each one of which being Collectives contain many And here I tell you of more And have you brought more Witnesses Or any to the contrary Did you Confute or once take Notice of any of these 4. Do you not here before you are aware let your Reader know that it was and still is in the Dark that you Alarm the World about our dangerous Differences and run to your Arms undrest before your Eyes are open Qui conveniunt in aliquo tertio c. They that agree with the Church of England in the Doctrine of Justification by Faith do so far agree between themselves But Dr. Tullie and R.B. do agree with the Church of England in the Doctrine of Justification by Faith Ergo. The Article referreth to the Homilies where it is more fully Explained 5. May not I then retort your Argument and bid you For shame let it be no longer Bellarnine and R.B. but the Church of England and all the Reformed and R.B. Disprove the Witnesses twenty years ago produced by me in this very Cause or else speak out and say The Church of England and the rest of the Reformed hold Justification by Works just as Bellarmine and the Papists do which is it which you would fasten on me who agree with them as if you had never there read my Answer to Mr. Crandon objecting the same thing § IV. Your Censure pag. 10 11. of my Windings Clouds of Novel Distinctions Preambles Limitations c. is just such as your Treatise did bid me expect Till you become guilty of the same Crime and fall out with Confusion and take not equivocal ambiguous Words unexplained instead of Univocals in the stating of your Questions I shall never the more believe that Hannibal is at the Gates or the City on Fire for your Allarms § V. Pag. 11. Where you tell me that You have no Profit by my Preface I shall not deny it nor wonder at it you are the fittest Judge Where you say that I have no Credit You do but tell the World at what Rates you write Honor est in honorante And have all my Readers already told you their Judgment Alas How few In all London not a Man hath yet given me Notice of his Dislike or Dissent And sure your own Pen is a good Confuter of you It is some Credit that such a Man as you is forced to profess a full Consent to the Doctrine though with passionate Indignation You tell me of Nothing to the Question But will you not be angry if I should but tell you how little you did to state any Question and in Reason must be supposed when you assaulted my Doctrine to take it as I stated it which I have fully shewed you You tell me that You Charged me only with new Original Sin underived from Adam unknown unheard of before in the Christian World Answ De re is not our Guilt of nearer Parent 's Sins such which you and all that you know now at last confess De nomine 1. Tell the World if you can when I called it New Original Sin or underived from Adam or unknown or unheard of There are more ways than one of Derivation from Adam It is not derived from him by such Imputation as his first Sin but it is derived from him as a partial Causa Causae by many Gradations All Sin is some-way from him Either you mean that I said that it was not Derived from Adam or you gather it by some Consequence from what I said If the First shew the Words and the Shame shall be mine If not you know the old Law that to false Accusers it must be done as they would have done to the Accused But if it be your Consequence prove it and tell the World what are the Premises that infer it § VI. Pag. 12. You friendly help me to profit by my self however you profess that you profit not by me What I have said to you against Hasty Judging I have first said to my self and the more you warn me of it the more friendly you are If it be not against such as you but my self it is against my self that I have a Treatise on that Subject but I begin to think my self in this more Seeing than you for I see it both in my self and you and you seem to see it in me and not in your self But with all Men I find that to see the Spots in our own Face immediately is hard and to love the Glass which sheweth them is not easie especially to some Men that neither are low nor can endure to be so till there is no Remedy But Sir how easie a Way of Disputing have you happily light on Who instead of Examining the hundred Witnesses which I brought and my else-where oft proving the Doctrine opposed by me to be Novel and Singular do in few words talk of your holding the Doctrine delivered to the Saints and of the many Worthies that concur with you and of my pelting at their Heads and draging them by the Hoary-heads as a Spectacle and By-word to all by proving their consent by express Citations what Armies and of what Strength appear against me whose Names I defie and wound through yours Answ And is not he a weak Man that cannot talk thus upon almost any Subject But who be these Men and what be their Names Or rather first rub your Eyes and tell us what is the Controversie Tully sometimes talkt at this rate in his Orations but verily much better in his Philosophy And you see no cause to repent but you bless God that you can again and again call to all Youth that as they love the Knowledg of Truth they take me not for an Oracle in my bold dividing Singularities Answ That the Name of Truth is thus abused is no News I would the Name of God were not And I am sorry that you see no Cause to repent I am obliged to love you the better for being against dividing Singularities in the general Notion I hope if you knew it you would not be for them as in singular Existents But sure none at Oxford are in danger of taking me for an Oracle This is another needless Work So Spanhemius took that for a Singularity which Dallaeus in a large Catalogue hath proved the Common Judgment of the Church till Contention of late caused some Dissenters Will you cease these empty general Ostentations and choose out any one Point of real Difference between you and me about Justification and come to a fair Trial on whose side the Churches of Christ have been for 1500 years after Christ yea bring me but any two or one considerable Person that was for a thousand years for your Cause against mine and I will say that you have done more to confute me by far than yet you have done and if two only be against me I will pardon you for calling me Singular § VII Pag. 13 14 15. You again do keep up the Dividing Fear
