Aphorisms of Justification, Thesis 51 – Thesis 55
THESIS LI.
YEt if Satan, or any other, should falsly accuse us of not performing the conditions of the new Covenant, and so having no part in Christs Satisfaction, here we must be justified only by our Faith, or personall Gospell-Righteousness, and not by any thing that Christ hath done or suffered: For in all false accusations we must defend our innocency and plead not guilty.
EXPLICATION.
BUt because there is no danger to us from false accusation before the all-knowing God, therefore Scripture saith nothing of any such Justification, Yet at the bar of men it is frequently usefull, where false accusations may be heard; & therefore David, Iob, &c. do plead their Innocency against their accusers. Also at the bar of our own erroneous Consciences this kind of Justification is frequently full; for there Satan hath more hope that his false accusations may take place, then at the Bar of God: Wherefore he more usually accuseth Christians to themselves of being graceless, and unbeleevers, and impenitent, and of having no part in Christ, then of breaking the Law by their sins. And in such cases, when the accusation is false, we have no way to answer it, but by pleading not guilty, & casting back the accusation as a lying slander, and producing our Faith and Gospel-Obedience, or what ever grace we are accused to want: And so it is that our own graces and duties may be properly our comfort: It will be but a senceless shift in such an accusation to shew Christs Legall Righteousness in stead of our own Evangelicall Righteousness. To tell Satan, that Christ hath fulfilled the Law for us, when he is accusing us of not fulfilling the Gospell; silly women are made beleeve by Antinomian Teachers, that this is a solid way of comforting: But Satan is a better Logitian then to take quid pro quo, and to be baffled with such arguing. And as silly, and more false a shift it will be, to tell him, that Christ hath beleeved, repented and fulfilled the Gospell-Conditions for us, as I have shewed before. The best is, these Teachers do but spoyle the comforts of beleevers, and not their safety; for in the case in hand, we suppose the accusation to be false: But yet by such grounds they may very easily overthrow the safety also of unbeleevers, while they teach them how to comfort themselves without Faith, or to look at all out of themselves in Christ, and so to silence the accusation of both Covenants, by producing only the Righteousness of one.
THESIS LII.
WE must not plead for our Iustification, that Christ hath made us free from the very fact; nor, (2) from the sinfulness of the fact; nor, (3) from its desert of punishment; If Christ had done any of this for us, he must verifie Contradictories. But we must plead, that the penalty is not due to our persons notwithstanding the fact, and its sinfulness and demerit, because Christ hath satisfied for all this.
EXPLICATION.
SO Mr Anthony Burgess in his book of Justif. pag, 19. affirmeth as much, though some take it for hainous doctrine. 1. That the fact should be done, and not done, is a contradiction. 2. So is it, That the fact should be sinful, and not sinful. 3. Or that it should deserve death, and not deserve it: Or that it should be a sin against that threatening Law, and yet not deserve the penalty threatened. Besides, if any of these three could have been taken off, what need Christ have dyed? But that which Remission and Justification freeth us from, is the dueness of punishment to our persons, notwithstanding the dueness of it to the sin; because what is due to the sin, is inflicted on the person of another already, even Christ. So that you see in what sence Christ taketh away sin and guilt, which you must observe, lest you run into the Antinomian conceit, That God seeth not sin in his justified ones. When we say therefore that God looketh on our sins as if they had never been committed, the meaning is, that, in regard to punishment, they shall have no more power to condemn us, then if they had never been committed.
THESIS LIII.
THe offending of God, and the desert and procuring of punishment, are not two distinct effects of sin, as some make them; nor is the removal of the curse and punishment, and the obtaining of Gods favour, two distinct parts of our Iustification.
EXPLICATION.
THis is plain, because Gods displeasure against our persons (for his dislike of the sin is never taken off) is a chief part of our punishment, and therefore not to be distinguished from it, but as the Species from its Genus. And so when all the punishment is removed, then Gods displeasure, or the loss of his favour, must needs be removed: Therefore that Justification in this differs from Remission of sin, I cannot yet think, (as that godly and learned Servant of Christ, whom I honour and reverence, Mr Burgess of Iustificat. pag. 259. doth,) That Justification, besides the pardon of sin, doth connote a state that the subject is put into, viz. a state of favour, being reconciled with God. Because even Remission it self doth connote that state of favour: For if the loss of Gods favour be part of the punishment, and all the punishment be remitted, then the favour which we lost must needs be thereby restored. Indeed there is a two-fold Favour of God, 1. That which we lost in the fall; 2. More super-added by Christ, besides the former restored: Of these in the following Position.
THESIS. LIV.
REmission, Iustification and Reconciliation do but restore the offender into the same state of freedom and favour that he fell from; But Adoption and Marriage-Vnion with Christ do advance him far higher.
EXPLICATION.
THe three former are all concomitant consequents of one and the same Act of God by his Gospell: The freedom from obligation to punishment is called Remission: the freedom from Accusation and Condemnation is called Justification; and the freedom from enmity and displeasure is called Reconciliation, which are all at once, & do all denote but our Restauration to our former state. Adoption and Marriage-Union do add the rest.
Some may blame me for putting Union among the relative Graces, and not rather among those that make a real physicall change upon us, as Sanctificition and Glorification. But I do herein, according to my judgment, whereof to give the full reasons here would be too large a digression. I know that Caspar Streso, and divers others, do place it in an unconceivable, unexpressable medium between these two, which yet must be called a Reall Union, more then a Relative, though not Physicall: I will not now stand on …his … knowledg a Reall Foundation of a Relative Union, and a Reall Communion following thereupon: But am very fearfull of coming so near, as to make Christ and sinners one reall Person, (as the late elevated Sect among us do,) lest blasphemously I should deifie man, and debase Christ to be actually a sinner. And if we are not one reall Person with Christ, then one what? It sufficeth me to know as abovesaid, and that we are one with Christ in as strist a bond of relation as the wife with the husband, and far stricter; and that we are his body mysticall, but not naturall. That we shall be one with him, as he is one with the Father, is true: But that [as] doth not extend the similitude to all respects, but to a truth in some.
THESIS. LV.
BEfore it be committed it is no sin; and where there is no sin, the penalty is not due; and where it is not due, it cannot properly be forgiven; therefore sin is not forgiven before it be committed, though the grounds of certain Remission be laid before.
EXPLICATION.
FOr proof of this I refer you to Master Burgess of Iustificati. Lect. 28.