unto life and a valid donation of it to the sinner The last is the ground of the former for man must be made just or God cannot reckon him so and acquit him in judgement The judgement of God is according to truth Now to this making a man just as there is this donation of God there must be mans receiving Christ is not ours though tendered or given until we receive him This receiving then which is our act that is faith it self God excites and make use of to this end He makes use of it I have accounted as his instrument of making Christ ours to this end he hath apppointed it for that he may accordingly reckon his righteousness to us unto the remission of sin and everlasting salvation Having told you this first I may make the bolder to tell you my more indifferent thoughts of farther years I do apprehend that the Apostles in their doctrine and the Primitive Christians had more simple and less intricate conceptions of things then we have and that their dispute then whether we are justifyed by faith or works in the most simple understanding of it contains no more than to shew us what is required of persons that they may be justified or what is that God hath made the condition on our parts of our justification St. Augustine I have said does teach us that faith does justifie us as the beginning and foundation unto grace and a good life and the Council of Trent with Bellarmine and the Papists after that Council stand upon this Faith justifies only as initium justificationis the beginning of justification But howsoever the Papists have made use of that Father the truth and light which he hath offered is not to be lost I do take this to be the most right and certain notion that faith does justify as initium and fundamentum I will not say justificationis seeing I understand not justification to be all one with sanctification as they do but as fundamentum conditionis The condition of our full final justification the Gospel offers is repentance and sincere obedience and faith is the initium and fundamentum of that condition Was not Abraham our Father justified by works when he had offered his Son Isaack sayes St. James The faith of Abraham or his believing God was the beginning and foundation of this excellent work the ready offering his Son which shewed his sincerity of life the condition of justification And the Scripture was fulfilled which faith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness Here believing offering Isaac are all one with S. James The Offering Isaack proceeded from believing as the initium and fundament ū of it and so believing as the initium of sincerity of life or sincere obedience does justifie Such a faith as produces good works which are sincere though imperfect or such good works as proceed from faith are but one and the same thing with the two Apostles and made by both the condition of our justification And here I should be willing to come off but the uniform judgement of the reformed Churches on the Article of Justification requires some regard There is therefore in the Schools a Quatenus specificative reduplicative I suppose when I have said that faith does justifie us as the foundation of the condition and so productive of the whole of it I have said well with S. Augustine as to the quatenus specificative and if I said nothing else it might be enough Nevertheless seeing it is but fit upon this account to speak yet a little more curiously I must needs say farther that I apprehend there is indeed something really in that which lyes in the concurring thoughts of our Divines that faith hath and must have a hand in our justification someway as no other of our works of acts have It is this I believe that God will pardon me if I repent and therefore I repent as my faith now makes me repent and perform the condition it justifies me as to a quatenus specificative but when I have repented and performed the condition the duties I have performed are imperfect and sinful and have need of mercy in point of law and it is my faith yet must go to God for his acceptance of them through Christ when I have done It is my faith let my say that must make up to me out of the mercy or grace of God for Christs sake what is wanting in that I have done to make it such as he may impute it to me for righteousness which else he could not And as faith procures me this or procures it thus we have the quatenus also reduplicative in the great question how faith justifies It is faith makes me perform the condition and then finds acceptance for it being done and as it does both it does specificative and reduplicative justifie the sinner By this it appears how faith hath an eye still to pardon according to the Protestant while it is opposed to works in the point of justification which is not only as respecting the pardon of all our sins upon the performing the condition but as respecting that pardon more especially which goes into the very accepting the condition performed for when there is imperfection still in our duty and yet he accepts it he must pardon also what he accepts And thus it is that the just man is said to live by faith in the most subtle conception The works which the just man does are his righteousness most certainly and that which justifies him but they are short and he could not live in them but that faith supplies as I speak out of Gods pardon and grace and consequently out of the Covenant for Christs sake what is wanting otherwise for acceptation unto life I do not say faith supplies this out of Christs merits as if his and our obedience were mingled to make up that one righteousness that justifies us but that it is our works which we perform our selves is