person And if any will improperly call that the Personating and Representing of the sinner let them limit it and confess that it is not simply but in tantum so far and to such uses and no other and that yet sinners did it not in and by Christ but only Christ for them to convey the benefits as he pleased And then we delight not to quarrel about mere words though we like the phrase of Scripture better than theirs 21. If Christ was perfectly Holy and Obedient in our persons and we in him then it was either in the Person of Innocent man before we sinned or of sinful man The first cannot be pretended For man as Innocent had not a Redeemer If of sinful man then his perfect Obedience could not be meritorious of our Salvation For it supposeth him to do it in the person of a sinner and he that hath once sinned according to that Law is the Child of death and uncapable of ever fulfilling a Law which is fulfilled with nothing but sinless perfect perpetual Obedience Obj. He first suffered in our stead and persons as sinners and then our sin being pardoned he after in our persons fulfilled the Law instead of our after-Obedience to it Ans 1. Christs Obedience to the Law was before his Death 2. The sins which he suffered for were not only before Conversion but endure as long as our lives Therefore if he fulfilled the Law in our persons after we have done sinning it is in the persons only of the dead 3. We are still obliged to Obedience our selves Obj. But yet though there be no such difference in Time God doth first Impute his sufferings to us for pardon of all our sins to the death and in order of nature his Obedience after it as the Merit of our Salvation Ans 1. God doth Impute or Repute his sufferings the satisfying cause of our Pardon and his Merits of Suffering and the rest of his Holiness and Obedience as the meritorious cause of our Pardon and our Justification and Glory without dividing them But 2. that implyeth that we did not our selves reputatively do all this in Christ As shall be further proved 22. Their way of Imputation of the Satisfaction of Christ overthroweth their own doctrine of the Imputation of his Holiness and Righteousness For if all sin be fully pardoned by the Imputed Satisfaction then sins of Omission and of habitual Privation and Corruption are pardoned and then the whole punishment both of Sense and Loss is remitted And he that hath no sin of Omission or Privation is a perfect doer of his duty and holy and he that hath no punishment of Loss hath title to Life according to that Covenant which he is reputed to have perfectly obeyed And so he is an heir of life without any Imputed Obedience upon the pardon of all his Disobedience Obj. But Adam must have obeyed to the Death if he would have Life eternal Therefore the bare pardon of his sins did not procure his right to life Ans True if you suppose that only his first sin was pardoned But 1. Adam had right to heaven as long as he was sinless 2. Christ dyed for all Adams sins to the last breath and not for the first only And so he did for all ours And if all the sins of omission to the death be pardoned Life is due to us as righteous Obj. A Stone may be sinless and yet not righteous nor have Right to life Ans True because it is not a capable subject But a man cannot be sinless but he is Righteous and hath right to life by Covenant Obj. But not to punish is one thing and to Reward is another Ans They are distinct formal Relations and Notions But where felicity is a Gift and called a Reward only for the terms and order of Collation and where Innocency is the same with perfect Duty and is the title-Condition there to be punished is to be denyed the Gift and to be Rewarded is to have that Gift as qualified persons and not to Reward is materially to punish and to be reputed innocent is to be reputed a Meriter And it is impossible that the most Innocent man can have any thing from God but by way of free-Gift as to the Thing in Value however it may be merited in point of Governing Paternal Justice as to the Order of donation Obj. But there is a greater Glory merited by Christ than the Covenant of works promised to man Ans 1. That 's another matter and belongeth not to Justification but to Adoption 2. Christs Sufferings as well as his Obedience considered as meritorious did purchase that greater Glory 3. We did not purchase or merit it in Christ but Christ for us 23. Their way of Imputation seemeth to me to leave no place or possibility for Pardon of sin or at least of no sin after Conversion I mean that according to their opinion who think that we fulfilled the Law in Christ as we are elect from eternity it leaveth no place for any pardon And according to their opinion who say that we fulfilled it in him as Believers it leaveth no place for pardon of any sin after Faith For where the Law is reputed perfectly fulfilled in Habit Act there it is reputed that the person hath no sin We had no sin before we had a Being and if we are reputed to have perfectly obeyed in Christ from our first Being we are reputed sinless But if we are reputed to have obeyed in him only since our believing then we are reputed to have no sin since our Believing Nothing excludeth sin if perfect Habitual and Actual Holiness and Obedience do not 24. And consequently Christs blood shed and Satisfaction is made vain either as to all our lives or to all after our 〈◊〉 believing 25. And then no believer must confess his sin nor his desert of punishment nor repent of it or be humbled for it 26. And then all prayer for the pardon of such sin is vain and goeth upon a false supposition that we have sin to pardon 27. And then no man is to be a partaker of the Sacrament as a Conveyance or Seal of such pardon nor to believe the promise for it 28. Nor is it a duty to give thanks to God or Christ for any such pardon 29. Nor can we expect Justification from such guilt here or at Judgment 30. And then those in Heaven praise Christ in errour when they magnifie him that washed them from such sins in his blood 31. And it would be no lie to say that we have no sin at least since believing 32. Then no believer should fear sinning because it is Impossible and a Contradiction for the same person to be perfectly innocent to the death and yet a sinner 33. Then the Consciences of believers have no work to do or at least no examining convincing self-accusing and self-judging work 34. This chargeth God by Consequence of wronging all believers whom he layeth
any Work and Merit of man And his death and blood alone is sufficient to abolish expiate all the sins of all men All must come to Christ for pardon and Remission of Sin Salvation and every thing All our trust and hope is to be fastened on him alone Through him only and his merits God is appeas'd and propitious Loveth us and giveth us Life eternal XI The Palatinate Confession ib. pag. 149. I believe that God the Father for the most full Satisfaction of Christ doth never remember any of my sins and that pravity which I must strive against while I live but contrarily will rather of grace give me the righteousness of Christ so that I have no need to fear the judgment of God And pag. 155. If he merited and obtained Remission of all our sins by the only and bitter passion and death of the Cross so be it we embracing it by true Faith as the satisfaction for our sins apply it to our selves I find no more of this XII The Polonian Churches of Lutherans and Bohemians agreed in the Augustane and Bohemian Confession before recited XIII The Helvetian Confession To Justifie signifieth to the Apostle in the dispute of Justification To Remit sins to Absolve from the fault and punishment to Receive into favour and to Pronounce just For Christ took on himself and took away the sins of the World and satisfied Gods Justice God therefore for the sake of Christ alone suffering and raised again is propitious to our sins and imputeth them not to us but imputeth the righteousness of Christ for ours so that now we are not only cleansed and purged from sins or Holy but also endowed with the Righteousness of Christ and so absolved from sins Death and Condemnation and are righteous and heirs of life eternal Speaking properly God only justifieth us and justifieth only for Christ not imputing to us sins but imputing to us his Righteousness This Confession speaketh in terms neerest the opposed opinion But indeed saith no more than we all say Christs Righteousness being given and imputed to us as the Meritorious Cause of our pardon and right to life XIV The Basil Confession Art 9. We confess Remission of sins by Faith in Jesus Christ crucified And though this Faith work continually by Love yet Righteousness and Satisfaction for our Sins we do not attribute to works which are fruits of Faith but only to true affiance faith in the blood shed of the Lamb of God We ingenuously profess that in Christ who is our Righteousness Holiness Redemption Way Truth Wisdom Life all things are freely given us The works therefore of the faithful are done not that they may satisfie for their sins but only that by them they may declare that they are thankful to God for so great benefits given us in Christ XV. The Argentine Confession of the four Cities Cap. 3. ib. pag. 179. hath but this hereof When heretofore they delivered that a mans own proper Works are required to his Justification we teach that this is to be acknowledged wholly received of God's benevolence and Christ's Merit and perceived only by Faith C. 4. We are sure that no man can be made Righteous or saved unless he love God above all and most studiously imitate him We can no otherwise be Justified that is become both Righteous and Saved for our Righteousness is our very Salvation than if we being first indued with Faith by which believing the Gospel