the least punishment upon For he that hath perfectly obeyed or hath perfectly satisfied by himself or by another in his person cannot justly be punished But I have elsewhere fully proved that Death and other Chastisements are punishments though not destructive but corrective And so is the permission of our further sinning 35. It intimateth that God wrongeth believers for not giving them immediately more of the Holy Ghost and not present perfecting them and freeing them from all sin For though Christ may give us the fruits of his own merits in the time and way that pleaseth himself yet if it be we our selves that have perfectly satisfied and merited in Christ we have present Right to the thing merited thereupon and it is an injury to deny it us at all 36. And accordingly it would be an injury to keep them so long out of Heaven if they themselves did merit it so long ago 37. And the very Threatning of Punishment in the Law of Grace would seem injurious or incongruous to them that have already reputatively obeyed perfectly to the death 38. And there would be no place left for any Reward from God to any act of obedience done by our selves in our natural or real person Because having reputatively fulfilled all Righteousness and deserved all that we are capable of by another our own acts can have no reward 39. And I think this would overthrow all Humane Laws and Government For all true Governours are the Officers of God and do what they do in subordination to God and therefore cannot justly punish any man whom he pronounceth erfectly Innocent to the death 40. This maketh every believer at least as Righteous as Christ himself as having true propriety in all the same numerical Righteousness as his own And if we be as Righteous as Christ are we not as amiable to God And may we not go to God in our Names as Righteous 41. This maketh all believers at least equally Righteous in degree and every one perfect and no difference between them David and Solomon as Righteous in the act of sinning as before and every weak and scandalous believer to be as Righteous as the best Which is not true though many say that Justification hath no degrees but is perfect at first as I have proved in my Life of Faith and elsewhere 42. This too much levelleth Heaven and Earth For in Heaven there can be nothing greater than perfection 43. The Scripture no-where calleth our Imputed Righteousness by the name of Innocency or sinless Perfection nor Inculpability Imputed Nay when the very phrase of Imputing Christs Righteousness is not there at all to add all these wrong descriptions of Imputation is such Additions to Gods words as tendeth to let in almost any thing that mans wit shall excogitate and ill beseemeth them that are for Scripture-sufficiency and perfection and against Additions in the general And whether some may not say that we are Imputatively Christ himself Conceived by the Holy Ghost Born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate Crucified c. I cannot tell To conclude the honest plain Christian may without disquieting the Church or himself be satisfied in this certain simple truth That we are sinners and deserve everlasting misery That Christ hath suffered as a Sacrifice for our sins in our room and stead and satisfied the Justice of God That he hath by his perfect Holiness and Obedience with those sufferings merited our pardon and Life That he never hereby intended to make us Lawless have us Holy but hath brought us under a Law of Grace which is the Instrument by which he pardoneth justifieth and giveth us Right to life That by this Covenant he requireth of us Repentance and true Faith to our first Justification and sincere Obedience Holiness and Perseverance to our Glorification to be wrought by his Grace and our Wills excited and enabled by it That Christs Sufferings are to save us from suffering but his Holiness and Obedience are to merit Holiness Obedience Happiness for us that we may be like him and so be made personally amiable to God But both his Sufferings and Obedience do bring us under a Covenant where Perfection is not necessary to our Salvation CHAP. V. The Objections Answered Obj. 1. YOV confound a Natural and a Political person Christ and the several believing sinners are not the same natural Person but they are the same Political As are with us saith Dr. Tullie the Sponsor and the Debtor the Attorney and the Clyent the Tutor and the Pupil so are all the faithful in Christ both as to their Celestial regenerate nature of which he is the first Father who begetteth sons by his Spirit and seed of the Word to his Image and as to Righteousness derived by Legal Imputation Vid. Dr. Tullie Justif Paul p. 80 81. It 's commonly said that Christ as our surety is our Person Ans 1. The distinction of a Person into Natural and Political or Legal is equivoci in sua equivocata He therefore that would not have contention cherished and men taught to damn each