Annotations tells us right is this Righteousness of God intended by the Apostle Of God being of his institution in distinction to that of Nature or of Man and is otherwhere call'd the Righteousness which is of Faith and the Righteousness of Faith Which is of Faith that is say you obtained by Faith and of Faith Faith it self being it as imputed to us for Righteousness by the Law of the Gospel which is styled therefore the Ministration of Righteousness Now when we shall find this Notion in the particular places of your Annotations so well proposed you must give me leave to carry it thro' to what it leads and let you know which indeed makes it signifie that it is this Righteousness and no other is that which is the Form formal Cause or formal Reason of our Justification Note I pray once for all that in putting in the word our Justification by me is signified to be passively taken as it must be taken and is by Protestants and Papists in their Dispute about it and by the Apostle when he disputes that it is by Faith and not Works that Abraham was and we are justified And here then have we indeed an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing you have found out wherein the Cautious of our Protestants of late have been and are at a loss even the knowledge when they durst neither allow Christs Righteousness nor our own to be the formal Cause what indeed the formal Cause is For making which appear and that I speak not without Book be pleased to know It is an Objection which must needs be ready to come into every ones mind that if we be justified by Christs Righteousness imputed that is so as his Righteousness be accounted ours formally to justifie us then must we be thereby as righteous in Law sense as Christ himself This Argument being urged by Bellarmine our Amesius thus Answers Has non est nostra sententia sed Christi justitiam eatenus robis imputari ut ejus virtute nos perinde justi censeamur coram Deo ac si nosmetipsi in nobis haberemus quo justi censeamur See here the streight this throwly vers'd Man in these Disputes is brought to He must deny this at first that Christs Righteousness is nostra formalis justitia which Davenant with others maintain And if Christs be not what is A Righteousness there must be to make us Righreous and to be the Form of our Justification and what is it Note Secondly That Christs Righteousness must be imputed but nor imputed as ours for then it will be our formal Righteousness But so far imputed Note Thirdly that by verture of it we shall be accounted just before God Well then Note fourthly I must ask what Righteousness that is wherein or whereby we are accounted righteous before God Is it his No for then it were imputed to us as ours and it were our formal Righteousness which at first he renounces as not the Protestant Opinion It it our own inherent Righteousness He dares not own that as supposing it altogether the Papists Opinion What Righteousness then Why such whatsoever it be that is all one as if we our selves had in us that whereby we may be adjudged righteous before God Note it it is not qua referring to Christs Righteousuess but quo referring to one understood that is not in us but as good as if it were in us and that not Christs I say neither but one by vertue of his Righteousness imputed and is not If Dr. Ames had known our middle way there needed no such shifting as this to make us justified without a Righteousness or formal Righteousness neither in Christ for fear of this Objection nor in our selves for fear of Popery For God be thanked there is a Righteousness and that whereby we are justified that is neither of them even the Righteousness of God which is not the Righteousness of Christ who is God nor the Righteousness of Works or Papistical Righteousness but a Righteousness revealed in the Gospel in opposition to Works or the Righteousness of Faith imputed to the Believer for Righteousness through the vertue or merit of our Redeemer for his Justification and Salvation Whenever we read if imputing or accounting to a Man a thing that is good it is an Act of Grace and signifies something which is not says Mr. Truman It is so in the imputing Faith for Righteousness for there is a donation of two things by it which in us are not One is Christs Merit or the virtue of it to render our Faith accepted and the other a Right to the benefits or reward which a perfect Righteousness would give us if we had it Our Faith or Evangelical Righteousness being imperfect and no Righteousness by the Law it is upon these two things conferred made such a Righteousness being imputed to us for Righteousness by the Law of the Gospel I hope now Brother you will be less afraid of our falling in with the Papists though Justification is the making us just as well as accounting us just and though our inchoate Grace our Faith our Evangelick Performance acceped through Christ be our formal Righteousness which you are so backward to consent to because besides that this Righteousness hath not the same Rule to be judged by with theirs nor is of the same Quality as theirs for they measure the same by the Law and yet maintain a Meritorius Righteousness and Perfection which difference you find in my Book I say besides this the inherent Righteousness it self of our Justification is not the same with theirs of Regeneration It is the Righteousness of God which is of his institution to be distinguished from that of ours whether it be the Righteousness of Nature as before which we have not or of the inherent Grace we have the one coming to us by Infusion the other by Imputation God imputing I say to us that imperfect Grace for Righteousness by this Law of the Gospel This will appear yet further by my proceeding to your Animadversions I grant you say in one of your Letters that we must be made just before we can be accounted just but that is by bestowing Faith upon us Justification is relative Grace and that is founded in Real or supposes Real Grace as the Foundation of it and making us just which is Real Grace must not be reduced to Justification that is Grace Relative This is something in the Ore but let us melt it and improve it and I say that here is Confusion indeed but I hope not mine You mistake first in not distinguishing making just All making just is not Real Grace or by giving Faith but there is a making just also which is Relative Grace if Justification it self be Relative Grace and that is not by bestowing but by imputing Faith already bestowed to us for Righteousness You mistake next in thinking I reduce your making just to Justification by reducing you mean rendring them one for your making
say thus but not others Our Divines say Faith is the Condition or the Instrument but not the Form or formal Cause of our Justification This I acknowledge and Answer that the Reason is apparent because our former Divines did apprehend that it is by the Law of Works that we are to be justified and there being no Righteousness but Christs which Answers that Law it must be his alone that can justifie us But this being a mistake the fundamental mistake of our Divines formerly Protestant and Papist and it being not by the Law or according to the Law of Works but by the Law of Grace or according to the Gospel that we are to be judged and justified it is impossible that Christ's Righteousness which is a Righteousness according to the Law should be that Righteousness that justifies us according to the Gospel It is impossible that Christs Righteousness should be that Righteousness of God which in opposition to Works does justifie us according to the Apostle or that Righteousness of God which without the Law is manifested seeing this is a Righteousness with the Law being perfectly conformable to it And it is impossible Logically impossible but Faith which is that which the Gospel requires as the Condition of Life instead of the perfect Obedience of the Law when performed and imputed for Righteousness should be and must be that Righteousness which is the Form or formal Cause of our Evangelical Justification I will now speak to a Passage that put me to many Thoughts in another Letter in regard to our speaking of Justification as passively taken You seem say you to make Justification Active and Passive two things The former Gods imputing the latter Faith imputed for Righteousness If they are different you make two Justifications which you condemn in me If they are one they must both have the same Form or formal Cause But Justification is Gods Act and it is impossible Faith or any thing should be the formal Cause of Gods Act it may be the Condition not formal Cause As for this Passage I did wonder to see you so much in earnest which may be objected against Christs being the meritorius Cause as well against our Faith being the formal Cause and against its being the Condition of our Justification What Because I am not for making a double Justification which are of two kinds one by the Law another by the Gospel do you think I may not therefore distinguish Justification into Active and Passive when we mean nothing else by it but that Justification may be Actively and Passively taken And as for the Metaphysical Point you are concern'd alike with me It is the Will of God by giving us his Law of Grace that when a Man believes he shall by that Law be Made Accounted and Used as a righteous Person and so be free from Punishment and Saved Of this Will of God now ex parte Agentis we must know there is nothing without him can be Cause or Condition God is Actus purus God acts only by his Essence and his Essence is immutable yet does that Will which is one and the same cause all Diversity and he that is immutable cause Mutations And as that Act of his Will or Will which is all one is terminated on the Object and recipitur in passo it causeth its effects and is extrinsecally denominated by them In these Effects there is an Order and one thing the cause of another according to that of Aquinas Deus vult hoc propter hoc tho' propter hoc he does not velle hoc Now when in our Justification which is Gods Act the Will of God by his Law of Grace does make that Change of State in a Believer or of his Relation toward God so as to have thereby a Right conferred to Pardon and Life there are Causes of that Change and Right which being new in the Object Ex connotatione Objecti Effectus denominate Gods Act. It is impossible say you that Faith or anything should be the formal Cause of Gods Act. Very good that were absurd indeed But what is Gods Act here His Act here is exprest in the word Imputing and who thinks Faith the Form of that Nothing in us can be the cause of Gods Act it 's true but something in us may be the Object upon which Gods Act is terminated and that here is our Faith as he imputes it for Righteousness and this being the Effect of that Act in passo this Faith so imputed is the formal Cause of our Justification so effected As for the Question Whether Justification Active and Passive Justificare and Justificari be one or two Justifications it is a nicer Matter I thought than need be answered but seeing it falls in and must I say There is no distinction without a difference and where things differ and are diverse their Form and Definition must be diverse Justification Active and Passive therefore must have two Forms but the Matter is the same Faith in the Imputation of it and in its being imputed to us for Righteousness is the same So that formally they are two materially they are one and the same Justification Well Justification to proceed upon what hath been said tho' Gods Act yet passively taken as other things in the sense shewn must have its Causes Sanctification is an Act of Gods Grace as well as Justification and you will not deny our inherent Grace to be the formal Cause of Sanctification for all that But how Not as Actively but Passively taken As for the Causes then of Passive Justification Of the Efficient the Final the Meritorious there is no dispute but of the Material and Formal there is and it is fit to be considered Mr. Baxter hath taught that Christs Righteousness is not only the Meritorious but Material Cause of our Justification And you have cited Mr. Anthony Burgesse holding Christs Active Obedience as well as Passive to be the Matter but denying that we are formally justified by it Where he speaks after Amesius I suppose seeing it is upon the same Reason that if it were so we must be as righteous as Christ which I have mentioned before as Bellarmine's Objection against that Doctrine and which by Ames his waving it he acknowledges unanswerable when yet we know that Doctrine to have been the Common Protestants formerly as Davenant before tells us and some more weighty Divines than Mr. Burgesse tells us yet thus much further Mirum hic videri non debet Christi justitiam non Meritoriae solum sed Materialis immo formalis causae rationem habere cum id fiat diversimodè nempe qua illa est propter quod in quo sive ex quo per quod justificamur So the Leiden Divines For my own part I have in my Book taken up with Mr. Baxter upon trusting to his profounder Judgment but I will now shew also my Opinion The Meritorius Cause comes under the Efficient and is the
