by us as that we oppose them more than any of our Adversaries who account themselves such great Antipapists yea and are further of from the Papists herein than they for upon the principles our Adversaries go in the point it cannot be avoided but they make that Law which injoins perfect sinless Works which as such condemns us all to be God's Instrument whereby he justifies seeing that they say the matter of their personal justifying Righteousness not only meriting but qualifying or else they oppose not us observe that must be that which is every way perfect in the sense of the violated Law of Innocency And indeed were we to be justified by that Law we must say the same with them So that let any Man who is not altogether prejudiced against the cause judge whether those Men be not much nearer the Papists in this point than such as they charge to be one with them for the Reverend Persons named above and others with them proceed in this point upon another Principle then either the Papists or such as profess to be their Adversaries holding God's Covenant or Law of Grace to be the rule of judgment and so the Instrument by which God doth justifie us or that by which God doth justifie for the sake of Christ's satisfactory and meritoriorious Righteousness when by the Grace of God we are conformed thereunto which Conformity consists in a turn from Sin and an unfeigned consent sincerely to be Obedient unto Christ and his Law to our Lives end upon which God doth account or reckon us Righteous in the sense of the Gospel and so such who have that right unto and interest in Christ which impenitent and disobedient Souls have not and this for the Righteousness sake of Christ as I have sufficiently proved And whereas Readers some Persons would bear you in hand that we give Repentance and Faith the place Office and use of Christ's Righteousness and look to be justified only by this as inherent 't is either an Ignorant or Malicious slander for we say that although the Lord Jesus hath satisfied offended Justice and merited all saving priviledges yet we can neither have peace with God nor right to Christ nor his purchased benefits nor be accepted of God through Christ until we be qualified with that Grace the Gospel requires which Grace doth not give us the right in its own Nature or as it is inherent but as God accounts and reckons it to do so that is as he imputes it for Righteousness The Papists place Justification in the Infusion We in the Imputation Whatever you hear therefore from Adversaries or read in any Books that is or shall be an indeavour to prove these forementioned Persons or others of their mind to be one with the Papists in the point of Justification you may assure your selves 't is nothing but a slander and the slanderers are nearer themselves in the point to the Papists until they have fully proved that we whom they abuse do hold the four particulars I have mentioned above which I am sure they cannot do so long as they have a Tongue to speak with and if they cannot all their attempts against us are in vain and not to be regarded for if they do not this they do nothing to invalidate our Doctrine and therefore I desire you Readers to observe this that if any Answer be made to mine that you will see whether in the pretended Answer it be proved that I hold the four things above mentioned and if you find they prove not that which they are not like you may assure your selves their Answer is none M. S. An Advertisement WHereas the Author of this Book seems warm against the Righteousness of Christ being the formal cause of our Justification and argues that if it be so then it must be the Believer's proper personal Righteousness which those Divines who say that Christ and the Believer do so coaless into one Person that his Righteousness is transferred to them upon that account must assert and if it be his personal Righteousness his Person being not seperable from his Nature which is himself then he must be the subject of Christ's Righteousness and consequently it must be inherent in him as the subject thereof the candid Reader is to observe First That he drives the Argument thus home for conviction only of his Adversaries who know that Imputed and Inherent is a Contradiction Secondly That he understands well they need no driving to a concession that his Righteousness therefore is not and cannot be the Believer's Physically but they say Legally only and by Imputation nevertheless so long as they say it is imputed so as to be his formal Righteousness the Absurdity remains Thirdly That to hold Christ's Righteousness to be the Believer's or accounted his legally or in a Law-sense so as God looks on him as having fulfilled all Righteousness in Christ as our legal Person is that Doctrine which Mr. Baxter hath set himself to oppose in all his Books as such which subverts the Gospel and he that will go about to maintain it must Answer his Arguments which I suppose cannot be done by any Lastly That if the more Judicious of his Adversaries would consider a little more of the matter and come to be content with such an Imputation of Christ's Obedience as answers the End of his performance of it which is that upon our believing Men shall enjoy the benefits then would they soon find out the right knowledge how to give a fair construction of what is said by former Divines who agreeing in this that there is indeed an Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to the Believers but because it is not express in Scripture they not considering or mentioning any such distinction are misconstrued to understand an Imputation in se when there is indeed or can be no such but Quoad fructus aut Effectus only By the Hand unknown aforesaid THE TRUE NOTION OF Imputed Righteousness AND OUR Justification thereby c. SECT I. The Subject Matter proposed SEeing the apprehensions of Persons are so different about the Doctrine and Nature of Justification and so much depends upon the having a right notion hereof At the intreaty of some of my Friends for their satisfaction and for the benefit of others I shall God assisting with all possible plainness declare my Sentiments in this particular 1. I do believe that by and through the satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness of our Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ a Covenant of Grace hath been purchased for and granted by God unto sinners after they by their sin had violated or broken that Law which injoined perfect sinless works and thereby made themselves incapable of performing obedience to that Law which at the first it required as a condition of life and so of having Justification thereby Heb. 12. 24. Christ is called the Mediatour of the new Covenant and that because he hath purchased by his death a grant of pardon and life by
are we If it be said not in our selves but in Christ we are I answer if not in our selves then we are not nor cannot be personally righteous or righteous in our own persons by a perfect legal righteousness and so according to your grant the righteousness of Christ is not nor cannot be our formal personal righteousness seeing that that is a perfect legal righteousness If it be said we are personally righteous in the sense of the Law of Innocency in Christ then we must be righteous in our selves and this contradicts the former that we are not thus righteous in our selves for how can a Man be righteous in his person but he must be righteous in himself Find me who can the person of a Man without the nature of a Man and further to say we are perfectly legally righteous in another suppose by imputation or in God's account in our own Persons is to say that God accounts us to he perfectly legally righteous in our selves â— for so he must if he account us thus righteous in our own Persons and not to be perfectly legally righteous in our selves because only so in another and not in our selves and does this become the infiniâ—â— wise God of Truth Now then if Justification be a Law act or the act of God as Legislator by his Law and it is not nor cannot be the act of God by the Law of Innocency then we must either have another Law and such a righteousness as is a conformity to that Law or else we must have no Justification And look what Law it is conformity to which gives us for the sake of Christ a right to Pardon and Life that conformity must be our justifying righteousness and God by this Law doth judge assert or account which is all one with â—mpâ—tation that we have a right for Christ's Merits sake to the priviledges above mentioned what Law now can this be but the Law of Grace the Gospâ—â— called the Law of Faith because it commands Faith and threatens damnation in case of unbelief and promises â—or Christ's sake Pardon and Life upon believing Johâ— â— 16. This Faith is a practical Faith and so includes the whole of what the Gospel commands and consequently repentance and sincere obedience to 〈…〉 of the Moral Law Isa 55. 3. for I am for from thinking that a notional Faith is a 〈…〉 â—â—ne manifest it is that God by his Law 〈…〉 justifies us for the â—â—isfaction and merits of Christ upon conformity hereunto and this conformity in our personal righteousness or that which gives us right by this Law to the benefits respecting eternal Salvation which Christ hath purchased and thus it must be unless Persons will say and prove that to justifie is not to have a right in Law and then Justification must not be a Law act if it be granted it is then this right must be a righteousness and the righteousness of our persons as we through God's Grace in our own persons do yield conformity to it But some may say it must 〈◊〉 sinless perfect righteousness which must justifie us but Faith is no such righteousness This Objection speaks great Ignorance in the Objectors 1. Of the nature of the two Covenants i. e. the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace and 2. Of the nature of Justification or justifying righteousness as it is jus secundum legem a right in Law But to the Objection I Answer If you speak of Justification by the Law of Works I grant it must be such a righteousness but what do you hope to be justified by that Law if so you must not be offended if I tell you in the words of the Apostle you are fallen from grace Galat. 5. 4. But if you speak of Justification by the Gospel which is the Justification I plead for and I hope shall ever stand by then such a righteousness is not required but faith is that righteousness as hath been proved though still this faith is neither accounted nor accepted for a justifying righteousness but for the sake of a sinless perfect righteousness that is to say the righteousness of Christ God man Mediatour Rom. 3. 24 25 26. But it may be further said faith is our own righteousness and if we be justified by faith we must be justified by our own righteousness I Answer that we are justified by faith relatively or as it respects Christ as the Object the Scripture is express and full for it Rom. 3. 30. Gal. 3. 8. Rom. 3. 28. Rom. 5. 1. Galat. 2. 16. Acts 13. 39. let any Man prove that in these Scriptures faith is not intended but only its object But further for Answer if by our own righteousness be meant such a righteousness of which we are the Efficient Causes or Authors or the purchasing meritorious Cause I deny that faith is our own righteousness but if by our own righteousness be meant such a righteousness as is the gift of God and the fruit of Christ's Merits and of which we as qualified Subjects are the performers so I grant faith is our own righteousness and though we are justified by it yet we are justified freely by Grace Rom. 4. 16. Ephes 2. 8. But the Objection may be retorted when it is said Christ's righteousness in its self or in its own nature in our Justification is by God accounted our very â—ormal personal righteousness doth not God so far as he accounts it make it ours if not then we have no propriety at all in it and if not how can it then be our very formal personal justifying righteousness if he do make it ours in this imputation then it must be ours by gift and what is ours by gift must be our own So that those who are for this strict imputation of Christ's righteousness must hold also Justification by their own righteousness or by a righteousness which by God is accounted their own But again it may be said if we be justified by faith we must be justified by an inherent righteousness and we are not I Answer if God's imputing or accounting by his Law or Covenant of Grace faith for righteousness which is the form of Justification be Justification by inherent righteousness then God's imputing Christ's righteousness unto us for Justification must be justifying us also by an inherent righteousness for the form is the same in both and if it be the form that makes the justifying righteousness inherent then justifying righteousness must be inherent in the one as well as the other But the form speaks that Justification is not by Faith absolutely inhering But if it be said further that Christ is the subject of that righteousness which is our formal personal justifying righteousness but we are the subjects of Faith I Answer if the righteousness of Christ be our formal personal righteousness then whatever Christ be we must however be the subjects of this righteousness and if so it must be our inherent as well as our imputed righteousness Thus then
