these ends of Government be secured in shewing favour the stighteousness and Justice of God will never suffer any disparagement how great soever the Grace and Favour be that is shewed to Offenders But now that God in justifying men upon account of sincere obedience and inherent righteousness considering what hath been done by our Lord Christ to make way for it and to bring things to that issue does not in the least countenance Sin past or encourage to the committing of it for time to come but that which is altogether contrary thereunto will sufficiently appear if you consider these two things First That notwithstanding God is so good and gracious so merciful and ready to forgive as he is yet he would not grant any terms at all of receiving us into favour again having once sinned except his own dear Son himself would take upon him our Nature and become a Sacrifice to make an Atonement for our Sin nor spare him when he had undertaken so to be notwithstanding that great love wherewith he loved him but delivered him up to death for us all when he undertook to become a propitiation for our Sins rather than we should have no terms of pardon granted God's granting terms of pardon and restauration to his favour upon no cheaper terms did clearly demonstrate him to be an enemy and hater of Sin in the highest and so irreconcilable to it as that no Sinner could have any ground to hope to escape the punishment due to it but upon observing that Condition of escaping it the obtaining of which cost so dear In that Christ thus suffered in the flesh he condemned Sin in the flesh as the phrase is Rom. 8.3 and that effectually and with a witness Hereby he condemned it in the sight of Heaven and Earth yea and of Hell too as a thing most abominable to God and contrary to his Nature and to the goodness and equity of his Laws and Government when deliverance from the desert of it could be obtained at no cheaper rate or easier terms than the Son of God his suffering in the Sinners stead no not upon repentance it self without this In that God hath thus set forth his Son to be a propitiation for Sin through Faith in his Blood it is to declare his Righteousness in the remission of Sins that are past that he is righteous although he forgive and that he might be just even when he is the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus Rom. 3.25 26. Secondly When God for Christ's sake and for what he hath done and suffered did grant terms of Grace by which we Sinners might come to be justified pardoned and saved yet they were such and none other but what tend to reclaim us from Sin and Rebellion and to reduce us to obedience and of Rebels to make us to become good Subjects And in doing this God is far from countenancing Sin or doing any thing disagreeable to the righteousness wisdom and goodness of his Government indeed so far from it that it highly commends and sets these off The terms of favour granted for Christ's sake are such as these That believing and being perswaded in our own minds that God is good and ready to forgive for his Son's sake we heartily repent that ever we rebell'd against him and that we desist from continuing in our Rebellion any longer and that we return to our duty and sincerely endeavour to please him in all things for the future It 's true indeed God knows that by reason of the wounds and disease we got by our fall and while we were in rebellion we have brought so great debility upon our selves as that though we do return to him yet we cannot do him such service now as man was capable of performing before the fall and his running into rebellion and therefore he is content for his Son's sake to accept of such service as we in this state of weakness and frailty are capable of performing provided we do the best we well can and make use of all helps and means afforded us whereby we may gather strength and grow better and do better and are heartily sorry that ever we have made our selves so uncapable as we have done of doing him better service These and such like are the terms granted us for Christ's sake But without some such Change as this God hath not promised to receive any man into favour Now then if it be not inconsistent with the righteousness and wisdom of his Government for God to offer and promise to receive Sinners into favour again upon these terms and conditions and I cannot think Mr. F. will say it is Then it cannot be inconsistent therewith for him to own that they have performed these conditions when indeed they have and so to own them now for his true and faithful Servants and Subjects to their power and according to the term set in his act of Grace which is his justifying of them or the imputing to them for righteousness such their faithful service as they are capable of performing These things considered I dare appeal to Mr. F's better and more impartial Judgment whether it be not consistent with the Holiness of God to justifie men upon the terms aforesaid I confess I cannot possibly understand why it should not as well consist with the Holiness of God to justifie us upon our believing and upon our obeying the Gospel too as it is to do it upon our believing alone And Mr. F. does not think that God doth justifie us at all or impute righteousness to us at all in one sense or another without our believing So that the imputation of righteousness