Refuted from right Reason.

1. Because it is impossible for God to justify that which is both opposite and destructive to the purity of his own nature, as this doctrine necessarily obliges him to do, in accepting the wicked, as not such, from the imputation of another's righteousness.

2. Since man was justified before God, whilst in his native innocency, and never condemned till he had erred from that pure state; he never can be justified, whilst in the frequent commission of that for which the condemnation came; therefore, to be justified, his redemption must be as entire as his fall.

3. Because sin came not by imputation, but actual transgression; for God did not condemn his creature for what he did not, but what he did; therefore must the righteousness be as personal for acceptance, otherwise these two things will necessarily follow; first, that he may be actually a sinner, and yet not under the curse; secondly, that the power of the first Adam to death was more prevalent than the power of the second Adam unto life.

4. It is therefore contrary to sound reason, that if actual sinning brought death and condemnation, any thing besides actual obedience unto righteousness should bring life and justification; for death and life, condemnation and justification being vastly opposite, no man can be actually dead and imputatively alive; therefore this doctrine, so much contended for, carries this gross absurdity with it, that a man may be actually

sinful, yet imputatively righteous; actually judged and condemned, yet imputatively justified and glorified; in short, he may be actually damned, and yet imputatively saved; otherwise it must be acknowledged, that obedience to justification ought to be as personally extensive, as was disobedience to condemnation; in which real, not imputative sense, those various terms of sanctification, righteousness, resurrection, life, redemption, justification, &c. are most infallibly to be understood.

5. Nor are those words, impute, imputed, imputeth, imputing, used in Scripture by way of opposition to that which is actual and inherent, as the assertors of an imputative righteousness do by their doctrine plainly intimate; but so much the contrary, as that they are never mentioned, but to express men really and personally to be that which is imputed to them, whether as guilty, as remitted, or as righteous. For instance; "What man soever of the house of Israel that killeth an ox, and bringeth it not to the door of the tabernacle to offer unto the Lord, blood shall be imputed unto that man,”* or charged upon him as guilty thereof. "And Shimei said unto the king, let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, for thy servant doth know that I have sinned."+

6. "But sin is not imputed where there is no law."‡ From whence it is apparent that there could be no im

*Lev. xvii. 3, 4.

+2 Sam. xix. 18-20.

Rom. v. 13.

putation or charging of guilt upon any, but such as really were guilty. Next, it is used about remission; "Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity;"* or as the foregoing words have it, "whose transgression is forgiven." Where the nonimputation doth not argue a nonreality of sin, but the reality of God's pardon; for otherwise there would be nothing to forgive, nor yet a real pardon, but only imputative, which, according to the sense of this doctrine, I call imaginary. Again, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Where also nonimputation, being a real discharge for actual trespasses, argues an imputation, by the reason of contraries, to be a real charging of actual guilt. Lastly, it is used in relation to righteousness; "Was not Abraham justified by works, when he offered Isaac? And by works was faith made perfect, and the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness."‡ By which we must not conceive, as do the dark imputarians of this age, that Abraham's offering personally was not a justifying righteousness, but that God was pleased to account it so; since God never accounts a thing that which it is not; nor was there any imputation of another's righteousness to Abraham, but on the contrary, his personal obedience was the ground of that

*Ps. xxxii. 2. +2 Cor. v. 19.

James ii. 21–23.

just imputation; and therefore, that any should be justified from the imputation of another's righteousness, not inherent, or actually possessed by them, is both ridiculous and dangerous-Ridiculous, since it is to say a man is rich to the value of a thousand pounds, whilst he is not really or personally worth a groat, from the imputation of another, who has it all in his possession-Dangerous, because it begets a confident persuasion in many people of their being justified, whilst in captivity to those lusts whose reward is condemnation; whence came that usual saying amongst many professors of religion, "that God looks not on them as they are in themselves, but as they are in Christ ;" not considering that none can be in Christ, who are not new creatures, which those cannot be reputed, who have not disrobed themselves of their old garments, but are still inmantled with the corruptions of the old

man.

Consequences irreligious and irrational.

1. It makes God guilty of what the Scriptures say is an abomination, to wit, that he justifieth the wicked. 2. It makes him look upon persons as they are not, or with respect, which is unworthy of his most equal

nature.

3. He is hereby at peace with the wicked, (if justified whilst sinners,) who said, "there is no peace to the wicked."

4. It does not only imply communion with them here, in an imperfect state, but so to all eternity; "for

whom he justified, them he also glorified."* Therefore whom he justified whilst sinners, them he also glorified whilst sinners.

5. It only secures from the wages, not the dominion of sin; whereby something that is sinful comes to be justified, and that which defileth, to enter God's kingdom.

6. It renders a man justified and condemned, dead and alive, redeemed and not redeemed, at the same time; the one by an imputative righteousness, the other a personal unrighteousness.

7. It flatters men, whilst subject to the world's lusts, with a state of justification, and thereby invalidates the very end of Christ's appearance, which was to destroy the works of the devil, and take away the sins of the world; a quite contrary purpose than what the satisfactionists and imputarians of our times have imagined, viz. to satisfy for their sins, and by his imputed righteousness to represent them holy in him, whilst unholy in themselves; therefore, since it was to take away sin and destroy the devil's works, which were not in himself, for that Holy One saw no corruption, consequently, in mankind; what can therefore be concluded more evidently true, than that such in whom sin is not taken away, and the devil's works undestroyed, are strangers, notwithstanding their conceits, to the very end and purpose of Christ's manifestation?

*Rom. viii. 30.