the condition and through Christs merits both the imperfection is pardoned and they accepted according to covenant upon faith It is of faith sayes St. Paul that it might be of grace To be of works is to need to grace but to be of faith is to have such works as need to be pardoned even when they are accepted of God for Christs sake unto everlasting salvation When Augustine does tell us so often that faith justifies gratiam impetrando let us take grace in his and also in our acception and both together will compleat the notion Faith goes to God for his grace or help whereby we perform the condition and so justifies us Faith goes to God also for his grace or favour to pardon and accept what is done for Christs sake and so justifies us As it does impetrate grace or obtain his spirit for our duty and then impetrates grace or finds favour also for acceptance of it taken them both together and we understand fully
THE Middle-Way In One Paper of JUSTIFICATION With indifferency between PROTESTANT PAPIST By. J. H. Doing nothing by Partiality LONDON Printed for T. Parkhurst at the Three Bibles in Cheap-side 1672. Of Justification IT is a trouble to to me often in reading Polemical Divinity to see how men that walk in a vain shew to others and disquiet themselves in vain are governed by Prejudice and Party it is a hard thing many times and a man must be very witty and strain himself to pick a fault in his Adversary for matter of contention when a little pains only to understand him and the least candour or but a bare equality in the interpretation would bring him whether he would or no almost to reconciliation The truth is the Papists do abuse the Protestants and the Protestants abuse the Papists and that is the summe of most of our great Controversies I judge the like between Arminian and Calvinists and other Contenders If Luther hath said it or Calvin hath said it it must be Heretical and if the Council of Trent have delivered it or Bellarmine said so it must be dangerous it savours of the Harlot it is the abominable doctrine of the Church of Rome Amongst the many contests between this Church and us there are few which are carryed on with that affection and concernment as the dispute of Justification St. Paul was the first that engaged upon this point and not without some warmth against those that opposed him S. James is the next that hath spoken of this Subject The Primitive Church and the Fathers after them have accorded pretty well with both but the School-men as I take it by pressing some passages of the Fathers over-closely having obscured the grace of the Gospel our Protestant Churches have risen up as it were under the standard of St. Paul that is under his words and the Roman Church under the words of St. James and come out into a set Battel which serving only to raise up dust darkness and doubt among the most it is a conference I count between the Leaders I mean a plain understanding or adjustment only of the one united certain sense of both Apostles inspired by the same holy Spirit that will that must and does give light to the intelligent and impartial to uncloud the errors on each side and end the quarrel The word justify is from the word just and one may be said to be made or rendred just by infusion or by plea. Our Protestant Divines do all teach us that the word is a forensical term and is to be understood in opposition to condemnation for which they have good Scripture the Papists doe tell us that to justify a sinner is to make him righteous and understand by it in effect the same thing with sanctification St. Augustine it must be acknowledged hath lead them this way Gratificavit nos in dilecto gratificavit a gratia sicut justificavit a justitia De bono perseverantiae c. 6. Christus justificat impium faciendo ex impio Christianum Christ does justify the ungodly by making him of one that is wicked a holy man or a Christian Contra litteras Petiliani l. 3. c. 45. There is his book De spiritu littera where he hath the same up and from whence a man may pick out his judgment on this point rather then any where lese that I know I did expect to find more De fide operibus but I perceive it does mainly respect another matter we may see also his Book De libero arbitrio gratia The judgment then of this Father which leads the Schools in their disputes about these matters as to the main comes to this That God of his own goodness only or free will to wit according to Election does vouchsafe the holy Spirit to some Persons who does infuse his grace in their hearts which grace is that which disposes them to all righteousness and is the same according to him otherwhere with Charity which fulfils the law and so justifies us And in this sense does he tell us that Bona opera sequuntur justificatum non praecedunt justificandum that is Good works do follow the Person justified and do not go before justification The meaning whereof with him is that we must first have this grace infused which habitually enclines to our whole duty both unto God and to our Neighbour that is the making the ungodly a just man before he can do any thing that is good Pelagius doctrine was that grace is given according to our merits but St. Augustines doctrine is that grace is first given and good works follow When the Apostle then does tell us that we are justified by grace this Father I say understands by it this infused grace that is an habit of righteousness infused into the heart for fulfilling the law of God and so justifies Lex data est ut quaereretur gratia gratia data est ut lex impleretur The law is given that grace may be sought and grace is given that the law may be fulfilled De spir lit c. 19. In