The Protestant Doctrine of Justification by Christs Righteousness Part 2, Title page – To the reader
Lutherus Redivivus: OR, The Proteſtant Doctrine of JUSTIFICATION By Chriſt's Righteouſneſs Imputed to BELIEVERS, Explained and Vindicated. PART II. By John Troughton Miniſter of the Goſpel, ſometimes Fellow of S. John's Coll. in Oxon.
Auguſtin. Epiſt. 105. Ad Sixtum Presbyterum Romanum. Nullane ergò ſunt merita Juſtorum? Sunt planè, quia juſti ſunt; ſed ut juſti fierent, merita non fecerunt: Juſti enim facti ſunt, cum juſtificati ſunt; ſed ſicut dicit Apoſtolus, Juſtificati gratis per gratiam ipſius.
LONDON, Printed for Sam. Lee near Popes-Head-Alley in Lumbard-Street. 1678.
THE PREFACE TO THE READER.
Courteous Reader,
IN the former Part of this Work I endeavoured to open and refute the Novel Opinion of Justification upon condition of Obedience to the Goſpel: Which (however plauſibly worded, and vented) is in ſubſtance no other, than the Old Popiſh Doctrine of Merits and Juſtification by Works: And wherein it is refin'd from the old School-Notions, it cometh but ſo much the nearer to Socinianiſm, from whence the whole Platform of this Doctrine was taken, and differs from it very little.
In this preſent Treatiſe my work is to explain and confirm the Proteſtant Doctrine of Juſtification by the Righteouſneſs of Chriſt, imputed to us by God, and received by us by Faith, which is denied by the Aſſertors of Conditional Justification. They are indeed almost as loath the People ſhould know, that they deny us to be juſtified by the Merits or Righteouſneſs of Chriſt, as once Steph. Gardner was, That the Doctrine of Juſtification by Free Grace ſhould be preached to them: And for the ſame Reaſon, viz. The ſaving of their own Credit: And hence they tell us, That the Term of Imputation of Righteouſneſs, is ſtill to be retained: That Chriſt meriteth our Justification, That he is our Legal or Pro-legal Righteouſneſs, &c. They ſpeak as like our Orthodox Divines as they can, that it may not commonly appear wherein they differ: Yet in all this, they mean no more but that Chriſt by his Obedience, or Death, or both, obtained a New Covenant for us, i. e. the Evangelical Law, which if we fulfill, and continue in it to the end of our Lives, we ſhall have our Sins pardoned, ſhall be accepted and ſaved. So that the Righteouſneſs for which we ſhall be accepted, and made Heirs of Eternal Life, is our Obedience to the Goſpel, not the Obedience or Righteouſneſs of Jeſus Chriſt; and with them the Imputing of Chriſt's Righteouſneſs to us for Justification, is our being juſtified by our own Obedience to the Goſpel-Covenant, which Chriſt procured by his Righteouſneſs; not our being juſtified or accepted to life for the Righteouſneſs of Chriſt intended, and performed immediately and only for us, as all Proteſtants have hitherto taught, except the Dutch Arminians, and their Followers. They do endeavour to obſcure and perplex the Queſtion what they can, partly by the Rhetorical, and ſometimes Imprudent Expreſſions of Popular Preachers and Writers, (which ought rather to be interpreted and qualified, than exagitated to the prejudice of Truth) and partly by the Philoſophical Notions and School-Terms accommodated to this Doctrine as well as others, and too much transferred from the Schools of the Learned to the Pulpit and popular Congregations: From both theſe they pick matters of quarrel against this received and fundamental Truth: And always propoſe the Queſtion in ſuch terms, that it may ſeem they diſpute only againſt the Antinomians, or ſome that have ſpoke too like them; or elſe ſome Logical Notions and Formalities of School-Divines: Amongſt all that I have read with ſome care to know the true state of the Queſtion, and what the New Doctrine of thoſe men is, I have not met with one that doth fairly and ingenuouſly ſtate the Queſtion according to the Sence, which they intend, and diſpute for: But they always thruſt in ſome terms lyable to exception, which belong not to the ſubſtance of the Question it ſelf, e. g. They uſually propound the Queſtion thus:
Whether Chriſt's Righteouſneſs be imputed to us, ſo that we are accounted by God to have done and ſuffered all, that Chriſt did and ſuffered for us, whether we fulfill the Law in him, and ſuffered the Penalty of it in him.
And then they infer from the Doctrine of Imputation in general, what followeth only from their miſrepreſenting it, That we ſatisfied for our ſelves, obeyed and ſuffered for our ſelves, were our own Mediatours and Saviours, &c. Which Conſequences ſeem not only uncooth but abſurd I and are readily received by the unlearned and precipitant Wits, who had rather ſeem ingenious in finding fault with old received Doctrines, than take pains to underſtand them throughly.
I have endeavoured to divest the Doctrine of Juſtification by Chriſt's Righteouſneſs Imputed, of the Additions, both of School-Notions, and popular Rhetorick; and to preſent it in the plain Scriptural dreſs, to prove it by plain Scripture and Arguments deduced thence, in the three firſt Chapters; and then to examine their Ob…ections against it, which, when they are levelled againſt the Queſtion as it is plainly ſtated, are ſo inconſiderable, that I cannot but wonder, that Learned and Pious men ſhould lay ſo great a ſtreſs upon them, as to innovate, and alter the Doctrine which all the Protestants have profeſt, writ, and died for; this is done in the fourth Chapter, In the fifth and ſixth I examine the original and true meaning of the oppoſite Opinion and refute it. In the reſt of the Book I explain and defend the Inſtrumental Office of Faith in justifying us, and anſwer the Objections againſt it.
