A26977:452
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.
3. And how unable is my weak Understanding, to make his words at peace with themselves? The same Man in the next lines saith, [Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat: and all Justification before God must be legal or none]; so that no Man is justified but as reputed Innocent, or a performer of the Law: ⟨p. 144⟩And yet Justification is our Absolution from the Punishment and Malediction of the Law; As if he said, No Man is justified but by the pardon of that sin which he is reputed never to have had, and Absolution from that Curse and Punishment which he is reputed never to have deserved or been under. Are these things reconcilable? But if really he take Absolution for justifying or acquitting from a false Accusation, and so to be absolved from the Malediction of the Law, is to be reputed one that never deserved it, or was under it, then it's as much as to say, that there is no pardon of sin, or that no Man that is pardoned, or reputed to need a Pardon, is justified.
3. And how unable is my weak Understanding, to make his words at peace with themselves? The same Man in the next lines saith, [Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat: and all Justification before God must be legal or none]; so that no Man is justified but as reputed Innocent, or a performer of the Law: ⟨p. 144⟩And yet Justification is our Absolution from the Punishment and Malediction of the Law; As if he said, No Man is justified but by the pardon of that sin which he is reputed never to have had, and Absolution from that Curse and Punishment which he is reputed never to have deserved or been under. Are these things reconcileable? But if really he take Absolution for justifying or acquitting from a false Accusation, and so to be absolved from the Malediction of the Law, is to be reputed one that never deserved it, or was under it, then it's as much as to say, that there is no pardon of sin, or that no Man that is pardoned, or reputed to need a Pardon, is justified.
4. All this and such Speeches would persuade the Reader that this Learned Disputer thinketh that I took and use the word [Legal] generally as of that which is related to any Law in genere, and so take Evangelical contrarily for that which is related to no Law: whereas I over and over tell him, that (speaking in the usual Language that I may be understood) I take [Legal] specially (and not generally) for that Righteousness, which is related to the Law of Works or Innocency, (not as if we had indeed such a Righteousness as that Law will justify us for; But a pro-Legal-Righteousness, one instead of it, in and by our perfect Saviour, which shall effectually save us from that Laws condemnation): And that by [Evangelical Righteousness], I mean, that which is related to the Law of Grace, as the Rule of Judgment, upon the just pleading whereof that Law will not condemn but justify us. If he knew this to be my meaning, in my weak judgment, he should not have written either as if he