earnestly presseth me with his Quem quibus who is the Man I profess I dreamed not of any particular Man But I will again tell you whom my Judgment magnifies in this Controversie above all others and who truly tell you how far Papists and Protestants agree viz. Vinc. le Blank and Guil. Forbes I meddle not with his other Subjects Placeus in Thes Salmur Davenant Dr. Field Mr. Scudder his daily Walk fit for all families Mr. Wotton Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Gataker Dr. Preston Dr. Hammond Pract. Cat. and Mr. Lawson in the main Abundance of the French and Breme Divines are also very clear And though I must not provoke him again by naming some late English men to reproach them by calling them my disciples I will venture to tell the plain man that loveth not our wrangling tediousness that Mr. Trumans Great Propit and Mr. Gibbons serm of Justif may serve him well without any more And while this worthy Doctor and I do both concord with such as Davenant and Field as to Justification by Faith or Works judg whether we differ between our selves as far as he would perswade the World who agree in tertio And whether as he hath angrily profest his concord in the two other Controversies which he raised our Guilt of nearer Parents sin and our preferring the judgment of the wisest c. it be not likely that he will do so also in this when he hath leisure to read and know what it is that I say and hold and when we both understand our selves and one another And whether it be a work worthy of Good and Learned men to allarm Christians against one another for the sake of arbitrary words and notions which one partly useth less aptly and skilfully than the other in matters wherein they really agree 2 Tim. 2. 14. Charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit but to the subverting of the Hearers yet study to shew thy self approved unto God a workman that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of Truth Two Sparks more quenched which fled after the rest from the Forge of Dr. Tho. Tully § 1. DId I not find that some Mens Ignorance and factious Jealousie is great enough to make them combustible Recipients of such Wild-fire as those Strictures are and did not Charity oblige me to do what I have here done to save the assaulted Charity of such Persons more than to save any Reputation of my own I should repent that I had written one Line in answer to such Writings as I have here had to do with I have been so wearied with the haunts of the like Spirit in Mr. Crandon Mr. Bagshaw Mr. Danvers and others that it is a work I have not patience to be much longer in unless it were more necessary Two sheets more tell us that the Doctor is yet angry And little that 's better that I can find In the first he saith again that I am busie in smoothing my way where none can stumble in a thing never questioned by him nor by any Man else he thinks who owns the Authority of the second Commandment And have I not then good Company and Encouragement not to change my Mind But 1. He feigneth a Case stated between him and me who never had to do with him before but as with others in my Writings where I state my Case my self 2. He never so much as toucheth either of my Disputations of Original Sin in which I state my Case and defend it 3. And he falsly feigneth the Case stated in words and he supposeth in a sense that I never had do do with Saying I charge you with a new secondary Original Sin whose Pedegree is not from Adam I engage not a syllable further And pag. 8. You have asserted that this Novel Original Sin is not derived from our Original Father no line of Communication between them a sin besides that which is derived from Adam as you plainly and possitively affirm I never said that it had no Pedegree no line of Communication no kind of derivation from Adam 4. Yea if he would not touch the Disputation where I state my Case he should have noted it as stated in the very Preface which he writeth against and yet there also he totally overlooketh it though opened in divers Propositions 5. And the words in an Epistle to another Mans Book which he fasteneth still on were these Over-looking the Interest of Children in the Actions of their nearer Parents and think that they participate of no Guilt and suffer for no Original Sin but Adams only And after They had more Original Sin than what they had from Adam 6. He tells me that I seem not to understand my own Question nor to know well how to set about my Work and he will teach me how to manage the Business that I have undertaken and so he tells me how I MUST state the Question hereafter see his words Reader some Reasons may put a better Title on this Learned Doctors actions but if ever I write at this rate I heartily desire thee to cast it away as utter DISHONESTY and IMPUDENCE It troubleth me to trouble thee with Repetitions I hold 1. That Adams Sin is imputed as I opened to his Posterity 2. That the degree of Pravity which Cains nature received from Adam was the dispositive enclining Cause of all his Actual Sin 3. But not a necessitating Cause of all those Acts for he might possibly have done less evil and more good than he did 4. Therefore not the Total principal Cause for Cains free-will was part of that 5 Cains actual sin increased the pravity of his nature 6. And Cains Posterity were as I opened it guilty of Cains actual sin and their Natures were the more depraved by his additional pravity than they would have been by Adams sin alone unless Grace preserved or healed any of them The Doctor in this Paper would make his Reader believe that he is for no meer Logomachies and that the difference is not in words only but the thing And do you think that he differeth from me in any of these Propositions or how this sin is derived from Adam Yet this now must be the Controversie de re Do you think for I must go by thinking that he holdeth any other Derivation than this Or did I ever deny any of this But it is vain to state the Case to him He will over look it and tell me what I should have held that he may not be thought to make all this Noise for nothing He saith pag. 8. If it derive in a direct line from the first Transgression and have its whole Root fastened there what then why then some words which he sets together are not the best sense that can be spoken It is then but words and yet it is the thing What he may mean by a direct Line and what by whole Root fastened I know not but I have told the World
God's Word Scriptures besides the former Declaration 1 Joh. 2.29 Every one which doth Righteousness is born of God 3.7 10. He that doth Righteousness is Righteous even as he is Righteous Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God 2 Tim. 4.8 He hath laid up for us a Crown of Righteousness Heb. 11.23 Through Faith they wrought Righteousness Heb. 12. The peaceable fruit of Righteousness Jam. 3.18 The fruit of Righteousness is sown in Peace 1 Pet. 2.24 That we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness Mat 5.20 Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees c. Luk. 1.71 In Holiness and Righteousness before him all the days of our Life Act. 10.35 He that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Rom. 6.13 16 18 19 20. Whether of sin unto death or of Obedience unto Righteousness 1 Cor. 15.34 Awake to Righteousness and sin not Eph. 5.9 The fruit of the Spirit is in all Goodness and Righteousness Dan. 12.3 They shall turn many to Righteousness Dan. 4.27 Break off thy sins by Righteousness Eph. 4.24 The new-man which after God is created in Righteousness Gen. 7.1 Thee have I seen Righteous before me Gen. 18.23 24 25 26. Far be it from thee to destroy the Righteous with the Wicked Prov. 24.24 He that saith to the Wicked thou art Righteous him shall the people Curse Nations shall abhor him Isa 3.10 Say to the Righteous it shall be well with him Isa 5.23 That take away the Righteousness from the Righteous Mat. 25.37 46. Then shall the Righteous answer The Righteous into life eternal Luk. 1.6 They were both Righteous before God Heb. 11.4 7. By Faith Abel offered to God a more excellent Sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his Gifts By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark by which he became heir of the Righteousness by Faith 1 Pet. 4.18 If the Righteous be scarcely saved Math. 10.41 He that receiveth a Righteous man in the name of a Righteous man shall have a Righteous mans reward 1 Tim. 1.9 The Law is not made for a Righteous man but for Many score of texts more mention a Righteousness distinct from that of Christ imputed to us Judg now Whether he that believeth God should believe that he Imputeth Christs Obedience and Suffering to us for our Sole Righteousness That which is not our sole Righteousness is not so Reputed by God nor Imputed But Christs Obedience and Suffering is not our sole Righteousness See Davenant's many arguments to prove that we have an Inherent Righteousness Obj. But they mean our Sole Righteousness by which we are Justified Answ 1. We can tell no mans meaning but by his words especially not contrary to them especially in an accurate Declaration of Faith 2. Suppose it had been so said we maintain on the contrary 1. That we are Justified by more sorts of Righteousness than one in several respects We are justified only by Christs Righteousness as the Purchasing and Meritorious Cause of our Justification freely given by that new Covenant We are Justified by the Righteousness of God the Father as performing his Covenant with Christ and us efficiently We are justified efficiently by the Righteousness of Christ as our Judg passing a just sentence according to his Covenant These last are neither Ours nor Imputed to us But we are justified also against the Accusation of being finally Impenitent Unbelievers or unholy by the personal particular Righteousness of our own Repentance Faith and Holiness For 2. We say that there is an universal Justification or Righteousness and there is a particular one And this particular one may be the Condition and Evidence of our Title to all the rest And this is our case The Day of Judgment is not to try and Judg Christ or his Merits but us He will judg us himself by his new Law or Covenant the sum of which is Except ye Repent ye shall all perish and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be condemned If we be not accused of Impenitence or Vnbelief but only of not-fulfilling the Law of Innocency that will suppose that we are to be tryed only by that Law which is not true And then we refer the Accuser only to Christ's Righteousness and to the Pardoning Law of Grace and to nothing in our selves to answer that charge And so it would be Christ's part only that would be judged But Matth. 25. and all the Scripture assureth us of the contrary that it 's Our part that it is to be tryed and judged and that we shall be all judged according to what we have done And no man is in danger there of any other accusation but that he did not truly Repent and Believe and live a holy life to Christ And shall the Penitent Believer say I did never Repent and Believe but Christ did it for me and so use two Lyes one of Christ and another of himself that he may be justified Or shall the Vnholy Impenitent Infidel say It 's true I was never a Penitent Believer or holy but Christ was for me or Christs Righteousness is my sole Righteousness that is a fashood For Christs Righteousness is none of his So that there is a particular personal Righteousness consisting in Faith and Repentance which by way of Condition and Evidence of our title to Christ and his Gift of Pardon and Life is of absolute necessity in our Justification Therefore Imputed Righteousness is not the sole Righteousness which must justifie us I cited abundance of plain Texts to this purpose in my Confession pag. 57. c. Of which book I add that when it was in the press I procured those three persons whom I most highly valued for judgment Mr. Gataker whose last work it was in this World Mr. Vines and lastly Arch-Bishop Vsher to read it over except the Epistles Mr. Gataker read only to pag. 163. and no one of them advised me to alter one word nor signified their dissent to any word of it But I have been long on this to proceed in the History The same year that I wrote that book that most Judicious excellent man Joshua Placaeus of Saumours in France was exercised in a Controversie conjunct with this How far Adams sin is imputed to us And to speak truth at first in the Theses Salmuriens Vol. 1. he seemed plainly to dispute against the Imputation of Adam's actual sin and his arguments I elsewhere answer And Andr. Rivet wrote a Collection of the Judgment of all sorts of Divines for the contrary But after he vindicated himself shewed that his Doctrine was that Adam's fact is not immediately imputed to each of us as if our persons as persons had been all fully represented in Adam's person by an arbitrary Law or Will of God or reputed so to be But that our Persons being
