cast out And therefore he accuseth me falsly 18. I believe saith he that as one great end of the Father in electing and of the Son in redeeming was the making of the Elect holy so the blessed Spirit the third Person in the glorious Trinity which is as free in working Faith Regeneration and Sanctification as the Father in electing or the Son in redeeming doth in time make the Elect Holy Humble Heavenly righteous sincerely Obedient and fruitful in good works contained in the first and second table of the holy Law Very good thus far I deny not but grant the same only there is this I would have him reminded of i. e. How it comes about or what revelation there is for it in the word that God will now accept of sincere obedience to his commands through Christ whereas sinless perfect Obedience was once injoined Man That it is pleasing unto and accepted by God through Christ is certain I mean sincere Obedience to his commands But that it should be so without any further revelation that this is the will and command of God beside what was commanded Adam in Innocency as he insinuates when he saith in scorn he is not acquainted with my new Law this rests upon him to prove and is like to do It would be his mercy if God would convince him and humble him for his deriding of that as my Law which he must shortly know is God's Law and that which he will judge him by 19. I believe saith he the Elect the redeemed and justified by Christ are under the greatest obligation to duty both moral and positive in their own house and God's house in the Church and in the World this Man hath words enough And that those that talk of Election and Justification by free Grace and yet live eiâ—her in practical wickedness or in the wilful neglect of Christian duties in their Families or Closets or slight the appointments and Ordinances of Christ in the Church when they have opportunity are the greatest enemies that Christ hath that they have caused many to stumble at the truth and tempted some to lay out their parts Wisdom and Reason all which should be used for God in opposing the truth stadying out ways words and methods to cloud and render it odious and these abusers of grace by their Omissions and Commissions do cause the way of truth to be spoken of so they hereafter shall mâ—et with the greatest condemnation and shall have the hottest place in Hell except they repens for whose practice I never have nor shall I hope be an Advocate The most of what he here saith is truth in it self only as for his own practice he speaks of I can neither say with it nor against it being very much a stranger unto it but if he mean by truth what he hath drawn up as Aâ—ticles of his Faith I grant and accept somethings in some of them to be great truths but as for very much contained in them I do not at all question but they are great untruths as I have made appear and may yet further do though I will have this charity for the Man that he doth not think or intend them to be so though in the mean time he deceives himself and is in danger of deceiving others with false notions though I grant a contrary practice a practice that is repugnant to false notions so long as Persons do not willingly oppose clear light it alters the case very much as to Persons states and safety 20. I believe saith he those Scriptures Rom. 3. 21 22. Philip. 3. 9. Rom. 4. 13. which such an one speaking of me brings to prove that Faith it self is our Justifying Righteousness are not for his purpose the two first speak of the Righteousness of Christ God Man which Faith apprehends embraces and takes hold of and cloaths the Soul with as the best robe and whether the word Righteousness of Faith in Rom. 4. 13. ought to be understood of the object or of the act of Faith I shall leave to consideration being perswaded the Scriptures ought not to be expounded against Christ but for him of whom they testifie Mark Reader upon this Article he saith Article 12th that to say the Righteousness of Christ's Godhead or his Manhood or the Righteousness of both his natures united is imputed is blasphemy and here he saith that Faith apprehends embraces and takes hold of the Righteousness of Christ God Man and cloaths the Soul with it as the best robe and how he will free himself from the heavy charge of Blasphemy propronounced by himself he must see to it Touching the Righteousness of Faith spoken of in the forementioned Texts the Apostle either speaks of Faith or wholly excludes it if he speak of and include Faith then how can the object i. e. only the Righteousness of Christ as he saith be intended unless he think that Faith goes to the constituting of Christ's Righteousness but surely he will not say this if Faith be wholly excluded and the Righteousness of Christ and only this meant then why doth the Apostle mention Faith If he say because it takes hold upon and embraceth the Righteousness of Christ I ask then where this Faith is if the Apostle only speak of the object Christ's Righteousness in these Texts He cannot find it unless he will say that Faith it self is part of this object and if so then it follows First That Faith is a part of Christ's Righteousness 2ly That Faith taketh hold of and embraceth Faith for Christ's Righteousness and so Thirdly That one part of the object takes hold upon and embraceth another Thus Persons may see if they will not on set purpose shut their Eves what a confusion and jumble this makes i. e. the asserting the Righteousness of and by Faith to be Christ's Righteousness not Faith but the object â—nly But if this Man will take notice and labour â—o understand I will tell him again what I hold in this particular i. e. Faith as it is the Souls consent to renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil and thankfully to accept of Christ to be its only Saviour which includes his taking him in all his Offices and a purpose through assisting Grace of Obedience to the Death is a conformity to the Gospel which is Christ's Law of Grace and as it is a conformity hereunto by the Scripture it is called a Righteousness and this Faith justifies not nor gives any Soul interest in Christ and a right to the blessings purchased by him contained in the Covenant of Grace as a meer act but as by it the Soul renounceth all Christ's Enemies and accepts of him in all his Offices c. and so relatively so that this same Man with others do me open wrong in bearing Persons in hand that I affirm that Faith justifies or giveth right as a meer act 21. I believe saith he that such an one naming me chargeth many things upon I know not who
Heart quickning influences of the blessed Spirit But then if I be a Believer that I have it in it self and that it is of all these uses to me as it is accounted by God to be my formal personal Righteousness this I must deny for if so it must not be the Righteousness which is Christs and proper to him as Mediatour for which a Believer shall be delivered from everlasting shame and secured from God's wrath but the Righteousness of Christ as it is a Christian 's formal personal Righteousness and so as a quality in himself and it must not be the Graces of the Spirit and so not God's moral Image wherewith the Soul of a true Christian is adorned nor the Holy Spirits influences whereby it is quickned but only the Righteousness of Christ imputed in it self and so accounted to be his formal personal Righteousness And if it be thus then the Righteousness of Christ as Mediatour and the quâ—ckning and sanctifying operations of the Holy Spirit must be needless For whatever is a Believer's formal personal Righteousness it must not only be imputed unto him but be a quality in him as I have cleared above that whatever is the formal Righteousness of the Person must be the Righteousness of the Nature if therefore the Righteousness of Christ as they say be the formal Righteousness of the Person then that Person who is formally righteous by it must be perfectly righteous seeing Christ's Righteousness in it self which they say they have to be their personal Righteousness is such And if so what need of the Righteousness of a Mediatour or the graces and influences of the Holy Spirit for a Christian he being perfectly righteous in his very Nature with Christ's Righteousness Now they will say this they will not own and if not then why do they own and stick by such a Doctrine which hath such natural and unavoidable consequences as these I would gladly have these Persons consider whether they dare trust to this Righteousness of Christ for their Justification and Acceptation as it is their formal personal Righteousness without any further regard had to Christ as Mediatour without them if so then what need of Christ's Mediation without them if not then they must have Christ's Mediation without them for the acceptation of Christ's Righteousness upon them and doth Christ's own Righteousness stand in need of Christ's Mediation for its Acceptation I know not how they can come off here without either denying that a Person considered as justified needs Christ's Mediation or accounting the Righteousness of Christ upon them in the Sense of the Law of Innocency to be imperfect Take the former and they exclude Christ from being a Mediatour for a justified Person as such take the later and they destroy their own Assertion that there is no Justification but by a perfect legal Righteousness but I shall leave them in their own snaâ—e and pass on and I am like for they will not suffer me or any Man to help them 2. Another Text alledged to prove that Christ's Righteousness is imputed to Believers in it self and so is their formal personal Righteousness and so accounted by God is Jer. 23. 6. And this is his Name whereby he shall be called The Lord our Righteousness That Christ is the Lord our Righteousness I grant but where is it said in this Scripture that his Righteousness is accounted ours as to be the formal Righteousness of our Persons And if it be said Although it be not expressed yet it is intended I Answer it cannot be for Christ's Righteousness being a satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness it must be proper â—o him as Mediatour and what is proper to him as Mediatour cannot be in it self the formal personal Righteousness of another nor so accounted by God for God doth not look upon any Believer to have a satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness which he must have if he have the Righteousness of Christ to be his personal Righteousness for his personal formal Righteousness But God doth account every true Believer to have that Righteousness or to be so personally Righteous by the Righteousness of Faith as that he hath right by virtue of the promise of grace to those blessed and glorious benefits purchased by Christ by whose satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness this his Faith is accepted for Righteousness upon which Christ is the Lord of this Righteousness this Gospel Righteousness as the Purchaser Lord-Treasurer and dispenser of all Grace and may well then be called the Lord our Righteousness but then it doth not follow that the Righteousness of Christ which is proper to him as Mediatour and so for us is ours in it self and our very formal personal Righteousness 3. Another Text is in Isa 45. 24. Surely shall one say in the Lord have I righteousness and strength We may from this Scripture groundedly conclude that a satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness is to be found only in Christ and that this is sufficient to satisfie offended Justice and merit all good for us but what is this to prove that God accounts this his righteousness to be our personal formal Righteousness The Text saith no such thing and if it mean Christ's Righteousness as Mediatour the Text saith expresly it is in him and the Believer doth acknowledge it so to be and therefore not in himself which yet it must be if it be the Righteousness of his Person as hath been already shewn 4. A fourth Text is in Isa 61. 10. I will greatly rejoyce in the Lord my Soul shall be joyful in my God for he hath clothed me with the Garments of Salvation he hath covered me with the Robe of Righteousness as a Bride groom decketh himself with Ornaments and as a Bride adorneth her self with her Jewels That this Text cannot be meant of a Believer's being clothed with Christ's Righteousness as a Robe in a proper Sense hath been made manifest and if it be so improperly i. e. a Robe then only in a comparative Sense as to its use and that it may fitly be compared unto a Garment or Robe as to its use as satisfactory and meritorious with respect unto a Believer I grant but that it hath the use of a Garment so as to be any Person 's formal Righteousness this I deny and that upon the Reasons above given which Reasons are sufficient to manifest that whatever Text of Scripture be brought for proof that Christ's Righteousness is a Robe in their Sense is mistaken by them And whereas they alledge among the rest that in Revel 19. 8. speaking of the Church And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linnen clean and white for the fine linnen is the righteousness of Saints 'T is not said this fine linnen is the Righteousness of Christ though the Righteousness of Christ we acknowledge did purchase and merit it But the Righteousness of the Saints i. e. the purity and holiness of the Saints and that it is so let the
all the bodies that now are and shall be then found sleeping in the dust in order to judgment and a final sentence Acts 1. 11. 2 Thess 1. 7. John 5. 28 29. 31. That all both good and bad that ever have been now are or shall be in this World shall be gathered before him the good shall as Sheep be set upon his right hand and the bad as Goats upon his left Matt. 25. 31 32 33. 32. That he will sentence those upon his right hand to everlasting Happiness but those upon his left to eternal Punishment Matt. 25. 34 to 41. 33. That according to the sentence given by Christ the righteous and impartial Judge so must execution be done both upon the good and bad there shall be no appealing from his sentence nor no repealing of it Matt. 25. 46. Matt. 3. 12. Let Persons consider upon the matter that there are none that assent to the truth of this aright that Christ is a Saviour but they do and must assent unto the truth of all these things which are above mentioned And seeing that Christ a Saviour will save and doâ—h save by the Spirit proceeding both from the Father and the Son it will be necessary to know what truths we must assent unto with relation to the Spirit 1. An assent That he is true God of the same Essence with the Father and the Son and that appears seeing those who are baptized are to be baptized into the Name of the Holy Ghost as well as into the Name of the Father and Son Matt. 28. 19. Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost He is expresly said to be one i. e. one God with the Father and the Son 1 John 5. 7. For there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one Those that lie or act hypocritically they lie or deal hypocritically to God and this God is the Holy Spirit as well as the Father and the Son Acts 5. 3 4. But Peter said Ananias why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land Whilst it remained was it not thine own And after it was sold was it not thine own power why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart thou hast not lied unto Men but unto God We find Omnisciency and Omnipotency attributed unto him Isaiah 40. 13 and so on Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord or being his counsellor hath taught him c. 1 Corinth 2. 10. But God hath revealed them unto us by the Spirit for the Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God He is both the Author of Gifts and Grace 1 Corinth 12. 11. But all these worketh that one and the self same Spirit dividing to every Man severally as he will We find the work of Creation ascribed unto him Psalm 104. 30. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit they are created and thou renewest the face of the earth Immensity or Infiniteness is attributed unto him he is omnipresent Psalm 139. 7. 8. Whither shall I go from the Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence If I ascend up into Heaven thou art there if I make my Bed in Hell behold thou art there The Power of the Highest or Almighty God is ascribed unto him Luke 1. 35. And the Angel answered and said unto her The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God We find the fitting and furnishing of Christ for the Office of Mediatour or Redeemer is attributed unto him Isa 61. 1 2. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn The Miraculous work of casting out Devils is ascribed unto him Matt. 12. 28. But if I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God then the kingdom of God is come unto you He may be sinned against unpardonably Matt. 12. 32. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world neither in the world to come 2. An assent that this Spirit as to its personality proceedeth both from the Father and the Son Hence we find him sometimes called the Spirit of the Father Matt. 10. 20. For it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you Sometimes the Spirit of the Son Galat. 4. 6. And because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father 3. An assent that he hath his mission or is sent both from the Father and the Son John 14. 16 17. 26. John 15. 26. 4. An assent that this Spirit was sent both from the Father and the Son for these ends and purposes 1. To move and infallibly guide those who were Prophets and Apostles that they might perfectly declare the Doctrine of Christ respecting our Salvation 1 Peter 1. 10 11 12. 2. By many and plain Miracles and wonderful gifts this Holy Spirit might be the great witness of Christ and of the certainty of his blessed and holy word Heb. 2. 3 4. 3. To take up the Hearts of all true Believers for his habitation and operate powerfully and savingly in them 2 Corinth 6. 16. Philip. 2. 13. 5. An assent that this Spirit doth unite such as by the Father are drawn to Christ as their head Ephes 4. 15. 1 Corinth 6. 17. Into one Church which is the body of Christ 1 Corinth 12. 12 13. That so these being pardoned and made the Children of God they may be a peculiar People sanctified to Christ Acts 10. 43. John 1. 12. Titus 2. 14. That they may mortiâ—ie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts obtain Conquests over the World and vanquish the Devil according to their Covenant in Baptism Galat. 5. 24. 1 John 5â— 4 5. James 4. 7. That they might serve God with an Holy Heart in Righteousness of Conversation Luke 1. 74 75. That they may live in love unto and communion with the People of God John 13. 34. Acts 2. 42. That they may live in hope of Christ's coming and eternal Life 1 Thess 1. 10. 2 Thess 3. 5. The summ of these things may be found in the Worcestershire Agreement Now I shall put the Question Whether is not the belief of all these above-mentioned Articles included in a Person 's believing in Christ a Saviour