my Pacification Pag. 40. which Book I expected to have been answered by him or the Truth as to what concerns him acknowledged before this The last thing I will Note in Mr. Lobb is Though a righteousness he says which Answers the Obligation in the plural that is therefore both of the Preceptive and Comminatory Part of the violated Law of Works be necessary to our Justification yet we are not justified by the Law because we did it not our selves as the Law required but by the Gospel he apprehends in that the Gospel provides us such a Righteousness that is Christs Righteousness made ours by Faith as answers the Law that we may be justified Here is that apprehended which is as clearly thought as any one that will maintain the Common Doctrine can speak but I must Answer him That if the Gospel must provide us such a Righteousness as answers the Law that we may be justified by it then must that necessarily presuppose that it is by the Law we are to be judged but when indeed that is not so for if it be by the Gospel and not the Law as himself accounts that we are justified it is by the Gospel we must be judged for to be judged is either to be justified or condemned and accordingly it is not the Righteousness of Christ which answers the Law that the Gospel provides for us but it is the Righteousness of God that is manifested without the Law a Righteousness revealed in the Gospel in opposition to the Works of the Law that it hath provided for the Sinners Justification To be more full and satisfactory as we draw to an End The Law is sometimes taken strictly as it requires perfect Obedience to its Precepts that we may live in them and so it is opposed to the Gospel Or it is taken largly for the whole Doctrine of the Old Testament which contains Promises of Pardon and Life upon Mens Faith and Repentance as well as the Gospel In the first Sense St. Paul says the Righteousness of God is manifest without the Law In the second that yet it hath the witness of the Law and the Prophets For Moses tells us that God is Gracious Merciful forgiving Iniquities Transgression and Sin and the Prophets call on the People to Repent and cast away their Transgressions that they may live and not die which is all one with what the Gospel Teaches It is strange now that when this Doctrine of Faith and Repentance which is so plain in both Testaments The just Man shall live by his faith should be obscured by the Doctrine of Imputation which is a devised Doctrine not in Scripture I mean the Imputation of Christs Righteousness in the sense of per modum formae or formalis causae when in the sense of per modum Meriti it does but explain and confirm the same Insomuch as those Scriptures which are usually brought for such Imputation do effectually prove the contrary to it I mean that it is not Christs Righteousness imputed to us but our Faith or Evangelick Righteousness imputed to us for Righteousness that justifies us This may appear by the Explication of such as these Scriptures following The Jews being ignorant of Gods Righteousness and going about to establish their own have not submitted to the Righteousness of God That is not to that way of becoming Righteous which God hath founded or instituted and so declared in the Gospel which in opposition to their Righteousness is by Faith in Jesus Christ For Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth The Law in general was an Instruction in order to the coming of the Messiah that we should believe in him and obey him when come and thereby be justified and saved So the Apostle otherwhere Wherefore the Law was our School-Master unto Christ that we might be justified by Faith By Christs being the end of the Law then we may understand either The end or design of the Law requiring perfect Obedience which no Man does or can perform is to drive us to Christ But how drive us to him Is it to his Righteousness to be made ours No there is no such thing said any where but to him for Righteousness through believing Or and for Christ is the end of the Law in that he by the Obedience of his Life and Death fulfilling the same in our behalf hath freed us from the Condition thereof requiring only our Faith instead of That and so Righteousness now or Justification is to every one who without the Works of the Law does perform the Terms of the Gospel There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit That is They that are in Christ by Faith and their Faith is sound so as it causes them to walk sincerely before God they are freed from Condemnation For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Jesus Christ hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death That is for the Law of Grace which is the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ doth free such from the Curse of the Law of Works For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the Flesh God sending his Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh and for sin condemned sin in the Flesh That is The Law being not able to free us from Condemnation or to justifie us seeing thro' our Frailty we break it which else would do it God sent his Son to take our sins on him and by condemning sin in him or punishing him for them he hath bereft sin of its Damnatory Power over the Believer That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit That is that the Justification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we should have by the Law if we could perform it may be had by our performing only the Conditions of the Law of Grace which is walking not after the Flesh but after the Spirit or not after the Law but after the Gospel Do we then make void the Law by Faith Yea we establish the Law The Law taken largely as before declares Gods Ordination of a Sinners Justification by Faith and Repentance as the Gospel does and thereby is most plainly established or accomplished But to say further The Law is established says St. Augustine by the fulfilling it Now Faith if it be sound does work by Love and Love is fulfilling the Law But how does Faith and Love fulfil it Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in the Rigour of it but the Equity or according to Acceptation thro' Christ When God then for Christs sake does accept of our Faith or our sincere though imperfect Obedience for Righteousness this is that julfilling the Law which is all that can be in this Earth and thereby the establishing of it As by one Mans Disobedience many were made
Sinners so by the Obedience of one shall many be made righteous This is true per modum Meriti but not per modum formae To wit we being all by the Fall of Adam become corrupt so that there is and can be no Righteousness according to the Law of Works in the World the Lord Jesus by what he hath done hath procured a Law of Grace and Righteousness thereby so that the sinner that repents and believes in Christ is by that Law made righteous and enjoys the Benefits as much as if he were as perfectly Righteous as the Law requires In this Sense we may say Christs Righteousness is imputed to us that is per modum meriti in the Effects For as to impute sin is to inflict punishment So to impute Righteousness is to confer the Priviledges to a Person as belongs to him that is righteous and such the Believer has Pardon and Life Eternal He hath made him sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him The Righteousness of God is the Righteousness of Faith and to be made the Righteousness of God in him is to be made righteous thro' him by believing or through his merits to be justified by our Faith As our sins are imputed to Christ which I say is only in the effect of his suffering for them so is his Righteousness imputed to us say our Divines But Christ is not made formally a sinner by our sins Nor therefore we made formally righteous by his Righteousness I might proceed to other Texts and then shew how upon this account though a Disciple of Christ must learn to deny himself take up his Cross and follow him yet are not his Commandments grievous but his Yoke easie and Burden light Because in that sweet recumbency trust or rest which the Soul has upon the goodness and mercy of God for Acceptance of his Performance though but Conatuâ—et Desiderio and notwithstanding all its Imperfection unto Life thro' the Merits of Christ there arises unspeakable Consolation The true and solid Benefit hereof by the other Doctrine upon an only pretended shew of more is Ecclipsed See Pacif. P. 27 28 29. THE Common Protestant Doctrine is that by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness we are justified where the Righteousness of Christ is the Matter and Gods Imputation the Form of our Justification actively taken and consequently the Righteousness of Christ imputed the Form of it passively taken The Righteousness of Christ is the Matter both of Active and Passive Justification but the Form of Active is the Imputation of it and the Form of Passive is that Righteousness imputed So it is said in our Protestant Schools Imputata Christi Obedientia est formalis causae nostrae Justificationis My Opinion now is different that it is not by the Righteousness of Christ but by the Righteousness of God imputed to us that we are justified The Righteousness of God is the Righteousness of Faith and Faith or the Evangelick Condition performed is the Matter and the Imputation of this Faith for Righteousness is the Form of our Justification Faith is opposed to Works and the Righteousness of Faith or Righteousness of God opposed to the Righteousness of Works Faith then cannot be taken Objectivè for Christs Righteousness because Christs Righteousness is not opposed to but is it self a Righteousness of Works It is not Christs Righteousness then is that which is imputed to the Believer for Righteousness that is to be his formal Righteousness but it is that for the sake of which or the meritorious Cause for which Righteousness is imputed to him upon his believing I deny not with Mr. B. an Imputation of Christs Righteousness to a Believer tho' there be no text for 't but I with him explain it Our Explication is that it is imputed no otherwise to us for our Justification than for our Salvation and other purchased Benefits This is what we intend by an Imputation not in se but in the Effects and that is to say imputed per modum meriti only To be imputed in the Effects only and not in se Note it at last is in the full meaning this that the Righteousness of Christ is the Meritorious Cause but not the Formal Cause of our Justification and that does determine all Controversie with the truly understanding FINIS AN APPENDIX With respect to the Reverend Mr. Williams THere is one thing in Mr. Williams Books remarkable as to me above any other because it is altogether de proprio and concerns me and Mr. Baxter and that is a laborate I may not say elaborate endeavour or contrivance for making good some Words of his to this Sense That the Righteousness of Christ is imputed to a Believer otherwise or more than in the effects which is Mr. Baxter's Explanation of that Phrase And having wrote what I have said by way of Opposition in one or two Places in these Sheets supposing that Mr. Williams might write and then be engaged to take notice of it so as to yield or Answer to it I let it stand But lest he should not I will my self say something to it The Original Words of Mr. VVilliams are these Gosp Truth P. 39. Besides the Effects being made ours the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to true Believers as what was designed for their Salvation Tea is pleadable by them as their Security and useful as if themselves had done and suffered what Christ did Not that God looks upon the Believer as having done in Christs Person what Christ did he never thought so but that it is as good or for his use as much as if he had The very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer Here I must ask first what he means by Imputed And I suppose he means Being made ours as he says of the Effects or Reckoned of God as ours for else he must understand by himself till we know what he means I ask secondly How is the very Righteousness of Christ Ours or reckoned to us as Ours And I answer It is ours in the Effects and can be no otherwise The Effects are ours Really and his Righteousness ours Relatively only in regard to those Effects Mr. Williams says somewhere The Effects are not imputed Very true There is no Man said they are but that Christs Righteousness is imputed or made ours in the Effects I ask thirdly When Mr. Baxter and I and he say thus much does Mr. Williams say more And seeing he does What is that more Does he account that Christs very Righteousness is made ours so as God does account us righteous in his Righteousness and that to be our Justification according to the Common Protestant No sure he does not for Gods Judgment being according to Truth he cannot look on that which is a Quality or Accident in Christ to be also in us for that is such an Imputation as the Antinomian himself is not to be supposed without wrong to believe But it is conceived that