through the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ 39. Yet the Reatus Culpae is remitted to us Relatively as to the punishment though not in it self that is It shall not procure our Damnation Even as Christ's Righteousness is though not in it self yet respectively as to the Benefits said to be made ours in as much as we shall have those benefits by it 40. Thus both the Material and the Formal Righteousness of Christ are made ours that is Both the Holy Habits and Acts and his Sufferings with the Relative formal Righteousness of his own Person because these are altogether one Meritorious cause of our Justification commonly called the Material Cause Obj. But though Forma Denominat yet if Christs Righteousness in Matter and Form be the Meritorious Cause of ours and that be the same with the Material Cause it is a very tolerable speech to say that His Righteousness is Ours in it self while it is the very matter of ours Ans 1. When any man is Righteous Immediately by any action that action is called the Matter of his Righteousness in such an Analogical sense as Action an Accident may be called Matter because the Relation of Righteous is founded or subjected first or partly in that Action And so when Christ perfectly obeyed it was the Matter of his Righteousness But to be Righteous and to Merit are not all one notion Merit is adventitious to meer Righteousness Now it is not Christs Actions in themselves that our Righteousness resulteth from immediately as his own did But there is first his Action then his formal Righteousness thereby and thirdly his Merit by that Righteousness which goes to procure the Covenant-Donation of Righteousnass to us by which Covenant we are efficiently made Righteous So that the name of a Material Cause is much more properly given to Christs Actions as to his own formal Righteousness than as to ours But yet this is but de nomine 2. Above all consider what that Righteousness is which Christ merited for us which is the heart of the Controversie It is not of the same species or sort with his own His Righteousness was a perfect sinless Innocency and Conformity to the preceptive part of the Law of Innocency in Holiness Ours is not such The dissenters think it is such by Imputation and here is the difference Ours is but in respect to the second or retributive part of the Law a Right to Impunity and Life and a Justification not at all by that Law but from its curse or condemnation The Law that saith Obey perfectly and live sin and die doth not justifie us as persons that have perfectly obeyed it really or imputatively But its obligation to punishment is dissolved not by it self but by the Law of Grace It is then by the Law of Grace that we are judged and justified According to it 1. We are not really or reputatively such as have perfectly fulfilled all its Precepts 2. But we are such as by Grace do sincerely perform the Condition of its promise 3. By which promise of Gift we are such as have right to Christs own person in the Relation and Union of a Head and Saviour and with him the pardon of all our sins and the right of Adoption to the Spirit and the Heavenly Inheritance as purchased by Christ So that besides our Inherent or Adherent Righteousness of sincere Faith Repentance and Obedience as the performed condition of the Law of Grace we have no other Righteousness our selves but Right to Impunity and to Life and not any imputed sinless Innocency at all God pardoneth our sins and adopteth us for the sake of Christ's sufferings and perfect Holiness But he doth not account us perfectly Holy for it nor perfectly Obedient So that how-ever you will call it whether a Material Cause or a Meritorious the thing is plain Obj. He is made of God Righteousness to us Ans True But that 's none of the question But how is he so made 1. As he is made Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption as aforesaid 2. By Merit Satisfaction Direction Prescription and Donation He is the Meritorious Cause of our Pardon of our Adoption of our Right to Heaven of that new Covenant which is the Instrumental Deed of Gift confirming all these And he is also our Righteousness in the sense that Austin so much standeth on as all our Holiness and Righteousness of Heart and Life is not of our natural endeavour but his gift and operation by his Spirit causing us to obey his Holy precepts and Example All these ways he is made of God our Righteousness Besides the Objective way of sense as he is Objectively made our Wisdom because it is the truest wisdom to know him So he is objectively made our Righteousness in that it is that Gospel-Righteousness which is required of our selves by his grace to believe in him and obey him 41. Though Christ fulfilled not the Law by Habitual Holiness and Actual Obedience strictly in the Individual person of each particular sinner yet he did it in the nature of Man And so humane nature considered in specie and in Christ personally though not considered as a totum or as personally in each man did satisfie and fullfil the Law and Merit As Humane Nature sinned in Adam actually in specie and in his individual person and all our Persons were seminally and virtually in him and accordingly sinned or are reputed sinners as having no nature but what he conveyed who could convey no better than he had either as to Relation or Real quality But not that God reputed us to have been actually existent as really distinct persons in Adam which is not true Even so Christ obeyed and suffered in our Nature and in our nature as it was in him and humane sinful nature in specie was Universally pardoned by him and Eternal life freely given to all men for his merits thus far imputed to them their sins being not imputed to hinder this Gift which is made in and by the Covenant of Grace Only the Gift hath the Condition of mans Acceptance of it according to its nature 2 Cor. 5.19 20. And all the individuals that shall in time by Faith accept the Gift are there and thereby made such as the Covenant for his merits doth justifie by that General Gift 42. As Adam was a Head by Nature and therefore conveyed Guilt by natural Generation so Christ is a Head not by nature but by Sacred Contract and therefore conveyeth Right to Pardon Adoption and Salvation not by Generation but by Contract or Donation So that what it was to be naturally in Adam seminally and virtually though not personlly in existence even that it is in order to our benefit by him to be in Christ by Contract or the new Covenant virtually though not in personal existence when the Covenant was made 43. They therefore that look upon Justification or Righteousness as coming to us immediately by Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us without the
Instrumental Intervention and Conveyance or Collation by this Deed of Gift or Covenant do confound themselves by confounding and overlooking the Causes of our Justification That which Christ did by his merits was to procure the new Covenant The new Covenant is a free Gift of pardon and life with Christ himself for his merits and satisfaction sake 44. Though the Person of the Mediator be not really or reputatively the very person of each sinner nor so many persons as there are sinners or believers yet it doth belong to the Person of the Mediator so far limitedly to bear the person of a sinner and to stand in the place of the Persons of all Sinners as to bear the punishment they deserved and to suffer for their sins 45. Scripture speaking of moral matters usually speaketh rather in Moral than meer Physical phrase And in strict Physical sence Christs very personal Righteousness Material or Formal is not so given to us as that we are proprietors of the very thing it self but only of the effects Pardon Righteousness and Life yet in a larger Moral phrase that very thing is oft said to be given to us which is given to another or done or suffered for our benefit He that ransometh a Captive from a Conquerer Physically giveth the Money to the Conquerer not to the Captive giveth the Captive only the Liberty purchased But morally and reputatively he is said to give the Money to the Captive because he gave it for him And it redeemeth him as well as if he had given it himself He that giveth ten thousand pounds to purchase Lands freely giveth that land to another physically giveth the Money to the Seller only and the Land only to the other But morally and reputatively we content our selves with the metonymical phrase and say he gave the other ten thousand pound So morally it may be said that Christs Righteousness Merits and Satisfaction was given to us in that the thing purchased by it was given to us when the Satisfaction was given or made to God Yea when we said it was made to God we mean only that he was passively the Terminus of active Satisfaction being the party satisfyed but not that he himself was made the Subject and Agent of Habits and Acts and Righteousness of Christ as in his humane nature except as the Divine Nature acted it or by Communication of Attributes 46. Because the words Person and Personating and Representing are ambiguous as all humane language is while some use them in a stricter sense than others do we must try by other explicatory terms whether we agree in the matter and not lay the stress of our Controversy upon the bare words So some Divines say that Christ suffered in the Person of a sinner when they mean not that he represented the Natural person of any one particular sinner but that his own Person was reputed the Sponsor of sinners by God and that he was judged a real sinner by his persecuters and so suffered as if he had been a sinner 47. As Christ is less improperly said to have Represented our Persons in his satisfactory Sufferings than in his personal perfect Holiness and Obedience so he is less improperly said to have Represented all mankind as newly fallen in Adam in a General sense for the purchasing of the universal Gift of Pardon and Life called The new Covenant than to have Represented in his perfect Holiness and his Sufferings every Believer considered as from his first being to his Death Though it is certain that he dyed for all their sins from first to last For it is most true 1. That Christ is as a second Adam the Root of the Redeemed And as we derive sin from Adam so we derive life from Christ allowing the difference between a Natural and a Voluntary way of derivation And though no mans Person as a Person was actually existent and offended in Adam nor was by God reputed to have been and done yet all mens Persons were Virtually and Seminally in Adam as is aforesaid and when they are existent persons they are no better either by Relative Innocency or by Physical Disposition than he could propagate and are truly and justly reputed by God to be Persons Guilty of Adams fact so far as they were by nature seminally and virtually in him And Christ the second Adam is in a sort the root of Man as Man though not by propagation of us yet as he is the Redeemer of Nature it self from destruction but more notably the Root of Saints as Saints who are to have no real sanctity but what shall be derived from him by Regeneration as Nature and Sin is from Adam by Generation But Adam did not represent all his posterity as to all the Actions which they should do themselves from their Birth to their Death so that they should all have been taken for perfectly obedient to the death if Adam had not sinned at that time yea or during his Life For if any of them under that Covenant had ever sinned afterward in their own person they should have died for it But for the time past they were Guiltless or Guilty in Adam as he was Guiltless or Guilty himself so far as they were in Adam And though that was but in Causâ non extra causam Yet a Generating Cause which propagateth essence from essence by self-multiplication of form much differeth from an Arbitrary facient Cause in this If Adam had obeyed yet all his posterity had been nevertheless bound to perfect personal persevering Obedience on pain of Death And Christ the second Adam so far bore the person of fallen Adam and suffered in the nature and room of Mankind in General as without any condition on their part at all to give man by an act of Oblivion or new Covenant a pardon of Adams sin yea and of all sin past at the time of their consent though not disobliging them from all future Obedience And by his perfect Holiness and Obedience and Sufferings he hath merited that new Covenant which Accepteth of sincere though imperfect Obedience and maketh no more in us necessary to Salvation When I say he did this without any Condition on mans part I mean He absolutely without Condition merited and gave us the Justifying Testament or Covenant Though that Covenant give us not Justification absolutely but on Condition of believing fiducial Consent 2. And so as this Vniversal Gift of Justification upon Acceptance is actually given to all fallen mankind as such so Christ might be said to suffer instead of all yea and merit too so far as to procure them this Covenant-gift 48. The sum of all lyeth in applying the distinction of giving Christs Righteousness as such in it self and as a cause of our Righteousness or in the Causality of it As our sin is not reputed Christs sin in it self and in the culpability of it for then it must needs make Christ odious to God but in its
Causality of punishment so Christ's Material or Formal Righteousness is not by God reputed to be properly and absolutely our own in it self as such but the Causality of it as it produceth such and such effects 49. The Objections which are made against Imputation of Christs Righteousness in the sound sense may all be answered as they are by our Divines among whom the chiefest on this subject are Davenant de Justit Habit Actual Johan Crocius de Justif Nigrinus de Impletione Legis Bp. G. Dowman of Justif Chamier Paraeus Amesius and Junius against Bellarm. But the same reasons against the unsound sence of Imputation are unanswerable Therefore if any shall say concerning my following Arguments that most of them are used by Gregor de Valent. by Bellarm. Becanus or other Papists or by Socinians and are answered by Nigrinâ—s Crocius Davenant c. Such words may serve to deceive the simple that are led by Names and Prejudice but to the Intelligent they are contemptible unless they prove that these objections are made by the Papists against the same sence of Imputation against which I use them and that it is that sense which all those Protestants defend in answering them For who-ever so answereth them will appear to answer them in vain 50. How far those Divines who do use the phrase of Christs suffering in our person do yet limit the sense in their exposition and deny that we are reputed to have fulfilled the Law in Christ because it is tedious to cite many I shall take up now with one even Mr. Lawson in his Theopolitica which though about the office of Faith he some-what differ from me I must needs call an excellent Treatise as I take the Author to be one of the most Knowing men yet living that I know Pardon me if I be large in transcribing his words Pag. 100 101. If we enquire of the manner how Righteousness and Life is derived from Christ being one unto so many it cannot be except Christ be a general Head of mankind and one Person with them as Adam was We do not read of any but two who were general Heads and in some respect virtually All mankind the first and second Adam The principal cause of this Representation whereby he is one person with us is the will of God who as Lord made him such and as Lawgiver and Judge did so account him But 2. How far is he One person with us Ans 1. In general so far as it pleased God to make him so and no further 2. In particular He and we are one so far 1. As to make him liable to the penalty of the Law for us 2. So far as to free us from that obligation and derive the benefit of his death to us Though Christ be so far one with us as to be lyable unto the penalty of the Law and to suffer it and upon this suffering we are freed yet Christ is not the sinner nor the sinner Christ Christ is the Word made flesh innocent without sin an universal Priest and King but we are none of these Though we be accounted as one person in Law with him by a Trope yet in proper sence it cannot be said that in Christ's Satisfying we satisfied for our own sins For then we should have been the Word made flesh able to plead Innocency c. All which are false impossible blasphemous if affirmed by any It 's true we are so one with him that he satisfied for us and the benefit of this Satisfaction redounds to us and is communicable to all upon certain termes though not actually communicated to all From this Unity and Identity of person in Law if I may so speak it followeth clearly that Christ's sufferings were not only Afflictions but Punishments in proper sense Pag. 102 103. That Christ died for all in some sence must needs be granted because the Scripture expresly affirms it vid. reliqua There is another question unprofitably handled Whether the Propitiation which includeth both Satisfaction and Merit be to be ascribed to the Active or Passive Obedience of Christ Ans 1. Both his Active Personal Perfect and Perpetual Obedience which by reason of his humane nature assumed and subjection unto God was due and also that Obedience to the great and transcendent Command of suffering the death of the Cross both concur as Causes of Remission and Justification 2. The Scriptures usually ascribe it to the Blood Death Sacrifice of Christ and never to the Personal Active Obedience of Christ's to the Moral Law 3. Yet this Active Obedience is necessary because without it he could not have offered that great Sacrifice of himself without spot to God And if it had not been without spot it could not have been propitiatory and effectual for Expiation 4. If Christ as our Surety had performed for us perfect and perpetual Obedience so that we might have been judged to have perfectly and fully kept the Law by him then no sin could have been chargeable upon us and the Death of Christ had been needless and superfluous 5. Christs Propitiation freeth the Believer not only from the obligation unto punishment of sense but of loss and procured for him not only deliverance from evil deserved but the enjoyment of all good necessary to our full happiness Therefore there is no ground of Scripture for that opinion that the Death of Christ and his Sufferings free us from punishments and by his Active Obedience imputed to us we are made righteous and the heirs of life 6. If Christ was bound to perform perfect and perpetual Obedience for us and he also performed it for us then we are freed not only from sin but Obedience too And this Obedience as distinct and separate from Obedience unto death may be pleaded for Justification of Life and will be sufficient to carry the Cause For the tenor of the Law was this Do this and live And if man do this by himself or Surety so as that the Lawgiver and supreme Judg accept it the Law can require no more It could not bind to perfect Obedience and to punishment too There was never any such Law made by God or just men Before I conclude this particular of the extent of Christs Merit and Propitiation I thought good to inform the Reader that as the Propitiation of Christ maketh no man absolutely but upon certain terms pardonable and savable so it was never made either to prevent all sin or all punishments For it presupposeth man both sinful and miserable And we know that the Guilt and Punishment of Adams sin lyeth heavy on all his posterity to this day And not only that but the guilt of actual and personal sins lyeth wholly upon us whilest impenitent and unbelieving and so out of Christ And the Regenerate themselves are not fully freed from all punishments till the final Resurrection and Judgment So that his Propitiation doth not altogether prevent but remove sin and punishment
the Relation of evil Wicked Vngodly and Vnrighteous which resulteth from them And so it maketh Christ really hated of God For God cannot but hate any one whom he reputeth to be truly ungodly a Hater of God an Enemy to him a Rebel as we all were whereas it was only the Guilt of Punishment and not of Crime as such that Christ assumed He undertook to suffer in the room of sinners and to be reputed one that had so undertaken But not to be reputed really a sinner an ungodly person hater of God one that had the Image of the Devil 5. Nay it maketh Christ to have been incomparably the worst man that ever was in the World by just reputation and to have been by just imputation guilty of all the sins of all the Elect that ever lived and reputed one of the Murderers of himself and one of the Persecutors of his Church or rather many and the language that Luther used Catechrestically to be strictly and properly true 6. It supposeth a wrong sence of the Imputation of Adams sin to his posterity As if we had been justly reputed persons existent in his person and so in him to have been persons that committed the same sin whereas we are only reputed to be now not then persons who have a Nature derived from him which being then seminally only in him deriveth by propagation an answerable Guilt of his sinful fact together with natural Corruption 7. It supposeth us to be Justifiable and Justified by the Law of Innocency made to Adam as it saith Obey perfectly and Live As if we fulfilled it by Christ which is not only an addition to the Scripture but a Contradiction For it is only the Law or Covenant of Grace that we are Justified by 8. It putteth to that end a false sence upon the Law of Innocency For whereas it commandeth Personal Obedience and maketh Personal punishment due to the offender This supposeth the Law to say or mean Either thou or one for thee shall Obey or Thou shalt obey by thy self or by another And if thou sin thou shalt suffer by thy self or by another Whereas the Law knew no Substitute or Vicar no nor Sponsor nor is any such thing said of it in the Scripture so bold are men in their additions 9. It falsly supposeth that we are not Judged and Justified by the new Covenant or Law of Grace but but is said by the Law of Innocency 10. It fathereth on God an erring judgment as if he reputed reckoned or accounted things to be what they are not and us to have done what we did not To repute Christ a Sponsor for sinners who undertook to obey in their natures and suffer in their place and stead as a Sacrifice to redeem them is all just and true And to repute us those for whom Christ did this But to repute Christ to have been really and every one of us or a sinner or guilty of sin it self or to repute us to have been habitually as Good as Christ was or actually to have done what he did either Naturally or Civilly and by Him as our substitute and to repute us Righteous by possessing his formal personal Righteousness in it self All these are untrue and therefore not to be ascribed to God To Impute it to us is but to Repute us as verily and groundedly Righteous by his Merited and freely-Given Pardon and Right to Life as if we had merited it our selves 11. It feigneth the same Numerical Accident their Relation of Righteousness which was in one subject to be in another which is Impossible 12. It maketh us to have satisfied Divine Justice for our selves and merited Salvation and all that we receive for our selves in and by another And so that we may plead our own Merits with God for Heaven and all his benefits 13. The very making and tenor of the new Covenant contradicteth this opinion For when God maketh a Law or Covenant to convey the effects of Christs Righteousness to us by degrees and upon certain Conditions this proveth that the very Righteousness in it self simply was not ours else we should have had these effects of it both presently and immediately and absolutely without new Conditions 14. This opinion therefore maketh this Law of Grace which giveth the benefits to us by these degrees and upon terms to be an injury to Believers as keeping them from their own 15. It seemeth to deny Christs Legislation in the Law of Grace and consequently his Kingly Office For if we are reputed to have fulfilled the whole Law of Innocency in Christ there is no business for the Law of Grace to do 16. It seemeth to make internal Sanctification by the Spirit needless or at least as to one half of its use For if we are by just Imputation in Gods account perfectly Holy in Christs Holiness the first moment of our believing nothing can be added to Perfection we are as fully Amiable in the sight of God as if we were sanctified in our selves Because by Imputation it is all our own 17. And so it seemeth to make our after-Obedience unnecessary at least as to half its use For if in Gods true account we have perfectly obeyed to the death by another how can we be required to do it all or part again by our selves If all the debt of our Obedience be paid why is it required again 18. And this seemeth to Impute to God a nature less holy and at enmity to sin than indeed he hath if he can repute a man laden with hateful sins to be as perfecty Holy Obedient and Amiable to him as if he were really so in himself because another is such for him 19. If we did in our own persons Imputatively what Christ did I think it will follow that we sinned that being unlawful to us which was Good in him It is a sin for us to be Circumcised and to keep all the Law of Moses and send forth Apostles and to make Church-Ordinances needful to Salvation Therefore we did not this in Christ And if not this they that distinguish and tell us what we did in Christ and what not must prove it I know that Christ did somewhat which is a common duty of all men and somewhat proper to the Jews and somewhat proper to himself But that one sort of men did one part in Christ and another sort did another part in him is to be proved 20. If Christ suffered but in the Person of sinful man his sufferings would have been in vain or no Satisfaction to God For sinful man is obliged to perpetual punishment of which a temporal one is but a small part Our persons cannot make a temporal suffering equal to that perpetual one due to man but the transcendent person of the Mediator did Obj. Christ bore both his own person and ours It belongeth to him as Mediator to personate the guilty sinner Ans It belongeth to him as Mediator to undertake the sinners punishment in his own
person And if any will improperly call that the Personating and Representing of the sinner let them limit it and confess that it is not simply but in tantum so far and to such uses and no other and that yet sinners did it not in and by Christ but only Christ for them to convey the benefits as he pleased And then we delight not to quarrel about mere words though we like the phrase of Scripture better than theirs 21. If Christ was perfectly Holy and Obedient in our persons and we in him then it was either in the Person of Innocent man before we sinned or of sinful man The first cannot be pretended For man as Innocent had not a Redeemer If of sinful man then his perfect Obedience could not be meritorious of our Salvation For it supposeth him to do it in the person of a sinner and he that hath once sinned according to that Law is the Child of death and uncapable of ever fulfilling a Law which is fulfilled with nothing but sinless perfect perpetual Obedience Obj. He first suffered in our stead and persons as sinners and then our sin being pardoned he after in our persons fulfilled the Law instead of our after-Obedience to it Ans 1. Christs Obedience to the Law was before his Death 2. The sins which he suffered for were not only before Conversion but endure as long as our lives Therefore if he fulfilled the Law in our persons after we have done sinning it is in the persons only of the dead 3. We are still obliged to Obedience our selves Obj. But yet though there be no such difference in Time God doth first Impute his sufferings to us for pardon of all our sins to the death and in order of nature his Obedience after it as the Merit of our Salvation Ans 1. God doth Impute or Repute his sufferings the satisfying cause of our Pardon and his Merits of Suffering and the rest of his Holiness and Obedience as the meritorious cause of our Pardon and our Justification and Glory without dividing them But 2. that implyeth that we did not our selves reputatively do all this in Christ As shall be further proved 22. Their way of Imputation of the Satisfaction of Christ overthroweth their own doctrine of the Imputation of his Holiness and Righteousness For if all sin be fully pardoned by the Imputed Satisfaction then sins of Omission and of habitual Privation and Corruption are pardoned and then the whole punishment both of Sense and Loss is remitted And he that hath no sin of Omission or Privation is a perfect doer of his duty and holy and he that hath no punishment of Loss hath title to Life according to that Covenant which he is reputed to have perfectly obeyed And so he is an heir of life without any Imputed Obedience upon the pardon of all his Disobedience Obj. But Adam must have obeyed to the Death if he would have Life eternal Therefore the bare pardon of his sins did not procure his right to life Ans True if you suppose that only his first sin was pardoned But 1. Adam had right to heaven as long as he was sinless 2. Christ dyed for all Adams sins to the last breath and not for the first only And so he did for all ours And if all the sins of omission to the death be pardoned Life is due to us as righteous Obj. A Stone may be sinless and yet not righteous nor have Right to life Ans True because it is not a capable subject But a man cannot be sinless but he is Righteous and hath right to life by Covenant Obj. But not to punish is one thing and to Reward is another Ans They are distinct formal Relations and Notions But where felicity is a Gift and called a Reward only for the terms and order of Collation and where Innocency is the same with perfect Duty and is the title-Condition there to be punished is to be denyed the Gift and to be Rewarded is to have that Gift as qualified persons and not to Reward is materially to punish and to be reputed innocent is to be reputed a Meriter And it is impossible that the most Innocent man can have any thing from God but by way of free-Gift as to the Thing in Value however it may be merited in point of Governing Paternal Justice as to the Order of donation Obj. But there is a greater Glory merited by Christ than the Covenant of works promised to man Ans 1. That 's another matter and belongeth not to Justification but to Adoption 2. Christs Sufferings as well as his Obedience considered as meritorious did purchase that greater Glory 3. We did not purchase or merit it in Christ but Christ for us 23. Their way of Imputation seemeth to me to leave no place or possibility for Pardon of sin or at least of no sin after Conversion I mean that according to their opinion who think that we fulfilled the Law in Christ as we are elect from eternity it leaveth no place for any pardon And according to their opinion who say that we fulfilled it in him as Believers it leaveth no place for pardon of any sin after Faith For where the Law is reputed perfectly fulfilled in Habit Act there it is reputed that the person hath no sin We had no sin before we had a Being and if we are reputed to have perfectly obeyed in Christ from our first Being we are reputed sinless But if we are reputed to have obeyed in him only since our believing then we are reputed to have no sin since our Believing Nothing excludeth sin if perfect Habitual and Actual Holiness and Obedience do not 24. And consequently Christs blood shed and Satisfaction is made vain either as to all our lives or to all after our 〈◊〉 believing 25. And then no believer must confess his sin nor his desert of punishment nor repent of it or be humbled for it 26. And then all prayer for the pardon of such sin is vain and goeth upon a false supposition that we have sin to pardon 27. And then no man is to be a partaker of the Sacrament as a Conveyance or Seal of such pardon nor to believe the promise for it 28. Nor is it a duty to give thanks to God or Christ for any such pardon 29. Nor can we expect Justification from such guilt here or at Judgment 30. And then those in Heaven praise Christ in errour when they magnifie him that washed them from such sins in his blood 31. And it would be no lie to say that we have no sin at least since believing 32. Then no believer should fear sinning because it is Impossible and a Contradiction for the same person to be perfectly innocent to the death and yet a sinner 33. Then the Consciences of believers have no work to do or at least no examining convincing self-accusing and self-judging work 34. This chargeth God by Consequence of wronging all believers whom he layeth
vel sensus so it is pardoned and this is indeed the Reatus poenae Not only the Penalty but the Dueness of that Penalty or the Obligation to it is remitted and nullified 2. Therefore if by Reatus Culpae you mean an Obligation to Punishment for that Fault this being indeed the Reatus poenae as is said is done away So that we are I think all agreed de re And de nomine you may say that the Reatus Culpae is done away or remitted or not in several senses In se it is not nullified nor can be But as Dueness of Punishment followeth that is pardoned Object 7. You have said That though we were not personally but seminally in Adam when he sinned yet when we are Persons we are Persons guilty of his actual sin And so we must be Persons that are Partakers of Christ's Actual Righteousness and not only of its Effects as soon as we are Believers For Christ being the Second Adam and publick Person we have our part in his Righteousness as truly and as much as in Adam's sin Answ 1. We must first understand how far Adam's sin is ours And first I have elsewhere proved that our Covenant-Vnion and Interest supposeth our Natural Vnion and Interest and that it is an adding to God's Word and Covenant to say That he covenanted that Adam should personate each one of his Posterity in God's imputation or account any further than they were naturally in him and so that his innocency or sin should be reputed theirs as far as if they had been personally the Subjects and Agents The Person of Peter never was in Reality or God's Reputation the Person of Adam Nor Adam's Person the Person of Peter But Peter being virtually and seminally in Adam when he sinned his Person is derived from Adam's Person And so Peter's Guilt is not numerically the same with Adams but the Accident of another Subject and therefore another Accident derived with the Person from Adam and from nearer Parents The Fundamentum of that Relation of Guilt is the Natural Relation of the Person to Adam and so it is Relatio in Relatione fundata The Fundamentum of that natural Relation is Generation yea a series of Generations from Adam to that Person And Adam's Generation being the Communication of a Guilty Nature with personality to his Sons and Daughters is the fundamentum next following his personal Fault and Guilt charged on him by the Law So that here is a long series of efficient Causes bringing down from Adam's Person and Guilt a distinct numerical Person and Guilt of every one of his later Posterity 2. And it is not the same sort of Guilt or so plenary which is on us for Adam's Act as was on him but a Guilt Analogical or of another sort that is He was guilty of being the wilful sinning Person and so are not we but only of being Persons whose Being is derived by Generation from the wilful sinning Persons besides the guilt of our own inherent pravity That is The Relation is such which our Persons have to Adam ' s Person as make it just with God to desert us and to punish us for that and our pravity together This is our Guilt of Original sin 3. And this Guilt cometh to us by Natural Propagation and resultancy from our very Nature so propagated And now let us consider of our contrary Interest in Christ And 1. Our Persons are not the same as Christ's Person nor Christ's as ours nor ever so judged or accounted of God 2. Our Persons were not naturally seminally and virtually in Christ's Person any further than he is Creator and Cause of all things as they were in Adams 3. Therefore we derive not Righteousness from him by Generation but by his voluntary Donation or Contract 4. As he became not our Natural Parent so our Persons not being in Christ when he obeyed are not reputed to have been in him naturally or to have obeyed in and by him 5. If Christ and we are reputed one Person either he obeyed in our Person or we in his or both If he obeyed as a Reputed Sinner in the Person of each Sinner his Obedience could not be meritorious according to the Law of Innocency which required sinless Perfection And he being supposed to have broken the Law in our Persons could not so be supposed to keept it If we obeyed in his Person we obeyed as Mediators or Christ's of which before 6. But as is oft said Christ our Mediator undertook in a middle Person to reconcile God and Man not by bringing God erroneously to judg that he or we were what we are not or did what we did not but by being doing and suffering for us that in his own Person which should better answer God's Ends and Honour than if we had done and suffered in our Persons that hereby he might merit a free Gift of Pardon and Life with himself to be given by a Law of Grace to believing penitent Accepters And so our Righteousness as is oft opened is a Relation resulting at once from all these Causes as fundamental to it viz. Christ's Meritorious Righteousness his free Gift thereupon and our Relation to him as Covenanters or United Believers And this is agreed on Object 8. As Christ is a Sinner by imputation of our sin so we are Righteous by the imputation of his Righteousness But it is our sin it self that is imputed to Christ Therefore it is his Righteousness it self that is imputed to us Answ 1. Christ's Person was not the Subject of our personal Relative Guilt much less of our Habits or Acts. 2. God did not judg him to have been so 3. Nay Christ had no Guilt of the same kind reckoned to be on him else those unmeet Speeches used rashly by some would be true viz. That Christ was the greatest Murderer Adulterer Idolater Blasphemer Thief c. in all the World and consequently more hated of God for God must needs hate a sinner as such To be guilty of sin as we are is to be reputed truly to be the Person that committed it But so was not Christ and therefore not so to be reputed Christ was but the Mediator that undertook to suffer for our sins that we might be forgiven and not for his own sin real or justly reputed Expositors commonly say that to be made sin for us is but to be made a Sacrifice for sin So that Christ took upon him neither our numerical guilt of sin it self nor any of the same species but only our Reatum Poenae or Debt of Punishment or lest the Wrangler make a verbal quarrel of it our Reatum Culpae non qua talem in se sed quatenus est fundamentum Reatus poenae And so his Righteousness is ours not numerically the same Relation that he was the Subject of made that Relation to us nor yet a Righteousness of the same Species as Christ's is given us at all for his was a Mediators
an injury to be reported to think otherwise herein than I do yea and add Which neither I nor any Body else I know of denies as to the thing though in the extent and other circumstances all are not agreed and you may in that enjoy your Opinion for me This is too kind I am loth to tell you how many that I know and have read deny it lest I tempt you to repent of your Agreement But doth the World yet need a fuller evidence that some Men are de materiâ agreed with them whom they raise the Country against by their Accusations and Suspicions But surely what passion or spatling soever it hath occasioned from you I reckon that my labour is not lost I may tell your Juniors that I have sped extraordinary well when I have procured the published consent of such a Doctor Either you were of this mind before or not If not it 's well you are brought to confess the Truth though not to confess a former Error If yea then it 's well that so loud and wide a seeming disagreement is confessed to be none that your Juniors may take warning and not be frightned from Love and Concord by every melancholy Allarm Yea you declare your conformity to the Litany Remember not our Offences nor the Offences of our Fore fathers and many words of indignation you use for my questioning it All this I like very well as to the Cause And I matter it not much how it looks at me If you agree more angrily than others disagree the Cause hath some advantage by the Agreement Though me-thinks it argueth somewhat unusual that seeming Dissenters should close by so vehement a Collision But yet you will not agree when you cannot chuse but agree and you carry it still as if your Allarm had not been given without cause Must we agree and not agree What yet is the Matter Why it is a new original sin My ordinary expressions of it may be fully seen in the Disputation The phrase you laid hold on in a Preface is cited before That we participate of no guilt and suffer for no original sin but Adam ' s only I denied And what 's the dangerous Errour here That our nearer Parents sin was Adams I may presume that you hold not That we are guilty of such you deny not That it is sin I find you not denying sure then all the difference must be in the word ORIGINAL And if so you that so hardly believe your loud-noised disagreements to be but verbal must patiently give me leave here to try it Is it any more than the Name ORIGINAL that you are so heinously offended at Sure it is not Else in this Letter purposely written about it you would have told your Reader what it is Suffer me then to summon your Allarm'd Juniors to come and see what a Spectrum it is that must affright them and what a Poppet-Play or dreaming War it is that the Church is to be engaged in as if it were a matter of Life and Death Audite juvenes I took the word ORIGINAL in this business to have several significations First That is called ORIGINAL Sin which was the ORIGO of all other sins in the Humane World And that was not Adam's sin but Eves 2. That which was the ORIGO of sin to all the World save Adam and Eve communicated by the way of Generation And that was Adams and Eves conjunct viz. 1. Their first sinful Acts 2. Their Guilt 3. And their habitual pravity making it full though in Nature following the Act This Sin Fact Guilt and Habit as Accidents of the Persons of Adam and Eve are not Accidents of our Persons 3. Our personal participation 1. In the guilt of the sin of Adam and Eve 2. And of a vicious privation and habit from them as soon as we are Persons Which is called Original sin on three accounts conjunct 1. Because it is a participation of their Original Act that we are guilty of 2. Because it is in us ab Origine from our first Being 3. And because it is the Origo of all our Actual Sins 4. I call that also ORIGINAL or part of Original Sin which hath but the two later only viz. 1. Which is in us AB ORIGINE from our first personal being 2. Which is the Root or ORIGO in our selves of all our Actual Sins And thus our Guilt and Vice derived from our nearer Parents and not from Adam is our Original Sin That is 1. Both Guilt and Habit are in us from our Original or first Being 2. And all our Actual Sin springeth from it as a partial Cause For I may presume that this Reverend Doctor doth not hold that Adam's sin derived to us is in one part of the Soul which is not partible and our nearer Parent 's in another but will grant that it is one vitiosity that is derived from both the latter being a Degree added to the former though the Reatus having more than one fundamentum may be called diverse That Origo Active passive dicitur I suppose we are agreed Now I call the vicious Habits contracted from our nearer Parents by special reason of their own sins superadded to the degree which else we should have derived from Adam a part of our original sinful Pravity even a secondary part And I call our guilt of the sins of our nearer Parents not Adam's which you will either a secondary Original Guilt or Sin or a secondary part of our Original Guilt See then our dangerous disagreement I call that ORIGINAL which is in us ab Origine when we are first Persons and is partly the Root or Origo in us of all our following Actual Sin though it was not the Original Sin of Mankind or the first of Sins The Doctor thinks this an Expression which all Juniors must be warned to take heed of and to take heed of the Doctrine of him that useth it The Allarm is against this dangerous word ORIGINAL And let a Man awake tell us what is the danger But I would bring him yet to agreement even de nomine though it anger him 1. Let him read the Artic. 9. of the Church of England and seeing there Original Sin is said to be that corruption of Nature whereby we are far gone from Original Righteousness and are of our own Nature inclined to evil so that the flesh lusteth against the Spirit The lust of the flesh called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some do expound the Wisdom some Sensuality some the Affection some the desire of the Flesh not subject to the Law of God Seing a degree of all this same Lust is in Men from the special sins of their Fore-fathers as well as from Adam's Is not this Degree here called Original Sin why the Church omitted the Imputed Guilt aforesaid I enquire not 2. If this will not serve if he will find me any Text of Scripture which useth the Phrase ORIGINAL Sin I will promise
about the Imputation of Adam's Sin Dr. Gell Mr. Thorndike c. vehemently accusing the doctrine of Imputed Righteousness The Consent of all Christians especially Protestants about the sense of Imputed Righteousness 1. The form of Baptism 2. The Apostles Creed 3. The Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creed 4. Athanasius's Creed 5. The Fathers sense Laurentius his Collections Damasus his Creed 6. The Augustan Confession 7. The English Articles Homilies and Confession 8. The Saxon Confession 9. The Wittenberg Confession 10. The Bohemian Confession 11. The Palatinate Confession 12. The Polonian Confessions 13. The Helvetian Confession 14. The Basil Confession 15. The Argentine Confession of the four Cities 16. The Synod of Dort and the Belgick Confession 17. The Scottish Confession 18. The French Confession Whether Imputation of Passion and Satisfaction or of meritorious Perfection go first How Christ's Righteousness is called the formal Cause c. That it is confessed that Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us as our sin was to him Molinaeus Maresius Vasseur Bellarmine is constrained to agree with us A recommendation of some brief most clear and sufficient Treatises on this subject viz. 1. Mr. Bradshaw 2. Mr. Gibbon's Sermon 3. Mr. Truman's Great Propitiation 4. Placeus his Disput in Thes Salmur 5. Le Blank 's Theses And those that will read larger Mr. Watton John Goodwin and Dr. Stillingfleet Chap. 2. The opening of the Case by some Distinctions and many Propositions Joh. Crocius Concessions premised Mr. Lawson's Judgment Chap. 3. A further Explication of the Controversie Chap. 4. My Reasons against the denied sense of Imputation and personating The denied sense repeated plainly Forty three Reasons briefly named Chap. 5. Some Objections answered Chap. 6 7 8. Replies to Dr. Tully and a Defence of the Concord of Protestants against his Military Alarm and false pretence of greater discord than there is Of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness Material or Formal to Believers Whether we are Reputed personally to have suffered on the Cross and to have satisfied God's Justice for our own sins and to have been habitually perfectly Holy and Actually perfectly Obedient in Christ or by Christ and so to have merited our own Justification and Salvation And whether Christ's Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive be strictly made our own Righteousness in the very thing it self simply Imputed to us or only be made ours in the effects and Righteousness Imputed to us when we believe because Christ hath satisfied and fulfilled the Law and thereby merited it for us The last is affirmed and the two first Questions denied I Have said so much of this subject already in my Confession but especially in my Disputations of Justification and in my Life of Faith that I thought not to have meddled with it any more But some occasions tell me that it is not yet needless though those that have most need will not read it But while some of them hold that nothing which they account a Truth about the Form and Manner of Worship is to be silenced for the Churches peace they should grant to me that Real Truth so near the Foundation in their own account is not to be silenced when it tendeth unto Peace In opening my thoughts on this subject I shall reduce all to these Heads 1. I shall give the brief History of this Controversie 2. I shall open the true state of it and assert what is to be asserted and deny what is to be denied 3. I shall give you the Reasons of my Denials 4. I shall answer some Objections CHAP. I. The History of the Controversie § 1. IN the Gospel it self we have first Christ's Doctrine delivered by his own mouth And in that there is so little said of this Subject that I find few that will pretend thence to resolve the Controversie for Imputation in the rigorous sence The same I say of the Acts of the Apostles and all the rest of the New Testament except Pauls Epistles The Apostle Paul having to do with the Jews who could not digest the equalizing of the Gentiles with them and specially with the factious Jewish Christians who thought the Gentiles must become Proselytes to Moses as well as to Christ if they would be Justified and Saved at large confuteth this opinion and freeth the Consciences of the Gentile Christians from the Imposition of this yoke as also did all the Apostles Act. 15. And in his arguing proveth that the Mosaical Law is so far from being necessary to the Justification of the Gentiles that Abraham and the Godly Jews themselves were not Justified by it but by Faith And that by the works of it and consequently not by the works of the Law or Covenant of Innocency which no man ever kept no man could ever be justified And therefore that they were to look for Justification by Christ alone and by Faith in him or by meer Christianity which the Gentiles might have as well as the Jews the Partition-wall being taken down This briefly is the true scope of Paul in these Controversies § 2. But in Paul's own days there were somethings in his Epistles which the unlearned and unstable did wrest as they did the other Scriptures to their own destruction as Peter tells us 2 Pet. 2. And it seemeth by the Epistle of James that this was part of it For he is fain there earnestly to dispute against some who thought that Faith without Christian works themselves would justifie and flatly affirmeth that we are Justified by Works and not by Faith only that is as it is a Practical Faith in which is contained a Consent or Covenant to obey which first putteth us into a justified state so it is that Practical Faith actually working by Love and the actual performance of our Covenant which by way of Condition is necessary to our Justification as Continued and as Consummate by the Sentence of Judgment Against which sentence of James there is not a syllable to be found in Paul But all the Scripture agreeth that all men shall be Judged that is Justified or Condemned according to their works But it is not this Controversie between Faith and Works which I am now to speak to having done it enough heretofore § 3. From the days of the Apostles till Pelagius and Augustine this Controversie was little meddled with For the truth is the Pastors and Doctors took not Christianity in those days for a matter of Shcolastick subtilty but of plain Faith and Piety And contented themselves to say that Christ dyed for our sins and that we are Justified by Faith and that Christ was made unto us Righteousness as he was made to us Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption § 4. But withal those three first Ages were so intent upon Holiness of Life as that they addicted their Doctrine their Zeal and their constant endeavours to it And particularly to great austerities to their Bodies in great Fastings and great contemp◠of the World and exercises of Mortification to kill their fleshly