and perswaded that God hath adopted us as Sons and will for ever give us his fatherly benevolence we wholly depend on his beck or will XVI The Synod of Dort mentioneth only Christs death for the pardon of sin and Justification The Belgick Confession § 22. having mentioned Christ and his merits made ours § 23. addeth We believe that our blessedness consisteth in Remission of our sins for Jesus Christ and that our Righteousness before God is therein contained as David and Paul teach We are justified freely or by Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus We hold this Foundation firm and give all the Glory to God presuming nothing of our selves and our merits but we rest on the sole Obedience of a Crucified Christ which is ours when we believe in him Here you see in what sence they hold that Christs merits are ours Not to justifie us by the Law that saith Obey perfectly and Live but as the merit of our pardon which they here take for their whole Righteousness XVII The Scottish Confession Corp. Conf. pag. 125. hath but that true Believers receive in this life Remission of Sins and that by Faith alone in Christs blood So that though sin remain yet it is not Imputed to us but is remitted and covered by Christs Righteousness This is plain and past all question XVIII The French Confession is more plain § 18. ib. pag. 81. We believe that our whole Righteousness lyeth in the pardon of our sins which is also as David witnesseth our only blessedness Therefore all other reasons by which men think to be justified before God we plainly reject and all opinion of Merit being cast away we rest only in the Obedience of Christ which is Imputed to us both that all our sins may be covered and that we may get Grace before God So that Imputation of Obedience they think is but for pardon of sin and acceptance Concerning Protestants Judgment of Imputation it is further to be noted 1. That they are not agreed whether Imputation of Christ's perfect Holiness and Obedience be before or after the Imputation of his Passion in order of nature Some think that our sins are first in order of nature done away by the Imputation of his sufferings that we may be free from punishment and next that his perfection is Imputed to us to merit the Reward of life eternal But the most learned Confuters of the Papists hold that Imputation of Christs Obedience and Suffering together are in order of nature before our Remission of sin and Acceptance as the meritorious cause And these can mean it in no other sence than that which I maintain So doth Davenant de Just hab et act Pet. Molinaeus Thes Sedan Vol. 1. pag. 625. Imputatio justitiae Christi propter quam peccata remittuntur censemur justi coram Deo Maresius Thes Sedan Vol. 2. pag. 770 771. § 6 10. maketh the material cause of our Justification to be the Merits and Satisfaction of Christ yea the Merit of his Satisfaction and so maketh the formal Cause of Justification to be the Imputation of Christs Righteousness or which is the same the solemn Remission of all sins and our free Acceptance with God Note that he maketh Imputation to be the same thing with Remission and Acceptance which is more than the former said 2. Note that when they say that Imputation is the Form of Justification they mean not of Justification Passively as it is ours but Actively as it is Gods Justifying
against and condemn one another away with them all 2. Because divers great Volumes and other sad Evidence tells me that by their invented sence of Imputation they have tempted many Learned men to deny Imputation of Christ's Righteousness absolutely and bitterly revile it as a most Libertine Irreligious Doctrine 3. But above all that they do so exceedingly confirm the Papists I must profess that besides carnal Interest and the snare of ill Education I do not think that there is any thing in the World that maketh or hardneth and confirmeth Papists more and hindreth their reception of the Truth than these same well-meaning people that are most zealous against them by two means 1. One by Divisions and unruliness in Church-respects by which they perswade men especially Rulers that without such a Center as the Papacy there will be no Union and without such Violence as theirs there will be no Rule and Order Thus one extreme doth breed and feed another 2. The other is by this unsound sence of the Doctrine of Imputation of Christs Righteousness with an unsound Description of Faith saying that every man is to believe it as Gods word or fide divinâ that his own sins are pardoned which when the Papists read that these men make it one of the chief Points of our difference from Rome doth occasion them to triumph and reproach us and confidently dissent from us in all the rest I find in my self that my full certainty that they err in Transubstantiation and some other points doth greatly resolve me to neglect them at least or suspect them in the rest which seem more dubious And when the Papists find men most grosly erring in the very point where they lay the main stress of the difference who can expect otherwise but that this should make them despise and cast away our Books and take us as men self-condemned and already vanquished and dispute with us with the prejudice as we do with an Arrian or Socinian They themselves that cast away our Books because they dissent from us may feel in themselves what the Papists are like to do on this temptation 4. And it is not to be disregarded that many private persons not studied in these points are led away by the Authority of these men for more than Papists believe as the Church believeth to speak evil of the Truth and sinfully to Backbite and Slander those Teachers whom they hear others slander and to speak evil of the things which they know not And to see Gods own Servants seduced into Disaffection and abuse and false Speeches against those Ministers that do most clearly tell them the truth is a thing not silently to be cherished by any that are valuers of Love and Concord among Christians and of the Truth and their Brethrens Souls and that are displeased with that which the Devil is most pleased and God displeased with These are my Reasons submitted to every Readers Censure which may be as various as their Capacities Interests or Prejudices My Arguments in the third Chapter I have but briefly and hastily mentioned as dealing with the lovers of naked Truth who will not refuse it when they see it in its self-evidence But they that desire larger proof may find enough in Mr. Gataker and Mr. Wotton de Reconcil and in John Goodwin of Justification If they can read him without prejudice From whom yet I differ in the Meritorious Cause of our Justification and take in the habitual and actual Holiness of Christ as well as his Sufferings and equal in Merits and think that pardon it self is merited by his Obedience as well as by his Satisfaction To say nothing of some of his too harsh expressions about the Imputation of Faith and non-imputation of Christs Obedience which yet in some explications he mollifyeth and sheweth that his sence is the same with theirs that place all our Righteousness in remission of Sin such as besides those after-mentioned are Musculus Chamier and abundance more And when one saith that Faith is taken properly and another that it is taken Relatively in Imputation they seem to mean the same thing For Faith properly taken is essentiated by its Object And what Christ's Office is and what Faith's Office is I find almost all Protestants are agreed in sence while they differ in the manner of expression except there be a real difference in this point of simple Personating us in his perfect Holiness and making the Person of a Mediator to contain essentially in sensu Civili the very Person of every elect sinner and every such one to have verily been and done in sensu civili what Christ was and did I much marvel to find that with most the Imputation of Satisfaction is said to be for Remission of the penalty and Imputation of perfect Holiness for the obtaining of the Reward Eternal Life and yet that the far greater part of them that go that way say that Imputation of all Christs Righteousness goeth first as the Cause and Remission of Sin followeth as the Effect So even Mr. Roborough pag. 55. and others Which seemeth to me to have this Sence as if God said to a Believer I do repute thee to have perfectly fulfilled the Law in Christ and so to be no sinner and therefore forgive thee all thy sin In our sence it is true and runs but thus I do repute Christ to have been perfectly just habitually and actually in the Person of a Mediator in the Nature of Man and to have suffered as if he had been a sinner in the Person of a Sponsor by his own Consent and that in the very place and stead of sinners and by this to have satisfyed my Justice and by both to have merited free Justification and Life to be given by the new Covenant to all Believers And thou being a Believer I do repute thee justified and adopted by this satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness of Christ and by this free Covenant-Gift as verily and surely as if thou hadst done it and suffered thy self For my own part I find by experience that almost all Christians that I talk with of it have just this very notion of our Justification which I have expressed till some particular Disputer by way of Controversie hath thrust the other notion into their mind And for peace-sake I will say again what I have elsewhere said that I cannot think but that almost all Protestants agree in the substance of this point of Justification though some having not Acuteness enough to form their Notions of it rightly nor Humility enough to suspect their Understandings wrangle about Words supposing it to be about the Matter Because I find that all are agreed 1. That no Elect Person is Justified or Righteous by Imputation while he is an Infidel or Ungodly except three or four that speak confusedly and support the Antinomians 2. That God doth not repute us to have done what Christ did in our individual natural Person 's Physically The
