A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness, Book 1 · Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
The Reasons of our denying the fore-described rigid sence of Imputation.
Though it were most accurate to reduce what we deny to several Propositions, and to confute each one argumentatively by it self, yet I shall now choose to avoid such prolixity; and for brevity and the satisfaction of such as look more at the force of a Reason, than the form of the Argument, I shall thrust together our denyed Sence, with the manifold Reasons of our denyal.
WE deny, that God doth so Impute Christs Righteousness to us, as to repute or account us to have been Holy with all that Habitual Holiness which was in Christ, or to have done all that he did in obedience to his Father, or in fulfilling the Law, or to have suffered all that he suffered, and to have made God satisfaction for our own sins, and merited our own Salvation and Justification, in and by Christ; or that he was, did and suffered, and merited, all this strictly in the person of every sinner that is saved; Or that Christs very individual Righteousness Material or Formal, is so made ours in a strict sense, as that we are Proprietors, Subjects, or Agents of the very thing it self simply and absolutely, as it is distinct from the effects; or that Christs Individual Formal Righteousness, is made our Formal Personal Righteousness; or that as to the effects, we have any such Righteousness Imputed to us, as formally ours, which consisteth in a perfect Habitual and Actual Conformity to the Law of Innocency; that is, that we are reputed perfectly Holy and sinless, and such as shall be Justified by the Law of Innocency, which saith, Perfectly Obey and Live, or sin and die.] All this we deny.
Let him that will answer me, keep to my words, and not alter the sense by leaving any out. And that he may the better understand me, I add, 1. I take it for granted that the Law requireth Habitual Holiness as well as Actual Obedience, and is not fulfilled without both. 2. That Christ loved God and man with a perfect constant Love, and never sinned by Omission or Commission. 3. That Christ died not only for our Original sin, or sin before Conversion, but for all our sin to our lives end. 4. That he who is supposed to have no sin of Omission, is supposed to have done all his duty. 5. That he that hath done all his duty, is not condemnable by that Law, yea hath right to all the Reward promised on Condition of that duty. 6. By Christs Material Righteousness, I mean, those Habits, Acts and Sufferings in which his Righteousness did consist, or was founded. 7. By his and our Formal Righteousness, I mean the Relation it self of being Righteous. 8. And I hold that Christs Righteousness, did not only Numerically (as aforesaid) but also thus totâ specie, in kind differ from ours, that his was a perfect Habitual and Actual Conformity to the Law of Innocency, together with the peculiar Laws of Mediator-ship, by which he merited Redemption for us, and Glory for himself and us: But ours is the Pardon of sin, and Right to Life, Purchased, Merited and freely given us by Christ in and by a new Covenant, whose condition is Faith with Repentance, as to the gift of our Justification now, and sincere Holiness, Obedience, Victory and Perseverance as to our possession of Glory.
Now our Reasons against the denyed sence of Imputation are these.
1. In general this opinion setteth up and introduceth all Antinomianism or Libertinism, and Ungodliness, and subverteth the Gospel and all true Religion and Morality.
I do not mean that all that hold it, have such effects in themselves, but only that this is the tendency and consequence of the opinion: For I know that many see not the nature and consequences of their own opinions, and the abundance that hold damnable errors, hold them but notionally in a peevish faction, and therefore not dammingly, but hold practically and effectually the contrary saving truth. And if the Papists shall perswade Men that our doctrine, yea theirs that here mistake, cannot consist with a godly life, let but the lives of Papists and Protestants be compared. Yea in one of the Instances before given; Though some of the Congregationalparty hold what was recited, yet so far are they from ungodly lives, that the greatest thing in which I differ from them is, the overmuch unscriptural strictness of some of them, in their Church-admissions and Communion, while they fly further from such as they think not godly, than I think God would have them do, being generally persons fearing God themselves: (Excepting the sinful alienation from others, and easiness to receive and carry false reports of Dissenters, which is common to all that fall into sidings.) But the errors of any men are never the better if they be found in the hands of godly men: For if they be practised they will make them ungodly.
