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
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
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
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
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
it for us For it said not in words or sense Thou or one for thee shall Perfectly Obey or Suffer It mentioned no Substitute But it is the Law-giver and not that Law that justifieth us by other means § 28. But we have another Righteousness imputed to us instead of that Perfect Legal Innocency and Rewardableness by which we shall be accepted of God and glorified at last as surely and fully at least as if we had never sinned or had perfectly kept that Law which therefore may be called our Pro-legal Righteousness § 29. But this Righteousness is not yet either OURS by such a propriety as a Personal performance would have bin nor OURS to all the same ends and purposes It saveth us not from all pain death or penal desertion nor constituteth our Relation just the same § 30. It is the Law of Grace that Justifieth us both as giving us Righteousness and as Virtually judging us Righteous when it hath made us so and it is Christ as Judg according to that Law and God by Christ that will sentence us just and executively so use us § 31. The Grace of Christ first giveth us Faith and Repentance by effectual Vocation And then the Law of Grace by its Donative part or Act doth give us a Right to Vnion with Christ as the Churches Head and so to his Body and with him a right to Pardon of past sin and to the Spirit to dwell and act in us for the future and to the Love of God and Life eternal to be ours in possession if we sincerely obey and persevere § 32. The total Righteousness then which we have as an Accident of which we are the Subjects is 1. A right to Impunity by the free Pardon of all our sins and a right to Gods Favour and Glory as a free gift quoad valorem but as a Reward of our Obedience quoad Ordinem conferendi rationem Comparativam why one rather than another is judged meet for that free gift 2. And the Relation of one that hath by grace performed the Condition of that free Gift without which we had been no capable recipients which is initially Faith and Repentance the Condition of our Right begun and consequently sincere Obedience and Perseverance the Condition of continued right § 33. Christs personal Righteousness is no one of these and so is not our Constitutive Righteousness formally and strictly so called For Formally our Righteousness is a Relation of right and it is the Relation of our own Persons And a Relation is an accident And the numerical Relation or Right of one person cannot be the same numerical Accident of another person as the subject § 34. There are but three sorts of Causes Efficient Constitutive and Final 1. Christ is the efficient cause of all our Righteousness 1. Of our Right to Pardon and Life 2. And of our Gospel-Obedience And that many waies 1. He is the Meritorious Cause 2. He is the Donor by his Covenant 3. And the Donor or Operator of our Inherent Righteousness by his Spirit 4. And the moral efficient by his Word Promise Example c. 2. And Christ is partly the final cause 3. But all the doubt is whether his personal Righteousness be the Constitutive Cause § 35. The Constitutive Cause of natural bodily substances consisteth of Matter disposed and Form Relations have no Matter but instead of Matter a Subject and that is Our own persons here and not Christ and a terminus and fundamentum § 36. The Fundamentum may be called both the Efficient Cause of the Relation as commonly it is and the Matter from which it resulteth And so Christs Righteousness is undoubtedly the Meritorious efficient Cause and undoubtedly not the Formal Cause of our personal Relation of Righteousness Therefore all the doubt is of the Material Cause § 37. So that all the Controversie is come up to a bare name and Logical term of which Logicians agree not as to the aptitude All confess that Relations have no proper Matter besides the subject all confess that the Fundamentum is loco efficientis but whether it be a fit name to call it the Constitutive Matter of a Relation there is no agreement § 38. And if there were it would not decide this Verbal Controversie For 1. Titulus est fundamentum Juris The fundamentum of our Right to Impunity and Life in and with Christ is the Donative act of our Saviour in and by his Law or Covenant of Grace that is our Title And from that our Relation resulteth the Conditio tituli vel juris being found in our selves 2. And our Relation of Performers of that Condition of the Law of Grace resulteth from our own performance as the fundamentum compared to the Rule So that both these parts of our Righteousness have a nearer fundamentum than Christs personal Righteousness § 39. But the Right given us by the Covenant and the Spirit and Grace being a Right merited first by Christs personal Righteousness this is a Causa Causae id est fundamenti seu Donationis And while this much is certain whether it shall be called a Remote fundamentum viz. Causa fundamenti and so a Remote Constitutive Material Cause or only properly a Meritorious Cause may well be left to the arbitrary Logician that useeth such notions as he pleases but verily is a Controversie unfit to tear the Church for or destroy Love and Concord by § 40. Quest 1. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS Ans Yes In some sense and in another not § 41. Quest 2. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS Ans Yes In the sense before opened For all things are ours and his righteousness more than lower Causes § 42. Quest 3. Is Christs Righteousness OVRS as it was or is His own with the same sort of propriety Ans No. § 43. Quest 4. Is the formal Relation of Righteous as an accident of our persons numerically the same Righteousness Ans No It is impossible Unless we are the same person § 44. Quest 5. Is Christ and each Believer one political person Ans A political person is an equivocal word If you take it for an Office as the King or Judg is a political person I say No If for a Society Yea But noxia noxa caput sequuntur True Guilt is an accident of natural persons and of Societies only as constituted of such and so is Righteousness Though Physically Good or Evil may for society-sake befal us without personal desert or consent But if by Person you mean a certain State or Condition as to be a subject of God or one that is to suffer for sin so Christ may be said to be the same person with us in specie but not numerically because that Accident whence his Personality is named is not in the same subject § 45. Quest 6. Is Christs Righteousness imputed to us Ans Yes If by imputing you mean reckoning or reputing it ours so far as is aforesaid that is such a Cause of ours §
Righteousness consisting in 1. perfect Innocency 2. And that in the Works of the Jewish Law which bind us not 3. And in doing his peculiar Works as Miracles Resurrection c. which were all His Righteousness as a conformity to that Law and performance of that Covenant which was made with and to him as Mediator But his Righteousness is the Meritorious Cause and Reason of another Righteousness or Justification distinct from his freely given us by the Father and himself by his Covenant So that here indeed the Similitude much cleareth the Matter And they that will not blaspheme Christ by making guilt of sin it self in its formal Relation to be his own and so Christ to be formally as great a sinner as all the Redeemed set together and they that will not overthrow the Gospel by making us formally as Righteous as Christ in kind and measure must needs be agreed with us in this part of the Controversie Object 9. When you infer That if we are reckoned to have perfectly obeyed in and by Christ we cannot be again bound to obey our selves afterward nor be guilty of any sin you must know that it 's true That we cannot be bound to obey to the same ends as Christ did which is to redeem us or to fulfil the Law of Works But yet we must obey to other ends viz. Ingratitude and to live to God and to do good and other such like Answ 1. This is very true That we are not bound to obey to all the same ends that Christ did as to redeem the World nor to fulfil the Law of Innocency But hence it clearly followeth that Christ obeyed not in each of our Persons legally but in the Person of a Mediator seeing his due Obedience and ours have so different Ends and a different formal Relation his being a conformity proximately to the Law given him as Mediator that they are not so much as of the same species much less numerically the same 2. And this fully proveth that we are not reckoned to have perfectly obeyed in and by him For else we could not be yet obliged to obey though to other ends than he was For either this Obedience of Gratitude is a Duty or not If not it is not truly Obedience nor the omission sin If yea then that Duty was made a Duty by some Law And if by a Law we are now bound to obey in gratitude or for what ends soever either we do all that we are so bound to do or not If we do it or any of it then to say that we did it twice once by Christ and once by our selves is to say that we were bound to do it twice and then Christ did not all that we were bound to but half But what Man is he that sinneth not Therefore seeing it is certain that no Man doth all that he is bound to do by the Gospel in the time and measure of his Faith Hope Love Fruitfulness c. it followeth that he is a sinner and that he is not supposed to have done all that by Christ which he failed in both because he was bound to do it himself and because he is a sinner for not doing it 3. Yea the Gospel binds us to that which Christ could not do for us it being a Contradiction Our great Duties are 1. To believe in a Saviour 2. To improve all the parts of his Mediation by a Life of Faith 3. To repent of our sins 4. To mortifie sinful Lusts in our selves 5. To fight by the Spirit against our