N00347:87
A brief discourse of justification. Wherein this doctrine is plainly laid down according to…
A brief discourse of justification. Wherein this doctrine is plainly laid down according to the Scriptures. : As it was delivered in several sermons on this subject. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Ten lines of quotations]
Boston: printed by S for Samuel Phillips, 1686
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.
2. Positively, there are three things which go in to make up the merit of Christs Righteousness for sinners.
1. The Righteousness it self which he hath performed in Obedience to the Law.
2. The person that performed it.
3. The Office which this person sustained in this performance.
1. The Righteousness it self which is requisite for our Justification, must be that which, fully and in all the parts of it answers the terms of the Covenant which was between God and man at the first. The Law of that Covenant was the rule of Justice and Righteousness between these two parties and he that will either do or suffer un the account of another, must come up to the whole of that which he was himself to have done or suffered: he that undertakes to pay a Debt for another, must either take care to pay the whole Debt, or else, by leaving any part of it unpaid, the man is still obnoxious to his Creditor: and if this be well considered, it will thence be apparent, that both Christs active and passive obedience were need […] case, and no more than what was […] requisite; and if he had not so […] he could not have perfectly merited for us: for Covenant merit is nothing else but the performing of the Articles of the Covenant: and therefore Paul resolves our Justification into the obedience or Christ as the procuring cause of it, and that both his active obedience