Its e f jecial Ob)eEi farther cleared. 15 3 Righteoufnef which will prove its only ufe in our Juflifica- tion. He that can better exprefs this than by an Inf rument, ordained of God unto this End, all whole ufe depends on that Ordination of God, will deferve well of the Truth. It is true that all thole who place the formal Caufè or Keafon of our Juflification in our felves, or our inherent Right-coal: and fo either direêtly or by juft confequence deny all Im- putation of the Righteoufnefs of Chrift unto our Juflifica- tion, are not capable of admitting Faith to be an Infiniment in this work, nor are preffed with this confederation. For they acknowledge not that we receive a Righteoufnefs which is not our own by way of Gift, whereby we are juflified, and fo cannot allow of any Infiniment whereby it fhould be received. The Righteoufnefs it Pelf being as they phrafe it, putative, imaginary, a chimera, a plion, it can have no real accidents, nothing that can be really predicated concerning it. Wherefore as was faid at the Entrance of this Difcourfe, the Truth and Propriety of this declaration of the Vfe of Faith in our Juftification by an Infirumental caufe, depends on thefubflance of the Do &rive it felf concerning the na- ture and principal caufes of it, with which they muff ftand or fall. If we are juftified through the Imputation of the Righteoufnef of Chrift, which Faith alone apprehends and receives, it will not be denied but that it is rightly enough placed as the Infirumental caufe of our Juflification. And if we are juftified by an inherent Evangelical Righteoufnefs' of our own, Faith may be the Condition of its Imputation, or a di fio ftion for its Introdu &ion, or a congruous merit of it, but an Inflrument it cannot be. But yet for the prefent it bath this double advantage ; (i) That it bell and molt ap- foftely anfwers what is affirmed of the Z1fe of Faith in our uflification, in the Scripture, as the Inflances given do ma- nifeft ; (2) That no other notion of it can be lò flated, but that it muff be apprehended in order of time to be. previous X unto
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