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Richard Baxter: of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to Believers

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Richard Baxter: of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to Believers Richard Baxter’s Of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers Quinta Press, Meadow View, Weston Rhyn, Oswestry, Shropshire, England, SY10 7RN The format of this book is copyright © 2018 Quinta Press The text was sourced from EEBO (Early English Books online). The images are black and white so sometimes the text is blurred by various degrees of foxing. Also sometimes the book was not microfilmed flat meaning text is hidden in the binding. Such instances where it is difficult to read the original are indicated by [[?????]]. All these instances need double checking against an original copy and it is hoped to consult these during 2019. OF THE IMPUTATION OF Christ’s Righteousness OF BELIEVERS: In what sence sound Protestants hold it; And, Of the false devised sence, by which Libertines subvert the Gospel. With an Answer to some common Objecti- ons, especially of Dr. Thomas Tully, whose Justif. Paulina occasioneth the publica- tion of this. By Richard Baxter; A compassionate Lamenter of the Churches wounds, caused by hasty judging and undigested concep- tions, and by the Theological Wars which are hereby raised and managed; by perswading the World that meer verbal or notional Differences are material, and such as our Faith, Love, Concord and Communion must be measured by, for want of an exact discussion of the ambiguity of words. London, Printed for Nevil Simons and Jonathan Robinson, at the Kings-Arms and Golden-Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1675. The Preface. Reader, F thou blame me for writing again, on a Subject which I have written on so Ioft, and so lately (specially in my Life of Faith, and Disputations of Justification) I shall not blame thee for so doing; but I shall excuse my self by telling thee my reasons. 1. The occasion is many loud accusations of my self, of which I have before given an account. I publish it, be- cause I see the Contention still so hot in the Church of Christ, and mens Charity de- stroyed against each other; one side calling the other Socinians, and the other Libertines, (who are neither of them Christians) and if I mistake not, for the most part in the dark about one Phrase, and that of mens devising, rather than about the sence: But if indeed it be the sence that they differ about, it’s time to do our best to rectifie such Fundamental Errours. I find that all of us agree in all the Phrases of Scripture. And a Mans Sence is no way known but by his expressions: The question is then, Which is the necessary Phrase which we must express our sence by? We all say that to Believers, Christ is made our Righteousness; We are made the Righteousness of God in him; He hath ransomed, redeemed us, as a Sacrifice for our sins, a price; He hath merited and obtained eternal Redemption for us, that Sin is remitted, covered, not im- puted; that Righteousness is Reckoned or Im- puted to us; that Faith is Imputed to us for Righteousness, and any thing else that is in the Scripture. But all this will not serve to make us Christians! What is wanting? Why, we must say that Christs Righteous- ness is Imputed to us as ours, and that Christ satisfied for our sins! Well; The thing sig- nified seemeth to us true and good and needful, (though the Scripture hath as good words for it as any of us can invent.) We consent therefore to use these Phrases, so be it you put no false and wicked sence on them by other words of your own: Though we will not allow them to be necessary, because not in Scripture; (And we are more against ad- ding new Fundamental Articles of Faith to the Scripture, than against adding new Or- ders, Forms or Ceremonies). But yet it will not serve: what is yet wanting? why, we must hold these words in a right sense! What? yet are not your own devised words a sufficient expression of the matter! When we have opened those words by other words, how will you know that we use those other words in a right sence, and so in infini- tum. Our sence is, that Righteousness is Im- puted to us, that is, we are accounted Righte- ous, because for the Merits of Christs total fulfilling the Conditions of his Mediatorial Co- venant with the Father, by his Habitual Ho- liness, his Actual Perfect Obedience, and his Sacrifice, or satisfactory Suffering for our sins in our stead, freely without any merit or Conditi- onal act of mans, God hath made an Act of Ob- livion and Deed of Gift, pardoning all sin, justifying and adopting and giving Right to the Spirit and Life eternally to every one that believingly accepteth Christ and the Gifts with and by and from him. And when we accept them, they are all ours by virtue of this purchased Covenant-Gift. This is our short and plain explication. But yet this will not serve: Christianity is yet another thing. What is wanting? Why, we must say, that Christ was habitually and actually perfectly Holy and Obedient, Imputatively in our par- ticular Persons, and that each one of us did perfectly fulfil that Law which requireth perfect Habits and Acts in and by Christ impu- tatively, and yet did also in and by him suffer our selves Imputatively for not fulfilling it, and Imputatively did our selves both satisfy God’s Justice and merit Heaven; and that we have our selves Imputatively a Righteousness of per- fect Holiness and Obedience as sinless, and must be justified by the Law of Innocency, or Works, as having our selves imputatively ful- filled it in Christ; And that this is our sole Righ- teousness; and that Faith it self is not imputed to us for Righteousness; no not a meer particular subordinate Righteousness, answering the Con- ditional part of the new Justifying Covenant, as necessary to our participation of Christ, and his freely given Righteousness. And must all this go into our Christianity! But where is it written? who devised it? was it in the an- cient Creeds and Baptism? Or known in the Church for five thousand years from the Creation? I profess I take the Pope to be no more to be blamed for making a new Church-Government, than for making us so many new Articles of Faith: And I will not justifie those that Symbolize with him, or imitate him in either. But yet many of the men that do this, are good men in other respects: and I love their zeal that doth all this evil, as it is for God and the honour of Jesus Christ, though I love it not as blind, nor their Errour or their Evil. But how hard is it to know what Spirit we are of! But it is the doleful mischief which their blind zeal doth, that maketh me speak; That three or four of them have made it their practice to back- bite my self, and tell People, He holdeth dangerous opinions; He is erroneous in the point of Justification. And his Books are un- sound and have dangerous Doctrines; He lea- veth the old way of Justification, he favoureth Socinianism, and such-like: this is a small matter comparatively. Back-biting and false reports, are the ordinary fruits of bitter contentious Zeal, and the Spirit of a Sect a s such doth usually so work (yea to confusion and every evil work,) when it hath banished the Zeal of Love and of Good Works. Jam. 3.14, 15, 16. Tit. 2.14. And I never counted it any great loss to their followers, that they disswade them from the reading of my writings (as the Papists do their Prose- lytes) as long as God hath blest our Land with so many better. But there are other effects that command me once again to speak to them. 1. One is, that I have good proof of the lamentable Scandal of some very hopeful Persons of quality, who by hearing such language from these men, have bin ready to turn away from Religion, and say, If they thus set against and condemn one another, away with them all. 2. Because divers great Volumes and o- ther sad Evidence tells me that by their in- vented sence of Imputation, they have tem- pted many Learned men to deny Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness absolutely, and bitterly revile it as a most Libertine Irreli- gious Doctrine. 3. But above all, that they do so exceed- ingly confirm the Papists. I must profess that besides carnal Interest and the snare of ill Edu- cation, I do not think that there is any thing in the World that maketh or hardneth and confirmeth Papists more, and hindreth their reception of the Truth, than these same well- meaning people that are most zealous against them, by two means: 1. One by Divisi- ons and unruliness in Church-respects, by which they perswade men, especially Rulers, that without such a Center as the Papacy, there will be no Union, and without such Violence as theirs, there will be no Rule and Order. Thus one extreme doth breed and feed another. 2. The other is by this un- sound sence of the Doctrine of Imputation of Christs Righteousness, (with an unsound De- scription of Faith) saying that every man is to believe it as Gods word (or fide divinâ) that his own sins are pardoned; which when the Papists read (that, these men make it one of the chief Points of our difference from Rome,) doth occasion them to triumph and reproach us, and confidently dissent from us in all the rest.
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