might not be necessary to our Justification and this in the person of a Mediator and Sponsor for us sinners but not so in our Persons as that we truely in a moral or civil sence did all this in and by him Even so God reputeth the thing to be as it is and so far Imputeth Christ's Righteousness and Merits and Satisfaction to us as that it is Reputed by him the true Meritorious Cause of our Justification and that for it God maketh a Covenant of Grace in which he freely giveth Christ Pardon and Life to all that accept the Gift as it is so that the Accepters are by this Covenant or Gift as surely justified and saved by Christ's Righteousness as if they had Obeyed and Satisfied themselves Not that Christ meriteth that we shall have Grace to fulfil the Law our selves and stand before God in a Righteousness of our own which will answer the Law of works and justifie us But that the Conditions of the Gift in the Covenant of Grace being performed by every penitent Believer that Covenant doth pardon all their sins as Gods Instrument and giveth them a Right to Life eternal for Christs Merits This is the sence of Imputation which I and others asserted as the true healing middle way And as bad as they are among the most Learned Papists Cornelius a Lapide is cited by Mr. Wotton Vasquez by Davenant Suarez by Mr. Burges as speaking for some such Imputation and Merit Grotius de Satisf is clear for it But the Brethren called Congregational or Independant in their Meeting at the Savoy Oct. 12. 1658. publishing a Declaration of their Faith Cap. 11. have these words Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth not by infusing Righteousness into them but by pardoning their Sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as Righteous not for any thing wrought in them or done by them but for Christs sake alone not by imputing Faith it self the act of believing or any other evangelical Obedience to them as their Righteousness but by Imputing Christs Active Obedience to the whole Law and Passive Obedience in his death for their whole and sole Righteousness they receiving and resting on him and his Righteousness by Faith Upon the publication of this it was variously spoken of some thought that it gave the Papists so great a scandal and advantage to reproach the Protestants as denying all inherent Righteousness that it was necessary that we should disclaim it Others said that it was not their meaning to deny Inherent Righteousness though their words so spake but only that we are not justified by it Many said that it was not the work of all of that party but of some few that had an inclination to some of the Antinomian principles out of a mistaken zeal of free Grace and that it is well known that they differ from us and therefore it cannot be imputed to us and that it is best make no stir about it lest it irritate them to make the matter worse by a Defence give the Papists too soon notice of it And I spake with one Godly Minister that was of their Assembly who told me that they did not subscribe it and that they meant but to deny Justification by inherent Righteousness And though such men in the Articles of their declared Faith no doubt can speak intelligibly and aptly and are to be understood as they speak according to the common use of the words yet even able-men sometimes may be in this excepted when eager engagement in an opinion and parties carryeth them too precipitantly and maketh them forget something that should be remembred The Sentences here which we excepted against are these two But the first was not much offensive because their meaning was right And the same words are in the Assemblies Confession though they might better have been left out Scriptures Declaration Rom. 4.3 What saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness Ver. 5. To him that worketh not but believeth on him that Justifyeth the Vngodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness Ver. 9. For we say that Faith was reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness How was it then reckoned Ver. 11. And he received the sign of Circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the Faith which he had yet being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of all them that believe that Righteousness might be imputed to them also Ver. 13. Through the Righteousness of Faith Ver. 16. Therefore it is of Faith that it might be by Grace vid. Ver. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24. He was strong in Faith fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform and therefore it was Imputed to him for Righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we or who believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Gen. 15.5 6. Tell the Stars so shall thy seed be And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for Righteousness Jam. 2.21 22 23 24. Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness Luk. 19.17 Well done thou good Servant Because thou hast been Faithful in a very little have thou authority over ten Cities Mat. 25.34 35 40 Come ye blessed For I was hungry and ye gave me Meat Gen. 22.16 17 By my self I have sworn Because thou hast done this thing Joh. 16.27 For the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God Many such passages are in Scripture Our opinion is 1. That it is better to justifie and expound the Scripture than flatly to deny it If Scripture so oft say that Faith is reckoned or Imputed for Righteousness it becometh not Christians to say It is not But to shew in what sence it is and in what it is not For if it be so Imputed in no sence the Scripture is made false If in any sence it should not be universally denied but with distinction 2. We hold that in Justification there is considerable 1. The Purchasing and Meritorious Cause of Justification freely given in the new Covenant This is only Christ's Sufferings and Righteousness and so it is Reputed of God and Imputed to us 2. The Order of Donation which is On Condion of Acceptance And so 3. The Condition of our Title to the free Gift by this Covenant And that is Our Faith or Acceptance of the Gift according to its nature and use And thus God Reputeth Faith and Imputeth it to us requiring but this Condition of us which also he worketh in us by the Covenant of Grace whereas perfect Obedience was required of us by the Law of Innocency If we err in this explication it had been better to confute us than deny
through the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ 39. Yet the Reatus Culpae is remitted to us Relatively as to the punishment though not in it self that is It shall not procure our Damnation Even as Christ's Righteousness is though not in it self yet respectively as to the Benefits said to be made ours in as much as we shall have those benefits by it 40. Thus both the Material and the Formal Righteousness of Christ are made ours that is Both the Holy Habits and Acts and his Sufferings with the Relative formal Righteousness of his own Person because these are altogether one Meritorious cause of our Justification commonly called the Material Cause Obj. But though Forma Denominat yet if Christs Righteousness in Matter and Form be the Meritorious Cause of ours and that be the same with the Material Cause it is a very tolerable speech to say that His Righteousness is Ours in it self while it is the very matter of ours Ans 1. When any man is Righteous Immediately by any action that action is called the Matter of his Righteousness in such an Analogical sense as Action an Accident may be called Matter because the Relation of Righteous is founded or subjected first or partly in that Action And so when Christ perfectly obeyed it was the Matter of his Righteousness But to be Righteous and to Merit are not all one notion Merit is adventitious to meer Righteousness Now it is not Christs Actions in themselves that our Righteousness resulteth from immediately as his own did But there is first his Action then his formal Righteousness thereby and thirdly his Merit by that Righteousness which goes to procure the Covenant-Donation of Righteousnass to us by which Covenant we are efficiently made Righteous So that the name of a Material Cause is much more properly given to Christs Actions as to his own formal Righteousness than as to ours But yet this is but de nomine 2. Above all consider what that Righteousness is which Christ merited for us which is the heart of the Controversie It is not of the same species or sort with his own His Righteousness was a perfect sinless Innocency and Conformity to the preceptive part of the Law of Innocency in Holiness Ours is not such The dissenters think it is such by Imputation and here is the difference Ours is but in respect to the second or retributive part of the Law a Right to Impunity and Life and a Justification not at all by that Law but from its curse or condemnation The Law that saith Obey perfectly and live sin and die doth not justifie us as persons that have perfectly obeyed it really or imputatively But its obligation to punishment is dissolved not by it self but by the Law of Grace It is then by the Law of Grace that we are judged and justified According to it 1. We are not really or reputatively such as have perfectly fulfilled all its Precepts 2. But we are such as by Grace do sincerely perform the Condition of its promise 3. By which promise of Gift we are such as have right to Christs own person in the Relation and Union of a Head and Saviour and with