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A45162 Ultimas manus being letters between Mr. John Humphrey, and Mr. Samuel Clark, in reference to the point of justification : written upon the occasion of Mr. Clark's printing his book upon that subject, after Mr. Humfrey's book entituled The righteousness of God, and published for vindication of that doctrine wherein they agree, as found, by shewing the difference of it from that of the Papist, and the mistakes of our common Protestant : in order to an impartial and more full understanding of that great article, by the improvement of that whereto they have attained, or correction of any thing wherein they err, by better judgments : together with animadversions on some late papers between Presbyterian and Independent, in order to reconcile the difference, and fix the Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction. Humfrey, John, 1621-1719. 1698 (1698) Wing H3715; ESTC R16520 84,030 95

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that is to be tender-mouth'd as most I perceive are apt to be I mean not you my worthy Brother when they come over to any such hard saying as they see will make their Disciples draw back and walk no more with them I must add that although an abstracting this great Doctrine from Logical or Metaphisical Terms according to the Bishop of Wrocester and you may be adviseable with the limitation as much as we can in regard to the Vulgar or in our Preaching to the People yet in regard to the Learned and the Versed in this Controversie it is quite otherwise or at least there must be an exception as to this Particular which is not here only necessary in regard to such but is the all in all in the business The point is hereby brought as it were to a word as in the matter of the Trinity it was brought to that of Homoousios no more to be discarded I will yet say that here is the Criterion according to a more shallow or deep imbibing whereof I do reckon for my own part such or so much to be the measure of knowledge that I have attained as to the critical bottom of this Matter With reverence be it spoken to extraordinary Men who being above all mean or colloguing ends do we may suppose very throughly see the same when prudentially they decline to say it and when they yet would be more generous too in a Contribution of their Testimony to it To this end was I born saith our Saviour and for this cause came I into the World that I should bear witness to the Truth 11. I will yet instance for your Conviction The Scripture in one place is express By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous One may ask here Is not Christs Obedience therefore ours Is not the being made righteous to be justified I Answer Yes Christs Obedience is ours in the Effects and as to this effect in making us righteous upon our Faith and so justifying us But here is the resolution of the point Christs Obedience does make us righteous or justifies us per modum cousae meritoriae but not per modum causae formalis which the Doctrine of Imputation intended at first nostrae justificationis We are to enlarge here by shewing how Adam's sin brought in death which passes upon all Men and so is imputed to all as to that effect Likewise how Christ's obedient suffering or suffering obedience has procured the Grace that we may be justified by Faith without Works and are so upon our believing We are made sinners then by Adam's sin and made righteous by Christs obedience per modum meriti not otherwise This is satisfaction to this Text this the core of the Controversie Again Christ is made sin for us in another place our sins procuring his sufferings and we the righteousness of God in him How is that Per modum meriti I say still Effective in short non Formaliter See what need we have of such Terms See how speedily and compleatly they do our business when a whole Book at once is as good as wrapt up in them 12. As for your Dissertation upon the Question whether Christ's Active as well as Passive Obedience is imputed in our Justification I did think to advise you to be content with what is said in the Book and so leave it My Reasons are two 1. Because this Dispute is a Point not proper for you and I but needless They that hold a Formal Justification by Christ's Righteousness may contend which of the two is imputed But we that say it is not Christ's Righteousness imputed but the Righteousness of God that justifies us may leave them fighting and we be quiet 2. Because as to the Point I think such may with Anth. Burgesse be well at a stand about it You say Christ being a Divine not Human person was under no obligation of duty How then does Christ say His Father was greater than He and that in regard to his Authority How came he down to do his Fathers Commandment and yet be under no Obligation Here you must come off and say He was not bound on his own account but for Vs he was Well then for us he was bound to obey and how then do you say he only suffered for us and not obeyed for us You must come off again and say For us may be taken for our Benefit or in our stead He was indeed bound to obey for our benefit but not in our stead Well! but