N00766:86
The everlasting Gospel. The Gospel of justification by the righteousness of God; as 'tis…
The everlasting Gospel. The Gospel of justification by the righteousness of God; as 'tis held and preached in the churches of New-England: expressed in a brief discourse on that important article; made at Boston in the year, 1699. / By Cotton Mather. ; And, asserted with the attestations, of several Reverend and eminent persons, now most considerable in those churches.The everlasting Gospel. The Gospel of justification by the righteousness of God; as 'tis held and preach'd in the churches of New-England: expressed in a brief discourse on that important article; made at Boston in the year, 1699. / By Cotton Mather. ; And, asserted with the attestations, of several Reverend and eminent persons, now most considerable in those churches.
Boston: printed by B. Green for Nicholas Buttolph, 1700
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.
And it is the Righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ it self, that is Imputed. It is not enough to say, That the Benefits of it are Communicated unto us: For that is no Imputation. How can there an Imputation of a thing, and the thing it self not Imputed: Either the Righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ must be Imputed unto us, Conferred upon us, Reckoned as ours, when we are made Righteous; or else a Righteousness of our own Operation: But God knows we have None of our own. The Oracles of God have therefore told us, that herein, We receive the Gift of Righteousness through' Jesus Christ. And by this Gift of God, the Righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, becomes as really our Propriety, as if we our selves in our own persons had wrought it. The Right of Inheritance, the Lawyers tell us, is the best Right, that any can have; when God has made over to us the Righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is as much ours, as if we came to it, by the Right of Inheritance. Hence we read, in Heb. 11 7 Of an Heir of the Righteousness by Faith. But by the Gracious Imputation of God, the Righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ being made ours, we now stand Righteous before God: And as we read, in Rom. 5 19 By the Obedience of One, many are made Righteous. In that Righteousness, we stand before that Righteous God, who Loves ⟨p. 13⟩the Righteous: And in it, we not only have a Release from the Sentence of Death, and Hell, which belonged unto us for our Sin, but we have also a Title to all the Blessedness of the Righteous: And, Grace Reigns through' Righteousness unto Eternal Life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. As the Names of all the Twelve Children of Israel were Engraven on the Two Stones which were set in the Shoulder-pieces, of the High Priests curious and costly Ephod; thus our Lord Jesus Christ, appearing before God, in the Ephod of His Righteousness, His whole Israel, do by Name also appear in that Righteousness. But because the Righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is made the Christians, 'tis an impertinent Cavil, that then the Christian is made a Saviour of others, as is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself 'Tis the Righteousness of our Saviour, so far as we m•y claim ou• own Blessedness upon it, and not the Saviourship it self, that is Imputed unto us.