Legal Person as such a Surety and therefore upon the same Reasons not to be admitted Besides to have lhe Debt paid is one thing and Satisfaction only made is another Solutio ejusdem and redditio equivalentis aliter indebiti are two things with Scotus and inconsistent with one another Cum alius soluit you know Grotius aliud soluitur Moreover the Term Surety is but once read but the Word Mediator several times and that which is more frequent must give the Construction to the other Christ's Suretiship is a Mediatory Suretiship or a Surety-Mediatorship and what he did and suffered for us was not therefore strictly done in our Persons but in the Person of a Mediator and that not by Way of Payment but by Way of Satisfaction in Order to the obtaining our Reconciliation with God from whence it is that of the new Covenant he is said to be Surety and Mediator as thereby procuring it for us So in my Pacif. p. 15. And yet there is this one thing more the most undeniable to wit that in whatsoever Sense he was our Surety it must be such as is agreeable to the general Doctrine of the Scripture so as to cross nothing of that it hath taught Now that Christ hath redeemed all Mankind according to the Churches Catechism that he hath dyed for all 2 Cor. 5.14 for every Man Heb. 9.12 for the whole World 2 Cor. 5.19 1 John 2.2 is certain Scripture and there must be some Sense wherein it is to be admitted of all Hands In that Sense therefore or in such a Sense as is consistent with the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation to all Men that is with this Doctrine must the Suretiship of Christ be understood and received and in any other Sense not consistent with this Grace of God or this Doctrine it is to be Refused as contrary to the Gospel and all good Reason Thus much being said as to the Matter as well as to the Phrase of Commutation of Persons I will for Peace sake yield to you and I will yield to Mr. Rebuke both I yield to you that you are in the Right as to the Phrase and I will say as much for it you shall presently see as can be and I yield to him that he is in the Right as to the substantial Sense and therefore do I proceed There are three Constructions may be made of this Commutation of Persons One is that Christ taking on him our Nature hath dyed to satisfie the Justice of God in behalf of us as the Sacrifices of Old and the Commutation of Persons in this Sense must be understood thus that whereas Christ was an Innocent Person and so not liable to Suffering and we were Sinners and obnoxious Christ here comes in the room of the Obnoxious and suffers putting us in the room of him that was not obnoxious and not lyable to escape upon the Terms of the Gospel This Construction in short comes to this Christ suffers that we might not suffer and this is the true and only Construction I think of this Commutation of Persons that is to be admitted both according to Grotius and Bishop Stillingfleet whom you quote for your Authority in this Matter Another Construction may be this The Lord Christ did suffer the Law according to you that we may be freed from Punishment and Christ obey'd the Law that we might have right to Heaven This I suppose You as representing the Independent Brethren do hold and there is now this Commutation of Persons here that God does look on what Christ suffered and did for us as done by Christ in our Persons and on what he did and suffered for us to be done by us in his Person or more short that in what Christ did and suffered God looks on it as done by Christ in Our Person and by us in Christs Person Here is a Change of Persons who can gain say it Especially if it be added as you must hold that without this we could not have and by this we therefore have Deliverance from Wrath and Right to Salvation If Christ's Righteousness be not ours you may urge it cannot justifie us and if it be ours it can be ours in good earnest in Law-sense no otherwise This is high but there is a Third Construction goes farther which is that as Christ stood in our Room and put on our Person to suffer for us so we are put into his Room to be Righteous for us or put on his Person to stand before God for Justification and Life Both these Constructions whatsoever is made of them are too much and to be discarded upon the account of our Reasons already mentioned and yet more There is no such Commutation warrantable but there are Texts wrested to this Sense which must have another Interpretation There is neither of them but makes us justifiable by the Law which subverts the Gospel There is neither of them but makes his Righteousness to justifie us formaliter or to be the formal Cause of our Justification This being therefore a fundamental Mistake of the Protestant and the first of these Constructions being the only true Construction it is fit I should make Answer to all that seems weighty in both the other and do say that when Christ hath