him the pardon of all our sins and the right of Adoption to the Spirit and the Heavenly Inheritance as purchased by Christ So that besides our Inherent or Adherent Righteousness of sincere Faith Repentance and Obedience as the performed condition of the Law of Grace we have no other Righteousness our selves but Right to Impunity and to Life and not any imputed sinless Innocency at all God pardoneth our sins and adopteth us for the sake of Christ's sufferings and perfect Holiness But he doth not account us perfectly Holy for it nor perfectly Obedient So that how-ever you will call it whether a Material Cause or a Meritorious the thing is plain Obj. He is made of God Righteousness to us Ans True But that 's none of the question But how is he so made 1. As he is made Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption as aforesaid 2. By Merit Satisfaction Direction Prescription and Donation He is the Meritorious Cause of our Pardon of our Adoption of our Right to Heaven of that new Covenant which is the Instrumental Deed of Gift confirming all these And he is also our Righteousness in the sense that Austin so much standeth on as all our Holiness and Righteousness of Heart and Life is not of our natural endeavour but his gift and operation by his Spirit causing us to obey his Holy precepts and Example All these ways he is made of God our Righteousness Besides the Objective way of sense as he is Objectively made our Wisdom because it is the truest wisdom to know him So he is objectively made our Righteousness in that it is that Gospel-Righteousness which is required of our selves by his grace to believe in him and obey him 41. Though Christ fulfilled not the Law by Habitual Holiness and Actual Obedience strictly in the Individual person of each particular sinner yet he did it in the nature of Man And so humane nature considered in specie and in Christ personally though not considered as a totum or as personally in each man did satisfie and fullfil the Law and Merit As Humane Nature sinned in Adam actually in specie and in his individual person and all our Persons were seminally and virtually in him and accordingly sinned or are reputed sinners as having no nature but what he conveyed who could convey no better than he had either as to Relation or Real quality But not that God reputed us to have been actually existent as really distinct persons in Adam which is not true Even so Christ obeyed and suffered in our Nature and in our nature as it was in him and humane sinful nature in specie was Universally pardoned by him and Eternal life freely given to all men for his merits thus far imputed to them their sins being not imputed to hinder this Gift which is made in and by the Covenant of Grace Only the Gift hath the Condition of mans Acceptance of it according to its nature 2 Cor. 5.19 20. And all the individuals that shall in time by Faith accept the Gift are there and thereby made such as the Covenant for his merits doth justifie by that General Gift 42. As Adam was a Head by Nature and therefore conveyed Guilt by natural Generation so Christ is a Head not by nature but by Sacred Contract and therefore conveyeth Right to Pardon Adoption and Salvation not by Generation but by Contract or Donation So that what it was to be naturally in Adam seminally and virtually though not personlly in existence even that it is in order to our benefit by him to be in Christ by Contract or the new Covenant virtually though not in personal existence when the Covenant was made 43. They therefore that look upon Justification or Righteousness as coming to us immediately by Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us without the
Causality of punishment so Christ's Material or Formal Righteousness is not by God reputed to be properly and absolutely our own in it self as such but the Causality of it as it produceth such and such effects 49. The Objections which are made against Imputation of Christs Righteousness in the sound sense may all be answered as they are by our Divines among whom the chiefest on this subject are Davenant de Justit Habit Actual Johan Crocius de Justif Nigrinus de Impletione Legis Bp. G. Dowman of Justif Chamier Paraeus Amesius and Junius against Bellarm. But the same reasons against the unsound sence of Imputation are unanswerable Therefore if any shall say concerning my following Arguments that most of them are used by Gregor de Valent. by Bellarm. Becanus or other Papists or by Socinians and are answered by Nigrinâ—s Crocius Davenant c. Such words may serve to deceive the simple that are led by Names and Prejudice but to the Intelligent they are contemptible unless they prove that these objections are made by the Papists against the same sence of Imputation against which I use them and that it is that sense which all those Protestants defend in answering them For who-ever so answereth them will appear to answer them in vain 50. How far those Divines who do use the phrase of Christs suffering in our person do yet limit the sense in their exposition and deny that we are reputed to have fulfilled the Law in Christ because it is tedious to cite many I shall take up now with one even Mr. Lawson in his Theopolitica which though about the office of Faith he some-what differ from me I must needs call an excellent Treatise as I take the Author to be one of the most Knowing men yet living that I know Pardon me if I be large in transcribing his words Pag. 100 101. If we enquire of the manner how Righteousness and Life is derived from Christ being one unto so many it cannot be except Christ be a general Head of mankind and one Person with them as Adam was We do not read of any but two who were general Heads and in some respect virtually All mankind the first and second Adam The principal cause of this Representation whereby he is one person with us is the will of God who as Lord made him such and as Lawgiver and Judge did so account him But 2. How far is he One person with us Ans 1. In general so far as it pleased God to make him so and no further 2. In particular He and we are one so far 1. As to make him liable to the penalty of the Law for us 2. So far as to free us from that obligation and derive the benefit of his death to us Though Christ be so far one with us as to be lyable unto the penalty of the Law and to suffer it and upon this suffering we are freed yet Christ is not the sinner nor the sinner Christ Christ is the Word made flesh innocent without sin an universal Priest and King but we are none of these Though we be accounted as one person in Law with him by a Trope yet in proper sence it cannot be said that in Christ's Satisfying we satisfied for our own sins For then we should have been the Word made flesh able to plead Innocency c. All which are false impossible blasphemous if affirmed by any It 's true we are so one with him that he satisfied for us and the benefit of this Satisfaction redounds to us and is communicable to all upon certain termes though not actually communicated to all From this Unity and Identity of person in Law if I may so speak it followeth clearly that Christ's sufferings were not only Afflictions but Punishments in proper sense Pag. 102 103. That Christ died for all in some sence must needs be granted because the Scripture expresly affirms it vid. reliqua There is another question unprofitably handled Whether the Propitiation which includeth both Satisfaction and Merit be to be ascribed to the Active or Passive Obedience of Christ Ans 1. Both his Active Personal Perfect and Perpetual Obedience which by reason of his humane nature assumed and subjection unto God was due and also that Obedience to the great and transcendent Command of suffering the death of the Cross both concur as Causes of Remission and Justification 2. The Scriptures usually ascribe it to the Blood Death Sacrifice of Christ and never to the Personal Active Obedience of Christ's to the Moral Law 3. Yet this Active Obedience is necessary because without it he could not have offered that great Sacrifice of himself without spot to God And if it had not been without spot it could not have been propitiatory and effectual for Expiation 4. If Christ as our Surety had performed for us perfect and perpetual Obedience so that we might have been judged to have perfectly and fully kept the Law by him then no sin could have been chargeable upon us and the Death of Christ had been needless and superfluous 5. Christs Propitiation freeth the Believer not only from the obligation unto punishment of sense but of loss and procured for him not only deliverance from evil deserved but the enjoyment of all good necessary to our full happiness Therefore there is no ground of Scripture for that opinion that the Death of Christ and his Sufferings free us from punishments and by his Active Obedience imputed to us we are made righteous and the heirs of life 6. If Christ was bound to perform perfect and perpetual Obedience for us and he also performed it for us then we are freed not only from sin but Obedience too And this Obedience as distinct and separate from Obedience unto death may be pleaded for Justification of Life and will be sufficient to carry the Cause For the tenor of the Law was this Do this and live And if man do this by himself or Surety so as that the Lawgiver and supreme Judg accept it the Law can require no more It could not bind to perfect Obedience and to punishment too There was never any such Law made by God or just men Before I conclude this particular of the extent of Christs Merit and Propitiation I thought good to inform the Reader that as the Propitiation of Christ maketh no man absolutely but upon certain terms pardonable and savable so it was never made either to prevent all sin or all punishments For it presupposeth man both sinful and miserable And we know that the Guilt and Punishment of Adams sin lyeth heavy on all his posterity to this day And not only that but the guilt of actual and personal sins lyeth wholly upon us whilest impenitent and unbelieving and so out of Christ And the Regenerate themselves are not fully freed from all punishments till the final Resurrection and Judgment So that his Propitiation doth not altogether prevent but remove sin and punishment
by degrees Many sins may be said to be Remissible by vertue of this Sacrifice which never shall be remitted So far Mr. Lawson Here I would add only these Animadversions 1. That whereas he explaineth Christs personating us in suffering by the similitude of a Debtor and his Surety who are the same person in Law I note 1. That the case of Debt much differeth from the case of Punishment 2. That a Surety of Debt is either antecedently such or consequently Antecedently either first one that is bound equally with the Debtor 2. or one that promiseth to pay if he do not I think the Law accounteth neither of these to be the Person of the principal Debtor as it doth a Servant by whom he sends the Debt But Christ was neither of these For the Law did not beforehand oblige him with us nor did he in Law-sence undertake to pay the Debt if we failed Though God decreed that he should do so yet that was no part of the sence of the Law But consequently if a friend of the Debtor when he is in Jayl will without his request or knowledg say to the Creditor I will pay you all the Debt but so that he shall be in my power and not have present liberty lest he abuse it but on the terms that I shall please yea not at all if he ungratefully reject it This Consequent Satisfyer or Sponsor or Paymaster is not in Law-sence the same Person with the Debtor But if any will call him so I will not contend about a word while we agree of the thing the terms of deliverance And this is as near the Case between Christ and us as the similitude of a Debtor will allow 2. I do differ from Mr. Lawson and Paraeus and Vrsine and Olevian and Scultetus and all that sort of worthy Divines in this that whereas they make Christs Holiness and perfect Obedience to be but Justitia personae necessary to make his Sacrifice spotless and so effectual I think that of it self it is as directly the cause of our Pardon Justification and Life as Christs Passion is The Passion being satisfactory and so meritorious and the personal Holiness Meritorious and so Satisfactory For the truth is The Law that condemned us was not fulfilled by Christs suffering for us but the Lawgiver satisfied instead of the fulfilling of it And that Satisfaction lyeth in the substitution of that which as fully or more attaineth the ends of the Law as our own suffering would have done Now the ends of the Law may be attained by immediate Merit of Perfection as well as by Suffering but best by both For 1. By the perfect Holiness and Obedience of Christ the Holy and perfect will of God is pleased whence This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased 2. In order to the ends of Government Holiness and perfect Obedience is honoured and freed from the contempt which sin would cast upon it and the holiness of the Law in its Precepts is publickly honoured in this grand Exemplar In whom only the will of God was done on Earth as it is done in Heaven And such a Specimen to the World is greatly conducible to the ends of Government So that Christ voluntarily taking humane nature which as such is obliged to this Perfection He first highly merited of God the Father hereby and this with his Suffering went to attain the ends that our suffering should have attained much better So that at least as Meritorious if not secondarily as satisfactory I see not but Christs Holiness procureth the Justifying Covenant for us equally with his Death A Prince may pardon a Traitor for some noble service of his Friend as well as for his suffering much more for both This way go Grotius de satisf Mr. Bradshaw and others 3. When Mr Lawson saith that the Law binds not to Obedience and Punishment both he meaneth as to the same Act which contradicts not what Nigrinus and others say that it binds a sinner to punishment for sin past and yet to Obedience for the time to come which cannot be entire and perfect So pag. 311. Cap. 22. Qu. 2. Whether there be two parts of Justification Remission and Imputation of Christs Righteousness 1. He referreth us to what is aforecited against Imputation of Christs Active Righteousness separated or abstracted for Reward from the Passive 2. He sheweth that Paul taketh Remission of sin and Imputation of Righteousness for the same thing So say many of ours In conclusion I will mind the Reader that by reading some Authors for Imputation I am brought to doubt whether some deny not all true Remission of sin that is Remission of the deserved punishment Because I find that by Remission they mean A non-Imputation of sin under the formal notion of sin that God taketh it not to be our sin but Christs and Christs Righteousness and perfection to be so ours as that God accounteth us not as truly sinners And so they think that the Reatus Culpae as well as Poenae simply in it self is done away Which if it be so then the Reatus Poenae the obligation to punishment or the dueness of punishment cannot be said to be dissolved or remitted because it was never contracted Where I hold that it is the Reatus ad Poenam the Dueness of punishment only that is remitted and the guilt of sin not as in it self but in its Causality of punishment And so in all common language we say we forgive a man his fault when we forgive him all the penalty positive and privative Not esteeming him 1. Never to have done the fact 2. Or that fact not to have been a fault and his fault 3. but that punishment for that fault is forgiven him and the fault so far as it is a cause of punishment We must not feign God to judg falsly This maketh me think of a saying of Bp. Vshers to me when I mentioned the Papists placing Justification and Remission of sin conjunct he told me that the Papists ordinarily acknowledg no Remission And on search I find that Aquinas and the most of them place no true Remission of sin in Justification For by Remission which they make part of Justification they mean Mortification or destroying sin it self in the act or habit But that the pardon of the punishment is a thing that we all need is not denyable nor do they deny it though they deny it to be part of our Justification For it 's strange if they deny Christ the pardoning power which they give the Pope And as Joh. Crocius de Justif oft tells them They should for shame grant that Christs Righteousness may be as far imputed to us as they say a Saints or Martyrs redundant merits and supererogations are But if the Guilt of Fact and Guilt of Fault in it self considered be not both imputed first to us that is If we be not judged sinners I cannot see how we can be judged Pardoned sinners For he
an injury to be reported to think otherwise herein than I do yea and add Which neither I nor any Body else I know of denies as to the thing though in the extent and other circumstances all are not agreed and you may in that enjoy your Opinion for me This is too kind I am loth to tell you how many that I know and have read deny it lest I tempt you to repent of your Agreement But doth the World yet need a fuller evidence that some Men are de materiâ agreed with them whom they raise the Country against by their Accusations and Suspicions But surely what passion or spatling soever it hath occasioned from you I reckon that my labour is not lost I may tell your Juniors that I have sped extraordinary well when I have procured the published consent of such a Doctor Either you were of this mind before or not If not it 's well you are brought to confess the Truth though not to confess a former Error If yea then it 's well that so loud and wide a seeming disagreement is confessed to be none that your Juniors may take warning and not be frightned from Love and Concord by every melancholy Allarm Yea you declare your conformity to the Litany Remember not our Offences nor the Offences of our Fore fathers and many words of indignation you use for my questioning it All this I like very well as to the Cause And I matter it not much how it looks at me If you agree more angrily than others disagree the Cause hath some advantage by the Agreement Though me-thinks it argueth somewhat unusual that seeming Dissenters should close by so vehement a Collision But yet you will not agree when you cannot chuse but agree and you carry it still as if your Allarm had not been given without cause Must we agree and not agree What yet is the Matter Why it is a new original sin My ordinary expressions of it may be fully seen in the Disputation The phrase you laid hold on in a Preface is cited before That we participate of no guilt and suffer for no original sin but Adam ' s only I denied And what 's the dangerous Errour here That our nearer Parents sin was Adams I may presume that you hold not That we are guilty of such you deny not That it is sin I find you not denying sure then all the difference must be in the word ORIGINAL And if so you that so hardly believe your loud-noised disagreements to be but verbal must patiently give me leave here to try it Is it any more than the Name ORIGINAL that you are so heinously offended at Sure it is not Else in this Letter purposely written about it you would have told your Reader what it is Suffer me then to summon your Allarm'd Juniors to come and see what a Spectrum it is that must affright them and what a Poppet-Play or dreaming War it is that the Church is to be engaged in as if it were a matter of Life and Death Audite juvenes I took the word ORIGINAL in this business to have several significations First That is called ORIGINAL Sin which was the ORIGO of all other sins in the Humane World And that was not Adam's sin but Eves 2. That which was the ORIGO of sin to all the World save Adam and Eve communicated by the way of Generation And that was Adams and Eves conjunct viz. 1. Their first sinful Acts 2. Their Guilt 3. And their habitual pravity making it full though in Nature following the Act This Sin Fact Guilt and Habit as Accidents of the Persons of Adam and Eve are not Accidents of our Persons 3. Our personal participation 1. In the guilt of the sin of Adam and Eve 2. And of a vicious privation and habit from them as soon as we are Persons Which is called Original sin on three accounts conjunct 1. Because it is a participation of their Original Act that we are guilty of 2. Because it is in us ab Origine from our first Being 3. And because it is the Origo of all our Actual Sins 4. I call that also ORIGINAL or part of Original Sin which hath but the two later only viz. 1. Which is in us AB ORIGINE from our first personal being 2. Which is the Root or ORIGO in our selves of all our Actual Sins And thus our Guilt and Vice derived from our nearer Parents and not from Adam is our Original Sin That is 1. Both Guilt and Habit are in us from our Original or first Being 2. And all our Actual Sin springeth from it as a partial Cause For I may presume that this Reverend Doctor doth not hold that Adam's sin derived to us is in one part of the Soul which is not partible and our nearer Parent 's in another but will grant that it is one vitiosity that is derived from both the latter being a Degree added to the former though the Reatus having more than one fundamentum may be called diverse That Origo Active passive dicitur I suppose we are agreed Now I call the vicious Habits contracted from our nearer Parents by special reason of their own sins superadded to the degree which else we should have derived from Adam a part of our original sinful Pravity even a secondary part And I call our guilt of the sins of our nearer Parents not Adam's which you will either a secondary Original Guilt or Sin or a secondary part of our Original Guilt See then our dangerous disagreement I call that ORIGINAL which is in us ab Origine when we are first Persons and is partly the Root or Origo in us of all our following Actual Sin though it was not the Original Sin of Mankind or the first of Sins The Doctor thinks this an Expression which all Juniors must be warned to take heed of and to take heed of the Doctrine of him that useth it The Allarm is against this dangerous word ORIGINAL And let a Man awake tell us what is the danger But I would bring him yet to agreement even de nomine though it anger him 1. Let him read the Artic. 9. of the Church of England and seeing there Original Sin is said to be that corruption of Nature whereby we are far gone from Original Righteousness and are of our own Nature inclined to evil so that the flesh lusteth against the Spirit The lust of the flesh called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some do expound the Wisdom some Sensuality some the Affection some the desire of the Flesh not subject to the Law of God Seing a degree of all this same Lust is in Men from the special sins of their Fore-fathers as well as from Adam's Is not this Degree here called Original Sin why the Church omitted the Imputed Guilt aforesaid I enquire not 2. If this will not serve if he will find me any Text of Scripture which useth the Phrase ORIGINAL Sin I will promise
define them If you have a Bishoprick because you define a Bishoprick or have a Lordship a Kingdom Health c. because you can define them your Axiome hath stood you in good stead The Definition is but Explicatio rei But Rei explicatio non est ipsa res Individuals say most are not Definable But nothing is truly Res but Individuals Vniversals as they are in the Mind are existent Individual Acts Cogitations Nâ—tions As they are out of the Mind they are nothing but Individuorum quid intelligibile The Definition of Learning of a Doctor c. may be got in a day If Learning and Doctorship may be so what useless things are Universities and Books Perswade a hungry Scholar that he hath Meat and Drink or the Ambitious that he hath Preferment or the Covetous or Poor that he hath Money because he hath in his Mind or Mouth the Definition of it and quibble him into satisfaction by telling him that Definitio definitum sunt idem re We know and express things narrowly by Names and largely and distinctly by Definitions The Definition here is Explicatio nominis as Animal rationale of the name Homo and both Name and Definition as they are Verba mentis vel oris or Verborum significatio are surely divers from the things named and defined known and expressed unless by the Thing you mean only the Knowledg or Notion of the Thing Therefore though Cui competit definitio eidem quoque competit definitum contra quod convenit definitioni convenit definito Yet say not that Imputed Righteousness in Re is the same with the Definition as it is the Definers act By this time you have helpt Men to understand by an Instance why St. Paul so much warneth Christians to take heed lest any deceive them by vain Philosophy even by Sophistry and abused arbitrary Notions Remember Sir that our Case is of grand Importance As it is stated in my Direct 42. which you assaulted it is Whether if the Question were of the Object of Predestination of the nature of the Will 's liberty Divine concourse and determining way of Grace of the Definition of Justification Faith c. a few well studied Divines are not here to be preferred before Authority and the major Vote Such are my words I assert 1. That the Defining of Justification Faith c. is a work of Art 2. And I have many and many times told the World which you seem to strike at that Christians do not differ so much in their Real conceptions of the Matter as they do in their Definitions 1. Because Definitions are made up of Ambiguous words whose Explication they are not agreed in and almost all Words are ambiguous till explained and ambiguous Words are not fit to define or be defined till explained And 2. Because both selecting fit terms and explaining them and ordering them are works of Art in which Men are unequal and there is as great variety of Intellectual Conceptions as of Faces 3. And I have often said That a Knowledg intuitive or a Simple apprehension of a thing as Sensate or an Internal experience or Reflect act and a general notion of some things may prove the truth of Grace and save Souls and make us capable of Christian Love and Communion as being true saving Knowledg 4. And consequently I have often said that many a thousand Christians have Faith Hope Desire Love Humility Obedience Justication Adoption Vnion with Christ who can define none of these Unless you will speak equivocally of Definition it self and say as good Melancthon and as Gutherleth and some other Romists that Notitia intuitiva est definitio who yet say but what I am saying when they add Vel saltem instar definitionis If all are without Faith Love Justification Adoption who cannot give a true Definition of them how few will be saved How much more then doth Learning to Mens salvation than Grace And Aristotle then is not so far below Paul or the Spirit of Christ as we justly believe The Case is so weighty and palpable that you have nothing to say but as you did about the Guilt of our nearer Parents sins to yield all the Cause and with a passionate clamour to tell Men that I mistake you or wrest your words of which I shall appeal to every sober Reader that will peruse the words of mine which you assault and yours as they are an Answer to mine In a word you go about by the abuse of a trivial Axiome of Definitions 1. To sentence most Christians to Hell and cast them into Desperation as wanting the Grace which they cannot define 2. And to destroy Christian Love and Concord and tear the Church into as many Shreds as there be diversities of Definitions used by them 3. And you would tempt us to think much hardlier of your self than we must or will do as if your Faith Justification c. were unsound because your Definitions are so I know that Vnius rei una tantum est Definitio speaking 1. Not of the Terms but the Sense 2. And supposing that Definition to be perfectly true that is the truth of Intellection and Expression consisting in their congruity to the Thing while the thing is one and the same the conception and expression which is perfectly true must be so too But 1. Our understandings are all imperfect and we know nothing perfectly but Secundum quaedam and Zanckez saith truly that Nihil scitur if we call that only Knowledg which is perfect And consequently no Mental Definition is perfect 2. And Imperfections have many degrees 3. And our Terms which make up that which you know I called a Definition in my Dir. 42. as it is in words are as aforesaid various mutable and variously understood and used § XV. Pag. 24. Again you are at it Whom do you mean by that one rare Person whose single Judgment is to be preferred in the point of Justification and to whom Answ 1. No one that knoweth not the difference between an Invididuum vagum determinatum 2. No one that is of so hard Metal as in despite of the plainest words to insinuate to the World that these words A few well-studied Judicious Divines do signifie only one and that these words One Man of extraordinary understanding and clearness is to be preferred before the Rulers and major Vote in difficult speculations do signifie one individuum determinatum in the World and that the Speaker is bound to name the Man No one that thinketh that Pemble who in his Vind. Grat. hath almost the very same words said well and that I who repeat them am as criminal as you pretend No one who either knoweth not that almost all the World even Papists agree in this Rule or that thinketh his judgment fit herein to bear them all down No one who when his abuses are brought into the open Sun-shine will rather accuse the Light than repent But pag. 25. After some