what if you are out here at last Let me mind you that Christ who redeemed us from the Condemnation of the Law redeemed us also from the Obligation of perfect fulfilling it as the Condition of Life And as by his sufferings he freed us not from all suffering but Eternal so by his Obedience though he freed us not from obeying God according to the Gospel yet he did from obeying him according to the Law as the Condition of Salvation In this sense and to this purpose he obeyed that we might not so obey as well as he suffered that we might not so suffer that is upon this account not all accounts obeyed and suffered both in our stead Before I leave you for the sake of the Reader when this is Printed I must wish you again to take heed that when I say that Christ hath obeyed for us in the sense of in our stead you do not misconstrue me To do a thing in ones stead is to do it so as to free the other from doing it Though Christ's perfect obeying the Law did I apprehend free us from those Terms yet did he not obey the Law for us so as some would have it that no other Obedience is necessary to our Justification or that his Obeying does thereby become ours or is in se imputed to us as formally to justifie us This is that Doctrine you dispute against in your Dissertation and I find in some Notes which I writ for a Memor andum to my self upon reading some Author whether the words be my own or his or mixt thus much which I will set down to confirm your Determination There is a double Debt the Principal perfect Obedience and Nomine poena satisfaction for our failing It is said Christ paid both for us and both imputed But if his Obedience being such as that he omitted no duty and committed no sin be imputed there is no need of his suffering It is replied we must suppose his satisfaction for sin to precede and when we are pardoned and freed from punishment then must his Active Obedience be also imputed to give us right to Heaven It is answered 1. Supposing a Righteousness now required it must not be his Righteousness imputed for then we must be reputed as never lapsed nor once omitted any duty and that is inconsistent with his Satisfaction preceding 2. Punishment is Damni or Sensus Though one might be freed from the poena sensus and yet
obeyed and suffered both in our stead That Notion I cannot swallow I cannot apprehend that we are bound to obey and suffer both But I think this is spoken to in the Thesis whither I refer you Thus I have gone through the several Paragraphs in your Letter whereby you will find your labour has not been in vain but has had some success upon me I am a Searcher after and a Servant of Truth and don 't count my self too old to learn especially of you who have look'd so throughly into and round about this Point of Justification How far forth my Reply in those things wherein we differ will approve it self to you and find acceptance with you must be left to the Tryal In the whole I have design'd nothing but words both of Truth and Kindness and so do hope that you will find no reason to judge otherwise of me than that I am Your respectful Friend and Fellow-labourer Samuel Clark To Mr. Clark Dear and worthy Brother JUstification is Constitutive and Sentential Juris and Judicis Constitutive is making accounting and using us as just Sentential declares us so at the great day This I hold to be good from Mr. Baxter who in all his Books says the like but in his own manner and words See Cath. Theol. Book I. Part. II. Pag. 69 70. Life of Faith Pag. 326. End of Controversies Pag. 242. Justification then with us is Making Esteeming and Using us as Righteous which are distinguished but not to be divided Constitutive Justification you say is a phrase of Mr. Baxter's coyning and the word Justifie which you have so throughly canvased neither in the Hebrew or Greek will bear it For my part so long as the English and Latine word Justify as Sanctifie Glorifie does speak making just and we have the very term expressed Rom. 5.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made righteous which is all one as to be justified I think that place alone ground enough for Mr. Baxter's word Constitutive and whether the word will or no the matter will bear it When I read Contarenus de Justificatione I admired to see the Doctrine of the Protestant so fully embraced by a Cardinal who telling us of a twofold Righteousness we attained by Faith a Justitia inbarons and a Justitia donata imputata Christi and proposing the Question Utra num debeamus niti existimal nos justificari coram Deo id est sanctos justos haberi an hac an illa he cleaves to the last with these words I have quoted Pacif. p. 15. Ego prorsus existimo And moreover he tells us Fide justificamur non formaliter but † It is false that Faith justifies us Efficiently but it is true that Faith justifieth Constitutively so far as it is it self our personal inherent rightcousness Bax. End of Cont. p. 270. Efficienter which is directly against my Judgment yet do I observe that this he lays down at first as a thing unquestionable that Justificari is Justum fieri propterea justum haberi I confess my self was long before I could assent to Mr. Baxter in