if Grace be defiled so soon as we are the subjects of it or so soon as it is given unto us or wrought in us then how comes it by this defilement it must either be from some change or it remains what it was if it be from some change that it is defiled seeing that this defilement must be moral then it must partake of the nature of Sin and if so it must cease to be Grace and if it do and become Sin as it must if it partake of moral pollution then in whom will mortifying and sanctifying Grace be found If Grace remain what it was and it was pure and good as granted as it had the Spirit as its Author then how comes it to be defiled I do not deny but there is Sin and much Sin where Grace is but then that this Sin pollutes Grace so soon as it is given and so it becomes morally defiled and partakes of the nature of Sin this I cannot reach for I think that what is morally evil must be sin and what is morally polluted must either be sin or sinful and to say sinful Grace and Holiness sounds harsh But it may be said doth not a true Christian exalt and set up his grace above Christ in a time of temptation to spiritual pride because of his grace if the temptation prevail I Answer in a time of temptation to pride if the temptation prevail a Person that is a Christian doth exalt and set up himself but he cannot be said to set up and exalt his grace above Christ hereby nor indeed doth he exalt grace at all because this exalting and high esteem of himself is a depressing of his grace and a putting a stop unto its exercise whereby he should exalt Christ so that grace cannot be the cause of this his pride for it is against its nature but the suppressing of grace or a putting a stop to its exercise by the prevalency of the contrary corruption So then you I say a Man cannot be proud of his grace I answer he cannot be proud of his grace that hath his grace in exercise because a Person is never more humble nor is God in Christ ever more exalted by him than when grace in him is most exercised for it is of the very nature of true grace to depress self lay low the Creature and exalt God and Christ so that the more of grace and the exercise of grace and the more of this But may not a Christian be proud of the exercise of grace I Answer he may be lift up in himself and proud of himself after the exercise of grace not that this exercise is the cause hereof it may be an accidental occasion but then it is the abuse both of grace and the exercise of it The truth is Christians if you would be secured from spiritual pride be kept humble labour to be much in the exercise of grace fear not that the exercise of grace should lead you to rest either in it or in your self for it is against the very nature of it the more of the exercise of grace the more doth the Soul take up its rest in God through Christ It is very strange in some Men O say they you must cast away all your graces and sincere duties and account them as dung and rest wholly upon Christ and his Righteousness just as though there was such an inconsistency and opposition betwixt Christ and the graces of his Spirit and Holy Obedience as that Christ and his Righteousness could not be relied upon and trusted to for acceptation except we laid by grace and sincere duty as useless here when for my part it is a matter quite beyond my reach to know how or with what or in what to rely upon Christ and his Righteousness for my acceptation without grace and the exercise of it in holy duties for think I if I rely upon Christ and his Righteousness I must have some way in which and something by which I must thus rely or how can I But it is like somâ— Men will have neither if both grace and sincere duty must be accounted and cast away as dung here O but say they you must beware of resting upon your grace and sincere duties for your acceptation and so of making a Christ of them I Answer for my part I do not fear this if I have but the truth and exercise of grace for God hath given grace and draws forth grace into exercise for this very end that Persons should rest upon and trust unto Christ's M diation for their acceptation and sure I am grace where it is in act will act according to its nature and this is to lead the Soul that hath it towards God in Christ as its center and rest and therefore if some Persons will amuse themselves and others unnecessarily I cannot help them but I shall pray the Lord to measure my Faith and quicken Grace and grant me the free exercise of it in every duty and then I know I shall be humble advance Christ and rest upon him as my only Mediator to obtain for me the grant of all saving good both Grace and Glory For in whose Hearts soever the Lord is pleased to suppress Pride Hypocrisie and Formality and keep them humble sincere and lively in the practice of Piety it is not possible but such should depend upon Christ both for pardon for the iniquities which attend their best duties and also for their acceptation for whose Hearts so ever are kept humble sincere and lively in grace and so in obedience such Persons cannot chuse but see and know their own sinfulness nothingness spiritual emptiness as considered morally in themselves and so on the contrary admire and adore the grace of God in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit for any thing of distinguishing grace and love towards their Souls and is this some resting in themselves and in their own graces and duties The grace and love of God in Christ Jesus certainly is the most highly advanced in Heaven and what is the reaâ—on but because their grace is perfected in the Spirits of just Men hence therefore the nearer any Soul upon Earth comes towards this Heavenly perfection by the growth and exercise of grace the more humble that Soul will be and the more God in Christ will be adored and glorified in and by that Soul John 15. 8 Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my disciples So that while some Persons caution others against resting in their grace I say beware of Pride Hypocrisie and formality and endeavour after the growth and exercise of grace and then no danger while grace is in its growth and exercise I wish it be not the case of many Professors that while they are pretending highly to advance the Lord Jesus and to rest in him and trust solely unto him they do not content themselves much with formality and take little care to see they have that
intercession of Christ Luke 22. 31 32. And the Lord said Simon Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sist you as wheat But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not and when thou art converted strengthen thy brethren And that Christ is the Head of his Church which is called his Body I deny not But then that Christ was a publick Person in such a sense as that the Law of Innocency accounted what Christ did the Elect did and what he suffered they suffered I deny and have shewed the vanity of this above And though this Man speak not out plainly yet this seems to be at the bottom and the comparison betwixt Christ and Adam will afford him no such thing I grant that as all mankind were seminally in Adam as the common root so in that respect they fell in him as the prime progagator of a guilty and corrupt nature to his posterity to all that were to proceed from him by natural Generation yet that if Adam had stood and had propagated an Holy Seed that this Seed thus propagated had been secured in their standing by their Parent standing and had not any of them fallen this I want a word from God for its warrant I dare not make it an Article of my Creed Let him find me a promise in the Bible that runs thus or to this purpose either expresly or implicitely Adam if thou keep thy standing then an Holy Seed proceeding from thee by virtue of thy standing shall most certainly stand too and then I will be of the same Faith with him but until then he must excuse my dissent for this is certain to me that though Adam had stood and propagated an Holy Seed yet that Seed would have been under the same Law with their Parent and must have performed in their own Persons the same obedience that Law required of their Parent or else the Law would have condemned them notwithstanding the obedience of their Parent see then if his obedience would have secured their standing without their own personal obedience and that all mankind should have performed a personal constant obedience to the Law of Innocency suppose Adam in his own person had never fallen this we want proof for And so that Christ hath secured by what he hath done and suffered the state and standing of all the Elect without obedience to the Law of Grace I speak of the Adult i. e. though they live and die impenitent disobedient Infidels I deny for all such shall most certainly be brought to Heaven in the way of Repentance Faith and sincere Obedience and the reason is because the Lord Jesus Christ hath merited this for them but let it be proved by them that can that Adam besides his own Justification had he continued Obedient would over and above have merited assuredly grace and strength for the infallible standing of all his posterity which this Man's notion and the notion of others with him upon this point implies Men talk against and decry works of Superarogation holden by the Papists and see not how near they come to this themselves in attributing so much to a meer Man and to his Righteousness 8. I believe saith be that the Lord Jesus Christ the second Person in the blessed Trinity did when the fulness of time was come according to God's purpose and promise for the fulfilling of the conditions and bringing forth of the Grace and Life of this Covenant take upon himself the Nature Flesh and Humanity of the Elect and become God-man having both Natures in the unity of his Person the Godhead and Manhood I grant that Christ the Son of God did in time take upon him Man's Nature and united that Nature into one and the same Person with his Divine Nature but he would have done well if he had shewn first the difference betwixt Christ's Nature Flesh and Humanity considered as Man and secondly how the Nature Flesh and Humanity of the Elect differ from these in other Men. 9. I believe saith he according to the Scriptures that as Christ the Covenant head of the Elect was made under the Law so he was thus made and constituted in the room and stead of his Elect. There is nothing in this Article of his Creed but what I have spoken to before 10. I believe saith he according to Scripture he should have said so far as I understand it that the Father by way of Imputation laid all the iniquity and sin of the Elect upon Christ the Son of his love that he was made sin in a Curse for them and that he bore their sin in his own Body upon the Tree My reply is that Christ who suffered for us was an Holy Innocent Person Holy Harmless Undefiled seperate from Sinners He knew no Sin neither was guile found in his mouth The Sacrifices under the Law they were to be without blemish and without spot and as such were types of the sinless purity of Christ the great Sacrifice He by the eternal Spirit offered up himself without spot to God The Apostle Peter saith the just suffered for the unjust and we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot Therefore Christ as our Mediatour did not take our Sin upon him so as to be accounted by his Father as some say guilty of our faults and offences nor did God the Father account and reckon him as such indeed by his free and voluntary undertaking to satisfie offended justice for us he obliged himself to suffer for our Sins but he never so took our Sins upon him as to be accounted and esteemed by God one that was wicked or a Sinner for if God his Father had thus accounted him as such he must have hated him but did God hate Christ either in his own Person or as our Surety Surely no. The contrary is plain this is my beloved Son and we are said to be accepted in the beloved He was the Holy and Just one in his sufferings yea as our Mediatour for he suffered as such Whereas then it is said Isaiah 53. that God laid upon him the iniquities of us all and by the Apostle Peter that he bore our Sins in his own body upon the tree we are to understand by sin and iniquity punishment for Christ's satisfactory sufferings were a punishment tho' not inflicted upon him considered as a Sinner or transgressor of any Law but voluntarily undertaken and suffered by him in our place and stead for the making our attonement A punishment Christ's sufferings were but yet not with relation to any Sin in or upon himself as our Mediatour but with relation to our Sins which were the remote occasion and procuring cause of his suffering though not as God did account them to be his but as he voluntarily suffered for them which would not have been had we never sinned Christ was not immediately obliged by or upon our sinning to suffer whether he
in Christ Jesus That we are justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus and also that we are not justified by the Law of Innocency and yet in such a way wherein God keeps up the honour of his Law in receiving full satisfaction for our violation of that Law unto his governing justice from our Mediatour I firmly hold but what his meaning is I shall leave and not trouble the Reader with conjectures about it 27. I believe saith he this Righteousness whereby God graciouly justifies his Elect and which they receive by Faith without wavering or violating his Holy Law resides subjectively in the person of Christ and yet may be ours by way of gift and Imputation without being subjectively in us else how is God our God Christ our Saviour Redeemer Prophet Priest and King are these subjectively in us I suppose by being subjectively in us he intends that we are the Subjects And proved I have above that we must be the Subjects of Christ's Righteousness if God account it to be the very formal Righteousness of our Persons And whereas he puts the Question how is God our God and Christ our Saviour Redeemer Prophet Priest and King what are these subjectively ours I Answer If he will say as he seems to intimate that God and Christ as Saviour and Redeemer in all his Offices are ours after the same manner that he faith Christ's Righteousness is made ours i. e. by God's Imputation or his accounting it in its self to be the formal Righteousness of our Persons he implicitly saith this If he will say that God's infinite perfections which are his Essence and so God himself are made by his Imputation or are in his account the perfections of every Believers Person and that Christ's Offices as Prophet Priest and King are made by God's Imputation or are in God's account the Offices of every Believer's Person then he must also say that their Persons in God's account are the subjects of Divine perfections and of Christ's Offices as Mediatour which would be Blasphemy to affirm That God then is so in any Believer as to communicate unto or make his Person a partaker of his Divine perfections or give unto him his Divine perfections in themselves so as that it may be affirmed of his Person it hath Divine properties such as Omniscience Omnipotency c. to say this would be horrid Blasphemy And so that Christ as Saviour and Redeemer is so in any Believer as to communicate unto or make his Person the subject of those Offices which he himself executes as Mediatour so as it may be affirmed of the Believer he executes those Offices in his own Person is a like horrid Blasphemy But now I will tell this Man for all this that it is affirmed in Scripture that God Christ and the Holy Spirit do dwell in the Hearts of Believers 2 Corinth 6. 16. And what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols for ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my People Ephes 3. 17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith 1 Corinth 3. 16. Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you Yea and is their God hereupon as it may be found in the abovesaid 2 Corinth 6. 16. But then it is not by giving unto them after any sort what is proper to God and Christ or that whereby God is God and Christ is Christ and so incommunicable But by giving them that which may be communicated i. e. the effects of God's gracious and merciful Power and the fruits of Christ's Mediation such as the quickening healing inlarging teaching sanctifying Sin mortifying Grace of his Holy Spirit which Grace is from the Father as the fountain through Christ as the Mediatour and by the Spirit as the proximate Author and worker and as this Grace is wrought in them and they after a spiritual sort are quickened healed inlarged taught sanctified and have their Sin mortified hereby they are the subjects of it Now for any to talk of Christ's Righteousness being given to them in it self to be their personal Righteousness or that Righteousness wherewith their Persons are made formally righteous for their Justification and yet say he is the only subject of it and that it is proper to him as Mediatour and cannot be communicated to any Creature is a contradiction for if it be given to any in it self to be the formal Righteousness of their Persons it must be communicated to them in it self for how should any Man's Person be formally righteous with that Righteousness which after no soâ—t in it self can be communicated to his Person In its blessed fruits and effects I grant Christ's Righteousness is communicated to every true penitent Believer but in it self not I wish it may be considered Thus I have done with his Creed consisting of 27 Articles respecting Justification PART II. BUT he hath 25 things yet behind which he calls Questions which I question not he judgeth unanswerable But I shall however since I am doing make an Essay and try what may be done by me through God's assistance in answer however to some of them though the most of them are odd and not worth a Man's while to take up time about them Quest 1. If the Covenant of Grace was made with Christ as the second Adam and with all the Elect in him as his Seed as the Assemblies Catechism saith Then how is Christ the purchaser doth he purchase a Covenant that was made with himself as the undertaker and stands fast in him I Answer Nothing will serve this Man but he will be a downright and barefaced Sociniaâ—â— he will by no means hear that Christ hath purchased the Covenant of Grace But I have already shewed that it was no Covenant of Grace which was made with Christ though it was of Grace to us as it had respect to our Redemption and Salvation And that the Assembly could intend no such thing though he alledge their Authority as I have also cleared unless he will shew us that they contradicted themselves therefore this Question is ungroundedly stated Quest 2. If Christ himself be the Covenant given by the Father as it is written Isa 42. 6 7. and 49. 8 9. How then doth he purchase the Covenant doth he purchase that which he is the subject matter of then he purchased himself Answ Reader What thinkest thou by such Questions as these Well he saith thou feest the Covenant of Grace was made with Christ Now if Christ himself personally considered as he intimates in his Question be the Covenant it self how then say Iâ— could this Covenant be made with him I must answer according to the nature of the matter before me Can a Covenant be made with it self or is the Covenant of Grace a Person consisting of two
