A89732:1202
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.
Part 2 › Section 2 › Chapter 9: Of Atonement or Reconciliation.
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.
The order and manner of the working of the three Persons upon the creature is answerable to the manner of their subsistence in the divine nature. The Father worketh of himself, the Son worketh from the-Father, Joh. 5.19, 30. and 8.28. The holy Ghost worketh from the Father and the Son, Joh. 16.13. hence though all the works of God concerning the creature, are wrought jointly by all the three persons; yet is the work principally ascribed to that person whose manner of subsistence doth most eminently appear therein. Beginning works, as creation, are ascribed principally to the first person; the carrying works on to perfection as redemption, to the second person; the perfecting of them, as the application of redemption (under which last work the grace of justifying faith is contained) unto the third person.
To make the first person an efficient, and the third person an instrumental cause in the working of reconciliation or faith, were by consequence to affirm some inferiority of the third person in respect of the fi•st, consequently an inequality between the persons, which were to infer an inequality in God, because every person is God, which (leaving the consideration of more dangerous inferences to the intelligent Reader) is inconsisting with the perfection of God, so unsafe is it to speak unadvisedly in these mysteries.
To make the first person an efficient, and the third person an instrumentall cause in the working of reconciliation or faith, were by consequence to affirm some inferiority of the third person in respect of the fi•st, consequently an inequality between the persons, which were to inferre an inequality in God, because every person is God, which (leaving the consideration of more dangerous inferences to the intelligent Reader) is inconsisting with the perfection of God, so unsafe is it to speak unadvisedly in these mysteries.