correspondence to this when the Apostle sayes we are justified by faith he tells us that it is by its impetration of this grace Impetrat orando he has it in another place Faith carries us to God when we cannot fulfill his commandements our selves and by the infusion of this habit he enables us to do it and thereby are we justified in his Opinion Quod operam lex minando imperat hoc fidei lex credendo impetrat Lege operum dicit Deus fac quod jubeo lege fidei dicitur Deo da quod jubes That which the law of works requires by threats the law of faith obtains by believing In the law of works God saies doe what I command in the law of faith we say to God give what thou commandest Ib. c. 12. Opus quod qui fecerit vivet in eo non fit nisi justificato justificatio autem ex fide impetratur The works which he that does shall live in them are not done but by the justified and justification is impetrated by faith c. 19. Lex non evacuatur sed statuitur per fidem quia fides impetrat gratiam qua lex impleatur The law is not made void but established by faith because faith fetches from God his grace whereby the law is fulfilled c. 30. Now when he accounts that this grace which makes us just or this infused grace is obtained by faith it is plain that he must account that good works do follow it Upon which there is a dfficulty might be proposed to this Father the spirit infuses this grace does faith then prhcede the spirit that infuses it or not If it doe then must our faith be of our selves when our good works are of his gift And this indeed was his judgment while he wrote this book though after he recalled it in others See particularly De gra lib. arb c.
righteousness of Christ that we are justified I cannot but think they are out likewise For if when Paul sayes we are not justified by works his meaning were not by our own works but by the obedience of Christ wrought for us then when James sayes we are justified by works his meaning must be by the works Christ did for us and he must not mean our own But this is absonant to any rational apprehension to construe St. James so Nor do I think such a meaning ever came into the heads of either of the Apostles Our Divines then should not say here of our works in general but as to the sense the Apostle speaks of them in general we are not justified them And what is that sense then in which he speak of works why he speaks of works in that sense most manifestly as the law require them that we may live in them Let a man then have the help of the spirit or be without it so long as he falls short of what the law requires at his hands be it never so little he cannot live by those works the curse is due to him for the least breach and that is contrary to justification There are some Divines of note therefore seeing no footing for this distinction have chose an other There are works of the Law say they and works of the Gospel When St. Paul sayes we are not justified by works he speaks expresly of works of the Law St. James is to be understood of the works of the Gospel This distinction may serve well provided it be cloathed with the sense of the Apostles When some have used these terms to signify no more but that we are not justifyed by Jewish observations but by the righteousness of the Gospel it falls too short in the first branch to do any thing But by the works of the law let them understand works which answer the law and that there are none justified by the works of the law because there is none perfectly fulfil it and they have hit the business For though Paul speaks not only of works by the law of innocency but directly and mostly of the works of the Jewish law which the Jews fancied ex sufficientia praestantialegis did as such procure pardon and life without looking to the merits of the Mediator for it and so erred yet the law of Moses consisting either in moral precepts that represented the law of Nature which no man can come up to and the most righteous of them did break or in the remedying commandements of sacrifices or attonements for sin whose virtue alone did lye in the blood of the Redeemer the ground and bottom of their errour which he confuteth does indeed lye herein that whatsoever it was they did or whatsoever they thought of it it did fall short of the law of works therefore did not justify them before God There are works then which if they be performed doe answer the law the law we are to mean ultimately as given to mankind in a Covenant by our creation and works which if performed do not answer the law but answer the Gospel If the distinction before-cited be received with this meaning it is true that Paul speaks of the works of the law and James of the works of the Gospel and that there is no man justified by the former because there is no man does or can perform them when we do perform the latter and are justified by them To give more light and weight to this There are works which if we be justified by them exclude grace and there are works which exclude not grace though we be justified by them The works of the law take them in this sense that answer the law if they be performed must make justification due so as it may be challenged according to the law the reward shall be of debt and there be no need of grace but justice in the case for he that doth them ought of right to live in them And these are the works undoubtedly that Paul disputes against while he proves justification to be of grace which is also agreeable to the end and scope the holy Ghost seems to have in it to wit he beating man down from all vain exaltation in himself and laying him at Gods feet for all he has Wherein it were not yet enough that what he hath is received