OF THE IMPUTATION OF Christ's Righteousness TO BELIEVERS In what sence sound Protestants hold it And Of the false devised sence by which Libertines subvert the Gospel With an Answer to some common Objections especially of Dr. Thomas Tully whose Justif Paulina occasioneth the publication of this By RICHARD BAXTER A compassionate Lamenter of the Churches wounds caused by hasty judging and undigested concâ—ptions and by the Theological Wars which are hereby raised and managed by perswading the World that meer verbal or notional Differences are material and such as our Faith Love Concord and Communion must be measured by for want of an exact discussion of the ambiguity of words London Printed for Nevil Simons and Jonathan Robinson at the Kings-Arms and Golden-Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard 1675. The Preface Reader IF thou blame me for writing again on a Subject which I have written on so oft and so lately specially in my Life of Faith and Disputations of Justification I shall not blame thee for so doing but I shall excuse my self by telling thee my reasons 1. The occasion is many loud accusations of my self of which I have before given an account I publish it because I see the Contention still so hot in the Church of Christ and mens Charity destroyed against each other one side calling the other Socinians and the other Libertines who are neither of them Christians and if I mistake not for the most part in the dark about one Phrase and that of mens devising rather than about the sence But if indeed it be the sence that they differ about it 's time to do our best to rectifie such Fundamental Errours I find that all of us agree in all the Phrases of Scripture And a Mans Sence is no way known but by his expressions The question is then Which is the necessary Phrase which we must express our sence by We all say that to Believers Christ is made our Righteousness We are made the Righteousness of God in him He hath ransomed redeemed us as a Sacrifice for our sins a price He hath merited and obtained eternal Redemption for us that Sin is remitted covered not imputed that Righteousness is Reckoned or Imputed to us that Faith is Imputed to us for Righteousness and any thing else that is in the Scripture But all this will not serve to make us Christians What is wanting Why we must say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us as ours and that Christ satisfied for our sins Well The thing signified seemeth to us true and good and needful though the Scripture hath as good words for it as any of us can invent We consent therefore to use these Phrases so be it you put no false and wicked sence on them by other words of your own Though we will not allow them to be necessary because not in Scripture And we are more against adding new Fundamental Articles of Faith to the Scripture than against adding new Orders Forms or Ceremonies But yet it will not serve what is yet wanting why we must hold these words in a right sense What yet are not your own devised words a sufficient expression of the matter When we have opened those words by other words how will you know that we use those other words in a right sence and so in infinitum Our sence is that Righteousness is Imputed to us that is we are accounted Righteous because for the Merits of Christs total fulfilling the Conditions of his Mediatorial Covenant with the Father by his Habitual Holiness his Actual Perfect Obedience and his Sacrifice or satisfactory Suffering for our sins in our stead freely without any merit or Conditional act of mans God hath made an Act of Oblivion and Deed of Gift pardoning all sin justifying and adopting and giving Right to the Spirit and Life eternally to every one that believingly accepteth Christ and the Gifts with and by and from him And when we accept them they are all ours by virtue of this purchased Covenant-Gift This is our short and plain explication But yet this will not serve Christianity is yet another thing What is wanting Why we must say that Christ was habitually and actually perfectly Holy and Obedient Imputatively in our particular Persons and that each one of us did perfectly fulfil that Law which requireth perfect Habits and Acts in and by Christ imputatively and yet did also in and by him suffer our selves Imputatively for not fulfilling it and Imputatively did our selves both satisfy God's Justice and merit Heaven and that we have our selves Imputatively a Righteousness of perfect Holiness and Obedience as sinless and must be justified by the Law of Innocency or Works as having our selves imputatively fulfilled it in Christ And that this is our sole Righteousness and that Faith it self is not imputed to us for Righteousness no not a meer particular subordinate Righteousness answering the Conditional part of the new Justifying Covenant as necessary to our participation of Christ and his freely given Righteousness And must all this go into our Christianity But where is it written who devised it was it in the ancient Creeds and Baptism Or known in the Church for five thousand years from the Creation I profess I take the Pope to be no more to be blamed for making a new Church-Government than for making us so many new Articles of Faith And I will not justifie those that Symbolize with him or