other for a word not understood must give us leave to ask what these equivocals mean What a Natural Person signifieth we are pretty well agreed but a Political Person is a word not so easily and commonly understood Calvin tells us that Persona definitur homo qui caput habet civile For omnis persona est homo sed non vicissim Homo cum est vocabulum naturae Persona juris civilis And so as Albenius civitas municipium Castrum Collegium Vniversitas quod libet corpus Personae appellatione continetur ut Spigel But if this Definition be commensurate to the common nature of a civil person then a King can be none nor any one that hath not a civil head This therefore is too narrow The same Calvin in n. Personae tells us that Seneca Personam vocat cum prae se fert aliquis quod non est A Counterfeit But sure this is not the sence of the Objectors In general saith Calvin Tam hominem quam qualitatem hominis seu Conditionem significat But it is not sure every Quality or Condition Calvin therefore giveth us nothing satisfactory to the decision of the Controversie which these Divines will needs make whether each believer and Christ be the same Political Person Martinius will make our Controversie no easier by the various significations gathered out of Vet. Vocab Gel. Scaliger Valla Which he thus enumerateth 1. Persona est accidens conditio hominis qualitas quâ homo differt ab homine tum in animo tum in corpore tum in externis 2. Homo qualitate dictâ proditus 3. Homo insigni qualitate praeditus habens gradum eminentiae in Ecclesia Dei c. 4. Figura seu facies ficta larva histrionica c. 5. Ille qui sub hujusmodi figura aliquam representat c. 6. Figura eminens in aedificiis quae ore aquam fundit
OF THE IMPUTATION OF Christ's Righteousness TO BELIEVERS In what sence sound Protestants hold it And Of the false devised sence by which Libertines subvert the Gospel With an Answer to some common Objections especially of Dr. Thomas Tully whose Justif Paulina occasioneth the publication of this By RICHARD BAXTER A compassionate Lamenter of the Churches wounds caused by hasty judging and undigested concâ—ptions and by the Theological Wars which are hereby raised and managed by perswading the World that meer verbal or notional Differences are material and such as our Faith Love Concord and Communion must be measured by for want of an exact discussion of the ambiguity of words London Printed for Nevil Simons and Jonathan Robinson at the Kings-Arms and Golden-Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard 1675. The Preface Reader IF thou blame me for writing again on a Subject which I have written on so oft and so lately specially in my Life of Faith and Disputations of Justification I shall not blame thee for so doing but I shall excuse my self by telling thee my reasons 1. The occasion is many loud accusations of my self of which I have before given an account I publish it because I see the Contention still so hot in the Church of Christ and mens Charity destroyed against each other one side calling the other Socinians and the other Libertines who are neither of them Christians and if I mistake not for the most part in the dark about one Phrase and that of mens devising rather than about the sence But if indeed it be the sence that they differ about it 's time to do our best to rectifie such Fundamental Errours I find that all of us agree in all the Phrases of Scripture And a Mans Sence is no way known but by his expressions The question is then Which is the necessary Phrase which we must express our sence by We all say that to Believers Christ is made our Righteousness We are made the Righteousness of God in him He hath ransomed redeemed us as a Sacrifice for our sins a price He hath merited and obtained eternal Redemption for us that Sin is remitted covered not imputed that Righteousness is Reckoned or Imputed to us that Faith is Imputed to us for Righteousness and any thing else that is in the Scripture But all this will not serve to make us Christians What is wanting Why we must say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us as ours and that Christ satisfied for our sins Well The thing signified seemeth to us true and good and needful though the Scripture hath as good words for it as any of us can invent We consent therefore to use these Phrases so be it you put no false and wicked sence on them by other words of your own Though we will not allow them to be necessary because not in Scripture And we are more against adding new Fundamental Articles of Faith to the Scripture than against adding new Orders Forms or Ceremonies But yet it will not serve what is yet wanting why we must hold these words in a right sense What yet are not your own devised words a sufficient expression of the matter When we have opened those words by other words how will you know that we use those other words in a right sence and so in infinitum Our sence is that Righteousness is