suffered for us and obeyed the Law for us which others wont say but I do that is not bono nostro only but loco nostro in this Sense that by his Sufferings we are freed from Suffering not Castigatory Punishments but of the Curse of the Law and by his Obedience we are freed from that perfect obeying the Law required as the Condition of Life though not from obeying the Gospel which requires Faith and Repentance and good Works in Sincerity in the room thereof and hath not obeyed the Law for us or in our stead otherwise the Righteousness of Christ consisting of both his Sufferings and Obedience is imputed to us and made ours though not in se yet in the Effects so that upon the account of his Righteousness or for his Sake we are justified This being said I have two things to Answer one is in regard to your Phrase as Mr. Rebuke calls it the other is in regard to the Matter For your Phrase Christ's suffering in our Person may be understood so as when we deserved to die he died in our rooms that we might not suffer but be free from it according to the first construction Or so as that Good looks upon us to have suffered in him as what our Attorney doth we are in Law accounted our selves to have done according to the other Constructions In the first sense if you please these Terms may be used but not in the other There are sundry Reasons intimated already for it but this more especially here at this time because it is contradictory to the first If Christ hath suffered that we might not suffer then hath he not suffered that God might look on us as if we had
suffered To suffer that we might not suffer and to suffer that we may be accounted to have suffered is a contradiction For the Matter I deny not but hold That it is through Christ's Righteousness we are justified yet that Faith and Repentance are not only required as the Condition but when the Condition is performed it is our Gospel-Righteousness so that though it be Christ's Righteousness is that propter quod it is the Righteousness of Faith is that per quod we are justified There is therefore here a double Righteousness and twofold Concurrence to be distinguished and received The double Righteousness is the Righteousness of Christ and Righteousness of Faith the double Concurrence is a Concurrence per modum meriti or per modum causae formalis Now the Righteousness of Christ I must affirm concurs per modum meriti and the Righteousness of Faith per modum Causae formalis to our Justification This is the Doctrine which in opposition both to the Papists and the Absurdity brought into it by the Protestants I do maintain as you see in my late Book and may see farther The Papists say That Justification is by the infusion of Inherent Grace and that Inherent Grace therefore is the Form or Formal Cause of Justification The Protestants in opposition to them say That it is by the Righteousness of Christ we are justified and that it is Christ's Righteousness imputed is the Formal Cause of it I say it is by neither of these but by the Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel in opposition to Works which is God's Gracious Condescention in his accepting of our Faith and imperfect Obedience through the Satisfaction and Merit of Christ unto Life that we be justified and that it is Faith imputed for Righteousness is the Form or Formal Cause of our Justification It is not then I say the infusion of Faith and Grace into us which distinguishes it from the Papists but it is the imputing that Faith and Grace infused which distinguishes it from the common Protestant for Righteousness that is our formal Justification Alas Mr. Report What an absurd thing was it at first to the Papists that the Protestants should hold That a Sinner was made or accounted Righteous without a Righteousness or by another's Righteousness whieh is all one as to be Learned with another's Learning or Holy by another's Holiness Now let me tell you in good earnest which perhaps you have never throughly reflected upon that the same Absurdity remains if we say That we are Formaliter made Righteous or Formaliter Justified by Christ's Righteousness which our former Divines having taught we must now leave them And one thing more which I am more sure you never thought on I will tell you That the Doctrine which I substitute in the room of this is that I conjecture which was indeed the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Luther as appears by his words and those of his immediate Followers I have quoted in my Book pag. 10. and 20. Justification with them consists in two things Faith in the Heart or inchoate Obedience and God's Imputation Our Faith and inchoate Grace being imperfect and so no Righteousness according to the Law God does for the sake of Christ or through his Satisfaction and Merits accept of it so as by his Gospel Law to impute constitute and allow it to us for Righteousness and thereby give us Right to