flesh 6. To confess our selves sinners 7. To pray for pardon 8. To pray for that Grace which we culpably want 9. To love God for redeeming us 10. Sacramentally to covenant with Christ and to receive him and his Gifts with many such like which Christ was not capable of doing in and on his own Person for us though as Mediator he give us Grace to do them and pray for the pardon of our sins as in our selves 4. But the Truth which this Objection intimateth we all agree in viz. That the Mediator perfectly kept the Law of Innocency that the keeping of that Law might not be necessary to our Salvation and so such Righteousness necessary in our selves but that we might be pardoned for want of perfect Innocency and be saved upon our sincere keeping of the Law of Grace because the Law of Innocency was kept by our Mediator and thereby the Grace of the New-Covenant merited and by it Christ Pardon Spirit and Life by him freely given to Believers Object 10. The same Person may be really a sinner in himself and yet perfectly innocent in Christ and by imputation Answ Remember that you suppose here the Person and Subject to be the same Man And then that the two contrary Relations of perfect Innocency or guiltlesness and guilt of any yea much sin can be consistent in him is a gross contradiction Indeed he may be guilty and not guilty in several partial respects but a perfection of guiltlesness excludeth all guilt But we are guilty of many a sin after Conversion and need a Pardon All that you should say is this We are sinners our selves but we have a Mediator that sinned not who merited Pardon and Heaven for sinners 2. But if you mean that God reputeth us to be perfectly innocent when we are not because that Christ was so it is to impute Error to God He reputeth no Man to be otherwise than he is But he doth indeed first give and then impute a Righteousness Evangelical to us instead of perfect Innocency which shall as certainly bring us to Glory and that is He giveth us both the Renovation of his Spirit to Evangelical Obedience and a Right by free gift to Pardon and Glory for the Righteousness of Christ that merited it And this thus given us he reputeth to be an acceptable Righteousness in us CHAP. VI. Animadversions on some of Dr. T. Tullies Strictures § 1. I Suppose the Reader desireth not to be wearied with an examination of all Dr. Tullies words which are defective in point of Truth Justice Charity Ingenuity or Pertinency to the Matter but to see an answer to those that by appearance of pertinent truth do require it to disabuse the incautelous Readers Though somewhat by the way may be briefly said for my own Vindication And this Tractate being conciliatory I think meet here to leave out most of the words and personal part of his contendings and also to leave that which concerneth the interest of Works as they are pleased to call Man's performance of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace in our Justification to a fitter place viz. To annex what I think needful to my friendly Conference with Mr. Christopher Cartwright on the Subject which Dr. Tullies Assault perswadeth me to publish § 2. pag. 71. Justif Paulin. This Learned Doctor saith The Scripture mentioneth no Justification in foro Dei at all but that One which is Absolution from
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
out all sin that he might confirm what he said both from the Faith of Abraham by which he was justified and from our Saviours Death by which we are delivered from sin But this is on the by 2. But saith Dr. T. The Orthodox abhor the contrary in sensu forensi Answ How easie is it to challenge the Titles of Orthodox Wise or good Men to ones self And who is not Orthodox himself being Judg But it seems with him no Man must pass for Orthodox that is not in so gross an error of his Mind if these words and not many better that are contrary must be the discovery of it viz. That will not say that in sensu forensi God esteemeth Men to have done that which they never did The best you can make of this is that you cover the same sense which I plainlier express with this illfavoured Phrase of Man's inventing But if indeed you mean any more than I by your sensus forensis viz. that such a suffering and meriting for us may in the lax improper way of some Lawyers speaking be called Our own Doing Meriting Suffering c. I have proved that the Doctrine denied by me subverteth the Gospel of Christ Reader I remember what Grotius then Orthodox thirty years before his Death in that excellent Letter of Church-Orders Predestination Perseverance and Magistrates animadverting on Molinaeus saith How great an injury those Divines who turn the Christian Doctrine into unintelligible Notions and Controversies do to Christian Magistrates because it is the duty of Magistrates to discern and preserve necessary sound Doctrine which these Men would make them unable to discern The same I must say of their injury to all Christians because all should hold fast that which is