A39674:997
Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and…
Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made public, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made publick, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.
London: printed by R. Roberts for Tho. Cockerill, 1691
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.
But neither this expression, nor any other like it in the Scriptures, gives the least countenance to such a general and unwary Position. It is far from the mind of this Scripture, That the righteousness of Christ is formally and inherently ours, as it is his. Indeed it is ours relatively, not formally and inherently; not the same with his for quantity, though it be the same for verity. His Righteousness is not ours in its Universal value, though it be ours, as to our particular use and necessity. Nor is it made ours to make us so many causes of Salvation to others; but it is imputed to us as to the Subjects, that are to be saved by it our selves.
But neither this expression, nor any other like it in the Scriptures, gives the least countenance to such a general and unwary Position. It is far from the mind of this Scripture, That the righteousness of Christ is formally and inherently ours, as it is his. Indeed it is ours relatively, not formally and inherently; not the same with his for quantity, though it be the same for verity. His Righteousness is not ours in its Vniversal value, though it be ours, as to our particular use and necessity. Nor is it made ours to make us so many causes of Salvation to others; but it is imputed to us as to the Subjects, that are to be saved by it our selves.
'Tis true, we are justified, and saved by the very Righteousness of Christ, and no other; but that Righteousness is formally inherent in him only, and is only ⟨p. 386⟩materially imputed to us. It was actively his, but passively ours. He wrought it, though we wear it. It was wrought in the person of God-man for the whole Church, and is imputed (not transfused) to every single Believer for his own concernment only. For,
(1.) It is most absurd to imagine that the Righteousness of Christ should formally inhere in the person of all, or any Believer, as it doth in the person of the Mediator. The impossibility hereof appears plainly from the incapacity of the Subject. The Righteousness of Christ is an Infinite Righteousness, because it is the Righteousness of God-man, and can therefore be subjected in no other person beside him. It is capable of being imputed to a finite creature, and therefore in the way of imputation we are said to be made the righteousness of God in him: but though it may be imputed to a finite creature, it inheres only in the person of the Son of God, as in its proper subject. And indeed,