by this he is still unrighteous And when you believe this so you need no further consideration to understand what that Righteousness is and how it so becomes which is the Form formal Cause or formal Reason of our Justification If this term formal cause will not yet pass with you I will make it pass The imputing of our Faith to us for Righteousness I have said is Justification I will more unfold these words and say thus Gods making or constituting us just by the imputing our Faith to us for Righteousness is Justification Active Our being made just or constituted righteous by that Imputation is Justification Passive This I hope is plain and undeniable Now this Faith then thus imputed being the Righteousness whereby God constitutes and we are constituted righteous which is instrumentally by his Law of the Gospel it must be the Form or formal Cause of our Justification According to the saying mentioned Performalem Justificationis causam justi constituimur which I take to be as good as any Oracle to declare to us how that Term was formerly and is still to be understood The Protestants I will repeat say Christ's Righteousness being imputed is that whereby we are made just in Gods sight and so becomes our formal Righteousness I say it is the Righteousness of God in him that is through him or through his Merits imputed to us for Righteousness that makes us so and is this formal Righteousness and it is but an absurd thing to say the other for which Time alone will give satisfaction 5. Let me yet inculcate this The Papists you know say Justification is making us just the first way before by Infusion and that our inherent Righteousness therefore it the Form of our Justification You say that this making us just in their sense is Sanctification and our inherent Righteousness is indeed the Form formal Cause or formal Reason of our Sanctification Well now the Papists and we do not differ in our Notion of the Term Form or formal Cause For if Justification was that they say it is the making us just you grant it were the Form formal Cause or formal Reason thereof You understand me Brother when I tell you that which you knew not before that Justification is the making us just and I tell you how as well as the accounting us just I tell you also and I tell you how this Righteousness is and must thereby become the formal Cause of it Our Terms we take from the Papists and the Schools And when our Learnedst Protestants have made Christ's Righteousness the formal Cause in the sense they made that so you and I must make the Righteousness of God so or we stand not to our tackle but fail in Judgment 6. The other thing I must tell you is That there are two leaves inserted in your Book at the end of the ninth Chapter which you call a Scheme of Justification which was a puzling Matter to my self when I wrote my own Book They speak of a twofold Charge of the Law and of the Gospel and accordingly of a twofold Justification Principal and Primary you say Subordinate and Consequent You seem to me to have put this into your Book after another rate than the rest which you weighed so well before you wrote Something there is you are afraid of but do you know what Mr. Baxter and others have said some such thing and you have some misgiving lest a disrespect be offer'd to Christ's Righteousness if you say not the like too Thus the ingenuous Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Williams when they have made and held out a Gospel-righteousness and Justification accordingly must have a Legal one also that Christ's Righteousness may be imputed or else their Doctrine will not down The Brethren else will be offended and that is it 7. It is true that Christ by his Satisfaction consisting of his Passive and Active Obedience both for performing the Law of our Redemption has freed us from the Law of Works and Condemnation by it but is this Justification No it is not This is Redemption which precedes and is in order as a means to our Justification which is plain by the Text Being justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus The freeing us from the Law is freeing us from it as a Rule of Judgment when it remains a Rule of Life as you may see at large in my Pacification and seeing we are not to be judged by it we cannot be condemned and justified by it By the Law shall no flesh living be justified When it is by the Gospel therefore that we are to be judged there can be no other but one Evangelical Justification 8. The truth is Mr. Baxter has confounded us with two Justifications Principal and Subordinate or else you and others confound your selves by understanding him so when there is indeed according to Him and the Truth a double Righteousness you may call them Principal and Subordinate with him if you please but this double Righteousness must not make a double Justification as you apprehend seeing they both go or are fellow-ingredients into one and the same Justification The one as the Meritorions the other as the Formal Cause of it You see what need there is when a Man has wrote a Book for himself or some other to come after to enlighten and confirm the same Doctrine 9. Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Williams especially are gravel'd here about the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness which sticks so much with that considerable Man Let me therefore tell you truly what there is in it There are these two things in it The one is that God did account or allow indeed of what Christ did and suffered to be really in our behalf for our sakes for us in our stead so as it may be said in se imputed as to the Impetration of the benefits we have by him upon condition And the other is our having those benefits as to the Application upon the performance and that is the having his Righteousness to be ours really in the Effects and relatively in regard to them This is all and no more in it Pray see my Pacification p. 30 31 32. or my last Book p. 35 36. where in the Margin the same is repeated and give me your considered and impartial Judgment thereupon which before this I expected in print from Mr. Williams but am frustrate of that Satisfaction 10. As for your Remarks our difference is not tanti that I should examine them Only one Question you ask me that I must not pass over Will it not serve as well to all intents and purposes to say That we are justified by Faith as the condition or way only as by the term Causa formalis of our Justification I Answer No by no means my prudential Brother If I should rest there when I acknowledge both I should account my self one that sought to please Men or save my self rather than serve the Truth
us for our Righteousness is the Form of our justified State or Condition Argu. 4. Divines do generally fix it upon some Righteousness The Righteousness of Inherent Grace say the Papists The Righteousness of Christ saith Davenant and the Protestants generally The Righteousness of Pardon saith Mr. Wotton Answ 1. I do not pretend to compare my self in the least with those Learned Men who maintain any of the former Particulars to be the formal Cause of Justification but I am willing to suspect my own Judgment rather than theirs Perhaps it may be my m Ignorance in the proper Notion of a formal Cause that hinders me from assenting to them And yet m The Form of a thing you know is that whereby the thing is that which it is that which differences the thing defines denominates it A Defini-nition is made of a Genus Differentia call'd by others the Form a Genus and a Form to wit that which specifies and differences the thing from others that which makes the Ens unum Vnum is indivisum in se divisum ah aliis The Form makes the thing divisum ab omnibus aliis and whatsoever differs from another must have its Form its Deffinition that makes it differ or else it is nothing It is not for want of Knowledge of this but the want of Consideration of it makes you here disagree with me for so long as there is no Distinction without a Difference and Justification is thus distinguished into Active and Passive they must have their different Forms and if that be acknowledged our Contest is at an end 2. You n agree with me that it is Gods Imputation or judging us Righteous But yet that I may yield to you as far as I can I add n How I agree with you it is manifest as to justification Active and that you may agree with me as to Justification Passive you say enough in that which follows 3. That upon the o same ground that any of these may be said to be the formal Cause of Justification I see not but that the Righteousness of Faith or the Righteousness of God by Faith may be allowed to be the formal Cause of it If it be proper in any of the other Cases or Instances for ought that I know it is proper also in this If it be proper to call Christs Righteousness the formal Cause or Pardon the formal Cause of Justification it is proper I think to call Faith so too There is the same Reason for one as for the other in my apprehension o As for what you yield here to me it is but honest and tho' condescending no more than what cann't be denyed If we use the Terms of other Divines we must use them in their sense or we cannot else be in the right I thank you for your sincerity in this Argu. 5. But the most plausible Argument of all because it is Scriptural you have omitted which is That the Scripture saith expresly p We are are justi-fied by Faith p This is what is to be understood in my Book all over when I say that tho' the Id propter quod be Christs Righteousness the Id per quod we are justified is Faith and Faith therefore as imputed for Righteousaess is the formal Cause of our Justification Here then we must consider What interest Faith has in our Justification This I have said in my Book is as the q Condition Way or Means whereby we come to have an interest in this Priviledge q That Faith Repentance and New Obedience are the Condition and Way of Life as to the Exercise and Practice of them does not hinder but that performed and imputed by God for Righteousness they become the Form its self of our Justification You say As the formal Cause but at last upon mature deliberation you make it to be the material Cause and Imputation the formal and so at last you seem to r give up the Cause you are contending for your words being these The Efficient Cause is God The Meritorious Christs Righteousness The Material is not the same with that coming under the Efficient but is I count our inherent Grace or Faith infused in our Regeneration The formal then is the imputing this Faith or Grace inherent as the Evangelick Condition performed by it to us for Righteousness when being imperfect otherwise it were none Inherent Grace is the Matter and the Form is