the truths of the Gospel and if there be not that God would work it God in some measure I hope helps me to discharge that commanded duty of praying for and wishing well to the Souls of mine Enemies Q. 13. Whether a Covenant with terms and conditions for fallen Man to perform to give him right to Justification and Life be properly a Covenant of Grace yea or nay I have shewn there is a conditional Covenant or a Covenant that insists upon such or such conditions to be performed by Man through assisting grace purchased and given before Man have any interest in Christ or right to Pardon and Life after an actual sort Texts of Scripture might be multiplied for the proof which are very express both in the Old Testament and New In the Old Testament such as Isa 1. 16 17 18. and 55. 7. Ezech. 18. 21 22 In the New Testament Luke 13. 3. John 3. 16. Acts 3. 19. 10. 43. and 13. 38 39. God in these Scriptures through Christ offers and promiseth Pardon and Life to all penitent believing obedient Sinners upon which then I put the Question whether Sinners I speak of the Adult have actual pardon and right to Life after a special sort while yet they remain in a state of impenitency and unbelief and so in actual rebellion against God or the grant of pardon and right to life is suspended until such time as they by grace become sincere penitent Believers If any should say the former then they must hold that an impenitent unbelieving Soul one that is and continues an actual Rebel against God may yet have special pardon and an actual right to Salvation which is plainly repugnant to Scripture If it be said that these benefits as to the actual donation are suspended until Repentance and Faith must they not then be the terms of conditions upon which these blessings are made over to Sinners If they were not then I ask why the actual donation or gift of them is suspended until Repentance and Faith If it be said first They are no such terms or conditions which Sinners as Efficient causes do work in themselves or perform without the special concurrence and assistance of the Holy Spirit I grant it If it be said 2dly They are no such terms or conditions which though they be wrought by the Holy Spirit and performed by the concurring assistance thereof as are meritorious of or do purchase a grant and donation of the forementioned blessings this I also grant If it be said 3dly That they are no such terms or conditions which in their own nature procure our acceptation with God this I as the former grant for they themselves are accepted of God only for the meritorious and satisfactory Righteousness of Christ But now if Persons will grant that God hath so knit and joined the blessings of Pardon and Life with Repentance and Faith as that none I speak of the Adult shall have through Christ any interest in or actual right unto these benefits but such as are qualified by the Holy Spirit with this grace whereby they may turn from Sin and give their consent sincerely to be the Lord's Servants and own this to be the order or method in which God through Christ dispenseth us saving grace they say the same I intend for I intend no more when I speak of conditions and terms in the Covenant of grace And this same Man after he hath made a great pother and stir in stating most of his remaining Questions with respect to the denial of the condionality of the Covenant yet under his 24th Question he grants if he will stick to what he hath writ that Faith is a condition of Connection and Order so that if he grant thus much which I affirm with relation to the conditionality of the Covenant which he must do or he understands not himself when he saith that faith is a condition of connection and order he owns as much the conditionality of the Covenant as I. And if so be he own condition of the Covenant of this sort then he must hold that Pardon and life as connected to Faith do immediately according to God's appointed order in the Gospel devolve upon him that hath this Faith or else he must eat his words and deny a connection And if so be that these benefits according to God's appointed order in the Gospel immediately devolve upon him that hath this Faith then they must be promised unto him as such an one and so they are as the Scriptures I have mentioned above are express and if they be promised unto him as such an one then he must have that right to these blessings promised which another that wants this condition of connection and order hath not Now then to our purpose I ask is it Christ that this condition of connection and order respects or is it a Sinner if Christ then we must suppose him antecedent to this Faith which he calls a condition of connection and order to have been an unbeliever if the sinner then this condition of connection and order must be on his part and not on Christs and when he hath it he must be a confederate and not Christ according to this Man 's own grant and if the believing Sinner be one of the confederates hereupon then God promising the blessings that are connected with this Faith must be the other and that with relation to the believing Sinner seeing the blessings of Pardon and Life connected with his Faith respects him and not Christ for Christ himself needed pardon or a right to Life for he never was that I can find in a guilty perishing condition as a Sinnerâ— So that now if there be no Covenant of grace as this Man hath affirmed made betwixt God and Sinners but only betwixt God and Christ And yet Christ can be no paâ—ty in this Covenant but believing Sinners go we upon his own concession how must these things be reconciled or this Man be consistent with himself I shall leave it he may see what he can make of it for he hath granted a condition of the Covenant on our part and this there cannot be without a Covenant respecting us which hath no relation to Christ as a party i. e. in his sense There have been many and great contests about this matter i. e. some affirming the Covenant of grace to be absolute others conditional Now in my thoughts there might be a very fair accommodation for under a different consideration the Covenant may be said to be both absolute and conditional Absolute as the whole of the grace and saving benefits of it are free of meer favour through Christ without respect to any merit or procuring desert in us Conditional as God in his infinite wisdom hath stated in his order of dispensation by Christ that there shall be such a connection or conjunction betwixt true Faith Pardon and Life as that none I speak of the Adult shall have any actual interest in or
though I be by Office a teacher of others yet I am but a disciple my self and desire further and further instruction from my great Master and if it appear that it is his I hope I shall take it let the Instrument be what it will that he is pleased to make use of If any shall be offended because the work is not so accurate nor in such a fine dress as they think it should have been I must tell them I did not study to please such but my aim was the information and edification of those who desire more sound knowledge for practice than the subtilty of wit or the sound of words to please the â—ar And therefore if this of mine will not please because it wants the dress they desire they are at liberty to let it alone and cook and dress something for themselves and their own guests of this nature and serve it up in a dish in which it may be more grateful and go better off And whereas Readers you may meet with the repetition of some things know it was not with a design to fill up Paper or make a great deal of a little but because many things did occur which did require it seeing that many Persons will scarce take the pains to look back to what they have had though I have put them upon it in several parts of this work And my request to you Readers whosoever you be is that you will not content your selves with the notion of truth it is good in it self yea and it is necessary to have your judgments as clear and sound as may be but know if this be all you are but passing for all your light towards utter darkness Christian practice according to knowledge and the increase thereof is the life of the matter he that knows his Master's will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes For a Man to have a head full of light so that he can both discourse of and defend the truths of God and yet have an heart stuffed with pride hypocrisie formality love of the World desires after its profits preferments and honours and a life alienated from the life of God living in 〈◊〉 formity to this vain World a stranger to a Spiritual and 〈◊〉 venly conversation alas this light will but prove an ◠〈…〉 â— tion of his condemnation whatever light of the truth any Man hath that makes him not more holy humble and heavenâ—y in heart and life unites him not more to God in Christ makes not Christ more pretious and this world with all the fading enjoyments of it of a small value compared therewith and is not improved by a close walking with God according to the rule of his word this his knowledge though good in it self yet it is unprofitable for him Such an acquaintance with God in Christ by the Holy Spirit from the word as enricheth a Soul with experience of God's favour which is life and his loving kindness which is better than life and so excites and quickens love to God desire after him delight in him through Christ as that such a Soul resolves to follow God and adhere to him by faith in self-denial and crucifiction to this World for all the trials and matter of discouragement it meets with this this is the Soul which hath that knowledge of God in Christ which is life eternal begun John 17. 3. And this is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Sirs Converse with God through Christ by the Holy Spirit in all his ordinances is that which I beseech you be concerned for and though some deride this yet know that all your devotion is to no purpose if you live and die strangers to it for why well it is but cold formal and customary without it it is not a living but a dead service in which persons are and continue unacquainted what converse with the living God means that God who is the Infinite Ocean of good through Jesus Christ And though it is true there is not the like sensible enjoyment of God's quickening presence at all times yet it is that which a Child of God desires and cannot content himself without and therefore when he waits upon God and finds it not so as he desires this is an affliction unto him for this is that which he values before and which glads his Soul above the best of Creature confluences when it is enjoyed Psalm 4. 6 7. There be many that say who will shew us any good Lord life thou up the light of thy countenance upon us Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine encreased These lower things are but insipid and unsavory compared where this is enjoyed Know therefore upon the matter whoever they aâ—e that deny communion with God they must at the same time deny that there is any such thing as a superlative love of God for if they will grant this then there must be communion seeing that which any Man loves above and before all other things his heart cannot but be united unto and 〈◊〉 his thoughts will with the greatest sweerness be exerâ—â—spamâ—â— upon it and his desires work warmly after it if absent and his chief delight be in it if present and enjoyed and is not here communion and thus it must be where there is a superlative love to God which undoubtedly is in the heart of every true Christian and so both union and communion In a word Sirs consider your all of good is from God through Christ by the Spirit from the Father as the â—ountain through the Son as the purchaser by the Spirit as the principal applier and worker nothing of good is from your selves purchased and merited by your selves or by you wrought in your selves Keep humble then admire and adore the love grace and mercy of the Trinity of Persons in the unity of the Godâ—head in all the good you receive and enjoy and say of thine own we have received and of thine own we give thee back again And in the work and way of sincere constant obedience to God's commands according to your vow and promise in Baptism look by faith unto and plead the satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness of Christ for the acceptation of all your duties which retains and will do its mediating virtue for which be you ever ever ever thankful Coloss 3. 17. And whatsover ye do in word or deed do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God and the Father by him If this be your practice which the Doctrine I have delivered and have been vindicating in these few sheets directs to you will find the blessed fruit of it through and for our blessed Mediatour And though Men of a contray mind set themselves to oppose judging themselves hereby wise enough already and not only so but reproach such as will not make their measure their Rule as proud conceited and self righteous Persons who make light of Christ's Righteousness and accounting themselves and such as are on their part the only grave serious humble Christians I mean these that do thus oppose yet let not uâ— render evil for evil but earnestly desire of God that these Meâ— may be found such as they account themselves to be And thaâ— none of us through our abuse of light may be found such proud conceited Pharisaical Persons as these Men have passed the doom I am sure if we do the Doctrine will not be in the fault for iâ— hath a contrary tendency as hath been shewn Heb. 10 20 21 Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lorâ— Jesus that great Shepherd of the Sheep through the blood of thâ— everlasting Covenant Make you perfect in every good work to 〈◊〉 will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight througâ— Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS
promise for sinners upon their sincere repentance and faith There are promises of pardon and everlasting life to sinners that repent and believe Acts 3. 19. John 3. 16. Now for any to affirm that these promises are made and the grace promised granted to sinners who repent and believe without regard had by God unto Christ as the purchaser of them by his meritorious satisfactory righteousness is for them to affirm that God grants and gives saving grace to penitent sinners which Christ never purchased nor merited and this is for none but the Socinian to hold 2. This Law or Covenant of Grace thus purchased and granted injoins sinners faith in Christ which faith is never without repentance nor sincere obedience if the believer be continued after the gift of faith for undoubtedly if the believer live in this World after the gift of faith so long as he doth live through the grace of God he continues obedient 1 John 3. 23. Matt. 21. 30. Heb. 5. 9. 3. Christ by his righteousness hath purchased and merited the Holy Spirit to work faith in the hearts of all those sinners who thereby are brought to believe John 14. 26. John 15. 26. The Spirit is sent by the Father in Christ's name and sent by Christ from the Father Let any one now prove that what the Father gives in Christ's name and what Christ sends from the Father is not purchased and merited by him And the Spirit is called the Spirit of Faith i. e. the principal Efficient or Author of it 2 Corinth 4. 13. 4. I believe that all those who by the Grace and Spirit of Christ do sincerely believe shall for and upon the account of Christ's satisfaction and meritorious righteousness be saved but as for such as live and die in infidelity they shall be â—amned notwithstanding Christ's merits and that because they have rejected the remedy through their unbelief I speak of the Adult John 3. 16. 18. 36. 5. I do believe that as the first Covenant did require sinless perfect constant obedience Galat. 3. 10 so this obedience performed by innocent Adam would have been his justifying righteousness or that righteousness upon which this Law or Covenant would have justified him or given him a right to Life promised which is all one with Justification if confusion can but be removed and this without any regard had to the righteousness of another Rom. 10. 5. 6. I believe that as the second Covenant i. e. the Covenant of Grace doth require true Faith so where there is this true Faith which is the righteousness this Covenant calls for on the Sinner's part this Covenant doth as certainly justifie the sinner thereupon i. e. give him a right to Pardon and Life as the Covenant of works would have justified Adam and given him a right to life had he continued in the state of integrity Though observe That it is with regard had to the righteousness and satisfaction of Christ that this Faith is accepted and accounted by God in the Covenant of Grace for a sinner's personal justifying righteousness instead of that sinless perfect righteousness which the Covenant of Works injoined And is not this wonderful Grace I add it is Faith in the sense of the Gospel giveth Sinners interest in Christ and a right to all saving benefits he hath purchased and so merited which right given by the Covenant of Grace is its justifying the Soul as God's moral Instrument Though still I most firmly hold that it is for the sake of Christ alone and his righteousness that the believing sinner hath this right and that this his Faith which is the gift of God is accepted as a personal righteousness instead of sinless perfect obedience I do not say by the same Law i. e. the Law of innocency or perfect works no but by the Covenant of Grace which accepts of sincerity instead of strict legal perfection I deny then with abhorrence that Faith is any such thing as a satisfactory and meritorious righteousness in whole or in part such a righteousness being proper to our blessed Mediatour the Lord 〈◊〉 But then I do not deny but affirm that a true and living Faith is by God in the Gospel constituted that righteousness which giveth sinners right both to Christ and all the blessings of the Covenant of Grace And grant me but according to Scripture Rom. 3. 21 22. Rom. 4. 13. Philipp 3 9. that Faith is a righteousness and such a righteousness as the Gospel calls for and that it giveth right according to the Gospel promise to Christ and his purchased benefits and see then what ground there is to deny it the place of a justifying righteousness I ask doth it give any interest in Christ and right to the blessings he hath purchased if not then an Infidel must have as great an interest in Christ and as much right to Pardon and Life as a believer If you say that Faith doth give interest in Christ and right to these blessings then you say the same with me i. e. that for the sake of Christ God by the Gospel hath constituted Faith to be our personal justifying righteousness or that which gives us interest in Christ and an actual right to the blessings purchased by and promised through him and this is the justification by Faith I intend and all that I know of in and by the Gospel Justification by all is acknowledged to be a Law term if so then the matter of Justification is jus secundum legem a right in Law and this right in Law results immediately from a conformity to that Law and the conformity to that Law is the righteousness which that Law requires And the Legislator or Law-maker justifying a person is his judging asserting or accounting by this his Law a person upon his conformity thereunto to have right to the priviledges contained in the premiant or rewarding â—art thereof If the matter stand thus then in the nature of Justification as is clear none can be justified by the Law of Innocency or that Law which injoins sinless perfect works for we can have no right in or by that Law to Pardon and Life and that because thaâ—â—â—w relates to Man considered in the state of sinless â—ntegrity who as such having no need of Pardon it makes no provision for it And 2 We cannot have right in or by that Law to Life seeing none of the fallen race of Adam can yield conformity thereunto and so cannot have that righteousness which answers this Law And if so as is plain then God the Legislator or Author of this Law doth not cannot judge assert or account that any have a right in or by this Law to Pardon and Life and so doth not nor cannot justifie us by it and if not doth not nor cannot account a perfect legal righteousnesâ— such as Christ's is to be our personal justifying righteousness for if so then we should be personally righteous in the sense of the Law of Innocency But