Imputed to us that is we are accounted Righteous because for the Merits of Christs total fulfilling the Conditions of his Mediatorial Covenant with the Father by his Habitual Holiness his Actual Perfect Obedience and his Sacrifice or satisfactory Suffering for our sins in our stead freely without any merit or Conditional act of mans God hath made an Act of Oblivion and Deed of Gift pardoning all sin justifying and adopting and giving Right to the Spirit and Life eternally to every one that believingly accepteth Christ and the Gifts with and by and from him And when we accept them they are all ours by virtue of this purchased Covenant-Gift This is our short and plain explication But yet this will not serve Christianity is yet another thing What is wanting Why we must say that Christ was habitually and actually perfectly Holy and Obedient Imputatively in our particular Persons and that each one of us did perfectly fulfil that Law which requireth perfect Habits and Acts in and by Christ imputatively and yet did also in and by him suffer our selves Imputatively for not fulfilling it and Imputatively did our selves both satisfy God's Justice and merit Heaven and that we have our selves Imputatively a Righteousness of perfect Holiness and Obedience as sinless and must be justified by the Law of Innocency or Works as having our selves imputatively fulfilled it in Christ And that this is our sole Righteousness and that Faith it self is not imputed to us for Righteousness no not a meer particular subordinate Righteousness answering the Conditional part of the new Justifying Covenant as necessary to our participation of Christ and his freely given Righteousness And must all this go into our Christianity But where is it written who devised it was it in the ancient Creeds and Baptism Or known in the Church for five thousand years from the Creation I profess I take the Pope to be no more to be blamed for making a new Church-Government than for making us so many new Articles of Faith And I will not justifie those that Symbolize with him or imitate him in either But yet many of the men that do this are good men in other respects and I love their zeal that doth all this evil as it is for God and the honour of Jesus Christ though I love it not as blind nor their Errour or their Evil. But how hard is it to know what Spirit we are of But it is the doleful mischief which their blind zeal doth that maketh me speak That three or four of them have made it their practice to backbite my self and tell People He holdeth dangerous opinions He is erroneous in the point of Justification And his Books are unsound and have dangerous Doctrines He leaveth the old way of Justification he favoureth Socinianism and such-like this is a small matter comparatively Back-biting and false reports are the ordinary fruits of bitter contentious Zeal and the Spirit of a Sect as such doth usually so work yea to confusion and every evil work when it hath banished the Zeal of Love and of Good Works Jam. 3.14 15 16. Tit. 2.14 And I never counted it any great loss to their followers that they disswade them from the reading of my writings as the Papists do their Proselytes as long as God hath blest our Land with so many better But there are other effects that command me once again to speak to them 1. One is that I have good proof of the lamentable Scandal of some very hopeful Persons of quality who by hearing such language from these men have bin ready to turn away from Religion and say If they thus set
to Christ in Union to the Spirit to Impunity and to Glory And 2. The Grace of the Spirit by which we are made Holy and fulfil the Conditions of the Law of Grace We are the Subjects of these and he is the Minister and the meritorious Cause of our Life is well called Our Righteousness and by many the material Cause as our own perfect Obedience would have been because it is the Matter of that Merit 4. And also Christ's Intercession with the Father still procureth all this as the Fruit of his Merits 5. And we are Related as his Members though not parts of his Person as such to him that thus merited for us 6. And we have the Spirit from him as our Head 7. And he is our Advocate and will justifie us as our Judg. 8. And all this is God's Righteousness designed for us and thus far given us by him 9. And the perfect Justice and Holiness of God is thus glorified in us through Christ And are not all these set together enough to prove that we justly own all asserted by these Texts But if you think that you have a better sense of them you must better prove it than by a bare naming of the words Object 3. If Christ's Righteousness be Ours then we are Righteous by it as Ours and so God reputeth it but as it is But it is Ours 1. By our Vnion with him 2. And by his Gift and so consequently by God's Imputation Answ 1. I have told you before that it is confessed to be Ours but that this syllable OVRS hath many senses