brought in by this Imputation s This is not well observed that when I set my Cause in its true Light and evince the truth of it so to your self that you cannot but assent to it you should count that I give you my Cause when I give you my Light and when the Cause which I and you intend and defend is the same in this particular altogether And why do you contend Do not you know that in such Collisions that are only for Light whenever there is struck one Spark that does take the work is done for what is but rightly said in one place is to regulate all that is said besides otherwhere when the Reader deals ingenuously with him he Reads But then to s bring your self off you make it to be the formal Cause only of Justification Active and Faith to be the formal Cause of Justification Passive and so you make two Justifications distinct from each other because they have different Forms So that all the Controversie between us now is reduced to this one single Point whether there be two Justifications distinct from each other For if Faith be the formal Cause only of Justification Passive and there be no such thing as Justification Passive distinct from Justification Active then Faith is cashier'd and put out of its Office of being Causa formalis of Justification s It is not to bring my self off but to keep the truth on foot that I distinguish as other Divines do Who knows not that Justificare Justificari are distinguished or that Justification is actively and passively taken Alas that you should not consider that all the Disputes of our Divines Whether we be justified by Faith or Works are and can be about Justification no otherwise but as passively taken As for the Question Whether Justification Active and Passive be one or two I have given a brief determination in this second Letter as now printed p. 28. and did not do so in my Cursory Letter because I was indeed puzzled with it at first starting and could not at present tell what well to say to it It is very true and judiciously declared here by you that upon this one would have thought but nice thing does depend all our difference so that if Justification Passive have a distinct Form from Justification Active then my all you say be true as it is of the One and what I say to be true too of the Other Now whether they have two Forms or no seeing you and I were at present in doubt and came very strangely to be resolved
adjudicatur says he to us as the price given to the Victor is imputed to the Captive in his Deliverance is that which he says with Bradshaw and Grotius I 'll add Forbes modestae Questiones he does maintain Meth. The. Part 3. P. 54. The Scholastically Learned and Industrious Mr. Wotton has this Distinction in other words for speaking of Christs being made sin and Christs righteousness ours he tells us it must be understood not Formaliter but Effectivè This is all one as not in se but in the Effects Thus our sins are imputed to Christ in his bearing only the Punishment when by an Imputation in se or formaliter he must bear the merit also And thus shall Christs Righteousness become ours Effectivè though we are but Meritoriously and not Formally justified by it As for Reasons against Imputation in the Common Sense before mentioned to wit that God does not look on us to have obeyed and suffered in Christ as our Legal Person and what follows there are so many in Mr. Baxter's Books that I need not bring any Only one among the other Antinomian Consequences I will mention as what is most obvious and convincing which is that if this were so then should the Elect be immediately freed from Punishment and immediately justified before they believed or repented or without Faith and Repentance for no terms could be imposed on them in order to their Justification and Glory if they be accounted already to have fulfilled the Law in Christ This being a Doctrine therefore so directly as dangerously contrary to the Gospel it is to be discarded And yet for once I will thus argue and call Mr. Lobb to hearken to me There is nothing can be imputed to us but either that which we have not and then it is imputed that we may have it that is to have it made ours or reputed as ours Or else if we have it it must be imputed to some other end than to have it or for some other thing than that it self which is imputed Now if Christ did obey and suffer in our Persons or as our Legal Person so as in Law-sense we have and are accounted to have obeyed and suffered in him then can his Righteousness consisting of his Obedience and Sufferings be neither imputed to us that we may have it or to be made ours or reckoned to us as ours seeing we have it already It is ours it is reckoned as ours in that it was performed in our Persons Nor can it be imputed to us to any other end or for any other thing but Ad Justitiam for Righteousness justifying Righteousnes which is to the same end and for the same thing and can be no other Mr. Lobb here is a Man of Sense and can see Reason and of Ingenuity if any other be so as if it convince him to acknowledge it If he keep to the Common Opinion he cann't Answer to Socinus There can be no Imputation upon this account of Christs Righteousness to any But if he come off and say Christ suffered not for us in the Sense of in our Person so as in Law-sense we must be reckoned to have suffered and satisfied in him but suffered for us in our stead in the sense only as to save us from suffering then is there room for an Imputation of his Satisfaction to us that it may be made ours or accounted to us as ours which otherwise is Christs only But how then ours or accounted ours Not ours in se for that brings us back to having satisfied in his Person but ours in the Effects This as I take it is a matter of deep Consideration I appeal to Mr. Lobb's as well as to Mr. W's own impartial Judgment One thing remains as yet not suggested by any other I have intimated that the entanglement of the two Points Satisfaction and Justification in our discoursing of them one with another does give occasion of clouding them and that it will be an edifying matter to endeavour to sever them so by putting a right difference between them in relation to the Controversie as we may bring some light that will clear our Understandings in the Doctrine of them both To this end then let us know that when the Scripture rells us of Christs dying for us and bearing our sins with the like Expressions and we are agreed against the Socinians that what Christ did and suffered for us was not only bono nostro but loco nostro in our stead our room our place Here is the thing I offer to Consideration that what is done by Christ loco nostro must be applied to his making God Satisfaction for us not to the Point of our Justification For explaining this let us farther know as signified before that to do or suffer any thing in anothers stead or room is to do or suffer it to save the other from doing or suffering Now in the Point of Satisfaction there is nothing that we do or is required of us to do in order to make it or procure it to be made so that what was done or suffered in order thereunto must certainly be in our room or stead we being perfectly free from doing or suffering our selves any thing towards it But as for the Point of Justification it is as certain that there is our Duty required our Faith and Repentance and sincere Walking in order to it and there is nothing done or suffered by Christ that frees us from it It is true that the perfect Obedience of Christ to the Law of Works is to be accounted in my apprehension I have said to be perform'd in our place stead or room and not only in regard to his own Person as Justitia personae because we are freed we know from that Obligation as the Condition of Life which we were by nature under and that therefore his Obedience as well as Sufferings I do account does go into his Satisfaction But as for that Evangelical Obedience that is required of us our believing our repenting in order to our Pardon and Justification there is nothing done by Christ in the room of it The fulfilling the Law by Christ which he did both in regard to the Precept and Sanction was in our room place or stead in order to his Satisfaction but his fulfilling the Law was not in our place stead or room in order to our Justification It was in order to it for obtaining Pardon and Justification upon the Gospel Conditions but it was not in our room place or stead in order to it Whether in saying this I say something to the purpose or no I appeal to the Judicious Bishop Only I must add thus much that this is that which in effect I have said in former Books speaking to that Commutation of Persons which Dr. Owen hath stood so much upon and now Mr. Lobb that it is to be acknowledged as to the Impetration but not to go into the Application of our Redemption The Death of Christ must
ULTIMA MANUS BEING LETTERS BETWEEN Mr. John Humfrey and Mr. Samuel Clark In reference to the Point of Justification Written upon the Occasion of Mr. Clark's Printing his Book on that Subject after Mr. Humfrey's Book entituled The Righteousness of God and published for Vindication of that Doctrine wherein they agree as sound by shewing the difference of it from that of the Papist and the Mistake of our common Protestant In order to an impartial and more full understanding of that great Article by the Improvement of that whereto they have attained or Correction of any thing wherein they err by better Judgments Together with Animadversions on some late Papers between Presbyterian and Independent in order to reconcile the Difference and fix the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction Mediocria firma LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns the lower End of Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1698. THE LETTERS To Mr. CLARK My very worthy Brother I Received your Letter and your Book that elaborate Book writ long since and desir'd to be printed by Mr. Baxter and which I longed to see And whereas I find it upon reading it twice over to be an industrious clear honest and faithful Work so methodical easie for the Reader profitable and full in exhausting its Subject besides so concordant in the main with my Sentiments and when we differ so much more entertaining for the variety you may be sure that for all these Faults I can do no less than judge it to the Press where it must confess them seeing you committed it to my Judgment As for your Letter and Remarks with it on mine I thank you I shall at present say two things to you 1. The one is That whereas I make our Gospel-righteousness the Form or formal Cause of our Justification which you can hardly swallow the reason of the stop is not really I judge because you have considered more of the matter but less I wonder not at you to be shy about this when Mr. Baxter himself has not spoken here so fully as being against the stream of our Protestants and he had never digested the Notion I think of the Righteousness of God which you have done Faith you acknowledge to be our formal Righteousness and understand it clearly as you seem to do all you assent to Your words are I freely grant that Faith or Gospel obedience is formal Righteousness that is It has the Form of Righteousness to wit Conformity to the Law of the Gospel or Covenant of Grace And yet you are so maidenly modest for all that as you dare not say it doth justifie us formaliter or is the formal Reason of our Justification It is in regard to the common Sentiment and what you have not found asserted that you are so tender about it 2. There is a Sentence you will find somewhere in my Book which has not I perceive entred your Mind as it has mine that does bring light with it It could not have been said at first but by one more thoroughly studied Academically in the Learned part of this Controversie than you or I and accordingly is worthy your reception The Sentence is this Performalem justificationis causam justi constituimur It is profound Truth Consider now I pray what is that Righteousness which you believe indeed to be it quâ or per quam justi constituimur Is it Christs Righteousness or our performance of the Evangelick Condition If with you and I it be the last what then is Justification active or the Form of it but Gods imputing this to us for Righteousness And what Justification Passive but