seeing he would be even ready to boast of this that he hath received what others have not but that when he is enabled by God to perform that which he does even this which he hath received and is accepted is but such as God Almighty might choose whether he would accept it or not and if it were not for grace for all he hath done he could not yet be justified and saved On the contrary hand therefore the works of the Gospel that is the works which the Gospel requires of us as the condition of our justification and salvation such as faith repentance and new obedience when they are performed and answer the Gospel they do yet stand in need of grace because they do not answer the law and God might chuse whether he would accept them or no or make any promise to them When we repent it includes the acknowledgment of sin and when we believe it is a flying to Gods mercy for it and though we may walk sincerely before God we do not and cannot walk perfectly and he might condemn us is justice for the least failings and much more for our manifold transgressions If God then shews mercy and accepts of what we do it must be of his grace that he does it It is true that these works do justifie us but that is while we are judged at the bar of Gods grace or according to the new Covenant which is therefore called a Covenant of grace or the law of grace because that grace is no ways destroyed but confirmed by these works From whence it may appear that the two Apostles shall be so far from contradicting one another about this point as that what St. Paul contends for shall be made good by that which is said by St. James Paul sayes we are justified by grace and St. James proves it while he shews us that our works which are imperfect even such as Rahabs as well as Abrahams are accepted and rewarded as if they were perfect that is are imputed to us for righteousness which they could never be but for grace and that purchased through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus The third thing wherein St. Augustine mistakes is that which strewes the way to the Papists doctrine or justification by works and therefore it will be necessary before I come to it to advance here somthing out of this Father which offers us I think some light towards the fixing our own doctrine of justification by faith Per legem cognitio peccati per fidem impetratio gratiae contra peccatum per gratiam sanatio animi a vitio
peccati per animi sanitatem libertas arbitrii per liberum arbitrium justuia dilectio per justitiae dâ—lectionem legis impletio De spir lit c. 30. By the law we have the knowledg of sin by faith we impetrate Gods grace against sin by grace the soul is healed from corruption by that healing we have liberty of will by this liberty we come to love righteousness by the love of righteousness we perform or fulfil the law and so are justified Faith thâ—â— does justifie according to him as exordium hujus ad salutem connexionis so he expresses it c. 31. as the beginning work that brings on the rest which follow in this connexion or as the foundation link in this chain of our salvation That we may be sure of his judgment herein this must not go without some quotation from one of his latter books also Ex fide antem ideo dicit justificari hominem non ex operibus quia ipsa prima datur ex qua impetrentur caetera quae proprie opera nuncupantur in quibus juste vivitur The Apostle saith a man is justified by faith and not by works because it is faith that is first given from whence they follow or by which the grace of God to lead a holy life is obtained De praedestinatione sanctorum l. 1. c. 7. And unto this will I add the suffrage yet of a greater Authour the Son of Sirach Faith is the beginning of cleaving to God There may be here therefore two questions de fide Qua justificat and quâ justificat What faith it is that justifies us and how faith justifies us For the former it is agreed easily That faith which worketh by love as St. Paul speaks or that faith which is made perfect by works as St. James speaks and no other is that which justifies us There are some Divines make faith a complex thing to comprehend repentance and obedience under it Faith say they is the receiving Christ both as Saviour and Lord or the receiving him upon the terms of the Gospel and it is no wonder if they say faith alone justifies us when his faith alone is no less with them then the whole condition which the Gospel requires of us to our justification Others do distinguish faith repentance and obedience and say that it is not faith alone but repentance and new obedience also is required to justifie us And both these sorts of Divines say but the same thing in effect and agree in their meaning When the Scripture therefore sayes If thou believest thou shalt be saved or if thou repentest thou shalt be saved Bellarmine sayes such Texts must be understood with the supposition si caetera adhibeantur that is if that which is required also else where is supplied Thou shalt be saved if thou repentest provided thou also believest and if thou believest thou shalt be saved provided also thou repentest and walkest sincerely before God I mean provided thou resolves upon a changed upright life and if thou art not prevented bringest this resolution to practice there being no doubt but if a man dye before opportunity his consent to the Covenant is to be reckoned for obedience and baptisme alwayes washes away sins with the Fathers Non concluditur legitime saies a judicious Protestant Divine a positione unius disperati ad negationem alterius neque ab eo quod aliquot locis docetur ad negationem corum quae alibi asseruntur And this I take to be more after