Impunity and Salvation This first true notion not sufficiently digested by Luther others seeking to advance through the interpreting it by an application of Christ's Righteousness to the Believer's Person instead of applying it to his Performance came to pervert it and our former Divines took it up and stood upon it so much against the Papists that Bellermine accounts the Difference with the Protestants about Jâ—stification to be as nothing besides and yet is this term Form or Formal Cause so much out of use of late in our present Divinity that many of our Brethren being not sensible of their grand importance as to the Negation of the Doctrine so held and of the Absurdity in the root they do retain the Sense without the Words or at least maintain so much of it as the rest does follow and yet do so seriously fall upon them that own the Consequences that I cannot wonder if you and that Brother of yours that have undertaken the cause should have such a kind of Spirit rais'd in you as was in Elihu when he was angry with Job's Friends who were ready to accuse him when they had nothing they could say without blame in themselves Then was kindled the Wrath of Elihu the Son of Barachael against Job and against his three Friends was his Wrath kindled because they had found no answer and yet had condemned Job There is one thing I will say therefore of that Brother of yours which is more kind perhaps than others will which is That in that Language of his which is so harsh and in that Matter as quoted by others which is so broad that they are beyond enduring yet do I apprehend methinks a Zeal in the one and an Integrity in the other A Zeal in that Heat and Wrath he hath against any that shall gainsay a Doctrine which he hath imbibed from his Youth and places his Salvation upon and a sincerity in that he being a rational Man and seeing more deeply than others into the Consequences of it he scorns to baulk any of them and so is broad when others shift which he I perceive abominates And this does prompt me therefore to say something in regard to you and him and that Presbyterian Brother you both have writ against In general I would ask all three Whether before reading this you had come to any such Consideration of this Matter that if I had ask'd you the Question What is the Form or Formal Cause of Justification you would have given me a fix'd Answer to it I do suppose you would acknowledge you had not nor thought it so material to know But you and some greater Men than you are out there The Form of a Thing is that by which the Thing is that which it is If you know not the Form of Justification you know not what Justification is and when it may be known and you don't know it How can you tell as another that does what is right or wrong that you say about it The Form does Dare the Nomen and the Esse as it gives the Being it denominates the Thing Justificatus accordingly hath his Form passively denominating him so from Justitia and that Righteousness which makes and denominates us Righteous must be the Form of our Justification Now what that Righteousness is I have here and in my Book discoursed and told it you as to my Opinion and that of the common Protestant And as for you then and your Reverend Brother who have I suppose taken up the Protestant Doctrine as formerly received without questioning whether
Christ's Person in our room in Suffering for us that we may be freed from the Punishment yet does he not understand it so as that Christ did undergo the very same Punishment as due to us by the Law and consequently your Argument failes you but that it was an Equivalent to it That it was not the Idem but the Tantundem That it was Satisfaction not Payment That which Grotius vindicates is Christs Satisfaction and if Christ had paid the very Debt it would destroy Satisfaction The Law was not executed on our Surety nor on Us but Christ satisfied the Lawgiver not the Law that it might not be executed and seeing he did so he did it not therefore that God should look on us as if we had our selves been punished The Punishment the Law threatned was on the Person that sinned Noxa caput sequitur But when Sinless Christ suffers as that is not the Person so that is not the Thing which is in the Threat but while alius soluit aliud soluitur as Grotius before has it The Punishment threatned by the Law includes a Deprivation of Gods Favour as well as Pain but Christ was not capable of that nor of Etarnal Wrath. Besides it is not this Law that could lay any Obligation of Suffering on Christ that was not Obnoxious but his Obligation arose from the Law proper to him the Law of our Redemption and his voluntary undertaking to make God Satisfaction It was not ex delicto but ex contractu as you know our Divines say And consequently it was an Obligation not our Obligation to the Punishment he took on him If the very Debt we owed had been paid by us or our Surety then