TMSJ 32/1 (Spring 2021) 61–75 GOD FREELY JUSTIFIETH…BY IMPUTING CHRIST’S ACTIVE…AND PASSIVE OBEDIENCE James M. Renihan Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School President of IRBS Theological Seminary Mansfield, Texas * * * * * This article traces seventeenth century debates surrounding the doctrine of justification. The united testimony of Reformed writers, the common consent of the English Puritan confessions, and even the startling testimony of a most important Roman apologist together provide a powerful argument: justification comes solely from the work of Christ the mediator. These debates helped to produce the beautiful words of the Second London Confession: “Christ by his obedience, and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified; and did by the sacrifice of himself, in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their stead, the penalty due unto them: make a proper, real and full satisfaction to God’s justice in their behalf: yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his Obedience and Satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them; their Justification is only of Free Grace, that both the exact justice and rich Grace of God, might be glorified in the Justification of sinners.” * * * * * “That article of our faith which concerns the justification of a sinner in the sight of God, must needs be acknowledged to be of great importance, and we ought to be more careful of nothing, than that our minds be not corrupted from the simplicity of the Gospel, and we moved from our steadfastness thereabout.”1 With these words Nehemiah Coxe commences his exposition of the doctrine of justification by faith alone in refutation of the heresies and errors of one Thomas Collier. In the face of a difficult theological and pastoral situation potentially affecting many churches, Coxe had been seconded by six London elders to address 1 Nehemiah Coxe, Vindiciae Veritatis (London: Nathaniel Ponder, 1677), 104. Quotations from primary sources maintain archaic orthography. 61 62 | Christ’s Active and Passive Obedience and repudiate Collier’s serious doctrinal defections. In 1645, Thomas Collier had been sent, perhaps from William Kiffen’s London Particular Baptist congregation,2 as an evangelist and church planter to the West Country3 of England, enjoying measurable success in both conversions and new assemblies. He became the most influential leader of the many congregations in the western counties, eventually chosen to represent the associated western churches. Vindiciae Veritatis Early in his ministry, Collier expressed deviant theological positions, but seemed to have repented of these.4 By the mid-1670s, he again fell into error, advocating a strange admixture of heterodox, unorthodox, and plainly heretical doctrines. In response, the London elders took several steps, including commissioning Coxe to examine and publish a repudiation of Collier’s errors. The result is Coxe’s Vindiciae Veritatis, a fascinating study contrasting unorthodoxy with truth. Demonstrating deep acumen and theological profundity, Coxe examined Collier’s recently published writings and exposed them by the light of carefully articulated Reformed orthodoxy. Through seven chapters, he examines Collier’s deviations on classical theism and Christology, election, the extent of the death of Christ and the nature of the atonement, the power of the will in fallen humanity, the perseverance of the saints, justification, and the Judgment Day and eternal damnation. Other matters are also addressed along the way. In each chapter, he interacts at length with Collier’s published views, often relying on the best Christian scholarship of the day, citing authorities (often in Latin) both well-known—such as William Ames, Gisbertus Voetius, and John Owen—along with more obscure scholars—such as the Hebraist Johannes Mercer, the orientalist exegete Benedictus Arias Montanus, the Dominican philologist Santes Pagnino, and the French Hebraist François Vatable.5 The sixth chapter Of Justification is directly relevant to this study. The Second London Confession Vindiciae Veritatis is not, however, the only published document seemingly issued in response to Thomas Collier. Samuel Renihan has presented a convincing case showing that the appearance of the Second London Confession in 16776 may be 2 Richard D. Land, “Doctrinal Controversies of the English Particular Baptists (1644–1691) as illustrated by the Career and Writings of Thomas Collier,” D.Phil. Thesis (Oxford University, 1979), 25ff. 3 The West Country extends from Devon and Somerset in the southwest of England to Bristol on the west coast, and inland towards London. 4 See James Renihan, “The Strange Case of Thomas Collier,” Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies (2016): 97–122. 5 Each of these is cited in Francis Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James Dennison (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1997); see the “Biographical Dictionary,” III:681 ff. They are also referenced in John Gill’s Exposition of the Old and New Testaments. 