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
as fulfilled or from the Reatus Gulpae in se but by Christ's whole Righteousness from the Reatus ut ad paenam 2. But if this be his sense he meaneth then that it is only the Terminus à quo that Justification is properly denominated from And why so 1. As Justitia and Justificatio passive sumpta vel ut effectus is Relatio it hath necessarily no Terminus à quo And certainly is in specie to be rather denominated from its own proper Terminus ad quem And as Justification is taken for the Justifiers Action why is it not as well to be denominated from the Terminus ad quem as à quo Justificatio efficiens sic dicitur quia Justum facit Justificatio apologetica quia Justum vindicat vel probat Justificatio per sententiam quia Justum aliquem esse Judicat Justificatio executiva quia ut Justum eum tractat But if we must needs denominate from the Terminus à quo how strange is it that he should know but of one sense of Justification 3. But yet perhaps he meaneth In satisfactione Legi praestitâ though he say praestandâ and so denominateth from the Terminus à quo But if so 1. Then it cannot be true For satisfacere Justificare are not the same thing nor is Justifying giving Satisfaction nor were we justified when Christ had satisfied but long after Nor are we justified eo nomine because Christ satisfied that is immediately but because he gave us that Jus ad impunitatem vitam spiritum sanctum which is the Fruit of his Satisfaction 2. And as is said if it be only in satisfactione then it is not in that Obedience which fulfileth the preceptive part as it bound us for to satisfie for not fulfilling is not to fulfil it 3. And then no Man is justified for no Man hath satisfied either the Preceptive or Penal Obligation of the Law by himself or another But Christ hath satisfied the Law-giver by Merit and Sacrifice for sin His Liberavit nos à Lege Mortis I before shewed impertinent to his use Is Liberare Justificare or Satisfacere all one And is à Lege Mortis either from all the Obligation to Obedience or from the sole malâ—diction There be other Acts of Liberation besides Satisfaction For it is The Law of the Spirit of Life that doth it And we are freed both from the power of indwelling-sin called a Law and from the Mosaical Yoak and from the Impossible Conditions of the Law of Innocency though not from its bare Obligation to future Duty § 7. He addeth a Third Ex parte Medii quod est Justitia Christi Legalis nobis per fidem Imputata Omnem itaque Justificationem proprie Legalem esse constat Answ 1. When I read that he will have but one sense or sort of Justification will yet have the Denomination to be ex termino and so justifieth my distinction of it according to the various Termini And here how he maketh the Righteousness of Christ to be but the MEDIVM of our Justification though he should have told us which sort of Medium he meaneth he seemeth to me a very favourable consenting Adversary And I doubt those Divines who maintain that Christ's Rigâ—teousness is the Causa Formalis of our Justification who are no small ones nor a few though other in answer to the Papists disclaim it yea and those that make it but Causa Materialis which may have a sound sense will think this Learned Man betrayeth their Cause by prevarication and seemeth to set fiercly against me that he may yeeld up the Cause with less suspicion But the truth is we all know but in part and therefore err in part and Error is inconsistent with it self And as we have conflicting Flesh and Spirit in the Will so have we conflicting Light and Darkness Spirit and Flesh in the Understanding And it is very perceptible throughout this Author's Book that in one line the Flesh and Darkness saith one thing and in the next oft the Spirit and Light saith the contrary and seeth not the inconsistency And so though the dark and fleshy part rise up in wrathful striving Zeal against the Concord and Peace of Christians on pretence that other Mens Errors wrong the Truth yet I doubt not but Love and Unity have some interest in his lucid and Spiritual part We do not only grant him that Christ's Righteousness is a Medium of our Justification for so also is Faith a Condition and Dispositio Receptiva being a Medium nor only some Cause for so also is the Covenant-Donation but that it is an efficient meritorious Cause and because if Righteousness had been that of our own Innocency would have been founded in Merit we may call Christ's Righteousness the material Cause of our Justification remotely as it is Materia Meriti the Matter of the Merit which procureth it 2. But for all this it followeth not that all Justification is only Legal as Legal noteth its respect to the Law of Innocency For 1. we are justified from or against che Accusation of being non-performers of the Condition of the Law of Grace 2. And of being therefore unpardoned and lyable to its sorer Penalty 3. Our particular subordinate Personal Righteousness consisting in the said performance of those Evangelical Conditions of Life is so denominated from its conformity to the Law of Grace as it instituteth its own Condition as the measure of it as Rectitudo ad Regulam 4. Our Jus ad impunitatem vitam resulteth from the Donative Act of the Law or Covenant of Grace as the Titulus qui est Fundamentum Juris or supposition of our Faith as the Condition 5. This Law of Grace is the Norma Judicis by which we shall be judged at the Last Day 6. The same Judg doth now per sententiam conceptam judg of us as he will then judg per sententiam prolatam 7. Therefore the Sentence being virtually in the Law this same Law of Grace which in primo instanti doth make us Righteous by Condonation and Donation of Right doth in secundo instanti virtually justifie us as containing that regulating use by which we are to be sententially justified And now judg Reader whether no Justification be Evangelical or by the Law of Grace and so to be denominated for it is lis de nomine that is by him managed 8. Besides that the whole frame of Causes in the Work of Redemption the Redeemer his Righteousness Merits Sacrifice Pardoning Act Intercession c. are sure rather to be called Matters of the Gospel than of the Law And yet we grant him easily 1. That Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law of Innocency and was justified thereby and that we are justified by that Righteousness of his as the meritorious Cause 2. That we being guilty of Sin and Death according to the tenor of that Law and that Guilt being remitted by Christ as aforesaid we are therefore justified
