The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

3ly, It is objected, That the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ, which we defend, overthrows the necessity of Faith it self. This is home indeed. Aliquid adhaerebit, is the Design of all these Objections. But they have Reason to plead for themselves who make it. For on this supposition, they say, the Righteousness of Christ is ours before we do believe. For Christ satisfied for all our sins, as if we had satisfied in our own persons. And he who is esteemed to have satisfied for all his sins in his own person, is acquitted from them all, and accounted just, whether he believe or no; nor is there any Ground or Reason why he should be required to believe. If therefore the Righteousness of Christ be really ours, because in the judgment of God we are esteemed to have wrought it in him, then it is ours before we do ⟨p. 304⟩believe. If it be otherwise, then it is plain that that, Righteousness it self can never be made ours by believing; only the fruits and effects of it may be suspended on our Believing, whereby we may be made Partakers of them. Yea if Christ made any such satisfaction for us as is pretended, it is really ours, without any farther Imputation. For being performed for us and in our stead, it is the highest injustice not to have us accounted pardoned and acquitted, without any farther either Imputation on the part of God, or Faith on ours. These things I have transcribed out of Socinus, De Servator. lib. 4. cap. 2, 3, 4, 5. which I would not have done, but that I find others to have gone before me therein, though to another purpose. And he concludes with a confidence which others also seem in some measure to have learned of him. For he saith unto his Adversary, Haec tua, tuorumque sententia, adeo foeda & execrabilis est, ut pestilentiorem errorem post homines natos in populo Dei extitisse non credam; speaking of the satisfaction of Christ and the Imputation of it unto Believers. And indeed his Serpentine wit was fertile in the Invention of cavils against all the mysteries of the Gospel. Nor was he obliged by any one of them, so as to contradict himself in what he opposed concerning any other of them. For denying the Deity of Christ, his Satisfaction, Sacrifice, Merit, Righteousness, and overthrowing the whole nature of his Mediation, nothing stood in his way which he had a mind to oppose.

3ly, It is objected, That the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ, which we defend, overthrows the necessity of Faith it self. This is home indeed. Aliquid adhaerebit, is the Design of all these Objections. But they have Reason to plead for themselves who make it. For on this supposition, they say, the Righteousness of Christ is ours before we do believe. For Christ satisfied for all our sins, as if we had satisfied in our own persons. And he who is esteemed to have satisfied for all his sins in his own person, is acquitted from them all, and accounted just, whether he believe or no; nor is there any Ground or Reason why he should be required to believe. If therefore the Righteousness of Christ be really ours, because in the judgment of God we are esteemed to have wrought it in him, then it is ours before we do