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Refutation. Thefe two propofitions will never go down with found and orthodox Chriftians: the first finks and debafes Christ too low, the other exalts the finful creature too high. The one reprefents the pure and fpotlefs Lord Jefus as finful: the other reprefents the finful creature as pure and perfect : and both these propofitions feem evidently to be built upon thefe two hypothefes. (1.) That the righteousness of Chrift is fubjectively and inherently in us, in the fame fulness and perfection as it is in Chrift: grant that, and then it will follow indeed, That Christ himself is not more righteous than the believer is. (2.) That not only the guilt and punishment of fin was laid on Chrift by way of imputation: bnt fin itself, the very tranfgreffion, or finfulness itself, was transferred from the elect to Chrift: and that by God's laying it on him, the finfulness or fault itself was effentially transfufed into him; and fo fin itself did tranfire a fubjectò in fubjectum. Grant but this, and it can never be denied but that Christ became as completely finful as we.

But both these hypothefes are not only notoriously false, but utterly impoffible, as will be manifefted by and by; but before I come to the refutation of them, it will be necessary to lay down fome conceffions to clear the orthodox doctrine in this controverfy, and narrow the matter under debate, as much as may be.

(1.) And first, We thankfully acknowledge the Lord Jefus Christ to be the Surety of the New Teftament, Heb. vii. 22. and that as fuch, all the guilt and punishment of our fins, was laid upon him, Ifa. liii. 5, 6. That is, God imputed, and he bare it in our room and flead. God the Father, as fupreme Lawgiver and judge of all, upon the tranfgreffion of the law, admitted the fponfion or furetifhip of Chrift, to answer for the fins of men, Heb. x. 5, 6, 7. And for this very end he was made under the law, Gal. iv. 4, 5. And that Chrift voluntarily took it upon him to answer as our Surety, whatsoever the law could lay to our charge; whence it became juft and righteous that he fhould fuffer.

(2.) We fay, That God, by laying upon, or imputing the guilt of our fins to Chrift, thereby our fins became legally his; as the debt is legally the Surety's debt, though he never borrowed one farthing of it: Thus God laid, and Christ took our firs upon him, though in him was no fin, 2 Cor. v. 21. " He hath made him to be fin for us, who knew no fia," (i. e.) who was clean, and altogether void of fin.

(3.) We thankfully acknowledge, that Chrift hath fo fully fa

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tisfied the law for the sins of all that are his, that the debts of believers are fully discharged, and the very laft mite paid by Christ. His payment is full, and fo therefore is our discharge and acquittance, Rom. viii. 1, 31. And that, by virtue hereof, the guilt of believers is fo perfectly abolished, that it shall never more bring them under condemnation, John v. 24. And fo in Chrift they are without fault before God.

4. We likewife grant, That as the guilt of our fins was by God's imputation laid upon Chrift, fo the righteousness of Chritt is by God imputed to believers, by virtue of their union with Chrift; and becomes thereby as truly and fully theirs, for the justification of their particular perfons before God, as if they themselves had in their own perfons fulfilled all that the law requires, or fuffered all that it threatened: No inherent righteQufnefs in our own perfons. is, or can be more truly our own, for this end and purpofe, than Chrift's imputed righteousness is our own. He is the Lord our righteoufnels. Jer. xxiii. 6, We are made the righteousness of God in him, 1 Cor. v. 21, Yea, the righteoufnejs of the law is fulfilled in them that beluve, Rom. viii. 4.

But notwithstanding all this, we cannot say, (1.) That Christ became as completely finful as we. Or, (2.) That we are as completely righteous as Chrift; and that over and above the guilt and punishment of fin, (which we grant was laid upon Chrift) fin itself fimply confidered, or the very tranfgreffion itfelf, became the fin or tranfgreffion of Chrift; and confequently that we are as completely righteous as Chrift, and Chrift as completely finful as we are.

1. We dare not fay, that fin fimply confidered, as the very tranfgreffion of the law itfelf, as well as the guilt and punishment, became the very fin and tranfgreffion of Chrift: For two things are diftinctly to be confidered and differenced, with respect to the law, and unto fin. As to the law, we are to confider in it,

1. Its preceptive part,

2. Its fanction.

(1.) The preceptive part of the law, which gives fia its formal nature, John iii. 4. For fin is the tranfgreffion of the law. All tranfgreffion arifes from the preceptive part of the law of God: He that tranfgreffeth the precepts, finneth; and under this confideration fin can never be communicated from one to another: The perfonal fin of one, cannot be in this respect, the perfonal fin of another: There is no phyfical transfufion of the tranfgreffion of the precept from one fubject to ano

ther: This is utterly impoffible; even Adam's perfonal fins, confidered in his fingle private capacity, are not communicable to his posterity.

(2.) Befides the tranfgreffion of the preceptive part of the law, there is an obnoxiousness unto punishment, arifing from the fanction of the law, which we call the guilt of fin; and this (as judicious Dr. Owen obferves) is feparable from fin: and if it were not feparable from the former, no finner in the world could either be pardoned or faved; guilt may be made another's by imputation, and yet that other not rendered formally a finner thereby: Upon this ground, we fay the guilt and punishment of our fin, was that only which was imputed unto Chrift, but the very tranfgreffion of the law itself, or fin formally and effentially confidered, could never be communicated or transfufed from us unto him. I know but two ways in the world by which one man's fins can be imagined to become another's, viz. Either by imputation, which is legal, and what we affirm; or by effential transfufion from fubject to fubject (as our adverfaries fancy) which is utterly impossible; and we have as good ground to believe the abfurd doctrine of tranfubftantiation, as this wild notion of the effential transfufion of fin Guilt, arifing from the fanction of the law, may, and did pafs from us to Chrift by legal imputation; but fin itself, the very tranfgreffion itself, arifing from the very preceptive part of the law, cannot fo pafs from us to Chrift: For if we should once imagine, that the very acts and habits of fin, with the odious deformity thereof, fhould pafs from our perfons to Chrift, and lubjectively to inhere in him, as they do in us; then it would follow,

Firft, That our falvation would thereby be rendered utterly impoffible. For fuch an inhefion of fin in the perfon of Chrift, is abfolutely inconfiftent with the hypoftatical union, which union is the very foundation of his fatisfaction, and our falvation. Though the Divine nature can, and doth dwell in union with the pure and finlels human nature of Christ, yet it

Cannot dwell in union with fin.

