righteousness of Christ that we are justified I cannot but think they are out likewise For if when Paul sayes we are not justified by works his meaning were not by our own works but by the obedience of Christ wrought for us then when James sayes we are justified by works his meaning must be by the works Christ did for us and he must not mean our own But this is absonant to any rational apprehension to construe St. James so Nor do I think such a meaning ever came into the heads of either of the Apostles Our Divines then should not say here of our works in general but as to the sense the Apostle speaks of them in general we are not justified them And what is that sense then in which he speak of works why he speaks of works in that sense most manifestly as the law require them that we may live in them Let a man then have the help of the spirit or be without it so long as he falls short of what the law requires at his hands be it never so little he cannot live by those works the curse is due to him for the least breach and that is contrary to justification There are some Divines of note therefore seeing no footing for this distinction have chose an other There are works of the Law say they and works of the Gospel When St. Paul sayes we are not justified by works he speaks expresly of works of the Law St. James is to be understood of the works of the Gospel This distinction may serve well provided it be cloathed with the sense of the Apostles When some have used these terms to signify no more but that we are not justifyed by Jewish observations but by the righteousness of the Gospel it falls too short in the first branch to do any thing But by the works of the law let them understand works which answer the law and that there are none justified by the works of the law because there is none perfectly fulfil it and they have hit the business For though Paul speaks not only of works by the law of innocency but directly and mostly of the works of the Jewish law which the Jews fancied ex sufficientia praestantialegis did as such procure pardon and life without looking to the merits of the Mediator for it and so erred yet the law of Moses consisting either in moral precepts that represented the law of Nature which no man can come up to and the most righteous of them did break or in the remedying commandements of sacrifices or attonements for sin whose virtue alone did lye in the blood of the Redeemer the ground and bottom of their errour which he confuteth does indeed lye herein that whatsoever it was they did or whatsoever they thought of it it did fall short of the law of works therefore did not justify them before God There are works then which if they be performed doe answer the law the law we are to mean ultimately as given to mankind in a Covenant by our creation and works which if performed do not answer the law but answer the Gospel If the distinction before-cited be received with this meaning it is true that Paul speaks of the works of the law and James of the works of the Gospel and that there is no man justified by the former because there is no man does or can perform them when we do perform the latter and are justified by them To give more light and weight to this There are works which if we be justified by them exclude grace and there are works which exclude not grace though we be justified by them The works of the law take them in this sense that answer the law if they be performed must make justification due so as it may be challenged according to the law the reward shall be of debt and there be no need of grace but justice in the case for he that doth them ought of right to live in them And these are the works undoubtedly that Paul disputes against while he proves justification to be of grace which is also agreeable to the end and scope the holy Ghost seems to have in it to wit he beating man down from all vain exaltation in himself and laying him at Gods feet for all he has Wherein it were not yet enough that what he hath is received seeing he would be even ready to boast of this that he hath received what others have not but that when he is enabled by God to perform that which he does even this which he hath received and is accepted is but such as God Almighty might choose whether he would accept it or not and if it were not for grace for all he hath done he could not yet be justified and saved On the contrary hand therefore the works of the Gospel that is the works which the Gospel requires of us as the condition of our justification and salvation such as faith repentance and new obedience when they are performed and answer the Gospel they do yet stand in need of grace because they do not answer the law and God might chuse whether he would accept them or no or make any promise to them When we repent it includes the acknowledgment of sin and when we believe it is a flying to Gods mercy for it and though we may walk sincerely before God we do not and cannot walk perfectly and he might condemn us is justice for the least failings and much more for our manifold transgressions If God then shews mercy and accepts of what we do it must be of his grace that he does it It is true that these works do justifie us but that is while we are judged at the bar of Gods grace or according to the new Covenant which is therefore called a Covenant of grace or the law of grace because that grace is no ways destroyed but confirmed by these works From whence it may appear that the two Apostles shall be so far from contradicting one another about this point as that what St. Paul contends for shall be made good by that which is said by St. James Paul sayes we are justified by grace and St. James proves it while he shews us that our works which are imperfect even such as Rahabs as well as Abrahams are accepted and rewarded as if they were perfect that is are imputed to us for righteousness which they could never be but for grace and that purchased through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus The third thing wherein St. Augustine mistakes is that which strewes the way to the Papists doctrine or justification by works and therefore it will be necessary before I come to it to advance here somthing out of this Father which offers us I think some light towards the fixing our own doctrine of justification by faith Per legem cognitio peccati per fidem impetratio gratiae contra peccatum per gratiam sanatio animi a vitio