could there have been no Pardon Punishment and Pardon are contraries If a Man be punished or suffers the Law in himself or Substituto he is not Pardoned If he be pardoned he is not punished This Suffering of Christ then for us must not be the same as the Law inflicts but an Equivalent and such as God might have refused to take which makes it Satisfaction not Payment and us capable of Pardon This Doctrine of Pardon upon Satisfaction is the sound Doctrine propugned by Grotius Thus much then for your Doctrine now for Mr. Williams who agrees so much with me Our Doctrine is this that Christ's Obeying and Suffering in our stead admits of two Senses 1. So in our Stead as that God exacteth not from us that doing or suffering yet gives us the Benefit of it 2. So in our Stead as that we are legally reputed to do and suffer what Christ did as one Civil Person with him In the first Sense that Christ obeyed the Law and suffered in our stead we all agree In the second Sense I and Mr. Williams deny it and you hold it Here then may you argue and I argue That which you may argue is If according to us Christ obeyed and suffered not in our stead so as to be one legal Person with us then cannot what he did and suffered be legally Ours and then cannot his Righteousness be imputed to us in se but in the Effects only But Mr. Williams says Besides the Effects the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to Believers This Mr. Williams must Answer That which I argue is If according to you Christ did obey and suffer in our Stead as one Civil or Legal Person with us then as we have his Righteousness to Justifie us we must have it to Redeem us He that is made of God our Righteousness is made our Redemption But we have it not it is not ours to Redeem us and therefore not to Justifie us or therefore it is not it cannot be in se imputed to us for our Justification This you must Answer For my part now I suppose neither of you can but that you must come off And if so not you to him or he to you but both to me or to that Third way I have proposed and do yet propose to your farther Considerations That the Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel is that Righteousness which Justifies us there is none do Question but what this Righteousness is is the Question But now is the Righteousness of God without the Law made manifest It cannot be Christs Righteousness for this is a Righteousness with the Law a perfect Conformity to the whole Law when this is an inchoate imperfect Righteousness that according to the Law is none but made a Righteousness by the Gospel In another Place the Apostle has it the Righteousness of God in him in or through Christ and therefore not his But how of God If not that of Christ who is God No for God and Christ there are two But of Gods Ordination because this is the Way or Method of becoming Righteous that God hath ordained Vnder the Gospel as Mr. Clark expresses it though I should rather say According to the Gospel for no doubt this Righteousness was under the Law and ever in the World or else no Man could have been saved The Apostle therefore after he hath said without the Law does yet adde being witnessed by the Law and Prophets And what Righteousness is that which hath this Witness There never was Man under the Law I am perswaded that thought he was Righteous by anothers Righteousness or that the Obedience of the Life and Death of the Messiah to come was imputed to him as his Righteousness whereby God held him and dealt with him as a Righteous Person What Man of free Thought can believe that But if by the Righteousness of God we understand his Grace and Condescension to every sincere Person that walked uprightly before him in accepting them to Life notwithstanding their failings when yet they knew not upon what account it was as we under the Gospel This without Question we have every where witnessed in the Old Testament There is no Place where any Pious Soul applies it self to God for his Favour with Faith or Trust in his Goodness or Mercy when yet he knew that if God should deal with him in Severity he could not by the Law be justified but that Place is a most evident witness of this Righteousness That Place which speaks of the Word to be Nigh them and in their Heart which is the Word of Faith says the Apostle does witness it Any Place or Places where God Promises to write the Law in their Hearts or give them a new Heart or put a Fear or Love in their Heart if to the end that they may be saved Any Place or Places where it is said of the Righteous that they shall Live in their Righteousness And that Place which says the Righteous shall Live by Faith do all witness to this Righteousness of God which otherwhere is express'd the Righteousness which is of God by Faith and the Righteousness of Faith Faith it self which is sound and Works by Love that is all one with Evangelical Obedience being that which for Christ's sake God