imitate him in either But yet many of the men that do this are good men in other respects and I love their zeal that doth all this evil as it is for God and the honour of Jesus Christ though I love it not as blind nor their Errour or their Evil. But how hard is it to know what Spirit we are of But it is the doleful mischief which their blind zeal doth that maketh me speak That three or four of them have made it their practice to backbite my self and tell People He holdeth dangerous opinions He is erroneous in the point of Justification And his Books are unsound and have dangerous Doctrines He leaveth the old way of Justification he favoureth Socinianism and such-like this is a small matter comparatively Back-biting and false reports are the ordinary fruits of bitter contentious Zeal and the Spirit of a Sect as such doth usually so work yea to confusion and every evil work when it hath banished the Zeal of Love and of Good Works Jam. 3.14 15 16. Tit. 2.14 And I never counted it any great loss to their followers that they disswade them from the reading of my writings as the Papists do their Proselytes as long as God hath blest our Land with so many better But there are other effects that command me once again to speak to them 1. One is that I have good proof of the lamentable Scandal of some very hopeful Persons of quality who by hearing such language from these men have bin ready to turn away from Religion and say If they thus set
Controversie is about a Civil personating 3. That God judgeth not falsly 4. That Christ was not our Delegate and Instrument sent by us to do this in our stead as a man payeth his debt by a Servant whom he sendeth with the money 5. That therefore Christs Righteousness is not Imputed to us as if we had done it by him as our Instrument 6. That all the fruits of Christs Merits and Satisfaction are not ours upon our first believing much less before But we receive them by degrees we have new pardon daily of new sins We bear castigatory punishments even Death and Denials or loss of the greater assistance of the Spirit Our Grace is all imperfect c. 7. That we are under a Law and not left ungoverned and lawless and that Christ is our King and Judge And this Law is the Law or Covenant of Grace containing besides the Precepts of perfect Obedience to the Law natural and superadded a Gift of Christ with Pardon and Life but only on Condition that we thankfully and believingly accept the Gift And threatning non-liberation and a far sorer punishment to all that unbelievingly and unthankfully reject it 8. That therefore this Testament or Covenant-Gift is God's Instrument by which he giveth us our Right to Christ and Pardon and Life And no man hath such Right but by this Testament-Gift 9. That this called a Testament Covenant Promise and Law in several respects doth besides the Conditions of our first Right impose on us Continuance in the Faith with sincere Holiness as the necessary Condition of our continued Justification and our actual Glorification And that Heaven is the Reward of this keeping of the new Covenant as to the order of Gods Collation though as to the value of the Benefit it is a Free Gift purchased merited and given by Christ 10. That we shall all be judged by this Law of Christ 11. That we shall all be judged according to our deeds and those that have done good not according to the Law of Innocency or Works but according to the Law of Grace shall go into everlasting life and those that have done evil not by meer sin as sin against the Law of Innocency but by not keeping the Conditions of the Law of Grace shall go into everlasting punishment The sober reading of these following texts may end all our Controversie with men that dare not grosly make void the Word of God Rev. 20.12 13.22.12 2.23 12. That to be Justified at the day of Judgment is to be adjudged to Life Eternal and not condemned to Hell And therefore to be the cause or condition that we are Judged to Glory and the Cause or Condition that we are Justified then will be all one 13. That to be Judged according to our deeds is to be Justified or Condemned according to them 14. That the great tryal of that day as I have after said will not be whether Christ hath done his part but whether we have part in him and so whether we have believed and performed the Condition of that Covenant which giveth Christ and Life 15. That the whole scope of Christ's Sermons and all the Gospel calleth us from sin on the motive of avoiding Hell after we are reputed Righteous and calleth us to Holiness Perseverance and overcoming on the motive of laying up a good Foundation and having a Treasure in Heaven and getting the Crown of Righteousness 16. That the after-sins of men imputed Righteous deserve Hell or at least temporal punishments and abatements of Grace and Glory 17. That after such sins especially hainous we must pray for Pardon and repent that we may be pardoned and not say I fulfilled the Law in Christ as from my birth to my death and therefore have no more need of Pardon 18. That he that saith he hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a lyar 19. That Magistrates must punish sin as God s Officers and Pastors by Censure in Christs name and Parents also in their Children 20. That if Christs Holiness and perfect Obedience and Satisfaction and Merit had bin Ours in Right and Imputation as simply and absolutely and fully as it was his own we could have no Guilt no need of Pardon no suspension or detention of the proper fruits of it no punishment for sin specially not so great as the with-holding of degrees of Grace and Glory And many of the consequents aforesaid could not have followed All this I think we are all agreed on and none of it can with any face be denied by a Christian And if so 1. Then whether Christs perfect Holiness