ESSAY II. 430 oeremenies And Therefore the righteousness of Christ, when it is said to be imputed to,believers, canmean nomore than that the legal result of his righteous acts, er acts of obedience to God, is imputed to them, or bestowed upon them. This gift of righte- ousness therefore, is a right to impunity, a legal T. ectitude in the court of God, an absolution from sin and punishment, a pardon of sin and justification in the sight of God, and a right to eternal life, which are conferred upon them for the sake of what Christ has done and suffered. And indeed for .this reason I have sometimes scrupled to use this language, though some very good writers have used,it, viz. that the merits of Christ, ,or his satisfaction are imputed to us. The satisfaction of .Christ is the recompence which he made to. God for our breach of hio law : Ilis merit in its most natural sense signifieslris proper desertand worthiness ofall those divine honours and blessings which were his own personal rewards, as well as of that pardon of sin and eternal life which he obtained for us r And this merit and satisfaction arises from the transcend- ent value and dignity of theperson of Christ. Surely this .satis- faction cannot be imputed to us properly, lest we Should be said to have satisfied, and made God a recompencefor our sins. His merit cannnot be imputed to us in a strict sense, for that would make us meritors, either of such peculiar glories as he had;. or at least of our own pardon of _sin ;and eternal life. But if we sink the sense of the wordfinerit sates to mean nothing but those blessings of pardon, grace, and eternal life which Christ lias merited for us, or rather the legal right of true believers to those blessings, according to the covenant ,of grace ; then the phrase of his merits imputed, may be used without offence or error. Here.Iet me make thesetwo .rellectipns I. It is the explaining this doctrine of imputed sin and imputed righteousness, so as to include all the particular acts of sin and righteousness, with their proper merit or demerit, &c. that has tempted so many persons to deny the doctrine itself. II. If it should ;be allowed that the very act of Adam's dis- obedience was imputed to all his posterity ; if the very same sin- ful actions ,of mencould be imputed to Christ if the very actions of Christ's obedience and righteousness could be imputed to believers, what greater punishments could the one justlyand rea- sonably suffer ? Or what blessings could the other reasonably be entitled to, or enjoy, according to scriptural representations of things, beyond what scripture has assigned, either to mankind as the result of the sin of Adam, or to Christ as the result of the sins of men, or to believers as the result of the righteousness of Christ ? Upon the whole, I conclude, the imputation of Adam's first sin to his offspring, the imputation of our sins to Christ: and.
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