XIX. Objections against the doctrine of justification by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ — Personal holiness and obedience not obstructed, but furthered by it
Objections against the doctrine of justification by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ — Nature of these objections — Difficulty in discerning aright the sense of some men in this argument — Justification by works, the end of all declension from the righteousness of Christ — Objections against this doctrine derived from a supposition thereof alone — First principal objection: Imputed righteousness overthrows the necessity of a holy life — This objection, as managed by them of the church of Rome, an open calumny — How insisted on by some among ourselves — Socinus’s fierceness in this charge — His foul dishonesty therein — False charges on men’s opinions making way for the rash condemnation of their persons — Iniquity of such censures — The objection rightly stated — Sufficiently answered in the previous discourses about the nature of faith, and force of the moral law — The nature and necessity of evangelical holiness elsewhere pleaded — Particular answers unto this objection — All who profess this doctrine do not exemplify it in their lives — The most holy truths have been abused — None by whom this doctrine is now denied exceeds them in holiness by whom it is formerly professed, and the power of it attested — The contrary doctrine not successful in the reformation of the lives of men — The best way to determine this difference — The one objection managed against the doctrine of the apostle in his own days — Efficacious prejudices against this doctrine in the minds of men — The whole doctrine of the apostle liable to be abused — Answer of the apostle unto this objection — He never once attempts to answer it by declaring the necessity of personal righteousness, or good works, unto justification before God — He confines the cogency of evangelical motives unto obedience only unto believers — Grounds of evangelical holiness asserted by him, in compliance with his doctrine of justification:— 1. Divine ordination — Exceptions unto this ground removed. 2. Answer of the apostle vindicated — The obligation of the law unto obedience — Nature of it, and consistency with grace — This answer of the apostle vindicated — Heads of other principles that might be pleaded to the same purpose
That which remains to put an issue to this discourse is the consideration of some things that in general are laid in objection against the truth pleaded for. Many things of that nature we have occasionally met withal, and already removed; yea, the principal of those which at present are most insisted on. The testimonies of Scripture urged by those of the Roman church for justification by works, have all of them so fully and frequently been answered by Protestant divines, that it is altogether needless to insist again upon them, unless they had received some new enforcement; which of late they have not done. That which, for the most part, we have now to do withal are rather sophistical cavils, from supposed absurd consequences, than real theological arguments. And some of those who would walk with most wariness between the imputation of the righteousness of Christ and justification by our own works, either are in such a slippery place that they seem sometimes to be on the one side, sometimes on the other; or else to express themselves with so much caution, as it is very difficult to apprehend their minds. I shall not, therefore, for the future dare to say that this or that is any man’s opinion, though it appear unto me so to be, as clear and evident as words can express it; but that this or that opinion, let it be maintained by whom it will, I approve or disapprove, this I shall dare to say. And I will say, also, that the declination that has been from the common doctrine of justification before God on the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, does daily proceed towards a direct assertion of justification by works; nor, indeed, has it where to rest until it comes unto that bottom. And this is more clearly seen in the objections which they make against the truth than in what they plead in defence of their own opinions: for herein they speak as yet warily, and with a pretence of accuracy in avoiding extremes; but in the other, or their objections, they make use of none but what are easily resolved into a supposition of justification by works in the grossest sense of it. To insist on all particulars were endless; and, as was said, most of those of any importance have already occasionally been spoken unto. There are, therefore, only two things which are generally pleaded by all sorts of persons, Papists, Socinians, and others with whom here we have to do, that I shall take notice of. The first and fountain of all others is, that the doctrine of justification by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ does render our personal righteousness needless, and overthrows all necessity of a holy life. The other is, that the apostle James, in his epistle, does plainly ascribe our justification unto works; and what he affirms there is inconsistent with that sense of those many other testimonies of Scripture which we plead for.