account me a Transgressor of it so that plain it is if God do account us to be the fulfillers of the Law in Christ he must account us as such to be righteous according to that Law and if righteous then justified by it SECT V. The Nature of Gospel Justification farther opened HAving briefly dispatched the Objections which are most material I shall proceed a little further to open the Nature of Gospel Justification 1. God endued Man at the first not only with Natural but Moral perfection having adorned him with his own Image Gen. 1. 26 27. So God created Man in his own Image Male and Female created he them and this Image of God which we call Moral consisted in Knowledge Righteousness and Holiness Coloss 3. 10. And have put on the new Man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Ephes 4. 24. And that ye put on the new Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness He had Light for his Understanding Holy Love for his Will Righteousness for his Life and Conversation 2. Man being such a Creature must be capable of Moral Government i. e. of being ruled by Law for that Creature which is capable of knowing loving and obeying God must also be capable of being ruled by the Law of a Wise Holy and Righteous God 3. God therefore from the first put Man under a Law To say that God did not is to affirm That the capacity which Man had of knowing loving and obeying God resulting from his Moral perfections was in vain but God gave Man nothing in vain And it would be to affirm that God did not stand in relation to Man as his Rector and Governour nor Man in â—elation to God as his Subject by right 4. God ever suited his legal Constitutions or Laws to the state and condition of Man in the state of integrity God suited that his state with a Law requiring personal perfect Obedience Man considered as fallen from that integrity into a state of Sin and Misery God suited this his state with a Law injoining sincere Obedience and this not only initial or upon his first subjection but continued and constant to the end of his Life the one for giving him right through Christ to Pardon and Life the other for continuing that right 5. Both these Laws i. e. that of Innocency and that of Grace have their sanction both premiant and penal i. e. a promise of reward in case of Obedience and the threatning of punishment in case of Disobedience 6. These things being so I put the Question whether Innocent Adam's Obedience to the first Law would not have given him right unto the Life promised And whether this same Law of Innocency would not have maintained this his right The first we must grant or else say that the promise gives no right to the benefits promised though the condition be performed which to say is against the rule of common equity we must grant the latter also or else say that the very Instrument God hath appointed for the conveying of right to Life to Innocent Adam should not be regarded by him in point of claim for all Adam's perfect Obedience suppose his right should have been called into Question which to say must needs be to charge God with unfaithfulness and injustice Now if so be as is clear Adam's Obedience to the Law of Innocency would have given him right to the Life promised and also maintained this his right then will not our Obedience to the second Law i. e. to the Law of Grace give us right unto the reward promised and secure us through Christ from the punishment threatned And secondly Will not this same Law of Grace also maintain our right It must or else we must say that the promise gives no right unto the benefits promised though the condition required be performed by the Grace of God also that the very instrument God hath appointed for the conveying of right unto us should by him not be regarded or not be at all of any benefit unto us notwithstanding our performance of the condition if our right should be called into question To illustrate what I have said suppose that we should have a deed of gift of such an inheritance upon the due performance of such or such conditions therein expressed Will not the performance of these conditions give us right according to the deed unto the inheritance and if so be our right be called into question what must vindicate our right but the deed whereby it was given and granted unto us upon the performance of the conditions expressed If then these things be so as is evident then I gather from hence that which I intended i. e. that there must be such a thing as Justification by constitution or Law and seeing there can be no Justification by the Law of Innocency or Covenant of Works then there must be another Law which we must have Justification by and what can this be but a Law of Grace and Mercy which is the same with that we call the Gospel now if Persons will not grant such a Law then Justification must either be by the Law of perfect Works i. e. by the Covenant of Works or that Justification we now have must be no Law act and if so they who contend against us to destroy their own declared Opinion asserting that Justification is a juridical or Law term those therefore that deny the Gospel to be a Law they must either deny Justification by it and so account we are justified by the Law of Works or else they must contradict themselves in affirming Justification not to be by Law But because some Persons do not only deny but ridicule such a thing as a Law of Grace calling it an humane invention it will not be amiss a little to clear this that there is a Law of Grace distinct from that of Works Observe then I hope those that oppose us will grant that God required of Man while in the state of integrity a sinless Obedience Now the Question will be seeing Man is a fallen Creature whether God doth require any Obedience of him If not then Man must be at his own will to do what he listeth and is he so If God doth require Obedience what is it Is it sinless Obedience If so then all Mankind must be lost for none of the fallen race of Adam can perform it If they say that Obedience is performed by Christ for us I ask Hath Christ performed this Obedience that we might be exempted and obey none at all If so then he obeyed to set us free from all subjection to God if not then it remains for all Christ perfectly obeyed that yet still we are under obligation to obey in our own Persons Seeing then we cannot yield sinless Obedience or Obedience without Sin attending it Are not we through the assisting Grace of God to perform sincere Obedience If not then none at all
THE TRUE NOTION OF Imputed Righteousness AND OUR Justification thereby BEING A supply of what is lacking in the late Book of that most Learned Person Bishop Stillingfleet which is a Discourse for Reconciling the Dissenting Parties in London but dying before he had finished the two last and most desired Chapters thereof he hath left this main point therein Intended without Determination By the Reverend M. S. a Countrey Minister But now the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the righteousness of God which is by Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe for there is no difference For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus Rom. 3. 21 22 23 24. LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns near Mercers-Chappel in Cheapside 1700. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Courteous Reader THese Sheets were sent from an humble and modest and therefore the more considerate Minister of the Country to a Minister in London to be printed as he thought meet They came up without any Title at all to them and without any Partition and the Title therefore and the Sections are put to them by another when they came hither It is like that the Author never saw nor heard of this late Book of the Bishop seeing few that see it and read it but are displeased and they may well be so with that Person or Persons whosoever they be who were entrusted with his Papers that they should give an unfinished Discourse to the Bookseller or Printer who for their part yet cannot be faulted for accepting their profit to be published to the great disappointment of so many as expected satisfaction from such a hand The truth is they have herein dealt with the Bishop's Book as Hanun dealt with David's Servants they have sent the poor thing out with the garments as it were cut off in the middle and thereby as it needs must be greatly ashamed If for the covering this nakedness now we should have made use of any present clouts that were at hand though we had no such rich attire for it as himself would have put on it we might be excused But seeing the Cloathing we bring is for being home-spun and Countrey made the more substantial it may not only be excused but accepted as like to serve the purpose better then if it were finer in regard to such for whom intentionally the sheets were written By one who was desired to peruse the Manuscript but unknown to the Author THE AUTHOR TO THE READER Readers HAving done my Book there is one thing you are to understand or I am farther to acquaint you with that whereas my Adversaries charge me with contradicting our Reformers and being one with the Papists they cannot make good the charge and therefore 't is a slander For our Reformers what they writ upon the point was against the Papists who contended for Justification by inherent Grace and good Works as a Conformity to the violated Law i. e. the Law of Innocency and also that this Righteousness was in its own Nature Meritorious of Justification and Salvation but here or in this I do as much oppose the Papists as our Reformers and so am one with them in this respect in the point so far am I from contradicting them So that if the Persons my resolved Adversaries will have me to be one with the Papists and against our Reformers when I affirm that Faith in Christ is the qualifying though not the meriting matter of our Justification or that which is the Qualification giving right to Christ and his purchased saving benefits which follow hereupon they must prove that it is so accounted by me as it is a Conformity to that Law which requires sinless perfect Works and condemns for non-performance of the same and also to be meritorious of Life according to that Law or else all they say contradicts not me and if not then all their noise is but a beating the Air and so to no purpose seeing they are quite off from the matter in question The Papists affirm that the Law of God may be perfectly kept in this Life and that they intend the Law injoining perfect sinless Works is manifest seeing that our Protestants in opposition assert that no mortal Man is able to keep the Law of God perfectly in this Life and that it is no way possible to keep the same perfectly for if Man by Grace as the Papists say might perform the Law he might deliver himself by Grace from the Curse but now are we redeemed from the Curse only by Christ who was made a Curse for us and again say they if the Righteous Man keep the Law then he is without Sin for where there is no transgression of the Law there is no Sin but no Man is without Sin so that the opinion of the Papists upon the point is that the uniea formalis causa Justificationis est justitia Dei qua nos justos facit quam quisque in se recipit i. e. The only formal cause of our Justification is the Righteousness of God whereby we are not reputed just but are made just indeed This is the Righteousness which a Man hath within himself and is inherent in him and this justice or Righteousness it is plain they account an exact Conformity to the Law which requires perfect sinless Works for they teach that it is not only possible for Men to keep the Law of God in this Life but to do more than is prescribed or commanded in that Men of their abundance may allot unto others such works of supererogation These therefore who bring me into such worthy company as Mr. Baxter Mr. Humfrey Mr. Clerk whom they charge with Popery as they do me in the Doctrine of Justification because they affirm a practical Faith to be the qualifying matter of right to Christ and his saving purchased benefits which follow thereupon when every where they deny it to be the meriting matter asserting that to be Christ's Righteousness and his only do manifestly wrong and slander them and me for before our Adversaries can make us one with the Papists upon the matter in Question i e. in the point of Justification they have to prove that we hold these following things 1. That a Man in this Life by the Grace of God received may be perfectly conform'd to that Law which requires sinless Works 2. That Grace and good Works in their own nature considered as inherent do justifie 3. That they do so in the account of the above mentioned Law which injoins sinless Works 4. That the same Law which requires sinless Works is the Instrument of our Justification or that by which God doth judge or account Persons righteous upon their Conformity thereunto and so justifies them by it Now these things are so far from being holden
