The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

Some add, that this inherent personal Evangelical Righteousness, is the condition on our part of our legal Righteousness, or of the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ unto our Justification, or the pardon of sin. And those by whom the satisfaction and merit of Christ are denied, make it the only and whole condition of our absolute Justification before God. So speak all the Socinians constantly. For they deny our Obedience unto Christ to be either the meritorious or efficient cause of our Justification; only they say it is the Condition of it, without which God hath decreed that we shall not be made partakers of the Benefit thereof. So doth Socinus himself, De Justificat. pag. 17. Sunt opera nostra, id est, ut dictum fuit, Obedientia quam Christo praestamus, licet nec efficiens nec meritoria, tamen causa est (ut vocant) sine qua non, Justificationis coram Deo, atque aeternae nostrae. Again, pag. 14. inter Opuscul. Ut cavendum est ne vitae sanctitatem atque innocentiam effectum Justificationis nostrae coram Deo esse credamus, neque illam nostrae coram Deo Justificationis causam efficientem aut impulsivam esse affirmemus; sed ⟨p. 214⟩tantummodo causam sine qua eam Justificationem nobis non contingere decrevit Deus. And in all their discourses to this purpose, they assert our personal Righteousness and Holiness, or our Obedience unto the commands of Christ, which they make to be the Form and Essence of Faith, to be the Condition whereon we obtain Justification or the Remission of sins. And indeed considering what their Opinion is concerning the person of Christ, with their denial of his satisfaction and merit, it is impossible they should frame any other Idea of Justification in their minds. But what some among our selves intend by a compliance with them herein, who are not necessitated thereunto by a prepossession with their Opinions about the Person and Mediation of Christ, I know not. For as for them, all their notions about Grace, Conversion to God, Justification, and the like Articles of our Religion, they are nothing but what they are necessarily cast upon by their Hypothesis about the Person of Christ.

Some add, that this inherent personal Evangelical Righteousness, is the condition on our part of our legal Righteousness, or of the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ unto our Justification, or the pardon of sin. And those by whom the satisfaction and merit of Christ are denied, make it the only and whole condition of our absolute Justification before God. So speak all the Socinians constantly. For they deny our Obedience unto Christ to be either the meritorious or efficient cause of our Justification; only they say it is the Condition of it, without which God hath decreed that we shall not be made partakers of the Benefit thereof. So doth Socinus himself, De Justificat. pag. 17. Sunt opera nostra, id est, ut dictum fuit, Obedientia quam Christo praestamus, licet nec efficiens nec meritoria, tamen causa est (ut vocant) sine qua non, Justificationis coram Deo, atque aeternae nostrae. Again, pag. 14. inter Opuscul. Ʋt cavendum est ne vitae sanctitatem atque innocentiam effectum Justificationis nostrae coram Deo esse credamus, neque illam nostrae coram Deo Justificationis causam efficientem aut impulsivam esse affirmemus; sed