Section 1188
V. The doctrine of justification, by the imputed righteousness of Christ, comes next under consideration.
1. Some passages of scripture, as Isaiah 64:6, Philippians 3:9, which represent the insufficiency of man’s righteousness to justify him before God, are brought under examination. As to Isaiah 64:6, our author seems to be at a loss whether he should follow the interpretation of Grotius, or Henry. However, that the prophet speaks of a hypocritical people, he thinks is a clear point, for this wise reason; because it is said, at the end of the verse, we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away: whereas hypocrites are not so free to own their declensions and transgressions, and to confess the impurity of their hearts, and the imperfection of their obedience; they generally make the least of their sins, and the most they can of their righteousness: So that these words are a reason against, and not for, his sense of the passage. St. Paul, in Philippians 3:8, 9, he says, only renounced his ceremonial, not his moral righteousness. But it is not the righteousness of the ceremonial, but of the moral law, which the apostle continually opposes to the righteousness of faith; see 22, and 4:13, 9:30, 31, 10:5, 6. And when we say, that he renounced this righteousness, he knows very well our meaning is, not that he renounced doing it, or objected to the performance of it; but that he disclaimed all dependence upon it for justification before God; and, in respect to that, desired only to be found in Christ: which is not to represent the apostle falsely and absurdly, but perfectly agreeable with himself, and his principles.
2. This man has no other notion of imputation, but of accounting that to a man which is done by himself, and not what may be done, or contracted by another; contrary to the apostle’s sentiments, Romans 4:6, 11, 23, 24, Philemon verse 18. He argues against the imputation of Christ’s righteousness in this manner; if no one single act of the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, then the whole of it is not. Very right; for how indeed should the whole be imputed, if no one part of it is? But what are the particular acts of Christ’s righteousness? His Incarnation, Baptism, Poverty, Fasting, his Victory over Satan, Preaching, Miracles, his Confession before Pilate, Obedience to death, giving a Commission to his apostles, his Intercession, and governing and judging the World. All false. Not these, but the several acts of his obedience to the moral law, are the righteousness of Christ, by which men are made righteous, and by which they can only be made so, by he imputation of it to them; the ground of which imputation is Christ’s being their head, surety, and representative; so that the righteousness of the law being fulfilled by him, in their room and stead, it is all one as if it was fulfilled by them, and is said indeed to be fulfilled in them: which does not exempt them from service to God, or obedience to his law, but lays them under greater obligation in point of gratitude to an observance of it, though not in order to justification by it.
3. It is still insisted on, that there is no text of scripture to be found, proving the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. As for Romans 4:3, he stands to it, that it must be understood of Abraham’s faithful obedience, or obeying faith, and not the object of it; which, he says, was the promise of God that he should have a son, that was imputed to him for righteousness. Now whatever may be said for the imputation of Abraham’s act of faith to himself for righteousness, nothing can be said in favor of the imputation of the act of faith, that he should have a son, to us, for righteousness, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; where the apostle clearly asserts that that it, which was imputed to Abraham for righteousness, is also imputed to all them that believe. To which this man makes no reply. Nor does he take any notice of Romans 4:6, 1 Corinthians 1:30, 2 Corinthians 5:21, which were produced as proofs of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to his people. He allows that we are made righteous by the obedience of Christ, in the same sense we are made sinners by the disobedience of Adam; and since he owns before, that we are made righteous by the obedience of Christ, in a forensic sense, it must be by the imputation of it to us.
4. This author having suggested that the doctrine of imputed righteousness was a poisonous one, and tended to licentiousness; the contrary was proved from Romans 3:31, Titus 2:11, 12, 3:7, 8, which he has passed in silence; and instead of offering anything in support of his former suggestion, he runs to the doctrine of Reprobation, of God’s seeing no sin in his elect, and of irresistible grace; to which he adds a testimony of Bishop Burnet’s, concerning some persons in King Edward the VIth’s time, who made an ill use of the doctrine of predestination. This is no new thing with this writer; nothing is more common with him, than to jumble doctrines together; never was such a lumbering, immethodical piece of work published to the world. It would be easy to exculpate the above doctrines, as well as this of justification, from the charge of licentiousness; and I have done it already, to which I refer the reader. I go on to consider,