A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness, Book 1 · Chapter 3
CHAP. III.
A further explication of the Controversie.
Yet I am afraid lest I have not made the state of the Controversie plain enough to the unexercised Reader, and lest the very explicatory distinctions and propositions, though needful and suitable to the matter, should be unsuitable to his capacity; I will therefore go over it again in a shorter way, and make it as plain as possibly I can; being fully perswaded, that it is not so much Argumentation, as help to understand the matter, and our own and other mens ambiguous words, that is needful to end our abominable Contentions.
§ 1. THE Righteousness of a Person is formally a moral Relation of that Person.
§ 2. This moral Relation, is the Relation of that person to the Rule by which he is to be judged.
§ 3. And it is his Relation to some Cause, or supposed Accusation or Question to be decided by that judgment.
§ 4. The Rule of Righteousness here is Gods Law, naturally or supernaturally made known.
§ 5. The Law hath a Preceptive part, determining what shall be due from us, and a Retributive part determining what shall be due to us.
§ 6. The Precept instituting Duty, our Actions and Dispositions, which are the Matter of that duty, are physically considered, conform or disconform to the Precept.
§ 7. Being Physically, they are consequently so Morally considered, we being Moral Agents, and the Law a Rule of Morality.
§ 8. If the Actions be righteous or unrighteous, consequently the Person is so, in reference to those Actions, supposing that to be his Cause, or the Question to be decided.
§ 9. Unrighteousness as to this Cause, is Guilt, or Reatus Culpae; and to be unrighteous is to be Sons, or Guilty of sin.
§ 10. The Retributive part of the Law is, 1. Premiant, for Obedience; 2. Penal, for Disobedience.
§ 11. To be Guilty or Unrighteous as to the reward, is, to have no right to the reward (that being supposed the Question in judgment): And to be Righteous here, is to have right to the reward.
§ 12. To be Guilty as to the penalty; is to be jure puniendus, or Reus poenae, or obligatus ad poenam. And to be righteous here, is to have Right to impunity, (quoad poenam damni & sensus.)
§ 13. The first Law made personal, perfect, persevering Innocency both mans duty, and the Condition of the Reward and Impunity, and any sin the condition of punishment.
§ 14. Man broke this Law, and so lost his Innocency, and so the Condition became naturally impossible to him, de futuro.
§ 15. Therefore that Law as a Covenant, that is, the Promissory part with its Condition, ceased; cessante capacitate subditi; and so did the preceptive part. 1. As it commanded absolute Innocency (of act and habit.) 2. And as it commanded the seeking of the Reward on the Condition and by the means of personal Innocency. The Condition thus passing into the nature of a sentence; And punishment remaining due for the sin.
§ 16. But the Law remained still an obliging Precept for future perfect Obedience, and made punishment due for all future sin: and these two parts of it, as the Law of lapsed Nature, remained in force, between the first sin, and the new-Covenant promise or Law of Grace.
§ 17. The eternal Word interposing, a Mediator is promised, and Mercy maketh a Law of Grace, and the Word becometh mans Redeemer by undertaking, and by present actual reprieve, pardon and initial deliverance: and the fallen world, the miserable sinners, with the Law and obligations which they were under, are now become the Redemers jure Redemptionis, as before they were the Creator's jure Creationis.
§ 18. The Redeemers Law then hath two parts; 1. The said Law of lapsed nature (binding to future perfect obedience or punishment) which he found man under (called vulgarly the Moral Law.) 2. And a pardoning Remedying Law of Grace.
§ 19. Because man had dishonoured God and his Law by sin, the Redeemer undertook to take mans nature without sin, and by perfect Holiness and Obedience, and by becoming a Sacrifice for sin, to bring that Honour to God and his Law which we should have done, and to attain the Ends of Law and Government instead of our Perfection or Punishment, that for the Merit hereof we might be delivered and live.
§ 20. This he did in the third person of a Mediator, who as such had a Law or Covenant proper to himself, the Conditions of which he performed, (by perfect keeping, 1. The Law of Innocency; 2. Of Moses; 3. And that proper to himself alone) and so merited all that was promised to him, for Himself and Us.
§ 21. By his Law of Grace (as our Lord-Redeemer) he gave first to all mankind (in Adam, and after in Noah, and by a second fuller edition at his Incarnation) a free Pardon of the destructive punishment (but not of all punishment) with right to his Spirit of Grace, Adoption and Glory, in Union with Himself their Head, on Condition initially of Faith and Repentance, and progressively of sincere Obedience to the end, to be performed by his Help or Grace.