this because he seemed to me uncertain or confused when by making just he sometimes understands as you Regeneration sometimes Pardon after Mr. Wotton from whom I believe he took it and sometimes both as appears in the place you cite Cath. Theol. Book II. Pag. 239. By and upon believing we are first made just by free-given Pardon and Right to Life and true Sanctification with it and we are sentenced just because so first made just The Papist say Justification makes us just by the infusion of inherent Holiness and that this infused Grace or inherent Holiness is therefore the formal Cause of our Justification which we know confounds Justification and Sactification The Protestant in opposition to this have generally said that we are made just Rom. 5.19 by Christs Righteousness and that his Righteousness imputed must be consequently our formal Righteousness tho' several of late more cautious take heed how they say that Sententia illorum qui Christi Obedientiam justitiam nobis imputatam statuunt esse formalem causam justificationis communis est nostrorum omnium sententia says Davenant Mr Wotton that Scholastically deep Man in opposition to both does say that it is Pardon makes the sinner righteous and consequently that Pardon is the Form or formal Reason of our Justification Mr. Baxter you see before accounts we are made righteous by Regeneration and Pardon both our Evengelical Righteousness must be with him both the formal Cause though the Righteousness of Christ be the material he says and meritorius Cause of it Leading Calvin hath gone before our Assembly and tells us Nos Justificationem simpliciter interpretamur acceptionem qua nos Deus in gratiam receptos pro justis habet Eamque in peccatorum remissione ac justitiae Christi imputatione positam esse dicimus Inst l. 3. c. 11. For my own part I am here exactly for neither of these but say that it is the Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel that makes us just and that this is the formal Reason of our Justification I will recite it The Infusion of inherent Grace is Justification Active with the Papist and this inherent Grace infused Justification Passive The Imputation of Christs Righteousness is Justification Active with the Protestant and that Righteousness imputed Justification Passive Pardon with Mr. Wotton Both Pardon and a Righteousness subordinate to Christs with Mr. Baxter But as to me I continue and say the Imputation of the Righteousness of God or of Faith for Righteousness is Active Justification and the Righteousness of God or Faith so imputed is Justification Passive or the formal Cause as Passive of it This one thing I take to be certain that the Righteousness of God which the Apostle tells us is now revealed and therefore before tho' occult in the World as Austin hath it is that Righteousness in opposition to any other whereby we are justified and you having given us so good an account and right Notion of it in your Annotations on the Old and on the New Testament besides what you have said in your present Book it is fit you go thro' and perfect it By this Righteousness of God you understand not the Righteousness of Christ with the Protestants ordinarily nor yet the Righteousness Inherent the Papists contend for whereof indeed you are over-afraid Not by the Works of Righteousness we have done says the Apostle in one place where he means the Righteousness according to the Law of Nature or our Natural Righteousness which is Mans not this Righteousness of God but that which by Adam's Fall we have quite lost insomuch as there could be no Righteousness in the Earth any more as I say in my Books if it were not for another brought in and there is one brought in by the Messiah and as slain in Daniel that is procured by Christs Death and which you in your
in turning us away from it because this must make him as he argues a sinner and one deserving to die Grotius takes him up and tells us that it was for sin but Impersonaliter This he explains in that our sins did deserve that Punishment should be exacted but such was the goodness of God to spare us and lay it upon his Son who was wounded for our Transgressions and through his stripes are we healed Now that God might do so without Injustice Grotius brings many Instances from David from Ahab from the Gibeonites from the second Commandment What God himself does or allows must be just David sins and his Child dies Ahab is wicked and his Punishment is deferred to his Sons Days Saul is cruel to the Gibeonites and his Grandchildren are put to death The Fathers sin and God visits their sin on the Children to three or four Generations Here is Merit as the Antecedent Cause of the Punishment in all these Instances and yet not the Merit of the Person or Persons that suffer it And what if I shall add here this great thing a thing wherein Divines are put so hard to it in giving their account even the greater Instance of Death passing on all Men with their innocent Babes among them for Adam's Transgression It is said of Grotius and that solidly in another place Peccata paenae causa sunt non aliter quam per modum Meriti which being true Socinus does indeed seem to argue strongly