and I have told you in what sense and how far it is OVRS and in that sense we are justified by it and it is truly imputed to us or reputed or reckoned as OVRS But not in their sense that claim a strict Propriety in the same numerical Habits Acts Sufferings Merits Satisfaction which was in Christ or done by him as if they did become Subjects of the same Accidents or as if they did it by an instrumental second Cause But it is OVRS as being done by a Mediator instead of what we should have done and as the Meritorious Cause of all our Righteousness and Benefits which are freely given us for the sake hereof 2. He that is made Righteousness to us is also made Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption to us but that sub genere Causae Efficientis non autem Causae Constitutivae We are the Subjects of the same numerical Wisdom and Holiness which is in Christ Plainly the Question is Whether Christ or his Righteousness Holiness Merits and Satisfaction be Our Righteousness Constitutively or only Efficiently The Matter and Form of Christ's Personal Righteousness is OVRS as an Efficient Cause but it is neither the nearest Matter or the Form of that Righteousness which is OVRS as the Subjects of it that is It is not a Constitutive Cause nextly material or formal of it 3. If our Union with Christ were Personal making us the same Person then doubtless the Accidents of his Person would be the Accidents of ours and so not only Christ's Righteousness but every Christians would be each of Ours But that is not so Nor is it so given us by him Object 4. You do seem to suppose that we have none of that kind of Righteousness at all which consisteth in perfect Obedience and Holiness but only a Right to Impunity and Life with an imperfect Inherent Righteousness in our selves The Papists are forced to confess that a Righteousness we must have which consisteth in a conformity to the preceptive part of the Law and not only the Retributive part But they say It is in our selves and we say it is Christ's imputed to us Answ 1. The Papists e. g. Learned Vasqueâ— in Rom. 5. talk so ignorantly of the differences of the Two Covenants or the Law of Innocency and of Grace as if they never understood it And hence they 1. seem to take no notice of the Law of Innocency or of Nature now commanding our perfect Obedience but only of the Law of Grace 2. Therefore they use to call those Duties but Perfections and the Commands that require them but Counsels where they are not made Conditions of Life and sins not bringing Damnation some call Venial a name not unfit and some expound that as properly no sin but analogically 3. And hence they take little notice when they treat of Justification of the Remitting of Punishment but by remitting Sin they usually mean the destroying the Habits As if they forgot all actual sin past or thought that it deserved no Punishment or needed no Pardon For a past Act in it self is now nothing and is capable of no Remission but Forgiveness 4. Or when they do talk of Guilâ— of Punishment they lay so much of the Remedy on Man's Satisfaction as if Christ's Satisfaction and Merits had procured no pardon or at least of no temporal part of Punishment 5. And hence they ignorantly revile the Protestants as if we denied all Personal Inherent Righteousness and trusted only to the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as justifying wicked unconverted Men The Papists therefore say not that we are innocent or sinless really or imputatively no not when they dream of Perfection and Supererrogation unless when they denominate Sin and Perfection only from the Condition of the Law of Grace and not that of Innocency 2. But if any of them do as you say no wonder if they and you contend If one say We are Innocent or Sinless in reality and the other we are so by Imputation when we are so no way at all but sinners really and so reputed what Reconciliation is there to be expected till both lay by their Errour Object 5. How can God accept him as just who is really and reputedly a Sinner This dishonoureth his Holiness and Justice Answ Not so Cannot God pardon sin upon a valuable Merit and Satisfaction of a Mediator And though he judg us not perfect now and accept us not as such yet 1. now he judgeth us Holy 2. and the Members of a perfect Saviour 3. and will make us perfect and spotless and then so judg us having washed us from our sins in the Blood of the Lamb. Object 6. Thus you make the Reatus Culpae not pardoned at all but only the Reatus Poenae Answ 1. If by Reatus Culpae be meant the Relation of a Sinner as he is Revera Peccator and so to be Reus is to be Revera ipse qui peccavit then we must consider what you mean by Pardon For if you mean the nullifying of such a Guilt or Reality it is impossible because necessiate existentiae he that hath once sinned will be still the Person that sinned while he is a Person and the Relation of one that sinned will cleave to him It will eternally be a true Proposition Peter and Paul did sin But if by Pardon you mean the pardoning of all the penalty which for that sin is due damni