unto life and a valid donation of it to the sinner The last is the ground of the former for man must be made just or God cannot reckon him so and acquit him in judgement The judgement of God is according to truth Now to this making a man just as there is this donation of God there must be mans receiving Christ is not ours though tendered or given until we receive him This receiving then which is our act that is faith it self God excites and make use of to this end He makes use of it I have accounted as his instrument of making Christ ours to this end he hath apppointed it for that he may accordingly reckon his righteousness to us unto the remission of sin and everlasting salvation Having told you this first I may make the bolder to tell you my more indifferent thoughts of farther years I do apprehend that the Apostles in their doctrine and the Primitive Christians had more simple and less intricate conceptions of things then we have and that their dispute then whether we are justifyed by faith or works in the most simple understanding of it contains no more than to shew us what is required of persons that they may be justified or what is that God hath made the condition on our parts of our justification St. Augustine I have said does teach us that faith does justifie us as the beginning and foundation unto grace and a good life and the Council of Trent with Bellarmine and the Papists after that Council stand upon this Faith justifies only as initium justificationis the beginning of justification But howsoever the Papists have made use of that Father the truth and light which he hath offered is not to be lost I do take this to be the most right and certain notion that faith does justify as initium and fundamentum I will not say justificationis seeing I understand not justification to be all one with sanctification as they do but as fundamentum conditionis The condition of our full final justification the Gospel offers is repentance and sincere obedience and faith is the initium and fundamentum of that condition Was not Abraham our Father justified by works when he had offered his Son Isaack sayes St. James The faith of Abraham or his believing God was the beginning and foundation of this excellent work the ready offering his Son which shewed his sincerity of life the condition of justification And the Scripture was fulfilled which faith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness Here believing offering Isaac are all one with S. James The Offering Isaack proceeded from believing as the initium and fundament ū of it and so believing as the initium of sincerity of life or sincere obedience does justifie Such a faith as produces good works which are sincere though imperfect or such good works as proceed from faith are but one and the same thing with the two Apostles and made by both the condition of our justification And here I should be willing to come off but the uniform judgement of the reformed Churches on the Article of Justification requires some regard There is therefore in the Schools a Quatenus specificative reduplicative I suppose when I have said that faith does justifie us as the foundation of the condition and so productive of the whole of it I have said well with S. Augustine as to the quatenus specificative and if I said nothing else it might be enough Nevertheless seeing it is but fit upon this account to speak yet a little more curiously I must needs say farther that I apprehend there is indeed something really in that which lyes in the concurring thoughts of our Divines that faith hath and must have a hand in our justification someway as no other of our works of acts have It is this I believe that God will pardon me if I repent and therefore I repent as my faith now makes me repent and perform the condition it justifies me as to a quatenus specificative but when I have repented and performed the condition the duties I have performed are imperfect and sinful and have need of mercy in point of law and it is my faith yet must go to God for his acceptance of them through Christ when I have done It is my faith let my say that must make up to me out of the mercy or grace of God for Christs sake what is wanting in that I have done to make it such as he may impute it to me for righteousness which else he could not And as faith procures me this or procures it thus we have the quatenus also reduplicative in the great question how faith justifies It is faith makes me perform the condition and then finds acceptance for it being done and as it does both it does specificative and reduplicative justifie the sinner By this it appears how faith hath an eye still to pardon according to the Protestant while it is opposed to works in the point of justification which is not only as respecting the pardon of all our sins upon the performing the condition but as respecting that pardon more especially which goes into the very accepting the condition performed for when there is imperfection still in our duty and yet he accepts it he