so long as any such Term Word or Phrase was like to tend to the procuring Peace he is free to let you make as much of it as you could but when he sees it not conducive to the end but the contrary he is free to speak out himself and make as little of it If they were Words of Scripture he would captivare intellectum to some right Construction of them but when they are only Terms of Men he will be no Slave to any but use them or leave them as Good or Evil is like to come of them But to go on Mr. Rebuke tells us that there is neither in the Assemblies nor any Confession of the Reformed Churches any such Phrase to be found and I take it upon trust from him because Grotius himself has not this Phrase full out who says indeed there is a Commutatio a subrogatio a substitutio these Words he uses of Christs Person in our room as to his Sufferings for us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vice nostra in our stead as the Sacrifice died in the stead of the Sinner that Sacrificed it but a Commutation of Persons full out he has not nor any authority from the Ancients any farther than thus Deus pro animabus omnium dedit Commutationem pretiosum sanguinem filii sui which is Origen Dominus noster Jesus Christus communicando nobiscum sine culpa poenam culpam solvit poenam which is Augustine There is not a Quotation of his else hath any touch of such a Phrase and who shall come after Grotius to look for any thing he hath mist I close therefore here with this Reverend Brother This Phrase says he of Christ's taking on him the Person of Sinners does signifie more or less than Christ's taking on him our Sins and suffering for them in our place or stead or it does signifie neither more nor less but is just commensurate with it If you make it signifie less then it limits and narrows the end of Christ's Suffering and will be a sense only serving the turn of the Socinian If you make it signifie more than that it leads to Antinomianism If it signifies or be made to signifie neither more nor less I embrace it with all my Heart This Gentleman does still speak wittily but here wittily and solidly and I fully assent to it I won't say that you do when we are now come from what he hath had ad hominem to what he should have ad rem A Difference there is in Doctrinals as to this point among the Brethren and the business to be done is to find the bottom of it and to say something which is not said by this Brother for satisfaction to it It is true that though there be no more to be put upon these Phrases I believe than Grotius and the aforesaid Bishop puts upon them yet are there very Learned Men such as among us are Rutherford and Dr. Owen who I suppose together with you do lay more upon them than so when there are others if not they do carry them so far as to hold this Commutation to be such that from thence it is they account not only that our Sins are laid upon Christ but his Righteousness is communicated to us which is making us to sustain his Person as well as he ours and we thereby made Righteous as he in the Eye of the Law or in Law-sense for our Justification And this now I take to be another Matter If Christ obey'd the Law and suffer'd for us in our behalf or in our stead so as God looks upon us to have suffered the Penalty of the Law in him to free us from Condemnation and to have obeyed the Law in him to give us right to Heaven which your Commutation of Persons at the least must signifie then are we in Christ indeed Legally righteous for this is to be righteous in Law-sense or in the Eye of the Law that is Legally so if they know what to be Legally Righteous is and accordingly justified by the Law with his Righteousness as our formal Righteousness or as the Form or Formal Cause or Reason of our Justification This is the Opinion which in behalf of your Independent Brethren you do and must maintain as that which hath been received for the common Protestant Opinion heretofore and if it be true must bring your Adversaries over to you or else if it be not true both you and they must look for a righter in a middle way between Protestant and Papist which I doubt the most of you are either too negligent to seek or too conceited through your own greater learning to receive at another's Hands Sententia illorum qui Christi obedientiam justitiam nobis imputatam statuunt esse formalem causam justificationis communis est nostrorum omnium sententia neque quod ad rem attinet quisquam è nostris aliter sensâ—t aut scripsit says Davenant ds Jus Hab. c. 22. Well now if the Righteousness of Christ be indeed the Formal Cause of our Justification as this Learned Man and most Judicious Man otherwise does maintain for the received Protestants Doctrine and which those Independent Brethren who upon the account of Doctrinals hang off from Vnion with the Presbyterians will approve or else they know not what they would have to strive for then must we be