6 While popularly known as the 1689 London Baptist Confession, this is a misnomer, for there is no evidence that an edition of the Confession was published in that year. It has been identified with 1689 since that was the year in which the first national General Assembly of Particular Baptist churches was held in London. At that meeting, the Confession was formally adopted, hence the attribution. See James The Master’s Seminary Journal | 63 a response to Collier’s aberrations.7 In 1674, he published The Body of Divinity8 with the subtitle “A Confession of Faith, being the substance of Christianity: Containing the most material things relating to matters both of faith and practice.” This “small brief Treatise”9 is over 600 pages long, serving as an attempt to provide a system of theology to unite believers. Naming it a “Confession of Faith” provided the appearance of an official document, perhaps intended to reflect the theology of the Particular Baptist churches at large. It was followed in 1676 by An Additional Word to the Body of Divinity, or Confession of Faith,10a book intended to clarify “some things in my book, titled The Body of Divinity, or a Confession of Faith, relative to the Person of the Son of God, with some other things, at which some took offence.”11 Rather than helping, the Additional Word caused greater concern. Elders from West Country churches, along with some members of his own Southwick congregation expressed great unease and sought assistance from the London pastors. Collier published a narrative of the events12 describing correspondence, personal meetings, and his objection to the publication of Coxe’s Vindiciae Veritatis, to which he also replied in 1677 with A Sober and Moderate Answer to Nehemiah Coxe’s Invective.13 Through the process, the London elders were convinced that Collier indeed advocated heresy, and on 2 August 1677, joined with elders from Bristol, by letter formally charged Collier with heresy.14 “The letter from the London and Bristol elders defined a heretic as one ‘that chooseth an Opinion by which some fundamental Article of the Christian Religion is subverted.’”15 Within a few weeks, the first known literary record of the Second London Confession appears in London’s Petty France church-minute book, reading, “It was agreed that a Confession of Faith with the appendix thereto having been read & considered by the Brē: should be published.”16 This is the congregation where Nehemiah Coxe was pastor. In the letter “To the Renihan, Faith and Life for Baptists: The Documents of the London Particular Baptist General Assemblies, 1689–1694 (Palmdale: RBAP, 2016), 207 ff. 7 Samuel Renihan, From Shadow to Substance: The Federal Theology of the English Particular Baptists (1642–1704) (Oxford: Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, Regent’s Park College, 2018), 174 ff. The following material is a summary of his argument. 8 Thomas Collier, The Body of Divinity, or, A Confession of Faith, Being the Substance of Christianity: Containing the Most Material things relating to matters both of Faith and Practise (London: Nath. Crouch, 1674). 9 Collier, Body of Divinity, A6 recto. 10 Thomas Collier, An Additional Word to the Body of Divinity, or Confession of Faith; Being the Substance of Christianity (London: Printed for the Author, 1676). 11 Collier, Additional Word, A3 recto. 12 Thomas Collier, A Brief and true NARRATIVE of the unrighteous dealings with Thomas Collier, a Member and Minister of the Church usually assembling at Southwick in the County of Wilts. (n.p., 1677). 13 Thomas Collier, A Sober and Moderate Answer to Nehemiah Coxe’s Invective (pretended) Refutation as he saith of the gross Errors and Heresies asserted by Thomas Collier in his Additional Word: Wherein his Refutation is examined, and found too light (London: Francis Smith, 1677). 14 Collier, A Brief and true NARRATIVE, 16. 15 Samuel Renihan, From Shadow to Substance, 178. Collier transcribed the letter and printed it in his Brief and True NARRATIVE, 12–15. 16 The church minute book is held at the London Metropolitan Archives, LMA CLC/179/MS20228/001B “Memoranda and Minutes of Church Meetings and Membership Lists of the Congregations Successively at Petty France, Westminster; Artillery Lane, Spitalfields; Walbrook; and Turners’ Hall, Philpot Lane.” It has been transcribed and is printed in Samuel Renihan, The Petty France Church, (Part 1) (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2019), 231. 64 | Christ’s Active and Passive Obedience Judicious and Impartial Reader” prefaced to the Confession, it is stated that the publication is intended “to manifest our consent…in all the fundamental articles of the Christian religion,” the Appendix containing the nearly identical phrase “we endeavoured to manifest, that in the fundamental articles of Christianity we mind the same things” as had been confessed in the earlier Westminster Confession of Faith and the Congregational Savoy Declaration of Faith.17 The use of this phraseology is significant, and may provide a clue to the provenance of the Confession.