to us for our justification in which sense soever we take it depends upon our own act in believing and so likewise is the application of what Christ hath done and suffered for our justification suspended upon our believing In what Notion soever you understand the application of the righteousness of Christ's life and satisfaction of his death to be made as whether by being imputed to us in it self or vertually by having our Faith for the sake thereof imputed to us for Righteousness yet still this application depends upon our believing because God hath made that the condition of it without which Christ shall profit us nothing I take notice further how Mr. F. by his Notion of having the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us otherwise than in its effects is led to think and say that our Sins also were otherwise imputed to Christ than in the effects of them To say saith he that our Sins were imputed to Christ in the effects of them but not in the guilt is to contradict all principles of Reason For guilt and obnoxiousness to punishment being equipollent phrases he cannot be supposed to be made liable to the last upon the account of our Sins without having been brought under the first p. 410. Nor is it imaginable let me say how any person should come under the
guilt of Sin that hath not been accessary to the fault For guilt implyes two things a fault committed by him that is guilty of it and the being under an obligation thereby to suffer the punishment due to it and this obligation of a guilty person to suffer proceeds from the demerit of his fault or crime And will Mr. F. say that Christ was guilty of our Sins by being in the fault Or that he came under an obligation to suffer by being in the fault and from the demerit of the fault God sorbid Christ was no otherwise obliged to suffer for our Sins than by his own voluntary consent in concurrence with the will of God his Father in offering himself as a Sacrifice to make an Atonement by his own Blood And after this manner indeed by being a Sacrifice the Beasts in time of the Law that were offered in Sacrifice for Sin did bear the Sins of those for whom they were offered But I should think he were little better than a Beast in his understanding that should say those Beasts were guilty of the Sins of those for whom they were offered in Sacrisice But it 's true as one truth leads to another so it 's too commonly seen men are tempted to commit one errour tō defend another which I think is the Case now before us Otherwise Mr. F. would hardly have ventured to say Christ was brought under the guilt of our Sins and had the guilt of them derived upon him but only the better as he thought no doubt to accommodate his Notion of our being in the Innocency and Righteousness of Christ by having it imputed to us and derived upon us But this is not the only inconvenience that attends this Notion of having the Righteousness of Christ it self imputed to us for our justification and not only in its happy effects for it seems to me to oppose the doctrine of forgiveness of Sin Nay I pray you consider whether it doth not evacuate it and leave no place for such a thing For if we in Mr. F's Law sense have by Christ paid all the Debt the Law could any wayes demand of us both in point of obedience and of suffering for our disobedience by having his obedience and sufferings themselves imputed to us and not only in the beneficial effects of them How then I pray you can we be said to be forgiven by God to whom the Debt thus paid was due Does that man forgive a Debt to me which I have paid him by another though not by my self A Legal Discharge I may have in such a case from the Creditour but no man will say he hath for given me my Debt I think it will best become us to say as the Scripture doth That God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us and not to say we have paid him what in the rigour of Justice he could demand of us if not more to wit perfect obedience and suffering too which the Law in its utmost rigour never demanded nor required We may well and thankfully take up with this That God in consideration of what Christ hath become done and suffered for our sakes for our benefit hath past an Act of Oblivion to remember our Sins and Iniquities no more provided and on condition that we repent of our rebellion against God and return to our Loyalty and Duty in obeying him truly sincerely and heartily as every one doth that so believes as thereby to become capable of being justified pardoned and saved Furthermore consider I pray you That if Christ's fulfilling of the Law be so imputed to us as that we are looked upon as having fulfilled it in him how could it then be necessary that Christ should dye for our Sins If we by the imputation of Christ's fulfilling the Law have paid the whole debt of Obedience which was owing to it we should then owe no debt of Suffering for the breach of it and consequently Christ would not have needed by suffering to have paid any such Debt for us no more than for himself who had no Sin to suffer for Again consider yet further That if Christ hath paid our whole debt of Obedience to the Law by fulfilling it for us and then imputing it to us is there not by this Notion if admitted a way paved and prepared for Libertines to think that then they need not pay it too to think that