§ 22. By this Law of Grace (supposing the Law of lapsed nature aforesaid, inclusively) all the World is ruled, and shall be judged, according to that edition of it (to Adam or by Christ) which they are under. And by it they shall be Justified or Condemned.
§ 23. If the question then be, Have you kept or not kept the Conditions of the Law of Grace, Personal Performance or nothing must so far be our Righteousness, and not Christs keeping them for us, or Satisfaction for our not keeping them. And this is the great Case (so oft by Christ described Mat. 7. & 25. &c.) to be decided in judgment; and therefore the word Righteous and Righteousness are used for what is thus personal hundreds of times in Scripture.
§ 24. But as to the question, Have we kept the Law of Innocency? we must confess guilt and say, No: neither Immediately by our selves, nor Mediately by another, or Instrument: for Personal Obedience only is the performance required by that Law; Therefore we have no Righteousness consisting in such Performance or Innocency; but must confess sin, and plead a pardon.
§ 25. Therefore no man hath a proper Ʋniversal Righteousness, excluding all kind of Guilt whatsoever.
§ 26. Therefore no man is justified by the Law of Innocency (nor the Law Mosaical as of works;) either by the Preceptive or Retributive part: for we broke the Precept, and are by the Threatning heirs of death.
§ 27. That Law doth not justifie us, because Christ fulfilled it for us: For it said not (in words or sense) [Thou or one for thee shall Perfectly Obey, or Suffer:] It mentioned no Substitute: But it is the Law-giver (and not that Law) that justifieth us by other means.
§ 28. But we have another Righteousness imputed to us instead of that Perfect Legal Innocency and Rewardableness, by which we shall be accepted of God, and glorified at last as surely and fully (at least) as if we had never sinned, or had perfectly kept that Law; which therefore may be called our Pro-legal Righteousness.
§ 29. But this Righteousness is not yet either OURS by such a propriety as a Personal performance would have bin, nor OURS to all the same ends and purposes: It saveth us not from all pain, death or penal desertion, nor constituteth our Relation just the same.
§ 30. It is the Law of Grace that Justifieth us, both as giving us Righteousness, and as Virtually judging us Righteous when it hath made us so, and it is Christ as Judg according to that Law (and God by Christ) that will sentence us just, and executively so use us.
§ 31. The Grace of Christ first giveth us Faith and Repentance by effectual Vocation: And then the Law of Grace by its Donative part or Act doth give us a Right to Ʋnion with Christ as the Churches Head (and so to his Body) and with him a right to Pardon of past sin, and to the Spirit to dwell and act in us for the future, and to the Love of God, and Life eternal, to be ours in possession, if we sincerely obey and persevere.
§ 32. The total Righteousness then which we have (as an Accident of which we are the Subjects,) is 1. A right to Impunity, by the free Pardon of all our sins, and a right to Gods Favour and Glory, as a free gift quoad valorem, but as a Reward of our Obedience, quoad Ordinem conferendi & rationem Comparativ…m why one rather than another is judged meet for that free gift.) 2. And the Relation of one that hath by grace performed the Condition of that free Gift, without which we had been no capable recipients: which is initially [Faith and Repentance] the Condition of our Right begun, and consequently, sincere Obedience and Perseverance (the Condition of continued right.)
§ 33. Christs personal Righteousness is no one of the…e, and so is not our Constitutive Righteousness formally and strictly so called: For Formally our Righteousness is a Relation, (of right;) and it is the Relation of our own Persons: And a Relation is an accident: And the numerical Relation (or Right) of one person cannot be the same numerical Accident of another person as the subject.
§ 34. There are but three sorts of Causes; Efficient, Constitutive, and Final.
1. Christ is the efficient cause of all our Righteousness: (1. Of our Right to Pardon and Life; 2. And of our Gospel-Obedience:) And that many waies: 1. He is the Meritorious Cause: 2. He is the Donor by his Covenant; 3. And the Donor or Operator of our Inherent Righteousness by his Spirit: 4. And the moral efficient by his Word, Promise, Example, &c.
2. And Christ is partly the final cause.
3. But all the doubt is whether his personal Righteousness be the Constitutive Cause.
§ 35. The Constitutive Cause of natural bodily substances consisteth of Matter disposed, and Form. Relations have no Matter, but instead of Matter a Subject (and that is Our own persons here, and not Christ.) and a terminus and fundamentum.