this Evangelick Performance so imputed Certainly my Brother till you come up to this you do but grope in the dark You and but in fear of all you say and can have no stedfastness or foundation in the point 3. Mr. Anthony Wotton who understood himself so thoroughly and was the Man who broke the Ice in the denial of Christs Righteousness to be our formal Righteousness does set up therefore as he must another thing in the room of it A Righteousness there must be that constitutes us Righteous and if it be not Christs what is it Why Mr. Wotton makes this to be Pardon the Righteousness of Pardon Righteousness I say is the Form of Justification or the Form of Justification does consist in a Righteousness and Mr. Wotton sets himself to prove that Pardon is it which others avouch after him as the only Righteousness whereof a Sinner is capable It is this therefore is another saying of the same Sort and Author which must be here taken in as it is also in my Book Justifications forman justitiâ constare cerium est Well this Justitia which is Justificationis forma our former learnedst Protestant Divines have generally own'd and held to be the Righteousness of Christ imputed A conceit very strangely hard I believe at first to be let in and too crude at last to be digested To make Pardon it has a great deal of sense in it but the Scripture never calls this our Righteousness nor will the word it self allow it It being a third thing which is it you have hit on the right and that is the Righteousness of God which you understand so well and you define The way or method of becoming righteous which is of Gods ordaining or appoinring A Righteousness which is of on which we attain by Faith This is that Righteousness in opposition to Works when the righteousness of Christ can't be so opposed that Paul has reveal'd This is that justitia which is the Justificationis forma we seek in the business 4. And herein you seeing more I believe than Mr. Baxter there is one thing that he saw and you see not Justification you say is Gods accounting and using us as just but you have not taken in what he saith further That it is also the making us just I apprehend the first thoughts of Mr. Baxter here sprang from his reading Mr. Wotton who will have such a Righteousness to justifie us as makes us righteous that is I have told Pardon which by Constituting a man just I think Mr. Baxter at first understood too But whatsoever he thought first or last I am come to see what you must come to see also that by Constitutive Justification God must first both make and account us just or by Sentential he cannot declare us so at the great Day Now how that is you have in my Book p. 24. Not by Infusion as the Papist nor by Non-imputation as Wotton but by Imputation God imputing our Faith for Righteousness God by his Evangelick Law has constituted Faith and Repentance to be a Righteousness to serve us instead of perfect Works When a Man then believes and repents he is thereby constituted Righteous By vertue I say of that Law he is made such or accepted as such in regard to the benefit as if he were such by the Law of Works when yet
that is to be tender-mouth'd as most I perceive are apt to be I mean not you my worthy Brother when they come over to any such hard saying as they see will make their Disciples draw back and walk no more with them I must add that although an abstracting this great Doctrine from Logical or Metaphisical Terms according to the Bishop of Wrocester and you may be adviseable with the limitation as much as we can in regard to the Vulgar or in our Preaching to the People yet in regard to the Learned and the Versed in this Controversie it is quite otherwise or at least there must be an exception as to this Particular which is not here only necessary in regard to such but is the all in all in the business The point is hereby brought as it were to a word as in the matter of the Trinity it was brought to that of Homoousios no more to be discarded I will yet say that here is the Criterion according to a more shallow or deep imbibing whereof I do reckon for my own part such or so much to be the measure of knowledge that I have attained as to the critical bottom of this Matter With reverence be it spoken to extraordinary Men who being above all mean or colloguing ends do we may suppose very throughly see the same when prudentially they decline to say it and when they yet would be more generous too in a Contribution of their Testimony to it To this end was I born saith our Saviour and for this cause came I into the World that I should bear witness to the Truth 11. I will yet instance for your Conviction The Scripture in one place is express By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous One may ask here Is not Christs Obedience therefore ours Is not the being made righteous to be justified I Answer Yes Christs Obedience is ours in the Effects and as to this effect in making us righteous upon our Faith and so justifying us But here is the resolution of the point Christs Obedience does make us righteous or justifies us per modum cousae meritoriae but not per modum causae formalis which the Doctrine of Imputation intended at first nostrae justificationis We are to enlarge here by shewing how Adam's sin brought in death which passes upon all Men and so is imputed to all as to that effect Likewise how Christ's obedient suffering or suffering obedience has procured the Grace that we may be justified by Faith without Works and are so upon our believing We are made sinners then by Adam's sin and made righteous by Christs obedience per modum meriti not otherwise This is satisfaction to this Text this the core of the Controversie Again Christ is made sin for us in another place our sins procuring his sufferings and we the righteousness of God in him How is that Per modum meriti I say still Effective in short non Formaliter See what need we have of such Terms See how speedily and compleatly they do our business when a whole Book at once is as good as wrapt up in them 12. As for your Dissertation upon the Question whether Christ's Active as well as Passive Obedience is imputed in our Justification I did think to advise you to be content with what is said in the Book and so leave it My Reasons are two 1. Because this Dispute is a Point not proper for you and I but needless They that hold a Formal Justification by Christ's Righteousness may contend which of the two is imputed But we that say it is not Christ's Righteousness imputed but the Righteousness of God that justifies us may leave them fighting and we be quiet 2. Because as to the Point I think such may with Anth. Burgesse be well at a stand about it You say Christ being a Divine not Human person was under no obligation of duty How then does Christ say His Father was greater than He and that in regard to his Authority How came he down to do his Fathers Commandment and yet be under no Obligation Here you must come off and say He was not bound on his own account but for Vs he was Well then for us he was bound to obey and how then do you say he only suffered for us and not obeyed for us You must come off again and say For us may be taken for our Benefit or in our stead He was indeed bound to obey for our benefit but not in our stead Well! but what if you are out here at last Let me mind you that Christ who redeemed us from the Condemnation of the Law redeemed us also from the Obligation of perfect fulfilling it as the Condition of Life And as by his sufferings he freed us not from all suffering but Eternal so by his Obedience though he freed us not from obeying God according to the Gospel yet he did from obeying him according to the Law as the Condition of Salvation In this sense and to this purpose he obeyed that we might not so obey as well as he suffered that we might not so suffer that is upon this account not all accounts obeyed and suffered both in our stead Before I leave you for the sake of the Reader when this is Printed I must wish you again to take heed that when I say that Christ hath obeyed for us in the sense of in our stead you do not misconstrue me To do a thing in ones stead is to do it so as to free the other from doing it Though Christ's perfect obeying the Law did I apprehend free us from those Terms yet did he not obey the Law for us so as some would have it that no other Obedience is necessary to our Justification or that his Obeying does thereby become ours or is in se imputed to us as formally to justifie us This is that Doctrine you dispute against in your Dissertation and I find in some Notes which I writ for a Memor andum to my self upon reading some Author whether the words be my own or his or mixt thus much which I will set down to confirm your Determination There is a double Debt the Principal perfect Obedience and Nomine poena satisfaction for our failing It is said Christ paid both for us and both imputed But if his Obedience being such as that he omitted no duty and committed no sin be imputed there is no need of his suffering It is replied we must suppose his satisfaction for sin to precede and when we are pardoned and freed from punishment then must his Active Obedience be also imputed to give us right to Heaven It is answered 1. Supposing a Righteousness now required it must not be his Righteousness imputed for then we must be reputed as never lapsed nor once omitted any duty and that is inconsistent with his Satisfaction preceding 2. Punishment is Damni or Sensus Though one might be freed from the poena sensus and yet
just by bestowing Faith is Regeneration which I distinguish from Justification as you and all Protestants do Justification makes just otherwise In the next place you tell me of Relative Grace being founded on Real Grace but I see not wherein that serves you or opposes me Real Grace I take it is that which makes a change on the Person but Relative Grace only on the State giving right to the benefits which belongs to the Person I apprehend so of that Distinction and if I do not apprehend you right you must help my Understanding Well now Regeneration I count with you must precede Justification that is Real Grace Upon this Real Grace then is founded that making us righteous which is Relative There is Faith already wrought and presupposed and God in justifying us does by his Gospel-Law I count constitute or make that Faith to be a Righteousness which otherwise it was not that gives right to the benefits that a perfect Righteousness if performed would give The Regenerate Man I say believes Upon his believing the Gospel-Law or God by that Law does impute that believing to him for Righteousness By which Imputation be is made accounted and used as a righteous Person and so reaps the benefit All which together is his Justification Let us here set our Horses together There is a Righteousness or the Grace of Regeneration or a Righteousness or the Grace of Justification One is Real Grace and the other Relative you say and therefore two Nevertheless when you say the Righteousness that makes us just is Regeneration you do not see that this Righteousness must not therefore be that which justifies us or that which I say is the formal Cause of our Justification It is true that our Righteousness or Faith wrought in us by Vocation Regeneration or Sanctification is the same Righteousness materially but not the same formally with this Righteousness of Justification for if a Man were the most righteous Person upon Earth there were no reward due to it being imperfect and it could not be this Righteousness in Gods sight giving right to the benefit that is this Relative Grace but for the Law of Grace and his Institution by it A right to Impunity and Life is Righteousness and that is not the Righteousness of Regeneration You say God Regenerates us and that makes us righteous Very well and I tell you that this is the Righteousness of the Person which justifies not and so I am no Papist but it is a Righteousness of the State the Righteousness I say which is made so by the Gospel-Law or that Relative Righteousness which does give right to the reward or benefit when the other imperfect cannot is the Righteousness we intend When a Man then is made righteous by God or by his Law upon his believing who was made righteous before by Regeneration or when a Man hath Faith bestowed on him