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
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
Happiness upon condition of personal perfect and perpetual obedience and threatned Man with everlasting death upon his disobedience Now this Law first did not only bind us to obey God our Creator and Rector but Christ also as Man for Christ considered as God Creator and Rector he cannot be under a law given to his Creatures but then as Man partaking of the same Nature with us he must be under this law as binding him to obedience I mean as to the preceptive part But then Secondly This Law transgressed by us doth only bind us to suffer punishment not Christ and the reason is because the Law doth not bind any to suffer the penalty it threatens before it by them be violated and broken now we have violated and broken the Law and it binds us over immediately to suffer the punishment threatned but not Christ and that because Christ considered as Man was ever Innocent and never in the least violated or broke the Law of Works and therefore could not be bound by this Law to suffer the penalty not for himself it may be said but yet for us as our Surety I Answer No he was not bound for us by the Law of Works to suffer as our Surety and that because the Law of Works reveals nothing of nor makes any provision for a Surety 2. There is a Covenant or Law of Grace and by this Christ was neither bound to Obedience nor suffering for the Covenant or Law of Grace it commands Faith and Repentance and threatens damnation to the unbelieving and impenitent But Christ is not by this Law or Covenant to believe or repent indeed he hath bound himself in the promissory part of this Covenant to give the saving blessings thereof to all believing and penitent Sinners but he is not bound by the preceptive part to repent and believe or by the threatning part to suffer in case he do not 3. There is the Law of Mediation that which Divines call the Covenant of Redemption in which he freely engaged to purchase our Redemption and this is the Law by which Christ was bound to suffer for us to satisfie and make atonement and this both by his Father's appointment and his own free consent John 10. 17 18. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life that I may take it again No Man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again This commandment have I received of my Father It is plain from this Scripture that Christ was obliged by no Law but his Father's command and his own consent and in what Law shall we find the Father's command to Christ to lay down his Life and Christ's free consent thereunto but in the Law of Mediation As thus such a Man hath committed a capital Crime i. e. a Crime that deserves Death another freely consents and engageth to suffer in his stead now this Man that thus freely consents and engageth himself no Law previous to his own consent and engagement doth bind him thus to suffer for the other seeing he is Innocent as to the Crime and so cannot be charged with the Crime the other is guilty of and this was the case in Christ's suffering for us so that from what hath been said it is granted that Christ as our Surety hath suffered in our place and stead but that this was according to the intention or direction of the Covenant of Works this I deny I will grant that if the Covenant of Works had not been broken Christ had not been our Surety nor suffered to satisfie Justice and make our atonement but then that eventually Christ actually became our Surety was from the purpose of an all-wise just holy and merciful God above and besides either the intention or direction of the Law of Works Him hath God set forth to be a Propitiation for Sin Rom. 3. 25. As it is said before he became actually Surety by his own free offer to make satisfaction to the justice of God by his Death for Man's breach of the Law of Works and God he accepted the offer and this not according to any thing intended of this nature in the Law of Works but of his meer grace and good pleasure towards us and yet with a design both to secure the glory of his own justice and holiness and to declare the glory of his own Wisdom and Mercy and to keep up the repute of his Law which Man had willfully violated These things are clear from Scripture 1. That God accepted of the offer of Christ's Mediatourship or Suretiship of his meer good pleasure Having predestinated us unto the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will 2. That God accepted of this offer with a design to advance the glory of his Justice Rom. 3. 26. To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus 3. That he might advance the glory of his Wisdom and Mercy Ephes 1. 6 7 8. To the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved In whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace Wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence 4. That he might keep up in the World the repute of his Holy Law in that he would not dispense with the breach thereof without satisfaction Isa 42. 21. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake he will magnifie the Law and make it honourable 2. It is through Christ in the second place by his meritorious and satisfactory righteousness procuring the grant of a remedying Covenant or Law of Grace a Covenant or Law of Grace suited to Man in his lapsed or fallen state for whereas it was become naturally impossible for fallen Man to have Justification or right to Life by the Law of Innocent Nature Christ he purchaseth a new Law that should be a remedy to fallen Man notwithstanding his violation of the first Law So that now if Man do perform the conditions of the Covenant of Grace his Sin shall be pardoned and he shall have right to Life so that it is Christ who hath purchased the new Covenant and it is upon the account of Christ's Merits that God will mercifully accept the obedience which this Covenant requires instead of that Innocency which the Law of perfect Works called for I mean works without any Sin attending them or works performed by an Innocent Creature and justifie and give right to Pardon and Life thereupon When I say that God upon the account of Christ's Merits will mercifully accept the obedience which the Covenant of Grace injoins instead of that Innocency the Law of sinless perfect Works called for the meaning is not as some are prone to imagine that our Evangelical or Gospel Obedience
Christ hath purchased 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 This I have also proved that what is required on our part Christ hath also purchased and if Christ have purchased all that which constitutes the Covenant i. e. God's gracious promises and grace to enable us to perform the duties required to give us a right to and interest in the above mentioned benefits then let the Reader judge whether he be of the foundation that holds Christ hath purchased the Covenant or he that denies it It is through Christ furthermore that Souls have right to Pardon and Life upon true Faith as God upon the account of his Meritorious Righteousness and all prevailing Intercession communicates still further and further aids of Grace for Believers perseverance As Faith and Repentance are required by the Gospel to our initial Justification or right to Christ and the benefits of Pardon and Life through him so perseverance in Grace is required to our continued and final Justification He that endureth to the end the same shall be saved And Christ hath merited persevering Grace John 10. 10. The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy I am come that they might have Life and that they might have it more abundantly 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 but that it should be holy and without blemish Heb. 2. 19. For it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many Sons unto glory to make the Captain of their Salvation perfect through sufferings From what hath been said we shall Observe That none of Mankind now can be accounted righteous and so have Justification by the Law that injoins sinless perfect Works for if so we must in the account of the Law be sinless and perfectly righteous And if so it must either be by having such a Righteousness of our own but this cannot be there being no meer Man that hath such a sinless perfect Righteousness of his own as this Law requires or Secondly It must be by having such a Righteousness of anothers but this cannot be for there is no Righteousness of another that can answer the Law of Innocent Nature but Christ's and this Law neither doth nor can account us sinless and perfectly righteous with Christ's Righteousness for if it should or could account us perfectly righteous by accounting the Righteousness of Christ in it self to be ours or accounting us perfectly to have obeyed and fulfilled it in Christ's Obedience It must account us to be thus righteous either absolutely or upon performance of some condition by it required If upon the performance of some condition it must either be the condition it required of sinless Man which is personal perfect and perpetual Obedience and if we could perform this we should not need Christ's Righteousness at all for there had been no necessity of Christ's Righteousness if Man had continued to have performed a personal perfect Righteousness or it must be upon the performance of the condition of a sincere Repentance and Faith But the Law of Innocent Nature reveals not and therefore cannot prescribe such a condition upon the performance of which it will account us perfectly righteous through or by Christ's Righteousness for if it did 't is evident there would have been no need of God's publishing the new Covenant or of promulgating the Gospel If it account us to be thus righteous absolutely without any condition at all then it either accounts all Mankind to be perfectly righteous by Christ's perfect Obedience or only some part of Mankind if it account all Mankind to be perfectly righteous through Christ's Righteousness then all must have Justification or a right to Life and none of Mankind must perish and if so then we must have universal Salvation If it account only some to be perfectly righteous with Christ's Righteousness then it must consider them either as Elect or non-elect if it do not consider them as Elect then the forementioned consequence is established If it consider them as Elect then the Law of Works must consider them as Sinners and so make provision for the Salvation of some and none for the Salvation of others that which I do not know any that will undertake to prove But if it should be granted that the Law of Innocent Nature absolutely without requiring any condition of them should account the Elect righteous upon Christ's perfect Obedience or fulfilling of it then it must follow that Christ's sufferings are a meer nullity and there is no need of them for if upon Christ's active Obedience the Law do account all the Elect sinless and perfectly righteous which it must do if it account them righteous personally with Christ's Righteousness and justifie them as such who have perfectly obeyed Christ's perfect Obedience then it cannot require suffering too seeing that it only calls for suffering in case it have not the actual Obedience it requires And it must follow further that there is no need of a Covenant of Grace nor Repentance and Faith commanded therein if the Law of sinless Works do account us perfectly righteous in Christ's perfect obeying it for us But none of these things can be as is plain if Persons will lay aside prejudice and consider And if so that cannot be sound and true which some have affirmed that Christ and we are one Legal Person or that Christ and Believers are one Person in Law Sense the Law accounting that what Christ did they did But it may be said when Persons become true Believers then the Law of Works 〈◊〉 them righteous with the Righteousness of Christ this is as much as to say the Law of Works justifies upon Persons performing of the condition of the Gospel and it knows nothing of nor doth it prescribe any such condition and so if it justifie it must justifie upon terms unknown and therefore unprescribed in it self and thus it is made a sort of a blind justifying Instrument SECT IX Faith described and explicated in order to our Justification by it HAving shewn how it is through Jesus Christ that God doth assert and will maintain our right to Pardon and Life I shall proceed to shew what Faith is which is the thing required to give us right John 3. 16. Acts 13. 39. Acts 16. 31. An acute Author gives us this Description of it 't is a believing acceptance of Christ a Saviour it is a short one but yet a full one for it implies First Assent Secondly Consent and Thirdly our resolved following of Christ in his way trusting and relying upon him whatever we meet withal First It
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.