must pardon also what he accepts And thus it is that the just man is said to live by faith in the most subtle conception The works which the just man does are his righteousness most certainly and that which justifies him but they are short and he could not live in them but that faith supplies as I speak out of Gods pardon and grace and consequently out of the Covenant for Christs sake what is wanting otherwise for acceptation unto life I do not say faith supplies this out of Christs merits as if his and our obedience were mingled to make up that one righteousness that justifies us but that it is our works which we perform our selves is the condition and through Christs merits both the imperfection is pardoned and they accepted according to covenant upon faith It is of faith sayes St. Paul that it might be of grace To be of works is to need to grace but to be of faith is to have such works as need to be pardoned even when they are accepted of God for Christs sake unto everlasting salvation When Augustine does tell us so often that faith justifies gratiam impetrando let us take grace in his and also in our acception and both together will compleat the notion Faith goes to God for his grace or help whereby we perform the condition and so justifies us Faith goes to God also for his grace or favour to pardon and accept what is done for Christs sake and so justifies us As it does impetrate grace or obtain his spirit for our duty and then impetrates grace or finds favour also for acceptance of it taken them both together and we understand fully
of Arminius is good It is faith which is a mans own act that is imputed for righteousness therefore not the righteousness acts or obedience of another But when this acute Divine would introduce a notion hereupon that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere therefore must justifie us and not works or not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operari it is both an ill and weak conceit which is neither of use nor value For as the Scripture speaks of faith being accounted for righteousness so does it tell us that Abrahams offering his Son and Phineas act were accounted to them for righteousness and that Rahabs hiding the Spies did justifie her That is it is faith as productive of works or works as produced by faith that receives the reward of perfect righteousness which is we are to remember also for Christs sake or through his merits not imputed to us as proprietors but prevailing with the Father for such terms for sinners as answers our redemption and grace of the Gospel I would fain know of any man who is most Orthodox in his complexion whether he does or is able to think that Enoch Noah Job who were before the law Samuel the Kings and Prophets who were under the law or any man or woman whatsoever before the coming of Christ did ever imagine that they were righteous and to be accepted with God for the obedience which the Messiah should perform in their behalf when he came into the world and that the believing this was an instrument of making it to be theirs and so to be imputed to them which it could not be else or whether they did not look on themselves to be righteous by doing righteously and to obtain Gods favour by their upright walking with him and no otherwise in the World They judged not their own righteousness the meritorious cause of pardon to answer the Curse of the Law of Innocency but they believed in Gods mercy and so repented obeyed and were saved through the Redeemer And Enoch walked with God and God took him Blessed is the man sayes David who walkes in his wayes and to whom he imputeth no sin In the acceptation then of a mans own upright walking and in the pardon of his sins did our justification and blessedness lye in Davids time and in the same no doubt does it lye still under the Gospel I would yet fain know whether any of the Disciples James John or Paul himself whether Clement Roman or Alexandrine Justin Martyr Cyprian Ambrose Augustine or any of the Fathers whether Councels or School-men whether John Hus or Wickliffe or any famous or holy Writer without resting on some bare incoherent scraps of sentences did ever understand or receive the full notion of faiths instrumentality and the imputation of a passive righteousness before Luther And if not whether it be possible it should be of any such moment as is made of it by most Protestants It was an Article indeed that raigned in Martins heart and I do therefore give it my obeysance but it is no Article I take it as the remission of sins is in the Creed of the Apostles If the righteousness of Christ be imputed to us as if it were ours in it self it must be the righteousness of his active or passive obedience or both If his active obedience be imputed to us then must we be lookt upon in him as such who have committed no sin nor omitted any duty and then what need will there be of Christs death how shall Christ dye for our sins if we be lookt on in Christ as having none at all If Christs passive obedience be imputed then must we be look't on as such who in Christ have suffered and satisfied the law and born the full curse of it and then how shall there be room for any pardon The man who payes his full debt by himself or surety can in no sense be forgiven by his Creditour Indeed the Argument of the Socinian from pardon against Christs satisfaction is not valid but it is good against the imputation of it to us as if we our selves had satisfied Christ may have wrought with the Father or made him that satisfaction as to procure new terms so that a man may be justifyed as a fulfiller of them and yet need pardon for non-performance of the old If Christs active and passive obedience both are imputed