and Obedience and Sufferings Merit and Satisfaction be all given us and imputed unto us at our first believing as Our own in the very thing it self by a full and proper Title to the thing Or only so imputed to us as to be judged a just cause of giving us all the effects in the degrees and time forementioned as God pleaseth let all judge as evidence shall convince them 2. And then whether they do well that thrust their devised sence on the Churches as an Article of Faith let the more impartial judge I conclude with this confession to the Reader that though the matter of these Papers hath been thought on these thirty years yet the Script is hasty and defective in order and fulness I could not have leisure so much as to affix in the margin all the texts which say what I assert And several things especially the state of the Case are oft repeated But that is lest once reading suffice not to make them observed and understood which if many times will do I have my end If any say that I should take time to do things more accurately I tell him that I know my straights of time and quantity of business better than he doth and I will rather be defective in the mode of one work than leave undone the substance of another as great July 20. 1672. Richard Baxter The Contents CHap. 1. The History of the Controversie In the Apostles days In the following Ages Augustine and his followers Opinion The Schoolmen Luther Islebius The Lutherans Andr. Osiander The latter German Divines who were against the Imputation of Christ's Active Righteousness Our English Divines Davenant's sense of Imputation Wotton de Reconcil Bradshaw Gataker Dr. Crisp Jo. Simpson Randal Towne c. And the Army Antinomians checkt by the rising of Arminianism there against it Jo. Goodwin Mr. Walker and Mr. Roborough Mr. Ant. Burges My Own endeavours Mr. Cranden Mr. Eyres c. Mr. Woodbridge Mr. Tho. Warren Mr. Hotchkis Mr. Hopkins Mr. Gibbon Mr. Warton Mr. Grailes Mr. Jessop What I then asserted Corn. a Lapide Vasquez Suarez Grotius de Satisf Of the Savoy Declaration Of the Faith of the Congregational-Divines Their saying that Christs Active and Passive Obedience is imputed for our sole Righteousness confuted by Scripture Gataker Usher and Vines read and approved my Confession of Faith Placeus his Writings and trouble
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
The Augustane Confession Art 3 4. Christ died that he might reconcile the Father to us and be a sacrifice not only for original sin but also for all the actual sins of men And that we may obtain these benefits of Christ that is Remission of sins justification and life eternal Christ gave us the Gospel in which these benefits are propounded To preach Repentance in his Name and Remission of sins among all Nations For when men propagated in the natural manner have sin and cannot truly satisfie Gods Law the Gospel reproveth sin and sheweth us Christ the Mediator and so teacheth us about Pardon of sins That freely for Christ's sake are given us Remission of sins Justification by Faith by which we must confess that these are given us for Christ who was made a Sacrifice for us and appeased the Father Though the Gospel require Penitence yet that pardon of sin may be sure it teacheth us that it is freely given us that is that it dependeth not on the Condition of our worthyness nor is given for any precedent works or worthyness of following works For Conscience in true fears findeth no work which it can oppose to the Wrath of God and Christ is proposed and given us to be a propitiator This honour of Christ must not be transferred to our works Therefore Paul saith ye are saved freely or of Grace And it is of grace that the promise might be sure that is Pardon will be sure when we know that it dependeth not on the Condition of our worthiness but is given for Christ In the Creed this Article I believe the Forgiveness of sins is added to the history And the rest of the history of Christ must be referred to this Article For this benefit is the end of the history Christ therefore suffered and rose again that for him might be given us Remission of sins and life everlasting Art 6. When we are Reconciled by Faith there must needs follow the Righteousness of good works But because the infirmity of mans nature is so great that no man can satisfie the Law it is necessary to teach men not only that they must obey the Law but also how this Obedience pleaseth lest Consciences fall into desperation when they understand that they satisfie not the Law This Obedience then pleaseth not because it satisfieth the Law but because the person is in Christ reconciled by Faith and believeth that the relicts of his Sin are pardoned We must ever hold that we obtain remission of sins and the person is pronounced Righteous that is is accepted freely for Christ by Faith And afterward that Obedience to the Law pleaseth and is reputed a certain Righteousness and meriteth rewards Thus the first Protestants VII The 11th Article of the Church of England to which we all offer to subscribe is Of the Justification of Man We are accounted Righteous before God only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith and not for our own works or deservings Wherefore that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholsome doctrine and very full of Comfort as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification The said Homilies of Salvation and Faith say over and over the same thing As pag. 14. Three things go together in our Justification On Gods part his great Mercy and Grace on Christs part Justice that is the Satisfaction of Gods Justice or the Price of our Redemption by the offering of his body and shedding of his blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly And on