of Arminius is good It is faith which is a mans own act that is imputed for righteousness therefore not the righteousness acts or obedience of another But when this acute Divine would introduce a notion hereupon that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere therefore must justifie us and not works or not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operari it is both an ill and weak conceit which is neither of use nor value For as the Scripture speaks of faith being accounted for righteousness so does it tell us that Abrahams offering his Son and Phineas act were accounted to them for righteousness and that Rahabs hiding the Spies did justifie her That is it is faith as productive of works or works as produced by faith that receives the reward of perfect righteousness which is we are to remember also for Christs sake or through his merits not imputed to us as proprietors but prevailing with the Father for such terms for sinners as answers our redemption and grace of the Gospel I would fain know of any man who is most Orthodox in his complexion whether he does or is able to think that Enoch Noah Job who were before the law Samuel the Kings and Prophets who were under the law or any man or woman whatsoever before the coming of Christ did ever imagine that they were righteous and to be accepted with God for the obedience which the Messiah should perform in their behalf when he came into the world and that the believing this was an instrument of making it to be theirs and so to be imputed to them which it could not be else or whether they did not look on themselves to be righteous by doing righteously and to obtain Gods favour by their upright walking with him and no otherwise in the World They judged not their own righteousness the meritorious cause of pardon to answer the Curse of the Law of Innocency but they believed in Gods mercy and so repented obeyed and were saved through the Redeemer And Enoch walked with God and God took him Blessed is the man sayes David who walkes in his wayes and to whom he imputeth no sin In the acceptation then of a mans own upright walking and in the pardon of his sins did our justification and blessedness lye in Davids time and in the same no doubt does it lye still under the Gospel I would yet fain know whether any of the Disciples James John or Paul himself whether Clement Roman or Alexandrine Justin Martyr Cyprian Ambrose Augustine or any of the Fathers whether Councels or School-men whether John Hus or Wickliffe or any famous or holy Writer without resting on some bare incoherent scraps of sentences did ever understand or receive the full notion of faiths instrumentality and the imputation of a passive righteousness before Luther And if not whether it be possible it should be of any such moment as is made of it by most Protestants It was an Article indeed that raigned in Martins heart and I do therefore give it my obeysance but it is no Article I take it as the remission of sins is in the Creed of the Apostles If the righteousness of Christ be imputed to us as if it were ours in it self it must be the righteousness of his active or passive obedience or both If his active obedience be imputed to us then must we be lookt upon in him as such who have committed no sin nor omitted any duty and then what need will there be of Christs death how shall Christ dye for our sins if we be lookt on in Christ as having none at all If Christs passive obedience be imputed then must we be look't on as such who in Christ have suffered and satisfied the law and born the full curse of it and then how shall there be room for any pardon The man who payes his full debt by himself or surety can in no sense be forgiven by his Creditour Indeed the Argument of the Socinian from pardon against Christs satisfaction is not valid but it is good against the imputation of it to us as if we our selves had satisfied Christ may have wrought with the Father or made him that satisfaction as to procure new terms so that a man may be justifyed as a fulfiller of them and yet need pardon for non-performance of the old If Christs active and passive obedience both are imputed then must God be made to deal with man according to the Covenant of works in the business of his justification when nothing is more apparent in the Scripture than that by grace it is that a man is justified and by grace saved If nothing less then such a righteousness as does both answer and satisfie the law also and that fully will suffice for the sinners plea to free him from condemnation he is not judged by the law of grace but he is judged by the law of works out of question There were no need to bring this notion of Christs imputed righteousness into the Church but that our Protestants mistake themselves and forget that we are justified and saved by the Covenant of Grace and not by the law of Moses or Covenant of our Creation Christ came into the World to procure and tender a new law and in this regard is he said to be our Law-giver not that he hath given any other moral rules of life to us for we know his conmandement only is Love than what was contained in the Law before wherein some do but boldly impose upon themselves and others but that he hath given the same precepts with indulgence If God then shall not deal with man in his justification here and at judgment according to that indulgence or according to the law now in Christs hands that is according to the Covenant of Grace the main business of Christ coming and redemption were lost You shall hear a Protestant in his prayer appealing from the Tribunal of Gods justice to the throne of his grace and yet in his Sermon be telling the people that it is nothing else but the perfect obedience and satisfaction of Christ imputed to them that saves them which is to bring them back from the throne of his grace to the bar of his justice to be judged Such appeals have been received I suppose from the Fathers as very significant of truth and their meaning but not agreeable to this notion In the last place there is a righteousness revealed in the Gospel that God went by in his dealing with all the holy men and women who were before Christ and which he goes by in his dealing with us now and all the World whereby it is that we are justified in opposition to the righteousness of works the which together with the grace of the Gospel in the true sense and import thereof is kept out of the Protestant understanding by this notion of the rigid imputation of Christs righteouness in it self that being also but a late and forced notion and not tending to