St. Austin and St. James who do both methinks make faith the initium fundamentum to use his words the foundation and entrance to obedience and good works and so to justifie us as it is productive of them We shall reconcile all I hope if we say only that faith indeed may be distinguished when not divided from our obedience in our justification That is in short faith is one thing and justifying faith is another and yet justifying faith retain the common nature still of faith Justifying faith I take it is such a believing of or trusting to Gods mercy that he will pardon our sins if we repent and walk sincerely before him which are the terms obtained for us through Christs redemption as produces that repentance and sincere walking It is such an assent to what God reveals as carryes the heart and life along with it I believe his promises to wit effectually when I so trust them as to do the things he requires of me to obtain them I believe his precepts when I keep them I believe his threats when I abstain from the evil he forbids to avoid them I believe the Gospel when I become Christs Disciple Credere is fidelis esse according to Salvian and to be faithful is to doe our duty Well done good and faithful servant For the latter I do not apprehend seriously if I may speak freely my thoughts to which very end do I write but that there is a great deal more stir and difference among Divines in this point of justification by faith then needs in late times If any man might meerly by his believing Christ dyed for him and hath carryed away all sin be justified and saved let him live as he list holding still but this perswasion there were something in our contending for justification by faith alone and a man would not be bereaved of the comfort of such a doctrine for the World But when we all agree that whether good works do justify or no good works in the resolution and practice if not prevented are necessary some way or other so that no man living ever was or can be justified that is destitute of them I doubt me verily our contention in this matter is rather curious then profitable in shewing how faith without works but not a faith which is without works at least in the will and intention does justify I know our Divines against in the Papists contend that faith justifies in sensu correlativo or in regard of the object so as to be justified by Christs blood and by faith is all one that is by faith in his blood The righteousness of Christ imputed is the formal say some or as others had rather say the material cause of our justification and faith justifies as an instrument For my own part I will tell you therefore what I have sometimes set down for truth in my contending belief and what I think in my cold practical conceit of the point As for my former thoughts I have some times pitched them thus Justifying faith is the receiving act of a working habit as hath the other act too to out forth upon trial or else it is but a dead faith Now this faith I have counted justifies as an instrument not mans who doeth not justify himself but Gods instrument though mans act This I have made out to my self thus Unto justification there goes two things the imputation of Christs righteousness for the discharge of sin and accepting us
how we are justified by Faith As our trusting to a good man does naturally draw out win or procure his assistance which yet is free and not of debt so does our trusting in God for acceptance when it hath first been effectual upon us to the performing our part to that end procure the same from him to our justification Let us take heed of making faith a single act as it does specificative and a complex act as it does reduplicative justifie the believer These are two extreams I think and to be thus composed And so you have my poor thoughts at full upon this vexed question I come then to the third thing wherein the Father is out and that is in his notion of justification it self which is the making us just by infusion This the Papists have so improved as in effect to exclude pardon from it For while they place the work of justification in the abolishing of all sin in the baptized and justified so that there remains no longer any thing that is peccatum but fomes peccati only they do I must say in effect put us to dispute with them whether there by any remission of sins at all seeing the wicked are not pardoned and the justified have their sins so done away by this infused grace as to have none and from hence does there spring their doctrine of merit and perfection which the controversie of justification by works does carry along with it Now I doubt not but the truth here as it doth every where is suffering between two theives That there is no merit or perfection I am convinced and that our works do not merit because they are not perfect but that we are justified by works as we are by faith St. James his words must goe as well as St. Pauls and both must stand good because faith justifies only as productive of works Justification indeed is by works but not meritorious works by works which make reward to be of debt so the Apostles are before reconciled There are two questions then may adjust this great matter between Us and the Papists or unto which the issue of our disputes on this point may be reduced In the one they have the advantage of us in the other we have the better of them The lover of truth must be humbly hardned to follow its footsteps wheresoever he finds them whither on the one side or the other The first question is whether the righteousness we perform our selves or that Christ performed for us be the matter of our justification and I say the faith repentance new