Virtually or Seminally in him we derive from him first our Persons and in them a corrupted nature and that nature corrupted and justly deserted by the Spirit of God because it is derived from Adam that so sinned And so that Adams fact is imputed to us mediately mediante natura Corruptione but not primarily and immediately This doctrine of the Good and Judicious man was thought too new to escape sharp censures so that a rumour was spread abroad that he denied all Imputation of Adams fact and placed original guilt only in the Guilt of Coruption for which indeed he gave occasion A Synod being called at Charenton this opinion without naming any Author was condemned all Ministers required to subscribe it Amyraldus being of Placeus mind in a speech of two hours vindicated his opinion Placeus knowing that the Decree did not touch him took no notice of it But Gerissolius of Montauban wrote against him pretending him condemned by the Decree which Drelincourt one that drew it up denied professing himself of Placeus his judgment and Rivet also Maresius Carol. Daubuz and others misunderstanding him wrote against him For my part I confess that I am not satisfied in his distinction of Mediate and Immediate Imputation I see not but our Persons as derived from Adam being supposed to be in Being we are at once Reputed to be such as Virtually sinned in him and such as are deprived of God's Image And if either must be put first me-thinks it should rather be the former we being therefore deprived of God's Immage not by God but by Adam because he sinned it away from himself It satisfieth me much more to distinguish of our Being and so sinning in Adam Personally and Seminally or Virtually we were not Persons in Adam when he sinned therefore we did not so sin in him And it is a fiction added to God's Word to say that God because he would do it reputed us to be what we were not But we were Seminally in Adam as in Causâ naturali who was to produce us out of his very essence And therefore that kind of being which we had in him could not be innocent when he was guilty And when we had our Natures and Persons from him we are justly reputed to be as we are the off-spring of one that actually sinned And so when our Existence and Personality maketh us capable Subjects we are guilty Persons of his sin though not with so plenary a sort of Guilt as he And I fear not to say that as I lay the ground of this Imputation in Nature it self so I doubt not but I have elsewhere proved that there is more participation of all Children in the guilt of their parents sins by nature than is sufficiently acknowledged or lamented by most though Scripture abound with the proof of it And that the overlooking it and laying all upon God's arbitrary Covenant and Imputation is the great temptation to Pelâ—gians to deny Original sin And that our misery no more increaseth by it is because we are now under a Covenant that doth not so charge all culpability on mankind as the Law of Innocency did alone And there is something of Pardon in the Case And the English Litany after Ezra Daniel and others well prayeth Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our Forefathers c. This same Placeus in Thes Salmuriens Vol. 1. hath opened the doctrine of Justification so fully that I think that one Disputation might spare some the reading of many contentious Volumes The rigid assertors of Imputation proved such a stumbling-block to many that they run into the other extreme and not only denyed it but vehemently loaded it with the Charges of over-throwing all Godliness and Obedience Of these Parker as is said with some others wrote against it in an answer to the Assemblies Confession Dr. Gell often reproacheth it in a large Book in Folio And lastly and most sharply and confidently Herbert Thorndike to mention no more The History of this Controversie of Imputation I conclude though disorderly with the sense of all the Christian Churches in the Creeds and Harmony of Confessions because they were too long to be fitly inserted by the way The Consent of Christians and specially Protestants about the Imputation of Christs Righteousness in Justification How far and in what sence it is Imputed I. SEeing Baptism is our visible initiation into Christianity we must there begin and see what of this is there contained Mat. 28.19 Baptizing them into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Mar. 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Act. 2.38 Repent and be Baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost See Acts 8.36 37 38. The Eunuch's Faith and Baptism Act. 22.16 Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins having called on the name of the Lord. Rom. 6.3 So many as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death Gal. 3.27 As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ 1. Pet. 3.21 The like whereunto Baptism doth also now save us not the putting away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good Conscience towards God by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Rom. 4.24 25. But for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our Justification Quaer How far Christ's Resurrection is imputed to us II. The Creed called by the Apostles hath but I believe the forgiveness of sins III. The Nicene and Constantinopolitane Creed I acknowledg one Baptism for the Remission of sins Christ's Death Burial and Resurrection premised IV. Athanasius's Creed Who suffered for our Salvation descended into Hell rose again the third day At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies and shall give account for their own works and they that have done good shall go into everlasting life and they that have done evil into everlasting Fire Remission is contained in Salvation V. The Fathers sence I know not where the Reader can so easily and surely gather without reading them all as in Laurentius his Collection de Justif after the Corpus Confessionum and that to the best advantage of the Protestant Cause They that will see their sence of so much as they accounted necessary to Salvation may best find it in their Treatises of Baptism and Catechizings of the Catechumens Though they say less about our Controversie than I could wish they had I will have no other Religion than they had The Creed of Damasus in Hieron op Tom. 2. hath but In his Death and Blood we believe that we are cleansed and have hope that we shall obtain the reward of good merit meaning our own which the Helvetians own in the end of their Confession VI.
more were bound to 3. Nor the Paternal Offices to Children 4. Nor all the offices of a King on Earth or Magistrate nor of a Servant c. Nor the duty of the Sick 5. He did not repent of sin nor turn from it to God nor mortifie or resist in himself any sinful lust nor receive a Saviour by Faith nor was circumcised or baptized for the Remission of his sins nor loved God or thanked him for redeeming or pardoning him nor obeyed God in the use of any Ordinance or Means for the subduing of sin and healing or saving of his Soul from any sin or deserved wrath of God with much more such 7. Christ did perform much which no man else was bound to do As to redeem Souls to work his Miracles and the rest of the works peculiar to the Mediator 8. That Law which bound us to Suffering or made it our due bound not Christ to it as being innocent But he was bound to it by the Fathers Law of Mediator and by his own voluntary sponsion 9. The Law obliging every sinner himself to suffer was not fulfilled by the Suffering of Christ our Sponsor But only the Lawgiver satisfied by attaining its Ends. For neither the letter nor sence of it said If thou sin thou or thy surety shall suffer 10. Christ satisfied Justice and obeyed in Humane Nature which also was Holy in him 11. He did not this as a Natural Root or Head to man as Adam was to convey Holiness or Righteousness by natural propagation as Adam should have done and did by sin For Christ had no Wife or natural Children But as a Head by Contract as a Husband to a Wife and a King to a Kingdom and a Head of Spiritual Influx 12. No as being Actually such a Head to the Redeemed when he Obeyed and Suffered but as a Head by Aptitude and Office Power and Virtue who was to become a Head actually to every one when they Believed and Consented Being before a Head for them and over those that did exist but not a Head to them in act 13. Therefore they were not Christs members Political much less Natural when he obeyed and died 14. A Natural Head being but a part of a person what it doth the Person doth But seeing a Contracted Head and all the members of his Body Contracted or Politick are every one a distinct Person it followeth not that each person did really or reputatively what the Head did Nay it is a good consequence that If he did it as Head they did it not numerically as Head or Members 15. Christ Suffered and Obeyed in the Person of the Mediator between God and man and as a subject to the Law of Mediation 16. Christ may be said to suffer in the person of a sinner as it meaneth his own person reputed and used as a sinner by his persecutors and as he was one who stood before God as an Undertaker to suffer for Man's sin 17. Christ suffered in the place and stead of sinners that they might be delivered though in the person of a Sponsor 18. When we are agreed that the Person of the Sponsor and of every particular sinner are divers and that Christ had not suffered if we had not sinned and that he as a Sponsor suffered in our stead and so bore the punishment which not he but we deserved If any will here instead of a Mediator or Sponsor call him our Representative and say that he suffered even in all our Persons reputatively not simpliciter but secunduùm quid in tantum only that is not representing our Persons simply and in all respects and to all ends but only so far as to be a sacrifice for our sins and suffer in our place and stead what he suffered we take this to be but lis de nomine a question about the name and words And we will not oppose any man that thinketh those words fittest as long as we agree in the matter signified And so many Protestant Divines say that Christ suffered in the person of every sinner at least Elect that is so far only and to such effects 19. Christ did not suffer strictly simply absolutely in the person of any one elect sinner much less in the millions of persons of them all in Law-sence or in Gods esteem God did not esteem Christ to be naturally or as an absolute Representer David Manasseh Paul and every such other sinner but only a Mediator that suffered in their stead 20. God did make Christ to be sin for us that is A Sacrifice for our sin and one that by Man was reputed and by God and Man was used as sinners are and deserve to be 21. Christ was not our Delegate in Obeying or Suffering We did not commission him or depute him to do what he did in our stead But he did it by God's Appointment and his own Will 22. Therefore he did it on God's terms and to what effects it pleased God and not on our terms nor to what effects we please 23. God did not suppose or repute Christ to have committed all or any of the sins which we all committed nor to have had all the wickedness in his nature which was in ours nor to have deserved what we deserved Nor did he in this proper sence impute our sins to Christ 24. The false notion of God's strict imputing all our sins to Christ and esteeming him the greatest sinner in the World being so great a Blasphemy both against the Father and the Son it is safest in such Controversies to hold to the plain and ordinary words of Scripture And it is not the Wisdom nor Impartiality of some men who greatly cry up the Scripture perfection and decry the addition of a Ceremony or Form in the Worship of God that yet think Religion is endangered if our Confession use not the phrases of God 's Imputing our sin to Christ and his Imputing Christ's Righteousness to us when neither of them is in the Scripture As if all God's Word were not big or perfect enough to make us a Creed or Confession in such phrases as it is fit for Christians to take up with Countenancing the Papists whose Faith is swelled to the many Volumes of the Councils and no man can know how much more is to be added and when we have all 25. God doth not repute or account us to have suffered in our Natural persons what Christ suffered for us nor Christ to have suffered in our Natural persons 26. Though Christ suffered in our stead and in a large sence to certain uses and in some respects as the Representer or in the Persons of sinners yet did he not so far represent their persons in his Habitual Holiness and Actual Obedience no not in the Obedience of his Suffering as he did in the suffering it self He obeyed not in the Person of a sinner much less of millions of sinners which were to say In the person of sinners he never sinned He suffered to
