A26977:475
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.
§. 7. He addeth a Third, Ex parte Medii, quod est Justitia Christi Legalis nobis per fidem Imputata: Omnem itaque Justificationem proprie Legalem esse constat.
Answ. 1. When I read that he will have but one sense or sort of Justification, will yet have the Denomination to be ex termino, and so justifieth my distinction of it, according to the various Termini; And here how he maketh the Righteousness of Christ to be but the MEDIUM of our Justification, (though he should have told us which sort of Medium he meaneth) he seemeth to me a very favourable consenting Adversary: And I doubt those Divines who maintain that Christ's Righteousness is the Causa Formalis of our Justification, (who are no small ones, nor a few, though other in answer to the Papists disclaim it) yea, and those that make it ⟨p. 154⟩but Causa Materialis, (which may have a sound sense) will think this Learned Man betrayeth their Cause by prevarication, and seemeth to set fiercely against me, that he may yield up the Cause with less suspicion. But the truth is, we all know but in part, and therefore err in part, and Error is inconsistent with it self. And as we have conflicting Flesh and Spirit in the Will, so have we conflicting Light and Darkness, Spirit and Flesh in the Understanding; And it is very perceptible throughout this Author's Book, that in one line the Flesh and Darkness saith one thing, and in the next oft the Spirit and Light saith the contrary, and seeth not the inconsistency: And so though the dark and fleshy part rise up in wrathful striving Zeal against the Concord and Peace of Christians, on pretence that other Mens Errors wrong the Truth, yet I doubt not but Love and Unity have some interest in his lucid and Spiritual part. We do not only grant him that Christ's Righteousness is a Medium of our Justification, (for so also is Faith a Condition, and Dispositio Receptiva being a Medium); nor only some Cause, (for so also is the Covenant-Donation); but that it is▪ an efficient meritorious Cause, and because if Righteousness had been that of our own, Innocency would have been founded in Merit, we may call Christ's Righteousness the material Cause of our Justification, remotely, as it is Materia Meriti, the Matter of the Merit which procureth it.