Legally righteous in Christ and so justified by the Law And if the Believer be in Christ Legally righteous then must Christ's Righteousness be the Formal Cause of his Justification They that say one must say the other and they that deny the one must deny the other if they understand fundamentally what they are to affirm or deny The Papists held inherent Grace as infused to be the Form or Formal Cause of our Justification The Protestants in opposition maintain'd That Christ's Righteousness without us and not ours within us imputed to us is that which formally justifies us To be justified then by Christ's Righteousness is to be righteous in Christ in Law-sense and to be righteous in Christ in Law-sense or in the Eye of the Law is to be look'd on by God to have undergone the Penalty of the Law in Christ's Sufferings and obeyed the Law in Christ's Obedience and this infers a Commutation of Persons in the highest sense which you and your Brethren do indeed intend by it Here then we are come to the bottom which the Reverend and Ingenious Mr. Rebuke has not sounded and here is the Question upon which the fundamental Difference between you in the behalf of the Independants and your Adversaries does bottom If this Doctrine be true then must the Consequences of it be true If the Consequences be not good the Doctrine must not be good neither Let us then come Hand to Hand to the Tryal If your Doctrine be true That there is such a Commutation of Persons as that God does look on us in Christ's Person to have suffered the Punishment and obeyed the
Law and so to be in him Legally righteous and justified by his Righteousness Formaliter according to the Law of Works then must his Righteousness be ours so that in a Legal sense we must be as righteous as he or God must look on us in him as righteous as he and then can God see no sin in the Believer and the Believer have no need of Repentance or other Righteousness with the like Inferences which we utterly condemn however by the most pious of them mitigated in the Antinomian The Consequence really is not to be denied unless by outfacing it with number or shifting Mr. Anthony Burgesse acknowledges if we be formally justified by Christ's Righteousness then are we as righteous as he and therefore he will have his Righteousness to be the Matter not the Form of our Justification And Amesius being put to it by this Objection from Bellarmine apprehends the Consequence so irrefragable that he recedes from the Doctrine Haec non est noctra sententia says he hereupon though Davenant you see before does stoutly affirm the contrary And when it becomes necessary to recede from this Doctrine it is fit we find out another that will hold better together If in good earnest you will maintain this Doctrine of Commutation so that you understand no less by it than this That Christ hath obey'd and suffer'd in our Person that the Law is obeyed and satisfied by us in him or we Legally righteous in him which is all one I argue farther as in my Pacification and who shall answer it If this were so Then should we not our selves obey at all Then should we not suffer at all for he that hath perfectly obeyed can be punished for nothing Then should we need no forgiveness Then would Christ's Suffering for us having obey'd be needless Then must he be look'd on by God as a sinner Then must the Culpa as well as the Poena be imputed to him Then could not Christ be our Mediator because he is look'd on as the Offending Party and a Mediator is a third Party between the Offender and the Offended in which Person he obeyed and suffered for us Then lastly should Impunity and Life be due to us immediately by a meer resultancy from his Obedience and Sufferings and not be given by the interposition of a new Law or Covenant upon Terms as they are according to the Gospel which is subverted therefore by this Opinion I pray then Mr. Report will you sit down a little with me and consider what you would have by this Commutation of Persons and see if it will hold There are two Points according to you depend upon it which are the principal Points in the Christian Religion to wit Christ's Satisfaction and our Justification But here it is that you are out with the Brethren and the excellent Dr. Owen who all of you do build this Commutation of Persons upon that Union with Christ which we call the Mystical Vnion between Christ and the Elect Believer by vertue whereof and not otherwise Christ's Righteousness you count becomes theirs for their Justification But Sir this cannot be for if Christ's Righteousness be ours as thus One with him then must it be one and the same Righteousness and we righteous as he as before in God's Eye or in the Eye of the Law which is all one His Righteousness is imputed in se and we justified by the Law with his Righteousness as I have said as the Form it self or Formal Cause of our Justification That being observed as you will