A26977:375
Of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers in what sense [sic] sound Protestants…Of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers in what sence [sic] sound Protestants…
Of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers in what sense [sic] sound Protestants hold it and of the false devised sense by which libertines subvert the Gospel : with an answer to some common objections, especially of Dr. Thomas Tully whose Justif. Paulina occasioneth the publication of this / by Richard Baxter a compassionate lamenter of the Church's wounds caused by hasty judging ... and by the theological wars which are hereby raised and managed ...Of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers in what sence [sic] sound Protestants hold it and of the false divised sence by which libertines subvert the Gospel : with an answer to some common objections, especially of Dr. Thomas Tully whose Justif. Paulina occasioneth the publication of this / by Richard Baxter a compassionate lamenter of the Church's wounds caused by hasty judging ... and by the theological wars which are hereby raised and managed ...
London: printed for Nevil Simmons and Jonathan Robinson, 1675
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Object. 4. You do seem to suppose that we have none of that kind of Righteousness at all, which consisteth in perfect Obedience and Holiness, but only a Right to Impunity and Life, with an imperfect Inherent Righteousness in our selves: The Papists are forced to confess, that a Righteousness we must have which consisteth in a conformity to the preceptive part of the Law, and not only the Retributive part: But they say, It is in our selves, and we say it is Christ's imputed to us.
Answ. 1. The Papists (e. g. Learned Vasquez in Rom. 5.) talk so ignorantly of the differences of the Two Covenants, or the Law of Innocency and of Grace, as if they never understood it. And hence they 1. seem to take no notice of the Law of Innocency, or of Nature now commanding our perfect Obedience, but only of the Law of Grace. 2. Therefore they use to call those Duties but Perfections; and the Commands that require them, but Counsels, where they are not made Conditions of Life: and sins not bringing Damnation, some call Venial, (a name not unfit) and some expound that as properly no sin, but analogically. 3. And hence they take little notice, when they treat of Justification, of the Remitting of Punishment; but by remitting Sin, they usually mean the destroying the Habits: As if they forgot all actual sin past, or thought that it deserved no Punishment, or needed no Pardon: For a past Act in it self is now nothing, and is capable of no Remission but Forgiveness. 4. Or when they do talk of Guil• of Punishment, they lay so much of the Remedy on Man's Satisfaction, as if Christ's Satisfaction and ⟨p. 121⟩Merits had procured no pardon, or at least, of no temporal part of Punishment. 5. And hence they ignorantly revile the Protestants, as if we denied all Personal Inherent Righteousness, and trusted only to the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as justifying wicked unconverted Men: The Papists therefore say not that we are innocent or sinless, (really or imputatively); no not when they dream of Perfection and Supererogation, unless when they denominate Sin and Perfection only from the Condition of the Law of Grace, and not that of Innocency.