A40370:162
Of free justification
Of free justification by Christ written first in Latin by John Fox, author of the Book of martyrs, against Osorius, &c. and now translated into English, for the benefit of those who love their own souls, and would not be mistaken in so great a point.Of free justification by Christ written first in Latine by John Fox, author of the Book of martyrs, against Osorius, &c. and now translated into English, for the benefit of those who love their own souls, and would not be mistaken in so great a point.
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1694
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.
Therefore that I may answer you, 1Osorius, and yours to these things, first I think you are not a little deceived in examining the nature of Righteousness, not that any thing is put in the definition that I call false, or that it doth not agree to the thing defined. For he that governs all his actions with such constant reason and equity, that in no part of his life he starts aside from truth and righteousness, him I do esteem to be truly Righteous, yea to be God rather, or next to God; verily I find no mortal man such. Therefore herein is your error, 2that whereas there is a two-fold and divers sort of Righteousness set before us in Scripture, the one which is of the Law, and peculiar to God; the other which is of Faith, and peculiar to us; you are only so taken up in defining the one, that you do not at all touch upon the other, about which the chiefest matter of Controversy is here: And so you proceed in setting forth the perfect excellency of the Divine Righteousness, and justly so indeed to be accounted of, that in the mean while you leave no Righteousness to Man at all. For what Righteousness shall Man have, if Righteousness be so strictly defined, that it cannot consist, but of works of perfect Righteousness, nor be communicated but only to perfect men? For now seeing no men are so perfect in this World, but that this miserable depravation of our Nature ⟨p. 91⟩is far from this exactness, and there is none (as Augustine witnesseth) as long as he is in this life, who pretends 3himself to be just in the sight of God. By necessary Consequence it follows, that either there is no Righteousness of ours at all in this life, or it must be another than that which your definition thus circumscribes to us; for thus you define it.
Therefore that I may answer you, 1Osorius, and yours to these things, first I think you are not a little deceived in examining the nature of Righteousness, not that any thing is put in the definition that I call false, or that it doth not agree to the thing defined. For he that governs all his actions with such constant reason and equity, that in no part of his life he starts aside from truth and righteousness, him I do esteem to be truly Righteous, yea to be God rather, or next to God; verily I find no mortal man such. Therefore herein is your errour,