of God not whereby he is righteous but whereby we are made so of him Augustine again in the last cited place It is true then there is a righteousness of faith and righteousness of God of faith as the root of the whole condition which are one and by which in opposition to the righteousness of works we are justified but that this righteousness of God and of Faith is only the obedience of Christs life and death which he performed for us is assumed as much without reason as any consent of that Father To this purpose I take it is God styled in the Old Testament The Lord our righteousness that is in his condescention to accept us for Christs sake as righteous by a law of grace when in strict justice he might condemn us for sinners It is not appropriated to the second Person but to be understood of that Gospel goodness of God whereby he imputeth righteousness to us when we have none according to the law of our creation that is imputing the righteousness of faith to us without the works of that Covenant All our merits O Lord sayes the Father are thy mercy This is the true and exellent import of that expression signifying moreover that God that found out the means to demonstrate his justice no less fully and his goodness more fully to the World in saving us by this new law through his Sons mediation then if we had kept our first innocency or underwent his eternal judgment for our transgressions Another text which is a fellow with this I take it in sense and words is that to the Romans As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous I comment these words thus As through Adams sin we came into the state of the fall and so do all sin or are sinners against the law which none fulfil so by Christs obedience to his Father whereby he procured the grace of a new law for us we are brought to such a state as that many become righteous and are justified by the performance That all man-kind is involved in Adams first sin our Divines are agreed against Pelagius The most understand this to come through the Covenant or Will of God there are some apt to conceive only that Adam being the natural root of mankind human nature it self sinned in him and so when we come to exist his guilt is derived upon our persons as virtually and seminally in him no otherwise then Levi is said to have paid tyths to Melchisedech in the loyns of Ahraham I should incline to this explanation but that I see not then why all the sins of Adam besides and of all our Progenitors should not be ours also upon the same account as much as that first transgression Distinguish we therefore between the precept thou shalt not eat of the Tree under this Covenant and the threatning upon breach of it The Precept plainly belong'd to our first Parents only and as none of us broke that precept which we had not so can we not be reputed to have that sin in it self which we never committed nevertheless the penalty being by the Will or Covenant of God to extend to their progeny which falls out ordinarily in mans laws also that sin of Adams which in it self could be his only in the effects threatned upon the commission does become ours also God does so impute that act to us that we are all as well as he deprived of original righteousness corrupted in our nature and sure to dye In like manner I take it are we to conceive of the imputation both of our sins to Christ and of his righteousness to us Our sins are not laid upon him to make him a sinner but to be a propitiation for our sins He was not made sin or accounted a sinner quoad reatum culpae as if he were guilty of our facts but he was dealt with as a sinner quoad reatum paenae in regard to the obligation unto satisfaction which as a Sponsor he was to make in our behalf The righteousness of Christ likewise which he performed as Sponsor or Mediator cannot be ours either really or representatively in it self because this righteousness as Mediator is proper to his Person and is not the very same required of any or all of us in the law it self but his righteousness as Mediator even his whole submission to the law of his Mediatorship in life and death is ours respectively as to what it procured or to what he intended it should procure in asmuch as we are partakers of the benefits that derive from it Our sins were Christs in the causation of his sufferings Christs righteousnes is ours in the effects of pardon and life eternal A third text and which carryes our Divines I think more then any is that to the Phillipians I count all things but loss that I may win Christ and be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith In these words our Protestants observe that the righteousness of God and of faith is opposed to that righteousness which is our own and therefore it must be a righteousness without Vs received by faith But they are mistaken for besides that the righteousness of faith and of God is not the same with the righteousness of Christ as hath been before observed they are to know that this righteousness which Paul calls his own in this Text is the righteousness of the Jew that is the Jews own or his own as a Jew and a Pharisee not our own or his own as a Christian This appears from the Verses before If any thinketh that he hath whereof he may trust in the flesh I more circumcised the eighth day an Hebrew of the Hebrews as touching the law a Pharisee as touching the righteousness which of the law blameless This appears farther from another text which together with this alone is all that hath any such Antithesis in the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence they fetch this conjecture I bear them record that they have a Zeal for God but not according to knowledg For they being ignorant of Gods righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God It is certain now from these places both that there is a righteousness which was Pauls own and the Jews own which he excluds from justification and opposes to the righteousness of faith and of God but this I say is not the Christian righteousness The Christians faith and new obedience are his own acts out of doubt by Gods help and his righteousness according to the Gospel and you shall never read St. Paul saying I desire to be found in Christ not having my own repentance my own faith love and new obedience which are conditions of being found in him that we may