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
is not actually healing to the Sick until it prevail against the Distemper and it is so with Grace And thus it may be known in what Sense Sanctification is before Justification Touching the gift of the first Grace know there is much good purchased by Christ and given without respect to any condition on Man's part and thus the gift of the first Grace God ordinarily by his Word 〈◊〉 Spirit concurring doth convince humble and incline the Sinner to accept of Christ in all his Offices i. e. to be Propitiation Head and Teacher and when the consent is gained then hath the Soul an actual interest in and right unto the Lord Jesus to be his Propitiation c. to the sanctifying Spirit to Reconciliation Adoption and Glorification The former work was to prevail with the Soul for its consent but when prevailed with then hath it an actual interest in and right unto Christ and the saving blessings of the Covenant promised upon consent A Man that Courts a Woman for her Consent to be his Wife untill this be given by her and she actually give up her self unto him to be his Wife she hath no interest in him as her Husband nor interest in nor right unto any of his Goods as one in that relation and thus it is in the Case before us If any Man saith Christ hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me Revel 3. 20. SECT II. How the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness is to be held and how not AFter these things cleared I proceed to tell the World how I do and how I do not ◠〈◊〉 â— the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness I do not deny but affirm God's Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in these following Senses 1. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it was for our Redemption and Salvation Rom. 3. 24 25. 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 Heb. 7. 19. 2 Tim. 1. 10. 3. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it to Merit the Blessed Spirit for us to work Grace in our Hearts John 1. 16. Ephes 1. 3. 4. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it is for this that all the Grace and Duties of his People are accepted Ephes 1. 6. 5. God so far imputes it as that he accounts it is for this he pardons us and receives us into his favour and justifies us by his Covenant of Grace upon believing and so accepts our Faith for Righteousness it is not without Christ but for him Acts 13. 38 39. Golos 1. 21 22 23. 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 1 Peâ—â—r 3. 18. Heb. 9. 15. 1 Tim. 2. 5 6. Rom. 4. 23 24 25. John 3. 16. Now I desire to know in what any Christian in his Practice can make further use of the Lord Jesus than in those particulars forementioned and if he cannot make any use of Christ by Faith but what may be reduced to some of those particulars Can it be thought that God doth make over Christ unto him after some sort wherein he shall be of no use If not then â— desire to know what needs any further or any Imputation of Christ's Righteousness of another sort than hath been expressed I desire it may be taken notice of that whereas I have been accused by some as an Adversary to all Imputation of Christ's Righteousness they have misrepresented me and so have wronged me And I challenge any Man to shew in this Profession wherein I have detracted from the Grace of God or Merits of Christ But now having shewn in what Sense I hold the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness I must plainly tell the World that God doth not so impute the Righteousness of Christ unto us as that he accounts it in it self to be our very formal Personal Righteousness reckoning that what Christ did and suffered as our Mediatour we did and suffered in our own Persons i. e. obeyed in him and suffered in him in the Sense of the violated Law of Innocency This is that I profess I dare not believe and the reason is the many gross and to be dreaded consequences with which such a Doctrine as this is loaded 1. It chargeth God with an untruth for God judgeth of things as they are and not as they are not if we then affirm that God accounts that what Christ did and suffered for us we did and suffered in our own Persons in the Sense of his violated Law which he must do if he account the very Righteousness of Christ to be ours in it self then he must account us to have done and suffered that in our own Persons which he knows we neither did nor suffered and if so then let it be considered what must follow 2. If Christ's Righteousness be imputed in it self then the Law of perfect sinless Works must justifie us for if God in our Justification do account the Righteousness of Christ in it self to be our formal personal justifying Righteousness then he must account us to be such as have a sinless perfect habitual and active Righteousness for such was the Righteousness of Christ and if God do account us to have such a righteousness as this in our own Persons then it must follow that the Law of Innocency must justifie us as well as it did Christ for what should hinder if we have the very same righteousness which is Christs to be our formal personal righteousness and have it we must if God do impute it unto us in it self and account it in that Imputation to be such a righteousness as formal and personal And from hence we must implicitly hold that God in our Justification doth account us to be as righteous as Christ which some have had the Confidence to affirm and all from this Doctrine for I hope People are not to learn that Christ's righteousness habitual and active was a perfect conformity to the Law of Innocency and if we be such in the Sense of that it accounting that what Christ was and did we were and did in him in point of conformity then in this very account it justifies us 3. God must account us such as are habitually and actively sinless and Holy such as have neither Sin in our Nature and Life for Christ was such and if we have the very same righteousness personally which he had which we must have if God account us as they say to have it then how can we chuse but be such as have neither Sin in Nature nor Life 4. That follows which
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
Lord Jesus Christ and it threatens the Impenitent Unbelievers with God's eternal wrath Mark 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Luke 13. 3. I tell you nay but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Now to say that Christ having satisfied Justice and fulfilled the Law neither the Law nor Justice hath any thing against us what is it but to say the Law accounts us righteous and so indeed the Justice of God can find no fault in us and if so then we must have no Sin and if no Sin then no need of forgiveness and if no Sin and so no need of forgiveness then no place for Repentance and Faith I have granted and do grant that Christ hath satisfied the Justice of God and fulfilled the Law for us that we for and through this his righteousness might have Pardon and Life upon our Conformity to the commands of the Gospel but then if he have satisfied and fulfilled the Law for this end that neither the Law nor God's infinite strict Justice may have any thing against us how comes David to pray Psalm 143. 2. Enter not into judgment with thy Servant for in thy sight shall no Man living be justified And how come the best of God's People many times to be under desertion and temporal Afflictions If it be said it is not for Sin I Answer let the Scripture determine Psalm 51. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit Psalm 89. 30 31 32. If his Children forsake my Law and walk not in my judgments If they break my statutes and keep not my commandments Then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes If it be said to this it is not in pure Justice God Afflicts grant this yet I hope they will not deny but that Afflictions are from God and he is just in what he doth They are castigatory yet none of them are satisfactory nor are they exercised with them for that end But there is this I would take notice of whereas they say the Gospel reveals what Christ hath done and suffered they destroy this by another assertion and so confound Law and Gospel in making the very threatning of the Law of Iâ—nocency to reveal Christ and Salvation by him In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die i. e. say they either thou or thy surety so that here they make the very penal sanction of the Law to be their Gospel And as a learned Person observes If this was the meaning of the penal sanction or threat then it must follow that a Mediatour was promised before the fall for this Covenant i. e. of Works was struck with Man in Innocency And that either Adam understood not his Covenant that was made with him or else knew of a Surety and Redeemer before his fall at least being in a readiness for him in case he should fall And I add if this be the meaning of the threatning that either thou or thy surety shall die then upon the sureties undertaking and suffering Sinners must be immediately cleared seeing the penal sanction or threat had all that which it required and so there can be no punishment due unto them at all in the Sense of that Law neither must they be under the curse of it nor in danger at all of condemnation by it and so however the Elect cannot be Children of wrath by nature though the Scripture saith they are Ephes 2. 3. Among whom also we all had our conversation in time past in the lusts of our flâ—sh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the Children of wrath even as others 15. Christ's righteousness say they must be accounted a Believer's personal justifying righteousness because it cannot be consistent with the Justice of God to justifie without such a righteousness I grant according to the Revelation of God's pleasure it cannot be consistent with the Justice of God to justifie without such a righteousness as Christs but it doth not follow that therefore he must account it a Believer's personal formal righteousness indeed if there had not been satisfaction given to the justice of God for the securing the honour hereof there had been no such thing as the Justification of a Sinner but now God having received satisfaction from Christ it is very consistent with his Justice and Honour thereof to justifie a penitent Believer for the sake of his satisfactory righteousness by virtue of his Gospel constiâ—ution Rom. 3. 25 26. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus The Reason above alledged for the strict Imputation of Christ's righteousness supposeth that Christ's righteousness is not satisfactory for any Sinner until it be made over by God to be the Sinner's personal formal righteousness but so soon as it is the Sinner's personal righteousness then it hath the actual virtue or is actually Efficacious to be satisfactory for that Sinner but not before and thus it is further evident from this their Doctrine that a justified Soul hath a righteousness to be its formal righteousness which is satisfactory to God's infinite strict Justice and so as hath been said before God must immediately receive satisfaction from the Soul accounted by him to be personally righteous with the very righteousness of Christ and thus God must not look upon the Soul in and through Christ and accept it immediately for him but through the righteousness of Christ as it is upon it self and as according to them the Soul is cloathed with it But here I shall take notice of an Exception made Although say they we affirm Christ's righteousness and obedience unto the Law is made ours and so in him as our Surety we fulfill the Law yet doth it not follow that we are justified by the Law and that because it is not the righteousness which we in Person have wrought I Answer This Reason will not invalidate the consequence for if so be that Christ's righteousness and obedience unto the Law be so made ours as that we are counted by God to have fulfilled the Law in him as our Surety then God must account us to have obeyed the Law in his obeying of it for how can he otherwise account us to have fulfilled it in him and â—â— God do account us to have performed in Christ that obedience the Law requires then certainly he must account us to be righteous in the Sense of that Law and if so How then can that Law chuse but justifie us Can any Man account me in truth to have obeyed such a Law in anothers obeying of it and yet at the same time