will have Christ's Righteousness brought in here then we must read the words thus Abraham believed God and God was counted unto him Christ's Righteousness for Righteousness I would desire them to tell us what Sense they can make of either reading So Verse 5th But to him that worketh not but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness And Verse 9th For we say that Faith was reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness The Scripture saith expresly Faith was counted and Faith was reckoned for Righteousness they say nay but by Faith is meant Christ's Righteousness now let any Man judge whether we are to believe the Scripture or them Though let it ever be marked when I according to Scripture say Faith is counted imputed or reckoned for Righteousness I do not as I have said exclude the object Christ or God in Christ but say it is not Christ's Righteousness in it self that is accounted by God to be my formal personal Righteousness but that Faith which doth accept of the Lord Jesus as offered in the Gospel this Faith gives me interest in him and right to Pardon and Life and as such is my justifying righteousness in the Sense of the Gospel and that because God by the Gospel doth declare unto me and assure me that if I thus believe in Christ I shall both be pardoned and everlastingly saved I must still urge that Text John 3. 16. For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life and let it I pray be well considered for what can God's declaring and assuring by the Gospel be that I shall have these great benefits upon such a Faith but his justifying me thereupon or his accounting by this his express word my right to these blessings upon such a believing But it will be said do you not bring Faith into the very matter of Justification I Answer I shall distinguish of matter of right 1. There is the meriting purchasing matter of right and this is solely or only Christ's Righteousness 2. There is the qualifying matter of right and this is Evangelical Obedience included in Faith seeing that without Faith it is impossible to please God now if Persons judge when I say Evangelical obedience is the matter of right that I intend the purchasing meriting matter of right here they mistake me But if they judge when I affirm Evangelical Obedience to be the matter of right that I only intend the qualifying matter in this they bit right As thus now Persons will grant me there are such gracious benefits as these i. e. Pardon Reconciliation Adoption Acceptation of the services of a real Christian c. The purchasing and meriting Righteousness then of all these benefits is only the righteousness of Christ But now consider me or any other Person as an Impenitent Infidel the Question will be whether as such an one I have an actual personal right unto or interest in these blessings I think it will not be said as such an one I have for then I should be in a saving state while in a state of Impenitency and Infideliâ—y which is manifestly repugnant to the Scripture If not then I must be a Person or Subject qualified with something that according to God's appointment must give me interest in and right unto I mean an actual right unto these benefits which I had not while an Impenitent Infidel And what must this be not the Righteousness of Christ for that cannot be a qualification in me and if not then Faith and Repentance by which of an impenitent Infidel I come to be a penitent Believer And this I would have observed that those which are against my notion yet if they be true practical Christians their practice must and doth agree with my notion To instance in one thing I offer up Prayer and Supplication to God they do the same I know my Prayers will not be accepted in themselves without a Mediatour they know the same I say here I must have right to Christ as my Mediatour by accepting of him and trusting unto him as such and pleading the promises of grace in his Name they say the same I say further I may hope for acceptation of my Prayers for his meritorious intercession if I have the qualification requisite and that is Faith Whatsoever saith Christ you shall ask in my name believing ye shall receive so that this Faith is not the merit of my acceptation but the gracious qualification of my Person without which I cannot have an interest in or right unto in this particular Christ's intercession seeing that is offered up with the Prayers of Saints and these most certainly must be Believers Now are not they of the same mind see then if their practice do not agree with my notion more than their own And it look's odd on 't that Men should contend against that which must be found in their own Practice if they be true Believers Having proceeded thus far my next undertaking shall be to examine a little their gloss upon some of the main Texts they bring for the proof of this their rigid Imputation of Christ's Righteousness 1. One is Psalm 37. 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Here is the Pardon of Sin express but not a word of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in it self it is said indeed whose sin is covered But what can the meaning be but that God for the sake of Christ's Merits and Satisfaction so pardons Sin to a Penitent Believer as that it shall never be brought in against him or laid to his charge in judgment to his condemnation and everlasting shame and thus it is said to be covered and thus covered for Christ's Righteousness But seeing that Christ's Righteousness is the cover How is it so in their Sense well they say as a Garment or Robe if it cover then as a Garment or Robe Will they say that properly or that it is really and in it self a Garment or Robe i. e. Physically so surely no for this would be gross to conceive it to be a Coat or Gown c. if not properly a Garment or Robe then improperly they must say it is so and so comparatively in respect of it's use A Robe or Garment then it may have these uses to cover our nakedness to defend from cold and storms to keep our bodies warm and to adorn We will grant then that Christ's Righteousness may be compared to a Robe or Garment in regard of these uses considered as satisfactory and meritorious It is for this that a true penitent Believer having his Sins pardoned shall be delivered from everlasting shame it is for this he shall be secured from the storm of God's eternal wrath and displeasure it is for this he is adorned and beautified with the Graces and Gifts of the most Holy Spirit it is for this that he hath all the
Psalmist determine Psalm 45. 13 14. The King's daughter is all glorious within her cloathing is of wrought gold She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of Needle-work the Virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee And so the Apostle Paul Ephes 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your Wives even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it That he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word That he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing 5. A Fifth Text is in Rom. 3. 22. Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference This Righteousness of God say they is the Righteousness of Christ imputed and accounted to be a Believer's formal personal Righteousness but that by the Righteousness of God in this Scripture and others cannot be meant the Righteousness of Christ is manifest 1. Because this righteousness which is called the righteousness of God is opposed unto the righteousness of the Law and is said ver 21. to be without the Law But the righteousness of Christ is not opposed to the righteousness of the Law he being conformed unto the Law both in habit and act 2. By the righteousness of God cannot be meant God's righteousness it self I hope they will grant and if not then from it they cannot gather that the righteousness of Christ in it self is imputed seeing it is a divine as well as an humane righteousness unless they will say it is the humane righteousness of Christ only which is imputed in it self and if so it could nothing avail them for though it be true the humane righteousness of Christ would have availed himself as the Law of Innocency justified him thereupon as a righteous Man Yet it would have availed us nothing at all without the conjunction of his divine righteousness seeing without this it would not have been for others satisfactory and meritorious therefore I conclude that Faith in Jesus Christ is the righteousness which is here called the righteousness of God and that because God by the Gospel hath constituted and appointed this to be that which he will accept instead of legal perfect righteousness and for the sake of Christ's satisfactory and meritorious righteousness will justifie us by his Law of Grace and thereby give right to Pardon and Life What hath been said to this Text may be sufficient to give light to understand the meaning of that Text so much urged Phil. 3. 9. And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith And so Rom. 1. 17. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written The just shall live by faith Rom. 10. 3. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God 2 Cor. 5. 21. For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him 6. The sixth Text is Rom. 4. 6. Even as David also describeth the blessâ—dness of the Man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works This righteousness say they which God in this Text is said to impute can be no other but the righteousness of Christ There hath been enough said to shew it cannot be righteousness of Christ in it self which is imputed I would gladly have Men to consider what the Apostle in this his dispute undertakes to prove can any thing be more clear than that it is Justification by Faith in opposition unto the works of the Law both of Innocency and Moses But here is the grand mistake of these Men when the Apostle is only excluding works with relation to the Law of Innocency or the Law of Moses from Justification they understand him universally as excluding also Gospel works such as Faith c. which yet nothing can be more express and plain the Apostle is pleading for Justification by Verse 9. For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness And this Apostle at the fifth ver of this Chapter affirms that faith is accounted for righteousness And if so which is express then faith must be the righteousness of which the fifth Verse speaks Well but say they it is not faith that is this righteousness but the object Christ's righteousness if they mean it is not faith abstracted or seperate from its object that is this righteousness I say the same for it is no true faith which hath not Christ for its object But if they mean that it is the object it self that justifies and not faith with relation unto the object here I must leave them and that because I must believe the Apostle before them and there is nothing in all the Scripture more manifest than that though there be neither conformity to the Law of Innocency nor the Law of Moses though a Man neither can nor shall be accounted by God righteous in the sense of these Laws yet where there is a consormity to the Gospel Law we have David's testimony saith the Apostle that Man shall be blessed and this his conformity shall be by God accounted for righteousness And what wonderful grace is it that God will accept for the sake of Christ the sincere obedience of faith instead of a sinless perfect obedience But say these Men if you are justified by faith you are justified by works and so exclude the grace of God The Apostle saith the contrary Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace Verse 16. But this I suppose they cannot or will not understand but think that if it be by faith it must be by a work exclusive of grace They consider not that faith is the free gift of God through Christ and that it is by grace that God saves through faith Ephes 2. 8. For by grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God A Soul being by the Holy Spirit convinced of its own sinful and lost condition and its own inability and insufficiency to save it self out of this condition by the light of the Gospel it hath a discovery there is a sufficiency of Satisfaction Merit Power and Spirit in Christ for its Pardon and Life beside a free offer herein of this grace unto it immediately as it is really burdened with Sin and under the fears of eternal perishing and so truly willing of Christ and his Grace above all the World upon which the Soul penitentially renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil gives its actual consent to accept of Christ for its Propitiation Head and Teacher and so to be subject to God in him by the Holy Spirit Here now is the
union of the Soul with Christ by Faith and so its actual right hereupon through Christ to Pardon and Life and this â—aith as it is the matter of right is the Souls personal justifying Righteousness and the Gospels afferting such a Soul i. e. a Believer to have this right is God's mediate justifying act Consider still John 3. 16. For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life See then upon the matter if it be not of Faith that it might be by Grace and pretend not to exclude Faith for fear you should exclude Grace but fear to exclude Faith seeing that if you do you most certainly exclude Grace for the more of the Obedience of Faith and the more is the creature depressed and God in Christ exalted Rom. 4. 20. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God 7. A Seventh Text they would have speak for them is Rom. 5. 19. For as by one Man's disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous If they mean by what this Scripture saith that God did account Adam's act of his disobedience in violating the Laws to be ours so he accounts Christ's obedience in fulfilling the Law to be ours in it self and that we fullfiled the Law in him I Answer God did not account Adam's act in eating the forbidden Fruit so to be ours as though we had eaten our selves for God knows we neither took received nor did eat of the Fruit in our own Persons our Persons then having no Existence or actual Being And God is true and will not account that to be done by us which he knows we did not Indeed we partake of the sad Fruits of that disobedience having derived from Adam originally by natural Generation a nature sadly corrupted and violated and so are guilty before God and are accounted both by him and his Law really to be so And so God doth not account the Obedience of Christ in his fulfâ—ing the Law to be ours as though we had performed it in our own Persons for he knows and we may know our selves we did not But this God doth for and upon the account of Christ's sinless perfect meritorious righteousness constitute us righteous by his Gospel Law upon true Faith and accounts us as we are Believers for Christ to have an actual right to Pardon and Life 8. Another Text is Rom. 8. 4. That the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit I take the meaning of this Text to be this i. e. Christ Jesus having answered the ends of the violated Law by his perfect Obedience and Suffering hath obtained hereby that a Christian's sincere Obedience which consists in conformity to the Law of Grace shall be accepted for Christ's sake as really by God as though he had fulfilled or perfectly obeyed the Law of Innocency in his own Person which now as a fallen Creature he is incapable of doing The ground of this my apprehension are the words that follow who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Now though every true Christian as to the bent of his Heart and Life doth walk after the Spirit and not according to the Flesh or corrupt Nature yet it cannot be that by this the Law of Innocency is fulfilled in him seeing that it must be a sinless conformity that must be a fulfilling of that Law now mark the Text speaks of a personal fulfilling and this by a walking according to the Spirit therefore this Law which is fulfilled in them or by them must be the Law of Grace and not the Law of Innocency And let not Man say still that God accounts that a true Believer doth fulfil the Law of Innocency in Christ for if so that Law must justifie and the Covenant of Grace be made void Christ fulfilled that Law for us but we did not fulfill it in our own Persons in his fulfilling of it 9. The Ninth Text is in Psalm 71. 16. I will make mention of thy righteousness even of thine only What is there in this Text to prove that God accounts the righteousness of Christ to be the formal personal righteousness of every Believer Plain it is the Text speaks of God's righteousness in keeping and fulfilling his gracious Promises which righteousness is no other but his truth and faithfulness But suppose we this Scripture to speak of the righteousness of Christ as Men would have it what will it still be to their purpose all that they can gather from it upon any likely ground upon this supposition is only that David would make mention of Christ's righteousness as the merit of all the good which he both had and did expect and the ground of his acceptance which is a great truth in it self but I do not say it is that which by the Holy Spirit is intended chiefly in the Text. 10. Another Text is in Ezech. 16. 14. And thy renown went forth among the Heathen for thy beauty for it was perfect through my comliness which I had put upon thee saith the Lord God This comliness say they which God put upon this People and from whence they had their beauty was the righteousness of Christ imputed in it self Now if the People would but a little consider what follows they might see this comliness God put upon them spoken of here was a civil comliness i. e. the Peace Plenty fulnses of all temporal good things the Honour Greatness Dignity c. that God had advanced them unto especially in David's and Solomon's times above their Neighbours But come on if so be they will have the righteousness of Christ meant then belike it must follow 1. Believers how mean or contemptible soever they be in this World must be renowned and very famous among the very Heathen for Christ's imputed righteousness And yet alas the poor Heathen are meer strangers to it knowing nothing of it and here is the wonder indeed 2. Believers they may trust too much to Christ's righteousness now I ever thought these Men that are for this strict Imputation had been of a mind that a Person could not trust too much to Christ's righteousness but its like Persons may if by this comliness be meant Christ's righteousness as they will see ver 15. But thou didst trust in thine own beauty and playedst the harlot because of thy renown and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by his it was 3. Persons valuing Christ's righteousness too much and trusting too much unto it may thereby be drawn to commit Spiritual Whoredom to break their Covenant with God and become Apostates from God by falling into Idolatry c. If they will have the righteousness of Christ meant by this comliness and the beauty that was upon this People then they must have these