Secondly. This fuppofition would render the blood of the crols altogether unable to fatisfy for us. He could not have been the Lamb of God to take away the fins of the world, if he had not been perfectly pure and fpotlefs, 1 Pet. i. 19.

Thirdly, Had our fins thus been effentially transfufed into Chrift, the law had had a just and valid exception against him;

* Owen of Juftification, p. 183.

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for it accepts of nothing but what is abfolutely pure and per fect. I admire, therefore, how any good men dare to call our doctrine, which teaches the imputation of our guilt and punishment to Chrift, a fimple doctrine; and affert, that the tranf greffion itself became Chrift's; and that thereby Christ became as completely finful as we. And,

Fourthly, If the way of making our fins Chrift's by imputation, be thus rejected and derided; and Chrift afferted, by fome other way, to become as completely finful as we; then I cannot fee which way to avoid it, but that the very same acts and habits of fin muft inhere, both in Chrift, and in believers alfo. For, I fuppofe our adverfaries will not deny, that, notwithstanding God's laying the fins of believers upon Chrift, there remain in all believers after their juftification, finful inclinations and averfations; a law of fin in their members, à body of fin and death. Did thefe things pafs from them to Chrift, and yet do they ftill inhere in them? Why do they complain and groan of indwelling fin? as Rom. vii. If fin itself be fo transferrred from them to Chrift? Sure, unless men will dare to fay, the fame acts and habits of fin which they feel in themfelves, are as truly in Christ as in themselves, they have no ground to fay, that by God's laying their iniquities upon Chrift, he became as completely finful as they are; and if they should fo affirm, that affirmation would undermine the very foundation of their own falvation.

I therefore heartily fubfcribe to that found and holy fentence, of a clear and learned divine, * Nothing is more abfolutly true, nothing more facredly and affuredly believed by us, than that nothing which Chrift did or fuffered, nothing that he undertook, or underwent, did, or could conflitute him subjectively, inherently, and thereupon perfonally a finner, or guilty of any fin of his own. To bear the guilt or blame of other mens faults, to be alienae culpae reus, makes no man a finner, unless he did unwifely and irregularly undertake it. So then this propofition, that by God's laying our fins upon Chrift (in fome other way, than by imputation of guilt and punishment) he became as completely finful as we, will not, ought not to be received as the found doctrine of the gofpel. Nor yet this

Second propofition, That we are as completely righteous as Chrift is; or, that Chrift is not more righteous than a believer.

I cannot imagine what should induce any man fo to express himself, unless it be a groundless conceit and fancy, that there

* Owen of Juftification, p. 183,

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is an effential transfufion of Chrift's justifying righteousness into believers, whereby it becomes theirs by way of fubjective inhefion, and is in them in the very fame manner it is in him: and to every individual believer becomes as completely righteous as Chrift. And this conceit they would fain establish upon that text, John iii. 7. "He that doth righteousness, is righteous, even as he is righteous."

But neither this expreffion, nor any other like it in the fcriptures, gives the least countenance to fuch a general and unwary pofition. It is far from the mind of this fcripture, That the righteousness of Chrift is formally and inherently ours, as it is his. Indeed it is ours relatively, not formally and inherently; not the fame with his for quantity, though it be the fame for verity. His righteoufnefs is not ours in its univerfal value, though it be ours, as to our particular ufe and neceffity. Nor is it made ours to make us fo many causes of falvation to others but it is imputed to us as to the fubjects, that are to be faved by it ourselves.

'Tis true, we are juftified and faved by the very righteoufnefs of Christ, and no other; but that righteousness is formally inherent in him only, and is only materially imputed to us. It was actively his, but paffively ours. He wrought it, though we wear it. It was wrought in the perfon of God-man for the whole church, and is imputed (not transfufed) to every single believer for his own concernment only. For,

(1.) It is most abfurd to imagine, that the righteousness of Chrift should formally inhere in the perfon of every, or any believer, as it doth in the person of the mediator. The impoffi bility hereof appears plainly from the incapacity of the subject. The righteoufnels of Chrift is an infinite righteousness, because it is the righteoufnefs of God-man, and can therefore be fubjected in no other perfon befide him. It is capable of being im puted to a finite creature, and therefore, in the way of imputa, tion, we are faid to be made the righteoufnels of God in him; baz tho' it may be imputed to a finite creature, it inheres only in the perfon of the Son of God, as in its proper fubject. And indeed,

(2.) If it should be inherent in us, it could not be imputed to us, as it is, Rom. iv. 6, 23. Nor need we go out of ourselves for juftification, as now we muft, Phil. iii. 9. but may justify Qurfelves by our own inherent righteoufnefs. And,

(3.) What should hinder, if this infinite righteousness of Chrift were infufed into us, and fhould make us as completely righteous as Chrift; but that we might justify others alfo, as

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