God is no such austeer Creditour as to exact the same debt twice first of the Surery and then of the Principal too And let me tell you this Sir that I have very great reason from my observation formerly to be confident that it was from this Opinion which Mr. F. now defends touching the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us otherwise than in its blessed effects that Antinomianism took its first rise among us in this Nation and Ranterism also out of that For how else could it be possible that men should fancy themselves pure and perfect and free from all Sin in the midst of those abominations some of them gave themselves up to but only that they thought themselves to be so by having another's righteousness imputed to them so as they to become formally righteous by it as he himself was save only in the point of imputation I must confess I cannot think that any Doctrine that is of the Gospel indeed which is a Doctrine according to Godliness in the whole and every part of it can be so liable as this is to natural inferences tending to ungodliness or to weaken that which is in the Doctrine of Justification rightly understood against Ungodliness But on the other hand when the promise of the great benefits of remission of Sin and eternal Life is suspended upon our being righteous by a righteousness inherent in us such as consists in Repentance Faith c. this becomes the greatest motive to Godliness imaginable and so comports directly with that which is God's great design by the Gospel which is to recover man again to Happiness by Holiness from which he first fell by transgression But that you may have down weight in this Argument and more if more can be I will offer one thing more to your consideration which perhaps may deserve it and that is Whether those that deny the inherent Grace of Faith and Sanctification by Faith to be imputed for Righteousness in Justification as they usually do who hold that Christ's Righteousness it self is so imputed do not thereby make themselves guilty in some respect and to a degree of the pernicious errour of the false Apostles and Judaising Christians for which in the gross they were charged with falling from Grace with making Christ to become of none effect to them and with perverting the Gospel of Christ For I think I shall make it evident that their errour lay in two things unless you will add thereto their opinion of meriting the one in denying the necessity of Internal Righteousness unto Justification the other in holding an external
F. undertakes to defend therefore Mr. F. insinuates to his Reader that Mr. S's Notion doth imply unless he will allow that we are Justified by being made righteous by the perfect Righteousness of Christ imputed to us such a Justification as cannot be properly so called nor maintained to be such without perverting the Scriptures from their plain and proper sense to that which is but so Metaphorically And to this end he takes it for granted that Justification in Mr. S's Notion of it contains in it remission of Sins and then argues that remission of Sin is not Justification in a proper sense and consequently that Mr. S's Notion of justification cannot be made good from the Scriptures without understanding them in an improper sense But if Mr. F. would have done this designed business indeed against Mr. S. he should have done one of these two things which yet he hath not done Either first shewed that Mr. S. hath defined justification by pardon of sin or Secondly that according to his Notion of it it must be so defined neither of which he hath done that I finde And therefore he doth but beat the air while he would have his Reader think he is beating Mr. S. That pardon of sin is promised in the Covenant of Grace to those that believe and obey the Gospel Mr. S. doth indeed assert and that according to the Scriptures and this pardon when vouchsafed doth discharge us from whatever lay against us either from Law or Gospel and is called in Scripture a not mentioning our sins unto us Ezek. 33.16 the remembring them no more Heb. 10.17 a not imputing of them Rom. 4.8 2. Cor. 5.19 but then these are two distinct things to justifie a person against an accusation of not believing and obeying the Gospel and the conferring upon him the benefits promised to those that have If they be not different but one and the same thing then the giving of eternal life it self is an assentiall part of our justification as well as the forgiveness of our sins for that as well as the forgiveness of sins is promised to those who believe and obey the Gospel And I think no man yet ever asserted that the giving of eternal life was justification it self but a benefit promised to those who are justified according to St. Paul Rom. 8.30 Whom he Justified them he also glorified Justification is God's imputing righteousness to men or their faith to them for righteousness and thus Abraham was justified by having his faith imputed to him for righteousness But pardon of sin is his not imputing to them their Trespasses and I must needs say I cannot apprehend how the imputation of faith for righteousness and the non-imputation of sin can be all one God in justifing men avoucheth and pronounceth them to be such as to whome he hath promised pardon that is true believers such as have performed the condition of the promise But then