2. It confoundeth the Person of the Mediator, and of the Sinner: As if the Mediator who was proclaimed the Beloved of the Father, and therefore capable of reconciling us to him, because he was still well-pleased in him, had (not only suffered in the room of the sinner by voluntary Sponsion, but also) in suffering and doing, been Civilly the very person of the sinner himself; that sinner I say, who was an enemy to God, and so esteemed.
3. It maketh Christ to have been Civilly as many persons as there be elect sinners in the World: which is both beside and contrary to Scripture.
4. It introduceth a false sence and supposition of our sin imputed to Christ, as if Imputatively it were his as it is ours, even the sinful Habits, the sinful Acts, and the Relation of evil, Wicked, Ʋngodly and Ʋnrighteous which resulteth from them: And so it maketh Christ really hated of God: For God cannot but hate any one whom he reputeth to be truly ungodly, a Hater of God, an Enemy to him, a Rebel, as we all were: whereas it was only the Guilt of Punishment, and not of Crime, as such that Christ assumed: He undertook to suffer in the room of sinners; and to be reputed one that had so undertaken; But not to be reputed really a sinner, an ungodly person, hater of God, one that had the Image of the Devil.
5. Nay it maketh Christ to have been incomparably the worst man that ever was in the World by just reputation; and to have been by just imputation guilty of all the sins of all the Elect that ever lived, and reputed one of the Murderers of himself, and one of the Persecutors of his Church, or rather many: and the language that Luther used Catechrestically, to be strictly and properly true.
6. It supposeth a wrong sence of the Imputation of Adams sin to his posterity: As if we had been justly reputed persons existent in his person, and so in him to have been persons that commited the same sin; whereas we are only reputed to be now (not then) persons who have a Nature derived from him, which being then seminally only in him, deriveth by propagation an answerable Guilt of his sinful fact, together with natural Corruption.
7. It supposeth us to be Justifiable and Justified by the Law of Innocency, made to Adam, as it saith [Obey perfectly and Live.] As if we fulfilled it by Christ: which is not only an addition to the Scripture, but a Contradiction. For it is only the Law or Covenant of Grace that we are Justified by.
8. It putteth, to that end, a false sence upon the Law of Innocency: For whereas it commandeth Personal Obedience, and maketh Personal punishment due to the offender: This supposeth the Law to say or mean [Either thou, or one for thee shall Obey; or, Thou shalt obey by thy self, or by another: And if thou sin thou shalt suffer by thy self, or by another.
Whereas the Law knew no Substitute or Vicar, no nor Sponsor; nor is any such thing said of it in the Scripture: so bold are men in their additions.
9. It falsly supposeth that we are not Judged and duplicate page duplicate page Justified by the new Covenant or Law of Grace, but (but is said) by the Law of Innocency.
10. It fathereth on God an erring judgment, as if he reputed, reckoned or accounted things to be what they are not, and us to have done what we did not. To repute Christ a Sponsor for sinners who undertook to obey in their natures, and suffer in their place and stead, as a Sacrifice to redeem them, is all just and true: And to repute us those for whom Christ did this. But to repute Christ to have been really and every one of us, or a sinner, or guilty of sin it self; or to repute us to have been habitually as Good as Christ was, or actually to have done what he did, either Naturally or Civilly and by Him as our substitute, and to repute us Righteous by possessing his formal personal Righteousness in it self; All these are untrue, and therefore not to be ascribed to God. To Impute it to us, is but to Repute us as verily and groundedly Righteous by his Merited and freely-Given Pardon, and Right to Life, as if we had merited it our selves.
11. It feigneth the same Numerical Accident [their Relation of Righteousness] which was in one subject to be in another, which is Impossible.
12. It maketh us to have satisfied Divine Justice for our selves, and merited Salvation (and all that we receive) for our selves, in and by another: And so that we may plead our own Merits with God for Heaven and all his benefits.