proved True and Good which this sort of Men would disable them to discern We justly blame the Papists for locking up the Scripture and performing their Worship in an unknown Tongue And alas what abundance of well-meaning Divines do the same thing by undigested Terms and Notions and unintelligible Distinctions not adapted to the Matter but customarily used from some Persons reverenced by them that led the way It is so in their Tractates both of Theology and other Sciences and the great and useful Rule Verba Rebus aptanda sunt is laid aside or rather Men that understand not Matter are like enough to be little skilful in the expressing of it And as Mr. Pemble saith A cloudy unintelligible stile usually signifieth a cloudy unintelligent Head to that sense And as Mr. J. Humfrey tells Dr. Fullwood in his unanswerable late Plea for the Conformists against the charge of Schism pag. 29. So overly are men ordinarily wont to speak at the first sight against that which others have long thought upon that some Men think that the very jingle of a distinction not understood is warrant enough for their reproaching that Doctrine as dangerous and unsound which hath cost another perhaps twenty times as many hard studies as the Reproachers ever bestowed on that Subject To deliver thee from those Learned Obscurities read but the Scripture impartially without their Spectacles and ill-devised Notions and all the Doctrine of Justification that is necessary will be plain to thee And I will venture again to fly so far from flattering those called Learned Men who expect it as to profess that I am perswaded the common sort of honest unlearned Christians even Plowmen and Women do better understand the Doctrine of Justification than many great Disputers will suffer themselves or others to understand it by reason of their forestalling ill-made Notions these unlearned Persons commonly conceive 1. That Christ in his own Person as a Mediator did by his perfect Righteousness and Sufferings merit for us the free pardon of all our sins and the Gift of his Spirit and Life Eternal and hath promised Pardon to all that are Penitent Believers and Heaven to all that so continue and sincerely obey him to the end and that all our after-failings as well as our former sins are freely pardoned by the Sacrifice Merits and Intercession of Christ who also giveth us his Grace for the performance of his imposed Conditions and will judg us as we have or have not performed them Believe but this plain Doctrine and you have a righter understanding of Justification than many would let you quietly enjoy who tell you That Faith is not imputed for Righteousness that it justifieth you only as an Instrumental Cause and only as it is the reception of Christ's Righteousness and that no other Act of Faith is justifying and that God esteemeth us to have been perfectly Holy and Righteous and fulfilled all the Law and died for our own sins in or by Christ and that he was politically the very Person of every Believing Sinner with more such like And as to this distinction which this Doctor will make a Test of the Orthodox that is Men of of his Size and Judgment you need but this plain explication of it 1. In Law-sense a Man is truly and fitly said himself to have done that which the Law or his Contract alloweth him to do either by himself or another as to do an Office or pay a Debt by a Substitute or Vicar For so I do it by my Instrument and the Law is fulfilled and not broken by me because I was at liberty which way to do it In this sense I deny that we ever fulfilled all the Law by Christ and that so to hold subverts all Religion as a pernicious Heresie 2. But in a tropical improper sense he may be said to be esteemed of God to have done what Christ did who shall have the benefits of Pardon Grace and Glory thereby merited in the manner and measure given by the free Mediator as certainly as if he had done it himself In this improper sense we agree to the Matter but are sorry that improper words should be used as a snare against sound Doctrine and the Churches Love and Concord And yet must we not be allowed Peace § 4. But my free Speech here maketh me remember how sharply the Doctor expounded and applyed one word in the retracted Aphorisms I said not of the Men but of the wrong Opinion opposed by me It fondly supposeth a Medium betwixt one that is just and one that is no sinner one that hath his sin or guilt taken away and one that hath his unrighteousness taken away It 's true in bruits and insensibles that are not subjects capable of Justice there is c. There is a Negative Injustice which denominateth the Subject non-justum but no◠injustum where Righteousness is not due But when there is the debitum habendi its privative The Doctor learnedly translateth first the word fondly by stolide and next he fondly though not stolidè would perswade the Reader that it is said of the Men though himself translate it Doctrina And next he bloweth his Trumpet to the War with this exclamation Stolide O