places the whole of it in imputation of our own works for righteousness as active obedience § 4. These Men do as the Papists and the rest make our inherent Holiness in Sanctification to be that very righteousness by which we are justified Take Mr. Cl's words wherein he fully expresseth Mr. H's sense in differing from the Papist about Infusion Herein lieth the true difference between Justification and Sanctification In Sanctification we are made holy righteous and good by the infusion of those Graces into us but in Justification we are only accounted and declared such in the one the change is but relative and in the other real Come in Quakers and shake this Friend by the hand as one of you you have quarrelled with the Pulpits a great while and now you may ascend them your selves when you please and be not so angry at them for you shall not hear these men call your Doctrine Popish any more but you 'll hear them call all men that are not of your Opinion Antinomians briskly See now the depth of this distinction Justification is not by infusion of Sanctification but yet Justification is by Sanctification infused Is it not much more rational to say that Justification is by making a man righteous that was not so before for Justification of a sinner must be such Besides is it not much more Evvngelical as to justifying the ungodly as Bellarmine saith But these Men say We are first made righteous that is godly and then pardoned he should have said justified for his Justification comes in between his sanctifying Righteousness and Pardon and not on the contrary first pardoned and then righteous Mr. C. p. 19. Resp Were ever such Absurdities asserted by Men of Reason 1. We are first made righteous and quatenus made so are sanctified and not justified therefore Justification makes no man righteous but finds them so but it declares Men what what it finds them i. e. sanctified Hence to declare a Man sanctified is his Justification and I pray now how comes in Mr. H's causa formalis how doth Justification differ formally nam ad formam pertinet proprium differentia from Sanctification when Imputation or God's accounting a man holy and sanctified is his Justification Is not God's Judgment according to Truth Is it not certain that God accounts every thing to be as it is a holy man holy If this be all your Justification it s no more than as God justified at the Creation he saw that every thing was good 2. If we are first made righteous and then justified because we are so its meritum ex condigno whereon we are justified all the World cannot hinder it 3. First righteous and then pardoned What sense is in that for a righteous person needs no Pardon in that thing wherein he is righteous for therein to be righteous and want Pardon is to speak Daggers and the absurdest contradiction in the World § 5. Well But why must our Neonomians be pardoned when righteous and justified before because indeed their Righteousness and Justification by it is not worth a Fig by their own confession for Mr. Cl. saith for since subordinate Gospel Righteousness is an imperfect righteousness consistent with manifold failings and infirmities therefore notwithstanding that there 's need of pardon and that continually This is also Mr. H's Doctrine therefore I need not transcribe his very words which are to this purpose in many places Resp I find they are not fully agreed about the
of Eternal State Where are we now what a Justification is this by the New Law wherein our eternal state is not concerned Well! but our Justification in this life is not yet perfect not by Christ because he takes off only eternal punishment but temporal he hath left to us to remove by Repentance performing the righteousness of the New Law I hope this righteousness falling in to help Christ's it will produce perfect Justification No it wont this righteousness takes away our Sins and Punishment wholly but sometimes and sometimes only in part and what 's the reason where 's the fault why it falls upon this New Law which is always fulfilling and never fulfilled it will never justifie any one till the last day and it cannot do it then without the perfect righteousness of the Old Law § 7. Let 's take Mr. Cl's Definition of Justification into consideration a little He saith The Definition of Justification so far as it relates to God is thus Justification is an act of God whereby he accounts us righteous at present and treats us as such and will solemnly declare and pronounce us so at the last day of Judgment Resp He should have told us what act of God whether immanent or transient whether an act of Grace or Justice or both he should have told us the object of that act whether a meer sinner or a righteous person he will tell us anon it s a righteous person and he saith accounting him so at present if this accounting him be in a law sense it s but Imputation at most and this is that and all that he doth at present he finds them holy and righteous and judgeth them to be as they be but doth not God declare them righteous at present neither in foro Legis nor in foro Evangelii nor in foro conscientiae in none of these at present when then the very Sentence of Justification is not till the last day so that indeed there is none justified till then for a suspended sentence keeps the person whatever Opinion the Judge hath of him under the Law in Prison and in continual fear of Condemnation so that they are all the day long for fear of Death subject to Bondage § 8. Hence he infers two things 1. That Justification while we are in this life is but partial imperfect and incompleat and that we shall not obtain fully compleat entire and final Justification for all the effects of sin till the Day of Judgment To which I answer Where there is but an imperfect partial Justification there must be a partial Condemnation it cannot be denied but the Apostle denys it and saith there 's no condemnatien to them that are in Christ Jesus 2. The law knows no such thing a man is either perfectly justied for the same thing or perfectly condemned there 's no Medium betwixt Justification and Condemnation 3. If the New Law do not perfectly justifie a person then it condemns too at the same time that when ever the Parator of righteousness takes himself to be justified he is bound to believe himself condemned also and whether will stand good at the last Day he knows not either his Justification or Condemnation CHAP. VI. Of Pardon Section 1. Whether Remission of Sin belongs to Justification § 2. Remission distinguished by Mr. H. § 3. Of general Remission § 4. Conditional Pardon antecedent to a mans Justification § 5. Actual Pardon subsequent to a mans Justification Sect. 1. MR. Cl's Second Inference is That Justification doth not properly consist in Pardon afterward he saith a man is first righteous and then pardoned to which we have spoken something Mr. H. makes a fearful pudder about this Point we will a little inspect his Notions Mediocr p. 44 55. Our Divines do generally place Justification in remission of Sins and so do the Papists and so did I my self Resp Remission of Sins is upon good grounds placed in Justification as an essential part of the Justification of a Sinner and I can boldly deny that sinner to be justified whose sins are not forgiven and to separate them is as possible as to separate homo animal rationale The Law any Law nay your New Law cannot justifie a sinner and declare him righteous unless in that very act of declaring him righteous his sins are taken away in foro legis and this is God's Remission tho not Man 's for his ways are not as mans and whereas Mr. H. makes remission of sins to be a benefit after Justification as an effect of it we say it is a benefit in Justification and the first thing in it in Nature for its impossible any one should stand righteous in the eye of any Law that stands chargeable as a transgressor thereof But remission must not saith Mr. H. be the formal reason of Justification Resp The form of an Act and the formal reason of that Act are two things the material reason of Justification is righteousness and the formal cause is imputation of that righteousness Justification comes in as the acquitting Sentence opposed as Mr. B. saith to condemnation which ex natura rei must formally carry in it forgiveness of sins He proceeds To forgive a mans sins and declare him rigeteous are two inconsistencies one with another in the same respect Resp Cujus contrarium verum in Justification of a Sinner they are most consistent and inseparable that in declaring a sinful man righteous his sins are also done away its true in mans way of Pardon there is some inconsistency because his is by dispensing with his Law but God's way of forgiveness is in and through the satisfaction of his Law but I must tell him that here no Man is looked upon as righteous in the eye of man's law that hath transgressed it till he is first pardoned and therefore when God pronounceth a man just it is according to the law of faith when he pardons his sins it is in respect of the law of works Resp Here are two Bars now he saith elsewhere he likes not two bars I would fain know now at which of these Bars a sinner is most justified either by the law of Works where all his sins are forgiven and therefore consequently must be made righteous or at the Bar of the New Law where he saith the man is declared just but imperfectly so and therefore goes away with his sins upon his Back to the Law of Works to have them pardoned Is it not pretty Divinity then to say a man is declared righteous first at the Bar of the Law of Faith and then all the Bed-role of his sins are pardoned at the Bar of the Law of Works § 2. He comes to distinguish of Remission It s either conditional and universal as it lies in the Covenant and is the purchase of Christ or actual as it lies in application thereof to particular persons upon performance of the conditions Resp This Distinction is a great Point among the Neonomians Mr. B.