if the word Justification had been found only as he affirmed If Justice Righteousness and Just be otherwise used that 's all one in the sense and almost in the word seeing it is confessed that to Justifie is 1. To make Just 2. Or to esteem Just 3. Or sentence Just 4. Or to prove Just and defend as Just 5. Or to use as Just by execution And therefore in so many senses as a Man is called Just in Scripture he is inclusively or by connotation said to be Justified and Justifiable and Justificandus And I desire no more of the Impartial Reader but to turn to his Concordances and peruse all the Texts where the words Just Justice Justly Righteous Righteousness Righteously are used and if he find not that they are many score if not hundred times used for that Righteousness which is the Persons Relation resulting from some Acts or Habits of his own as the Subject or Agent and otherwise than according to his solitary sense here let him then believe this Author § 3. But he is as unhappy in his Proofs as in his singular untrue Assertion Rom. 8.2 4. The Law of the Spirit of Life hath freed us from the Law of Sin and of Death Gal. 3.13 God sent his Son thta the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law and many more such Here is no mention of any but one legal Justification Answ 1. Reader do you believe that these two Texts are a perfect Enumeration And that if these mention but one sense or sort of Justification that it will follow that no more is mentioned in Scripture Or if many hundred other Texts have the same sense 2. Nay he hath chosen only these Texts where the word Justification or Justifie is not at all found By which I may suppose that he intendeth the Controversie here de re and not de nomine And is that so Can any Man that ever considerately opened the Bible believe that de re no such Thing is mentioned in Scripture 1. As making a Man a believing Godly Man 2. Or as performing the Conditions of Life required of us in the Covenant of Grace 3. Nor esteeming a Man such 4. Not defending or proving him to be such 5. Nor judging him such decisively 6. Nor using him as such 7. Nor as justifying a Man so far as he is Innocent and Just against all false Accusation of Satan or the World 3. The first Text cited by him Rom. 8.24 downright contradicts him Not only Augustine but divers Protestant Expositors suppose that by the Law of the Spirit of Life is meant either the quickning Spirit it self given to us that are in Christ or the Gospel as it giveth that Spirit into us And that by delivering us from the Law of Sin is meant either from that sin which is as a Law within us or Moses Law as it forbiddeth and commandeth all its peculiarities and so maketh doing or not doing them sin and as it declareth sin yea and accidentally irritateth it Yea that by the Law of Death is meant not only that Law we are cursed by and so guilty but chiefly that Law as it is said Rom. 7. to kill Paul and to occasion the abounding of sin and the Liâ—e of it And that by the fulfilling of the Law in us that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit is meant that by the Spirit and Grace of Christ Christians do fulfil the Law as it requireth sincere Holiness Sobriety and Righteousness which God accepteth for Christ's sake which the Law of Moses without Christ's Spirit enabled no Man to fulfil Not to weary the Reader with citing Expositors I now only desire him to peruse Ludov. de Dieu on the Text. And it is certain that the Law that Paul there speaketh of was Moses Law And that he is proving all along that the observation of it was not necessary to the Gentiles to their performance or Justification and Salvation necessitate praecepti vel medii for it would not justifie the Jews themselves And sure 1. all his meaning is not The Law will not absolve Men from the sense of the Law But also its Works will give no one the just title of a Righteous Man accepted of God and saved by him as judging between the Righteous and the wicked as Christ saith Matth. 25. The Righteous shall go into Everlasting Life c. 2. And if it were only the Maledictory Sentence of Moses Law as such that Paul speaketh of Absolution from as our only Justification then none but Jews and Proselites who were under that Law could have the Justification by Faith which he mentioneth for it curseth none else For what-ever the Law saith it saith to them that are under the Law The rest of the World were only under the Law of lapsed Nature the relicts of Adam's Law of Innocency and the Curse for Adam's first Violation and the Law of Grace made to Adam and Noah and after perfected fullier by Christ in its second Edition 2. His other Text Christ redeemed us from the Curse of the Law proveth indeed that all Believers are redeemed from the Curse of