be justifyed Pauls own righteousness as a Jew or as a Pharisee I say is one thing and Pauls faith and obedience which is his righteousness as a Christian is another And this distinction our Saviour himself hath first offered Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharises The righteousness of works is twofold The righteousness of Mankind according to the Covenant of Nature and the righteousness of the Jewes while they reckoned to be justified by the external observation only of the rites of Moses The one of these exceeds the righteousness of faith and we are not justified by it because no man can attain to it the other falls short of the righteousness of faith or of a true Christian according to these words of our Lord and for that reason as for several others the establishment of it was dangerous to their Salvation A last text they have what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit It is urged here by a Perfectist that if the Protestant doctrine were true it should be said that the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in Christ and not in us But these words I apprehend may be a phrase of the Apostles as the words attaining unto righteousness otherwhere and so it will be all one as if he had said that we might be justified who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Nevertheless there is this here must be known and noted that when a Christian obeys God according to the Gospel that obedience of his proceeding from faith though imperfect is accepted of God instead of the laws perfect righteousness or stands him in the stead as if the whole law were fulfilled which is the ground of such expressions From whence in the way we may have light for the understanding the Apostle when he tells us the law is established by faith or uses the like words The law is established only by the fulfilling of it and faith as it works by love fulfils the law But how why in the sense N. B. as is now told you Faith produces obedience which is imperfect yet answering the terms of the gospel it is through that grace and condescention from God which Christ hath purchased for us in the work of our redemption imputed to us for righteouaness that is accepted and rewarded so as it is made to stand us in the same stead as the full performance of the law would have done which is to justifie us and bring us life eternal When God made man he gave him a law suitable to his Creation That law being founded in the image of God wherein he was created is most holy equal and unchangeable God as Rector must deal with the World according to this law so that man transgressing he is engaged to proceed against him by it unless there be some means found out that he may be no loser in his justice if he do not There is nothing can be offered to God but his justice and holiness must be losers if it be of consideration less valuable then that which the law it self required which is the obedience of all mankind or their everlasting suffering for its transgression No Man or Creature but Christ alone could offer any such satisfaction as this for us And this he offered in the obedience or righteousness of his whole life and death as the price sacrifice ransome propitiation for our sins which through the dignity of the Person that offered it being the Son of God as well as man was of value which is infinite That which exceeds a thing or is more in value then it cannot be the very thing it self which in value it exceeds The righteousness then of Christ is really imputed to man tendred in his behalf and made ours in regard of this effect or in the end to which it was intended I will say when it cannot be ours in it self to wit that God being satisfied or made no loser in his justice hereby does deal with us otherwise then by that law unto which at first we were created If he deals not with us then according to that it must be by some other which hereby also is purchased and that is according to his grace or righteousness revealed in the Gospel This grace or righteousness lyes in his acceptance of faith and repentance instead of perfect obedience for this righteousness sake of Christ thus imputed and no otherwise then thus When our Divines now say that there are no works of ours can stand before God in his district judgment that they should be causa propter quam the cause for which that is for the merit sake or worthiness whereof he should justifie any person they say well and there meaning is that our works coming not up to the original law God cannot for the performance of them absolve us as no sinners but yet seeing they are such as answer the terms of the Gospel he does for Christs sake or his merits sake both pardon their imperfection and impute them to us for righteousness in the accepting them to life or rewarding them with everlasting salvation In short Christs righteousness is imputed to us but not for righteousness It is for the righteousness sake but not formally though efficiently by the righteousness of another we are justified It is not Christ but our selves that perform the new Covenant and by the new Covenant is it or by grace that we are righteous in Gods sight It is not consequently Christs sufferings or obedience only but our faith obedience sincerity also that is rewarded with salvation yet is it not for the merit of this obedience of ours but for his merits or the merits of his righteousness Behold this is the critrical hindge upon which the whole controversie does turn We will stand for the imputation of Christs righteousness N. B. so far as ever we can with holding justification by the Covenant of grace but when some Protestants have stood for it so as renders our justification to be by the law or the Covenant of works and not by grace they have departed from the Apostle And thus the dispute in the upshot will I think end in this that Christs righteousness is the meritorious indeed the only meritorious or meritoriously procuring efficient but must not be made the formal cause of mans justification And yet do I see there is need still of some more words seeing here the heart of all lyes A righteousness we must have if we be justified and what is that righteousness There is a legal righteousness and Evangelical Christs righteousness our Divines account our Legal righteousness which must answer the law for us and our faith and repentance must be produced to answer the