passively taken this we deny and for Justification is active but the justified is the passive where Justification it self is the form Again we deny that our righteousness is the formalis ratio of Justification Remission indeed belongs to the form it self but the formalis ratio of Justification is external to the form and therefore to be considered apart from it This only by the way § 5. I add at last upon the account of Christs Merits or through Christ or for Christs sake because this faith of ours or Evangelick Righteousness hath so many defects in the best Christians that if thro the sacrifice of Christ they were not pardoned and through his Merits those imperfect duties which are done accepted it could not be imputed to us for Righteousness Resp Christ is beholden to him to bring him at last tho but at the fagg end of Justification But how comes Justification to be at last upon the account of Christ for we are formally justified upon the account of our own righteousness i. e. perfectly so for what is formally existent is perfectly so and that by our own righteousness i. e. upon the account of it for the effect quod è causis existit is such upon the account of all the causes but especially upon account of the form now he that is formally thus justified must be upon all accounts justified and needs nothing to be added to it Why then upon the account of Christ's Merits why because Christ purchased a law of righteousness which could not justifie perfectly but leaves the person justified in a need of further righteousness for Justification if the Merits and Sacrifice of Christ must come in upon the account of which a man is justified then he is not justified before and Christ's righteousness is the justifying righteousness only for our own leaves us unjustified by Mr. H's own confession i. e. it leaves us in such a case that no man of sense can say we are justified for by his own words the righteousness of the new law is not cannot be imputed to us for righteousness unless it be pardoned and accepted in Jesus Christ and therefore this law cannot justifie any one upon his inherent righteousness for its most absurd to say it can justifie when it cannot impute its own righteousness by reason of the defects thereof § 6. I find Mr. H. is at a great loss in establishing his Notion upon a right bottom he seems to suspect that Christ may come off a loser by it and he will most fearfully I do more especially signifie thereby that Christs righteousness which cannot be imputed to us as a formal cause of our Justification is and must be very carefully brought to our account and granted to be imputed and the meritorious cause of our acceptation Resp I am glad to see this saying wherein he hath overthrown his own Doctrine tho uttered in a great contradiction for he saith Christ's cannot be imputed and then it must be imputed but why cannot it in the first place That which is put to our account in Justification whether as to the part or to the whole of our righteousness is imputed but according to Mr. H. the Merits of Christ's is put to our account and therefore the Merits of Christ to speak more distinctly thus put to our account are the materialis formalis ratio of our Justification for if the merits of Christ be put to our account in Justification it s but trifling to say it s only the effects if one man pay for another in part or whole it s the money it self paid that is put to his account and therefore imputed to him in Court and indeed he ingeniously confesseth he learned of Mr. B. to mend his Notion and allowed Christ's Merit to be the material cause of our Justification but that which he amends with one hand he spoils with another and thereby runs into grosser logical Absurdities saying Because I make our faith the formal in Justification Resp Very good The matter is in one subject in Christ and the form in us another Causa per qua res est id quod est is in us ex qua in Christ in a legal act Christ's righteousness is but generical matter which is as much for all the world as a Believer but the formal part the proprium differentia is in the subject Man this in law is always the meritorious part Money in general turns no Cause there but it s the Propriety that this or that man hath that doth it now it s not Christ's righteousness in special that doth the business but righteousness in general that Christ hath brought in as a material part but its mans righteousness in special that is the principal essential cause according to Mr. H. § 7. After this I distinguish between this pardoning and bearing with the defects of our Faith Repentance and new Obedience which are the condition of the Gospel Covenant and so our Gospel Righteousness or that which is Imputed for Righteousness and that General or Total Pardon c. Resp If Justification be upon performing these as a law condition what need all this talk about bearing with our defects If the Gospel Covenant run in these Terms he that doth what he can shall live therefore Man doing what he can leaves no room for bearing with defects he fulfils the Law in doing what he can Again if this be imputed to us for righteousness by the law and we discharged and declared righteous thereon it is enough Where also observe what imputation the Neonomians owns its imputation of our own righteousness to our selves And such a righteousness as is none because imperfect and sinful but yet imputed for righteousness to us as if it were perfect what 's the reason then that it s found defective after imputation if imperfect by imputation comes in the room and doth as well as perfect Nay what 's the reason that this righteousness that is such a paultrey one which can do nothing by their own concession in Justification without Christs must have the honour of being imputed to us but Christ must not cannot be imputed and why I pray Because tho' its acknowledged to be perfect and compleatest righteousness yet it may not be imputed to us for ours because performed by Christ and not by us I pray let me ask whether it would not more comport with the honour of God the nature of a Gospel and common Reason to impute legally to a delinquent the payment of another which is perfect full and compleat then to impute to him the payment of his whole debt for 10 per Cent. or 6 d. or 4 d. Nay after this acceptance how honourable would it be to the Court to sue to the King for the pardon of the Prisoner for paying so little § 8. But let us come to the other part of the distinction And that general and total Pardon which the Covenant promises and becomes Absolute upon performing
and his Distinction is a Chimaera and if Dr. O. did not trouble his head with such Whims his Consideration is not to be blamed But he tells us that which is not ours comes after imputation as an effect the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ but they become not ours by imputation therefore one leg of his distribution is dropt off for he saith there 's an imputation of a thing ours and a thing not ours this thing not ours which is Christ's satisfaction he saith is not imputed but comes in as an effect of this imputation of our own righteousness but why must Christ's Satisfaction come in the rear because a man must be justified first and then Christ's Satisfaction must come in to mend the faults of his Justification as a remedying righteousness the formal part of his Justification must be pardoned and accepted and before his Justification hath released the man from condemnation and unacceptableness to God he must have the effect of his Justification hence this imputation of ours is the cause of our pardon and acceptation by Christ's Merits an imputation of our immoral righteousness the cause of a perfect But how can we have pardon through the Satisfaction of Christ and acceptance through his merits without God's imputation of them to us for if by the rules of Justice in the New Law Court our righteousness is imputed to us how comes it to pass that when we come sinners into the old law Court we can there become righteous free from condemnation and accepted by Satisfaction and Merit and yet not have it imputed to us this is most extra-judicial for a Court always imputes that satisfaction and merit to the person discharged which is paid into Court for it It were easie to run endlesly upon shewing the gross absurdities of this Divinity for they will have the New Law to impute righteousness which they say is no righteousness and the Old Laws righteousness to be good and perfect but not imputed so that indeed according to their Doctrine the sinner is ruin'd for want of righteousness Under the New Law is no righteousness and under the Old Law good righteousness but no imputation without which a sinner can never be justified now if they would permit these two laws to meet and agree the matter something might be done then the New Law might borrow the Old Laws righteousness and the Old the New Laws Imputation CHAP. VIII Of the Formal Cause of Iustification Section 1. Mr. H's Distinction of by and for according to Bellarmine § 2. The Distinction considered § 3. Justification purchased by Christ. § 4. They advance not God's Grace in Justification § 5. Papists truer than Neonomians in the Doctrine § 6. They say the same with the Papists and confess it § 7. The Errors and Weaknesses of their Opinions § 8. Of Active and Passive Justification § 9. Of Condition and Duty Sect. 1. MR. H. for the better establishment of the Neonomian Doctrine hath taken up a distinction from his friend Cardinal Bellarmine The Protestants saith Mr. H. have denied that Faith is our formal Righteousness Righ p. 46. the reason of the denial hath bin much because they have confounded the causa per quam propter quam by Faith saith the Scripture we are justified by is id per quod causa formalis but Christs Righteousness is id propter quod Let us see out of whose Shop he took this Distinction Bellarmine de just lib. 2. c. 2. having stated the Question Whether Righteousness inherent in us be the formal cause of absolute Justification or not In order to his defence of it in the Affirmative hath this distinction and chargeth Kemnitius with fraudulent dealing in stating the Question because he put id propter quod instead of per quam saith If one will speak properly he must not use the Word propter but per when he will point out the formal cause of Justification If any one ask by what doth a Man live By what do the Stars shine By what is the Fire hot It will be answer'd by his Soul by the Light by the Heat which are the formal causes but if any ask wherefore did the Emperour Triumph wherefore did the Souldiers fight It will be answered not by giving the formal cause but the meritorious and final the Souldiers fight that they may overcome the Emperour triumphs because he overcame so Kemnitius if he had spoken without fraud and properly should have said what is that by which a Man is Justified whether the Righteousness given to him of God and inherent through the Merits of Christ or the Merits of Christ from without him imputed Now Bellarmine having so fully acquainted us with the distinction according to the full sense of Mr. H. I think it will be but loss of Paper and Time to transcribe what Mr. H. saith of it again and again being but all to the same intention of the Cardinal § 2. This distinction duly considered is but one of the Papists shifts and Evasions for First In all juridical proceedings causa per quam est causa propter quam for a Mans righteousness is that by which and for which he is justified and so his transgression is that by which and reason wherefore he is condemned and if meritorious righteousness of a Man 's own or of anothers is brought into Plea and be admitted he is said to be justified by it if it be enquired how came such an one to be acquitted the Answer will be by his Innocency how came such an one to be condemned the Answer will as soon be by as for Wickedness all Righteousness by which any one is Justified is propter quam it s that by Reason whereof he is Justified why doth the New Law justifie him that hath performed the condition is his Righteousness the Justifying condition is not the Justification propter conditionem if it doth refuse to Justifie because the condition is not performed then it justifies not because it is not performed in all conditional Covenants the promise is performed by reason of the performance of the condition 2. Again if this Distinction were True as applied then we should be said to be justified or reconciled still propter sanguinem Christi but we are said to be justified by his Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred ' by ' not for Rom. 5.9 Are reconciled to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By the Death of his Son for dia with a Genitive Case signifies per with an Accusative propter ver 10. So we have Redemption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Colos 1.14.20 Is rendred through but they that have knowledge of the prepositions know by or through are the same when a thing is done by it s done through See Acts 20.28 the Church of God which he hath purchased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that its evident that the distinction will not hold to make Evangelick Obedience causa per quam and Christs Obedience propter quam
because Christs Obedience is said to be per quam when it is intended thereby to be the very righteousnes unto Justification ergo per quam and propter quam are of the same import in a juridical sence but that which our Nâ—onomâ—ans and Papists aim at is an immediate and mediare righteousness that we are justified by one as immediate for the sake of Christ's the mediate § 3. The Papists by this distinction would make way for a double righteousness in our Justification for the Council of Trent doth anathematize those that say a man is justified only by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ or only by remission of sins without inherent Grace and Charity To this purpose our Neonomian Mr. Cl. p. 35. That the merit of Christ's Death and Sufferings he excluding his active obedience hath purchased this priviledge for us among others that sincere faith should be accounted for righteousness and that God will account us righteous if we be possest thereof Resp In both these we see Christ's righteousness is made the propter quam and our own the per quam Christ's the meritorious of our Justification by our own righteousness whereby the ascribing any essential causality to Christ's righteousness is out of doors For 1. The Justification by our own ' is entire in all essential causes without Christ's for our righteousness imputed must be the material as well as the formal part of our Justification 2. It must be first imputed and we justified by it for they make not only the Condition but the Imputation thereof and Justification thereby ' to be conditional of our pardon and acceptance by Christ's Righteousness 3. The very righteousness of our own is imputed not Christs Righteousness at all only the effects cause and effects are opposita therefore if the effects only then not the righteousness it self 4. To say that Christ purchased Justification by our own righteousness is but to make Christ such a remote cause of Justification as Election is Now to talk that the condition by which we are justified is a formal cause and yet to be no cause is non-sence for a formal cause altho it be sine qua non and so is every cause yet the four immediate causes are not only so and this distinguisheth them as propter immediate causes whose vis caters the effect when causa sine qua non as to the effect is only antecedent or causa causae and enters not the effect spoken of But Mr. H. saith it s a cause as well as a condition it is both if we made our works to justifie us sub genere causae efficientis procatarct and so the meritorious cause it were to bring our works into the office of Christ's Righteousness and derogate from Grace Resp So they do notwithstanding all they say for if they thrust out Christ's Righteousness from any essential part of our Justification as they do not allowing it materiality or formality therein they put our own Works into Christ's Office and nothing can be more derogatory to the Grace of God they say they make it medus efficientis causa procatarchtica an external motive to the efficient the effect then in that respect falls on the efficient but the effect of the efficient is another thing Supposing God justifies as Judge Christ's Righteousness by way of Merit falls upon him and procures of him that he takes our righteousness in payment We may use this Similitude a Man is prosecuted before a Judge for an hundred Pounds a Friend of the Defendant tampers with the Jury and Judge and procures of them that the Debtor pay but 10 l. I pray whether is he justified by paying the 10 l. in Court or by that which the Judge and Jury received which is not brought in Plea at all so that all meritorious righteousness is brought in Plea coram Judice and accordingly being imputed or not Judgment passeth The Righteousness of Christ whatever it may purchase out of the Court of the New Law it s not allowed there as a Plea and is never nay cannot be imputed these men say though pleaded therefore no Justification thereby for no man is justified legally but by what is imputed § 4. But when we make it the formal cause only of our passive Justification we do nothing thereby but advance God's Grace and Christ's Merits as having obtained for us not only that God should require of us no othâ—r condition but our Faith or inchoate Righteousness unto life but also that he should corstitute by his New Law this condition performed to be our righteousness in the room of that perfect one required of the old p. 47. of right Resp Note 1. They do something besides advancing the Grace of God because it makes Justification due to us upon Debt for he that hath a formal right-ousness of his own legally imputed to him he may demand Justification as due to him by the law it self and this is not to advance Grace but contrary if the Apostle speak sence Rom. 4. 2. It is not an advance of Christ's Merits for it casts it out of Imputation and Justification and makes it but a causa sine quanon it casts them out of the essential causes and it makes them but an adjuvant cause or con-cause a co-ordinate according to Mr. H. it makes not Christ's Merits the only righteousness it makes our own righteousness the inchoate and foundation righteousness the Corner Stone of our Justification and whereas the Scriptures make Christ's it makes Christ's Righteousness but to belong to another law whereby they say we are not justified and our own to that which justifies and the only justifying righteousness of the new law it makes Christ's Righteousness and our Pardon by it to be a consequent of Justification by our own and that without imputation thereof extra-judicial but our own very righteousness to be imputed to us it makes that righteousness within its self and own nature saith Mr. H. again and again to be righteousness legal for our Justification and rejects Christ's perfect Righteousness as to Imputation and Justification which is contrary to the Holiness and Justice of God 3. He makes the Grace of God to consist in constituting a Law for Justification which is but part of distributive Justice the exercise of a Legislative Power and not of Grace to Sinners 4. The constitution of this inchoste righteousness is harder terms than the constitution of the righteousness of the Covenant of Works for Reasons before given 5. We see what their meaning is of Christ's Merits its only that he purchased a new Law and we see what is the Neonomian Commutation that they have of late made such a stir about they are for a Commutation what 's that its a commutation of our righteousness i. e. bringing into the room of the righteousness of the law i. e. Christ's in Justification they deny it in Dr. C's sence i. e. that our sins were imputed to Christ and his
Righteousness to us for they expresly deny both the one and the other § 5. Mr. H. So as Adam if he had perfectly obeyed his obedience had been his formal righteousness in regard of the law Resp His Obedience had bin his material Righteousness and this imputed to Justification had bin his Righteousness clothed with the Form and End and unless we have a material and formal righteousness in regard to the same law we can never be justified So is this ours in regard to the Gospel Resp The Gospel is not a new Law neither doth it allow our own righteousness for any in our Justification and is therefore Gospel because it doth not He tells us both Protestant and Papist are both out in saying the Law is the rule of that Righteousness which both say is the formal reason of their Justification Resp It is the Neonomians are out and worse than the Papists in this Point in that they will bring any other rule of Righteousness for Justification the Law of Works is only norma officii judicii for Righteousness and Justification They are both out for the Papists speaks for inherent Grace and his Works so as he would have them meritorious and perfect pleading for Merit and Perfection but can never bring them to answer the law but must still pray forgive us our trespasses Resp The Papists are righter and more rational here than Neonomians if they differ from them in Merit they ought not and Mr. B. asserts it in his End of Controversies but whereever the performance of the condition of a law requires Justification by the law there is Merit and must be for such a Performer deserves and merits Justification and the remuneration thereof as much as Adam's standing and performing the condition of the Law of Works had merited Justification thereby Likewise as to Perfection they are right for that is a man's Perfection which the Law makes so and justifies a man by the Law matters not what other laws make perfect performance the Old Law is no rule to the New Law that 's a man's Perfection which the Law that justifies him saith is the performance of the condition Mr. H. quotes Mr. B. for saying the New Law acquits a man from non-performance of the condition and what need such an one pray for Pardon any more than they that say they are justified in Christ's Righteousness the great Cry they make against Justification in Christ's Righteousness what need such an one pray for Pardon for if their Justification in and by their own righteousness be not as perfect discharging from guilt by Pardon as ours is in Christ's Righteousness it s not worth a Fig we desire no such trifling Justifications § 6. The Protestants on the other side plead for Christ's righteousness which arswers the Rule but this being without us though it be upon the account thereof id propter quod or cujus merito we are justified the Papists say stiffly it can never be made formally ours so as to be propter quod we are justified â—â—d I must say the same for the Truth is Truth Resp Here you have Mr. H. plainly confessing himself a Papist in the Point of Justification and hence it s no wrong to him to say he is a Papist upon his own Confession and the truth is the truth He saith with the Papists that this being without us cannot oâ— imputed can nothing but what is personally done by us be Imputed to us I find no Proof that he makes any where that one man's righteousness cannot be imputed to another and here it is only because it is without us What is more common than Sureties to pay the Deâ—ts of insolvent Persons and that Christ made Payment and Satisfaction for Sinners is most plain from Scriptures though these men will deny that the Scripture saith any thing thereof which denial will be tried by us whether there is any weight in it There are two great Points to be cleared in this Controversie 1. Whether the Scripture excludes all inherent righteousness from the Justification of a Sinner before God 2. Whether the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to a Sinner for his Justification before God These Questions shall be maintained by us in the Affirmative God willing in their due place § 7. Whereas Mr. H. Prides himself exceedingly in the singularity of his Notion of our Righteousness being the formal cause of our Justification any one may see it in Cardinal Bellarmine and J. Goodwyn from both whom its easie to shew how the Neonomians have taken up their Doctrine as for the Notion it self it labours under many weaknesses 1. That Righteousness in it self is not the formal but the material reason of Justification that which induceth the form is a legal Imputation for if a man be never so innocent and righteous if the Court do not impute him so he shall not be justified and if a man be never so unrighteous if the Court impute righteousness to him he shall be justified so it s here Imputation is the legal form of Justification and righteousness is but the material only 2. He makes a formal reason without material for if our own righteousness be the formal reason where 's the material he will not make Christ's Merits the material for he brings in them sub genere causae efficientis besides he cannot for it would be very absurd to place the matter in one subject and the form in another therefore his formal reason is immaterial and it s indeed but an imagenary Chymaera both his New Law and his Formal Righteousness 3. Our Righteousness if it be the formal reason of our Justification it s such as per quam homo justus est and that is in law always propter quod for no law justifies any one but because he is righteous his righteousness must constitute him just and the law esteeming him so he is justified as legally meritorious thereof the noise Mr. B. J. G. and others make of the distinction between constitutive and declarative Justification is Popish and hath nothing in it constitutive Justification is no more than Imputation it is that which in law constitutes any one just and meritorious of declarative Justification § 8. Mr. H. makes a distinction of Justification that its active and passive whereas Justification is but one and it doth not constitute properly a physical effect but a legal relation it doth neither find nor make any sinner inherently righteous for Justification of a righteous person finds him inherently so this Justification we speak not of but Mr. H. will have a passive Justification upon this account because it finds the sinner righteous inherently he saith indeed the infusion of this preceeding righteousness is not his Justification according to the Papists but his Justification is for the righteousness which it finds infused and so it s the formal cause of Justification He might with much better reason say that Sanctification is double active sanctifying and passive
justified it is not imputed that we may have it but because we have it it is imputed Mr. H. herein goes against himself Or else if we have it it must be imputed to some other end than to have it Answ Yes it s imputed legally that we may be justified we have it by gift prius natura by gift of Grace for we must have the righteousness before the Law can judge we have it because legal Judgment is according to Truth Mr. H's Justification runs thus far that we must have a righteousness before it is imputed nay and he saith its by Gift too Now if Christ did obey or suffer in our persons or as our legal person so as in law sence we have and are accounted to have obeyed and suffered in him then can his righteousness consisting of his Obedience and Sufferings be neither imputed to us that we may have it or be made ours or reckoned to us as ours seeing we have it already it is ours it is reckoned as ours in that it was performed in our persons nor can it be imputed to us to any other end or thing but ad justitiam which is to the same end and for the same thing and can be no other Resp Mr. H. thinks this Argument irrefrigable and that it will carry all before it but poor men as most opposers of truth have the unhappiness to smite with the backs of their Swords and cut themselves with the edge Mr. H. argues if we have Christ's righteousness we cannot have it by Imputation We do not say we have it by imputation any other than a legal allowance that we have it having it is antecedent to the legal allowance it is not so in their Principles we have our own righteousness before it is imputed to us But if in a law-sence we are accounted to have obeyed and suffered in Christ then his righteousness cannot be imputed unto us cujus contrarium verum yea therefore it s imputed unto us for one man's payment is not reckoned and imputed to another unless the payment be made in his person in a law-sence it is ours and reckoned as ours in that it was performed in our persons he saith therefore as such it is reckoned and imputed to us nor can it be imputed to us for any other end than for righteousness we say and you say § 5. Mr. H's Arguments for Faith and Obedience being the Formal Cause of our Justification we shall examine in the next place they are as Mr. Cl. hath gathered them up By the consent of all Divines That righteousness which denominates us righteous in the sight of God must be the form or formal part of our Justification But neither Regeneration nor Christ's Righteousness nor Pardon is that which justifies per modum causae formalis and therefore it must be Faith Resp 1. He should have added imputed to the things enumerated in the minor for he saith to Mr. C. he means so 2. If he doth mean so he putteth the material and formal cause together and therefore I shall deny his Minor under the term of essential causes which takes in his formal As to the major I except that all the Divines do not hold that righteousness that denominates us righteous before God is the formal cause but insist on the minors denial that the righteousness of Christ doth not denominate us righteous before God for so should the assumption be the Syllogism as it stands is false having one medium in Major another in the Minor Dare Mr. H. be so scandalous as to speak out his Minor as he ought by his Medium That Christ's Righteousness doth not denominate us righteous in the sight of God its plain that he shifts it off by a wrong Assumption and according to that fault makes his Proof And I only say that there 's no righteousness can denominate us righteous in the sight of God but what is fully satisfactory to the Law that condemns us but there 's no righteousness fully satisfactory to the Law that condemns us but Christ's let Mr. H. shew any other if he can and as for the righteousness of the New Law which he pleads for he acknowledgeth that it s no righteousness in its own nature that it needs Pardon at the Bar of the Old Law and therefore it cannot denominate us righteous in the sight of God § 6. He proceeds to prove his false Assumption by parts 1. That Christ's righteousness is not that righteousness whereby we are denominated righteous in the sight of God why because saith he it is the meritorious case I answer therefore it is for no righteousness makes any one righteous coram Judice but a meritorious righteousness not regenerating grace see how he shifts he said in his Minor not regeneration i. e. inherent renovation which he all along asserts for our justifying righteousness and now he has brought it to the active infusion of Grace as he quibbles with the Papists and why not Regenerating Grace because that must precede Justification and must not the righteousness precede the Justification by his own Doctrine and doth not the formalis ratio precede the effect but what doth regenerating Grace preceed Is it not regeneration it self it being the working cause of it but as for the Grace of regeneration wrought that 's the very righteousness which he means and yet saith in his Assumption not regeneration this is but juggling it is not plain dealing He goes on not pardon for that comes after it Mr. H. saith so I know no better authority for it and I will believe it ad Graecas calendas I have shewed the absurdity and folly of it yea and of his pardon preceeding Justification And if none of these be the formal cause i. e. the Essential causes denominating us Righteous in Gods sight it must be something else What 's that The righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel i. e. Faith and Obedience Mr. Cl. saith something else Imputation it s that which is the form one essential cause in this they differ but as to the matter they agree that Faith and imperfect Obedience is the righteousness whereby we are denominated righteous in the sight of God and is not the Grace of regeneration inherent whether Faith be the righteousness of God shall be examined anon by its self because Mr. H. puts so much stress upon it § 7. Arg. 2. Adam if he had perfectly obeyed his Obedience had been his formal Righteousness in regard to the Law so is this ours in regard to the Gospel Again works were the formal righteousness in regard to the Law therefore Faith is the formal righteousness of Justification by the Gospel And two things go to this formal Righteousness Faith and the imputation of it Resp It seems Mr. H. understands formal cause matter formed and that is an effect not a cause the materia formata is the formal cause I must tell him his Notion is neither Divinity nor Logick 2. What
consequence is there in this Argument works were the formal cause of Justification as to the Law of Works therefore works must be the formal cause in relation to the Gospel it follows not but vice versa and if the consequence be true then there 's no formal difference between Law and Gospel 3. Hereby he yields that New Law conditions are Old Law works and consequently his Gospel is no Gospel but a Law of works which is contrary to Scripture and accordingly Mr. Cl. saith Gospel works must merit the reward as works should have done in Adams Covenant Mr. H's reply is so weak that it s not worth taking Notice of § 3. Argum. 1. Justification hath a form and that must be some righteousness Resp It may have a form and yet Righteousness be the matter What righteousness is it whereby we are justified I answer against Mr. Cl. and him that it s no righteousness inherent in the justification of a sinner He saith it s not regenerating grace infused but imputed Answer What makes the difference then between Sanctification and Justification its nothing but the divers respect in Mr. H's Divinity and wherein lies that respect is it not in imputation and this Logick he yields in his Notes Argument 4. Divines generally fix it upon some righteousness Resp If some Divines speak improperly it doth not justifie Mr. H. to do so but he saith a distinction is made of a genus and differentia and therefore righteousness must be the form Resp Non sequitur for genus is the matter and but part of the form at most sometimes but the differencing part of the Definition is the form distinct from the genus Mr. Cl. saith the most plausible Argument of all because it is Scripture you have omitted we are justified by faith This saith Mr. H. is my id per quod that runs through all my Books its true and what would Mr. H. have done to support his Notion if the Cardinal had not helpt him to this id per quod and id propter quod he takes himself safe enough between the Cardinal and Bishops Well Mr. Cl. is not so well pleased I find with his formalis causa but rather than break with Mr. H. he will comport with him especially finding him very uncertain and unsettled sometimes our righteousness is the formal cause and sometimes the material and imputation the formal Mr. Cl. hath another denomination for our own righteousness he calls it our subordinate righteousness Our Justification by Faith or accounting it to us for righteousness will be considered anon § Cl. also gathering and applauding Mr. H's constitutive Justification let it be a little inspected Mr. Cl. saith That Mr. H. doth clearly distinguish his Opinion from the Papists in that he makes infused righteousness only Sanctification and imputation of the same to be Justification its only to distinguish up our own righteousness several ways I would ask these Gentlemen whether they do not hold the infusion of their righteousness and Justification upon it imputed if they do so do the Papist for if the Papist did hold making a man's righteousness inherent to be Justification then must they hold some merit of condignity to precede in the natural man for a meer free gift as such is an infusion cannot be Justification I do not see but Mr. H's constitutive Justification and the Papists is all one for if they say God infuseth righteousness and imputeth righteousness it s the same thing and God cannot constitute any just by infusion but he must impute him so I have said this constitutive Justification as they take it can be no other than Imputation if they will make it differ from declarative Justification 2. The constituting us as just doth in order of nature go before accounting or using us as just Resp God neither constitutes any man just in and by his own righteousness nor accounts them so But we can say God first gives us Christ's righteousness by his Grace then accounts us righteous therein Constitutive Justification consists in three things in making us just accounting us just and using us as just all these the Papists have Therefore more fully Justification is a judicial act and that by the law of Grace God by that Law and the act of God's law makes pronounces and by pronouncing makes a Believer a righteous person and being so made accounts him so Resp The Scripture speaks of Justification of a Sinner and therefore saith it s an act of free Grace Indeed Mr. H's Justification can be no other than a judicial Act it s no way consistent with Grace because he saith its by a Law and Act of it whereby it makes and pronounceth a believer righteous and it seems he is first declaratively justified and after imputed righteous when God hath pronounced him righteous then accounts him so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cart before the Horse Our righteousness wrought in us by Vocation and is the same materially but not formally with this righteousness of Justification Resp Now here 's the reason why he sticks so hard for our righteousness being the formal part of our Justification so that the same righteousness as he saith materially the same Sanctifies us materially and Justifies us formally So as that as Sanctifying it hath no form and as Justifying no matter Now this is a Quatenus with a witness so in Mr. Cl's sence he doth well making the matter real and the form relative These things Mr. H. in his several middle-way Pages and Letters repeats a hundred times you cannot look into a Page hardly but you have the sum of his Doctrine therefore it must not be expected that I should follow him Page by Page unless I should Tautologize as he doth CHAP. X. Whether Faith be our justifying Righteousness Section 1. Whether the Saints before Christs did not look upon themselves as righteous by their own righteousness § 2. Abraham considered § 3. Abraham considered § 4. Abraham 's Justification further considered § 5. Of Subordinate righteousness § 6. Mr. Cl's defence of a Subordinate righteousness § 7 Opposition of Faith and Works in Justification Mr. Cl's 2d and 3d. Arg. § 8. Mr. Cl. fourth Argument Answer'd § 9. Argument 5 6. § 10. More to Mr. H 's challenge Sect. 1. MR. H's Enquiry about the Saints before Christs coming is He would know of any Man who is most Orthodox in his Complexion whether he does or is able to think that Enoch Noah Job who were before the Law Samuel the Kings and Prophets under the Law or any Man or Woman whatsoever before the coming of Christ did ever imagine that they were righteous or accepted with God for the Obedience which the Messiah should perform on their behalf when he came into the World and believing this was an Instrument of making him to be theirs c. And whether they did not look upon themselves righteous by their own righteousness their doing righteoâ—snâ—ss and to obtain favour by
it which is not to get life by our own works but living by and upon the righteousness of another by faith and thus he argues from Moses's Law to every Law that works of neither cannot justifie and when he speaks of Moses his law he seldom understands the meer Ceremonial Law but the Moral also as recognized under Moses and that of Gal. 5.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye are abdicated from Christ whoever of you are justified by the works of a law in Mr. Cl's sence it is whoever of you are justified by the works of some law only so Paul opposeth Christ himself to the works that are of a Law Phil. 3.9 His own righteousness he saith is such viz. this he desires to be found out of but in Christ viz. his righteousness by Faith which he opposeth to his own as that which he calls the righteousness of God in opposition to the righteousness of Man He saith indeed in one place Works are mentioned in general Rom. 4.2 It s true but he takes not Notice how often Law is mentioned in general and so the works of a Law are general where-ever spoken so of But he saith these words must be understood with a limitation too and be meant of the same kind of works Resp And therefore the words import thus if Abraham were justified by some kind of works he hath wherein to Glory but why should some kind of works give Abraham more cause of boasting than others He will say because some are great and perfect others little and imperfect but I say there 's no specifick difference between great and little of the same kind besides he that attains a great End by a small work hath more cause of boasting than he that attains it by great work and Labour therefore a Man may rather boast of the works of the New Law than of the Old and then they are all works opposed by him to Faith for he saith the reward is to him that worketh not that that Expression excludes all works for Paul could not be so absurd to express works by not working § 8. If Paul understood himself c. We must grant and conclude that Paul disputes only against the works of the Law Resp No doubt he knew his own Mind and was consistent with himself and if such plain Expressions are intelligible he excludes all works of any Law what ever but he gives his reason why he means we are justified by works when he saith positively we are not justified by works and that he that worketh not but is ungodly Because they were such works as did frustrate and evacuate the undertakings of Christ Rom. 4.14 Gal. 5.4 Resp So do all works of a Law brought in for righteousness for if the great End of Christ's undertaking was to be our Justifying-righteousness then any works brought into the room thereof frustrate Christ's righteousness but that was the chief End of Christ's undertaking Rom. 4.25 2 Cor. 5.21 The words of Rom. 4.14 are if they that be of a Law be Heirs i. e. such as claim by the works of a Law performed by them Faith is made Void i. e. it s to no purpose to believe on another for righteousness Faith is made empty of the righteousness of another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Promise or Gospel is abdicated for the same thing cannot be Law and Promise or Gospel and the reason is given because you see the law of Moses worketh wrath and where there 's no law there 's no transgression the law determines the transgression and the sinner to wrath for it and this doth every law whatever The other Scriptures were spoken to before 2d Reason They are such works as he opposeth every way to faith and also to Grace Gal. 4.4 therefore they are not faith or any inherent grace Gal. 5.4 But he never opposeth faith and Gospel-Works Resp He always opposeth Faith and all Works in the Point of Justification because Works justifie by themselves but Faith by its Object only Because Gospel-works suppose Faith or Grace being the fruit of Faith and product of Grace Resp A pitiful Reason because a man that runs apace is supposed to see therefore a man runs by his eyes and after this manner he applies 1 Cor. 15.10 by the Grace of God I am what I am and laboured more abundantly than they all ergo Paul was justified by works is not this a very learned consequence I grant saith he faith and works of the law are frequently opposed by the Apostle Resp Then faith and works of a law are not the same in this he gives us the Cause Let us see his Concessions further I grant saith he a meer profession of faith is opposed to works James 2.14 Resp True Faith fruitful in good works is opposed to false faith that has no fruits 3. I grant that even Gospel-works are opposed to Grace tho not to faith both in Election Rom. 11.5 6. and in Vocation 2 Tim. 1.9 Resp Works of a law by which a man claims Justification are not Gospel-works but Legal and they are opposed to Grace both in Election Vocation and Justification but as Election is not on the foresight of any works or righteousness no not of Christ's and Vocation is not upon our performance of any works no more is Justification I grant God chooseth not upon foresight of good works or faith in us neither call any because they have faith or good works but that they may have them his Grace is antecedent to any good in us but now the case is otherwise in reference to those priviledges which follow Vocation for God justifies and glorifies us yet not as the meritorious cause thereof but only as a way means and qualification c. Resp Well now the Case is altered Grace goes no further than Vocation there it makes a stand and man does the rest himself but let us enquire a little into this Mystery Is a man effectually called and made holy and yet not justified for he that is made holy in order to Justification suppose qualified and conditionated for it is in order of Nature holy before justified i. e. hath the Spirit of Holiness the Gift of Grace and inherent righteousness whilst a child of wrath and actually under the curse of the law 2. All Justification for Holiness because it is the work of a law is meritorious righteousness for there 's no law justifies but because the performance of the condition deserves it in Justice Hence all Qualifications and Means made legally conditionally to the remunerative part of the Law are deserving thereof and meritorious and undeniably so for if the absence of the Qualification and the Means or Non-performance of the Condition doth merit or deserve the Wages of the Sin from the Law enjoyning the said Qualifications or Conditions then having and performance thereof doth upon the same Reason merit and deserve the Reward of Righteousness but the Antecedent is true therefore the