the first Law of Innocency and the Jews from the Curse of Moses Law which is it that is directly meant But what 's that to prove that these words speak the whole and the only Justification and that the Scripture mentioneth no other § 4. He addeth Lex est quae prohibet Lex quae poenam decernit Lex quae irrogat Peccatum est transgressio Legis Poena effectus istius trangressionis Justificatio denique absolutio ab ista poena Itaque câ—m Lex nisi praestita nenimem Justificat praestitam omnes in Christo agnoscunt aut Legalis erit omnis JUstificatio coram Deo aut omnino nulla Answ 1. But doth he know but one sort of Law of God Hath every Man incurred the Curse by Moses Law that did by Adams Or every Man fallen under the peremptory irreversible condemnation which the Law of Grace passeth on them that never believe and repent Doth this Law He that believeth not shall be damned damn Believers One Law condemneth all that are not Innocent Another supposeth them under that defect and condemneth peremptorily not every Sinner but the Wicked and Unbelievers 2. Again here he saith Justification is Absolution from that Penalty But is a Man absolved properly from that which he was never guilty of Indeed if he take Absolution so loosly as to signifie the justifying a Man against a false Accusation and pronouncing him Not-Guilty So all the Angels in Heaven may possibly be capable of Absolution Justification is ordinarily so used but Absolution seldom by Divines And his words shew that this is not his senses if I understand them But if we are reputed perfect fulfillers of the Law of Innocency by Christ and yet Justification is our Absolution from the Curse then no Man is
justified that is Righteous by that Imputation 3. And how unable is my weak Understanding to make his words at peace with themselves The same Man in the next lines saith Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat and all Justification before God must be legal or none so that no Man is justified but as reputed Innocent or a performer of the Law And yet Justification is our Absolution from the Punishment and Malediction of the Law As if he said No Man is justified but by the pardon of that sin which he is reputed never to have had and Absolution from that Curse and Punishment which he is reputed never to have deserved or been under Are these things reconcileable But if really he take Absolution for justifying or acquitting from a false Accusation and so to be absolved from the Malediction of the Law is to be reputed one that never deserved it or was under it then it 's as much as to say that there is no pardon of sin or that no Man that is pardoned or reputed to need a Pardon is justified 4. All this and such Speeches would perswade the Reader that this Learned Disputer thinketh that I took and use the word Legal generally as of that which is related to any Law in genere and so take Evangelical contrarily for that which is related to no Law whereas I over and over tell him that speaking in the usual Language that I may be understood I take Legal specially and not generally for that Righteousness which is related to the Law of Works or Innocency not as if we had indeed such a Righteousness as that Law will justifie us for But a pro-Legal-Righteousness one instead of it in and by our perfect Saviour which shall effectually save us from that Laws condemnation And that by Evangelical Righteousness I mean that which is related to the Law of Grace as the Rule of Judgment upon the just pleading whereof that Law will not condemn but justifie us If he knew this to be my meaning in my weak judgment he should not have written either as if he did not or as if he would perswade his Rsaders to the contrary For Truth is most congruously defended by Truth But if he knew it not I despair of becoming intelligible to him by any thing that I can write and I shall expect that this Reply be wholly lost to him and worse 5. His Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat is true and therefore no Man is justified by the Law But his next words praestitam omnes in Christo agnoscunt seemeth to mean that It was performed by us in Christ Or that It justifieth us because performed perfectly by Christ as such Which both are the things that we most confidently deny It was not Physically or Morally or Politically or Legally or Reputatively take which word you will fulfilled by us in Christ it doth not justifie us because it was fulfilled by Christ as such or immediately and eo nomine It justified Christ because he fulfilled it and so their Law doth all the perfect Angels But we did not personally fulfil it in Christ it never allowed vicarium obedientiae to fulfil it by our selves or another Therefore anothers Obedience merely as such even a Mediators is not our Obedience or Justification But that Obedience justifieth us as given us only in or to the effecting of our Personal Righteousness which consisteth in our