Of justification four disputations clearing and amicably defending the truth against the unnecessary oppositions…

What the Action? 3. What the Patient or Object? 4. What is the Terminus ad quem? 1. I doubt not but it is agreed that the Agent is God: for it is he that justifieth. 2. The terminus or res motu facta is two-fold. 1. Justification in sensu legis, commonly called constitutive Justification (passive.) 2. Public Justification by plea and sentence at Judgement (passive) 3. The Action must be therefore two-fold, or two Actions according to the two-fold Terminus. Yea in the former we may (if we accurately consider it) find out a two-fold Action and Terminus, though the difference be narrow: In which we are to consider, 1. Of the Instrument: 2. Add the nature of the Actions. 1. The Instrument is the word of Promise or Grant in the Gospel (for if you know any other way of Gods justifying, or any immediate Act of God herein which is Transient, I would it were revealed what Act it is.) Herein I have Mr. Rutherford saying as I, over and over against the Antinomians. 2. The Action therefore can be no other then a moral Action, as a Lease or Bond, or written-Law may be said to act. Now the Gospel performeth to our first Justification a two-fold Action. 1. It doth as a Deed of Gift bestow Christ and his Merits on men, so it be they will Believe. This Action doth not immediately and directly constitute them Righteous: for Righteousness being a Relation, must have its Foundation first laid: This Act therefore of Donation (which some call Imputation) doth directly lay the Fundamentum, whence the Relation of Righteous doth immediately arise (when the Condition is performed) per nudam resultantiam without any other Act to produce it. And this is most properly called Justificatio constitutiva activa. 2. When the Gospel hath by Gift constituted us Righteous then next in order it doth declare or pronounce us Righteous, and virtually acquit us from Condemnation. This is by the like silent moral interpretative Action only as the other. (And perhaps ⟨p. 204⟩may be most fitly called the imputing of Righteousness, or esteeming us Righteous, as Piscator.) And for the latter Justification at Judgement, the Action is Christs public pleading, and sentencing us Acquit: which is an Action both Physical and Moral in several respects. 4. Now if we enquire after the Patient, or rather the Object of these several Acts, we shall quickly find that the Man is that Object;

What the Action? 3. What the Patient or Object? 4. What is the Terminus ad quem? 1. I doubt not but it is agreed that the Agent is God: for it is he that justifieth. 2. The terminus or res motu facta is two-fold. 1. Justification in sensu legis, commonly called constitutive Justification (passive.) 2. Publique Justification by plea and sentence at Judgement (passive) 3. The Action must be therefore two-fold, or two Actions according to the two-fold Terminus. Yea in the former we may (if we accurately consider it) find out a two-fold Action and Terminus, though the difference be narrow: In which we are to consider, 1. Of the Instrument: 2. Add the nature of the Actions. 1. The Instrument is the word of Promise or Grant in the Gospel (for if you know any other way of Gods justifying, or any immediate Act of God herein which is Transient, I would it were revealed what Act it is.) Herein I have Mr. Rutherford saying as I, over and over against the Antinomians. 2. The Action therefore can be no other then a moral Action, as a Lease or Bond, or written-Law may be said to act. Now the Gospel performeth to our first Justification a two-fold Action. 1. It doth as a Deed of Gift bestow Christ and his Merits on men, so it be they will Believe. This Action doth not immediately and directly constitute them Righteous: for Righteousness being a Relation, must have its Foundation first laid: This Act therefore of Donation (which some call Imputation) doth directly lay the Fundamentum, whence the Relation of Righteous doth immediately arise (when the Condition is peformed) per nudam resultantiam without any other Act to produce it. And this is most properly called Justificatio constitutiva activa. 2. When the Gospel hath by Gift constituted us Righteous then next in order it doth declare or pronounce us Righteous, and vertually acquit us from Condemnation. This is by the like silent moral interpretative Action only as the other. (And perhaps