obedience which the Christian through divine aid performes himself is accepted with God for Christs sake unto pardon of sin and eternal life It is true the obedience of Christ wrought for us does justifie us suo genere by meriting the pardoning justifying Covenant which is the donative instrument of pardon and life But if the question be askt whether we have performed that which this instrument requires as conditio tituli it must be our own faith and repentance here that is the matter of our righteousness A man may be just in respect to the law of innocency which no man but Christ ever was or in respect to the law of grace which all are and must be that are saved Again a man may be just in respect to the perceptive part of a law or the retributive part It is Christs righteousness and sacrifice alone that justifies Us in regard of the one but not so in regard of the other yet is it that alone which is the meritorious cause both of the acceptation of what we do and freedom from the Laws condemnation The second question is whether salvation then and justification is not according to our merits And I answer as the Scripture is cleer and full from one end to the other for the affirmative in the former question so is the Apostle Paul as full and cleer and positive as can be for the negative in the latter What is it indeed he beats upon but this altogether that there are no works in the earth Christs excepted that do merit and that justification and salvation therefore are of grace Not of works but of grace What is that in the sense and meaning but as much as if he should have said it in express terms not of merit but of grace or not of works that are meritorious and would make the reward to be of debt but of such works that though they be rewarded it is of grace and more then in justice according to the law God needed to have done For this is the meaning of the Apostle in excluding of merit There is a paternal government according to the law of grace wherein the denyal of a reward due to our works were to overthrow all religion A good child by his filial behaviour merits love and benefits We dispute not unless de nomine only against such a merit as this But as to a merit in Gods strict distributive justice according to the law of works or any other justice which should make our works to be meritorious ex condigno non solum ratione pacti acceptationis sed ratione operis as Bellarmine with the Papists does speak St. Paul is full in the deny l. It is nothing else certainly but the misapprehension of the word grace in St. Austin received by the Church of Rome from him that could have blinded them so in this point I have shown his mistake in this term and in those of works and grace and have and do here give you the right sense of each according to the Apostle The certain truth is this God gave a law to man according to his creation and if he had performed that or any of us could perform that then should he as Creator and Rector be engaged to reward the performance according to this law so that the reward should be of right but seeing man is fallen and no Person on earth does or can perform that law there are no works on earth that do properly merit or no man on earth that can be justified if he have only his desert by his works This is undoubtedly the very entendment of the Apostle That all boasting and merit may be excluded from the world while it is proved that no mortal is justified or saved but by grace And what need further conviction in this matter we have the Papists own words and general confessions that they are all sinners and that it is through Christs merits that they merit If they are sinners then have they not these works that are meritorious but it must be of mercy that they are not condemned and if it be through Christs merits that they merit then is the reward not for the work sake but for his And what is it that Christ hath merited that they should merit It must come to this that Christ by what he hath done for us hath merited or procured this grace or favour from
God that he should accept of our imperfect performances which could not else be accepted to salvation Of this grace he hath made and promulgated the promise Upon the promise the reward becomes due A reward upon promise the condition being performed becomes debt And thus if the Papists say their good works merit the use of the word is common with the Antients Well then let me recount this back to them their good works merit that is only they make the reward due from God They make it due from him that is only because of his promise Debet sibi non tibi sayes the Father This promise is only of grace or made freely out of favour procured by Christ Our good works then must have such a merit attributed to them as makes the reward due only of grace and for Christs sake and not such as makes it due of right or justice and for the works sake And such a merit what is it indeed but no merit or but a word only It is such a merit as our perfect works which answer the law would have if we did them to make the reward to be so of debt as not to be of grace that we dispute against and the Apostle in this doctrine of justification To return to Augustines errour Justification I verily believe is to be taken in the Protestants notion who do no less truly and judiciously then industriously distinguish sanctification and justification and when they place the one in the work of the spirit renewing the whole man and enabling us to dye unto sin and live unto God do place the other in an act of Gods grace whereby he pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous for Christs sake As for what they add usually in the