right to Impunity and to God's Favour and Life freely given for Christ's Merits sake and in our performance of the Conditions of the Law of Grace or that free Gift which is therefore not a co-ordinate but a sub-ordinate Righteousness and Justification to qualifie us for the former This is so plain and necessary that if in sense it be not understood by all that are admitted to the Sacramental Communion excepting Verbal Controversies or Difficulties I doubt we are too lax in our admissions § 5. Next he tel's us of a threefold respect of Justification 1. Ex parte principii 2. Termini 3. Medii I find my self uncapeable of teaching him that is a Teacher of such as I and therefore presume not to tell him how to distinguish more congruously plainly and properly as to the terms And as to the Principle or Fountain whence it floweth that is Evangelical Grace in Christ he saith It is thus necessary that in our lapsed State all Justification be Evangelical Answ Who would desire a sharper or a softer a more dissenting or a more consenting Adversary Very good If then I mean it ex parte principii I offend him not by asserting Evangelical Righteousness The Controversie then will be only de nomine whether it be congruous thus to call it And really are his Names and Words put into our Creed and become so necessary as to be worthy of all the stress that he layeth on them and the calling up the Christian World to arrive by their Zeal against our Phrase Must the Church be awakened to rise up against all those that will say with Christ By thy words thou shalt be justified And with James By Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only and we are judged by the Law of Liberty and as Christ Joh. 5.22 The Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all Judgment to the Son and that shall recite the 25 th Chapter of Matthew Even now he said at once There is no Justification in foro Dei but Absolution c. The Law of the Spirit of Life hath freed us c. Here is no mention of any Justification but Legal And now All our Justification ex parte principii is only Evangelical So then no Text talks of Evangelical Justification or of Justification ex parte principii And Absolution which defineth it is named ex parte principii And yet all Justification is Evangelical Is this mode of Teaching worthy a Defence by a Theological War 2. But Reader Why may not I denominate Justification ex parte principii Righteousness is formally a Relation To justifie constitutively is to make Righteous To be Justified or Justification in sensu passivo is to be made Righteous And in foro to be judged Righteous And what meaneth he by Principium as to a Relation but that which other Men call the Fundamentum which is loco Efficientis or a remote efficient And whence can a Relation be more fitly named than from the fundamentum whence it hath its formal being Reader bear with my Error or correct it if I mistake I think that as our Righteousness is not all of one sort no more is the fundamentum 1. I think I have no Righteousness whose immediate fundamentum is my sinless Innocency or fulfilling the Law of Works or Innocency by my self or another and so I have no fundamentum of such 2. I hope I have a Righteousness consisting in my personal Right to Impunity and Life and that Jus or Right is mine by the Title of free Condonation and
the same but not unmerically 4. And it is agreed that God judgeth not falsly and therefore taketh not Christ's Righteousness to be any more or otherwise ours than indeed it is nor imputeth it to us erroneously 5. Yet it is commonly agreed that Christ's Righteousness is OVRS in some sense And so far is justly reputed Ours or imputed to us as being Ours 6. And this ambiguous syallable OVRS enough to set another Age of Wranglers into bitter Church-tearing strife if not hindred by some that will call them to explain an ambiguous word is it that must be understood to end this Controversie Propriety is the thing signified 1. In the strictest sense that is called Ours which inhereth in us or that which is done by us 2. In a larger Moral sense that which a Man as the principal Cause doth by another as his Instrument by authorizing commanding perswading c. 3. In a yet larger sense that may be called OVRS which a third person doth partly instead of what we should have done had or suffered and partly for our use or benefit 4. In a yet larger sense that may be called OVRS which another hath or doth or suffereth for our Benefit though not in our stead and which will be for our good as that which a Friend or Father hath is his Friends or Childs and all things are Ours whether Paul or c. and the Godly are owners of the World in as much as God will use all for their good 7. It is therefore a Relation which Christ's Righteousness hath to us or we to it that must here be meant by the word OVRS Which is our RIGHT or Jus And that is acknowledged to be no Jus or Right to it in the foresaid