Law 13. They all agree that no Works of Mans are to be trusted in or pleaded but all excluded and the Conceit of them abhorred 1. As they are feigned to be against or instead of the free Mercy of God 2. As they are against or feigned instead of the Sacrifice Obedience Merit or Intercession of Christ 3. Or as supposed to be done of our selves without the Grace of the Holy Ghost 4. Or as supposed falsly to be perfect 5. Or as supposed to have any of the afore-disclaimed Merit 6. Or as materially consisting in Mosaical Observances 7. Much more in any superstitious Inventions 8. Or in any Evil mistaken to be Good 9. Or as any way inconsistent with the Tenor of the freely pardoning Covenant In all these senses Justification by Works is disclaimed by all Protestants at least 14. Yet all agree that we are created to good Works in Christ Jesus which God hath ordained that we should walk therein and that he that nameth the Name of Christ must depart from iniquity or else he hath not the Seal of God and that he that is born of God sinneth not that is predominantly And that all Christ's Members are Holy Purified zealous of Good Works cleansing themselves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit that they might perfect Holiness in God's fear doing good to all Men as loving their Neighbours as themselves and that if any Man have not the Sanctifying Spirit of Christ he is none of his nor without Holiness can see God 15. They all judg reverently and charitably of the Ancients that used the word Merit of Good Works because they meant but a moral aptitude for the promised Reward according to the Law of Grace through Christ 16. They confess the thing thus described themselves however they like not the name of Merit lest it should countenance proud and carnal Conceits 17. They judg no Man to be Heretical for the bare use of that word who agreeth with them in the sense 18. In this sense they agree that our Gospel-Obedience is such a necessary aptitude to our Glorification as that Glory though a free Gift is yet truly a reward of this Obedience 19. And they agree that our final Justification by Sentence at the Day of Judgment doth pass upon the same Causes Reasons and Conditions as our Glorification doth 20. They all agree that all faithful Ministers must bend the labour of their Ministry in publick and private for promoting of Holiness and good Works and that they must difference by Discipline between the Obedient and the Disobedient And O! that the Papists would as zealously promote Holiness and good Works in the World as the true serious Protestants do whom they factiously and peevishly accuse as Enemies to them and that the Opinion Disputing and name of good Works did not cheat many wicked Persons into self-flattery and Perdition while they are void of that which they dispute for Then would not the Mahometans and Heathens be deterred from Christianity by the wickedness of these nominal Christians that are near them nor would the serious practice of that Christianity which themselves in general profess be hated scorned and persecuted by so many both Protestants and Papists nor would so many contend that they are of the True Religion while they are really of no Religion at all any further than the Hypocrites Picture and Carcass may be called Religion Were Men but resolved to be serious Learners serious Lovers serious Practisers according to their knowledg and did not live like mockers of God and such as look toward the Life to come in jest or unbelief God would vouchsafe them better acquaintance with the True Religion than most Men have § 3. One would think now that this should meet with no sharp Opposition from any Learned lover of Peace and that it should answer for it self and need no defence But this Learned Man for all that among the rest of his Military Exploits must here find some Matter for a Triumph And 1. Pag. 18. he assaulteth the third Propos They all detest the Conceit that God should aver and repute a Man to have done that which he never did And is not this true Do any sober Men deny it and charge God with Error or Untruth Will not this Man of Truth and Peace give us leave to be thus far agreed when we are so indeed But saith he Yea the Orthodox abhor the contrary if to have done it be taken in sensu forensi for in a Physical and Personal they abhor it not but deride it Doth the Aphorist abhor these and such-like sayings We are dead buried risen from the Dead with Christ Answ 1. Take notice Reader that it is but the Words and not the Matter that he here assaulteth so that all here seemeth but lis de nomine He before pag. 84. extolleth Chrysostom for thus expounding He made him sin for us that is to be condemned as an Offender and to die as a Blasphemer And this sense of Imputation we all admit But Chrysostom in that place oft telleth us That by Sin he meaneth both one counted a wicked Man by his Persecutors not by God and one that suffered that cursed Death which was due to wicked cursed Men And which of us deny not Justification by Works as Chrysostom doth I subscribe to his words It is God s Righteousness seeing it is not of Works for in them it were necessary that there be found no blot but of Grace which blotteth out and extinguisheth all sin And this begetteth us a double benefit for it suffereth us not to be lift up in mind because it is all the Gift of God and it sheweth the greatness of the benefit This is as apt an Expression of my Judgment of Works and Grace as I could chuse But it 's given to some Men to extol that in one Man which they fervently revile in others How frequently is Chrysostom by many accused as favouring Free-Will and Man's Merits and smelling of Pelagianism And he that is acquainted with Chrysostom must know That he includeth all these things in Justification 1. Remission of the Sin as to the Punishment 2. Remission of it by Mortification for so he calleth it in Rom. 3. p. mihi 63. 3. Right to Life freely given for Christ's sake 4. And Inherent Righteousness through Faith And he oft saith That this is called the Righteousness of God because as God who is living quickeneth the dead and as he that is strong giveth strength to the weak so he that is Righteous doth suddenly make them Righteous that were lapsed into sin as he there also speaketh And he oft tells us It is Faith it self and not only Christ believed in that is imputed for Righteousness or Justifieth And in Rom. 4. p. 80. he calleth the Reward the Retribution of Faith And pag. 89. he thus conjoyneth Faith and Christ's Death to the Question How Men obnoxious to so much sin are justified he sheweth that he blotted
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