Innocency that is a righteousness but faith is no such righteousness Conformity to the Gospel or Law of Grace that is a righteousness and faith is this righteousness it is a conformity unto the Gospel command John 3. 23. And this is his commandment that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave commandment And it is expresly said to be counted for righteousness in the 4th of the Romans Therefore if there be no righteousness but what is a conformity to the Law of Innocency so indeed faith is no righteousness seeing it is not a conformity to that Law and thus the Antecedent would be true but know there is a righteousness which is a conformity to the Gospel Law and faith is this righteousness seeing it is a conformity to this Law And thus the Antecedent appears to be false and so the Consequent 2. Say they Faith is not our personal justifying righteousness because it is a work I Answer This Argument supposeth that there is no Justification by a personal righteousness and if no Justification by a personal righteousness then there must be no such thing as a Justification of any Person at all for if there be a Justification by a personal righteousness then there must be Justification by a work for to tell of Justification by a personal righteousness and yet also to tell that there is no such thing as Justification by any work is to say that there is a Justification by a personal righteousness and there is not a Justification by a personal righteousness because no Justification by any work than which nothing can be more absurd But it may be said there is no such thing as Justification by a personal righteousness of our own I Answer To tell of a personal righteousness and yet say it is not mine after any sort is as much as to say a personal righteousness and not a personal righteousness which still is a manifest contradiction for how can I be personally righteous with a righteousness that is not mine after some sort Yes it may be it will be said Christ's righteousness whereby we are justified is our own by Imputation If so then God accounts it to be the righteousness of your Persons or how can your Persons be justified by it And if God account it to be the righteousness of your Persons then he must account you in your own Persons to be conformed to some Law hereby or else how should Justification as all that call themselves Protestants confess be a juridical or Law act And can you be conformed in your own Persons to a Law without a work We are you may say conformed to the Law in our own Persons by the work and obedience of another i. e. Christ to that Law This now is as much as to say that you are conformed to the Law in your own Persons without any personal conformity still contradiction Well but Christ's personal conformity to the Law is reckoned by God in our Justification to be our personal conformity if so then God must account you to be perfect fulfillers of the Law and if God do this he must account you also to be performers of the obedience that Law calls for or he cannot account you fulfillers After all this now here is the mistery still you will deny that you are justified by a Covenant of Works or by any work accounted by God to be your own Here is the Riddle look who can unfold it so that plain it is some Persons will not have Faith to be a justifying righteousness because it is a work and yet they themselves according to their own notion must and do hold Justification by perfect legal works which are excluded from Justification by the Holy Scripture while it speaks expresly of Justification by Faith as hath been shewn above Well but we are not justified by any works subjectively in us or done by us I Answer you say they are yours by Imputation and if so God must account them not only to be done by you but to be subjectively in you for if God do account me to have personally done this or the other which he must do if he impute what Christ hath done to me and so account his obedience to be my formal personal righteousness he must account me to be or to have been the subject of that work Actiones sunt suppositorum but this I have cleared above But why will they not admit of Faith as justifying righteousness because it is a work I suppose they think it would occasion boasting now the Scripture speaks far otherwise The Holy Spirit in it saith where all is received of free gift there is no ground for boasting and sure I am nothing is more express than Faith to be freely given And the Apostle is express that boasting is excluded by the Law of Faith or that Law which commands Faith in Christ and if by the Law of Faith then by Faith it self where it is for true Faith where it is 't is of that nature as to set the Crown wholly upon Christ's Head and keep the Soul that hath it low and humble But now as to the other Law i. e. the Law of perfect sinless works such works as have no Sin attends them if we seek for Justification by a righteousness which is a conformity thereunto here is a foundation for boasting and that because if I be justified by it I must merit and deserve in my own Person Life by my conformity thereunto and so the merit of another must be wholly excluded this is that now which some Persons do not take heed unto when they say that Gospel works such as Faith in the matter of Justification I mean the qualifying matter lays a foundation for boasting they should prove before they can have ground for their Assertion that Faith hath a purchasing meritorious efficacy but this they do not nor cannot For though Adam had what he had both of Moral and Natural integrity by the grace of Creation yet had he continued to have yielded conformity to the Law of Innocency he might have boasted in this and depended upon it as a righteousness which would have merited and deserved the continuance of Life for him Persons may be high pretenders to exalt Christ and his righteousness but if they will have a righteousness which is a conformity to the Law of Innocency to be their personal justifying righteousness they must have a personal meritorious righteousness and these must open a wide door for boasting But if Persons will have Justification by Faith as a personal Gospel righteousness to give them right which is for this constituted by God for Christ's Merits this wholly excludes all boasting as to the having a personal righteousness that is in it self or in its own nature satisfying and meriting and thus Christ and the grace of God in him in a Sinner's Justification and Salvation is exalted This Law of Faith is
be saved and thine House Therefore the Reason given is of no force for the strict Imputation of Christ's righteousness 7. Christ's righteousness say they must be our only personal justifying righteousness because it is that which God accepts on our behalf I Answer If they mean that God accepts the righteousness of Christ on the behalf of Believers so as to account it a sufficient satisfaction for them and the merit of all good which they partake of and that for which he accepts all their sincere duties I grant them the whole But if they mean God so accepts it on their behalf as to account it to be the very righteousness of their Persons by which their Persons are righteous according to the Law of Innocency this I deny and they can never shew any solid proof for what they affirm 8. Christ's righteousness say they must be our only personal justifying righteousness because Christ was a publick Person standing in the place and stead of all those that should believe in him so that all that he did and suffered are to be looked upon and are reputed by God as done and suffered by them and consequently are imputed to them I Answer That Christ did sustain the Person of a Mediatour for the making atonement and purchasing reconciliation I grant but that he sustained the Person of all those as a sinner that should after believe in him this I deny seeing then he should have been accounted the offending party and so as such had been incapable of purchasing and making peace betwixt the offending and offended For he that is accounted guilty and so an offender should have needed a Mediatour and reconciler for himself but this Christ did not therefore to tell of Christ's being a publick Person in this Sense is false and not only so but destructive of his Office as Mediatour and so also of his Satisfaction and Merit as is manifest And whereas it may be said How could he have suffered if by the Law he was not accounted guilty and an offender I Answer The Law did not account Christ as guilty or an offender nor did it ever condemn him but on the contrary it accounted him a righteous Person not considering him at all as a Mediatour or Surety and justified him as a fulfiller of it both in Nature and Life and therefore he was under no obligation at all by the Law of Innocency to Suffer but the obligation was from the Law of Redemption or Mediation by his own free and voluntary susception according to the paction betwixt him and the Father The just suffered for the unjust that he might bring us to God If just then by what Law was he just He that is just in Law by that Law that accounts him just as such he cannot be accounted guilty or an offender but Christ was just in the account of the Law of Innocency Hence therefore that which they would gather from Christ's being a publick Person must fall with its foundation for neither the Law nor God by the Law did account that Christ did so personate Sinners as to reckon what he did and suffered they did and suffered What Christ did and suffered it was accounted to be done and suffered for us but not accounted to be done and suffered by us for if so then God should accept satisfaction immediately from us and not from Christ and God must account us immediately to have merited and not Christ i. e. Christ should only be accounted by God as the means whereby we satisfied his Justice and merited Life for our selves for if all that Christ did and suffered be by God reputed as done and suffered by us then I ask for what end for that which was done and suffered by Christ was satisfactory and meritorious now if Christ obeyed and suffered for this end that God might account what he did and suffered to be done and suffered by us then Christ must have obeyed and suffered for this end that God might have satisfaction from us and that we by his means might merit a right to Life Can they prove this thinkest thou Reader 9. Christ's righteousness say they must be our only personal justifying righteousness because we cannot be justified by it any other way than by God's imputing it to us as such I Answer If this be so there must be no Justification of a Sinner at all for no Sinner is nor can be formally personally righteous with Christ's righteousness and therefore God doth not account him to be so as hath been proved above 10. If we may truly be said to be dead and crucified with Christ to be quickned with Christ to have risen again with Christ to sit in heavenly places in or with Christ c. then may we be said to have fulfilled the Law with Christ also and consequently the fulfilling of the Law by Christ is imputed to us and accounted ours I Answer The Scripture it is granted saith concerning true Believers that they are dead and crucified with Christ c. But what are they said to be so properly and personally Did they lay down their natural lives with Christ and aâ—ise in his rising again unto a corporal and glorified Life Or did God account them so to have done in Christ when he knows they did not If not as is plain then the meaning is by way of efficacy and likeness Christ indeed hath merited the Holy Spirit and this Spirit is given for the sake of his Merits unto his People by the power and efficacy of which Spirit sin is mortified the Heart crucified to the World and the Soul made alive to God raised from a Death in Sin to a Life of Grace and Holiness and the affections are set upon things above where Christ sits at the right hand of God from whence results a Christian assimulation or likeness to Christ in his Death Crucifixion Resurrection Ascention and Exaltation But what ground from hence to draw such an inference i. e. that we have fulfilled the Law in Christ's fulfilling of it Plain it is no ground at all but the consequence leans to that false supposition that what Christ did and suffered God accounted us to have done and suffered which beside what hath been said already if true then God must account us if Believers to have been born of a Virgin in a Stable to have been circumcised to have disputed with the Doctors in the Temple at Twelve years of Age and to have been subject to Joseph and Mary as our Parents to have been baptized by John the Baptist to have wrought Miracles c. in Christ But who will say this if none then all must hold the thing supposed formerly by many must be false and if they will let the notion go the consequences are none of theirs 11. Christ's righteousness say they must be our only justifying righteousness because all are and continue Sinners while they live and therefore cannot be personally righteous but by God's accounting Christ's righteousness
if we are then it will either be accepted of God or it will not If it will not Then to what purpose is it performed If it will Then is it of Grace that God accepts it And if of Grace must it not be accepted in and through Christ's Satisfactory and Meritorious Righteousness If so then it must be revealed by God in his word to be his will that we should thus obey i. e. sincerely and that we shall be accepted through Christ hereupon this will of God commanding is either a Law or it is not If not then there is no Transgression if we do not obey if it be then they must grant us a Law of Grace which for the sake of Christ will accept of sincere obedience instead of perfect and also they must grant that Christ hath purchased this or else they and all Mankind upon a supposition that God had continued Man should still have been obliged to sinless obediâ—â—ce as a condition or qualification of Life and so for want of obedience of this sort we should all have been left to the execution of the Curse and been damned for ever And observe this Law of Grace of which we speak doth not destroy the Moral Law summarily contained in the Ten Commands for we say still we are under obligation to have respect unto and obey all its commands in avoiding Sins which are forbidden and performing the duties which are commanded therein But this is that we say that we cannot nor do not perfectly obey though we have a principle of Grace wrought in us by the Holy Spirit but yet we sincerely obey and have respect unto its commands this shall be pleasing and acceptable to God for the sake of our blessed Mediatour And seeing such obedience would not have been accepted of God upon a supposition that fallen Man could have performed it of himself which I am sure he could not had not the Lord Jesus Christ by his Satisfaction and Merit procured it should is not here a plain different constitution and so a new Law purchased by Christ distinct from that which Adam in the state of Innocency was under But upon the matter some say the obedience injoined Adam and the obedience commanded us now is the same specifically or in its own nature and differs only gradually and therefore the Law must be the same and there is no necessity of a new one I Answer grant we that the obedience doth only differ gradually considered materially yet the obedience injoined us formally differs from that of Innocent Adam's and therefore cannot be of the same nature with his for our obedience is to be performed by us as penitent Subjects not so innocent Adam's and also in Faith of acceptation through a Redeemer and Mediatour but not so innocent Adam's so that our obedience now formally differs from that of Adam's in Innocency and therefore differs from it specifically and not only gradually and hence there must be a new constitution or Law injoining it Or else what warrant have we for it But suppose there should be only a gradual difference when indeed there is more as is manifest yet it doth not follow that the Law commanding is the same for it is sinless obedience the Law of Innocency requires and it will accept of no less now if less be accepted we must have a new Revelation and so a new warrant for it from a command or else what foundation for it or incouragement unto it and seeing we have a new Revelation and so a new warrant from God's command of this obedience then we must have a Law to which it relates distinct from that given to Innocent Man but in the very matter of obedience we shall find that injoined us which was not commanded Adam in the Law of Innocency nor indeed did suit at all with the nature of such a Law which will make it further evident we must have a new Law as fallen Creatures distinct from that Isa 1. 16 17 18. Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil Learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widow Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wooll Isa 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous Man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Ezech. 18. 21 22. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die All his transgressions that he hath committed they shall not be mentioned unto him in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live Acts 3. 19. Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord c. What is required in these Texts is the revealed will of God which Sinners through his Grace are to be subject unto And is not subjection where it is yielded obedience Can this will of God then thus commanding be any other than a Law seeing that non-performance must be a manifest transgression and disobedience Let it be considered then if what we find commanded in these Texts was injoyned Adam before his fall had he needed to wash him and make him clean and put away the evil of his doings was he then wicked and called upon to forsake his wicked ways and sinful thoughts and turn unto the Lord before he was guilty of any transgression was he called upon before his fall to repent and be converted that his Sins might be blotted out before he had any Sin and to believe in a Redeemer that he might be saved or are these the commands of the Law requiring sinless works One would think those that oppose us should not affirm it and if not is not all this required of Sinners and must not that be a distinct Law by which it is required and is not God's own constitution how dare some Men then call it an humane invention It shall come to pass in the last days that the Mountain of the Lord's house shall be established and many People shall go and sup come ye and let us go up to the house of God and he will mark us his ways and we will walk in his paths for out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the word of the Law from Jerusalem SECT VI. Justification described and made good partly in this and partly in the Sections ensuing HAving proved that there is a Law of Grace distinct from that which requires sinless works and that God justifies by this Law you may take this definition or description of Justification i.