13. The very making and tenor of the new Covenant, contradicteth this opinion: For when God maketh a Law or Covenant, to convey the effects of Christs Righteousness to us, by degrees and upon certain Conditions, this proveth that the very Righteousness in it self simply was not ours: else we should have had these effects of it both presently and immediately and absolutely without new Conditions.
14. This opinion therefore maketh this Law of Grace, which giveth the benefits to us by these degrees and upon terms, to be an injury to Believers, as keeping them from their own.
15. It seemeth to deny Christs Legislation in the Law of Grace, and consequently his Kingly Office. For if we are reputed to have fulfilled the whole Law of Innocency in Christ, there is no business for the Law of Grace to do.
16. It seemeth to make internal Sanctification by the Spirit needless, or at least, as to one half of its use: For if we are by just Imputation in Gods account perfectly Holy, in Christs Holiness the first moment of our believing, nothing can be added to Perfection; we are as fully Amiable in the fight of God, as if we were sanctified in our selves; Because by Imputation it is all our own.
17. And so it seemeth to make our after-Obedience unnecessary, at least as to half its use: For if in Gods true account, we have perfectly obeyed to the death by another, how can we be required to do it all or part again by our selves? If all the debt of our Obedience be paid, why is it required again?
18. And this seemeth to Impute to God a nature less holy and at enmity to sin, than indeed he hath; if he can repute a man laden with hateful sins, to be as perfecty Holy, Obedient and Amiable to him as if we were really so in himself, because another is such for him.
19. If we did in our own persons Imputatively what Christ did, I think it will follow that we sinned; that being unlawful to us which was Good in him. It is a sin for us to be Circumcised, and to keep all the Law of Moses, and send forth Apostles, and to make Church-Ordinances needful to Salvation. Therefore we did not this in Christ: And if not this, they that distinguish and tell us what we did in Christ, and what not, must prove it. I know that Christ did somewhat which is a common duty of all men, and somewhat proper to the Jews, and somewhat proper to himself: But that one sort of men did one part in Christ, and another sort did another part in him, is to be proved.
20. If Christ suffered but in the Person of sinful man, his sufferings would have been in vain, or no Satisfaction to God: For sinful man is obliged to perpetual punishment; of which a temporal one is but a small part: Our persons cannot make a temporal suffering equal to that perpetual one due to man: but the transcendent person of the Mediator did.
Obj. Christ bore both his own person and ours: It belongeth to him as Mediator to personate the guilty sinner.
Ans. It belongeth to him as Mediator to undertake the sinners punishment in his own person. And if any will improperly call that, the Personating and Representing of the sinner, let them limit it, and confess that it is not simply, but in tantum, so far, and to such uses …d no other, and that yet sinners did it not in and by Christ, but only Christ for them to convey the benefits as he pleased; And then we delight not to quarrel about more words; though we like the phrase of Scripture better than theirs.
21. If Christ was perfectly Holy and Obedient in our persons, and we in him, then it was either in the Person of Innocent man before we sinned, or of sinful man. The first cannot be pretended: For man as Innocent had not a Redeemer. If of sinful man, then his perfect Obedience could not be meritorious of our Salvation: For it supposeth him to do it in the person of a sinner: and he that hath once sinned, according to that Law, is the Child of death, and uncapable of ever fulfilling a Law, which is fulfilled with nothing but sinless perfect perpetual Obedience.
Obj. He first suffered in our stead and persons as sinners, and then our sin being pardoned, he after in our persons fulfilled the Law, instead of our after-Obedience to it.
Ans. 1. Christs Obedience to the Law was before his Death. 2. The sins which he suffered for, were not only before Conversion, but endure as long as our lives: Therefore if he fulfilled the Law in our persons after we have done sinning, it is in the persons only of the dead. 3. We are still obliged to Obedience our selves.