definiatur Which is a contradiction Yet was he for Love and Gentleness in these differences ibid. Yet Qu. Resp Christ pag. 670. He leaveth out Christs Original Habitual Righteousness Non illa essentialis quae Deitatis est nec illa Habitualis ut ita loquar Puritas Carnis Christi Quae quum non distingueret Osiander faedissime est hallucinatus And ibid. 670. he giveth us this description of Justification Qu. Quid Justificationem vocat Paulus hoc loco R. Illud quo Justi fimus id est eousque perfecti integri 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut plenissime non tantum aboleatur quicquid in nobis totis in est turpitudinis qua Deus summe purus offendi ullo modo possit verum etiam in nos comperiatur quicquid in haâ— humana naturae usque adeo potest eum delectare ut illud vita aeterna pro bona sua voluntate coronet Yet as in his Annot. in Rom. 8.30 alibi he confesseth that Justification in Scripture sometime is taken for Sanctification or as including it so he taketh our Sanctification to contain the Imputation of Christs Sanctity to us Qu. Resp pag. 671. 1. Dico nostras Personas imputata ipsius perfecta sanctitate integritate plene sanctas integras ac proinde Patri acceptas non in nobis sed in Christo censemur 2. And next the Spirits Sanctification and thus Christ is made Sanctification to us Dr. Twisse and Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. distinguish of Justification as an Immanent Act in God from Eternity and as it is the notice of the former in our Consciences But doubtless the commonest Definitions of Justification agree with neither of these And Pemble of Justification otherwise defineth it as Mr. Jessop saith Dr. Twisse did Lud. Crocius Syntag. pag. 1219. thus defineth it Justificatio Evangelica est actus Divinae gratiae qua Deus adoptat peccatorem per approbationem obedientiae Legis in sponsore atque intercessore Christo per Remissionem peccatorum ac Justitiae imputationem in eo qui per fidem Christo est insitus And saith pag. 1223. Fides sola justificat quatenus notat Obedientiam quandam expectantem promissionem ut donum gratuitum apponitur illi Obedientiae quae non expectat promissionem ut donum omnino gratuitum sed ut mercedem propositam sub Conditione operis alicuâ—us praeter acceptationem gratitudinem debitam quae sua Natura in omni donatione quamvis gratuita requiri solet Et ejusmodi Obedientia peculiariter opus ab Apostolo Latinis proprie Meritum dicitur qui sub hac conditione obediunt Operantes vocantur Rom. 4.4 11.6 This is the truth which I assert Conrad Bergius Prax. Cathol dis 7. pag. 983. tells us that the Breme Catâ—chism thus openeth the Matter Qu. Quomodo Justificatur Homo coram Deo R. Accipit Homo Remissionem peccatorum Justificatur hoc est Gratus fit coram Deo in vera Conversione persolam fidem per Christum sine proprio Merito dignitate Cocceius disp de via salut de Just pag. 189. Originalis Christi Justitia correspondet nostro Originali peccato c. vid. coet plura vid. de foeder Macovius Colleg. de Justif distinguisheth Justification into Active and Passive and saith Justificatio Activa significat absoluâ—ionem Dei que Hominem reum a reatu absolvit And he would prove this to be before Faith and citeth for it abusively Paraeus and Tessanus and thinketh that we were absolved from Guilt from Christs undertaking our Debt Thes 12. thus arguing Cujus debita apud Creditorem aliquis recepit exsolvenda Creditor istius sponsionem ita acceptat ut in ea acquiescat ille jam ex parte Creditoris liber est a debitis Atque Electorum omnium in singulari debita apud Deum Patrem Christus ex quo factus est Mediator recepit exolvenda Deus Pater illam sponsionem acceptavit c. Passive Justification which he supposeth to be our application of Christs Righteousness to our daily as oft as we offend Th. 5. And part 4. disp 22. he maintaineth that There are no Dispositions to Regeneration Others of his mind I pass by Spanhemius Disput de Justif saith that The Form of Passive Justification consisteth in the apprehension and sense of Remission of Sin and Imputation of Christs Righteousness in capable Subjects grosly Whereas Active Justification Justificantis ever immediately causeth Passive Justificationem justificati which is nothing but the effect of the Active or as most call it Actio ut in patiente And if this were the Apprehension and Sense as aforesaid of Pardon and imputed Righteousness then a Man in his sleep were unjustified and so of Infants c. For he that is not Passively justified is not at all justified I told you else-where that the Synops Leidens de Justif pag. 413. Th. 23. saith That Christs Righteousness is both the Meritorious Material and Formal Cause of our Justification What Fayus and Davenant and others say of the Formal Cause viz. Christs Righteousness imputed I there shewed And how Paraeus Joh. Crocius and many others deny Christs Righteousness to be the Formal Cause Wendeline defineth Justification thus Theol. Lib. 1. c. 25. p. 603. Justificatio est actio Dei gratuita qua peccatores Electi maledictioni legis obnoxii propter justitiam seu satisfactionem Christi fide applicatam a Deo imputatam coram tribunali Divino remssis peccatis a maledictione Legis absolvuntur justi censentur And pag. 615 616. He maintaineth that Obedientia activa si proprie accurate loquamur non est materia nostrae Justificationis nec imputatur nobis ita ut nostra censeatur nobis propter eam peccata remittantur debitum legis pro nobis solvatur quemadmodum Passiva per imputationem censetur nostra c. Et post Si dicus Christum factum esse hominem pro nobis hoc est nostro bono conceditur Si pro nobis hoc est nostro loco negatur Quod enim Christus nostro loco fecit factus est id nos non tenemur facere fieri c. Rob. Abbot approveth of Thompsons Definition of Evangelical Justification pag. 153. that it is Qua poenitenti Credenti remittuntur peccata jus vitae aeternae conceditur per propter Christi obedientiam illi imputatam Which is sound taking Imputatam soundly as he doth Joh. Crâ—cius Disp 1. p. 5. thus defineth it Actio Dei qua ex gratia propter satisfactionem Christi peccatoribus in Christum totius Mundi redemptorem unicum vere credentibus gratis sine operibus aut meritis propriis omnia peccata remittit justitiam Christi imputat ad sui nominis gloriam illorum salutem aeternam And he maketh only Christs full satisfaction for Sin to be the Impulsive-External Meritorious and Material Cause as being that which is imputed to us and the Form
earnestly presseth me with his Quem quibus who is the Man I profess I dreamed not of any particular Man But I will again tell you whom my Judgment magnifies in this Controversie above all others and who truly tell you how far Papists and Protestants agree viz. Vinc. le Blank and Guil. Forbes I meddle not with his other Subjects Placeus in Thes Salmur Davenant Dr. Field Mr. Scudder his daily Walk fit for all families Mr. Wotton Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Gataker Dr. Preston Dr. Hammond Pract. Cat. and Mr. Lawson in the main Abundance of the French and Breme Divines are also very clear And though I must not provoke him again by naming some late English men to reproach them by calling them my disciples I will venture to tell the plain man that loveth not our wrangling tediousness that Mr. Trumans Great Propit and Mr. Gibbons serm of Justif may serve him well without any more And while this worthy Doctor and I do both concord with such as Davenant and Field as to Justification by Faith or Works judg whether we differ between our selves as far as he would perswade the World who agree in tertio And whether as he hath angrily profest his concord in the two other Controversies which he raised our Guilt of nearer Parents sin and our preferring the judgment of the wisest c. it be not likely that he will do so also in this when he hath leisure to read and know what it is that I say and hold and when we both understand our selves and one another And whether it be a work worthy of Good and Learned men to allarm Christians against one another for the sake of arbitrary words and notions which one partly useth less aptly and skilfully than the other in matters wherein they really agree 2 Tim. 2. 14. Charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit but to the subverting of the Hearers yet study to shew thy self approved unto God a workman that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of Truth Two Sparks more quenched which fled after the rest from the Forge of Dr. Tho. Tully § 1. DId I not find that some Mens Ignorance and factious Jealousie is great enough to make them combustible Recipients of such Wild-fire as those Strictures are and did not Charity oblige me to do what I have here done to save the assaulted Charity of such Persons more than to save any Reputation of my own I should repent that I had written one Line in answer to such Writings as I have here had to do with I have been so wearied with the haunts of the like Spirit in Mr. Crandon Mr. Bagshaw Mr. Danvers and others that it is a work I have not patience to be much longer in unless it were more necessary Two sheets more tell us that the Doctor is yet angry And little that 's better that I can find In the first he saith again that I am busie in smoothing my way where none can stumble in a thing never questioned by him nor by any Man else he thinks who owns the Authority of the second Commandment And have I not then good Company and Encouragement not to change my Mind But 1. He feigneth a Case stated between him and me who never had to do with him before but as with others in my Writings where I state my Case my self 2. He never so much as toucheth either of my Disputations of Original Sin in which I state my Case and defend it 3. And he falsly feigneth the Case stated in words and he supposeth in a sense that I never had do do with Saying I charge you with a new secondary Original Sin whose Pedegree is not from Adam I engage not a syllable further And pag. 8. You have asserted that this Novel Original Sin is not derived from our Original Father no line of Communication between them a sin besides that which is derived from Adam as you plainly and possitively affirm I never said that it had no Pedegree no line of Communication no kind of derivation from Adam 4. Yea if he would not touch the Disputation where I state my Case he should have noted it as stated in the very Preface which he writeth against and yet there also he totally overlooketh it though opened in divers Propositions 5. And the words in an Epistle to another Mans Book which he fasteneth still on were these Over-looking the Interest of Children in the Actions of their nearer Parents and think that they participate of no Guilt and suffer for no Original Sin but Adams only And after They had more Original Sin than what they had from Adam 6. He tells me that I seem not to understand my own Question nor to know well how to set about my Work and he will teach me how to manage the Business that I have undertaken and so he tells me how I MUST state the Question hereafter see his words Reader some Reasons may put a better Title on this Learned Doctors actions but if ever I write at this rate I heartily desire thee to cast it away as utter DISHONESTY and IMPUDENCE It troubleth me to trouble thee with Repetitions I hold 1. That Adams Sin is imputed as I opened to his Posterity 2. That the degree of Pravity which Cains nature received from Adam was the dispositive enclining Cause of all his Actual Sin 3. But not a necessitating Cause of all those Acts for he might possibly have done less evil and more good than he did 4. Therefore not the Total principal Cause for Cains free-will was part of that 5 Cains actual sin increased the pravity of his nature 6. And Cains Posterity were as I opened it guilty of Cains actual sin and their Natures were the more depraved by his additional pravity than they would have been by Adams sin alone unless Grace preserved or healed any of them The Doctor in this Paper would make his Reader believe that he is for no meer Logomachies and that the difference is not in words only but the thing And do you think that he differeth from me in any of these Propositions or how this sin is derived from Adam Yet this now must be the Controversie de re Do you think for I must go by thinking that he holdeth any other Derivation than this Or did I ever deny any of this But it is vain to state the Case to him He will over look it and tell me what I should have held that he may not be thought to make all this Noise for nothing He saith pag. 8. If it derive in a direct line from the first Transgression and have its whole Root fastened there what then why then some words which he sets together are not the best sense that can be spoken It is then but words and yet it is the thing What he may mean by a direct Line and what by whole Root fastened I know not but I have told the World
oft enough what I mean and what he meaneth I have little to do with But if he think 1. That Adams Person did commit the sin of Cain and of all that ever were since committed and that Judas his act was Adams personal act 2. Or that Adams sin was a total or necessitating Cause of all the evil since committed so do not I nor doth he I doubt not And now I am cast by him on the strait either to accuse him of differing de re and so of Doctrinal errour or else that he knoweth not when the difference is de re and when de nomine but is so used to confusion that Names and Things do come promiscuously into the Question with him And which of these to chuse I know not The Reader may see that I mentioned Actual Sin and Guilt And I think few will doubt but Adams Actual sin and Cains were divers and that therefore the Guilt that Cains Children had of Adams sin and of Cains was not the same But that Causa causae is Causa causati and so that all following Sin was partly but partly caused by Adam's we shall soon agree He addeth that I must make good that new Original Sin for he can make use of the word New and therefore made it doth mutare naturam as the Old doth Ans And how far it changeth it I told him and he taketh no notice of it The first sin changed Nature from Innocent into Nocent the Second changeth it from Nocent into more Nocent Doth he deny this Or why must I prove any more Or doth nothing but Confusion please him 3. He saith I must prove that the Derivation of Progenitors sins is constant and necessary not uncertain and contingent Ans Of this also I fully said what I held and he dissembleth it all as if I had never done it And why must I prove more By what Law can he impose on me what to hold But really doth he deny that the Reatus culpae yea and ad Poenam the Guilt of nearer Parents sins is necessarily and certainly the Childs though Grace may pardon it If he do not why doth he call on me to prove it If he do confess the Guilt and deny it necessary when will he tell us what is the Contingent uncertain Cause For we take a Relation such as Guilt is necessarily to result a posito fundamento § 2. He next cavilleth at my Citations about which I only say either the Reader will peruse the cited words and my words which shew to what end I cited them to prove our Guilt of our nearer Parents sins or he will not If he will not I cannot expect that he will read a further Vindication If he will he needeth not § 3. His second Spark is Animadversions on a sheet of mine before mentioned which are such as I am not willing to meddle with seeing I cannot either handle them or name them as the nature of them doth require without offending him And if what is here said of Imputation and Representation be not enough I will add no more nor write over and over still the same things because a Man that will take no notice of the many Volumns which answer all his Objections long ago will call for more and will write his Animadversions upon a single Sheet that was written on another particular occasion and pretend to his discoveries of my Deceits from the Silence of that Sheet and from my naming the Antinomians I only say 1. If this Mans way of Disputing were the common way I would abhor Disputing and be ashamed of the Name 2. I do friendly desire the Author of the Friendly Debate Mr. Sherlock and all others that would fasten such Doctrines on the Non-Conformists as a Character of the Party to observe that this Doctor sufficiently confuteth their partiality and that their Academical Church-Doctors are as Confused as Vehement maintainers of such expressions as they account most unsavoury as any even of the Independants cited by them Yea that this Doctor would make us question whether there be now any Antinomians among us and so whether all the Conformists that have charged the Conformists yea or the Sectaries with having among them Men of such unsound Principles have not wronged them it being indeed the Doctrine of the Church of England which they maintain whom I and others call Antinomians and Libertines And I hope at least the sober and sound Non-Conformists are Orthodox when the vehementest Sectaries that calumniated my Sermon at Pinners Hall are vindicated by such a Doctor of the Church 3. I yet conclude that if this One Mans Writings do not convince the Reader of the Sin and Danger of Allarming Christians against one another as Adversaries to great and necessary Doctrines on the account of meer Words not understood for want of accurateness and skill in the expressive Art I take him to be utterly unexcusable Pemble Vind. Gra◠p. 25. It were somewhat if it were in Learning as it is in bearing of a Burthen where many weak Men may bear that which One or few cannot But in the search of Knowledg it fares as in discrying a thing afar off where one quick-sight will see further than a thousand clear Eyes FINIS I had not time to gather the Errata of any but the First Book Correct these Greater or you will misunderstand the Matter PAge 27. Line 2. Read self the Act. p. 54. l. 30. r. as obliging p. 58. l. 20. for of r. or p. 59. l. 1 and 2. r. who is not p. 86. l. 32. for OURS r. OUR Righteousness p. 88. l. 7. for Covenanted r. Connoted p. 97. l. 31. r. and suffering p. 103. l. 9 10. for have us Holy r. leave us unholy p. 110. l. 10. for we r. were p. 111. l. penult and p. 112. l. 5. and 10. for our r. one l. 21. for but r. must p. 115. l. 25. for raze out r. rake up p. 117. l. 18. r. personating Representation p. 118. l. 2. for Minister r. Meriter p. 119. l. 16. for are r. are not p. 140. l. 23. for if r. that p. 126. l. 23. for arrive r. arm p. 149. l. 19. r. and the. p. 153. l. 23. r. and will p. 154. l. 26. r. our own-innocency it p. 157. l. 29. r. Private but. p. 169. l. 2. r. conditional p. 177. l. 9. r. sufficiency p. 181. l. 27. for argument r. agreement The Lesser Errata PReface p. 3. l. 16. r. eternal Contents p. 2. l. 21. r. Wotton p. 11. l. 4. for no r. in l. 17. r. praetendit l. 27. r. sufficere p. 12. l. 1. r. ficantur l. 16. r. impetrando l. antipen r. Credimus p. 13. l. 2. r. praecedit p. 16. l. 26. r. Schlussel Burgius p. 22. l. 9. for that r. the p. 36. l. antipen dele by p. 55. l. 10. for no r. not p. 60. l. 15. for then r. there p. 64. l. 5. for of r. or p. 68. l. 28. r.