in his effectual Vocation and that Faith after is imputed to him for Righteousness it is not his Faith and Righteousness as inherent but as so imputed is that Righteousness which justifies him or that Righteousness that is the Form or formal Cause of his Justification You may see here how by going to avoid Popery by denying that we are made just by Justification you take away that Medium which by the granting and maintaining we must obtain our purpose God says Mr. Baxter as Law-giver above his Laws maketh us just by his pardoning Law or Covenant and as determining Judge be justifies us by Esteeming and Sentencing us just and as Executioner he uses us as just All know such things are spoken in order of nature not of time which I need not mention before or now but to avoid Cavil You deny this Constitutive Justification but what say you to the Matter Does God by his Law of Grace make a Man just upon his believing To be made righteous is to be justified in Law-sense and justifiable by Sentence If God do so as the Law is general then must a particular Man believing be in the applying only that Law to him made righteous made so in order to his being accounted and used as such And if God by that Law applyed to him makes the Person righteous it is that Righteousness must be and is the formal Cause of his Justification This my dear Brother you did not perceive nor as I think Mr. Baxter quite who came so near it He never let the right understanding of the Righteousness of God preceding actual Pardon sink into his Thoughts if he had he would have set it into such a Light as there would have been no need of my Book and if he had roundly told you as I what is the formal Righteousness that justifies the Believer notwithstanding other Protestants say it not you might have received it Though as to that Particular Justification or Part of Justification against the Gospel-charge that a Man is an Unbeliever and Impenitent and hath no right to Pardon and Life he accounts that his Faith and Repentance is that Subordinate Righteousness which justifies him and that must be formaliter as I say And to satisfie Mr. Baxter fully there is and there can be no charge but this against any for the Gospel-Law it self the Universal Pardon or Grace of the Gospel it self which in the Righteousness of God as to Gods part is included does alone take off or answers all others But now seeing I am yet in doubt that your fear of me and therefore of other Friends is not yet gone in regard to my allowing that we are justified by a Righteousness within us or by our inherent Grace for that I percieve it is you fear even as rank Popery under the present apprehension when Justification yet by Works you maintain without scruple I will endeavour over again to deliver you and them out of it Faith you know and conceive to be Grace inherent and a Righteousness in us and you are not afraid I hope to affirm that we are justified by Faith Well then there is according to your Self before and the Truth a double Grace Real Grace and Relative Grace and Justification you say is Relative Grace Regeneration Real I say again accordingly there must be a double Righteousness the Righteousness of Sanctification or Regeneration and the Righteousness of Justification 0103 0 The one entitles to no Reward being short of perfect the other through the imputation of Christs Merits entitles to Impunity and Life for the imputing Christs Merits to our Faith or inherent Grace to make it accepted as hath already been intimated for Righteousness which else were none is to be understood in Gods imputing our Faith for Righteousness It is the Righteousness of the last now be it known and not of the former by which we are justified It is the Righteousness of the last not of the former which is the formal Cause of our Justification Here then do I at once discharge you from your Fear The Papists say
Own per modum meriti is Sound Protestantism Justification by Christs Righteousness and not our Own formaliter is fundamentally Antinomianism This many of our Brethren having not understood so well as they should hitherto have been but wildred and not found their way out to an Orthodox Coalition Not that I say such a Union a Union in Doctrinals is to be sought in the present case of our Brethrens many of whom have scarce thought of this Term formal Cause so far have they been from the use of it in this Point The Form of a Thing is illud per quod res est id quod est and denominates the Thing If we know not the Form of Justification we know not what Justification is and how then can we tell when we say any thing right about it To be justified hath a Form passively denominating a Man just from some Righteousness according to all Divines that understand themselves Protestants or Papists What that Righteousness is is the Question The Papists say one thing the Common Protestants another You and I come between them and what it is we have shewn Christian Righteousness says Luther on Gal. 3.6 consists in two things Faith in the Heart and Gods Imputation Faith is indeed a formal Righteousness yet this Righteousness is not enough it is imperfect wherefore the other part of Righteousness must needs be added to finish the same to wit Gods Imputation There are more the like words from whence I have been thinking since I wrote my Book See Righteousness of God Pag. 10. and 20. that it was happily such a kind of Notion as ours that Luther had in his first Thoughts arising from the Scripture howsoever himself or others after him came to run it up to that exorbitancy as from an Acceptation of our Faith and inchoate Obedience so long as it is sincere through the Merits of Christ unto Life instead of the Righteousness of the Law it is come or came to the cloathing the Person with the Righteousness of Christ which is a Righteousness according to the Law Meritorious and Perfect so that he does stand as just in the sight of God and as in Christs Person to be justified by the Law of Works altho' the holy Prophet does tell us Ps 143.2 that in the sight of God and the holy Apostle Gal. 3.11 by the Law shall no Flesh living be justified This Opinion therefore being so carried as to subvert the Gospel we leave it Your assured Friend And loving Brother John Humfrey To Mr. Humfrey Reverend and Dear Sir THere hath passed many Letters and there hath been long Debate between us about two Points One is of Constitutive Justification the other is of the Form or the formalis Causa of it This Letter shall speak of those two Points there being little or no Disagreement in regard to others I will begin with the last as having cost more pains in regard to the many Arguments and Answers bandied and tossed to and fro concerning it The result of all which is contained and will be found in what follows 1. We are fully agreed as to the Nature of Justification only differ about applying this Term Formal Cause as to the Point 2. You grant that Faith or Gospel-righteousness is not accounted by other Divines that are Protestants to be the Form or formal Cause hereof so that this is I have said a Vestrum as some Physitians have their Nostrum and therefore requires so much more caution 3. You apply it to Justification Passive and make our Faith to be only the Form of Justification passively taken and assign another Form or formal Cause to Justification Active for you say Gods making or constituting us just by the imputation of Faith to us for Righteousness is Justification Active Our being made just or constituted righteous by that imputation is Justification Passive Which you further explain thus Justification may be taken either Subjectivè as in God so it is his gracious condescention to accept our Faith or imperfect Obedience unto Pardon and Life Or Terminativè as in us and so it is nothing else but this Faith imputed for Righteousness as so imputed and this is the Causa formalis of our passive Justification 4. Against this I argue thus 1. a Hereby you make two Justifications or Justification Active and Passive to be two different Things because they have two Forms one Gods imputing or accepting Faith for Righteousness the other Faith imputed or so accepted for Righteousness Of which more anon a It is true and if you hold there and when you cite me as saying Faith is the formal Cause of our Justification you will supply what you find here that I mean Faith only as so imputed and also that I understand Justification passively taken I shall have little to answer to all that follows for Justification Active and Passive have indeed two Forms and must have or else they could not be distinguished and it is your fundamental if not only Mistake that you have a belief to the contrary 2. Justification is Gods Act but nothing in us can be the Causa formalis of Gods Act. To this you return several Answers 1. Sanctification is Gods Act as well as Justification But I hope you doubt not to say our inherent Grace is the formal Cause of our Sanctification But how Not as actively but passively taken The same is to be said of the other Answ God is the Efficient Grace infused the Material the Act of infusing or bestowing the b Formal b Right And if the infusion or bestowing of Grace or Holi-Holiness on a Man be the Form of Gods Sanctifying Act then must this Grace or Holiness infused or bestowed be the Form of his Sanctified State Vocabulum formae usurpari solet non modo de formis substantialibus quae dant esse simpliciter sed de Accidentalibus quae dant Esse tale Hoc sensu dicimus Doctrinam esse illam formam per quam homo Doctus justitiam per quam Justus efficitur I hope you can trust Davenant thought 〈◊〉 me for this Information Dav. De. Jus Val c. 27. 2. You answer further thus God is Actus purus and nothing is the Cause or Condition of his Will Ex parte Agentis but as Gods Acts are denominated in regard of the effects upon us these Effects must have their formal Cause or else be nothing Answ The formal Cause is Gods c Imputation c Right again The Imputation of our Faith for Righteousness is the Form of Gods Justifying Act and Faith imputed for Righteousness is therefore the Form of our justified State It is strange that the Intus existens should keep out such open Evidence 3. Another Answer you give is this It is impossible say you that Faith or any thing in us should be the Cause of Gods Act. Very good That were absurd indeed Nothing in us can be the Cause of Gods Act. True but something in us may be the Object about which
Gods Act is conversant and that here is Faith as he imputes it for Righteousness and this being the effect of that Act in passo this Faith so imputed I say is the formal Cause of our Justification so effected Answ The Object of Gods Act is Faith or the Believer The Effect of it in us Justification Imputation is the formal Cause as has been (d) And already satisfied already said 5. The Arguments which you produce for the proof of it I have gathered together out of the several places of their dispersion and they are these Argu. 1. All our Divines both Protestant and Papist do agree upon it that that Righteousness whatever it be that denominates and makes us righteous in Gods sight is and must be the Form or formal Cause of Justification And certainly these Divines understood this Metaphysical Term better than you or I. And when wee use it in their Sense and no otherwise there can be no fear But neither Regeneration nor Christs Righteousness nor Pardon is that which justifies us per modum causae formalis and therefore it must be (e) As imputed for Righteousness that is with Luther Faith and Gods Imputation together not Faith of its self Faith Not Christs Righteousness for that is the meritorious Cause Not Regenerating Grace for that must precede Justification not Pardon for that comes after it And therefore if Justification has any formal Cause which it must have or it is nothing for forma dat esse it must be one of these or something else What is that Why the Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel as that Righteousness alone which justifies the Believer Answ It is something else viz. Gods f Imputation f To this and the former Answer I say that is true it is Imputation as to Active Justification or as to God justifying us Therefore something imputed must be the formal Cause of the Persons being Justified And what is that Christs