yet see more and those Arguments contained in the Eight Then 's unanswerable it is your mistake therefore here with others to suppose such a Commutation as is built upon this Mystical Vnion when there is none but what is founded on his Hypostatical Vnion which concerns all Mankind as well as the Elect and answers this full sense of Grotius mentioned before Of which point in particular I will forbear saying more because I have endeavoured to make this out in a Chapter I have in my Peaceable Disquisitions on Purpose against Dr. Owen which Book I presented to the Doctor while living and he never writ against it See my Pacif. also Pag. 16 and there is some Epitomy of it One thing yet I will tell you in regard to those two great Points mentioned that however commodious and proper you think these Phrases be for the making out the Doctrine of Satisfaction if you use them in no other sense than that of Grotius in regard to Socinianism they are as much incommodious and dangerous I fear for the making out the Doctrine of Justification if hey be used according to the common Protestant in regard to Antinomianism They are not equally applicable I must say to both for it is sufficient that Christ took on him our Nature and so put his Natural Person in our room in suffering for us to make out the one but he must be mystically put into our and we into his Legal Person to make out the other Before I leave this Phrase there are two Questions I must ask One of you and the other of Mr. Rebuke or else your two Altercations about it will signifie nothing The Question I would ask Mr. Rebuke is this Whether he did designedly intend a Difference between a Change of Person and a Change of Persons Which he seems to have done by some express Words and his meaning then must be That tho' Christ came into the room of Sinners to suffer for them and may be accordingly said to sustain their persons or to put on their Persons yet the Sinner does not come into the room of Christ's Person or sustain his Person or take on him his Person and consequently that there is a change of Person but not of Persons between them If this be his sense and not spoke out of a present Sagacity or Wit but upon a deliberate Resolution it is a great matter I have touched upon this in my Pacif. and in an Half-sheet printed by it self But here it may be required of Mr. Rebuke to shew some Author of note for such a distinction which would fix it but he will find none I doubt only Mr. Williams and here is the mischief of that Mr. Williams denying that there is a Change of Person between Christ and the Elect does account himself wrong'd to have that interpreted no Change of Persons so that he holds a Change of Persons and denies only a Change of Person when Mr. Rebuke directly contrary allows a Change of Person but denies a Change of Persons and yet both intend the same sense I on purpose noted this in that Half-sheet mentioned and told there Mr. Williams's Sense and I know Mr. Rebuke had that Half-sheet and he would have done well to have quoted it because when many Hands are required to a Work it is better accept any meaner Hand than * This Half-sheet therefore shall be Printed at the end none at all
have both beaten one another out of your Own Mr. Report before I end I cannot but speak to you of one or two things because I look on you as one that have been as forward formerly as any for composing Theses for Agreement and I am moved at those Nine Articles which Mr. Rebuke mentions upon the Resarciation of the first Breach among the Brethren whereof the Fifth is of Justification in which there are allowing the rest as unquestionable these Words Not imputing Faith it self the Act of Believing or any other Evangelical Obedience to them as their Righteousness which Words are such that if you had taken care on purpose to say something for contradicting the Scripture you could not have done your Work more effectually Not by imputing Faith it self say you the Act of Believing to them for their Righteousness when the Scripture says expresly Abraham believed God and it it that Act of Believing was imputed to him for Righteousness Again Not by imputing the Act of any Obedience when the Scripture says expresly Then stood up Phinehas and executed Judgment and it was counted to him for Righteousness How could you find in your Heart Brother especially how could those of your Independent Brethren that out of opposition to the Doctrine of that Holy and Excellent Man Mr. Baxter who found fault with this in the Savoy Confession find in their Hearts to compose or cause to be composed such an Article for the Subscription of both Parties What my Reverend Brethren Are you for a plain Conspiracy against the Holy Scripture What cause have I therefore for this Doctrine of mine not before throughly handled to contradict you The Lord of Truth be Witness between us You may say That not only the Savoy Confession