Consequent § 9. He proceeds with Confidence 2dly I do absolutely deny that a true Gospel justifying Faith and Gospel-Works are ever opposed to one another and do confidently affirm the contrary because I have examined all Places where Faith and Works are mentioned and do not find them if any affirm let him prove it R. Mr. Cl's Confidence is no Proof and his searching the Scriptures and not finding so plain a Truth as that Justification by Faith is opposed to Justification by Works argues but judicial blindness whereby God hath hardned his Heart and blinded his Eyes 1. As was said before all Gospel-works as he calls his New Law Works brought into Justification by a Law are legal not Gospel not accepted of God but leaves a Man under a Curse 2. Those that are Gospel-works are Fruits of the Spirit thro' the Gift of Grace and Fruits of Faith as they are Fruits of Christ's Righteousness believed in to Justification and no cause of Justification in the least neither doth the Believer claim Justification thereby and hence called Gospel-Works but if he claim Justification by them they are Works and opposed to Faith but loose the Name of Gospel are Legal dross and dung and stink in the Nostrils of God neither are any such Works the gracious Gifts of the Spirit or true Faith or the good Fruit of it For such seek Righteousness as it were by the Works of the Law and obtain it not 3. Now whereas Mr. Cl. here throws down his Gantlet in an Ambiguous manner we take it up in the true State of the Difference and confidently affirm that Justification by Faith is positively opposed by the Apostle Paul to Justification by any Works of a Law whatever performed by us the proving of which is the drift of this whole Dispute as now managed 4. He saith there was no Coutroversie about any other Works but the Works of the Law Resp There was no Controversie about any Works but the Works of a Law no more is there now Gal. 5.4 The Apostle saith They are abdicated from Christ and fallen from Grace that are justified by a Law so say we § 10. Proposition 4. This Law was the whole Body of the Mosaical Law consisting of precepts Moral Ceremonial and Judicial what he saith under this proposition about the acceptation of the term Law I think will not hold all of it with his other Doctrine for he saith its taken 1. For any written Declaration or Revelation of the Will of God concerning our Duty 2. It s frequently taken for the Moral Law as Rom. 7.12 and Ch. 3.31 Mat. 5.17 Luke 16.17 3. It s used Indefinitely for the whole Body of the Law given to Moses and therefore he mentions it in such general Terms R. Because Law is used in so many Senses in Scripture and those that would introduce Justification by Works are apt to slip from one Law to another and say as Mr. Cl. doth that though the Apostle deny Justification by one Law yet he intends Justification by Works of another Law therefore the Apostle excludes our Works of any Law whatever as frequently in his Epistles as hath been shewed so in that express and plain Place Gal. 3.21 If there had been a Law given which could have given Life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law And why is it spoken It 's spoken as a Reason that the Law of Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not against the Promise i. e. against Justification by the Promise and Gift of Righteousness no the Law of Moses taken together was so far from being against this way of Justification without the Works of a Law that it witnessed to it as the Apostle expresly speaks Rom. 3.21 It did not appropriate the Grace of the Promise to it self but by the whole Tenor of it witnessed to the Promise and Righteousness The Law of Moses taken as a Law did justifie none Gal. 3.11 For saith the Apostle the Law i. e. as such is not of Faith ver 12. The Condition of it being Works and therefore Justification by the Law is not Justification by Faith the Apostle saying further ver 18. If the Inheritance be of a Law than no more of Promise ver 19. For what end served the Law given by Moses Answ It was added because of Transgression till the Seed should come to whom the Promise was made i. e. Christ but why added for two Ends. 1. That Sin might be distinctly known by the Moral Part as the Apostle by the Knowledge of Sin 2. That by the Ceremonial Law there might be a Typical Redemption and Satisfaction held forth unto them through which they might have a sight of Faith and of the true Sacrifice held forth unto them § 11. Proposition 5. The Law was looked upon by the Carnal Jews as a Covenant of Werks Mat. 19.16 Granting that it was yet not to be fulfill'd by a perfect Obedience but by imperfect as appears by his Words What good thing shall I do that I may inherit Eternal Life As much as to say I have done Good and Evil I would know what that good thing is whereby I may be righteous to Life Eternal He depreciates the Law calling it a Ministration of Death and Condemnation 2 Cor. 3.7 9. It was the true Sense of the Apostle that the Law of Moses or any other Commands of God understood used and applied as a Law for Justification by the Works of it is a Ministration of Death and not of Faith and as a Ceremonial Law which Heb. 6.19 is made nothing and by it self perfect it being Typical and the Type absolutely considered could not purifie them as to Conscience The Apostle saith it was weak through our weakness Rom. 8.3 We being not able to come to the Terms of this nor of any other and Rom. 6.14 saith we i. e. Believers are not under a Law but under Grace for Justification as much as to say you take the Doctrine of Grace to be a licentious Doctrine but believe it it s the legal Doctrine that leads to Sin not the Doctrine of Grace besides the Apostle shews plainly that to look for Justification by the Law of Moses or of any other is to be Married to it which he shews Rom. 7. is quite contrary to our Marriage to Christ by Faith while we are in expectation of Justification by a Law we are held in Bondage but being by the true Sence of the Nature of it Dead to it it becomes Dead to us Now we are delivered from the Law that being Dead wherein we were held and there 's no other Husband comes in the room of the Dead Law no new Law but Christ only And the Opposition saith Mr. Cl. is only between the Law of Works and the Law of Faith if he make the Law of Faith to be a Law of Works then it s no Opposition at all because both are a Law of Works and why I pray is Justification by Faith Justification by
and calls him so for the Words are Who of God is made unto us Wisdom c. But he saith Christ is not Wise and Holy in our stead neither doth it follow then that he is Actively Righteous in our stead but the meaning is he is the procuring meritorious Cause by his perfect Obedience hath satisfied the Law and procur'd a new Way of Righteousness by Faith Sanctification Resp The Words are not Christ is Wise and Holy in our stead but that Christ is made of God to us what he is there said to be whether Wisdom as a Prophet to teach us or Righteousness as a Priest to Cloath us with the Garment of Salvation and Robe of Righteousness and that he is made of God to be what he is in the divers Ways and manner of Being or Conveying what we have from him he is our Wisdom by way of teaching Righteousness by way of Sacrifice Sanctification by being the Treasure of all Grace and Holiness which God bestows he is Redemption in that all the Promises of Inchoation and Consummation of Redemption are yea and Amen in him But Mr. Cl. makes Righteousness and Sanctification all one and Christ being to us all these Things one way by meriting and procuring we have as much right to say too that Christ is all these one Way viz. by Imputation because we are sure he is Righteousness to us by Imputation but why is Active annexed to Righteousness he might have excluded his whole Righteousness by what follows both Active and Passive intentionally But is not Christ righteous in our stead when he satisfied Gods Law and Justice in our stead For what For any wrong we had done unto the Law of God I pray is not that our Righteousness which is Righteousness in our stead but these Men will have Satisfaction and no Satisfaction only a new Bargain or Purchase likewise a Satisfaction but not for us so their Satisfaction which they will have Christ make is no Payment for us nor accounted so by God nor any Satisfaction to him for any wrong we have done him that which Christ hath done is a Purchase of a Righteousness he saith we say Righteousness is the Purchase Money accounted to us so that Christ is not only a Procurer and Bestower but he hath something to procure and Purchase by he hath something to offer now as God hath made Christ the satisfying Price and Ransom-mony so he is made of God Righteousness to us but with Mr. Cl. Righteousness and Sanctification is all one this is hard dealing with Jehovah our Righteousness these Men are as the Jews of Old that would not be subject to the Righteousness of God § 5. Mr. Cl. Another is Rom. 4.6 prest to serve this Cause As David describes the blessedness of the Man to whom the Lord imputes Righteousness without Works say they the Righteousness of Christ but its clear it s not meant of any thing in another Person that 's imputed for Righteousness but something in a Mans self by the whole Tenour of the Chapter and by ver 9. where he saith Faith was reckoned for Righteousness so that the Righteousness imputed here spoken of is inherent graciously accounted Righteousness but in strict Justice is not so nor according to the Original Law c. Resp This plain Place which stands a Rock against all Popish and Neonomian Attempts he calls prest into our Service or Cause no it comes in freely it 's a Volunteer and mighty thro' God to cast down all their Confidence and Imaginations where 's the clearness in all this Chapter or Psalm from whence it s taken is it not clear for the Imputation of anothers Righteousness Is there any thing of self-righteousness Faith is spoken of as accounted to Abraham for Righteousness but we have shewn that that which was imputed to Abraham