our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Jesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us And pag. A lively Faith is not only the common belief of the Articles of our Faith but also a true trust and confidence of the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and a steadfast hope of all good things to be received at Gods hand and that although we through infirmity or temptation do fall from him by sin yet if we return again to him by true repentance that he will forgive and forget our offences for his Sons sake our Saviour Jesus Christ and will make us inheritors with him of his everlasting Kingdom Pag. 23. For the very sure and lively Christian Faith is to have an earnest trust and confidence in God that he doth regard us and is careful over us as the Father is over the Child whom he doth love and that he will be merciful unto us for his only Sons sake and that we have our Saviour Christ our perpetual Advocate and Prince in whose only merits oblation and suffering we do trust that our offences be continually washed and purged whensoever we repenting truely do return to him with our whole heart steadfastly determining with our selves through his grace to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments c. So also the Apology This is our doctrine of Imputation VIII The Saxon Confession oft insisteth on the free Pardon of sin not merited by us but by Christ And expoundeth Justification to be Of unjust that is Guilty and disobedient and not having Christ to be made Just that is To be Absolved from Guilt for the Son of God and an apprehender by Faith of Christ himself who is our Righteousness as Jeremiah and Paul say because by his Merit we have forgiveness and God imputeth righteousness to us and for him reputeth us just and by giving us his Spirit quickeneth and regenerateth us By being Justified by Faith alone we mean that freely for our Mediator alone not for our Contrition or other Merits the pardon of sin and reconciliation is given us And before It is certain when the mind is raised by this Faith that the pardon of sin Reconciliation and Imputation of Righteousness are given for the Merit of Christ himself And after By Faith is meant Affiance resting in the Son of God the Propitiator for whom we are received and please God and not for our virtues and fulfilling of the Law IX The Wittenberge Confession In Corp. Conf. pag. 104 A man is made Accepted of God and Reputed just before him for the Son of God our Lord Jesus Christ alone by Faith And at the Judgment of God we must not trust to the Merit of any of the Virtues which we have but to the sole Merit of our Lord Jesus Christ which is made ours by Faith And because at the bar of God where the case of true eternal Righteousness and Salvation will be pleaded there is no place for mans Merits but only for God's Mercy and the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ whom we receive by Faith therefore we think our Ancestors said rightly that we are justified before God by Faith only X. The Bohemian Confession making Justification the principal Article goeth the same way Pag. 183 184. By Christ men are Justified obtain Salvation and Remission of sin freely by Faith in Christ through mercy without
justified that is Righteous by that Imputation 3. And how unable is my weak Understanding to make his words at peace with themselves The same Man in the next lines saith Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat and all Justification before God must be legal or none so that no Man is justified but as reputed Innocent or a performer of the Law And yet Justification is our Absolution from the Punishment and Malediction of the Law As if he said No Man is justified but by the pardon of that sin which he is reputed never to have had and Absolution from that Curse and Punishment which he is reputed never to have deserved or been under Are these things reconcileable But if really he take Absolution for justifying or acquitting from a false Accusation and so to be absolved from the Malediction of the Law is to be reputed one that never deserved it or was under it then it 's as much as to say that there is no pardon of sin or that no Man that is pardoned or reputed to need a Pardon is justified 4. All this and such Speeches would perswade the Reader that this Learned Disputer thinketh that I took and use the word Legal generally as of that which is related to any Law in genere and so take Evangelical contrarily for that which is related to no Law whereas I over and over tell him that speaking in the usual Language that I may be understood I take Legal specially and not generally for that Righteousness which is related to the Law of Works or Innocency not as if we had indeed such a Righteousness as that Law will justifie us for But a pro-Legal-Righteousness one instead of it in and by our perfect Saviour which shall effectually save us from that Laws condemnation And that by Evangelical Righteousness I mean that which is related to the Law of Grace as the Rule of Judgment upon the just pleading whereof that Law will not condemn but justifie us If he knew this to be my meaning in my weak judgment he should not have written either as if he did not or as if he would perswade his Rsaders to the contrary For Truth is most congruously defended by Truth But if he knew it not I despair of becoming intelligible to him by any thing that I can write and I shall expect that this Reply be wholly lost to him and worse 5. His Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat is true and therefore no Man is justified by the Law But his next words praestitam omnes in Christo agnoscunt seemeth to mean that It was performed by us in Christ Or that It justifieth us because performed perfectly by Christ as such Which both are the things that we most confidently deny