A26977:513
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.
Reader, Forgive me this troublesome oft repeating the state of the Controversy; I meddle with no other. If this be Justification by Works, I am for it. If this Doctor be against it, he is against much ⟨p. 164⟩of the Gospel. If he be not, he had better have kept his Bed, than to have called us to Arms in his Dream, when we have sadly warred so many Ages already about mere words. For my part, I think that such a short explication of our sense, and rejection of ambiguities, is fitter to end these quarrels, than the long disputations of Confounders.
Reader, Forgive me this troublesom oft repeating the state of the Controversie; I meddle with no other. If this be Justification by Works, I am for it. If this Doctor be against it, he is against much ⟨p. 164⟩of the Gospel. If he be not, he had better have kept his Bed, than to have call'd us to Arms in his Dream, when we have sadly warred so many Ages already about mere words. For my part, I think that such a short explication of our sense, and rejection of ambiguities, is fitter to end these quarrels, than the long disputations of Confounders.
4. But when be saith, [Works make not a Man just, and yet we are at last justified according to them], it is a contradiction, or unsound. For if he mean Works in the sense excluded by Paul, we are not justified according to them, viz. such as make, or are thought to make the Reward to be not of Grace, but of Debt: But if he take Works in the sense intended by James, sincere Obedience is a secondary constitutive part of that inherent or adherent personal Righteousness, required by the Law of Grace, in subordination to Christ's Meritorious Righteousness; And what Christian can deny this? So far it maketh us Righteous, (as Faith doth initially). And what is it to be justified according to our Works, but to be judged, so far as they are sincerely done, to be such as have performed the secondary part of the Conditions of free-given Life?