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
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 be justifyed Pauls own righteousness as a Jew or as a Pharisee I say is one thing and Pauls faith and obedience which is his righteousness as a Christian is another And this distinction our Saviour himself hath first offered Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharises The righteousness of works is
twofold The righteousness of Mankind according to the Covenant of Nature and the righteousness of the Jewes while they reckoned to be justified by the external observation only of the rites of Moses The one of these exceeds the righteousness of faith and we are not justified by it because no man can attain to it the other falls short of the righteousness of faith or of a true Christian according to these words of our Lord and for that reason as for several others the establishment of it was dangerous to their Salvation A last text they have what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit It is urged here by a Perfectist that if the Protestant doctrine were true it should be said that the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in Christ and not in us But these words I apprehend may be a phrase of the Apostles as the words attaining unto righteousness otherwhere and so it will be all one as if he had said that we might be justified who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Nevertheless there is this here must be known and noted that when a Christian obeys God according to the Gospel that obedience of his proceeding from faith though imperfect is accepted of God instead of the laws perfect righteousness or stands him in the stead as if the whole law were fulfilled which is the ground of such expressions From whence in the way we may have light for the understanding the Apostle when he tells us the law is established by faith or uses the like words The law is established only by the fulfilling of it and faith as it works by love fulfils the law But how why in the sense N. B. as is now told you Faith produces obedience which is imperfect yet answering the terms of the gospel it is through that grace and condescention from God which Christ hath purchased for us in the work of our redemption imputed to us for righteouaness that is accepted and rewarded so as it is made to stand us in the same stead as the full performance of the law would have done which is to justifie us and bring us life eternal When God made man he gave him a law suitable to his Creation That law being founded in the image of God wherein he was created is most holy equal and unchangeable God as Rector must deal with the World according to this law so that man transgressing he is engaged to proceed against him by it unless there be some means found out that he may be no loser in his justice if he do not There is nothing can be offered to God but his justice and holiness must be losers if it be of consideration less valuable then that which the law it self required which is the obedience of all mankind or their everlasting suffering for its transgression No Man or Creature but Christ alone could offer any such satisfaction as this for us And this he offered in the obedience or righteousness of his whole life and death as the price sacrifice ransome propitiation for our sins which through the dignity of the Person that offered it being the Son of God as well as man was of value which is infinite That which exceeds a thing or is more in value then it cannot be the very thing it self which in value it exceeds The righteousness then of Christ is really imputed to man tendred in his behalf and made ours in regard of this effect or in the end to which it was intended I will say when it cannot be ours in it self to wit that God being satisfied or made no loser in his justice hereby does deal with us otherwise then by that law unto which at first we were created If he deals not with us then according to that it must be by some other which hereby also is purchased and that is according to his grace or righteousness revealed in the Gospel This grace or righteousness lyes in his acceptance of faith and repentance instead of perfect obedience for this righteousness sake of Christ thus imputed and no otherwise then thus When our Divines now say that there are no works of ours can stand before God in his district judgment that they should be causa propter quam the cause for which that is for the merit sake or worthiness whereof he should justifie any person they say well and there meaning is that our works coming not up to the original law God cannot for the performance of them absolve us as no sinners but yet seeing they are such as answer the terms of the Gospel he does for Christs sake or his merits sake both pardon their imperfection and impute them to us for righteousness in the accepting them to life or rewarding them with everlasting salvation In short Christs righteousness is imputed to us but not for righteousness It is for the righteousness sake but not formally though efficiently by the righteousness of another we are justified It is not Christ but our selves that perform the new Covenant and by the new Covenant is it or by grace that we are righteous in Gods sight It is not consequently Christs sufferings or obedience only but our faith obedience sincerity also that is rewarded with salvation yet is it not for the merit of this obedience of ours but for his merits or the merits of his righteousness Behold this is the critrical hindge upon which the whole controversie does turn We will stand for the imputation of Christs righteousness N. B. so far as ever we can with holding justification by the Covenant of grace but when some Protestants have stood for it so as renders our justification to be by the law or the Covenant of works and not by grace they have departed from the Apostle And thus the dispute in the upshot will I think end in this that Christs righteousness is the meritorious indeed the only meritorious or meritoriously procuring efficient but must not be made the formal cause of mans justification And yet do I see there is need still of some more words seeing here the heart of all lyes A righteousness we must have if we be justified and what is that righteousness There is a legal righteousness and Evangelical Christs righteousness our Divines account our Legal righteousness which must answer the law for us and our faith and repentance must be produced to answer the
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