for Righteousness was the Righteousness of the promised Seed for the Gospel which is the Doctrine of Christs Righteousness was Preached to him in the Promise and he by Faith saw Christ's Day of Expiation and Attonement this he reached by Faith and it was imputed to him not Faith it self not the Arm that reached it but the Righteousness it self There 's a Plain Instance in the Gospel where what the Object of Faith doth is ascrib'd by a Metonymy to Faith it self Mat 9.21 22. The diseased Woman touched the Hem of Christ's Garment and was made whole and Christ saith Woman thy Faith hath made thee whole And we see Mark 9.29 30. where is the same Narrative that Christ perceived that Vertue was gone out of him and yet saith ver 34. Thy Faith hath made thee whole now I would know of these Men whether it was Christ's Vertue that healed the Woman or the Vertue of her Faith Faith as an Act of hers that made her whole See Luke 7.39 42 47 48 50. Likewise the stung Israelites were healed by looking on the Brazen Serpent was the healing Vertue in the Brazen Serpent or in their own Eyes Let us now examine then how clear it is that the Place is not meant of the Righteousness of another The Apostle saith that David describeth the righteousness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works 1. The Apostles design in the whole Chapter is to prove our Justification by a righteousness which is not made up of works of our own and the Neonomians say his design is to prove Justification by works are not these contradicentia the Apostle negat ubique they say by some works only the Apostle means works of the old law they the works of the new It s strange the Apostle did not except and secure works of the new law but I suppose as for the works of the new law he never heard of them thence his altum silentium about the new law and its works too He saith David was justified or Justification was with a righteousness without works and yet David might plead his own works to Justification as well as any Neonomian 1. He was no carnal Jew that sought Justification by the law of Works as appears by Psal 51. 2. If there was any Justification then by New-Law works as indeed there was not then or now David sure must be under the New Law for Justification and he must needs know the works thereof whereby he expected to be justified and therefore I thus argue If David knew he was justified by works and blessed therein then he deals falsly or the Apostle greatly mistakes him in saying that David proves the blessedness of the man c. the consequent is of absolute necessity and the assumption must tollere anteced ut tollat conseq for they were both inspired and therefore could not deceive themselves nor us in this great Point Arg. If David proves a righteousness without his own works either old or new-law works then it must be works of another that he intends for there 's no righteousness without works of some or another if he
beloved as he was was ignorant of it but that very day as v. 16. According to thy righteousness I beseech thee let thy anger and thy fury be turned away a Neonomian will Gloss thus i. e. according to our righteousness of the New Law v. 18. We do not present our supplications to thee for our righteousness i. e. say the Neonomians the righteousness of the Old Law not of the New but for thy great mercy that say they is the Law of Grace so they will have their Belly-full of law shortly § 2. Mr. H. gives a wild Gloss upon Eph. 1.4 According as he hath chosen us in Christ before the Foundation of the World he saith the Election of Grace is the Election of Grace and Gods choosing us is the taking the Way and Method of Grace and not of Works a choice way of saving Resp Ay indeed it s a choice way to save by Grace and not by Works but to save by Grace and yet by Works is a Contradiction in Paul's Logick Election is in Christ how according to common Notion of Election is over hard to conceive but take it in this Notion and here is even Day-light if you take it for the Law of Grace the Law is the Will of the Law-giver and that 's all one with the Gospel there 's no difficulty in it Resp This Man is so fond of his New Law that ask him of what Place of Scripture you will what it means and he will tell you its the New Law what is Election The New Law what is Redemption Purchase of the New Law How are you justified by the Righteousness of the New Law how shall you be judged by the New Law what 's the Gospel the New Law may not these Men be fitly call'd Neonomian that thus New Law it its hard to conceive how Election is in Christ why Because he cannot conceive Christ to be a common Person or Head of the Elect and that Christ as such was chosen and the whole Body in him but tell him that we are chosen in the New Law and the Difficulty is removed and you see what he makes of the Gospel it is the Law-giver I think its Time to give over talking with Men whose Wits go a Wool-gathering once more though § 3. 2 Cor. 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself not imputing their Trespasses and hath committed to us the Word of Reconciliation the Word is the Gospel declaring to the World this purchased Pardon the Pardon is General a standing Pardon an Act of Grace yet if any will have Benefit by it he must look into the Act and see how he is to be qualified Resp The Gospel he saith is the Declaration of the New Law the making of which was an Act of general Pardon for all the World and for this Pardon Christ atoned none could obtain this but Christ and here all the Rogues and Whores in the World continuing so are pardoned at once now the silly Antinomian talks only of the Pardon of Believers before Faith now a Neonomian doth Antinomize to Purpose and Mr. H. is willing Christ shall have the Honour of saving Peter so far as he saved Judas and so far it 's from the Love of the Father in sending his Son to fulfil the Law how By no Obedience to it or Satisfaction for wrong done to him in it and in this Sence he will allow Grace is without Condition i. e. as much as Creation is Grace and God's giving a Law at first it 's true whatever Act God puts forth at first to a Created Being in a way of Nature or Jurisdiction or Mercy it may be said to proceed from his Sovereignty but it cannot shine forth in a way of Grace unless it be the bestowing some good Thing in a way of Speciality Peculiarity and in Distinction from others not to do something in general for all the World in common this is not that which will bear the Name of Grace likewise considering that what he calls a Law of Grace is but an Exhibition of a Law of Works for it is but do believe God had made the first Law as much a Law of Grace as this had the World been as full of People as since and more for it had been easier to perfect Man to perform than now an un-performable condition is to lapsed man This is Grace without conditions he saith even as much as the first Covenant for God made that Covenant without Man's causing it the Condition was lege constitura in the law enacted the previous causes of a law whether it proceed from the meer pleasure of the Legislator or obtained from him by Petition or Purchace are not considered in the law by the Subject it s the tenour of it that he looks at and is concerned in it therefore the making a law the proper nature whereof is to be conditional and promulgatting of it to all the world is no Pardon therefore he soon trips up the heels of his General Pardon in saying If any come to look for benefit by this Pardon Act of Grace Law Covenant Testament any thing a declaration of the will of God as he saith which being a law is not therefore Grace he must read it and see the conditions or terms that God requires And are not these conditions required of all the World are they therefore pardoned because they are required of them its required of every man he saith to believe repent walk sincerely in order to the benefit if these be the conditions of the Covenant then not free because working conditions are required of all the World which by the World are unperformable The main of the Text he cannot see he is so dazled with his New Law v. 18. All things are of God even the reconciliation of the World as well as its new Creation and therefore the righteousness by which reconciliation is made is of God and therefore saith reconciling us by Expiation and Satisfaction for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying reconciling by an Expiatory Sacrifice to himself the enmity was between the Sinner and God and God in this Grace is the first mover of Reconciliation by or in Jesus Christ in whom the righteousness of Satisfaction is giving to us the word of reconciliation i. e. the Gospel in which this reconciliation is preached whereby the Sinner seeing the preventing love of God in the mystery of Reconciliation by the Impetration of Christ he may have the application of this Grace also by Faith for this is the great doctrin that reconciles the heart and brings him to believe This he repeats v. 9. shewing only exegetically that we who are to be saved are the world in the sense of the Scripture in this truth by an usual synecdoche of the choice part being put for the whole and the whole for the better part not imputing their Trespasses shew which is the great thing done in reconciliation of a Sinner to
faulty that will serve the turn God never abandoned nor relaxed his original Law though others as branches in positive laws for a time being may be but that was perfectly fulfilled in Christ § 3. Arg. 2. That Righteousness which merits the Justification of a Sinner before God is that righteousness only by which and for which he is justified before God but the Righteousness of Christ is such Ergo. For the minor our adversaries grant it that Christ merited and purchased our Justification i. e. by works of our own and that our Righteousness and Justification are effects thereof and therefore there needs no further Proof here but we must come to the major which pincheth hard upon them but it appears to be true 1. Because there is no legal Discharge of an accused person without a meritorious righteousness appearing Now these men with the Socinians say some at least and others do but lisp at it Mr. B. says it downright he knowing it to be inseparable from the Popish Doctrine that their righteousness is not meritorious being imperfect if it be not it s no justifying righteousness I will stand by it that there is no righteousness can claim Justification but upon the merit of their action in the performance of the preceptive part and if they be justified by the new law they must be justified by the merits thereof but we assert that the righteousness must answer the old law broken and it must be as in Justice it doth so satisfie that law that it lays claim to Justification by vertue of those merits and no other righteousness will pass there but what is such § 5. Arg. 4. The righteousness typified by the Priests Sacrifices of old was the righteousness whereby a sinner is justifi d in the sight of God but the righteousness of Christ a-alone is such Ergo. For the major our adversaries Mr. Bellarmine and Mr. H. say that Christs Righteousness is the thing for which id propter quod not as the End but as an Instrument of the Efficient and a meritorious cause and our Faith and Obedience is the