It was not Physically or Morally or Politically or Legally or Reputatively take which word you will fulfilled by us in Christ it doth not justifie us because it was fulfilled by Christ as such or immediately and eo nomine It justified Christ because he fulfilled it and so their Law doth all the perfect Angels But we did not personally fulfil it in Christ it never allowed vicarium obedientiae to fulfil it by our selves or another Therefore anothers Obedience merely as such even a Mediators is not our Obedience or Justification But that Obedience justifieth us as given us only in or to the effecting of our Personal Righteousness which consisteth in our right to Impunity and to God's Favour and Life freely given for Christ's Merits sake and in our performance of the Conditions of the Law of Grace or that free Gift which is therefore not a co-ordinate but a sub-ordinate Righteousness and Justification to qualifie us for the former This is so plain and necessary that if in sense it be not understood by all that are admitted to the Sacramental Communion excepting Verbal Controversies or Difficulties I doubt we are too lax in our admissions § 5. Next he tel's us of a threefold respect of Justification 1. Ex parte principii 2. Termini 3. Medii I find my self uncapeable of teaching him that is a Teacher of such as I and therefore presume not to tell him how to distinguish more congruously plainly and properly as to the terms And as to the Principle or Fountain whence it floweth that is Evangelical Grace in Christ he saith It is thus necessary that in our lapsed State all Justification be Evangelical Answ Who would desire a sharper or a softer a more dissenting or a more consenting Adversary Very good If then I mean it ex parte principii I offend him not by asserting Evangelical Righteousness The Controversie then will be only de nomine whether it be congruous thus to call it And really are his Names and Words put into our Creed and become so necessary as to be worthy of all the stress that he layeth on them and the calling up the Christian World to arrive by their Zeal against our Phrase Must the Church be awakened to rise up against all those that will say with Christ By thy words thou shalt be justified And with James By Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only and we are judged by the Law of Liberty and as Christ Joh. 5.22 The Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all Judgment to the Son and that shall recite the 25 th Chapter of Matthew Even now he said at once There is no Justification in foro Dei but Absolution c. The Law of the Spirit of Life hath freed us c. Here is no mention of any Justification but Legal And now All our Justification ex parte principii is only Evangelical So then no Text talks of Evangelical Justification or of Justification ex parte principii And Absolution which defineth it is named ex parte principii And yet all Justification is Evangelical Is this mode of Teaching worthy a Defence by a Theological War 2. But Reader Why may not I denominate Justification ex parte principii Righteousness is formally a Relation To justifie constitutively is to make Righteous To be Justified or Justification in sensu passivo is to be made Righteous And in foro to be judged Righteous And what meaneth he by Principium as to a Relation but that which other Men call the Fundamentum which is loco Efficientis or a remote efficient And whence can a Relation be more fitly named than from the fundamentum whence it hath its formal being Reader bear with my Error or correct it if I mistake I think that as our Righteousness is not all of one sort no more is the fundamentum 1. I think I have no Righteousness whose immediate fundamentum is my sinless Innocency or fulfilling the Law of Works or Innocency by my self or another and so I have no fundamentum of such 2. I hope I have a Righteousness consisting in my personal Right to Impunity and Life and that Jus or Right is mine by the Title of free Condonation and
a congruous way of disputing for Truth and Righteousness nor indeed is it tolerably ingenuous or modest If not then why doth he all along carry his professed agreement with me in a militant strain perswading his Reader that I savour of Socinianism or Popery or some dangerous Error by saying the very same that he saith O what thanks doth God's Church owe such contentious Disputers for supposed Orthodoxness that like noctambuli will rise in their sleep and cry Fire Fire or beat an Allarm on their Drums and cry out The Enemy The Enemy and will not let their Neighbours rest I have wearied my Readers with so oft repeating in my Writings upon such repeated importunities of others these following Assertions about Works 1. That we are never justified first or last by Works of Innocency 2. Nor by the Works of the Jewish Law which Paul pleadeth against 3. Nor by any Works of Merit in point of Commutative Justice or of distributive Governing Justice according to either of those Laws of Innocency or Jewish 4. Nor by any Works or Acts of Man which are set against or instead of the least part of God's Acts Christ's Merits or any of his part or honour 5. Nor are we at first justified by any Evangelical Works of Love Gratitude or Obedience to Christ as Works are distinguished from our first Faith and Repentance 6. Nor are we justified by Repentance as by an instrumental efficient Cause or as of the same receiving Nature with Faith except as Repentance signifieth our change from Vnbelief to Faith and so is Faith it self 7. Nor are we justified by Faith as by a mere Act or moral good Work 8. Nor yet as by a proper efficient Instrument of our Justification 9. Much less by such Works of Charity to Men as are without true love to God 10. And least of all by Popish bad Works called Good as Pilgrimages