the counting of this performance of the condition for righteousness unto them is one thing and the conferring on them the benefit promised on that condition is another as I said If God had promised pardon only upon account of what Christ hath done and suffered for Sinners without any condition to be performed on their part then they would have had title to pardon without the justification I speak of But since it is otherwise a man's title to pardon is not cleared without being justified in order thereto as a performer of the condition Moreover the clearing the equity of God's proceeding in pardoning some and not other some depends upon this viz. That he can justifie one sort to be such as have repented and performed the condition on which he promised pardon whereas he cannot do so concerning the other Ezek. 18. And when I consider this I cannot see but that we have as much reason to think it meet and necessary that there should be such a difference between justification and pardon as hath been intimated as there is to believe that its fit and necessary that the reason and equity of god's proceedings should be cleared before Angels and men in pardoning some and not others And if this be found agreeable to reason then you have an evidence from the reason and nature of the thing why it should be so as well as from the Scriptures to shew that it is so Yet it s very true also that there is so very close and inseparable a connexion between Justification and Remission of Sin as that the Scripture which does not alwayes nicely difference things which yet are distinguishable but sometimes terms things by the same name which differ only but in some respect and sometimes denotes things of the same nature by different phrases and forms of speech I say the connexion between Justification and Remission is so close and inseparable as that the Scripture sometimes speakes of them promiscuously scarcely leaving any difference to be discerned between them which I conceive hath led so many to place Justification in Remission of Sin as are of that Judgement Such is Rom. 4.6 7. for one where the blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth Righteousness without works is thus described by David as St. Paul saith reciting his words saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Where you will hardly perceive any difference made between the imputation of Righteousnes and forgiveness of Sins unless we distinguish between righteousness imputed and the blessedness of haveing sin pardoned as consecuent upon it which I think may very well be done For the Apostle doth not say that David describes the Justification of the man to whom God imputeth righteousness withont works when he saith Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven but the blessedness of such a person who is so justified or to whom righteousness is imputed Which blessedness he placeth in the forgiveness of sins and being restored to the Divine favour So that these words of David as I said are not a description of Justification but of the blessedness a man comes to be possessed of by being justified The reason and design of the Apostle in reciting these words of David I shall shew afterwards Again Acts 13.39 is another such Scripture where it 's said that by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Where to be justified and to be delivered from the desert of sin seem to be the same Unless you will distinguish as well you may between that from which we are delivered to wit the obligation to Punishment and that by meanes whereof we come so to be delivered to wit our being justified and then to be justified from those things signifies no more here than by justification to come to be pardoned and so delivered from condemnation But if you will understand Justification in a large sense as comprehending and taking in with it its effects in which sense faith
it selfe is oft to be understood then indeed it includes pardon of sin and then in this sense to be pardoned is to be justified and to be justified is to be pardoned In which sense or respect it may be it is that many renowned both Persons and Churches have made little or no difference between Justification and remission of sin And now Sir if what I have suggested have any weight in it which I submit to tryal then you may see that there is a Justification of believers properly so called plainly and without figure asserted in Scripture and yet not consisting in that imputation of Righteousness neither which Mr. F. so much contends for nor yet in Remission of Sin neither the necessity of which he would inferr in case the other be denyed but in the imputation of that believing and obeying the Gospel for Righteousness to which Mr. S. saith pardon is promised And if so then Mr. F. hath only shewed us what he had a mind to do but not at all performed what he undertook But when Mr. F. asserts That unless we are justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in his sense of Imputation we cannot be said to be justified properly but only to be pardoned and that to be pardoned is not to be justified properly he proceeds therein upon a mistaken ground and confounds the terms and conditions of the original Law and Gospel Covenant together For he supposeth that in order to our Justification in a proper sense we must one way or other