A26977:458
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.
2. But Reader, Why may not I denominate Justification ex parte principii? Righteousness is formally a Relation: To justify constitutively, is to make Righteous. To be Justified, (or Justification in sensu passivo) is to be made Righteous; And in foro, to be judged Righteous: And what meaneth he by Principium as to a Relation, but that which other Men call the Fundamentum, which is loco Efficientis, or a remote efficient? And whence can a Relation be more fitly named, than from the fundamentum, whence it hath its formal being? Reader, bear with my Error, or correct it, if I mistake. I think that as our Righteousness is not all of one sort, no more is the fundamentum: 1. I think I have no Righteousness, whose immediate fundamentum is my sinless Innocency, or fulfilling the Law of Works or Innocency, by my self or another: and so I have no fundamentum of such. 2. I hope I have a Righteousness consisting in my personal Right to Impunity and Life; and that Jus or Right is mine by the Title of free Condonation and Donation by the Gospel-Covenant or Grant: And so that Grant or Gospel is the fundamentum of it: But the Merits of Christ's Righteousness purchased that Gift, and so those Merits are the remote fundamentum or efficient: And thus my Justification, ⟨p. 148⟩by the Doctor's confession, is Evangelical. 3. I must perish if I have not also a subordinate personal Righteousness, consisting in my performance of those Conditions on which the New-Covenant giveth the former. And the fundamentum of this Righteousness is the Reality of that performance, as related to the Irrogation, Imposition, or Tenor of the Covenant, making this the Condition. This is my Heresy, if I be heretical; and be it right or wrong, I will make it intelligible, and not by saying and unsaying, involve all in confusion.
2. But Reader, Why may not I denominate Justification ex parte principii? Righteousness is formally a Relation: To justifie constitutively, is to make Righteous. To be Justified, (or Justification in sensu passivo) is to be made Righteous; And in foro, to be judged Righteous: And what meaneth he by Principium as to a Relation, but that which other Men call the Fundamentum, which is loco Efficientis, or a remote efficient? And whence can a Relation be more fitly named, than from the fundamentum, whence it hath its formal being? Reader, bear with my Error, or correct it, if I mistake. I think that as our Righteousness is not all of one sort, no more is the fundamentum: 1. I think I have no Righteousness, whose immediate fundamentum is my sinless Innocency, or fulfilling the Law of Works or Innocency, by my self or another: and so I have no fundamentum of such. 2. I hope I have a Righteousness consisting in my personal Right to Impunity and Life; and that Jus or Right is mine by the Title of free Condonation and Donation by the Gospel-Covenant or Grant: And so that Grant or Gospel is the fundamentum of it: But the Merits of Christ's Righteousness purchased that Gift, and so those Merits are the remote fundamentum or efficient: And thus my Justification,