A89732:662
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.
It is a truth most precious that God was more highly pleased with the obedience of the Mediator, then he was displeased with the disobedience of Adam; but so unhappy is the Dialogue contending against the Mediatorly obedience of Christ, as that in the prosecuting of that opposition it cannot speak this truth without insinuating a fallacy of putting that for the cause which is not the cause, for the ground of the acceptation of the Mediatorly obedience of Christ proceeds not wholly though principally from the eminency of the Person, which the Dialogue acknowledgeth, but also from the kind of his obedience which the Dialogue denieth.
It is a truth most precious that God was more highly pleased with the obedience of the Mediatour, then he was displeased with the disobedience of Adam; but so unhappy is the Dialogue contending against the Mediatorly obedience of Christ, as that in the prosecuting of that opposition it cannot speak this truth without insinuating a fallacy of putting that for the cause which is not the cause, for the ground of the acceptation of the Mediatorly obedience of Christ proceeds not wholly though principally from the eminency of the Person, which the Dialogue acknowledgeth, but also from the kinde of his obedience which the Dialogue denieth.
But how doth this either prove the bearing of the curse really to be no part of the obedience of the Mediator, which the argumentation intends (though the obedience whereof the Text speaketh intends the contrary) or inform the Reader what the Dialogue means by its new Mediatorly obedience, which the order of disputation here called for.
The Dialogue denying the received doctrine concerning the Passive obedience of Christ as Mediator, yet acknowledging a Mediatorly obedience, but not giving any tolerable description of it in any one place, whence the ordinary Reader may know what it, is only here and there mentions the name thereof, and occasionally adding to that name, such a something as indeed renders it a dark nothing, which manner of handling it, is rather a snare then a guide to the less attentive Reader, before we proceed to examine the arguments for this new Mediatorly obedience, what the rules of disputation required of the Author, namely, that he should first have given us some such definition or description thereof, whence we might have understood what it is that he so much contends for: (for to be willing to dispute (say the Logicians) before we understand certainly what is the Question, is to be willing to lose our time; and that serious and affectionate counsel of Keckerman is here seasonable;