have such a Righteousness as will answer the demands of the Law in point of perfect obedience and of the Gospel otherwise and which will justifie us against all accusations to the contrary And that therefore we having no such Righteousness of our own we cannot be justified but by having the Righteousness of Christ made ours by Imputation that we may therewith answer the demands and accusations of the Law Or in case we should not be justified by the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ to answer the demands of the Law yet that then we must be justified by being pardoned and Pardon is not Justification properly so called But while he argues at this rate he overlooks what God hath done to supersede and relax the rigorous terms of the primitive Law by a new Law of Grace established in Christ with all Mankind and according to which he will now proceed with us and not according to the rigorous demands of the primitive Law By reason of this to wit God's relaxing the old and introducing new terms of Justification and Life it follows that neither a perfect Legal Righteousness is now necessary to Justification nor yet that Justification must consist only in pardon of Sin though we have no such Righteousness inherent or imputed in Mr. F's sense of Imputation as will answer the demands of the Law in point of perfection Such a Righteousness is not now necessary to Justification First because that which once made it necessary to that end is now relaxed by a new Law this I have shewed before * This new Law doth not relax the duty due by the old hut alter the condition onwhich the divine favour was at first enjoyable and hath now made sincere obedience to it and to the Gospel the condition of it instead of sinless perfection And it grants pardon of all past offences against both to such as are justified against the accusation of not having performed the Condition and of all after-offences also that are consistent with godly sincerity By reason whereof an answering the old demands of the Law absolute perfection is not now necessary to justification neither as inherent in us nor as imputed to us otherwise than as Christ's perfect righteousness is imputed to us in the fruits and benefits of it which is quite another thing than the imputation of his righteousness it self to us differing as much as the ects of his mediation differ from the benefits received thereby Secondly because by this new Law the Righteousness which consisteth in a penetential regenerating obediential Faith is made the condition upon which Pardon and Life are promised And because likewise the performance of this Condition is by God counted to us for Righteousness like as a fulfilling of the Legal Condition would have been counted our Legal Righteousness had we never sinned Although the Righteousness of Christ's Active and Passive Obedience is that Righteousness by which the Covenant it self and the benefits of it were conditionally obtained for us and granted to us And although it is of God's mercy and by vertue of Christ's Merits and the Promise and Ordination of God that we come to have any title to Pardon and Life when we have performed the Condition and not by vertue of any merit or desert in the performance it self yet this Righteousness of Christ does not entitle us to Pardon and Life until we have performed the Condition on our part required thereto which is such a believing as aforesaid And in the last issue we are accounted by God Righteous or Unrighteous according as we have or have not perform'd the Condition God's design towards us is to restore us to happiness and in order thereto to recover and bring again into our Nature those Vertues in which our likeness to God at first did consist by the loss of which we became miserable and without a recovery of which we cannot be happy And as most suitable to this design God hath made such a Faith the Condition of Pardon and Life as by which the renovation of our Nature is gradually wrought and without which we have no ground to expect those benefits how desirable soever they are to us and notwithstanding all that Christ hath done and suffered to obtain them for us To suppose that God accounts us Righteous and so confers a title to Pardon and Life only by the Righteousness of Christ imputed without respect to our being renewed in the Spirit of our minds and sanctified by Faith is to suppose him acting disagreably to his own design and method of Grace in recovering us from our undone condition To think we are made Righteous only by what our Saviour hath done without us without being renewed by a work of Faith within us To suppose we are by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness delivered from the danger of the Hell without us without being at all freed from the Hell within us which consists in unnatural Lusts and the uneasie effects of them To imagine that God should restore us to a participation of the priviledges of his Children by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness without restoring us at all to a participation in the Divine and New Nature of his Children is absurd and that which is opposed by the constant tenour of Divine Doctrine in the holy Scriptures And yet these are but the natural consequences of the Doctrine of being justified by the imputation of Christ's Righteousness alone and of