that therefore prater Dei ipsius Christi voluntatem non posse ullam legitimam causam reddi mortis Christi nisi dicamus Christum meritum fuisse ut moriretur This Grotius I say takes up and Answers thus Inest quidem in antecedente causa Meritum sed Impersonaliter From hence then we must distinguish there is a double Merit of Punishment Personal and Impersonal When Grotius tells us that in Christs sufferings there was truly Punishment because that though God laid it on his Son our sins required the infliction and Mr. Baxter says no formal proper Punishment because not only without desert in Christ but which is more because our desert could not be transferr'd on him though the Punishment was they both say true but rightly understood only the one Personaliter the other Impersonaliter as Grotious hath decided it And what is this in good earnest any other but what the Bishop hath in effect determined likewise No Man can deserve that another should be punished for him and yet because the Execution of Punishment depends on the wisdom of God a Change of Persons that is of Christ to bear it in our room Christ being willing and the thing just may intervene says the Bishop in more words and all apposite If Mr. Lobb then can but reconcile the Bishop to himself unto whom he seems heartily to subscribe he must reconcile Mr. Baxter and Grotius and be also reconciled to both And that he may be so the more easily the Bishop hath given a Test for the discovery of the Orthodox from the Socinian and Mr. Baxter shall thereby be tryed The true Controversie says he between the Socinian and us is Whether the Sufferings of Christ were to be considered as a Punishment for our sins and as a Propitiatory Sacrifice to God for them or only as an Act of Dominion over an innocent Person in order to his Advancement to Glory The same is affirmed after him by our Presbyterian Brethren and who is there can imagine ever Mr. Baxter denied that Christs sufferings was a Punishment for our sins and his death a Propitiatory Sacrifice for them He hath made him sin for us says Paul 2 Cor. 5.21 Upon which God hath made Christ a Sacrifice for sin says Mr. Baxter as others which Socinus denies Who his own self bare our sins in his own Body on the Tree says Peter 1 Pet. 2.24 Upon which It was the punishment of our sins which as a Sacrifice he bare in his sufferings on the Cross says Mr. Baxter But what need I quote any such particular Sayings when there is no Book of his that is great that can be without such a Testimony over and over What then you may ask shall we judge here of Mr. Lobb's great Industry Shall we look on him as the Fly upon the Axle-tree that hath raised all this Dust for nothing I will not say so seeing Dust there is that must be raised if our Wheels do but go and our Chariot drive to its designed end the quiet of the Brethren It is not enough that we are agreed indeed in this Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction though we are unless we also understand and know it Besides that when we are agreed there is need of some Anthority yet to tell us we are so that our selves may believe it The Composing a Controversie by Silence is but covering the Fire as Mr. Lobb observes not extinguishing it If the Matter be such wherein we indeed do agree the Ventilation of it must shew us the seeming Difference to be nothing and so compel a Concord If the Matter be such wherein we really disagree there is still need of beating it out that the Corn may be discovered from the Chaff by the threshing There are two Points we know among us both very great P●●●…ts and the one made difficult through the Intanglement of it with the Other One is of Christs Satisfaction wherein indeed we differ not The other is of our Justification wherein we do differ and there are two ways of Explication Mr. Baxter's and the Common Protestants Upon the Account now of this Difference in the latter Point there are many are stumbled in their Explication of the former As for Mr. Lobb he has verily given occasion for an Accomodation between the Brethren by his Appeal to the Bishop as to the Point of Satisfaction for seeing indeed there is therein no difference he is like to effect it But as for the other of Justification Mr. Lobb is behind and it will be a harder matter for any to moderate in it One thing in his strowing his way hereunto is to be preparatively considered He has read I suppose Socinus de Servatore as well as Grotius upon him and Crellius then against Grotius with other Socinians as also Dr. Crisp and other Antinomians and he is not ignorant where the Water sticks between us and them both The Socinian accounts Christ to be a good Man that taught us Holy Doctrine and dyed to bear Testimony to the Truth of it to the end we might believe it and live according to it and so be saved and upon this account is our Saviour But as for his dying for our sins any otherwise than for turning us away from them by his Doctrine and Example which is making our sins the Final Cause of his Death he understands not when as for the making it the Meritorious Cause of the Sufferings of an innocent Man and thereby satisfactory to the Justice of God