but the Assemblies Confession and Catechisms do countenance so much I answer If not only the Ministers at the Savoy but an Assembly nay the Ministers of the whole Earth could joyn in drawing up the Article of Justification in these Words they must be all laid flat on their Backs by those of the Apostle And it was imputed to him for Righteousness Upon this account that I could not subscribe my self to such an Article I must add as to your way of Concord by Theses I like it not For though a Church that is Establish'd by Authority where the Preacher is answerable for his Doctrine to his Superiours may by such means be upheld by their taking care that Holy Mother does nihil detrimenti capere it is not so with the Nonconformists whose Preaching depends on their Liberty and they so divided And therefore it is not a Union in Doctrinals I apprehend but a Union in Practicals and in Love that is adviseable and that not without the leaving every Man acknowledging only the Holy Scriptures and the Three Creeds to the Liberty of their own Opinions I have no more now but to let you know that whereas the design of this Letter being the same with that of my Books the Middle Way my Pacification my Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel there is a new Book on the Point coming out or come out by the Reverend and Learned Mr. Clark known by his Annotations upon the Old and New Testament upon the occasion whereof there hath passed many Letters between him and me for the clearing this Middle Way which we take or to some Difficulties appearing in it which Letters I intend as far as is fit to Print and this Paper being some Abstract of the Sense which I could not have thus suddenly wrote if I had not been thereby furnished though fully comprehended by my self it cannot be taken in by others so fully as by those Letters which have their Enlargement and came more naturally from me and therefore I desire you to suspend your Judgment as to the main great Matter or Article till you have read these Letters also which I do purpose to shew to you and to Mr. Williams before I Print them because I think that he so far as he differs from me and you too are both out and can be reconciled never but by a Third way between you that I propose and if that be Truth I do believe so worthily of you both that either of you will think it a greater Victory to yield to the Truth than to overcome one another The Title of these Letters when Printed which I hope you will find them make good shall be this Letters between Mr. John Humfrey and Mr. Samuel Clark in reference to the Point of Justification Written upon the Occasion of Mr. Clark's Printing his Book on that Subject before it came out and Published by Consent for the Vindication of that Doctrine wherein they agree as sound by shewing the Difference of it from that of the Papist and the mistake of our Common Protestant In order to an impartial and more full Vnderstanding of that great Article by the Improvement of that whereto they have attained or Correction of any thing wherein they err by better Judgments Having finisht here that which I intended for Four Sheets with the Half Sheet at the End the Printer gave me Notice that there would be a Leaf or two wanting to be fill'd After thus much then there being more to be said I must acknowledge Mr. Report that there is nothing wherein you can pinch Me and Mr. Williams more than by fixing on this one thing which I suppose you do that a Commutation a Substitution or Surrogation of one Person in the room of another for the Doing or Suffering any thing in his behalf must imply the Doing or Suffering that very thing which the other was to do or suffer or else it is no strict or proper Substitution and consequently that Christ as you hold bearing the very Punishment of our Sins we are to be counted in him as our Surrogate to have our selves born that Punishment seeing what is done by a Surrogate or Substitute is reckoned in Law to have been done by him for whom he hath Officiated Likewise Christ having obeyed the Law for us we are to be reckoned to have obeyed and so to be Righteous in his Righteousness and Justified by it For my speaking therefore something more to this we must consider there are Terms used by Divines and in Scripture as that of Surety once which we are not to take Strictly and slavishly in their Vulgar Conception for that were rude coarse and raw to do so but they must be Largely generously Construed with the Liberty of more Accurateness and Consonancy to the Analogy of Faith and consequently to be understood as in our Ethicks we have it Pro ut prudens desinierit Upon which account I must answer that forasmuch as you have taken these Terms from Grotius it is fit it is reasonable you should also take his Sense and meaning of them and that is such which you know well enough that though he does account that there is a Commutation and Surrogation of