definition that Christs righteousness is imputed to us and made ours by faith as an instrument I must confess they are notions which as they never came into the head of St. Austine nor were received I suppose in the Church till within a century or two of years since so do I question whether a Century or two more may not wear them quite away again That the righteousness of Christ performed in the whole course of his life and death was so pleasing acceptable and satisfactory â—o God that the whole World upon that account or for the merit of it stands reconciled to him so far as that he hath vouchsafed a universal conditional pardon or law of grace to all mankind according to the tenour of the Gospel and consequently that every Person who truly repents and believes are made partakers thereof in regard of this benefit or in the effect is a truth which we embrace but when this very phrase of the imputation of Christs righteousness is not found in the Scripture and the terms are used constantly in such a sense as if we were to be taken for perfectly righteous in Christs obedience and to have satisfied the law in his sufferings all one as if our selves had performed the same that is as if it were ours in it self and not only in the benefit or as to the end or intent Christ performes it for us it is a conception of such another extream to that of St. Augustines as requires also our equal rectification It is manifest through the Scripture that good works holy duties and performances of men and women are accepted of God and so accepted that they are rewarded by him with eternal Salvation If thou wilt have life keep the commandements To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory eternal life I have fought the good fight therefoâ—e is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness Come ye blessed of my Father for when I was a hungry ye fed me If then the keeping the Commandements a patient continuance in well doing the fighting the good fight and our works of charity be produced in judgment as that for which we are declared righteous absolved and pronounced blessed It must be in some sounder then the ordinary sense that our Divines bring in the righteousness of Christ to be imputed to us for our justification which if it be more then absolution from sin and acceptation of us to eternal life let it be weighed and judged In Ezekiel the Lord is speaking of the righteous man and repenting sinner When the righteous turneth from his righteousness and committeth iniquity shall he live his righteousness shall not be mentioned but in his sin which he hath sinned he shall dye Again If the Wicked turn from his sinnes and does that which is right all his transgressions which he hath committed shall not be mentioned in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live It is apparent from hence that there is a righteousness which is a mans own a righteousness which he hath done wherein the righteous man that continues in it or the penitent sinner that turns to it shall live To live in a mans righteousness beyond doubt is all one to be justified by it He that doth them faith the law shall live in them that is shall be justified by them If you make a question there is another Text must convince you The just man shall live by his faith What is it to live by our faith that you will not deny is to be justified by it for the Apostle alleadges this Scripture to prove justification by Faith Well! There is no man of reason now can imagine that the righteousness which is here spoken of is Christs righteousness and yet the righteousness which is here is that a man shall live in It follows that it is not therefore the righteousness of Christ from without imputed but the righteousness which man himself does through Christ indeed and his spirit assisting whereby he must be justified and saved It is by his faith that he shall live in one Prophet and by his righteousness which he hath done in another Put them together and they come to one as they must doe and that is by the righteousness of faith to wit by that righteousness of life or holy working which faith produces in a godly mans conversation and which God requires every where as the condition of the forgiveness of his sins and the acceptation of him to life everlasting It is observed by Arminius that the Apostle does several times in one Chapter I forget the number tell us that faith is imputed for righteousness That Abrahams was that ours shall or is again and again But it is no where said that Christs righteousness is imputed to us for righteousness Indeed the phrase could not be so used We might say properly enough supposing it true in the common construction that Christs righteousness were imputed but not imputed for righteousness For to be imputed for righteousness is to stand one in stead of perfect righteousness which cannot be said of Christs seeing that it self was most perfect A thing cannot be accounted instead of that which it is This Argument now