denied sense And it is agreed that some Right it is Therefore to understand what it is the Titulus seu Fundamentum juris must be known 8. And here it is agreed 1. That we are before Conversion or Faith related to Christ as part of the Redeemed World of whom it is said 2 Cor. 5.19 That God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself not imputing to them their sins c. 2. That we are after Faith related to Christ as his Covenanted People Subjects Brethren Friends and Political Members yea as such that have Right to and Possession of Real Communion with him by his Spirit And that we have then Right to Pardon Justification and Adoption or have Right to Impunity in the promised degree and to the Spirits Grace and the Love of God and Heavenly Glory This Relation to Christ and this Right to the Benefits of his Righteousness are agreed on And consequently that his Righteousness is OVRS and so may be called as far as the foresaid Relations and Rights import II. Now a Relation as Ockam hath fully proved having no real entity beside the quid absolutum which is the Subject Fundamentum or Terminus he that yet raileth at his Brother as not saying enough or not being herein so wise as he and will maintain that yet Christ's Righteousness is further OVRS must name the Fundamentum of that Right or Propriety What more is it that you mean I think the make-bates have here little probability of fetching any more Fuel to their Fire or turning Christ's Gospel into an occasion of strife and mutual enmity if they will but be driven to a distinct explication and will not make confusion and ambiguous words their defence and weapons If you set your quarrelsome Brains on work and study as hard as you can for matter of Contention it will not be easie for you to find it unless you will raze out the names of Popery Socinianism Arminianism or Solifidianism Heresie c. instead of real Difference But if the angriest and lowdest Speakers be in the right Bedlam and Billingsgate may be the most Orthodox places Briefly 1. The foresaid Benefits of Christ's Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive as a Meritorious Satisfactory Purchasing Cause are ours 2. To say that the Benefits are Ours importeth that the Causal Righteousness of Christ is related to us and the Effects as such a Cause and so is it self OVRS in that sense that is so related 3. And Christ himself is OVRS as related to us as our Saviour the Procurer and Giver of those Benefits And do you mean any more by OVRS If you say that we deny any Benefits of Christ's Righteousness which you assert name what they are If you say that we deny any true Fundamentum juris or reason of our title name what that is If you say that we deny any true Relation to Christ himself tell us what it is If you cannot say that you are agreed 1. If you say that the Benefit denied by us is that we are judged by God as those that habitually and actively have perfectly fulfilled the Law of Innocency our selves though not in our natural Persons yet by Christ as representing us and so shall be justified by that Law of Innocency as the Fulfiller of it we do deny it and say That you subvert the Gospel and the true Benefits which we have by Christ 2. If you say that we deny that God esteemeth or reputeth us to be the very Subjects of that Numerical Righteousness in the Habits Acts Passion or Relation which was in the Person of Christ or to have done suffered or merited our selves in and by him as the proper Representer of our Persons therein and so that his Righteousness is thus imputed to us as truly in it self our own propriety we do deny it and desire you to do so also lest you deny Christianity 2. If you blame us for saying That we had or have no such Relation to Christ as to our Instrument or the proper full Representer of each Believers particular Person by whom we did truly fulfil the Law of Innocency habitually and actively and satisfied merited c. We do still say so and wish you to consider what you say before you proceed to say the contrary But if you come not up to this where will you find a difference Object 2. Christ is called The Lord our Righteousness and he is made Righteousness to us and we are made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 c. And by the Obedience of one many are made Righteous Answ And are we not all agreed of all this But can his Righteousness be Ours no way but by the foresaid Personation Representating How prove you that He is Our Righteousness and his Obedience maketh us Righteous 1. Because the very Law of Innocency which we dishonoured and broke by sin is perfectly fulfilled and honoured by him as a Mediator to repair the injury done by our breaking it 2. In that he suffered to satisfie Justice for our sin 3. In that hereby he hath merited of God the Father all that Righteousness which we are truly the Subjects of whether it be Relative or Qualitative or Active that is 1. Our Right