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.
e. Justification is God's asserting and maintaining act by his Law of Grace of our right to Pardon and Life for the sake of Christ upon our believing 1. It is an act and that ad extra an act which makes a relative change and the subject upon whom this relative change is made is Man a guilty and condemned Sinner one upon whom the sentence of condemnation is passed by the Law and he under obligation thereby to suffer eternal punishment this is Man's condition antecedent to God's act of justifying Rom. 3. 19. Now we know that what things soever the Law saith it saith to them who are under the Law that every mouth may be stopped and all the World may become guilty before God Galat. 3. 22. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by Faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe John 3. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God Ephes 2. 3. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the Children of wrath even as others 2. In this act of justifying there is the term from which or the state from which Man a Sinner is brought upon his Justification and that is from an obligation to punishment and the omission or loss of right to Life and Happiness Every poor Soul before Faith is under an obligation to Eternal Punishment and must lose Heaven and Eternal Happiness if he leave the World in this condition How much then should it be our concern to see that we have true Faith that we have thankfully accepted of and are sincerely subject unto Christ that so we may have through him a right to Pardon and Life John 5. 24. Verily verily I say unto you He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life Rom. 8. 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after Spirit 3. In justifying there is the term to which or the state a poor Sinner is brought into and that is a right to this Pardon and Life spoken of before No sooner is a Sinner justified but Pardon and Life are his they are by Gospel or Covenant right his 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 Verse 36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him 4. There is the agent or he that justifies and that is God we are before Repentance and Faith guilty and condemned and until God do justifie us we remain in that guilty and condemned state therefore if ever we have a right to Pardon and Life God gives it Rom. 3. 26. To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus Rom 4. 5. But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness Rom. 8. 30. 33. Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect it is God that justifieth 1. Hence learn first how much we should adore and admire the riches of mercy in Christ that after we had greatly offended him and exposed our selves to his wrath and displeasure everlastingly having involved our selves in a state of guilt and condemnation having forfeited all right to Life I say that after this all this yet he should be willing to become our justifier the forgiver of our Sins and the Donor of a right to Happiness and this upon honourable terms with relation to himself and reasonable with respect to us How much doth this call for our Admiration and Adoration certainly it will be the work of Heaven 2. How great folly are poor impenitent Sinners guilty of for though God be willing to justifie ready to pardon and receive into his favour and make over unto them a sure title to Erernal Life if they will but now humbly come in upon his call and thankfully accept his Son to be their Propitiation Head and Teacher and be subject to him in Christ yet they refuse they hold fast deceit and will not return they set no value upon this great good offered they prefer their Soul damning Lusts and the Profits and Pleasures of a vain transitory World they content themselves to live unforgiven at enmity to God Heirs of Hell destitute of right to Life and Salvation O what folly How much is the condition of such to be lamented who chuse death before Life guilt before Pardon execution in Hell before the fruition of a glorious rest in Heaven God calls them to incline their ear and come unto him hear and their Souls shall live and he will make an everlasting Covenant with them even the sure mercies of David Isa 55. 3. he assures them by his promise that if they will forsake their wicked ways and sinful thoughts he will have mercy and abundantly pardon Verse 7 but alas all this moves them not they are still as unconcerned as before 3. That Justification is not from Eternity For any to affirm this is to affirm a contradiction i. e. that we were both guilty condemned and justified from Eternity for who now are justified but such as before were guilty and condemned so that first God condemns us from Eternity as guilty and then justifies us from Eternity according to these Men touching what they alledge i. e. God's purpose and decree they may as groundedly gather from it that Persons are effectually called from Eternity conformed to the Image of Christ and glorified from Eternity 5. In the description I say it is God's act by his Law of Grace it is not by an immediate but a mediate act that God justifies seeing it is God's act by this his Law and that it is will appear further if we consider that we can neither be justified by the Law of innocent Nature nor by the Law of Moses And if not then by some other Law for as condemnation is by Law so Justification As disobedience then to the Law of Grace brings upon us condemnation so obedience to the same Law gives right to Pardon and Life which is Justification If so be that Sinners remain impenitent unbelieving Rebels against Christ by this Law they are condemned but on the contrary if they through Grace become Penitent Obedient Believers then this Law intitles
spiritual and eternal death and damnation But Christ though he suffered did not suffer after this sort or in this kind and therefore as is plain his sufferings could not be a strict fulfilling of the threatning part of this Law though yet observe his sufferings were for us and in our place and stead But yet so as God did mercifully accept of these sufferings of Christ as a sufficient satisfaction instead of that which we deserved to suffer for ever Satisfaction is not the giving or paying the same which was due in Law but it is the giving or paying something to the offended party which is equivalent or that doth amount to as much as though that same had been given or paid which was due in Law 't is granted by the most of Divines that Christ though he did not nor could not suffer the Idem or that same which was due to us yet as his sufferings were a satisfaction they were the Tantundem they were equivalent yea infinitely more in value than the sufferings of Mankind in Hell for these could never have pacified an offended God made atonement nor procured new terms of Peace being only the sufferings of finite Beings but the sufferings of Christ were the sufferings of an infinite Being i. e. the sufferings of that Person who is God as well as Man and therefore must have an infinite virtue and efficacy in their own nature Acts 20. 28. Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood But did not Christ fulfill the Law by his Passive Obedience I Answer First There is a strict fulfilling of the Law by Passive Obedience and that is when the very same in kind is suffered which was threatned this Christ neither did nor could suffer as hath been shewed above Secondly There is a virtual fulfilling of the Law by Passive Obedience and that is when satisfaction is given hereby to the Lawgiver who hath left himself a liberty to accept of such satisfaction and so dispence with the threat as to its chief and main execution and thus Christ by his sufferings may be said to have fulfilled the Laws threat But Christ was our Surety and as such he must be under the same obligation with us For Answer to this let us enquire in what Sense Christ cannot be said to be our Surety and then in what Sense he may 1. Then Christ in undertaking for Sinners was not such a Surety as bound himself to pay or discharge their Debt in case of non payment upon good Security from them There are such Sureties as these as oblige and bind themselves to a Creditor for others upon good Security from them so that if the Creditor come upon these Sureties in case of the real Debtor's non-payment they again may come to save themselves harmless upon the Debtor or such as were bound for him But Christ was no such Surety for us he did not engage to pay our Debts upon good Security from us that we would pay them our selves or if we did not he might by virtue of our Security recover his own of us I think none will say Christ was such a Surety as this 2. Christ was not such a Surety as put himself into the same bond with us and obliged himself to pay the same in kind which was due unto us for let us put the Question Whether he was immediately upon Man's transgressions bound over to suffer by the Laws threat or did voluntarily engage himself to make satisfaction for Man's offence If the former then he must have been bound for Man's performance of the condition of the first Covenant for if he was not How could he have been immediately bound over to suffer by the Laws threat Immediately to fall under the penalty for the non-performance of another supposeth he that doth was bound for that other he should perform and if it be thus then Christ must have been a Surety for Innocent Man that he should perform personal perfect and perpetual Obedience and so the first Covenant must have Christ a Mediatour and Surety and yet Man fell too If he did voluntarily engage himself to suffer for Man's offence then I ask by what Law If it be said by the Law of Works in putting himself under it as Man's Surety I grant under the preceptive part of this Law Christ put himself voluntarily and therefore is said to be made under the Law But that he was under the penal part so as that the Law did account him Man's Surety that had bound himself in the same bond with him to suffer for him in case he did transgress this could not be for this runs us upon the former i. e. that Christ must be bound for Man as his Surety upon the drawing up of the