The Scripture Gospel defended, and Christ, grace, and free justification vindicated against the libertines…

Q. But did not Christ represent our persons in his Righteousness, so that it is imputed to us as ours, as if we our selves had been and done what he was and did as righteous?

Ans. This being the very heart of all the Controversy, should be decided only by Scripture, and nothing added or diminished. That Christ is the second Adam, and called [Greek or Hebrew] a Sponsor, Surety ⟨p. 23⟩or Interposer, and a Mediator between God and Man, that suffered for us, the just for the unjust, a price, and a sacrifice, is all found in scripture. Wise and peaceable men here will be as fearful of humane Inventions and Additions as in Discipline or Ceremonies at least. But because all are not such, we must speak to men as they are. There are several sorts of Sureties or Sponsors.

Ans. This being the very heart of all the Controversie, should be decided only by Scripture, and nothing added or diminished. That Christ is the second Adam, and called 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 a Sponsor, Surety ⟨p. 23⟩or Interposer, and a Mediator between God and Man, that suffered for us, the just for the unjust, a price, and a sacrifice, is all found in scripture. Wise and peaceable men here will be as fearful of humane Inventions and Additions as in Discipline or Ceremonies at least. But because all are not such, we must speak to men as they are. There are several sorts of Sureties or Sponsors.

Few represent the very person, at least not all: If men will needs impose on us their own word of Representation, for peace sake we accept it, in a sound sense. In a limited sense it is true that Christ represented us; that is, he suffered in our stead, that we might not suffer: He obeyed, and was perfectly righteous as Mediator in our Natures, and so far in our stead, as that such perfect Righteousness should not in our selves be necessary to our Justification. But he did not absolutely represent us; he was not our Delegate: Our persons did not in a Law-sense do in and by Christ what he did, or possess the habits which he possessed, or suffered what he suffered: Nor doth God account us so to have done, for that were to mistake. I have rendered a multitude of reasons to prove this in my Treatise of Justifying Righteousness: The contradiction is enough that we are accounted never to have sinned, because Christ never sinned; and yet we are accounted to have suffered or satisfied for sin, because Christ did so; or at least that we need a pardon by his blood, and must ask for pardon, and must suffer correcting punishments, and long be without necessary grace and glory, when yet we are accounted never to have sinned, but from birth to death to have fulfilled all Gods Law in Christ. I have fully proved that this Doctrine subverteth the sum of all the Gospel and Religion, to which I refer you.