then must God be made to deal with man according to the Covenant of works in the business of his justification when nothing is more apparent in the Scripture than that by grace it is that a man is justified and by grace saved If nothing less then such a righteousness as does both answer and satisfie the law also and that fully will suffice for the sinners plea to free him from condemnation he is not judged by the law of grace but he is judged by the law of works out of question There were no need to bring this notion of Christs imputed righteousness into the Church but that our Protestants mistake themselves and forget that we are justified and saved by the Covenant of Grace and not by the law of Moses or Covenant of our Creation Christ came into the World to procure and tender a new law and in this regard is he said to be our Law-giver not that he hath given any other moral rules of life to us for we know his conmandement only is Love than what was contained in the Law before wherein some do but boldly impose upon themselves and others but that he hath given the same precepts with indulgence If God then shall not deal with man in his justification here and at judgment according to that indulgence or according to the law now in Christs hands that is according to the Covenant of Grace the main business of Christ coming and redemption were lost You shall hear a Protestant in his prayer appealing from the Tribunal of Gods justice to the throne of his grace and yet in his Sermon be telling the people that it is nothing else but the perfect obedience and satisfaction of Christ imputed to them that saves them which is to bring them back from the throne of his grace to the bar of his justice to be judged Such appeals have been received I suppose from the Fathers as very significant of truth and their meaning but not agreeable to this notion In the last place there is a righteousness revealed in the Gospel that God went by in his dealing with all the holy men and women who were before Christ and which he goes by in his dealing with us now and all the World whereby it is that we are justified in opposition to the righteousness of works the which together with the grace of the Gospel in the true sense and import thereof is kept out of the Protestant understanding by this notion of the rigid imputation of Christs righteouness in it self that being also but a late and forced notion and not tending to
Gospel The latter of these I take to be plain the former must be warily understood There is the Precept and the Retribution of the law We must take heed that we conceive not Christ to be our legal righteousness in regard to the Preceptive part of the law in the more frequent sense as if we were reputed by God to have fulfilled the same or satisfied it in him as representing our Persons which is the errour before confuted and especially by the reason last mentioned because this makes our justification to be by the law of works and not of grace which subverts the Gospel but there is a righteousness in regard to the retributive part of the law of works consisting in our discharge from its curse and penalty which is a righteousness of pardon and if any will call this our legal righteousness which is yet conferred by the Gospel and account we have it in Christ understanding nothing else by it but that his righteousness is the meritorious cause of it I know not any will oppose him It is true that pardon and righteousness without explication is a contradiction and therefore when we allow of a righteousness of pardon there is a strict and a large sense to be acknowledged of terms use in Scripture Blessed is the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works The imputation of righteousness to a person is to account him righteous and for a man to be accounted righteous without works that is without righteousness is explained in the next verse viz. to be pardoned By works he understands works of the law out of doubt for without faith and repentance or Gospel works God imputes righteousness to none Now how a man may be righteous according to the law of grace and yet need pardon in reference to the law of works the matter is plain but to make a man righteous through this pardon in regard to the retribution and guilty in regard to the precept of the same law is to speak I account Scripturali licentia by leave of the Scripture To be acquitted from the condemnation of a law by being pronounced innocent or to be adjudged to the reward by being declared to have fulfilled it is in the strict sense to be justified To be acquitted from the condemnation and be pronounced guilty is to be delivered from the law and not to be justified but in a large fence of justification Justification from a law and not by it is a catechrestical speech and I do question whether we should not using a strict speaking place the discharge of the sinner from condemnation upon the score of Christs redemption rather then on the work of our justification That God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself not imputing their trespasses does import an universal conditional remission bestowed upon all so far as a delivery of the whole World over from the law of works to be judged by the law of grace and when we are at that bar there is no inquest like to be made about Christs work whether he hath done his part but whether we have done ours that is performed our condition and if we be found to have bin upright to God in the main bent of our hearts and lives notwithstanding our manifold failings he accepts of us for Christs sake and declares us righteous according to this law and so adjudges us to the reward or promise which is to have Christ and his benefits whereof