The Lord Jesus Christ the Lord our Righteousness, Title page – To the reader
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST THE LORD our RIGHTEOUSNESS. OR, CHRIST The Righteousness of a SINNER before God.
Delivered in Several SERMONS Some Years since.
By OBADIAH GREW, D.D.
LONDON, Printed for John Brooke Book-Seller in Coventry, and are to be sold at the Rose and Crown in St Pauls Church-Yard, 1669.
TO THE SERIOUS READERS.
I Have for some years withstood the importunity of many for what I now yield to. The weight of the matter to other mens Consciences, as well as my own, hath prevailed over my Lothness; and if your Christian Charity may yield an excuse for what weakness is found in the manner of Treaty, it is the Favour I ask of you.
A Sinner made righteous before God by the Righteousness of Christ, is, as Renowned Luther used to say, Articulus stantis, aut cadentis Ecclesiae, The Crisis of a Churches standing or falling: For when the Galatians adulterated this Doctrine, they were reputed by the Apostle, as removed to another Gospel, Gal. 2.6.
And on this point Luther himself pitched the field against the Pope, and Roman Church; divers of whose grand Advocates, though they strongly opposed this Doctrine in their lives, yet owned it for the best divinity at their death: and before, Bellarmine was not alone in his Tutissimum est, 'Tis the safest way to rest upon the merciemercy of God in Christ alone for salvation.
It may be thought by some, that that of the Preacher (2. Eccles. 12. What can the man do that cometh after the King? even that which hath been already done:) may be applyed to this small Treatise, after so many large, by so many learned men. And such indeed have been my own thoughts: yet in regard some of them are in a strange Tongue to common Christians, others incorporated with other subjects, and many of themselves too large for every Readers purse, and time; and withall, that the more Witnesses, the stronger the Cause; yea, and that particular experiences in the point may add something to its evidence, as the Widows two mites did adde to the rich Treasury, 12. Mar. 42. I let my Pen go on.
Now before I close, let me commend to your notice and practice three or four things.
1. In reading this and such Gospel-Mysteries, you must believe above your Reason natural; so you give God the more honour, Rom. 4.19, 20. The Object of Abrahams Faith, which was accounted to him for Righteousness, Gen. 15.6. & 18.12. was of that nature, as whereat Sarah laughed; who therein was an Image of Natural Reason.
2. In your Reading and Reasoning of this and such points of eternal moment, ever think that part the safest, which doth least humour mans pride, and most exalt the Glory of God; since the scope of the Gospel is to shut out boasting, and bring in self-denial, which none can deny.
3. In all your thought-debates about this Subject, seriously bethink your selves what is like to be your opinion of it when you come to die; Bellarm. as you heard, professed new Divinity in it before his death.
4. If you have the opportunity to Converse with wounded spirits, and troubled Consciences, with whom it is or hath been as a Specimen of the day of Judgment; they will tell you whether any Righteousness but Jesus Christ made of God unto them Righteousness, could serve their turn in the presence of God, or satisfie their Conscience with a holding peace.
And now if you meet in this Treatise any mistakes in words, I'le suppose the Press may take the blame off from me; and if any in matter, if you consider a mans hand is in it, it may be an excuse, remembring that you have this heavenly treasure in an earthen vessel, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of man: And so you are commended to the good will of him that dwelt in the Bush, by
A Servant of Jesus Christ, and of your Faith in him. O. G.