holyness of life though they have bin holy men that have received it It is on the hearts I find of several Persons and sorts of Persons disagreeing otherwise in their way the providence of the Almighty who is the Authour being the Conductor of all truth to its proper use and end to shew themselves against it and to advance this tenent if I may offer the determination to the contrary That the justification of a sinner is not by the imputation of Christs righteousness made his in it self by faith as an instrument but by the righteousness of faith to wit by Christs righteousness as the meritorious cause and his faith and resolution first and sincere obedience added after as the condition of pardon and life through him or by our sincere obedience proceeding from faith which being in it self but imperfect as to the Law is imputed for righteousness to the sinner for Christs merits sake through the grace of the Gospel But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested having witness of the Law and the Prophets Si ergo nunc manifestata est etiam tunc erat sed occulia If it be now manifested t must have bin before lying hid Aug. de peccato originali cont Pel Cel. c. 25. Et tunc ergo ista gratia mediatoris erat in populo Dei sed tanquam in vellere pluvia And then was there this grace of the Mediator among Gods people as the rain in the fleece that is though unseen or not understood Ib. I observe here that the righteousness of God and the grace of the Mediator is rightly made by this Father to be one We are said to be justified by grace and not by works so by the righteousness which is of God and not of works What then is that righteousness of God which is the grace of Christ and by which we are justified By this grace and righteousness it is certain that Austine understands inherent grace which is a quality infused by the Spirit in our hearts enabling us to good works and that this way do the Papists go after him according to what also is said before Istam quippe gratiam qua justificamur id est qua Charitas Dei diffunditur in cordibus nostris De gratia Christi c. 30. that is grace whereby we are justified is no other but the love of God shed abroad in our hearts or the grace of Charity whereby faith is made perfect and so justifies as they and he agree Now this grace is opposed to works and called the righteousness which is of God and not of works according to them which hath been said before likewise because it is that which is given or infused of God and not wrought by our own strength or procured by our deserts Justitia ex lege dicitur quae fit propter legis mandatum justitia ex Deo dicitur quae datur per gratiae beneficium Ib. c. 12. That is said to be the righteousness of the law or of works which is done through the strength of our selves only upon the command that is the righteousness of God which we are helpt to do by the benefit of grace Again Non dicitur justitia nostra sed Dei quia sic sit nostrum ut nobis ex Deo It is not said our righteousness but the righteousness of God because it is ours so as to be first given of God In the same Chapter and Book The truth is this Father being possessed with his own dispute as it is incidental to the mind to fashion all things according to the impressions it hath received does frame such a meaning still in the words of the Apostle as if Paul as well as he were purposely writing against Pelagius There are three things in the soul said that learned Person Posse Velle Esse Possibilitas Voluntas Actio as Austine expresses it the Power the Will and the Deed. The grace of God he accounted was conversant only about the Power and not the Will or the Action Not that he placed all grace only in the giving the power for that must confound Grace and Nature indeed quite seeing all have the power but allowing grace to lye in divine help the power alone he held was aided by God and the will left to its self This aid now in explaining himself he confined to Doctrine God he said does reveal what he would have done in his law and in the gospel and gives us besides Christs example and then the will of it self the power alone thus helped embraces that which is good St. Augustine therefore sets himself to prove that God does not assist us only by his word but by operating on the will and giving us hearts also to do it And for as much we do nothing of our selves but by his help or by the operation of his spirit it is by grace sayes he that we are justified and not by works Quomodo est gratia si non gratis data quomodo est gratia si ex debito redditur How is it grace if it be not of free gift How is it grace if it be rendred as debt De gra Chr. c. 23. Again Non enim Dei gratia erit ullo modo nisi gratuita fuerit omni mode It cannot be the grace of God at all if it be not free altogether De pec or c. 24. One would think this Father in such speeches as these had imbibed the Protestant notion of grace but we are mistaken for his thoughts still ran upon the Grace of God infused in our hearts that is the inherent work of the spirit which he pleads to be gratuitous because it is not at first given for our merits The works which we do of our selves without grace he accounts merits nothing but are splendid sinnes the works which we do from grace or by the spirit do justifie according to him and merit eternal salvation Quod si vocatus vocantem secutus fuerit quod est in libero arbitrio merebitur spiritum sanctum per quem bona possit operari in quo permanens quod niholominus est in libero arbitrio merebitur vitam aeternam quae nulla possit labi corrumpi But if he that is called shall follow his call which is in our free will he shall merit the holy Ghost by whose help good works may be performed wherein if he perseveres which is no less in his power he shall merit eternal life which is perfect and never fadeth away In lib. ex pos ad Romanos The Protestant meeting with this doctrine in the Papist are no wayes satisfied with such an interpretation By the Righteousness of God therefore as by the grace of God opposed to works they will by all means conceive of a righteousness without us that is the righteousness of Christ which is not ours by performance but by faith But neither the Protestants after Luther nor the Papist after Austine have bit the mind of the Apostle
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