per quam which they say doth not denote Merit and in the Protestant sence per quam denotes only instrumentality but indeed here 's these mens Commutation they make Christ's Righteousness the Instrument and that remote enough too and our own righteousness the Formal Cause of Justification which in truth is their meritorious cause upon their own Positions the major must be granted The minor will be very demonstrable upon these reasons That the Righteousness of Christ is only such the id propter quod and per quod a sinner is justified in Gods sight 1. i. e. The righteousness by which we are justified is not two but one and Christs is that as the Scripture affirms 2. That for which a man is meritoriously justified in tribuno legis is that by which he is justified so the law knows no difference in those terms for it doth nothing by any righteousness but it doth it for that righteousness 3. The Spirit of God therefore useth the Greek Prepositions promiseuously in this case as hath in part been shewed 4. No Sinner therefore can stand in Judgment but by and for this Righteousness of Christ § 5. Arg. 4. The Righteousness typified by the Priestly Sacrifices of old was the righteousness whereby a sinner is justified in the sight of God but this was the Righteousness of Christ only Ergo. The major and minor are so clear that no Christian that hath read the Scripture with any understanding can deny either if any shall say it s not easie to defend it there 's the whole Epistle to the Hebrews yea the whole Scripture to prove them all the Devils in Hell cannot cast down this Fortress and I leave it therefore to the intelligent Reader let him search the Scriptures they testifie of it § 6. Arg. 5. That Righteousness which is a ransoming and redeeming righteousness from a legal Bondage is the justifying righteousness of a sinner before God but Christ's Righteousness is that alone which is a redeeming and ransoming righteousness Ergo. The minor is true none that call themselves Christians dare to fly so audaciously in the face of Christ and deny plain Scripture to deny this if they do there 's enough to prove it to the meanest Christian The major therefore I will prove beyond all contradiction That righteousness which meritoriously dischargeth the sinner from his Bondage under the Law the condemnation and curse of it is justifying Righteousness but Christs Righteousness is such Rom. 8.34 Gal. 3.13 and divers places for a discharge of a person from under the Bonds Imprisonments and Curse of the Law is his Justification and the righteousness for which he is discharged is his Justification § 7. Arg. 6. That Righteousness which only can justifie a Sinner against the Law is the Righteousness whereby a Sinner is Justifyed in the sight of God but Christ's Righteousness is such Ergo I suppose the major is undeniable except men will cavil at the Sun at noon day and will any have the face to say as to the minor 1. That God hath not purer Eyes of Justice than to behold Iniquity 2. That he exerciseth justice by halves and not in the strictest and exactest manner 3. Will they say their righteousness is so perfect as to answer Gods Law The Neonomians say no. How will they dare to say then they are justifyed by a Righteousness which is not answerable in perfection to the Law but they will be justifyed by another Righteousness the worst they can think of by a Law coined adequate to Antinomian and licentious Principles 4. A Sinners unrighteousness is such that the Law could never look upon him for to be righteouss in the sight of God in his own righteousness because he hath been once a transgressor James saith If a man transgress but in one Point he is guilty of all The Saints in Heaven tho glorified with Perfection yet having been sinners and transgressors of the Law they could not stand Justifyed out of Christ's righteousness It is one thing to have perfection of Sanctification as to the present standing and performances and another thing to have perfection of Justification wherein the least believer here on Earth are as perfectly Justifyed and as righteous before God as the glorifyed Saints in Heaven See Col. 1.22 Eph. 6.27 Rev. 14.4.5 § 8. Arg. 7. That Righteousness which repairs all our unrighteousnesses lost in the first Adam is the only righteousness whereby we are Justifyed before God but Christ's righteousness is such and no other righteousness Ergo as to the major for all other righteousness comes short of what we lost in the first Adam our unrighteousness was our breach of the preceptive part of Gods Law this was our unrighteousness our loss and punishment was also very great in respect of moral original righteousness and coming under the wages of sin which is death or liableness thereto by
as well the last as the first and it should have been rendred thus if there had been a Law given which could have given Life then Righteousness had been by a Law therefore this place is fully exclusive of justifying righteousness by a new Law and God never made such a Law The consequence is clear if all other Law righteousness but Christ's be excluded then Christ's righteousness is that alone by which a Sinner is Justified These Arguments are strong and enough to prove what we assert and against all the World if the Scripture and Reason enlightned thereby may take place The Scripture is so full of proof that these Sixteen might be made Sixty but brevity is call'd for by the circumstances that attend Printing CHAP. XVII Of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness Section 1. Christ's Righteousness is Imputed to us and Paul saith so § 2. Argument 1. § 3. Arg. 2. and 3. § 4. Arg. 4. § 5. Arg. 5. § 6. Arg. 6. § 7. Arg. 7. § 8. Arg. 8. § 9. Arg. 9. § 10. Arg. 10.11 Section 1. OUr Adversaries say they own the Imputation of Righteousness to Justification but they say it s there own not Christ's Now we shall prove that Christ's Righteousness is Imputed They say it s no where said that Christ's Righteousness is Imputed We say it is in all that is said by the Apostle Paul so plain that all but he that will shut his Eyes perversly must see it I shall but give brief hints of it 1. The Apostle Paul Rom. 4. speaking so often of Imputation gives us plainly to understand that he means no Imputation but of Christ's Righteousness to Justification for his Discourse in the 4th chap. is continued from ver 25. of the 3d to prove the Doctrine of Justification by the Propitiation Blood and Righteousness of Christ and shews how Faith honours this Righteousness and wrongs not the law by it but establisheth it In the 4th ch he goes on to exclude all Justification by any works and shews in Abraham and David they took Christ's Righteousness viz. that spoken ch 3.25 by Faith for their Imputed righteousness unto justification and remission and covering of them from the Eye of God's justice wherefore Christ is call'd our Propitiation in allusion to the Golden cover of the Ark that hid the Law and was the mercy seat now briefly to shew that by Imputation so often mention'd in this chap. he meant the Righteousness of Christ to our Justification he tells us ver 22. that what God had promised to Abraham viz. the Righteousness of Christ which he was fully by Faith perswaded of was Imputed to him for Righteousness now saith the Apostle it was not written for the sake of Abraham only but for us also to whom it shall be Imputed i. e. the Righteousness in the Promise if we believe on him that raised up the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our Justification i. e. if we believe in God thro' the full perfect and compleat righteousness of Christ for our Righteousness could not have been full and compleat without his Resurrection and his Justification as a publick head of all the Elect who raised was Justified as having wrought out a full and compleat Justifying righteousness for them they are incouraged and invited to take it for their Righteousness by Faith and they might assure themselves of the Imputation thereof and proceeds in the next chap. to say that having taken this Imputed righteousness by Faith they are said to be justified by Faith and to have peace with God and access unto the grace of God thro the said righteousness § 2. Arg. 1. Now then I Argue if Christ in the promise be Imputed for Righteousness to Abraham and every believer and the Apostle saith so then the Imputation here spoken of is the Imputation of Christ's righteousness but the antecedent is true from Gal. 3.21 22. its plain that it was what God had promised to him was Imputed to him The consequence needs no proof for it was Christ was promised and he saw Christ's day in that promise and the Promise of Christ was the Gospel preached to him Again to prove the Apostle means the Righteousness of Christ is imputed If the delivery of Christ for our sins and raising him again for Justification was the Righteousness of Christ for Justification then this is that which was imputed not to Abraham for righteousness only but also to every Believer by the Text and therefore the minor is fully there proved and I think as to the major that none can deny the Life Death and Resurrection of Christ to be his compleat Righteousness § 3. Arg. 2. He that was made of God righteousness to us is made by imputation of his righteousness to us but Christ is made so of God 1 Cor. 1.30 but saith Mr. Cl. he is made righteousness as he is made Wisdom So Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption but it follows not only that he be made of great advantage to a Christian but these several ways that he is not one thing as the other he is not a Prophet as a Priest and if he should mean made righteousness in Mr. Cl's sence then he should be but made sanctification twice taken for Mr. Cl's justifying righteousness is but Sanctification it s he is made the Spring Head and Root of Sanctification and legally made righteousness to us Arg. 3. Again If we be made the righteousness of God in Christ where its plain this righteousness of God is in Christ then the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us but we are made the righteousness of God in him Ergo. the antecedent is proved by 2 Cor. 5.21 as to the major the Neonomians say the righteousness of God is our own righteousness We say nay the righteousness of God is said to be in Christ and we are made so by imputation for Christ could not be made Sin for us but by Imputation and if it is meant of a Sacrifice for Sin even such were made Sin by Imputation and therefore we are made the righteousness of God in Christ by Imputation § 4. Arg. 4. Again If Christ hath merited our Justification Christs Merits are imputed in themselves to Justification but Christ hath merited our Justification The minor is granted by these Gentlemen They tell us that Christs Merits are id propter quod we are justified for the sake or rather by reason of Christs Merits but they mean not that Christ purchased the Sinner's perform'd condition of the New law but that he procured of God a new law for man to perform the condition of Now this is no more to be the cause of Justification than God in making a Law was a cause of Sin for sin is not Imputed where there 's no law and where there is a Law there will be Justification or Condemnation Christ merited a Law and made one therefore for the sake of Christ we are