hurtful Austerities c. But if any Church-troubling Men will first call all Acts of Man's Soul by the name of WORKS and next will call no Act by the name of Justifying Faith but the belief of the Promise as some or the accepting of Christ's Righteousness given or imputed to us as in se our own as others or the Recumbency on this Righteousness as others or all these three Acts as others and if next they will say that this Faith justifieth us only as the proper Instrumental Cause And next that to look for Justification by any other Act of Man's Soul or by this Faith in any other respect is to trust to that Justification by Works which Paul confuteth and to fall from Grace I do detest such corrupting and abusing of the Scriptures and the Church of Christ And I assert as followeth 1. That the Faith which we are justified by doth as essentially contain our belief of the Truth of Christ's Person Office Death Resurrection Intercession c. as of the Promise of Imputation 2. And also our consent to Christ's Teaching Government Intercession as to Imputation 3. And our Acceptance of Pardon Spirit and promised Glory as well as Imputed Righteousness of Christ 4. Yea that it is essentially a Faith in God the Father and the Holy Ghost 5. That it hath in it essentially somewhat of Initial Love to God to Christ to Recovery to Glory that is of Volition and so of Desire 6. That it containeth all that Faith which is necessarily requisite at Baptism to that Covenant even a consenting-practical-belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and is our Christianity it self 7. That we are justified by this Faith as it is A moral Act of Man adapted to its proper Office made by our Redeemer the Condition of his Gift of Justification and so is the moral receptive aptitude of the Subject or the Dispositio materiae vel subjecti Recipientis Where the Matter of it is An adapted moral Act of Man by Grace The Ratio formalis of its Interest in our Justification is Conditio praestita speaking politically and Aptitudo vel Dispositio moralis Receptiva speaking logically which Dr. Twiss still calleth Causa dispositiva 8. That Repentance as it is a change of the Mind from Unbelief to Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost is this Faith denominated from its Terminus à quo principally 9. That we are continually justified by this Faith as continued as well as initially justified by its first Act. 10. That as this Faith includeth a consent to future Obedience that is Subjection so the performance of that consent in sincere Obedience is the Condition of our Justification as continued Secondarily as well as Faith or consent it self primarily And that thus James meaneth that we are Justified by Works 11. That God judging of all things truly as they are now judgeth Men just or unjust on these Terms 12. And his Law being Norma judicii now vertually judgeth us just on these terms 13. And that the Law of Grace being that which we are to be judged by we shall at the last Judgment also be judged and so justified thus far by or according to our sincere Love Obedience or Evangelical Works as the Condition of the Law or Covenant of free Grace which justifieth and glorifieth freely all that are thus Evangelically qualified by and for the Merits perfect Righteousness and Sacrifice of Christ which procured the Covenant or free Gift of Universal Conditional Justification and Adoption before and without any Works or Conditions done by Man whatsoever Reader Forgive me this troublesom oft repeating the state of the Controversie I meddle with no other If this be Justification by Works I am for it If this Doctor be against it he is against much of the Gospel If he be not he had better have kept his Bed than to have call'd us to Arms in his Dream when we have sadly warred so many Ages already about mere words For my part I think that such a short explication of our sense and rejection of ambiguities is fitter to end these quarrels than the long disputations of Confounders 4. But when be saith Works make not a Man just and yet we are at last justified according to them it is a contradiction or unsound For if he mean Works in the sence excluded by Paul we are not justified according to them viz. such as make or are thought to make the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt But if he take Works in the sense intended by James sincere Obedience is a secondary constitutive part of that inherent or adherent personal Righteousness required by the Law of Grace in subordination to Christ's Meritorious Righteousness And what Christian can deny this So far it maketh us Righteous as Faith doth initially And what is it to be justified according to our Works but to be judged so far as they are sincerely done to be such as have performed the secondary part of the Conditions of free-given Life 5. His According but not ex operibus at the
of a name of your own introduction for illustration If we were playing at a Game of Tropes I could tell you that the Healing of Mens Vnbelief is applicatory for the healing of their Guilt And the healing of Men's Ignorance Pride and Wrangling about words and frightning Men into a Conceit that it is about Life and Death is applicatory as to the healing of the Churches Wounds and Shame But I rather chuse to ask you Whether it was never heard that a particular subordinate personal Righteousness even Faith and Repentance was made by God the Condition of our Right to Pardon and Life by Christ's Righteousness Did you never teach your Sholars this in what words you thought best And yet even our Faith is a Fruit of Christ's Righteousness but nevertheless the Condition of other Fruits If you say that our Faith or Performance is not to be called Righteousness I refer you to my Answer to Mr. Cartwright And if the word