§ 36. The Fundamentum may be called both the Efficient Cause of the Relation (as commonly it is) and the Matter from which it resulteth: And so Christs Righteousness is undoubtedly the Meritorious efficient Cause, and undoubtedly not the Formal Cause of our personal Relation of Righteousness: Therefore all the doubt is of the Material Cause.
§ 37. So that all the Controversie is come up to a bare name and Logical term; of which Logicians agree not as to the aptitude. All confess that Relalations have no proper Matter, besides the subject: all confess that the Fundamentum is loco efficientis, but whether it be a fit name to call it the Constitutive Matter of a Relation, there is no agreement.
§ 38. And if there were, it would not decide this Verbal Controversie: For 1. Titulus est fundamentum Juris: The fundamentum of our Right to Impunity and Life in and with Christ, is the Donative act of our Saviour in and by his Law or Covenant of Grace: that is our Title; And from that our Relation resulteth, the Conditio tituli vel juris being found in our selves. 2. And our Relation of Performers of that Condition of the Law of Grace, resulteth from our own performance as the fundamentum (compared to the Rule.) So that both these parts of our Righteousness have a nearer fundamentum than Christs personal Righteousness.
§ 39. But the Right given us by the Covenant (and the Spirit and Grace) being a Right merited first by Christs personal Righteousness, this is a Causa Causae, id est, fundamenti, seu Donationis: And while this much is certain, whether it shall be called a Remote fundamentum (viz. Causa fundamenti) and so a Remote Constitutive Material Cause, or only (properly) a Meritorious Cause, may well be left to the arbitrary Logician, that useeth such notions as he pleases; but verily is a Controversie unfit to tear the Church for, or destroy Love and Concord by.
§ 40. Quest. 1. Is Christs Righteousness OƲRS? Ans. Yes; In some sense, and in another not.
§ 41. Quest. 2. Is Christs Righteousness OƲRS? Ans. Yes; In the sense before opened; For all things are ours; and his righteousness more than lower Causes.
§ 42. Quest. 3. Is Christs Righteousness OƲRS as it was or is His own, with the same sort of propriety? Ans. No.
§ 43. Quest. 4. Is the formal Relation of Righteous as an accident of our persons, numerically the same Righteousness? Ans. No; It is impossible: Unless we are the same person.
§ 44. Quest. 5. Is Christ and each Believer one political person? Ans. A political person is an equivocal word: If you take it for an Office (as the King or Judg is a political person) I say, No: If for a Society, Yea; But noxia & noxa caput sequuntur: True Guilt is an accident of natural persons, and of Societies only as constituted of such; and so is Righteousness; Though Physically Good or Evil may for society-sake, befal us without personal desert or consent.
But if by [Person] you mean a certain State or Condition (as to be a subject of God, or one that is to suffer for sin) so Christ may be said to be the same person with us in specie, but not numerically; because that Accident whence his Personality is named, is not in the same subject.
§ 45. Quest. 6. Is Christs Righteousness imputed to us? Ans. Yes; If by imputing you mean reckoning or reputing it ours, so far as is aforesaid, that is such a Cause of ours.
§ 46. Quest. 7. Are we reputed our selves to have fulfilled all that Law of Innocency in and by Christs, as representing our persons, as obeying by him? Ans. No.
§ 47. Quest. 8. Is it Christs Divine, Habitual, Active or Passive Righteousness which Justifieth us? Ans. All: viz, the Habitual, Active and Passive exalted in Meritoriousness by Union with the Divine.
§ 48. Quest. 9. Is it Christs Righteousness, or our Faith which is said to be imputed to us for Righteousness? Rom. 4. Ans. 1. The text speaketh of imputing Faith, and by Faith is meant Faith, and not Christs Righteousness in the word: But that Faith is Faith in Christ and his Righteousness; and the Object is quasi materia actus, and covenanted.
2. De re, both are Imputed: that is, 1. Christs Righteousness is reputed the meritorious Cause. 2. The free-gift (by the Covenant) is reputed the fundamentum juris (both opposed to our Legal Merit.) 3. And our Faith is reputed the Conditio tituli, and all that is required in us to our Justification, as making us Qualified Recipients of the free-Gift merited by Christ.
§ 49. Quest. 10. Are we any way Justified by our own performed Righteousness? Ans. Yes; Against the charge of non-performance, (as Infidels, Impenitent, Unholy,) and so as being uncapable of the free-gift of Pardon and Life in Christ.