Righteousness or the Righteousness of Faith We agree as to the last Argu. 2. As Adam if he had perfectly obey'd his Obedience had been his formal Righteousness in regard to the Law so is this ours in regard to the Gospel Right of God p. 20. So again Works were the formal Righteousnest of Justification by the Law Therefore Faith is the formal Righteousness of Justification by the Gospel Right of God p. 20. Again presently after Two things go to this formal Righteousness Faith and the Imputation of it To these I answer in order Answ To the first and second 1. It 's without doubt that Adams Obedience was g formal Righteousness and so Faith is now but so it might be and yet not be the Form of his Justification as I at first said The formal Cause of Adam's Justification was Gods owning accounting or judging him righteous upon the account of his perfect Obedience as Gods Imputation of Faith for Righteousness is the Formal Cause of our Justification g To be our formal Righteousness and to be the Righteousness and to be the Righteousness that is the Form of our Justification is all one so spoken and understood by Divines Gods accounting Adam perfectly righteous was Active Justification Adam's being righteous and so accounted was Justification Passive and Gods imputing our Faith for Righteousness and our Faith imputed is the same likewise Here is nothing but what is prevented already 2. I deny the Consequence in the first Assertion That if Adam's Law-obedience was his formal Righteousness then our Gospel-Obedience is our formal Righteousness because though Faith comes in the room of Law-Works in some respects yet not in all for it doth not h merit the reward as Law-Works would have done h Whether the reward be of Grace or Merit that is nothing to the purpose so long as Faith is the Condition of the Covenant of Grace as perfect Obedience was of the Covenant of Works The Performance of the Evangelick Condition is the formal Righteousness of the one The Performance of the Legal was the formal Righteousness of the other The formality lies in the Condition performed not in the Meritoriousness or Nonmeritoriousness of the Performance Answ To the third If Faith and Imputation i both go to this formal Righteousness then Faith alone is not the Form of it i By this you see that we are agreed I say and you say that Faith is the Matter as will appear more hereafter and Imputation that which brings the Form into the Matter so that it is not Faith alone but Faith as imputed for Righteousness is the formal Cause of Justification Argu. 3. If Justification has a Form and that Form must be some Righteousness Justificationis formam justicia constare certum est What Righteousness is that It is Gods counting or judging us Righteous say you But is this an Answer to the Question What Righteousness is it whereby we are justified When I ask What Righteousness it is whereby we are justified or what Righteousness that is which is the Form of Justification I ask What Righteousness that is whereby or wherewith or by reason of which God accounts or judges us righteous It is not regenerating Grace infused but regenerating Grace imputed that is Faith imputed for Righteousness That which makes a Man righteous in Gods sight according to the Gospel is that which justifies us so as to be the Causa formalis of it Per formalem Justificationis causam justi constituimur What then is that Righteousness which makes or constitutes us just It is Gods imputing this Faith before infused that makes us righteous and consequently is the Causa formalis of our Justification Answ 1. I say the Causa formalis of Justification is Gods counting or judging us righteous so say you too Your Words are these Gods judging us righteous upon believing is the k Form k The Form of a thing does constitute and denominate the thing If Gods judging us righteous or imputing our Faith for Righteousness does actually make and denominate God our Justifier then must our being judged righteous and our Faith imputed for Righteousness make and passively denominate us justified There is the same Efficient and Material Cause in both but the Form double Answ 2. I answer directly The Righteousness whereby we are justified as the meritorious Cause of our Justification is the Righteousness of Christ The Righteousness of Faith the material Cause But the formal is l Gods judging us righteous as you agree l Here you are plainly gone I ask what Righteousness that is and you Answer Gods judging There is some Righteousness as all our Divines agree that does make and denominate us righteous and that which so makes and denominates us according to the Gospel is that which justifies us When you don't tell this you are gone I say as I have said It is true that Gods judging or imputing something to us for Righteousness is the Form of Gods justifying Act but that something that is judged and imputed to
Obedience is a great Antinomian folly and a dangerous Error I am very sensible that those that pretend above others to exalt free Grace and take no notice of the Gospel Conditions upon the Performance of which it is only dispensed do it seemingly but not in truth and reality and as it should be done and are dangerous Mis-leaders Such Notions do generally gratifie all false Professors and often insnare and misguide the truest Christs part is certainly performed the great business is to stir Men up to perform their's for when Christ had perfected the Salvation of the World what then Was there a a Proclamation published from Heaven That all Men were thereupon actually saved No 't was far otherwise but God thereupon enters into a new Covenant with the World and proclaims a Law of Grace with this Condition annexed He that believes shall be saved and he that believes not shall be condemned He becomes the Author of Eternal Salvation only to those that obey him 'T is in other words to say He that believes the Gospel and becomes obedient to it shall have the benefit of Christs purchase I look upon it as a most prophane Error to say that God ever intended to carry any Man to Heaven without a personal Righteousness such an Opinion stands in direct opposition to the purity of his Attributes and the Oeconomy of his Government What both you and I have written does truly and according to Gods way of dispensing it exalt Grace as much as it can be for we ascribe all that we have under the Gospel intirely to Grace When we speak of Faith and Gospel-obedience we only speak of the method in which the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ are dispensed for we acknowledge that our Faith and Obedience in themselves are very impotent and defective and of no value as to the Point of Justification farther than God is pleased to impute and reckon them out of Grace and Favour to our advantage as Methods by him appointed to bring us into all the blessed effects of Christs purchase Sir I am also to thank you for that you have in your late Writings Collected Adjusted and Interpreted the dispersed Notions upon this Subject in the Works of that most Excellent Person your particular Friend and mine Mr. Baxter who was the early Promulger and constant Defender of the Right Scripture Doctrine of Justification Tho' no Man pays a greater deference than I do to his Memory yet this I must needs say to you touching what he has writ about this Point and many others his Writings are haunted with a crowd of Logical Distinctions which do much obscure I had almost said deface his clear and excellent Sense he needed not have chosen that method of expressing himself for tho' he never wore the Gowns of either University upon his back yet he had the Learning of them both in his Head and that was very perspicuous in all his Writings I am also to thank you for rectifying the Notions of that exceeding pious and learned Person Doctor Owen touching this Matter wherein I think you have been very succesiful I suppose you know his Book of Justification was particularly written against mine Very many have pressed me to answer it which I acknowledge to you I did not look upon as duram provinciam The great Friendship that was between him and me might well seem sufficient to have byassed me not to reply but the true reason was I thought that little Cottage I had erected was in no great danger of being shocked or demolished by any thing in that Book The Doctrine of personal Imputation of Christs Righteousness to every Believer which that most Learned Person asserts and defends is so Unscriptural having not one Text to defend it has so many Unjustifiable and contradictory Consequences attending it and indeed there are so many Triumphs over it by those that have written against it in the Booksellers Shops that it is scarce worth any Mans while to harness himself for the defence of that Point If when Men speak of imputing Christs Righteousness to every Believer they mean the imputing of it only in the Effects and Advantages of it they say what you and I say Sir I am very well satisfied you have done this Age very good Service to convince Men of the necessity of performing the Gospel-Conditions if ever they will reap the benefit of what Christ hath done for us Faith and sincere Obedience is the way by which God justified and saved Abraham the Father of the Faithful and in him gave an instance how all Men to the Worlds end are to obtain Heaven and Salvation even by treading in the steps of their Father Abraham Two ways we see Men generally miscarry either by a prophane Neglect of the Gospel or an hypocritical Profession of it Happy would the World be if delivered from Prophaneness on the one hand and false Godliness on the other I have nothing to add but that I am Your very affectionate and obliged Friend and Servant Charles Wolseley The Animadversions THere was a Sheet called The Report which I read and four or five called A Rebuke of that Report which I read likewise I suppose the Author of the first thought it necessary to inform the Country of the true State of the Difference about Doctrinals there was in the City and made that Report according to his Conscience I suppose also that the Author of the second thought it fit in conscience to rebuke that Report as giving wrong Information And if any have been offended at either it is that supposed necessity must excuse both There were four Sheets I wrote as a Friendly Interposer between them and these I write now I intended as a Second Port in regard to that Title Since these there came out a Defence of the Report and more lately a Vindication of the Rebuke which Books having not the excuse of such necessity are faulty and their fault being openly committed is openly to be reproved and that is that they knowingly sometimes abuse one another Mr. Rebuke upon an Objectors saying In our place and stead with some does signifie no more than for our good answers It is impossible they should Mr. Report takes up this passage and exagitates it as a piece of Socinianism when it is manifest that Mr. Rebuke speaks it as a piece of Wit not meaning that Christ dyed only for our good but because what he did and suffered in our place and stead was for our good On the other hand Mr. Report speaking of the particular matter he was concern'd about says This is the substance of the Gospel Mr. Rebuke hereupon tells him of Regeneration Repentance Faith Good Works that are parts of the Gospel and thereby endeavours to expose him for Antinomianism as one that excludes these things out of the Gospel and in the end of his Vindication he cites some words out of Mr. Report 's Appeal and congratulates his return to himself