and if they be whether can any one I speak of the Adult have Salvation by Christ who denies these and refuse to give their assent unto them If they cannot how can they be justified without such an assent Being thus it may be said you will have many assenting acts of Faith unto Justification or in that Faith which justifies I Answer implicit I will grant explicit I deny As thus Suppose I propound the above-mentioned Articles to any in order to his assent as I read these Articles if he give credence he implicitely gives his assent to each Article as I go along But then after that I have read them I ask him whether he doth assent to the truth of the whole if he say yea 't is manifest his explicit assent is but one or one explicit act which we call assent But besides assent our consent is requisite to the constituting of true Faith and this consists best in a cordial accepting this one only God to be our God giving him the preheminence in our affections Exod. 20. 2 3. An accepting of him to be our chief or best good that God who is essentially good the fountain of all goodness Hence he is the principal object of our love desire and delight Psalm 73. 25. Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth I desire besides thee And besides it implies a free consent to be disposed of by him according to his good pleasure and a being freely willing to be ruled and governed by him according to his Law and holy Commands 2. A consent to take Christ Jesus to be our only Propitiation all prevailing Intercessour and also as our head and Teacher i. e. Christ in all his Offices 3. An accepting of the Holy Spirit to be our Sanctifier to mortifie Sin to bring our hearts in love with holiness to assist us in duty and excite grace in the performance to alienate our Hearts from this World and fix them upon Heaven and heavenly things 4. A sincere consent to perform our Baptismal Vow or Covenant renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil resolving through God's grace for the future to be his obedient Children and faithful Servants fighting against all his and our spiritual Enemies Those who are our Opposites I would gladly know of them or rather I desire them to know of themselves whether any less than such a sincere consent as this above spoken of can bring or put them into a saving justified state or give them which is all one a saving interest in Christ and a right to Pardon and Life through him If they say less will let it be made appear from Scripture if not then why do they make any opposition upon this consent sincerely given follows practical trust i. e. a well grounded confidence upon God in and through the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit that God for the sake of Christ will be faithful to his promises and make them good unto such who reduce their former consent into persevering practice such who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality Eternal Life Rom. 2. 7. Though many times under dark and afflicting providences and dispensations Thus Abraham against hope believed in hope he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in Faith giving glory to God And being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform upon our first assent and consent we have an initial right to Christ and Life upon our practical trust we have this right continued which practical trust doth include sincere Obedience and when a Believer is incapacitated for the act and exercise the principle or habit is accepted The heart of Asa was perfect all his days 2 Chron. 15. 17. This practical trust is our adherence to God in Christ by the blessed Spirit in the ways of holiness notwithstanding opposition Acts 11. 23. Who when he came and had seen the grace of God was glad and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. Having shewed what a Faith it is which is requisite both to our initial and continued Justification or what Faith it is which is requisite both to our initial and and continued right to Christ and to Pardon and Life purchased by him Let us now consider what this Faith includes as it gives the initial right and so I consider it especially as consisting in consent assent being previous 1. Repentance is included for in our sincere consent to take God to be our God Christ to be our Redeemer which includes an accepting him in all his Offices and the Holy Spirit to be our Sanctifier there is implied a cordial confessing and forsaking of all Sin and this with self loathing self judging enmity and opposition in the Heart against it 2. Love to God and the ways of holiness is included for it cannot be that ever any should sincerely consent to be the Lord's and make choice of the ways of holiness to walk in unless there be such a sight of their excellency and amiableness as draws their Love from Sin and the World and fixeth it principally hereupon 3. This consent includes Obedience radically for there can be no real consent to be Christ's unless there be a full resolution to do and suffer whatsoever he calls us unto this consent we speak of brings Christ and Souls into the Relation of Master and Servants and there cannot be a real consent to be Christ's Servants unless there be a willingness to do the work which he commands us and a resolution through Grace to continue in it so that it is manifest that Faith which justifies or gives right to Pardon and Life it includes Repentance Love to God and radically new Obedience and though it is like upon the matter I may procure to my self the name of a Papist I must not for that be affrighted from owning a truth that bears its own evidence before it But by the way I would have such Persons who are so ready to fix such names upon others as they judge may render them odious to consider what our Divines mean when they say that where there is one Grace there is every Grace and tell me where there is the act and exercise of that Faith which unites to Christ whether there can be this without the exercise of Repentance and Love inclusive what hath been said may give sufficient light to know how to answer the Question to such as desire to learn and think not themselves wise enough already Though seeing I am upon this I shall take leave further to offer this to consideration and let it be under correction that where there is the exercise in truth of Grace the exercise of that one Grace I speak of the sensible exercise doth include the exercise of the most if not the exercise of all Grace As thus Suppose we the exercise of true Repentance there must be
grace in truth and the exercise of it by which the glory of Christ is exalted and he rested in as the only Saviour and Mediatour for sure I am how high soever their pretences may be without true grace and fruitfulness in it they neither do nor can do that which they themselves pretend unto What some Men have been doing and what their thoughts are as to matters of this nature I shall leave only they seem strange to me for after I have affirmed that such as have the exercise of true Faith and other graces it is not possible while it is thus for them either to rest in Grace or Duty they in opposition have asserted that such Doctrine is the high way to make formalists and hypocrites but then you must know it was without proof and it was like to be so for sure I am that such as perform duties without true Faith and the exercise of Grace they have nothing wherewith to rest upon Christ or his Mediation and so must content themselves with the work done and these are and can be no other while it is thus but formalists and hypocrites What it is to some Persons I know not but to me it is a Paradox that true grace and sincere obedience should lead off from Christ and God in him and that Men should be in danger thereby while it is prevalent to degrade Christ and set up themselves it is just as if a Man should say such a Servant as is faithful diligent in his Master's service and very obedient his Master is in danger so long as he is such to be robbed of his due honour by him while yet the Master accounts it a credit and honour unto him to have such a Servant and loves him entirely and intrusts him with those secrets that he will not intrust with the rest though know the Servant doth but what he ought to do in all this And thus the best and most faithful of God's Servants after all they have done in God's service must account themselves unprofitable to God because they make no return of any thing unto him but what they first have received from him through Christ by the Holy good Spirit though observe where there is faithfulness they shall reap the profit for God will for Christ reward his own work in them and that which is done faithfully by them He that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of such as diligently seek him Eliphaz intimates Job 22. 2. that though no Man can be profitable to God yet a wise Man one that is spiritually wise saith Mr. Caryl may be profitable to himself And he hath this Observation upon the words He that is truly Wise Godly and Holy shall find fruit and benefit by it we car saith he never want fruit our selves while we are bringing forth fruit unto God all obedience i. e. which is sincere is attended with a blessing For my part with relation to what hath been said I do not think that any thing is accounted by God morally unclean and filthy but Sin and therefore must be yet to learn that sincere obedience to the commands of the Gospel is Sin if it be said as usual it is so as it is in us I Answer as it is in us so Sin attends it I grant as we are sinful and unclean in our selves and this Sin must needs be filthy and abominable but then that obedience which is the obedience of Faith and Love considered in it self as abstracted from our Sin that this I say is filthy and abominable I dare not affirm but indeed must deny for the principle must needs be the work of the Spirit and the performance must be by the Spirit 's assistance and as such then the obedience must be accepted of God Now how that which is a work of the Spirit and performed by the assistance of the Spirit and offered up to God by Christ through his intercession can be filthy and abominable in it self I shall leave under consideration whether is it rational to think that Christ will offer up to God by his intercession that which is filthy or suppose he should whether will God accept it But it will be said as before it is only filthy in point of Justification I Answer if it be not filthy in point of acceptation through Christ and for his sake it cannot be filthy in point of Justification so far as it hath its use and office there for will God accept that for the sake of Christ which he will not so far as he accepts it justifie us upon God accepts of a Soul 's sincere obedience which is the obedience of Faith through Christ as it his Spirit 's work and a Conformity to the Gospel Law now what is Gods acceptation but his being pleased with the Soul and its service through Christ which well pleasedness implies his judging that Soul to be one that hath right as it is a sincere obedient Soul still for Christ's merits to the blessings promised unto such and what is God's judging a Soul to have right but his justifying of that Soul It is very odd to hear some Persons in their confessions casting away all that is in them and all that is done by them in the special service of God though sincere as dung and yet profess they will rest and depend upon Christ's Intercession for the acceptation of that which they called and accounted dung as though Christ would offer up to God on their account by his intercession or that God would accept that which is as dung and so filthy and abominable in a moral sense And then further these very Persons in the same duty will thank God for any ground of hope he hath given of the truth of a work of Grace in their Hearts and the exercise of Grace in the Duty and the hopes they have had of the Spirits assistance and yet all this before in their confessions they cast away as dung I do believe many have meant well in all this and were for the main good Christians but plain it is matters were not so well considered as they should have been here Think of it we have all Sin to bewail which attends us in our best services and to crave pardon for through Christ but then so far as our Hearts are sound and sincere and we find the exercise of humiliation Faith and love to God in the performance of that service we have ground to believe it shall be accepted of God in Christ and therefore may depend upon his Mediation for this very thing being incouraged by God's gracious promise and if so we neither may nor ought to look upon such a service in it self to be dung and so an abomination to God Now the reason that some give for accounting our Gospel holiness dung is this i. e. because of its infirmity and imperfection This reason implies that all that Grace and Holiness which is not
though the publication of it was but in time and the actual conferring of the benefits as the vertues of the Covenant of Redemption and Christ's performance his actual performance of the conditions of it were but in time yet these did not hinder that Covenant from being everlasting 5. I believe saith he that as Christ was chosen and constituted the Covenant head of his People and the Covenant made with him as the person undertaking so the Elect were therein given to him by the Father to be redeemed as his People Children Seed That there is a number according to the Election of Grace I grant and that all the Elect were given by the Father to the Son in the Covenant of Mediation to be redeemed by him not because as he intimates they were in his People Children and Seedâ— by meer Election but that they might be so by Redemption and the participation of the benefits thereof Ephes 1. 4 5. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love Having predestinated us unto the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Titus 2. 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of good works I deny not Election but do not lay that stress upon it as to think the chosen of God are thereby constituted his People and Children as though Redemption by Christ and the work of the Spirit of grace upon Souls were not necessary Christ is the head of the Covenant of grace made betwixt God and his People in and by him as the Purchaser Efficient Author and the great mean of conveyance of all good therein I grant but then that such a Covenant as this should be made with Christ this I deny for this Covenant is a Covenant of reconciliation and it was not Christ but poor miserable Sinners that needed peace with God Whatsoever this Man thinks I am certain according to the Scripture that the Elect themselves before effectual vocation are enemies to God both in Heart and Life I speak of the Adult 1 Colos 21 22. And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight and if so as is manifest they must be so wrought upon by the blessed Spirit to give their consent to be subject to God as his Children and Servants before God after a special sort be reconciled to them as his Friends and is there not implied in this their renouncing their former Masters the World the Flesh and the Devil and devoting themselves to God and his service sincerely upon which for the sake of Christ God becomes by promise their Sin pardoning God and reconciled Father and is not here a Covenant in form struck betwixt God and them of which Christ though he be the head in the sense mentioned above yet he cannot be a party 6. I believe saith he the Covenant of grace was made with Christ the second Adam and with all the Elect in him as his Children and Seed As the Assemblies Catechism saith It must be granted him the Assembly saith the Covenant of Grace was made with Christ as the second Adam and in him with all the Elect as his Seed But if it be as they say then that which they call the Grace of God manifested in the second Covenant in their Answer to the following Question must be given to Christ for with whom a Covenant is made of what nature soever the Covenant be to him must be given that which is promised in that Covenant upon his performance of the conditions so that if the Covenant of Grace be made with Christ then God must provide and offer to him as a Sinner a Mediator for this is one part of the Grace of the second Covenant and Christ must be obliged to perform the condition of this Covenant which the Assembly say is Faith to interest him in this Mediatour and this Covenant must promise and give the Holy Spirit to Christ as the Elect to work in him that Faith with all other saving Graces and to enable him unto all Holy Obedience as the evidence of the truth of his Faith and thankfulness to God and as the way which he hath appointed him to Salvation But seeing the Assembly do apply expresly this Grace of the second Covenant to Sinners of mankind the Covenant of Grace must upon a practical Faith he made with them and not with Christ unless this Man will say and prove this Reverend Assembly do contradict themselves And if so it is a wonder he should make what they say in this particular an Article of his Faith I would have this considered by the way i. e. did not Christ freely engage himself to be a Mediatour and so oblige himself to fulfil the Law of Innocency violated by Man make himself a Sacrifice for Sin to satisfie God's Justice and so merit Pardon and Life now was any of mankind in this same Covenant and bound under the same obligation with him If any say yea then they must be under obligation as well as Christ to do and suffer to satisfie and merit Christ if not then how could Christ and any of mankind with him be in the same Covenant for to be in the same Covenant must needs be to be under the same obligation If it be said Christ bound himself freely to do and suffer all this for us we deny it not but what is this to prove That Christ and we were in the same Covenant and so bound in the same bond Let it be proved that ever Christ was under a Covenant of Grace and that he was dealt with in a way of Mercy and not in a way of pure Justice and will any say that God's dispensations towards his People are in a way of justice and not in a way of Mercy 7. I believe saith he that as Adam was a publick Person and common head in whom his posterity were to stand or fall Rom. 5. so Christ as a common head and publick person is the head and Representative of all the Elect in whom their state and standing is sure and safe so that they shall never fall nor finally perish I grant all that are given by the Father to the Son shall come and that being brought over effectually they shall have persevering grace John 10. 27 28 29. My sheep hear my voice and I know them they follow me And I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any pluck them out of my hand My Father which gave them me is greater than all and none is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand And that this their standing is secured by the merits and