first Covenant while Man was yet in his integrity to suffer the punishment threatned in case he did transgress or else how could the Law as they say immediately proceed against him in binding him over to punishment upon Man's offence and if it be said he voluntarily put himself into our bond upon the breach of the Covenant then it must be proved that the Law did make provision for and accept such a Surety for fallen Man and his sufferings for his discharge from the penalty due and if it be so then this Law must immediately without any more to do acquit Man from guilt and so be a pardoning Law which yet curseth and condemns all Mankind as transgressor for observe if a Law do accept of the sufferings of another in my stead who have violated the Law it must acquit and discharge me from punishment which was due hereupon It may be said were not the sufferings of Christ in our stead and place I Answer yes though not accepted by the Law as such but by the Lawgiver for as I have said so I say again if they be accepted by the Law of Works in our place and stead then it cannot chuse but be a pardoning Law and if so it must be the same with the Gospel Hence then 1. Christ is such a Surety as interposed for us and obliged himself freely to make satisfaction for us poor offenders who were altogether insufficient 2. Christ is such a Surety as by the consent of his Father did make satisfaction or give a valuable consideration for our acquitment and discharge from the Curse and Condemnation of the Law upon condition that we offenders should have no benefit by this his satisfaction but in and through and from him and that upon his own appointed terms Seeing I have above put the Question by what Law Christ was bound to suffer I shall a little more fully and distinctly resolve it before I pass further Distinguish we of Laws 1. There is the Law or Covenant of Works made with Innocent Man that Law which promised the continuance of Life and
a perfect conformity to the Law of Innocency is as dung and so abominable to God and sure I am this looks odd on 't for is not this Grace and Holiness a work of God and is not every work of God perfect in its kind hath not a perfection of parts been all along granted and is there not an Evangelical perfection consisting in sincerity which hath been and is acknowledged by Divines was it a strict legal perfection or a perfection consisting in sincerity that David intended when he gave Solomon his Son the charge to serve God with a perfect heart and so when it is said of the People they offered with a perfect heart 1 Chron. 29. 9. Was that a strict legal perfection in Heart and Life that was so sweet to Hezekiah in the reflection after he had received the sentence of Death in himself Isa 38. 3. And said Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight and Hezekiah wept sore Mr. Caryl from that part of Job's description This Man was perfect saith not that he had a legal perfection such a perfection as the Papists now contend for and assert to be possibly attainable yea actually attained by many in this Life But saith he the perfection here spoken of is the perfection of sincerity and he observes from the words after his explication First It is sincerity that especially commends us to God Secondly Saith he sincere and sound hearted Persons are in God's esteem perfect Persons It is not all that you can do or all that you can say or all that you can suffer or all that you can lose that can make you perfect in the esteem of God without sincerity add sincerity but to the least and it gives you the denomination of perfect Thus far this Reverend Author which Doctrine some Men call Popish so well are they acquainted what Popish Doctrine is Some Men seperate Faith and good Works and speak of them so as though there might be good Works without Faith Now for my part I know no good Works formally in a Theological sense but such as are done in Faith and I know nothing done in Faith that leads not to Christ and God in him and therefore for Persons to speak of good Works as such seperate from Faith and to speak of Faith leading the Soul off from Christ is manifestly vain Some Men will not grant that Faith is a qualification of right to Christ and his benefits and â—et they say to justifie is to make one legally just or just in Law so say I and can a Man be legally just without a legal righteousness and is not that which is a Righteousness a quality how then can a Man be just legally and not qualitatively Find me a Man that ever was legally just and yet not personally just in the sense of that Law which accounted him just and if personally just then primarily inherently just and if personally just just in his nature As I have said above so I must here say again let it be proved that Thomas is a Person without the nature of a Man or that the nature doth not go to constitute the Person when I speak of Faith as the qualifying matter in a Gospel sense some Persons have inferred from hence that this is all I intend in Justification whereas there is the form as I have said i. e. God's imputation by his Law of Grace his accounting such a Faith as accepts of Christ as our great Propitiation Head and Teacher by this his Law for the sake of Christ's satisfaction and Merit for Righteousness and forma dat esse Hence their inference is a meer fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter Will the Gospel assert a Person 's right to Christ and his benefits before conformity thereunto and when through grace any Person yields Conformity is it not a Gospel Righteousness and is not a Gospel Righteousness jus quoad eam legem a right in that Law to Christ Pardon and Life promised and is jus ad rem a right to a thing no qualification in a legal sense if not then the consequence must be that a penitent Believer as such subjectively hath no more actual right to Christ and Life according to the Gospel promise then an impenitent Infidel I speak not of a right by merit but both by qualification unto him that hath merited and unto Pardon and Life merited by him for us Faith it self as it is the Soul's first consent to accept of Christ to be its Propitiation Head and Teacher is really Gospel Obedience Rom. 16. 26. But now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith and that because it is the Soul's conformity to the Gospel command 1 John 3. 23. And this is his commandment That we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ love one another as he gave us commandment And Faith thus considered is that which unites to Christ and the qualifying matter which first gives the right John 1. 12. But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name And as Faith is the Soul's consent to accept of Christ c. this consent includes the Soul 's free ingagement sincerely to be subject to what Christ commands so long as he continues it in the World in a dependance upon his power and faithfulness And this sincere obedience performed according to the Soul's first Covenant consent during its abode in this World is that whereby its right to Christ and saving blessings is continued Revel 22. 14. Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the City And this is agreeable to the mind of a Reverend and Judicious Divine as he Illustrates it by a Marriage Covenant including constant fidelity And this Faith with him is a condition as it relates to the Covenant and a Righteousness in the sense of the Gospel as it is the performance of the condition And when he speaks of Christ's Righteousness being the cause and matter of Justification his declared sense is the meriting matter not that we might merit but have that by virtue of his merit which the Gospel requires to give us right to Pardon and Life and what is this but our sincere consent which is Faith Our Divines excluding good Works from the matter of Justification spoke of good Works with relation to the Law of Innocency and indeed Evangelical Obedience will be no qualifying matter of right in the sense of that Law and that they did so is plain forasmuch as their argument is because they are imperfect perfect therefore say they it must be a perfect
and the inferences must be shewn or else when Persons call them absurd they understand not what they say Dans formam dat consequentia formam And hath it not been generally affirmed That the Righteousness of Christ considered as Mediatour is made the Believers by Imputation as really as if it had been wrought and performed by them and it being the sole matter of their Justification they are made formally righteous hereupon by God's Imputation who knows not that hath read any thing almost that the active and passive obedience of Christ by the most that have been accounted Orthodox hath been made the material and God's Imputation the formal cause of our Justification And yet some have made a challenge saying Where did any of our Orthodox Writers ever assert or intend that we were justified by the very formal personal numerical intrinsick Righteousness of Christ Whoever imagined that the Righteousness of Christ by Imputation is made ours according to its universal value but according to our particular necessity I Answer Certainly tell I cannot who these Persons mean by Orthodox Writers but this I know that many of those Holy Men of God whose works are extant and who were very Orthodox in their Lives and in the most of things in their judgment also yet held as much in this point of Justification as what is in the challenge comes to Mary saith Mr. Norton in his Orthodox Evangelist under the Cross was more just imputatively than Christ which was also true of every believer then living If Adam's peace had been perfect in case of his fulfilling all Righteousness then the Believer's Peace is perfect who hath fulfilled all Righteousness in his surety Page 324. In Justification saith Mr. Tho. Vincent we are not only acquitted from guilt but accepted as perfectly righteous in God's sight through the Imputation of Christ's perfect righteousness Supplement to the Morning Exercise Page 716. Having spoken of Pardon the other part of our Justification saith Downham is that whereby God imputeth unto every believer the righteousness of the Mediatour Jesus Christ as if it were properly their own and performed by them that being clothed therewith they may be perfectly righteous in God's sight and so obtain right unto everlasting life and happiness Christian Warfare Lib. 2. Cap. 50. Pag. 271. But it is needless to take up time or fill up Paper in quoting Authors Dr. Manton might have served for all whom I account as moderate a Man as any that dissent yet hear what he saith upon Hebr. 11. 