There is a third Sense of this Commutation which implies a translation of our sins upon Christ and of his Righteousness upon us which admits of a double Sense one of Dr. Crisp and the Antinomians and the other of such we call Orthodox embracing the Common Protestant Doctrine of Justification This third Sense as owned by Dr. Crisp the Bishop hath in short words set out right which is in two Points differing from the Orthodox One is that Dr. Crisp accounts our sins to be translated on or imputed to Christ not only as to the Obligation of Punishment but in regard to the guilt of the Fault The other is that Christs Righteousness is translated on the Elect before they believe and consequently they are justified without Faith Now the Bishop sets himself against this third Crispian Sense and bestows a great part of his Letter to confute this known exploded Error so that as I have said of our Brethrens Distinction before that they did but beat the Air and confute no Body I must needs say of the Bishop that he does indeed beat some Body that is confute the Crispian but his beating is besides the Cushion This excellent Bishops Work were to consider whether he shall admit or confute Mr. Lobb Dr. Owen and those that hold such a translation of our sins on Christ and his Righteousness on us as is maintained without either of these Crispian Errors To prove that a Man must believe before he is justified needs no more than these words of the Apostle We have believed that we may be justified The elaborate proving such Doctrine to be against the Scripture is but a prudential declination of that difficult Task that calls here for his undertaking The common Protestant I will suppose when the Scripture speaks of our sins being laid on Christ or Christ bearing our sins on the Cross or the like do understand no other thing than the Bishop that is he took on him our sins in regard to the Legal Guilt not Personal to use his words understanding by those Terms reatum paenae not culpae in the ordinary distinction for when the Bishop makes Legal Guilt to imply desert of Punishment as well as the Obligation to it his personal Guilt is one with Legal besides the term Legal Guilt is dangerous lest any thereby should understand Christ to be our Legal Person so as to be in us Guilty and we righteous in him or to speak surest he took on him our Punishment without the desert of it and so neither I or the Bishop or our Presbyterian Brethren differ in the least as to this part of the Translation which is to be granted as necessary to the Explanation of the Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction But as to the other part of this Translation which is the transferring his Righteousness on the Believer not on the Elect before Faith for that is Antinomianism in such a sense as is necessary to the making out the Doctrine of Justification according to the Common Protestant here is the Point which requires the Determination of this most Learned Bishop whereof if he dare venture his Credit so as to tell his Judgment plainly which would tend to the establishment of many he shall do a great thing a daring matter wherein yet he is thus far advanced that he hath in this Letter made an on-set on the greatest strength of the Antagonist which is That they raise upon the words of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.21 He hath made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him Unto which Text the Bishop answers That by Christs being made sin is meant a Sacrifice for sin according the Scripture Sense And we are made the Righteousness of God in him in that God upon the account of his Sacrifice and our Reconciliation to him does treat us as Righteous Persons or receive us into his Grace and Favour upon our believing I add upon our believing as what is understood by him And this is all he says that he can find St. Paul understood by this Expression Here we see this Text brought off so cleverly as that there is no Arrow hath toucht him but withal so cautiously and prudentially for fear of shot that I cannot but take notice of that Learned Gentleman that hath wrote on this Subject Sir Charles Wolseley's greater Resolution who hath said the same thing upon this Text with the Bishop but without dread of the Bullets The meaning is says he this Christ that was without sin was ordained of God to be a Sacrifice for sin that we might thereby be made righteous with the Gospel-Righteousness for that is the general meaning every where of the Righteousness of God Sir C. W's Evan. Just p. 64. The direct answer to this Text is this That the Righteousness of God in him is not the Righteousness of Christ according to our Common Protestant Divines which is manifest because God and Him are two as I have it in my Right of God P. 11. with this Argument Justitia Dei est finis sive effectum ex eo quod Christus peccatum pro nobis factus est Hoc autem ipsum est Christs obedientia E'go justitia Dei non est Christi Obedientia Wotton The Common Protestant Opinion accounted Orthodox is that we are justified by Faith Objective that is by Christs Righteousness which is its Object received by Faith as the Instrument making it ours so that God looks upon us as righteous in his Righteousness or accounts us so which is our Justification The Opinion I hold as what I think those that go Mr. Baxter's way are to come to I declare to be that we are justified by Faith Formaliter and through Christs Righteousness Si justitia est opus Dei quomodo erit opus Dei ut credatur in eum nisi ipsa sit justitia ut credamus in cum Aug. in Jo. 6.29 as the Meritorious Cause only The Scripture is manifest that by Faith we are justified Was not Abraham justified by Faith The just shall live by Faith This is stedfastly attested by the Apostle By Faith so that Faith is the id per quod as the Righteousness of Christ the id propter quod the Believer is justified The Meritorious Cause is the Efficient Protatarctick and cannot be the Formal That Christs Righteousness therefore is not the Believers formal Righteousness I must lay down among the set of Notions as certainly appertaining to Mr. Baxters way of Justification so that the Maintenance of or Departure from that Assertion does assuredly make or marr the right conception of that Article There is no Point of moment but hath its set of Notions as I say belonging to it and whether the Bishop will go the Common way of the Protestant or a way of his own altogether or the way of Mr. Baxter which I and Mr. Williams do go as to the main I suppose that excellent Person who is able to
perceive that Concatenation of Notions belonging to the way he takes will lay them so together as to make the whole agreeable knowing well that if he break one of the Set one Link he breaks all the whole Chain The fundamental Notion in the way that Mr. Baxter and I and Mr. Williams go is this That it is not by the Law but the Gospel not by the Law of Works but the Law of Grace that we are to be judged and consequently justified or condemned One other Notion of his near to this is that the Righteousness of Christ is not cannot be imputed to us that is reckoned to us as ours any otherwise than in the Effects The Righteousness of Christ is a Righteousness that answers the Law and if that be imputed to us in se for our Justification then we are justified by the Law When Mr. Williams therefore says with us that it is by the Gospel not the Law we are to be judged and yet that Besides the effects the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer that thereby he may be justified which must be understood it is a plain Inconsistency a perfect Tergiversation As for what Mr. Williams offers in Made made righteous p. 76. to 83. I have answered Pacifica p. 35 36. Let me ask him upon it when he says The very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer does he understand by the Righteousness of Christ that which his Brethren do or not If he does he is held under this Inconsistency and can never come off If he do not then the Brethren are deceived in him He appears to be of their Judgment about the Imputation of Christs Righteousness and yet understands by Christs Righteousness another thing than they do What Man before him ever said or understood that Christs Right to his Reward is the Righteousness which is imputed to a Believer I argue against him The Righteousness which is imputed to a Believer is that Righteousness which is the Meritorious Cause of his Justification But it is not Christs Right to his Reward but the Obedience of his Life and Death which two things he distinguishes and makes a double Righteousness and brings himself off with the first instead of affirming the last which is the Meritorious Cause of our Justification And as for what he says in affirming Christs Right to his Reward to be the Believers His own Right and the Believers to be the same Right it is impossible according to the Rule of Accidents as I answer him in my Pacification There is another Distinction of Mr. Williams which Mr. Alsop uses in his Rebuke directly contrary to him in the Terms yet Neither differing in the Doctrine of it that I will take this occasion to remember Dr. Crisp's Phrase of Change of Person Mr. Williams impugnes but yet grants a Change of Persons By Change of Person I doubt not but the Dr. meant a Change on both sides as appears by his Explication that Christ became a sinner as we and we righteous as he and that is a Change of Persons There is a Change of Person on one side and a Change of Person on both sides A Change of both sides is all one with a Change of Persons When Mr. Williams then upon this distinguishes between a Change of Person and Change of Persons it is his own Distinction when the Doctor never thought of any and when it is his own he may make what Construction of it he please and that he puts on it be sure shall be Orthodox for by the one he will have Dr. Crisp's Commutation understood and deny it by the other the Bishop's Commutation and hold it Here is his Doctrine found but his Distinction as he uses the Terms so forced strained unnatural that it is useless altotether but to bring himself off and serve his occasion Whereas the Distinction as used by Mr. Alsop is so apposite easie proper natural in the Terms that if it be stood to no Distinction can be of more use for deciding the Controversie of our Brethren By Change of Person Mr. Alsop understands One coming in the room of another By Change of Persons Both coming in the room of one another and when Mr. Williams grants a Change of Persons and denies a Change of Person he Mr. Alsop does hold a Change of Person and denies a Change of Persons and yet both agree I have said in the Doctrine they make of it Mr. Alsop's Distinction then fuller explained is between Christs sustaining or putting on our Person his taking our State and Condition or his obeying and suffering in our room or stead and Our sustaining or putting on Christs Persen taking on us his Quality or Condition or coming in his room or place The one he maintains and denies the other I will add he does hold and it is to be held that Christ stood in our room and stead and so may be said to put on our Person in obeying and suffering for us as necessary to the Doctrine of Satisfaction but he denies or I do as that which is to be denied that we take on us Christs Person or come in his room or stead as necessary which others affirm to our Justification To make this appear as to the right sense of it we must know that to take anothers Person or to do or suffer any thing in the room or place of another is to do or suffer the thing to free the other from the doing or suffering When Christ then is said to dye for us or for our sins which is all one as taking our Person or suffering in our room place or stead it signifies that he obeyed the Law and suffered the penalty that we might not be bound to that perfect Obedience as the Condition of Life and that we might not suffer the Curse of it and this is necessary to the making God Satisfaction that we may be pardoned and escape the same But for us to put on Christs Person or come in his room or stead does signifie our doing and suffering in him as our Legal or Civil Person what he did and suffered and so be look'd on as having fulfilled the Law both in obeying and suffering so that his Obedience both of his Life and Death is imputatively ours and we in sensu forensi as righteous as he in the sight of God and justified by the Law as Christ was This Commutation of Person therefore we deny as that Doctrine which subverts the Gospel It was a deep mistake in the much reading of Mr. Report to apprehend that the Commutation of Persons in the Sense of Grotius is conducive to the Explanation of the Doctrine of Justification according to the Common Protestant as it is to that of Satisfaction There was a Surrogation of Christs Person in our room for his making Satisfaction there is no Surrogation of our Persons in his room for receiving Justification Of the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us as if we