would or no as a surety in the same bond is immediately obliged in Law to discharge the debt whether he be willing or no in case of the failure of the principal Debtor No for it so his undertaking to suffer would not have been in its nature voluntary and free which undoubtedly it was By this little Readers you may understand in what sense Christ's sufferings were a punishment when therefore you read of our Iniquities and Sins being laid upon Christ you are to understand that punishment which he suffered for us in the sense above It is like some Men at this day do esteem Christ to have been stricken smitten of God and afflicted as he was reputed by God to be the greatest Sinner but God tells such that he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed Isaiah 53. 3 4 5. Now whereas it is said according to our Translation in Isa 53. 6. The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all we shall find the like in very many places of Scripture translated punishment To instance in some Levit. 26. 41. If then their uncircumcised Hearts be humbled and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity â—â—NRâ—â— the very same word with that in Isaiah translated iniquity is translated punishment only the affix is added In 1 Sam. 28. 10. Saul speaking to the Witch of Endor assures her that no punishment should happen unto her for that thing useth the very same word â—â—NRâ—â— which we have in Isaiah translated iniquity But it may be said what will you say to that Isa 53. 10. When thou shalt make his Soul an offering for Sin The word translated an offering for Sin is â—â—NRâ—â— guilt and so some read the words when thou shalt make his Soul guilt or guilty and doth not this clearly hold forth that Christ had our Sins translated upon him and was really reputed the Sinner the guilty Person instead of the Elect I Answer no for it is manifest the trespass offering was denominated or called â—â—NRâ—â— guilt not because it was guilty or reputed so to be by God but because by its Blood as a typical Sacrifice it was to expiate and make attonement for the Sin and guilt of the Person for whom it was to be a Sacrifice as many things both in our common acceptation and in the Holy Scriptures receive their denomination from their end and use And further the Learned tells us when this word â—â—NRâ—â— is applied to Christ and to the offerings for trespass as types of him it signifies an expiatory Sacrifice a Piaculum a Sacrifice to attone for heinous crimes These words in Isaiah when thou shalt make his Soul an offering for Sin Musculus reads thus Si posuerit vel posita fuerit anima ejus â—â—NRâ—â— sacrificium pro peccato i. e. if he shall lay down his Soul or if his Soul be laid down a Sacrifice for Sin And in his application of the Text he further saith Utitur Propheta voce legali â—â—NRâ—â— quae in Levitico cap. 5. pro oblatione sumitur quae offerenda erat pro delicto The Prophet useth this Law term â—â—NRâ—â— which in Levit. 5. is taken for an oblation which was to be offered for a fault or trespass And he goes on cum ergoâ—hic dicit ubi posuerit se anima ejus â—â—NRâ—â— nihil aliud intelligit quam sacrificium pro peccato fecit hoc Christus in cruce in quâ semet ipsum Deo Patri pro peccatis nostris sacrificicium expiatorium obtulit When therefore he saith in this place when his Soul shall make her self â—â—NRâ—â— he intends no other but a Sacrifice for Sin and this Christ performed on the Cross upon which he offered up himself an expiatory Sacrifice to God the Father for our Sins Another thus upon the words cum subjecerit seipsum paenis when he shall subject himself to punishments or sufferings And Buxtorf himself a Person familiarly acquainted both with the Rites and Dialect of the Jews reads this word â—â—NRâ—â— oblatio pro reatu an offering for guilt or for the guilty But it is said Verse 12th he bore the sins of many and the word in the Original translated Sin is â—â—NRâ—â— and where do you find that this is translated punishment I Answer In Zechar. 14. 19. This shall be the punishment of Aegypt the word in the Hebrew for punishment is â—â—NRâ—â— And let it be observed this very word translated punishment here is the very same in form with that which is translated Sin-offering denoting that it was so called because it suffered and was offered up for and instead of the Sinner to attone for him And thus and upon this account did Christ the great Sacrifice suffer and was offered up of whom all the Legal Sacrifices were types But it may further be said was not Aaron the High Priest a type of Christ our great High Priest I Answer Yes If so then it is said that Aaron as a type of Christ was to bear the iniquity of the holy things of the Children of Israel which imports that Christ was to have the Sins of all the Elect charged upon him and be accounted by God the Sinner I Answer It is a manifest mistake in this sc that the Persons of Believers are accounted by God clean and their services clean and holy by their having the Sins of those services and duties laid and charged by God upon Christ and reputed his But it is manifest that the Persons of Believers and their duties are accepted by God and the Sins that attend them and their duties pardoned upon the account of Christ's Sacrifice his holy Merits and spotless Mediation and Intercession If Christ take away the filthy garments of his People so as I have shewn when they approach the presence of God and rebuke Satan for them I dare not say let them that will that either God or he puts them upon himself And it is to be observed the word â—â—NRâ—â— translated to bear Exod. 28. 38. hath various acceptations in Scripture and among the rest it signifies deportavit he hath born away or exiled and not only so but condonavit he hath pardoned Numb 14. 19. Pardon I beseech thee the iniquity of this People according unto the greatness of thy Mercy and as thou hast forgiven this People from Aegypt even until now The word in the Hebrew translated thou hast forgiven is â—â—NRâ—â— the same as to the root we have in the Text before quoted so that the intent of the Holy Spirit therein comes to this that the Lord Jesus Christ our great High Priest and so our Intercessor by the sweet Incense of his Mediation obtains Pardon for all the Sins and iniquities which attended the Holy things of his People so that all their iniquities are hereby born away and as it were exiled and their spiritual performances made acceptable to God But say
natures or did God make a Covenant of Grace with a Covenant of Grace Christ indeed was given of the Father to reconcile God to Sinners by his Blood and Sinners to God by the Holy Spirit given Ephes 2. 13. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ Coloss 1. 21. And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled And so he is the Efficient and meritorious cause of the Covenant of Grace and the gift of the Covenant so far as he makes over himself and the blessed fruits of his purchase thereby to his People but to talk of Christ being the Covenant it self and so to purchase himself if he purchase the Covenant of Grace who could have thought that any Man should have offered such raw conceptions for certainly the end of Christ's Death was to reconcile God and Sinners and are God and Sinners reconciled so long as Sinners continue in actual rebellion against him If not then are not Sinners to cast away their weapons their Sins whereby they have been warring against God And are they not to come in upon his Proclamation of Grace and humbly submit themselves to his sacred Majesty promising through Grace to be his loyal Subjects for the time to come And is not this an engagement on the returning Sinners part to be the Lords when he saith implicitly herein and so answers Gods call as it is said Jerm 3. 22. Return ye backâ—sliding Children and I will heal your backslidings Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Isa 26. 13. O Lord our God other Lord besides thee have had dominion over us but by thee only will we make mention of thy name And hath not God promised to accept receive pardon c. for Christ's sake such a Sinner and is not this God's gracious engagement on his part and is not here the form of a Covenant But was there ever such a Covenant made betwixt God and Christ True indeed it is in and through the merits of Christ that God thus condescends but plain it is this Covenant which is a Covenant of Grace to Sinners is made betwixt God and them Can these Persons understand the nature of Mercy and Grace as they should who talk of a Covenant of Mercy and Grace made with Christ Well but say they it was made with Christ for us and with us in him I Answer If they speak of the Covenant of Redemption I grant it was though made with Christ yet so for us as that it was in order to our Redemption and Salvation by him but if they speak of the Covenant of Grace such a Covenant as I have described above that this was made with Christ for us this I deny for if so then Christ must be bound to perform that duty on his part which God in the Gospel requires of Sinners and will they say this That he hath ingaged himself in the Covenant of Redemption to give Grace to all the Father hath given him I speak of the Adult to inable them to perform the duty which the Gospel injoins and if this be all they intend by the Covenant of Grace being made with Christ for Believers they do not differ from me in the thing though yet observe their notion confounds in the matter the Covenant of Redemption made with Christ making it the same with that which is made with Sinners which is strictly in its own nature and in the very matter of it a Covenant of Grace and Mercy And further when they say the Covenant of Grace as such in its own nature was made with us in Christ If they mean with us in Christ as the purchaser which this Man denies in scorn or the great mean of conveyance of the blessings hereof or with â—s in Christ as we have interest in it after a special sort upon our Union with him by Faith I am of the same mind But if they mean it was made with us in Christ as that he is the only Confederate for us who obliged himself to perform what is required of us and so to repent believe and obey the Gospel for us this I deny and so the Assembly as appears in their Answer to this Question i. e. How is the Grace of God manifested in the second Covenant A. In that he freely provideth and offereth to Sinners a Mediatour and Life and Salvation by him and requiring Faith as the condition to interest them in him promiseth and giveth his Holy Spirit to all his Elect to work in them that Faith with all other saving Graces and to enable them to all Holy Obedience as the evidiâ—nce of the truth of their Faith and thankfulness to God and as the way he hath appointed them to Salvation Q. 3. If Faith be our formal justifying Righteousness then how is Christ the Lord our Righteousness or all the Seed of Israel justified in him A. This I have fully answered above and from thence he may know by Efficiency and Merit Q. 4. If God justifie the Elect by a Righteousness which answereth not the Law of Innocency then how doth he administer grace in a way of justice or what doth he justifie them from or how is he just in justifying him that believeth in Jesus and faithful and just to forgive us our Sins seeing what he doth seems to interfere with Law and Justice A. He supposeth first That God justifieth the Elect if he mean only as such before Faith and so without Faith it is not true 2ly He supposeth that God justifieth by a Righteousness that answereth the Law of Innocency If he mean by such a Righteousness as is the Merit I grant but if he mean by such a Righteousness a Righteousness which we are personally righteous with this I deny If God saith he doth not justifie the Elect by a Righteousness which answereth the Law of Innocency How then saith he doth he administer grace in a way of justice I Answer God doth justifie by that Righteousness which answereth the Gospel or God's Law of Grace if he mean by answering a conformity to the precepts of a Law i. e. the Righteousness of Faith And in this he administers Grace in the way of Justice 1. As he accepts Faith for Righteousness and gives us an actual right thereupon to Pardon and Life for Christ's sake whose active Righteousness was a conformity to the Law of Innocency as it required sinless perfect rectitude both in Nature and Life and his Sufferings which are called his Passive Righteousness which were instead of the penalty due unto us for our violation of this Law both which are meritorious and satisfactory on our behalf and thus the Law is answered for us in the account of the Lawgiver and justice fully satisfied And thus Readers you must understand me when I speak of Christ's fulfilling the Law and in what I have spoken of that 2.
right to this Pardon and Life without Faith previous thereunto in order of nature and whoever they are that will deny this they must deny the plainest part of Scripture But it may be said do not you affirm that the performance of the condition is required of us I Answer true and the Scripture is express we are injoined to repent believe and obey and not Christ for us doth not this suppose us then it may be said to have a moral power in our selves to repent believe and obey antecedent to the disposing and assisting grace of the Spirit I Answer no God indeed by his command makes it our duty to repent believe and obey his infinite wisdom having ordered this as the best way or means to our having Pardon and Life through Christ and therefore for this purpose will have the commands of the Gospel pressed upon Sinners But then his promise of the gift of this grace through and for Christ to enable us hereunto supposeth our want of moral power and so our insufficiency and inability in our selves to perform which the Spirit convinceth of so that God's commanding us that which we have not in or from our selves to perform without the renewing and assisting grace of his Spirit doth not suppose us to have the moral power of our selves but it only speaks God's order of acting in his dispensations towards Man whom he works upon as a rational Creature who after he is convinced of his Sin and Misery must be acquainted with what is his duty in this case and for this God gives his command as in the case of those at Peter's Sermon and the Jaylor c. But then after acquaintance with his duty and conviction of his own inability to perform God by his promise conveys the grace of his Holy Spirit to give him that ability so that now Man repenting and giving his sincere consent to be obedient to God in Christ the blessings of Pardon and Life according to the tenor of the Covenant of grace devolve upon him for Christ as the subject of the right i. e. as a penitent Believer So that in what I have said it is manifest the terms and conditions of the Covenant performed by Man through assisting grace are no other but terms and conditions of connection and order as hath been explained And here observe this is so far from destroying as that it doth establish the Doctrine of Justification by Faith or that Doctrine which teacheth Faith to be our formal personal Righteousness or that upon which God doth account us by the Covenant of grace subjects that have right through Christ to Pardon and Life seeing that God hath so connected true Faith and these saving benefits as that it is his fixed order by this his Covenant to dispense the latter to such and such only I speak of the Adult as are qualified with the former And if so then such must have a legal right i. e. a right in Law and what is a right in Law but a Righteousness in the sense of that Law and seeing we cannot have a right in the account of the Law of Innocency we cannot have a Righteousness in the account of that Law And if not then we must have another Law and this can be no other if a Remedy as we are fallen Creatures be but a Law of Grace and Mercy and if this must not be then we must have no legal right at all and if no legal right then no Justification there must be no such thing and if there be no such thing then let Persons contend no more about it And though it be true these conditions which are conditions of connection and order have not the Causality of the Efficient or meritorious cause yet they have the place of the matter disposing and qualifying together with the form which is God's accounting them as qualifying matter they constitute the Sinner a Subject that hath right according to the tenor of the Gospel to Pardon and Life through and for Christ and this is the nature of Justification But though this Man in his 24th Question hath granted Faith to be a condition of connection and order which is all that I intend as I have explained my self when I speak of the condition of the Covenant and so granted hereby a Covenant of grace made betwixt God and believers as I have shewn yet his 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th and 19th Questions they all respect the same thing i. e. his denial of the conditionality of the Covenant so consistent is this Man with himself but if he had not granted what he hath yet what I have said upon the former Question i. e. his 13th may be a sufficient solution to these I have mentioned and therefore I shall not take up time nor fill up Paper nor trouble the Reader with them only seeing I have answered him so many Questions I will request the same favour from him that he will answer me these few upon the matter 1. Whether he do Baptize as he calls it Persons Adult considered as so and so qualified or hath he no regard to any qualification but administers the Oâ—dinance to any that offer themselves suppose they be Turks 2. Whether there be any such a thing as any Persons being in Covenant with God If there be thenâ— 3. Whether are they taken into Covenant as Infidels or as Believers If there be not then 4. What is that which Baptism is a sign and Seal of And 5. Who have right to this Seal and that whereof it is a Seal It is only these few I shall propound I desire weight let him glory in number Q. 20. I pass on to his 29th Question If there be no right to Justification and life but by Faith how then or by what are dying Infants saved or by virtue of what Covenant have Infants right to Baptism I Answer By the Covenant of Grace upon the Faith of their Parents He needed not but it is like he would have had the number to have sought the solution of such a Question as this seeing I have at large before answered it in a Manuscript sent to one of his fellow Labourers which it is strange if he have not seen but however to this I remit him and pass on to his Q. 21. Doth not such an one naming me herein render the Doctrine of the most of those accounted Orthodox both Ancient and Modern to be false the prayers of the most sincere impertinent made in Sin and Ignorance and the sufferings of the Martyrs to be foolishness The greatest part of this I have answered already in what I have said to the 22d Article of his Faith only as to that wherein he chargeth me as one that renders the Prayers of the most sincere impertinent made in Sin and Ignorance My Answer is I do most firmly hold that a sincere Prayer though much Sin and Ignorance do and will remain in the Person who put up such a Prayer so long