Obj. But yet though there be no such difference in Time, God doth first Impute his sufferings to us for pardon of all our sins to the death, and in order of nature, his Obedience after it, as the Merit of our Salvation.
Ans. 1. God doth Impute or Repute his sufferings the satisfying cause of our Pardon, and his Merits of Suffering and the rest of his Holiness and Obedience, as the meritorious cause of our Pardon and our Justification and Glory without dividing them. But 2. that implyeth that we did not our selves reputatively do all this in Christ: As shall be further proved.
22. Their way of Imputation of the Satisfaction of Christ, overthroweth their own doctrine of the Imputation of his Holiness and Righteousness. For if all sin be fully pardoned by the Imputed Satisfaction, then sins of Omission and of habitual Privation and Corruption are pardoned; and then the whole punishment both of Sense and Loss is remitted: And he that hath no sin of Omission or Privation, is a perfect doer of his duty, and holy; and he that hath no punishment of Loss, hath title to Life, according to that Covenant which he is reputed to have perfectly obeyed. And so he is an heir of life, without any Imputed Obedience upon the pardon of all his Disobedience.
Obj. But Adam must have obeyed to the Death if he would have Life eternal: Therefore the bare pardon of his sins did not procure his right to life.
Ans. True, if you suppose that only his first sin was pardoned: But 1. Adam had right to heaven as long as he was sinless. 2. Christ dyed for all Adams sins to the last breath, and not for the first only: And so he did for all ours. And if all the sins of omission to the death be pardoned, Life is due to us as righteous.
Obj. A Stone may be sinless, and yet not righteous nor have Right to life.
Ans. True: because it is not a capable subject. But a man cannot be sinless, but he is Righteous, and hath right to life by Covenant.
Obj. But not to punish is one thing and to Reward is another?
Ans. They are distinct formal Relations and Notions: But where felicity is a Gift and called a Reward only for the terms and order of Collation, and where Innocency is the same with perfect Duty, and is the title-Condition; there to be punished is to be denyed the Gift, and to be Rewarded is to have the Gift as qualified persons: and not to Reward, is materially to punish; and to be reputed innocent is to be reputed a Meriter. And it is impossible that the most Innocent man can have any thing from God, but by way of free-Gift as to the Thing in Value; however it may be merited in point of Governing Paternal Justice as to the Order of donation.
Obj. But there is a greater Glory merited by Christ, than the Covenant of works promised to man.
Ans. 1. That's another matter, and belongeth not to Justification, but to Adoption. 2. Christs Sufferings as well as his Obedience, considered as meritorious, did purchase that greater Glory. 3. We did not purchase or merit it in Christ, but Christ for us.
23. Their way of Imputation seemeth to me to leave no place or possibility for Pardon of sin, or at least of no sin after Conversion. I mean, that according to their opinion who think that we fulfilled the Law in Christ as we are elect from eternity, it leaveth no place for any pardon: And according to their opinion who say that we fulfilled it in him as Believers, it leaveth no place for pardon of any sin after Faith. For where the Law is reputed perfectly fulfilled (in Habit & Act) there it is reputed that the person hath no sin. We had no sin before we had a Being; and if we are reputed to have perfectly obeyed in Christ from our first Being, we are reputed sinless. But if we are reputed to have obeyed in him only since our believing, then we are reputed to have no sin since our Believing. Nothing excludeth sin, if perfect Habitual and Actual Holiness and Obedience do not.
24. And consequently Christs blood shed and Satisfaction is made vain, either as to all our lives, or to all after our first believing.
25. And then no believer must confess his sin, nor his desert of punishment nor repent of it, or be humbled for it.
26. And then all prayer for the pardon of such sin is vain, and goeth upon a false supposition, that we have sin to pardon.
27. And then no man is to be a partaker of the Sacrament as a Conveyance or Seal of such pardon; nor to believe the promise for it.
28. Nor is it a duty to give thanks to God or Christ for any such pardon.
29. Nor can we expect Justification from such guilt here or at Judgment.
30. And then those in Heaven praise Christ in errour, when they magnifie him that washed them from such sins in his blood.