4. Being united to Christ we are interested in all his actions as if they were ours for when we are one with him in the Spirit we are considered by God to be one with him in Law therefore by union we are said to put on Christ with all his personal merits and righteousness upon this God looks upon us as righteous and this by the donation and application of Christ's Righteousness and this righteousness must be in justification and is such a righteousness as satisfies God's justice and the Law Now upon the matter I ask can God look upon us as righteous and this by the donation and application of Christ's Righteousness which is such a Righteousness as satisfies God's justice and the Law and put us on upon union with Christ with all his personal Merits and Righteousness and yet we not have the very formal personal numerical intrinsick Righteousness of Christ What is not a satisfactory and meritorious Righteonsness the very essential formal and numerical Righteousness of Christ's Person as Mediator And is not this affirmed to be imputed in it self in our Justification and to be in it self our personal justifying Righteousness If not why am I and some others so much opposed for the denying of it and holding that it is only imputed unto us in its fruit and effects If they affirm it is imputed or accounted by God to be in it self our personal justifying Righteousness then I ask how can it be accounted ours in it self for our Justification and not be one and the same essential formal and personal Righteousness of Christ as Mediator can that be the Righteousness of Christ in it self that is not one and the same essential formal Righteousness which is Christ If so then we may say idem non idem the self same and not the self same which is manifestly absured and contradictory And whereas it is said further whoever imagined that the Righteousness of Christ by Imputation is made ours according to its universal value I Answer he that says the Righteousness of Christ is imputed in it self and not only in its blessed effects how can it be it self and want its full value let any Man find me that can a Righteousness of Christ as Mediatour that is not satisfactory to infinite justice and meritorious of all good and is not here its full value take away as I have said above it 's satisfactory and meritorious property from Christ's Righteousness as Mediatour which is its value and see then if that which remains can be the Righteousness of Christ I am afraid if some men were left to act according to their own notions it would be an odd sort of a Righteousness they would make at last to be their justifying Righteousness for according to what they say it cannot be Christ's and Faith it must not be and what then must it be it is well if they know themselves for sure I am I do not And what can a Man think of that which remains which is that the Righteousness of Christ is made ours by Imputation according to our particular necessities But that in the opinion of these Persons God doth divide and parcel out Christ's Righteousness one part to this and another part to that Believer and that some have need of more and some of less of it and is this God's manner of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness According to these Men it is but I say it is not and for any to assert such a thing is grosly absurd Indeed I had like to have said this is a notion but of yesterdays coining but I find the substance both of this latter and the former part of that I have now spoken to by Mr. Burgess in his Book called Vindiciae Legis Pag. 135. As for me I say I must either have interest in and a right unto the whole of Christ's Righteousness or I am undone for no less than the whole will satisfie God's justice for any Soul or merit Pardon and Life for it And when I plead with God for Pardon Life and Acceptation I plead the whole and not a part only of Christ's meritorious and satisfactory Righteousness but then observe I plead it as it is properly Christ's as Mediatour and so in it self incommunicable though some Persons speak of its communication to us which in its blessed fruits I grant but in it self I deny For the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in it self and against the
How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God to purge your Conscience from dead works to serve the living God And for this cause he is the Mediatour of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Heb. 7. 25. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the utmost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them But it may further be said for I shall deal fairly and let him have what advantage upon the point he can He speaks only of the righteousness of both natures united in Christ and intends this is not imputed I Answer there cannot be the imputation of the active and passive obedience of Christ in his sense without the Imputation of this for consider we his obedience in Life and Death as the obedience of one who is not God Man united and so essentially infinitely righteous as God and perfectly in his nature righteous as Man that obedience could not be the obedience of Christ but if we consider his obedience in Life and Death as the obedience of one who is God Man united in one Person and so essentially infinitely righteous as God and perfectly in his nature righteous as Man then if it be imputed in this Man's sense it must be imputed as the obedience of such an one and how can the righteousness which constituted him a â—it Mediatour not be imputed when the acts as they are the acts of such a Person a Person so and so qualified are imputed And were Christ's acts any further satisfactory and meritorious than they were the acts of such a Person as he was If not then take away that which qualified and made him meet to be a Mediatour and see then if his acts in obeying and suffering can be satisfactory and meritorious and if the Persons have satisfactory and meritorious acts imputed unto them in this Man s sense then that which makes them such they must also have imputed And if they say they have not the righteousness of Christ as satisfactory and meritorious imputed then they must not have it imputed at all and consequently deny all imputation of Christ's Righteousness in any sense which I do not for as I have said above if we could take away from Christ's Righteousness which we cannot it 's satisfaction and Merit that which remains with respect to our Justification and Salvation will be none of his But further saith he it is the acts works doings and obedience of this blessed Mediatour that are imputed and counted to the Elect for their justifying Righteousness Mark if God do impute or count the very acts works doings and obedience of the Mediatour to the Elect for their justifying Righteousness or as he saith in this his Article to be the material and formal cause of their Justification then God must account them to have that Righteousness which in its own nature is a Mediatory Righteousness for such were Christ's acts as Mediatour to be their personal justifying Righteousness Now if any Man be accounted formally righteous in his own Person with that Righteousness which in its own nature is Mediatory then he must be counted to be righteous personally with such a Righteousness as is satisfactory and meritorious after an infinite sort and if he be one that is personally righteous with a satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness and this of an infinite value for such was and is Christ's then how should he chuse but be Godded with God and Christed with Christ and be accounted to have that whereby he may be a Redeemer Saviour anâ— Mediatour both for himself and others yea to have Christ's Office wholly put into his hand now I have so much charity for this Man though he be my professed Adversary and for others that have the like notions with him as to believe that they do neither hold nor intend these consequences which are so gross but they themselves lead me by their hot opposition to shew that these are the unavoidable consequences of such a Doctrine if peradventure they may be convinced It is out of doubt with me that many good and gracious Persons have imbibed and stuck to this notion of the strict Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in it self who yet have abhorred the consequences that have been natural therefrom But then their practice hath ever contradicted this notion and hereby they were kept in the way of safety But then I think it somewhat dangerous when God hath set up before Persons more clear light and yet they are so hot in their opposition as that they will not take time to consider whether it be light from the word or no but almost upon the first hearing or upon a very slight trial cry out Popery Quakerism Arminianism Socinianism and what not Suppose we now that such as pass under any of these names do hold this or the truth what must it be a sufficient Argument for me to relinquish that truth because they hold it for my part I do profess to the World let Men think and say what they please that I am for Catholick truth that is truth where-ever or in whomsoever shall be owned by me so far as I can have evidence for the Devil himself believes that there is a great dreadful and terrible God and I believe the same and am certain in that I do well James 2. 19. And I must not therefore because the Devil believes this turn Atheist But after these Men have done what they can they can never make that they oppose into what they fain I am afraid would 13. I believe â—aith he that by this obediential Righteousness of Christ all the Elect of God are or shall be freely justified from all things Acts 1â— 39. for it is by the obedience of one and not by the Faith and Obedience of many that many are justified and made righteous Râ—m 5. 19. Observe the Scripture Acts 13. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that believe are justified and he saith all the Elâ—ct 〈◊〉 seems he likes not this Scripture expression his Wisdom thinks another better and therefore for all that believe he puts in all the Elect perhaps he is for Justification before Faith and so thinks Elect a term more agreeing to his purpose than believe and he thinks not far amiss if that be his notion but then it might be asked from whence he had his dispensation for such a change I believe according to that Scripture Acts 13. 39. that by Christ and his satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness all that truly believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses i. e. according to the Covenant of Grace have a right to Christ Pardon and Life purchased by him and also I believe the truth of that Text Rom. 5. 19. that