each one of which being Collectives contain many And here I tell you of more And have you brought more Witnesses Or any to the contrary Did you Confute or once take Notice of any of these 4. Do you not here before you are aware let your Reader know that it was and still is in the Dark that you Alarm the World about our dangerous Differences and run to your Arms undrest before your Eyes are open Qui conveniunt in aliquo tertio c. They that agree with the Church of England in the Doctrine of Justification by Faith do so far agree between themselves But Dr. Tullie and R.B. do agree with the Church of England in the Doctrine of Justification by Faith Ergo. The Article referreth to the Homilies where it is more fully Explained 5. May not I then retort your Argument and bid you For shame let it be no longer Bellarnine and R.B. but the Church of England and all the Reformed and R.B. Disprove the Witnesses twenty years ago produced by me in this very Cause or else speak out and say The Church of England and the rest of the Reformed hold Justification by Works just as Bellarmine and the Papists do which is it which you would fasten on me who agree with them as if you had never there read my Answer to Mr. Crandon objecting the same thing § IV. Your Censure pag. 10 11. of my Windings Clouds of Novel Distinctions Preambles Limitations c. is just such as your Treatise did bid me expect Till you become guilty of the same Crime and fall out with Confusion and take not equivocal ambiguous Words unexplained instead of Univocals in the stating of your Questions I shall never the more believe that Hannibal is at the Gates or the City on Fire for your Allarms § V. Pag. 11. Where you tell me that You have no Profit by my Preface I shall not deny it nor wonder at it you are the fittest Judge Where you say that I have no Credit You do but tell the World at what Rates you write Honor est in honorante And have all my Readers already told you their Judgment Alas How few In all London not a Man hath yet given me Notice of his Dislike or Dissent And sure your own Pen is a good Confuter of you It is some Credit that such a Man as you is forced to profess a full Consent to the Doctrine though with passionate Indignation You tell me of Nothing to the Question But will you not be angry if I should but tell you how little you did to state any Question and in Reason must be supposed when you assaulted my Doctrine to take it as I stated it which I have fully shewed you You tell me that You Charged me only with new Original Sin underived from Adam unknown unheard of before in the Christian World Answ De re is not our Guilt of nearer Parent 's Sins such which you and all that you know now at last confess De nomine 1. Tell the World if you can when I called it New Original Sin or underived from Adam or unknown or unheard of There are more ways than one of Derivation from Adam It is not derived from him by such Imputation as his first Sin but it is derived from him as a partial Causa Causae by many Gradations All Sin is some-way from him Either you mean that I said that it was not Derived from Adam or you gather it by some Consequence from what I said If the First shew the Words and the Shame shall be mine If not you know the old Law that to false Accusers it must be done as they would have done to the Accused But if it be your Consequence prove it and tell the World what are the Premises that infer it § VI. Pag. 12. You friendly help me to profit by my self however you profess that you profit not by me What I have said to you against Hasty Judging I have first said to my self and the more you warn me of it the more friendly you are If it be not against such as you but my self it is against my self that I have a Treatise on that Subject but I begin to think my self in this more Seeing than you for I see it both in my self and you and you seem to see it in me and not in your self But with all Men I find that to see the Spots in our own Face immediately is hard and to love the Glass which sheweth them is not easie especially to some Men that neither are low nor can endure to be so till there is no Remedy But Sir how easie a Way of Disputing have you happily light on Who instead of Examining the hundred Witnesses which I brought and my else-where oft proving the Doctrine opposed by me to be Novel and Singular do in few words talk of your holding the Doctrine delivered to the Saints and of the many Worthies that concur with you and of my pelting at their Heads and draging them by the Hoary-heads as a Spectacle and By-word to all by proving their consent by express Citations what Armies and of what Strength appear against me whose Names I defie and wound through yours Answ And is not he a weak Man that cannot talk thus upon almost any Subject But who be these Men and what be their Names Or rather first rub your Eyes and tell us what is the Controversie Tully sometimes talkt at this rate in his Orations but verily much better in his Philosophy And you see no cause to repent but you bless God that you can again and again call to all Youth that as they love the Knowledg of Truth they take me not for an Oracle in my bold dividing Singularities Answ That the Name of Truth is thus abused is no News I would the Name of God were not And I am sorry that you see no Cause to repent I am obliged to love you the better for being against dividing Singularities in the general Notion I hope if you knew it you would not be for them as in singular Existents But sure none at Oxford are in danger of taking me for an Oracle This is another needless Work So Spanhemius took that for a Singularity which Dallaeus in a large Catalogue hath proved the Common Judgment of the Church till Contention of late caused some Dissenters Will you cease these empty general Ostentations and choose out any one Point of real Difference between you and me about Justification and come to a fair Trial on whose side the Churches of Christ have been for 1500 years after Christ yea bring me but any two or one considerable Person that was for a thousand years for your Cause against mine and I will say that you have done more to confute me by far than yet you have done and if two only be against me I will pardon you for calling me Singular § VII Pag. 13 14 15. You again do keep up the Dividing Fear
oft enough what I mean and what he meaneth I have little to do with But if he think 1. That Adams Person did commit the sin of Cain and of all that ever were since committed and that Judas his act was Adams personal act 2. Or that Adams sin was a total or necessitating Cause of all the evil since committed so do not I nor doth he I doubt not And now I am cast by him on the strait either to accuse him of differing de re and so of Doctrinal errour or else that he knoweth not when the difference is de re and when de nomine but is so used to confusion that Names and Things do come promiscuously into the Question with him And which of these to chuse I know not The Reader may see that I mentioned Actual Sin and Guilt And I think few will doubt but Adams Actual sin and Cains were divers and that therefore the Guilt that Cains Children had of Adams sin and of Cains was not the same But that Causa causae is Causa causati and so that all following Sin was partly but partly caused by Adam's we shall soon agree He addeth that I must make good that new Original Sin for he can make use of the word New and therefore made it doth mutare naturam as the Old doth Ans And how far it changeth it I told him and he taketh no notice of it The first sin changed Nature from Innocent into Nocent the Second changeth it from Nocent into more Nocent Doth he deny this Or why must I prove any more Or doth nothing but Confusion please him 3. He saith I must prove that the Derivation of Progenitors sins is constant and necessary not uncertain and contingent Ans Of this also I fully said what I held and he dissembleth it all as if I had never done it And why must I prove more By what Law can he impose on me what to hold But really doth he deny that the Reatus culpae yea and ad Poenam the Guilt of nearer Parents sins is necessarily and certainly the Childs though Grace may pardon it If he do not why doth he call on me to prove it If he do confess the Guilt and deny it necessary when will he tell us what is the Contingent uncertain Cause For we take a Relation such as Guilt is necessarily to result a posito fundamento § 2. He next cavilleth at my Citations about which I only say either the Reader will peruse the cited words and my words which shew to what end I cited them to prove our Guilt of our nearer Parents sins or he will not If he will not I cannot expect that he will read a further Vindication If he will he needeth not § 3. His second Spark is Animadversions on a sheet of mine before mentioned which are such as I am not willing to meddle with seeing I cannot either handle them or name them as the nature of them doth require without offending him And if what is here said of Imputation and Representation be not enough I will add no more nor write over and over still the same things because a Man that will take no notice of the many Volumns which answer all his Objections long ago will call for more and will write his Animadversions upon a single Sheet that was written on another particular occasion and pretend to his discoveries of my Deceits from the Silence of that Sheet and from my naming the Antinomians I only say 1. If this Mans way of Disputing were the common way I would abhor Disputing and be ashamed of the Name 2. I do friendly desire the Author of the Friendly Debate Mr. Sherlock and all others that would fasten such Doctrines on the Non-Conformists as a Character of the Party to observe that this Doctor sufficiently confuteth their partiality and that their Academical Church-Doctors are as Confused as Vehement maintainers of such expressions as they account most unsavoury as any even of the Independants cited by them Yea that this Doctor would make us question whether there be now any Antinomians among us and so whether all the Conformists that have charged the Conformists yea or the Sectaries with having among them Men of such unsound Principles have not wronged them it being indeed the Doctrine of the Church of England which they maintain whom I and others call Antinomians and Libertines And I hope at least the sober and sound Non-Conformists are Orthodox when the vehementest Sectaries that calumniated my Sermon at Pinners Hall are vindicated by such a Doctor of the Church 3. I yet conclude that if this One Mans Writings do not convince the Reader of the Sin and Danger of Allarming Christians against one another as Adversaries to great and necessary Doctrines on the account of meer Words not understood for want of accurateness and skill in the expressive Art I take him to be utterly unexcusable Pemble Vind. Gra◠p. 25. It were somewhat if it were in Learning as it is in bearing of a Burthen where many weak Men may bear that which One or few cannot But in the search of Knowledg it fares as in discrying a thing afar off where one quick-sight will see further than a thousand clear Eyes FINIS I had not time to gather the Errata of any but the First Book Correct these Greater or you will misunderstand the Matter PAge 27. Line 2. Read self the Act. p. 54. l. 30. r. as obliging p. 58. l. 20. for of r. or p. 59. l. 1 and 2. r. who is not p. 86. l. 32. for OURS r. OUR Righteousness p. 88. l. 7. for Covenanted r. Connoted p. 97. l. 31. r. and suffering p. 103. l. 9 10. for have us Holy r. leave us unholy p. 110. l. 10. for we r. were p. 111. l. penult and p. 112. l. 5. and 10. for our r. one l. 21. for but r. must p. 115. l. 25. for raze out r. rake up p. 117. l. 18. r. personating Representation p. 118. l. 2. for Minister r. Meriter p. 119. l. 16. for are r. are not p. 140. l. 23. for if r. that p. 126. l. 23. for arrive r. arm p. 149. l. 19. r. and the. p. 153. l. 23. r. and will p. 154. l. 26. r. our own-innocency it p. 157. l. 29. r. Private but. p. 169. l. 2. r. conditional p. 177. l. 9. r. sufficiency p. 181. l. 27. for argument r. agreement The Lesser Errata PReface p. 3. l. 16. r. eternal Contents p. 2. l. 21. r. Wotton p. 11. l. 4. for no r. in l. 17. r. praetendit l. 27. r. sufficere p. 12. l. 1. r. ficantur l. 16. r. impetrando l. antipen r. Credimus p. 13. l. 2. r. praecedit p. 16. l. 26. r. Schlussel Burgius p. 22. l. 9. for that r. the p. 36. l. antipen dele by p. 55. l. 10. for no r. not p. 60. l. 15. for then r. there p. 64. l. 5. for of r. or p. 68. l. 28. r.