31. And it would be no lie to say that we have no sin, at least, since believing.
32. Then no believer should fear sinning, because it is Impossible and a Contradiction, for the same person to be perfectly innocent to the death, and yet a sinner.
33. Then the Consciences of believers have no work to do, or at least, no examining, convincing, self-accusing and self-judging work.
34. This chargeth God by Consequence of wronging all believers whom he layeth the least punishment upon: For he that hath perfectly obeyed, or hath perfectly satisfied, by himself or by another in his person, cannot justly be punished. But I have elsewhere fully proved, that Death and other Chastisements are punishments, though not destructive, but corrective: And so is the permission of our further sinning.
35. It intimateth that God wrongeth believers, for not giving them immediately more of the Holy Ghost, and not present perfecting them and freeing them from all sin: For though Christ may give us the fruits of his own merits in the time and way that pleaseth himself; yet if it be we our selves that have perfectly satisfied and merited in Christ, we have present Right to the thing merited thereupon, and it is an injury to deny it us at all.
36. And accordingly it would be an injury to keep them so long out of Heaven, if they themselves did merit it so long ago.
37. And the very Threatning of Punishment in the Law of Grace would seem injurious or incongruous, to them that have already reputatively obeyed perfectly to the death.
38. And there would be no place left for any Reward from God, to any act of obedience done by our selves in our natural or real person: Because having reputatively fulfilled all Righteousness, and deserved all that we are capable of by another, our own acts can have no reward.
39. And I think this would overthrow all Humane Laws and Government: For all true Governours are the Officers of God, and do what they do in subordination to God; and therefore cannot justly punish any man, whom he pronounceth erfectly Innocent to the death.
40. This maketh every believer (at least) as Righteous as Christ himself, as having true propriety in all the same numerical Righteousness as his own. And if we be as Righteous as Christ, are we not as amiable to God? And may we not go to God in our Names as Righteous?
41. This maketh all believers (at least) equally Righteous in degree, and every one perfect, and no difference between them. David and Solomon as Righteous in the act of sinning as before, and every weak and scandalous believer, to be as Righteous as the best. Which is not true, though many say that Justification hath no degrees, but is perfect at first; as I have proved in my Life of Faith and elsewhere.
42. This too much levelleth Heaven and Earth; For in Heaven there can be nothing greater than perfection.
43. The Scripture no-where calleth our Imputed Righteousness by the name of Innocency, or sinless Perfection, nor Inculpability Imputed. Nay when the very phrase of Imputing Christs Righteousness is not there at all, to add all these wrong descriptions of Imputation, is such Additions to Gods words as tendeth to let in almost any thing that mans wit shall excogitate, and ill beseemeth them, that are for Scripture-sufficiency and perfection, and against Additions in the general. And whether some may not say that we are Imputatively Christ himself, Conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, Crucified, &c. I cannot tell.
To conclude, the honest plain Christian may without disquieting the Church or himself, be satisfied in this certain simple truth; That we are sinners and deserve everlasting misery: That Christ hath suffered as a Sacrifice for our sins in our room and stead, and satisfied the Justice of God: That he hath by his perfect Holiness and Obedience with those sufferings, merited our pardon and life: That he never hereby intended to make us Lawless or have us Holy, but hath brought us under a Law of Grace: which is the Instrument by which he pardoneth, justifieth and giveth us Right to life: That by this Covenant he requireth of us Repentance and true Faith to our first Justification, and sincere Obedience, Holiness and Perseverance to our Glorification, to be wrought by his Grace and our Wills excited and enabled by it: That Christs Sufferings are to save us from suffering; but his Holiness and Obedience are to merit Holiness, Obedience & Happiness for us, that we may be like him, and so be made personally amiable to God: But both his Sufferings and Obedience, do bring us under a Covenant, where Perfection is not necessary to our Salvation.