is no spot in thee The meaning is she was so in an Evangelical but not in a Legal sense sincerity or true grace was the prevailing Principle and in that respect he accounted her for his Merits all fair and without spot When Christ said concerning Nathaniel an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile he intended no more but an upright sincere Soul Christ such is his love he denominates his People from the better part If therefore his meaning be that God seeth no Sin in his People so far as they are sincerely conformed to the Gospel Law this Conformity in it self being no Sin but a Righteousness or that God seeth no Sin which he hath fully pardoned to be unpardoned or that God doth not so see Sin as everlastingly to condemn a true Believer for it in denying him Repentance Faith Pardon through the merits of Christ I am of his mind But then if he intended which I suppose he doth that God seeth no Sin in his People as they are accounted personally righteous for their Justification with Christ's Righteousness that there is any such thing as this I deny and therefore there cannot be the other upon that account or for that The rest of his Texts are not to the purpose 25. I believe saith he that such an one still naming me ought to let Men state their own judgments and give their own sense of what they say and hold and not state the same for them and draw his own absurd consequences and fight with them against he knows not who This is a pretty Article of a Man's Faith in the point of Justification but I must say something unto it Well then either this Man's judgment if he know what he holds himself doth upon the matter in question contradict what I affirm or it doth not If it do not why doth he oppose me If it do why doth he complain as though I did him wrong And when he talks of drawing absurd consequences â—tis well if he know what an absurdity is although he himself be guilty enough in this kind in what he hath writ But let him find me if he can that any of the consequences of which he speaks do contradict the Doctrine I draw them from and if he disown the Doctrine and hold the contrary I charge not the consequences upon him But then he must first retract that which he makes an Article of his Creed i. e. that Christ's acts works doings and obedience in themselves for that he must mean or elâ—â— he contradicts not me are imputed and counted to the Elect for their personal justifying Righteousness But he faith further I sight with my consequences against I do not know who If I do not it is like he doth or else why should he take himself concerned to oppose unless he hath a mind to kick before he be prick'd But he goes on and tells us he believes that I am guilty of the breach of the 9th Command in bearing false witness But let me tell him here if he were no more guilty upon the matter in Question of false Accusation against me than I am against him or others upon the point I should have been ashamed to have said thus much by him I desire him then to consider if he be not very guilty of that which he chargeth me with while he insinuaâ—es 1. That I hold that some of the Elect being Adult shall live and die Insidels 2. That I in the point of Justification am one with the Papists Arminians Socinians and Quakers 3. That I contradict the 11th 13th and 17th Articles of the Church of England 4. That my consequences are absurd with relation to the Doctrine they are dedâ—ced from 5. That I am guilty of the breach of the 9th Command in applying that Doctrine to any when plain it is it hath been held and still is by many that Christ is one Legal Person with the Elect and that Christ obeyed and suffered in the account of the violated Law not only as a Mediatour but as a common publick Person representing all the Elect and this he saith himself in what he did and suffered so as by the same Law what he did for us is reckoned or imputed to us as if we our selves had done it and what was done to him tending to our Justification and Salvation is reckoned as done to us And doth not this agree with the Doctrine I draw the consequences from 6. That I affirm Faith to justice as an act without relation to its object Christ with others I might mention none of which he can prove against me and who is it that beareth false witness now I or he But he hath more yet quoth he speaking after a scornful sort concerning me he matters not that he means the breach of the Ninth Command being now got under a new Law which will be more favourable than the old This new Law he scoffs at I have shewn is the Gospel or Covenant of Grace and have proved above that there is such a thing and that it is a Law and that Christ hath purchased it though the Socinians deny it and so he with them And therefore I must make bold to tell this Man and that not without warrant from the Holy Scriptures that he must either be brought under this new Law which he derides or he perisheth for ever for if he think to be justified and saved upon the terms of the Old Covenant he will find himself wretchedly mistaken Galat. 3. 10. For as many as are of the works of the Law are under the curse for it it written Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to â—o them 2 Theâ— 1. 7 8. And to you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ And let him not think that the Gospel Law or the Gospel which is a Law giveth liberty to Sin or exempts from a due and sincere Obedience to all God's Holy Commands for the contrary is plain Tâ—us 2. 11 12. For the grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present World But if he look for no favour from God but in the way and upon the terms of the Law of Innocency he never shall have any nay he never would have had any so much as common 26. I believe saith he that that Righteousness wherewith God justifies the Elect is a Righteousness which his Holy Law approves and accepts of Though he make no distinction yet by Righteousness I take it for granted he intends the Righteousness of Christ and by Law the Law of Innocent Nature violated by Man's Sin This then is that which he must intend i.
e. that the Law of Innocency approves and accepts of Christ's Righteousness Grant I must that Christ as Man was conformed to the Law of Innocency both in Nature and Life and that his Sufferings were in the place and stead of those Sufferings which were due unto us in Law for our Violation thereof and that both his active and passive Obedience was for us in a way of Mediation and Redemption But then that either the active Obedience of Christ considered as our Mediatour was approved and accepted by this Law for that Obedience which was due unto it from us in our own Persons or his passive Obedience for those sufferings which were due unto us by this Law threat this I deny for this Law knows nothing of a Mediatour for us for if so provision should have been made for such an one â—y it and in it but who will say this It is then the great Lawgiver that approves and accepts of the Righteousness of Christ for us as satisfactory and meritorious having left himself a liberty to dispence with his own Law as to the strict exaction and execution of it upon valuable consideration given by a Mediatour whose Obedience should be of infinite worth For if the Law of Innocency violated by Man's Sin should approve and accept Christ's Righteousness for Sinners as their Surety and Mediatour instead of that Obedience they were bound to perform then it must account them righteous in Christ's performance and if it account them righteous then it must justifie them and if it justifie them it must account them such as are sinless and perfectly Holy in Nature and Life for it will justifie none else Let me not be mistaken here I deny not but affirm that the Law of Innocency did both approve and accept of the Obedience of Christ or else he had not been justified by it But then that this Law did approve and accept of this Obedience of Christ as our Surety and Mediatour as to account it was so for us as that we obeyed in him this I deny For if so it cannot chuse but discharge us and we must need no Pardon for he cannot be said to have a Pardon that in the Laws own sense and acceptation pays the whole of what it requires either by himself or by another the Law allowing And he adds that the exact justice and free Grace of God do not only agree and kiss each other but that they are both exalted and glorified in the Justification of a Sinner I grant him the whole of this for it is of Faith that it might be by Grace and it is by Faith in such a way as justice hath full satisfaction yea and all the glorious perfections of God shine forth and must do for ever Further saith he how any Man can find his consequence I suppose he either would or should have said his conscience free from the accusation of the Law without such a â—â—ghteousness I cannot yet see To this I shall say we have all transgressed the Law it has concluded us all under Sin and as such condemns us and if we be convinced our Consciences do and must accuse us as guilty and bear witness for the Laws equity in this its process so that there is no stopping the execution of the Laws sentence by the procuring of Pardon or an act of Grace by any thing but by the satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness of Christ and this Righteousness shall not actually avail any for the purpose above but the penitent Believer for he that believeth not remains condemned and he that repents not continues unforgiven as to special Pardon as the Scripture is plain for the purpose Our Consciences then accusing us as Sinners for non-conformity unto and violation of this Holy Law of God which we must acknowledge so long as we live we are justly accused of or else we must deny our selves to be Sinners and affirm we are counted by this Law to be sinless and perfectly righteous that which must quiet our Consciences here and free us from fear and terror of having the Laws curse inflicted as to its full and eternal extent must be only the satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness of Christ by which we are delivered from the execution of its curse But if our Consciences accuse us of Impenitency and Infidelity and so to be such as have no actual interest in or right to Christ and his Righteousness for the purpose above spoken of there is nothing can quiet our Consciences here or remove our fear but our having of true Repentance and Faith found in us But again faith he nor can I see without such a Righteousness how the Doctrine of Faith establisheth the Law I grant him that without the Righteousness of Christ the Doctrine of Faith neither doth nor can establish the Law But then how wants explication I say then upon this Although the Doctrine of Faith or the Doctrine of Justification by Faith doth make void the Law suppose we the Law injoining perfect sinless works as a Covenant of Life and so as an instrument of our Justification not from any default in it self but from our moral infirmity or weakness yet the Doctrine of Faith doth not make it void as a Rule of Obedience seeing the Gospel which is the Law of Faith besides its own proper precepts hath also this proper unto it self to injoin us sincere Obedience to the Moral Law which shall for Christ be accepted instead of strict Legal perfection and thus the Law is established by Faith But if this may not content I shall shew him and others another way of Faiths establishing the Law and that is thus God accepting now the Obedience of Faith according to the Gospel Law which includes sincere Obedience to the precepts of that which is ordinarily called Moral as we consider Faith practical and this for the alone satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness of Christ hath hereby manifested that he could not so dispence with this his righteous and Holy Law as to pardon the violation or transgression of it without full satisfaction given to his governing Justice which satisfaction he hath had so that now in his justifying of a Sinner through Christ by Faith he keeps up the repute and credit of this his Law and so hath established it as a righteous and holy Law according to the Scripture Isa 42 21. The Lord is well pleased for his Righteousness sake he will magnifie the Law and make it honourable Rom. 3. 25 26. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of Sins that are past through the forbearance of God To declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus He concludes this Article thus yet are we not justified by the Law though in a way of Law and Justice but freely by grace through the Redemption that is
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