and therefore by Divines hath been called the Covenant of Mediation or Redeâ—â—tion Let this Man or any for him that can prove that Christ took upon himself the Office of Mediatour and Redeemer without the Fathers designation and his own consent I still grant that his Covenant was made for us i. e. with a design to procure our Redemption and Salvation yea and the means whereby we might in time be actual partakers But then to tell of such a Covenant being made with us in Christ must bring us under the same obligation with Christ and what the consequence of this would be Persons may see if they will but open one of their eyes And that there is a Covenant made betwixt God and those that are his People distinct from this Covenant made with Christ besides expresâ— Scripture is evident from Christ's being the Mediatour of the Covenant Now was Christ a Mediatour of a Covenant made with himself or with Believers did he not mediate for reconciliation and was he to be the party reconciled or that stood in need of reconciliation or Sinners Is there any Covenant or none sâ—aled in Baptism and the Lords Supper if there be it is a Covenant sealed to Christ or to Believers if to Believers how then can Christ be a party in that Covenant which is not sealed to him but others They urge that Text as the main proof that the Covenant of grace was made with Christ i. e. Galat. 3 16. Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made He saith not And to his Seeds as of many but as of one And to thy Seed which is Christ Our Divines say not Christ personally but Christ mystical is to be understood in in this place But however grant we that Christ personal be meant let us see if it will afford them what they will needs have God promiseth to Abraham and to his Seed Genesis 12. 3. and 22. 18. that in them all the Families and Nations of the Earth should be blessed How blessed in Abraham and his Seed Well as Christ according to the Flesh should proceed from him and his Seed by 〈◊〉 through whom Abraham's blessing i. e. of God's beâ—ng a God to him and to his Seed might come upon the Gentiles and thus God would have a covenanted People among the Gentiles as well as among the Jews which covenanted People both of Jews and Gentiles should be Christ's Seed both as purchased by him for this purpose and regenerated and converted by his word and Holy Spirit Now saith the Apostle the promises of this sort were not made to Abraham and his natural Seed such as should proceed from him and his immediate Seed Isaac as though for and in them as such all the families and nations of the Earth should be thus blessed no but to Christ the seed of the Woman the principal promised seed the Saviour of the World that through and for him this blessing of Abraham of having God to be his God and the God of his seed might come upon the Gentiles which Exposition of the Text fitly agrees with those promises made to Christ as Redeemer Psalm 2. 7 8. I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of earth for thy possession And he shall see his seed and he shall see of the travail of his Soul and Isa 55. 5. Behold thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not and nations that knew thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God and for the holy one of Israel for he hath glorified thee Let it now be considered whether it be rightly concluded from this Text that the Covenant of grace is made with Christ and not with Believers through and for him And whereas he puts the Question further Hath God properly made any more Covenants than two for 〈◊〉 and Life commonly called the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace I Answer I do not say that God made any more Covenants with Man but two i. e. the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace the one respecting Man in his state of Integrity the other in his lapsed or fallen condition but from hence it doth not follow that there was no Covenant made with Christ distinct from both these peculiaâ—â— him as Mediatour respecting his redeeming work But now with this Man 's good leave if the Covenant of Grace be made with Christ then God never made any more Covenants than one with Man i. e. the Covenant of Works and thus no believer must be in Covenant with God unless he be under the Covenant of Works which indeed his Doctrine if he understood it tends to in that he would have a legal righteousness to be the justifying matter of his Person I mean a Righteousness adequate to the Law of Innocency so that in his account such a righteousness must be the formal righteousness of his Person and if so he must be under the Law according to his own notion as a Covenant of Works If Adam had performed the conditions of the Covenant of Works as he once had power undoubtedly life would have been continued unto him hereupon but now to say such a Covenant was made with him for Salvation sounds harsh for Salvation properly supposeth a Person is or hath been in misery or in an actual danger of perishing And was Adam's case such when God struck this Covenant with him But he hath yet one Question more which is this Q. 25. But wherein saith he doth such an one naming me in his supposed large acknowledgment of free grace and imputation exceed or ascribe more to the grace of God and merits of Christ than Bishop Gardiner doth in those ten positions which he endeavours to maintain against those worthy Martys of Jesus Christ Barnes Hierome and Garret who sealed the contrary Doctrine with their dearest blood This same Man in this hath reference to those six particulars according to which I affirm the Righteousness of Christ is imputed And therefore Reader I here give thee thâ—se ten 〈◊〉 of Gardiners of which he speaks and then again the six particulars in which I acknowledge Christ's Righteousness to be imputed and shall leave thee according to Scripture to consider both parts nay to consider the things themselves so as to judge whether what I affirm in this matter be the same 〈◊〉 what Gardiner saith Winchester's Articles 1. THE effâ—ct â—f Christ's passion hath a condition the fulfilling of the condition diminisheth nothing the effect of Christ's passion If he meant by the effect of Christ's passion Pardon and Life puâ—chased thereby and that these have a condition of connection and order as I have explained above he saith no more but what this Man hath granted himself But if he intend by condition any thing that in its own nature is meritorious of such
effects of Christ's passion as I suppose he doth I utterly disclaim any condition on Man's part of this sort and so cannot be one with him 2. They that will enjoy the effects of Christ's passion must fulfill the condition If he meant they must fulfill it by the assistance of God's grace as a condition of connection and order it is true but if he meant they must fulfill it so as that they may merit or deserve it from the very nature of the thing which I think he did according to the Popish Doctrine that Christ hath merited that we might merit then it is false 3. The fulfilling of the condition requireth first knowledge of the condition which knowledge we have by faith Perhaps he meant by faith a blind implicit faith that which is so much in vogue and cried up at this day even among such as account themselves the greatest Anti-papists 4. Faith cometh of God and this faith is a good gift it is good and profitable to me it is profitable to me to do well and exercise this faith So it is I must confess if he spoke of that faith which according to the Scripture is true and saving for and through the merits of Christ and not such a faith that doth deserve of itself or in its own nature the reward for I know no such faith therefore faith Gardiner further By the gift of God I may do well before I be justified In the following Article he further explains himself 5. Therefore I may do well by the gift of God before I am justified towards the attainment of my Jâ—â—ification If he meant by way of merit to procure Jâ—stification ex opere operato from the very work done it is false and I disown it 6. There is ever as much charity towards God as faith and as faith increaseth so doth charity increase If this be taken absolutely every one may judge of it as they have light 7 Towards the attainment of Justification is required Faith and Charity If he meant still as meriting procuring causes in their own nature I disown it 8. Every thing is to be called freely done whereof the righteousness is free and at liberty without any cause of provocation This is a jumble like some other things I have met with of late and therefore I shall leave it to such as this Man who account themselves much wiser than I to find out the true intent and meaning and shall not trouble the Reader with conjectures 9. Faith must be to me the assurance of the promises of God made in Christ if I fulfill the condition and love must accomplish the condition whereupon followeth the attainment of the promises according to God's truth This doth not much differ from the Doctrine of such as place the very Essence of Faith in assurance I speak as to the first branch of it and for the rest I leave it as confused 10. A Man being in deadly Sin may have grace to do the work of penance whereby he may attain to his Justification If he meant that though a Man may be bound over to eternal death by Sin and live in a state of impenitency yet God may give him the grace of repentance who can fairly deny this but then that such an one by his repentance doth merit by it in its own nature that God should justifie him this is false and I disown it It was not my province to say any thing upon these Articles but only barely to transcribe them that the Reader might compare them and mine and see whether they be all of a piece as this Man insinuates Hence mine follow Touching Christ's Righâ—ousness and the Imputation thereof I affirm 1. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it was for â—ur Redemption and Salvation 2. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it to be the sole or only merit and purchase of the new Covenant and the benefits thereof 3. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it to be the merit of the blessed Spirit to work grace 4. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it is for this that all the duties and graces of his People are accepted 5. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it for this he pardons us and receives us into favour and justifies by his Covenant of Grace upon believing and so accepts our Faith for Righteousness It is not without Christ but for him 6. I do believe that what Christ did and suffered he did and suffered for us in the Person of a Mediatour and God doth account what he did and suffered as Mediatour doth and shall avail as much for the obtaining of Pardon and Life for us upon Faith as though we had been able to have done and suffered the same in our own Persons Now Reader compare and be judge whether Winchester's Articles and mine in this point of Imputation do so agree as this Man hath the modesty to affirm and if thou be such an one as Calumniations have weight with thou mayst have enough in him But further saith he the Martyrs before named sealed the contrary Doctrine with their dearest Blood i. e. the Doctrine contrary to mine as well as that of Winchester's for this he must chiefly intend in affirming Winchester's and mine i. e. my six things before mentioned do so agree that I in them do not exceed nor ascribe more to the grace of God and the merits of Christ than Winchester doth in his Be it known then unto all Men That if this Man or any other for him can find me any one either in the Scripture or in that which hath been accounted the Church of Christ by the Reformed since the Apostles times that was reckoned a faithful Servant of God and yet sealed as such a Doctrine contradictory to what is contained in the six particulars with his 〈◊〉 her dearest Blood and I profess I will retract them if so then such an one should have holden and this agreeable to the Scriptures and the common suffrage of the Church of Christ That Christ's satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness was not nor is not accounted by God to have been for our Redemption and Salvation nor to have been the sole purchase and merit of the new Covenant and the benefits of it together with the Holy Spirit nor to be that for which God accepts of the graces and duties of his People nor to be that for which God pardons and receives penitent believing Souls into favour c. Let him prove now if he can that Barnes Hierome and Garret sealed such a Doctrine thus contradictory to mine with their dearest Blood Hierome and Garret agreed with Barnes in the Doctrine of Faith and we find Barnes affirming that good works are to be done and they that do them not shall not come into the Kingdom of God and we find him only excluding them from Justification and Salvation in point of merit making Christ and the death of
Christ only meritorious of these Wherein now do I contradict these Holy Martyrs in this And whereas he saith that these Men sealed the Doctrine contrary to Winchester's and so to mine which he would make to be of the same piece with his with their dearest Blood he insinuates the cause of their Death to have been known unto them when yet they themselves enquired after the cause and could have no account as to any particular in this matter of which this Man speaks But he hath not done yet I must have another cast of his Office before he leave this his Question and that is that really and in truth he doubts whether I hold any Imputation of Christ's Righteousness at all in a Protestant sense So that in his account he must be no Protestant that holds that God reckons the satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness of Christ to have been for our Redemption and Salvation or to have been the merit of the Covenant of Grace and the promised benefits thereof to â—â—evers or to have been the merit of the acceptation â—â—eir grace and duty c. And if he be no Protestant that holds these things then those that hold things concontradictory unto them must be the only Protestants for aut hoc aut ejus contradictorium and who can these be but the Socinians So that plain it is none are Protestants with this Man but such as to this point Thus I have done with his Interrogatories The next province he hath entered upon hath been to transcribe Mr. Troughton's Theses and Antitheses to which there is enough said already in answer so that to speak to these particularly will be but actum agere to do that which is already done But for all that Mr. Troughton hath said in his Book to render the Doctrine I have been insisting upon and according to my weak ability vindicating odious Yet if I mistake not Page 121 saith he Faith is the means whereby the obedience and death of Christ is applied to us not saith he by a physical but a moral application giving us a right to all the benefits of them Benefits of what why of Christ's obedience and death So that plain it is Christ's Righteousness which he makes consist in his active and passive obedience is not made over to us quoth he by physical application i. e. not in it self or in its own nature but by a moral Faith as a moral means giving us a right to all the benefits of them i. e. of his obedience and death And what can be more fully said to our purpose or on our part than this And he adds God having promised Salvation upon the account of his Son's satisfaction to all that come to him and believe in him Page 122 he saith there being but these two ways by which Man can be saved either by fulfilling the Law of God or in case of Sin by fleeing unto and trusting in the mercy of God if so then Faith must give the interest Pag. 23. Faith is not a proper condition but a qualification capacitating the Soul to receive benefit of Christ appointed by God for that use and having the promise of success Man being a rational Creature cannot be taken into God's favour without his own consent nor can he be made partaker of any promise without accepting of it and 〈◊〉 ing in it An heir saith he further if he live not 〈◊〉 lack understanding cannot inherit the estate though never so absolutely purchased and yet life and discretion are not conditions of the purchase mark here he only denies Faith to be a meriting or purchasing condition and he doth well but qualifications of the subject necessary to enjoy it it is well if he and some do not part for this but he goes on these qualifications are not in Men's power as Faith is in Christ's power to give it very good still true he having purchased faith and perseverance for all those he died for which binders not his purchase from being full and absolute whereas to suspend it upon any condition doth not make it not full We will not differ about a term seeing he fairly grants the thing i. e. that faith is a qualification capacitating the Soul to receive benefit by Christ and is a moral means giving right to the benefits of Christ's obedience and death which is only made ours in its benefits hereby by which he must grant an Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us only in its fruits and effects Towards the Conclusion saith he I mean the Man I have had to deal with you may as well seek to rend the skin from my flesh as cause me to let go Christs imputed Righteousness I may not I dare not c. If he mean in it self he will find it neither is nor can be his so neither doth God account it to us after a Physical sort and therefore he need not fear that any should robb him of this for no Man can take away that from another that he neither hath nor is ever like to have Christ's Righteousness is his own proper to him and it is for this we have the application of saving good upon repentance and faith but it is not for us to be made righteous with in our own persons If it be in it self for impetration it is not in it self or in its own nature for application i. e. to be applied unto us but only in its benefits upon Faith Here he brings in one that respect and reverence forbids me to name saying Christ's Righteousness imputed is the sweetest word in all the Scriptures yea and saith this Man again we find the Apostle expressing the same ten times in the 4th Chapter of the Romans when yet there is no such expression in all the Bible it is a wonder how Men dare say that God in his word saith such a thing expresly when yet no such expression is there to be found I have made it evident that I deny not the thing in a sound sense but so as some Men will have it this I must deny for reasons already given Thus I am brought nigh to the Conclusion of this work which I have endeavoured to perform according to the rule and line of the Holy Scripture I impose nothing herein upon any 〈◊〉 desire the Readers to lay aside prejudice and judge acâ—â—â—â—ing as matters herein contained will bear weight in 〈◊〉 ballance of the Sanctuary imploring the conduct of the Holy Spirit which leads into all that is truth And if any shall account it their concern to oppose judging me to be Heterodox I desire they will produce argument and this particular and distinct and such as may be concordant to the Sacred Text and carry in it convincing evidence that hereby I having a discovery of my mistake for I have not attained to a state of sinless unerring perfection though at the present I am satisfied touching the substance of what is mine that it is truth may learn more for