Righteousness be not ofter ten to one used in Scripture for somewhat Personal than for Christ's Righteousness imputed then think that you have said something If you say But it justifieth not as a Righteousness but as an Instrument I Answer 1. I have said elsewhere so much of its Instrumentality that I am ashamed to repeat it 2. It justifieth not at all for that signifieth efficiency but only maketh us capable Recipients 3. We are justified by it as a medium and that is a Condition performed as aforesaid And when that Condition by a Law is made both a Duty and a Condition of Life the performance is by necessary resultancy a Righteousness But we are not justified by it as it is a Righteousness in genere nor as a mere moral Virtue or Obedience to the Law of Nature but as it is the performance of the Condition of the Law of Grace and so as it is this particular Righteousness and no other § 13. In Legal Justification saith he taken precisely either there is Remission of sin or not If not What Justification is that If yea then Evangelical Justification is not necessary to the application of it because the Application is supposed c. Answ 1. What I usually call Evangelical Righteousness he supposeth me to call Justification which yet is true and sound but such as is before explained 2. This is but the same again and needeth no new answer The performance of the Condition is strangely here supposed to follow the Right or Benefit of the Gift or Covenant If he would have the Reader think I said so he may as ingeniously tell that I deny all Justification If not what meaneth he CHAP. VII Dr. Tullies Quarrel about Imputation of Christ's Righteousness considered § 1. CAp. 8. pag. 79. he saith Because no Man out of Socinus School hath by his Dictates more sharply exagitated this Imputation of Righteousness than the Author of the Aphorisms and it is in all mens hands we think meet to bring into a clearer Light the things objected by him or more truly his Sophistical Cavils whence the fitter Prospect may be taken of almost the whole Controversie Answ That the Reader may see by what Weapons Theological Warriours wound the Churches Peace and profligate brotherly Love let him consider how many palpable Untruths are in these few Lines even in matter of Fact 1. Let him read Dr. Gell Mr. Thorndike and by his own confession the Papists a multitude of them and tell me true that No Man out of Socinus School hath c. To say nothing of many late Writings near us 2. If I have 1. never written one word against Imputation of Righteousness there or elsewhere 2. Yea have oft written for it 3. And if those very Pages be for it which he accuseth 4. Yea if there and elsewhere I write more for it than Olevian Vrsine Paraeus Scultetus Wendeline Piscator and all the rest of those great Divines who are for the Imputation only of the Passive Righteousness of Christ when I profess there and often to concur with Mr. Bradshaw Grotius and others that take in the Active also yea and the Habitual yea and Divine respectively as advancing the Merits of the Humane If all this be notoriously true what Epithets will you give to this Academical Doctors notorious Untruth 3. When that Book of Aphorisms was suspended or retracted between twenty and thirty years ago publickly because of many crude Passages and unapt Words and many Books since written by me purposely fully opening my mind of the same things all which he passeth wholly by save a late Epistle what credit is to be given to that Man's ingenuity who pretendeth that this being in all mens hands the answering it will so far clear all the Controversie § 2. Dr. T. He hence assaulteth the Sentence of the Reformed because it supposeth as he saith that we were in Christ at least legally before we believed or were born But what proof of the consequence doth he bring The rest are but his Reasons against the Consequences and his talk against me as pouring out Oracles c. Answ 1. Is this the mode of our present Academical Disputers To pass by the stating of the Controversie yea to silence the state of it as laid down by the Author whom he opposeth in that very place and more fully elsewhere often Reader the Author of the Aphorisms pag. 45. and forward distinguishing as Mr. Bradshaw doth of the several senses of Imputation and how Christ's Righteousness is made ours 1. Beginneth with their Opinion who hold That Christ did so obey in our stead as that in God's esteem and in point of Law we were in Christ dying and suffering and so in him we did both perfectly fulfil the Commands of the Law by Obedience and the Threatnings of it by bearing the Penalty and thus say they is Christ's Righteousness imputed to us viz. His Passive Righteousness for the pardon of our sins and deliverance from the Penalty His Active Righteousness for the making of us Righteous and giving us title to the Kingdom And some say the Habitual Righteousness of his Humane Nature instead of our own Habitual Righteousness Yea some add the Righteousness of the Divine Nature The second Opinion which he reciteth is this That God the Father accepteth the sufferings and merits of his Son as a valuable consideration on which he will wholly forgive and acquit the Offenders and receive them into his favour and give them the addition of a more excellent happiness so they will but receive his Son on the terms expressed in the Gospel And as distinct from theirs who would thus have the Passive Righteousness only imputed he professeth himself to hold with Bradshaw Grotius c. that the Active also is so imputed being Justitia Meriti as well as Personae and endeavoureth to prove it But not imputed in the first rigid sense as if God esteemed us to have been and done and suffered our selves in and by Christ and merited
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