one is the application of his redemption and therein our discharge from the Laws condemnation And thus methinks the Apostle speaks with more acurateness where justification and redemption are de industria distinguished and the one made the means or foundation to the other Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus Redemption is the delivery of the World in general from the law and so from its penalty on terms appointed by the Redeemer Justification is the pronouncing of particular persons accepted upon those terms and so to have a right to the purchased possession In fine there is but our own sincerity and a right to impunity and life is all the righteousness that we have or that can go in it self to the justification of a sinner The import of all is we are not to conceive a sinner to be brought before two barrs that he should have need of a righteousness of perfect obedience in Christ to plead against the law for Christ hath redeemed us from coming before this barre by the ransome of his blood paid for all the World but being to stand only at one bar it is but one righteousness is sought as the condition upon which the sentence must pass and as for that Righteousness we have through Christ besides which is in regard only to the retribution not the work of the law that is to say Pardon it comes to us by way of sentence or as a part of the reward given upon the condition performed but is not part of the condition or the whole condition it self pleaded for our justification Only the redemption of Christ I count is to be first supposed with the whole righteousness of his Mediatorship as the foundation through the merits whereof this new covenant is purchased and so the reward given for his sake upon that condition And if it be for Christs sake for his merits righteousness mediation redemption sake we see also how this righteousness of his even his Mediatory righteousness which cannot be ours possibly in it self is yet imputed to us and made ours in the effects or in the end to which it was performed for salvation to Believers I will conclude all with the agreement of the two Apostles which hath been already but lightly before touched When Paul then contends that a man is not justified by the works of the law By the works of the law he means works as would justify him according to law if he had them and sayes no man is justified hereby because no man hath them as he proves at large in the first and second Chapters to the Romans as the very business and scope of both to any that will consider of the matter and so pleads a necessity of their believing that they may be justified But when St. James sayes a man is justified by works he means not works that answer the law or such as of themselves would justifie the doer which no man hath neither Abraham himself much less Rahab whom he also mentions but such works as suppose grace to their acceptance through faith in the Redeemer for the reconciling the Person and covering his imperfections And thus the two holy Penmen disagree not but while the one faith I conclude a man is justified by faith without the works of the law and the other You see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only the sense of both is that though a man hath not the works of the law the works the law qua faedus requires of him which would justifie the doer if he did them as for certain he does not it being impossible for any to have these so that if he be justifyed at all he must be justified without them yet is he justified by faith provided that faith be accompanied with or is the initium and fundamentum of good works of another size to wit that will not make the reward to be of debt but of grace or that are unperfect and not able to justify him by law yet are required in sincerity of life together with his faith in the Redeemer supposing him revealed or else in the mercifulness of Gods nature unto final justification and salvation And now Reader if thou art offended at this paper I cannot help thy prejudice but I desire thee to hear reason If thou art sensible of that deadly advantage which is given to the Papists by our ill treating this point by the doctrine I mean more particularly of Christs righteousness imputed in the unsound sense especially when those that expound it worse do ordinarily lay most stress upon it If thou art sensible yet neerer home what a stumbling block hereby hath been laid in the way of a late numerous Sect among us whom to name methinks is some rudeness to them that really having our Ministers here by the lock that is the place where their only strength they have against us does lye do reject the whole Tribe as False Teachers that harbour men in their sins and make Christ serve only to be a cover for them as they bitterly traduce us with great indignation and in very earnest on this account which I must confess hath affected me so much in reading their books as to set me to write and gives me yet a good conscience in what I do though thou perhaps art angry with me for it If lastly thou art sensible of the evil and danger of Libertinisme or Antinomianisme which hath been lately so rife though now allayed in this Land what roots yet it hath alive in this notion mis-understood thou wilt be advised with me and others perhaps that see more then I that it is time that it is fit this Sluce be stopt The Presbyterians are my Friends and the Independents my Friends and Others my Friends but Truth is greatest and must overcome Deo Gloria mihi condonatio JOHN HUMFREY ERRATA PAge 9. l. 35. for justified them r. justified by them p. 10. l. 28. for that r. seeing that N.B. p. 19. l. 14. for perceptive r. preceptive An 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