Controversie is about a Civil personating 3. That God judgeth not falsly 4. That Christ was not our Delegate and Instrument sent by us to do this in our stead as a man payeth his debt by a Servant whom he sendeth with the money 5. That therefore Christs Righteousness is not Imputed to us as if we had done it by him as our Instrument 6. That all the fruits of Christs Merits and Satisfaction are not ours upon our first believing much less before But we receive them by degrees we have new pardon daily of new sins We bear castigatory punishments even Death and Denials or loss of the greater assistance of the Spirit Our Grace is all imperfect c. 7. That we are under a Law and not left ungoverned and lawless and that Christ is our King and Judge And this Law is the Law or Covenant of Grace containing besides the Precepts of perfect Obedience to the Law natural and superadded a Gift of Christ with Pardon and Life but only on Condition that we thankfully and believingly accept the Gift And threatning non-liberation and a far sorer punishment to all that unbelievingly and unthankfully reject it 8. That therefore this Testament or Covenant-Gift is God's Instrument by which he giveth us our Right to Christ and Pardon and Life And no man hath such Right but by this Testament-Gift 9. That this called a Testament Covenant Promise and Law in several respects doth besides the Conditions of our first Right impose on us Continuance in the Faith with sincere Holiness as the necessary Condition of our continued Justification and our actual Glorification And that Heaven is the Reward of this keeping of the new Covenant as to the order of Gods Collation though as to the value of the Benefit it is a Free Gift purchased merited and given by Christ 10. That we shall all be judged by this Law of Christ 11. That we shall all be judged according to our deeds and those that have done good not according to the Law of Innocency or Works but according to the Law of Grace shall go into everlasting life and those that have done evil not by meer sin as sin against the Law of Innocency but by not keeping the Conditions of the Law of Grace shall go into everlasting punishment The sober reading of these following texts may end all our Controversie with men that dare not grosly make void the Word of God Rev. 20.12 13.22.12 2.23 12. That to be Justified at the day of Judgment is to be adjudged to Life Eternal and not condemned to Hell And therefore to be the cause or condition that we are Judged to Glory and the Cause or Condition that we are Justified then will be all one 13. That to be Judged according to our deeds is to be Justified or Condemned according to them 14. That the great tryal of that day as I have after said will not be whether Christ hath done his part but whether we have part in him and so whether we have believed and performed the Condition of that Covenant which giveth Christ and Life 15. That the whole scope of Christ's Sermons and all the Gospel calleth us from sin on the motive of avoiding Hell after we are reputed Righteous and calleth us to Holiness Perseverance and overcoming on the motive of laying up a good Foundation and having a Treasure in Heaven and getting the Crown of Righteousness 16. That the after-sins of men imputed Righteous deserve Hell or at least temporal punishments and abatements of Grace and Glory 17. That after such sins especially hainous we must pray for Pardon and repent that we may be pardoned and not say I fulfilled the Law in Christ as from my birth to my death and therefore have no more need of Pardon 18. That he that saith he hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a lyar 19. That Magistrates must punish sin as God s Officers and Pastors by Censure in Christs name and Parents also in their Children 20. That if Christs Holiness and perfect Obedience and Satisfaction and Merit had bin Ours in Right and Imputation as simply and absolutely and fully as it was his own we could have no Guilt no need of Pardon no suspension or detention of the proper fruits of it no punishment for sin specially not so great as the with-holding of degrees of Grace and Glory And many of the consequents aforesaid could not have followed All this I think we are all agreed on and none of it can with any face be denied by a Christian And if so 1. Then whether Christs perfect Holiness and Obedience and Sufferings Merit and Satisfaction be all given us and imputed unto us at our first believing as Our own in the very thing it self by a full and proper Title to the thing Or only so imputed to us as to be judged a just cause of giving us all the effects in the degrees and time forementioned as God pleaseth let all judge as evidence shall convince them 2. And then whether they do well that thrust their devised sence on the Churches as an Article of Faith let the more impartial judge I conclude with this confession to the Reader that though the matter of these Papers hath been thought on these thirty years yet the Script is hasty and defective in order and fulness I could not have leisure so much as to affix in the margin all the texts which say what I assert And several things especially the state of the Case are oft repeated But that is lest once reading suffice not to make them observed and understood which if many times will do I have my end If any say that I should take time to do things more accurately I tell him that I know my straights of time and quantity of business better than he doth and I will rather be defective in the mode of one work than leave undone the substance of another as great July 20. 1672. Richard Baxter The Contents CHap. 1. The History of the Controversie In the Apostles days In the following Ages Augustine and his followers Opinion The Schoolmen Luther Islebius The Lutherans Andr. Osiander The latter German Divines who were against the Imputation of Christ's Active Righteousness Our English Divines Davenant's sense of Imputation Wotton de Reconcil Bradshaw Gataker Dr. Crisp Jo. Simpson Randal Towne c. And the Army Antinomians checkt by the rising of Arminianism there against it Jo. Goodwin Mr. Walker and Mr. Roborough Mr. Ant. Burges My Own endeavours Mr. Cranden Mr. Eyres c. Mr. Woodbridge Mr. Tho. Warren Mr. Hotchkis Mr. Hopkins Mr. Gibbon Mr. Warton Mr. Grailes Mr. Jessop What I then asserted Corn. a Lapide Vasquez Suarez Grotius de Satisf Of the Savoy Declaration Of the Faith of the Congregational-Divines Their saying that Christs Active and Passive Obedience is imputed for our sole Righteousness confuted by Scripture Gataker Usher and Vines read and approved my Confession of Faith Placeus his Writings and trouble
the debt of a Community deeply indebted to the King and thence bound to perpetual slavery This payment gets liberty for this and that and the other member of the Community For it is imputed to them by the King as if they had paid it But this Imputation transferreth not the honour to them but brings them to partake of the Benefit So when the price paid by Christ for all is imputed to this or that man he is taken into the society of the Benefit Pag. 503. Distinguish between the Benefit and the Office of Christ The former is made ours but not the latter Pag. 542. The Remission of sin is nothing but the Imputation of Christs Righteousness Rom. 4. Where Imputation of Righteousness Remission of Iniquities and non-imputation of sin are all one Pag. 547. God imputeth it as far as he pleaseth Pag. 548. Princes oft impute the merits of Parents to unworthy Children Pag. 551. He denyeth that we have Infinite Righteousness in Christ because it is imputed to us in a finite manner even so far as was requisite to our absolution But I will a little more distinctly open and resolve the Case 1. We must distinguish of Righteousness as it relateth to the Preceptive part of the Law and as it relateth to the Retributive part The first Righteousness is Innocency contrary to Reatus Culpae The second is Jus ad impunitatem ad praemium seu dâ—num Right to Impunity and to the Reward 2. We must distinguish of Christs Righteousness which is either so called formally and properly which is the Relation of Christs person to his Law of Mediation imposed on him 1. As Innocent and a perfect obeyer 2. As one that deserved not punishment but deserved Reward Or it is so called materially and improperly which is Those same Habits Acts and Sufferings of Christ from which his Relation of Righteous did result 3. We must distinguish of Imputation which signifyeth here 1. To repute us personally to have been the Agents of Christs Acts the subjects of his Habits and Passion in a Physical sence 2. Or to repute the same formal Relation of Righteousness which was in Christs person to be in ours as the subject 3. Or to repute us to have been the very subjects of Christ's Habits and Passion and the Agents of his Acts in a Political or Moral sense and not a physical as a man payeth a debt by his Servant or Attorney or Delegate 4. And consequently to repute a double formal Righteousness to result from the said Habits Acts and Passions one to Christ as the natural Subject and Agent and another to us as the Moral Political or reputed Subject and Agent And so his Formal Righteousness not to be imputed to us in it self as ours but another to result from the same Matter 5. Or else that we are reputed both the Agents and Subjects of the Matter of his Righteousness morally and also of the Formal Righteousness of Christ himself 6. Or else by Imputation is meant here that Christ being truly reputed to have taken the Nature of sinful man and become a Head for all true Believers in that undertaken Nature and Office in the Person of a Mediator to have fulfilled all the Law imposed on him by perfect Holiness and Obedience and Offering himself on the Cross a Sacrifice for our sins voluntarily suffering in our stead as if he had been a sinner guilty of all our sins As soon as we believe we are pardoned justified adopted for the sake and merit of this Holiness Obedience and penal Satisfaction of Christ with as full demonstration of divine Justice at least and more full demonstration of his Wisdom and Mercy than if we had suffered our selves what our sins deserved that is been damned or had never sinned And so Righteousness is imputed to us that is we are accounted or reputed righteous not in relation to the Precept that is innocent or sinless but in relation to the Retribution that is such as have Right to Impunity and Life because Christ's foresaid perfect Holiness Obedience and Satisfaction merited our Pardon and Adoption and the Spirit or merited the New-Covenant by which as an Instrument Pardon Justification and Adoption are given to Believers and the Spirit to be given to sanctifie them And when we believe we are justly reputed such as have Right to all these purchased Gifts 4. And that it may be understood how far Christ did Obey or Suffer in our stead or person we must distinguish 1. Between his taking the Nature of sinful man and taking the Person of sinners 2. Between his taking the Person of a sinner and taking the Person of you and me and each particular sinner 3. Between his taking our sinful persons simply ad omnia and taking them only secundum quid in tantum ad hoc 4. Between his suffering in the Person of sinners and his obeying and sanctity in the Person of sinners or of us in particular 5. Between his Obeying and Suffering in our Person and our Obeying and Suffering in his Person Natural or Political And now I shall make use of these distinctions by the Propositions following Prop. 1. The phrase of Christ's Righteousness imputed to us is not in the Scripture 2. Therefore when it cometh to Disputation to them that deny it some Scripture-phrase should be put in stead of it because 1. The Scripture hath as good if not much better phrases to signifie all in this that is necessary 2. And it is supposed that the Disputants are agreed of all that is express in the Scripture 3. Yet so much is said in Scripture as may make this phrase of Imputing Christ's Righteousness to us justifiable in the sound sence here explained For the thing meant by it is true and the phrase intelligible 4. Christ's Righteousness is imputed to Believers in the sixth sence here before explained As the Meritorious cause of our Pardon Justification Righteousness Adoption Sanctification and Salvation c. as is opened 5. Christ did not suffer all in kind much less in duration which sinful man deserved to suffer As e. g. 1. He was not hated of God 2. Nor deprived or deserted of the sanctifying Spirit and so of its Graces and Gods Image Nor had 3. any of that permitted penalty by which sin it self is a misery and punishment to the sinner 4. He fell not under the Power of the Devil as a deceiver and ruler as the ungodly do 5. His Conscience did not accuse him of sin and torment him for it 6. He did not totally despair of ever being saved 7. The fire of Hell did not torment his body More such instances may be given for proof 6. Christ did not perform all the same obedience in kind which many men yea all men are or were bound to perform As 1. He did not dress and keep that Garden which Adam was commanded to dress and keep 2. He did not the conjugal offices which Adam and millions