Answ. Your Minor is false, and your proof is no proof, but your word. Your similitude should have run thus. If an Act of Oblivion by the Princes purchase, do pardon all that will thankfully accept it and come in and lay down arms of Rebellion; it is no derogating from the Prince or pardon to say, I accept it, I stand out no longer, and therefore it is mine. If you offer to heal a deadly sore on condition you be accepted for the Chirurgeon; doth it derogate from your honour if your Patient say, I do consent and take you for my Chirurgeon, and will take your Medicines?
Your proof is as vain and null, that it derogates from faith. What, that Faith should be this subservient Righteousness? Doth that dishonour it? Or is it that Repentance is conjoined as to our first Justification, and obedience as to that at Judgement? When you prove either of these dishonourable to faith, we will believe you: but it must be a proof that is stronger then the Gospel that is against you. We confess faith to be the receiving Condition, and repentance but the disposing Condition: but both are Conditions. As for Phil. 3.9. Do you not see that it is against you? I profess with Paul, not to have a righteousness of my own which is of the Law, (which made me loth to call faith and repentance a legal righteousness) but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:] Faith you see is the means of our Title to Christs Righteousness: And if you deny faith it self to be any particular Righteousness, you must make it a sin, or indifferent, and contradict the Scriptures. And presently contradicting what you have been arguing for (that Evangelical Righteousness is not in us, and we are not the Subjects of it:) You profess pag. 178. That Inherent Righteousness is in us. ⟨p. 285⟩It seems then either Inherent righteousness is not righteousness, or it is not Evangelical but Legal, or it is in us, and not in us.
Had you only pleaded that we are not justified by it as a Righteousness, I should have answered you as before on that point. Not as a Legal Righteousness; nor an Evangelical Righteousness co-ordinate with Christs; but as a fulfilling of the Condition of that Promise, which gives us Christ, and Pardon, and Life; by which performance of the Condition, the Benefit becomes ours by the Will and Grant of the free Donor;
Answ. Your Minor is false, and your proof is no proof, but your word. Your similitude should have run thus. If an Act of Oblivion by the Princes purchase, do pardon all that will thankfully accept it and come in and lay down arms of Rebellion; it is no derogating from the Prince or pardon to say, I accept it, I stand out no longer, and therefore it is mine. If you offer to heal a deadly sore on condition you be accepted for the Chyrurgion; doth it derogate from your honour if your Patient say, I do consent and take you for my Chyrurgion, and will take your Medicines?
Your proof is as vain and null, that it derogates from faith. What, that Faith should be this subservient Righteousness? Doth that dishonour it? Or is it that Repentance is conjoyned as to our first Justification, and obedience as to that at Judgement? When you prove either of these dishonourable to faith, we will believe you: but it must be a proof that is stronger then the Gospel that is against you. We confess faith to be the receiving Condition, and repentance but the disposing Condition: but both are Conditions. As for Phil. 3.9. Do you not see that it is against you? I profess with Paul, not to have a righteousness of my own which is of the Law, (which made me loth to call faith and repentance a legal righteousness) but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:] Faith you see is the means of our Title to Christs Righteousness: And if you deny faith it self to be any particular Righteousness, you must make it a sin, or indifferent, and contradict the Scriptures. And presently contradicting what you have been arguing for (that Evangelical Righteousness is not in us, and we are not the Subjects of it:) You profess pag. 178. That Inherent Righteousness is in us. ⟨p. 285⟩It seems then either Inherent righteousness is not righteousness, or it is not Evangelical but Legal, or it is in us, and not in us.
Had you only pleaded that we are not justified by it as a Righteousness, I should have answered you as before on that point. Not as a Legal Righteousness; nor an Evangelical Righteousness co-ordinate with Christs; but as a fulfilling of the Condition of that Promise, which gives us Christ, and Pardon, and Life; by which performance of the Condition, the Benefit becomes ours by the Will and Grant of the free Donor;