The Queſtion betwixt us is plainly this.
Whether God doth juſtifie Believing Sinners, i. e. acquit them from Guilt and Puniſhment, and give them a Right to Eternal Life for their own Obedience to the Goſpel? Or immediately for the Righteouſneſs of Chriſt wrought for them, and truſted in by them, as it is declared in the Promiſes of the Goſpel?
The former they affirm, and we have diſproved in the other Part: The latter they deny, and we affirm, and …ove, viz. That God doth accept believing Sinners, and gives them a certain grant of Eternal Life directly and immediately for the Obedience of Chriſt …ought for them and propoſed to them … the Promiſes.
We ſay further, As to impute Sin … to account a man a Sinner, and ju…ciouſly to charge his Sin upon him to …s Condemnation; when a perſon hath …thority to do it: So to impute Righteouſneſs is to account a man Righteous, and judicially to diſcharge him …om accuſation, and to grant him the …ivileges and Benefits belonging to … Righteous Man: And therefore when righteouſneſs is ſaid to be imputed … us without Works, the meaning is, …at God accepteth us as Righteous, …ſchargeth us from all the Accuſations … the Law, and grants us Right to all …iritual Bleſſings without any reſpect … our Obedience: But immediately …d properly for the Righteouſneſs of …rist, wrought for us, which is there…re ſaid, to be imputed to us; becauſe … are reputed or accepted as righteous for that Righteouſneſs alone, truſted i… by us upon the ground of God's own Premiſe of accepting us in Chriſt, an… Chriſt's Intention of doing, and ſuff… ring all he did for us alone, to the … tent that our ſins ſhould be taken aw… and we are made Heirs of Eternal L… thereby.
Our Oppoſites on the other ſide aff… That Chriſt did not obey or ſuffer … Penalty of the Law of Works for … properly, that we ſhould be juſtified … that Obedience or Death of his: B… that God impoſed on him a certain, … culiar Law, made up partly of the M… ral Law, and partly of ſome Spe… Commands to him, which he fulfill… as a Mediatour betwixt God and M… God thereupon might justly, and perhaps would, give men as moderate, … eaſie a Law, by fulfilling whereof the… ſhould be ſaved, the obedience whe… to ſhould be their Righteouſneſs, th… which ſhould give them right to Life.
Againſt this Opinion divers Learn… and Pious Men wrote in the form Generation: As Mr. Caple in an A… pendix to his Treatiſe of Temptations, Mr. Anth. Burgeſs in his Second Part of Juſtification, Mr. Lyford his Book againſt Errors, Mr. Blake, and reverend Mr. Norton of New-England, Anno 1653; in Anſwer to one Mr. Pinchin, who denyed the Imputation of Chriſt's Active and Paſſive Obedience …o us, or that it was performed for us …s Obedience to the Moral Law; But …hat Chriſt was a Mediatorial Sacrifice for us, much after the ſame notion that … now vented, of his fulfilling the Law …f a Mediatour: Which Book of Mr. Norton, becauſe it is not very common, I will tranſcribe the Sum of it, …s it is reduced by himſelf into three Particulars in the Concluſion; and the …ather, becauſe it declareth the thoughts …f the danger of this Opinion, which ma…y would perſuade us differs but in words from the Orthodox, and the Difference … of no great conſequence, and that …e do not rightly understand the meaning of their Authors, for whom they …ave ſo great reverence: Like the Phy…cian who ſeeing in a diſsected Body, …hat all the Nerves have their Original from the Brain, ſaid, he ſhould have believed it was ſo indeed, if Ariſtotle … not writ that they proceed from the Hea… Mr. Norton's words are:
Taking Hereſie for a Fundament… Error, p. 267.i. e. ſuch as whoſoever … veth and dieth in, cannot be ſaved… The Dialogue containeth three H… reſies: The firſt denying the Imputation of the Sin of the Elect un… Chriſt, and his ſuffering the Puniſhment due thereto: The ſecond denying that Chriſt as God-man Mediator obeyed the Law, and there with that he obeyed for us as ou… Surety: The third denying the Imputation of Chriſt's Obedience unto Juſtification, deſtroying the very Being of a Sinner's Righteouſneſs… by taking away the Obedience o… Chriſt unto the Law, and Imputation, which are the Matter and Form, i. e. the eſſential Cauſes of Juſtification; and placing a Sinner's Righteouſneſs in a fictitious Atonement or Pardon of ſin, ſuch as in effect manifeſtly doth not only deny it ſelf to be the Effect of, but denieth, yea and defieth the very Being of the Mediatorial Obedience of Chriſt to the Law for us.
With him in this his apprehenſion concurred divers Miniſters in New-England, as appears by their Letter annexed to his Book, which is ſubſcribed, John Cotton, Rich. Mather, Zech. Simmes, John Willſon, William Thompſon. And having prefaced ſo much concerning the nature and weight of the Controverſie, I commend the Book to the ſerious conſideration of the Reader, and am
Thine in the VVork of the Goſpel J. TROUGHTON.