A89732:1018
A discussion of that great point in divinity, the sufferings of Christ; and the…
A discussion of that great point in divinity, the sufferings of Christ; and the question about his righteousness active, passive : and the imputation thereof. Being an answer to a dialogue entitled The meritorious price of redemption, justification, &c. / By John Norton teacher of the church at Ipswich in New-England. Who was appointed to draw up this answer by the general court.A discussion of that great point in divinity, the sufferings of Christ; and the question about his righteousnesse active, passive : and the imputation thereof. Being an answer to a dialogue intituled The meritorious price of redemption, justification, &c. / By John Norton teacher of the church at Ipswich in New-England. Who was appointed to draw up this answer by the generall court.
London: printed by A.M. for Geo. Calvert, 1653
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Atonement is frequently taken for expiation, noting both the cause and the effect, namely, both the Legal meritorious obedience of Christ, and the acquitting of us from the guilt of sin. But so the Dialogue takes it not: because it acknowledgeth no essential influence of the obedience of Christ (no not of its own Mediatorial obedience) into the being of our righteousness. Atonement according to the Dialogue is the pardon of sin, to apply therefore Atonement as an effectual remedy to acquit us from the ⟨p. 225⟩guilt of sin, is to make atonement its own cause, and its own effect, that is, to make it before and after it self. The imputation of Abraham's faith for righteousness doth plainly argue, that Abraham was made partaker of the righteousness of the moral Law, or Law of works by faith without works: 1. Because no man can attain eternal life without fulfilling the Law, either in himself, or in his surety: Without the righteousness of the Law there is no life, Lev. 18.5. Deut. 27, 26 Ezek. 18.11. Gal. 3.10. 2. Because the nature of righteousness consists in conformity and obedience to the Law; you may as well say that a man may be learned without learning, or that he may be a man without a reasonable soul, as to say there is a created righteousness without conformity to the Law. 3. Because the Scripture saith the righteousness of the Law, that is, the righteousness which the Law requireth, is fulfilled in us that believe, Rom. 10.4. Most vain is the shift of the Dialogue endeavouring to avoid the strength of this place by interpreting against text, context, and Scripture, those words [Righteousness of the Law] only of the righteousness typified by the Ceremonial Law, (which it wrests to its own imaginary righteousness; that is indeed no righteousness but a non-ens, as having no essential matter, witness the Dialogues enumeration of the causes) since the righteousness of the moral Law fulfilled by Christ was typified by the Ceremonial Law; the righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us, because we by faith apprehend the obedience of Christ who fulfilled the Law for us: