Purification and Sanctification

“Though justification and sanctification are both of them blessings of grace, and though they are absolutely inseparable, yet they are so manifestly distinct, that there is in various respects a wide difference between them. Justification respects the person in a legal sense, is a single act of grace, and terminates in a relative change; that is, a freedom from punishment and a right to life. Sanctification regards him in an experimental sense, is a continued work of grace, and terminates in a real change, as to the quality both of habits and actions. The former is by a righteousness without us; the latter is by holiness wrought in us. Justification is by Christ as a priest, and has regard to the guilt of sin; sanctification is by Him as a king, and refers to its dominion. Justification is instantaneous and complete in all its real subjects; but sanctification is progressive” (A. Booth, 1813).

From Sanctification by A.W. Pink,

Purification and sanctification. These two things are not absolutely identical: though inseparable, they are yet distinguishable. We cannot do better than quote from G. Smeaton, “The two words frequently occurring in the ritual of Israel, “sanctify” and “purify,” are so closely allied in sense, that some regard them as synonymous. But a slight shade of distinction between the two may be discerned as follows. It is assumed that ever-recurring defilements, of a ceremonial kind, called for sacrifices which removed, and the word “purify” referred to these rites and sacrifices which removed the stains which excluded the worshipper from the privilege of approach to the sanctuary of God, and from fellowship with His people. The defilement which he contracted excluded him from access. But when this same Israelite was purged by sacrifice, he was readmitted to the full participation of the privilege. He was then sanctified, or holy. Thus the latter is the consequence of the former. We may affirm, then, that the two words in this reference to the old worship, are very closely allied; so much so, that the one involves the other. This will throw light upon the use of these two expressions in the N. T.: Ephesians 5:25, 26; Hebrews 2;11; Titus 2:14. All these passages represent a man defiled by sin and excluded from God, but readmitted to access and fellowship, and so pronounced holy, as soon as the blood of sacrifice is applied to him.” Often the term “purge” or “purify” (especially in Hebrews) includes justification as well.

Objective holiness is the result of a relationship with God, He having set apart some thing or person for His own pleasure. But the setting apart of one unto God necessarily involves the separating of it from all that is opposed to Him: all believers were set apart or consecrated to God by the sacrifice of Christ. Subjective holiness is the result of a work of God wrought in the soul, setting that person apart for His use. Thus “holiness” has two fundamental aspects. Growing out of the second, is the soul”s apprehension of God”s claims upon him, and his presentation of himself unto God for His exclusive use (Rom. 12:1; etc.), which is practical sanctification. The supreme example of all three is found in Jesus Christ, the Holy one of God. Objectively, He was the One “whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world” (John 10:36); subjectively, He “received the Spirit without measure” (John 3 :34); and practically, He lived for the glory of God, being absolutely devoted to His will – only with this tremendous difference: He needed no inward purification as we do.

To sum up. Holiness, then, is both a relationship and a moral quality. It has both a negative and a positive side: cleansing from impurity, adorning with the grace of the Spirit. Sanctification is, first, a position of honour to which God has appointed His people. Second, it is a state of purity which Christ has purchased for them. Third, it is an inducement given to them by the Holy Spirit. Fourth, it is a course of devoted conduct in keeping therewith. Fifth, it is a standard of moral perfection, at which they are ever to aim: 1 Peter 1:15. A “saint” is one who was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), who has been cleansed from the guilt and pollution of sin by the blood of Christ (Heb. 13:12), who has been consecrated to God by the indwelling Spirit (2 Cor. 1:21, 22), who has been made inwardly holy by the impartation of the principle of grace (Phil. :6), and whose duty, privilege, and aim is to walk suitable thereto (Eph. 4:1).

Fuller’s Controversy with Booth [Letter VI]

[The footnotes are included in the letters. They are found in bracketed italics. Any links found in the article are my doing.]

 SIX LETTERS TO DR. RYLAND

 RESPECTING

THE CONTROVERSY WITH THE REV. A. BOOTH.

 LETTER VI.

BAXTERIANISM.

MY DEAR BROTHER, Jan. 22, 1803.

MR. B. in his letter to you of Dec. 6, 1802, though he acquits me of Arminianism, yet “ventures to say that I appear to him to have adopted some of the leading peculiarities of Mr. Richard Baxter.” I wish he had named them; I would in that case have frankly owned whether I approved or disapproved. As it is, I have been constrained to do what I never did before, look over such polemical pieces of  that writer as I could procure. I have found this, I confess, an irksome task. I endeavoured to procure his Aphorisms on  Justification, but  could not. All I could get of a polemical kind were his treatise on  Universal Redemption, and Four Disputations on Justification. I have bestowed two days upon them, but cannot say that I have read them through. They are so circuitous, and full  of artificial  distinctions, and obscure terms, that I could not in many cases come at his meaning, nor could I have read them through without making myself ill.

It is true, I have found several  of my own sentiments maintained by Mr. Baxter. He speaks of salvation by a substitute as being a measure rather “above law” than according to it, and of satisfaction being made “to the Lawgiver rather than to the law.” If he means any thing more by this than what I have said in Lett. IV., I have no concern in it; and this for substance is allowed by Dr. Owen, in his answer to Middle, – p.512. He pleads, also, that the faith by which we are justified includes a submission of heart to Christ, in all his offices, or a reconciliation to God; and, consequently, that a sinner when justified, though ungodly in the eye of the law, yet is not so in the eye of the gospel, or in our common acceptation of the term. In this I agree with him. It appears to me, however, that though it be essential to the genuineness of faith to receive Christ in every character he sustains, so far as it is understood, yet believing for justification has a special   respect  to Christ’s obedience unto death, with which God  is well pleased,  and of which our justification is the reward.

Mr. Baxter pleads for “universal  redemption;” I only contend for the sufficiency of the atonement, in itself considered, for the redemption and salvation of the whole world; and this affords a ground for a universal  invitation to sinners to believe; which was maintained by Calvin, and all the old Calvinists. I consider redemption as inseparably connected with eternal  life, and therefore as applicable to none but the elect, who are redeemed from among men.

Mr. Baxter considered the gospel as a new law, taking place of the original  law under which man was created; of which  faith,  repentance, and sincere obedience were the requirements; so, at least, I understand him. But these are not my sentiments: I believe, indeed, That the old law, as a covenant, is not so in force as that men are now required to obey it in order to life; on the contrary, all such attempts are sinful, and would have been so though no salvation had been provided. Yet the precept of it is immutably binding, and the curse for transgressing it remains on every unbeliever. I find but little satisfaction in Mr. Baxter’s disputations on justification. He says a great deal about it, distinguishing it into different stages, pleading for evangelical  works as necessary to it, &c. &c. Sometimes he seems to confine the works which Paul excluded from justification to those of the common law, (“the burdensome works of the Mosaical law,” – these are his words,) and to plead for what is moral, or, as he would call it, “evangelical.” Yet he disavows all works as being the causes or grounds on account of which we are justified; and professes to plead for them  only  as  “concomitants;” just as we say repentance is necessary to forgiveness, and faith  to  justification, though these are not considerations moving God to bestow those blessings. In short, I find it much easier to express my own judgment on justification, than to say wherein I agree or differ with Mr. Baxter. I consider justification to be God’s graciously pardoning our sins, and accepting us to favour, exempting us from the curse of the law, and entitling us to the promises of the gospel; not on account or in consideration of any holiness in us, ceremonial  or moral, before, in, or after believing,  but purely in reward of the vicarious obedience and death of Christ, which, on our believing in him, is imputed to us, or reckoned as if it were ours. Nor do I consider any holiness in us to be necessary as a concomitant to justification, except what is necessarily included in believing.

Mr. Baxter writes as if the unconverted could do something towards their conversion, and as if grace were given to all, except those who forfeit it by wilful sin. But no such sentiment ever occupied my mind, or proceeded from my pen. Finally, Mr. Baxter considers Calvinists and Arminians as reconcilable, making the difference between them of but small amount. I have no such idea; and if, on account of what I have here and elsewhere avowed, I were disowned by my present connexions, I should rather choose to go through the world alone than be connected with them. Their scheme appears to me to undermine the doctrine of salvation by grace only, and to resolve the difference between one sinner and another into the will  of man, which is directly opposite to all my views and experience. Nor could I feel  a union of heart with those who are commonly considered in the present day as Baxterians, who hold with the gospel being a new remedial law, and represent sinners as contributing to their own conversion.

The greatest,  though not  the only,  instruction  that  I have  received  from human writings, on  these subjects, has been from President Edwards’s Discourse on Justification. That which in me has been called “a strange or singular notion” of this doctrine is stated at large, and I think clearly proved, by him under the third head of that discourse, – pp. 86-95.

Here, my dear brother, I lay down my pen. Reduced as I am to the awkward necessity (unless I wish to hold a controversy with a man deservedly respected, and who is just going into his grave) of making a private defense  against what  is become a public accusation, I can only leave it to Him who judgeth righteously to decide whether I have been treated fairly, openly, or in a manner becoming the regard which one Christian minister owes to another.

If what I have written contain any thing injurious to the truth, may the Lord convince me of it. And if not, may He preserve me from being improperly moved by the frowns of men. I am, as you know, your affectionate brother.

A. F.

Fuller’s Controversy with Booth [Letter V]

[The footnotes are included in the letters. They are found in bracketed italics. Any links found in the article are my doing.]

 SIX LETTERS TO DR. RYLAND

 RESPECTING

 THE CONTROVERSY WITH THE REV. A. BOOTH.

 LETTER V.

ON CALVINISM.

MY DEAR BROTHER, Jan. 18, 1803.

WHEN I had assured Mr. B., in my letter of July 7, 1802, that I did not deny either imputation or substitution, but merely the sense in which be held them, he writes in answer, “That he is not aware either of his understanding or using those terms in a sense which is not common among CALVINISTS.” And in his letter to you, of Dec. 6, while he acquits me of being an Arminian, he says, “It is to me beyond a doubt that he (Mr. F.) does not hold the doctrine of substitution, and of imputation, as CALVINISTS have commonly done, and still continue to do.” The amount is that, at least in these particulars, Mr. B. is a Calvinist, and I am not. If this be true, it does not follow that I deny substitution or imputation. Mr. B. says “that in his juvenile years he never hoped for salvation but through a vicarious sacrifice.” If then he could believe this doctrine while an Arminian, surely I might be allowed to believe it, who, as he acknowledges, am not an Arminian. But, passing this, Mr. B.’s views on these subjects may, for aught I know, be more consonant with those of the general  body of persons called Calvinists than mine. All the High Calvinists will  doubtless agree with him, and disagree with me, so far as they know our sentiments; but it does not appear to me that his opinions on either of  the subjects in question are those of Calvin or of Calvinists during the sixteenth century. I do not pretend to have read so much of either as he has; but, from what I have seen, so it appears to me. The quotations that have already been made from Calvin, pp. 24. 33, 34, prove that he had no other notion of imputation than that of the righteousness of Christ being reckoned to us “as if it were our own,” and of our sins being so reckoned to Christ, that, “as the very guilty person himself, he suffered all the punishment that should have been laid upon us.” I should think it were manifest, from this, that he did not believe in a “real  or proper” imputation in either case, nor in Christ’s being really guilty, and as such punished. All he pleads for is, that “he felt all the tokens of God when he is angry, and punisheth;” and this is precisely what I believe.

With respect to substitution, from what I have read of Calvin, he appears to have considered the death of Christ as affording an offer of salvation to sinners without distinction; and the peculiar respect which it bore to the elect as consisting in the sovereignty of its application, or in God’s imparting faith and salvation through it, to them, rather than to others, as it was his design to do. To this effect is his comment on John iii. 16, “God so loved the world,  that  he  gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth,” &c. “This,” says he, “is a singular commendation of faith, that it delivereth us from eternal  destruction. For his meaning was plainly to express that, though we seem to be born to death, yet there is certain deliverance offered in the faith of Christ; so that death, which otherwise hangeth over our heads, is nothing to be feared. He added also the universal  note ‘whosoever,’ both that he may invite all men in general to the participation of life, and cut off all excuse from unbelievers. To the same end tendeth the term ‘world;’ for though there be nothing found in the world that is worthy of God’s favour, yet he showeth that he is favourable to the whole world, when he calleth all men without exception to the faith of Christ. Let us remember, however, that though life is promised to all who shall believe in Christ, so commonly that yet faith is not common to all men; for though Christ lieth open to all men, yet God doth only open the eyes of the elect, that they may seek him by faith.”

The Calvinists who met at the SYNOD of DORT have expressed their judgment on redemption in nine propositions. Were they not too long for transcription, I would insert the whole, The following extracts, however, will sufficiently express their sentiments on the points in question. “The death of the Son of God is the only and most complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins, of infinite value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world. [I question if any such concession as this can be found in the writings of Dr. Gill, or Mr. Brine, from whom the High Calvinists seem to have taken their views. Neither of these writers considered the gospel as addressed to sinners as sinners, but as sensible sinners; and their ideas of the atonement were calculated to such preaching.] The promise of the gospel  is, that whosoever believeth in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have eternal life; which promise, together with the command to repent and believe,  ought  promiscuously  and indiscriminately to be published and proposed to all nations and individuals to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel. The reason why many who are called by the gospel  do not  repent  and believe  in Christ, but perish  in unbelief, is not through any defect or insufficiency in the sacrifice of  Christ offered upon the cross, but through their own fault.” – “All those who truly believe, and by the death of Christ are delivered and saved, have to ascribe it to the grace of God alone, which he owes to no one, and which was given them in Christ from eternity.” – “The gracious will and intention of God the Father was, that the life-giving and saving efficacy of the precious death of his Son should exert itself in all the elect, to endue them alone with justifying faith, and thereby infallibly bring them to salvation.”[Acta Synod. Dordrecht. Sess. 136, p. 250.]

I would not wish for words more appropriate than the above to express my sentiments. If Mr. B.’s views accord with them, there can be no material difference between us. But if I be not mistaken, Mr. B. holds the substitution of Christ in a way that does not admit of  “the command to repent and believe being promiscuously addressed to all.” I have never been able to learn, however, from his writings, preaching, or conversation, after all that has been  said  about sinners as sinners being warranted to believe, that he even exhorts them to it; or avows it to be the command of God that they should repent and believe, in such a manner as is connected with salvation. Now what is it, but his ideas of imputation and substitution, that can be the cause of this hesitation? I call it hesitation, because I never heard or saw any thing in him that amounted to a denial of it. Yet he does not avow it, though he well knows it was avowed by Calvin, and all Calvinists for more than a century after the Reformation. They held the doctrines of imputation and substitution so as to feel  at liberty to exhort sinners, without distinction, to repent and believe in Christ: Mr. B. does not. Have I not a right, then, to infer that his ideas of these doctrines are different from theirs, and that what is now called Calvinism is not Calvinism!

I could extract similar sentiments with the above from many able Calvinistic writers in the seventeenth century; but I think these are sufficient.

The sentiment which I oppose does not appear to me to be CALVINISM, but CRISPISM. I never met with a single passage in the writings of Calvin on this subject that clashed with my own views; but in Dr. Crisp I have. He considers God, in his charging our sins on Christ, and accounting his righteousness to us, as reckoning of things as they are. – Sermons, p. 280. “Hast thou been an idolater,” says he, “a blasphemer, a despiser of God’s word, a profaner of his name and ordinances, a thief, a liar, a drunkard? If thou hast part in Christ, all these transgressions of thine become actually the transgression of Christ, and so cease to be thine; and thou ceasest to be a transgressor from that time they were laid upon Christ to the last hour of thy life:  so that now thou art not an idolater, a persecutor, a thief, a liar, &c. – thou art not a sinful person. Reckon whatever sin you commit, whereas you have part in Christ, you are all that Christ was, and Christ

is all that you were,” – p. 270.  If this be true, all the confessions of good men, recorded in the Scriptures, that they were sinners, and deserving of death, were not only unnecessary, but owning what was not true. Dr. Crisp does not pretend that Christ actually committed sin, nor deny that believers committed it; but while he makes our sins to become “actually the transgressions of  Christ,” and teaches that they “cease to be ours,” he undermines all ground for confession or repentance.

Whatever reasonings we may adopt, there are certain times in which conscience will  bear witness that, notwithstanding the imputation of our sins to Christ, we are actually the sinners, and not He; and I should have thought that no good man could have gone about gravely to overturn its testimony. Far be it from me to wrest the words of any writer, however ill  chosen, to a meaning which he does not hold; but when I read as follows, what other conclusion can I draw? “Believers think that they find their transgressions in their own consciences, and they imagine that there is a sting of this poison still behind, wounding of them; but, beloved, if this principle be received for a truth – that God hath laid thine iniquities on Christ – how can thy transgressions, belonging to Christ, be found in thy heart and conscience? Is thy conscience Christ?” – p.269.

Perhaps no man ever went further than Dr. Crisp in his attempts at consistency; and admitting his principle, I am not able to deny his conclusions. To have been perfectly consistent, however, he should have proved that all the confessions and lamentations of believers, recorded in Scripture, arose from their being under the mistake which he labours to rectify; viz. thinking that sin did not cease to be theirs, even when under the fullest persuasion that the Lord would not impute it to them, but would cover it by the righteousness of his Son.

If Christ be “actually “ the transgressor, and our transgressions, being  laid  upon  him,  “cease to be ours,” God cannot be offended with us for any thing we do; nor ought we to be offended, one should think, with one another. Our displeasure ought to terminate on the person to whom the offence actually belongs, be it whom it may.

What Mr. B. may  think of  these  sentiments,  I know not. For my part, without  approving of  the Neonomianism which was afterwards opposed to them, I account them, to use the softest term, gross extravagance.

Yet if this be not what he means by a real and proper imputation, (I mean when pursued to its just consequences,) I have yet to learn what that doctrine is.

Fuller’s Controversy with Booth [Letter IV]

[The footnotes are included in the letters. They are found in bracketed italics. Any links found in the article are my doing.]

 SIX LETTERS TO DR. RYLAND

 RESPECTING

 THE CONTROVERSY WITH THE REV. A. BOOTH.

 LETTER IV.

ON CHANGE OF SENTIMENTS.

My DEAR BROTHER, Jan. 17, 1803.

MR. B.,  in his  letter  to you of Dec. 6,  expresses his persuasion  that  “I  could not now oppose PHILANTHROPOS as I formerly did; we being more nearly agreed than we were twelve or fifteen years ago.” When I wrote my Reply to Philanthropos, I acknowledged that I had read and thought but little on the subject, and therefore engaged in that controversy with considerable reluctance. Were I to write it over again,  there would, doubtless, he several alterations. I might understand some passages of Scripture differently, might demur upon a few of the arguments used to establish my leading principles, and upon some few of the answers to those of Philanthropos; but the leading principles themselves I do still approve. If a new edition were wanted, I should have no other objection than what arises from the above particulars to reprint it as it is. I freely own that my views of particular redemption were altered by my engaging in that controversy; but what alteration there was was before I published my Reply. The truth is, I tried to answer my opponent without considering the sufficiency of  the atonement in itself considered, and of its being the ground of gospel invitations; but I could not.

I found not merely his reasonings, but the Scriptures themselves, standing in my way. After some serious thought upon the subject, therefore, I formed my judgment; and it was some relief  to find all the old Calvinist’s defending the doctrine upon the same ground.

I conceded to my opponent that the death of Christ in itself considered, i.e. irrespective of the design of the Father and Son as to its application, was sufficient for all mankind; that a way was opened by which God consistently with his justice could forgive any sinner whatever that returns to him by Jesus Christ; that if  the whole world were to believe in him, none need be sent away for want of a sufficiency in his death to render his pardon and acceptance consistent with the rights of justice (p. 23); and this is all that I should concede now. This is the whole of what I meant in the second edition of The Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation, by “the peculiarity of redemption consisting not in its insufficiency to save more than are saved, but in the sovereignty of its application.” If more be conveyed by this sentence than the above, it conveys what I never intended; but I am not able to perceive that this is the case.

That for which I then contended was, that Christ had an absolute and determinate design in his death to save some of the human race, and not others; and were I engaged in a controversy with Philanthropos now, I should contend for the same thing. I then placed the peculiarity of redemption wholly in the appointment or design of the Father and the Son, which, if I understand my own words, is the same thing as placing it in “the sovereignty of its application.” As my views of particular redemption were somewhat changed between my writing the first edition of  The Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation and my Reply to Philanthropos, it was right when publishing a second edition of the  former work  to  render it consistent with the latter, as well as with my then present sentiments.

In the course of twelve or fifteen years there are few, if any, thinking men, but what see reason to change their sentiments in some particulars. What I have here stated on imputation may not be the ideas which I entertained at that distance of time, though I do not recollect to have written any thing upon it; yet, to  the best of my  remembrance, I thought  that  in God’s  charging our  sin on Christ,  and placing his righteousness to our account, he reckoned of things as they were; as Dr. Crisp pleads, (Sermons, p. 280,) though how it was I could form no idea. I did not perceive at that time that imputation and transfer were not the same thing. In short, I had never closely considered the subject. The same might be said of some things which I have written in The Gospel its own Witness, P. ii. ch. iv., as whether the satisfaction of Christ proceeded on the principle of commercial   or  of moral  justice, and whether it was an event admissible in the ordinary course of distributive justice, or an extraordinary expedient devised by infinite wisdom, answering all the ends of moral government, and so comporting with the spirit of the law, though not required or admitted by the letter of it.

In answering the objection of the infidel  against the atonement, that it represented Divine justice as proceeding on the same principle in criminal  cases as in cases of debt and credit, indifferent to the object so that the punishment was but inflicted, I must  either  acquiesce,  or  endeavour to repel  it. Had I acquiesced, and maintained, with Dr. Crisp, “that justice, as a blood-hound, follows the scent of blood, and seizes wherever it finds blood;”[Sermon, p. 274]  in other words, that it is indifferent to justice who it punishes, provided it does but punish, whether it be the transgressor, or one who condescends to have his transgressions imputed to him; had I acquiesced, I say, in this, how could I have disproved his calumny, that “what is called justice is not justice, but indiscriminate revenge?” These subjects were seriously examined, with no other design than to obtain just views of evangelical truth, and to vindicate it against its adversaries. If in any instance I have betrayed it, I hope I should, on discovering it, be very sorry. The grounds on which I have attempted to vindicate the atonement do not appear to me to bear injuriously upon any other doctrine of the gospel, nor upon the leading principles in my former publications. So far from considering what I wrote of late as subversive of them, I always supposed it went to confirm them. They operate, I admit, against that notion of particular redemption which places it not in the design of the Father in giving his Son, nor of the Son in laying down his life, but in the number of sins and sinners for which his sufferings sufficed as an atonement; but this in my account is no part of evangelical truth; and by the acknowledgment of Mr. B., that the same sacrifice is necessary for the salvation of one sinner as of many, it would seem to be none in his.

Fuller’s Controversy with Booth [Letter III]

[The footnotes are included in the letters. They are found in bracketed italics. Any links found in the article are my doing.]

 SIX LETTERS TO DR. RYLAND

RESPECTING

THE CONTROVERSY WITH THE REV. A. BOOTH.

LETTER III.

ON SUBSTITUTION.

MY DEAR BROTHER, Jan. 12, 1803.

WHETHER Christ laid down his life as a substitute for sinners, was never a question with me. All my hope rests upon it; and the sum of my delight in preaching the gospel consists in it. If I know any thing of myself, I can say of Christ crucified for us, as was said of Jerusalem, “If  I forget thee, let my right hand forget; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”

I have  always  considered  the denial  of  this  truth  as being of  the  essence of Socinianism. Mr. B. professes, “in his juvenile years, never to have hoped for salvation but through a vicarious sacrifice.” But if he allow himself to have believed this doctrine when he was an Arminian, it is rather singular that I, who am not an Arminian, as he himself acknowledges, should be charged with denying it. I could not have imagined that any person whose hope of acceptance with God rests not on any goodness in himself, but entirely on the righteousness of Christ, would have  been  accounted  to  disown his substitution. But, perhaps, Mr. B. considers “a real  and proper imputation of our sins to Christ,” by which he seems to mean their being literally transferred to him, as essential to this doctrine; and if so, I acknowledge I do not at present believe it.

For Christ to die as a substitute, if I understand the term, is the same thing as his dying for us, or in our stead, or that we should not die.

The  only subject on which I ought to have been here interrogated is, “The persons for whom Christ was a substitute; whether the elect only, or mankind in general.” On this question I will be as explicit as I am able.

Were I asked concerning the gospel, when it is introduced into a country, For whom was it sent? I should answer, if I had respect only to the revealed will of God, and so perhaps would Mr. B., It is sent for men, not as elect, or as non-elect, but as sinners. It is written and preached, “that they might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing they might have life through his name.” But if I had respect to the secret will or appointment of God as to its application, I should say, If the Divine conduct in this instance accord with what it has been in other instances, be hath visited that country “to take out of it a people for his name.”

In like manner concerning the death of Christ. If I speak of it irrespective of the purpose of the Father and the Son, as to the objects who should be saved by it, merely referring to what it is in itself sufficient for, and declared in the gospel  to be adapted to, I should think that I answered the question in a Scriptural way by saying, It was for sinners as sinners; but if I have respect to the purpose of the Father in giving his Son to die, and to the design of Christ in laying down his life, I should answer, It was for the elect only.

[The distinction between what the atonement of Christ is in itself sufficient for, and what it is as applied, under the sovereign will of God, is made by Dr. Owen, as well as many others. Speaking of “the dignity, worth, or infinite value of the death of Christ,” he ascribes it partly to “the dignity of his person, and partly to the greatness of his sufferings. And this,” he adds, “sets out the innate, real, true worth and value of the blood-shedding of Jesus Christ; this is its own true internal perfection and sufficiency. That it sbould be applied unto any, made a price for them, and become beneficial to them, according to the worth that is in it, is external to it, doth not arise from it, but merely depends upon the intention and will of God.” And it is on this ground that Dr. O. accounts for the propitiation of Christ being set forth in general and indefinite expressions – and for “the general proffers, promises, and exhortations made for the embracing of the fruits of the death of Christ, even to them who do never actually perform it.” – Death of Death, &c., Book IV. Ch. 1.]

In the former of these views, I find the apostles and primitive ministers (leaving the consideration of God’s secret purpose as a matter belonging to himself, not to them) addressing themselves to sinners without distinction, and holding forth the death of Christ as a ground of faith to all men. On this principle the servants sent forth to bid guests to the marriage supper, were directed to invite them, saying, “Come, FOR all things are ready.” On this principle the ambassadors of Christ besought sinners to be reconciled to God, “for” (said they) “he hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

In the latter view, I find the apostles ascribing to the purpose and discriminating grace of God all their success; and teaching believers to ascribe every thing that they were, or hoped to be, to the same cause; addressing them as having been before the foundation of the world the objects of his love and choice; the children or sons whom it was the design of  Christ in becoming incarnate to bring to glory; the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood, and for which he gave himself, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, and present it to himself.

If it be a proper definition of the substitution of Christ, that he died for or in the place of others, that they should not die, this, as comprehending the designed end to be answered by his death, is strictly applicable to none but the elect; for whatever ground there is for sinners, as sinners, to believe and be saved, it never was the design of Christ to impart faith to any others than those who were given him of the Father. He therefore did not die with the intent that any others should not die.

Whether I can perfectly reconcile these statements with each other, or not, I believe they are both taught in the Scriptures; but I acknowledge that I do not at present perceive their inconsistency. The latter Mr. B. will admit; and as to the former, I am quite at a loss what to make of his concessions, if they do not include it. According to the best of my recollection, he acknowledged to me that he believed the atonement of Christ to be sufficient for the whole world as well as I; and that if  one sinner only were saved consistently with justice, it required to be by the same all-perfect sacrifice. So, I am certain, I understood him. Now if it be acknowledged that the obedience and death of Christ was a substitution of such a kind as to be equally required for the salvation of one sinner for many – is not this the same thing as acknowledging that atonement required to be made for sin as sin; and, being made, was applicable to sinners as sinners? In other words, is it not acknowledging that God redeemed his elect by an atonement in its own nature adapted to all, just as he calls his elect by a gospel addressed to all?

If the speciality of redemption be placed in the atonement itself, and not in the sovereign will of God, or in the design of the Father and the Son, with respect to the persons to whom it shall be applied, it must, as far as I am able to perceive, have proceeded on the principle of pecuniary satisfactions. In them the payment is proportioned to the amount of the debt; and being so, it is not of sufficient value for more than those who are actually liberated by it; nor is it true, in these cases, that the same satisfaction is required for one as for many. But if  such was the satisfaction of Christ that nothing less was necessary for the salvation of one, nothing more could be necessary for the salvation of the whole world, and the whole world might have been saved by it if it had accorded with sovereign wisdom so to apply it. It will  also follow that if the satisfaction of Christ was  in  itself  sufficient  for  the whole world,  there  is no  further propriety  in  such questions as these – “Whose sins were imputed to Christ? for whom did he die as a substitute?” – than as they go to inquire who were the persons designed to be saved by him? That which is equally necessary for one as for many, must, in its own nature, be equally sufficient for many as for one; and could not proceed upon the principle of the sins of some being laid upon Christ, rather than others, any otherwise than as it was the design of  the Father and the Son, through one all-sufficient medium, ultimately to pardon the sins of the elect rather than those of the non-elect. It seems to me as consonant with truth to say a certain number of Christ’s acts of obedience are literally transferred to us, as that a certain number of our sins are literally transferred to him. In the former case, his own undivided obedience, stamped as it is with Divinity, affords a ground of justification to any number of believers; in the latter, his own atonement, stamped also as it is with Divinity, is sufficient to pardon any number of sins or sinners. Yet as Christ did not lay down his life but by covenant – as the elect were given to him, to be as the travail of his soul, the purchase of his blood– he had respect in all that he did and suffered to this recompence of reward. It was for the covering of their transgressions that he became obedient unto death. To them his substitution was the same, in effect, as if their sins had by number been literally transferred to him. I am not aware that any principle that I hold is inconsistent with Christ’s laying down his life by covenant, or with his being the surety of that covenant, pledging himself for the certain accomplishment of whatever he undertook; as, that all that were given him should come to him, should not be lost, but raised up at the last day, and be presented without spot and blameless. All this I suppose to be included in the design of the Father and the Son, or in the “sovereign application” of the atonement. It has been objected, though not by Mr. B., “how does the sufficiency of Christ’s death afford ample ground for general invitations, if the design was confined to the elect people? If the benefits of his death were never intended for the non-elect, is it not just as inconsistent to invite them to partake of them as if there were a want of sufficiency? This explanation seems to be no other than shifting the difficulty.”

To this I answer:

1. It is a fact that the Scriptures rest the general invitation of the gospel upon the atonement of Christ, 2 Cor. v. 19-21; Matt. xxii. 4; John iii. 16.

2. If there were not a sufficiency in the atonement for the salvation of sinners, and yet they were invited to be reconciled to God, they must be invited to what is naturally impossible. The message of the gospel would in this case be as if the servants who went forth to bid the guests had said, “Come,” though, in fact, nothing was ready if many of them had come.

3. If there be an objective fulness in the atonement of  Christ sufficient for any number of sinners, were they to believe in him, there is no other impossibility in the way of any man’s salvation to whom the gospel comes than what arises from the state of his own mind. The intention of God not to remove the impossibility, and so not to save him, is only a resolution to withhold, not only that which he was not obligedto give, but that which is never represented as necessary to the consistency of exhortations and invitations

to a compliance. I do not deny that there is a difficulty; but it belongs to the general subject of reconciling the purposes of God and the agency of man; whereas, in the other case, God is represented as inviting sinners to partake of that which does not exist, and which therefore is naturally impossible. The one, while it  ascribes  the  salvation of  the believer,  in  every  stage of  it,  to mere grace, renders the unbeliever inexcusable, which the other, I conceive, does not.

Such, as well as I am able to explain them, are, my views of these important subjects. I may be mistaken in some particulars, and, if so, I should be happy to receive further light from any one. But, till I do, I shall not think the worse of what I have written for the names by which it may be stigmatized.

Fuller’s Controversy with Booth [Letter II]

[The footnotes are included in the letters. They are found in bracketed italics. Any links found in the article are my doing.]

SIX LETTERS TO DR. RYLAND

RESPECTING

THE CONTROVERSY WITH THE REV. A. BOOTH.

LETTER II.

ON IMPUTATION.

MY DEAR BROTHER, Jan. 8, 1803.

WHILE Mr. B. refuses to give any explanation of his conduct, there can be no intercourse between me and him. I have no objection to give the most explicit answers in my power to the questions on imputation and substitution. I shall therefore address them to you; and you are at liberty to show them to whom you please.

To impute [from  bch logivzomai] signifies, in general, to charge, reckon, or place to account, according to the different objects to which it is applied. This word, like many others, has a proper and a figurative meaning.

This word, like many others, has a proper and a figurative meaning.

First, It is applied to the charging, reckoning, or placing to the account of persons and things THAT WHICH PROPERLY BELONGS TO THEM. This, of  course, is its proper meaning. In this sense the word is used in the following passages:  – “Eli  thought that she (Hannah) had been drunken.” – “Hanan and Mattaniah, the treasurers, were counted faithful.”  – “Let a man so account  of us, as the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.” – “Let such a one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will  we be also in deed when we are present.” – “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”[1 Sam, i. 13; Neh. xiii. 13; 1 Cor. iv. 1; 2 Cor. X. 11; Rom. viii.] Reckoning or accounting, here, is no other than forming an estimate of persons and things, according to what they are, or appear to be. To impute sin, in this sense, is to charge guilt upon the guilty in a judicial way, with a view to his being punished for it. Thus Shimei  besought David that his iniquity might not be imputed to him. Thus the man is pronounced blessed to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity: and thus Paul prayed that the sin of those who deserted him might not be laid to their charge. [2 Sam, xix. 19; Psal. xxxii. 2; 2 Tim. iv. 16.] In this sense, the term is ordinarily used in common life. To impute treason or any other crime to a man is the same thing as charging him with having committed it, and with a view to his being punished.

Secondly, It is applied to the charging, reckoning, or placing to the account of persons and things, THAT WHICH DOES NOT PROPERLY BELONG TO THEM, AS THOUGH  IT DID. This, of course, is its figurative meaning. In this sense the word is used in the following passages:– “And this your heave-offering shall be reckoned unto you as though it were the corn of the thrashing-floor, and as the fulness of the wine-press.” – “Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?” – “If the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?” – “If  he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on my account.”[Numb. xviii. 27-30; Job xiii. 24; Rom. ii. 26; Philem. 18.]

It is thus I understand the term, when applied to justification. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. – To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted unto him for righteousness,” Rom. iv. 3, 5. I do not suppose that “faith” in these passages means the righteousness of the Messiah; for it is expressly called “believing.” It means believing,  however,  not  as  a  virtuous  exercise of the mind, which God consented to accept by a composition, taking a part for the whole; but as having respect to the promised Messiah, and so to his righteousness, as the ground of acceptance. Justification is ascribed to faith as healing frequently is in the New Testament; not as that which imparted the benefit, but that which afforded occasion to the great Physician to exercise his power and mercy.

But if it were allowed that faith, in these passages means the object believed in, still this was not Abraham’s own righteousness; and could not be properly imputed, or counted, by Him who judges of things as they are, as being so. It was reckoned to him as if  it were his, and the effects or benefits were actually transferred to him; but this was all. Abraham did not become meritorious,  or cease to be unworthy. “What is it else to set our righteousness in the obedience of Christ,” says Calvin, “but to affirm that hereby only we are accounted righteous, because the obedience of Christ  is  imputed to us, as if  it were our own?”– Inst. B. iii. ch. xi. § 23.

It is thus also that I understand the imputation of sin to Christ. He was made sin for us, in the same sense as we are made the righteousness of God in Him. He was accounted in the Divine administration AS IF HE WERE, OR HAD BEEN, the sinner; that those who believe on him might be accounted AS IF THEY WERE, OR HAD BEEN, righteous.

Mr. B. charges me with having explained the phrase “made sin” made a sacrifice. I have already said that what I asked him was purely for information. Considering his answer as worthy of attention, I have since endeavoured to form a decided opinion on the passage, and to give what he advanced its due weight. I perceive that many able writers, and among them Dr. Owen, understand the term avmartiva, in this [In the MS. from which this was printed (and which was corrected by Mr. F.) the following sentence, in

reference to the above remark, appears in the hand-writing of Mr. Booth: –  “In his book against Biddle he does; butthe reverse in a book published some years after on Justification, Ch. XVIII.” – ED.]  as in many other places, of a “sin-offering,” and I must say I see no force in the objection that it sounds incongruous to say Christ was “made punishment,” or “made suffering;” for the same objection might be brought against the express words of the prophet – “When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” The genius of our language does not allow us to say of any one, “he was made suffering;” but it allows us to say, “he was made an offering for sin,” which was suffering. [Peri avmartivas, in Rom. viii. 3, seems to mean an offering for sin; as it certainly does, Heb. x. 8.]

The other reasons, however, which Mr. B. suggested, determine my mind to consider avmartiva, in this place, as meaning sin itself, and not the penal  effects of it. I doubt not but the allusion is to the sin-offering under the law, but not to its being made a sacrifice. Let me explain myself. – There were two things belonging to the sin-offering: 1. The imputation of the sins of the people, signified by the priest’s laying his hands on the head of the animal, and confessing over it their transgressions, and which is called “putting them upon it” (Lev. xvi. 21) that is, it was counted in the Divine administration as if it had been the sinner, and the only sinner of the nation. 2. Making it a sacrifice, or “killing it before the Lord for an atonement,” Lev. i. 4, 5. Now the phrase – made sin, in 2 Cor. v. 21, appears to refer to the first step in this process, in order to the last. It is expressive of what was preparatory to Christ’s suffering of death, rather than of the thing itself; just as our being made righteousness expresses what was preparatory to God’s bestowing upon us eternal life.

But the verb evpoihjsen, made, is not to be taken literally; for that would convey the idea of Christ being really the subject of moral evil, which none contend for. It is expressive of  a Divine constitution, by which our Redeemer with his own consent stood in the sinner’s place, as though he had been himself the transgressor; just as the sin-offering under the law was, in mercy to Israel, reckoned, or accounted, to have the sins of the people “put upon its head.” Thus he was made that sin which he knew not, and which is properly opposed to the righteousness of God, which we are made in him. But this, it will he said, is not a “real and proper” imputation. True; nor is such an imputation maintained, I should think, by Mr. B. any more than by me.  A real  and proper imputation, unless I have mistaken the meaning of the term, is that in which there is no transfer of any kind; and if  applied to Christ, would amount to a charge of his having actually committed sin.

Mr. B. further argued thus: – “If  Christ had not died as a substitute – if  sin, sin itself, had not really been imputed to him, he could not have been made a curse for us.” All  this is freely admitted, save what respects the term “really,” against which my objection is already stated. “Nor could he have been punished,” he adds, “in our stead by eternal justice; for though an innocent person may suffer, yet, properly speaking, there cannot be punishment where there is no guilt, either personally  contracted  or  imputed.”  If  this sentence had ended with the word “guilt,” I should have fully admitted it. Guilt imputed is not properly opposed to guilt contracted. The term “imputed “ is here used for “transferred,” to which it is not synonymous. But we are perplexed here by affixing different ideas to the same term. I will endeavour to define my own, and then attend to the thing signified. By sin I mean  transgression; by guilt, desert of punishment for having transgressed; [Some have defined guilt an obligation to punishment; but a voluntary obligation to endure thepunishment of another is not guilt, any more than a consequent exemption from obligation in the offender isinnocence. Both guilt and innocence, though transferable in their effects, are themselves untransferable.] and by punishment, the infliction of evil upon the guilty, in displeasure against him. It is the opposite of reward, which is the bestowment of favour upon the obedient, in token of approbation of his conduct. Finally, Imputation ought not to be confounded with transfer. In its proper sense, we have seen there is no transfer pertaining to it. In its figurative sense, as applied to justification, it is righteousness itself that is imputed; but its effects only are transferred. So also in respect of sin; sin itself is the object of imputation; but neither this nor guilt is strictly speaking transferred, for neither of them is a transferable object. As all that is transferred in the imputation of righteousness is its beneficial effects, so all that is transferred in the imputation of sin is its penal effects. To say that Christ was reckoned or counted in the Divine administration as if he were the sinner, and came under an obligation to endure the curse for us, is one thing; but to say that he deserved the curse is another. To speak of his being guilty by imputation is the same thing, in my ear, as to say he was criminal or wicked by imputation; which, if taken improperly, for his being reckoned as if  he were so, is just; but if  properly, for his being so, is inadmissible. Guilt is the inseparable attendant of transgression. [This is admitted by Dr. Crisp, who on this ground argues his point, that Christ was really the sinner, or guilt could not have been charged upon him. – Sermons, p.272.] If Christ by imputation became deserving of punishment, we by non-imputation cease to deserve it; and if our demerits be literally transferred to him, his merits must of course be the same to us; and then, instead of approaching God as guilty and unworthy, we might take consequence to ourselves before him, as not only guiltless, but meritorious beings.

As to Christ’s being punished, I have no doubt, and never had, of his sufferings being penal, any more than I have of our salvation being a reward; but as the latter is not a reward to us, so I question whether the former can properly be said to be a punishment to Him. What he bore was punishment, that is, the expression of Divine displeasure against transgressors, in whose place he stood; so what we enjoy is reward,  that  is, the expression of God’s well-pleasedness in the obedience and death of his Son; but  neither is the one a punishment to Him, nor the other a reward to us.

There appears to me great accuracy in the Scripture phraseology on this subject. What our Saviour underwent is commonly expressed by the term sufferings. Once it is called a chastisement; yet there he is not said to have been chastised, but “the chastisement of our peace was upon him.” This is the same as saying, He bore our punishment, He was made a curse for us; that is, having been reckoned or accounted the sinner, as though he had actually been so, he was treated accordingly, as one that had deserved to be an outcast from heaven and earth. I believe the wrath of God that was due to us was poured upon him; but I do not believe that God for one moment was angry or displeased with him, or that he smote him from any such displeasure. “It behoved him,” says Calvin, “that he should as it were hand to hand wrestle with the armies of hell and the horrors of eternal  death. ‘The chastisement of our peace was laid upon him.’ He was stricken of his Father for our sins, and bruised for our iniquities; whereby is meant that he was put in the stead of wicked doers, as a surety and pledge; yea, and as the very guilty person himself, to abide and suffer all the punishment that should have been laid upon them. Yet do we not mean that God was at anytime his enemy, or angry with him. For how could he be angry with his beloved Son, upon whom his mind rested? or  how  could Christ by his intercession appease his Father’s wrath towards others, if, full  of hatred, he had been bent against himself? But this is our meaning, That he suffered the grievousness of God’s rigour; for that he, being stricken and tormented by the hand of God, DID FEEL ALL THE TOKENS OF GOD WHEN HE IS ANGRY AND PUNISHETH.” – Inst. B. 11. Ch. xvi. § 10, 11.

I remember Mr. B. once said to me, “Christ was not made sin by participation; but he was every thing excepting this.” Herein I perfectly agree. When it is allowed that he was accounted as the sinner, yea, as the greatest of all sinners, as though he had been made up of sin itself, every thing is allowed short of a participation in sin. If it be not, however, it lies upon him to point out a possible medium between his being treated as though he were a transgressor and his actually being one.

Fuller’s Controversy with Booth [Letter I]

[The footnotes are included in the letters. They are found in bracketed italics. Any links found in the article are my doing.]

SIX LETTERS TO DR. RYLAND

RESPECTING

THE CONTROVERSY WITH THE REV. A. BOOTH.

LETTER I.

NARRATIVE.

MY DEAR BROTHER, January 4, 1803

THOUGH you are not wholly unacquainted with what has lately passed between Mr. Booth and myself, relative to certain points of doctrine, yet I shall briefly state the leading particulars, together with my sentiments on the subjects concerning which I am charged with error.

In the month of May, 1802, when I was in London, wishing for a better understanding with Mr. B., I requested an interview. With his consent I went two or three times to see him. We had much conversation. I cannot pretend to recollect all that passed; but some things I well remember. After talking over certain particulars of a personal nature, on which he appeared to be satisfied, he, in a very serious tone, suggested that I had changed my sentiments on some important doctrines of the gospel; “and here,” said he, “I have little or no hope.” To these serious and heavy charges, from an aged and respected minister, I at first made but little answer, being all attention to what he had to offer in support of them. I assured him that I was willing to reconsider any thing I had advanced, and desired to know wherein he thought me in the wrong. Mr. B. answered, “It is on the doctrines of imputation and substitution that I conceive you to err.” I asked whether his ideas on these doctrines did not proceed upon the principle of debtor and creditor; and that, as was the number of sinners to be saved and the quantity of sin to be atoned for, such required to be the degree of Christ’s sufferings. This he disowned, saying he never had such an idea, nor did he ever meet with it in any writer [Yet if nine out of ten of the High Calvinists were asked their views on the subject, I am persuaded it would appear they had no other notion of it. No other notion, I think, could be collected from Dr. Gill’s exposition of Isa. liii. 6, and all he writes upon the subject seems to go upon that principle.]  adding to this effect, I am persuaded that if one sinner only were saved consistently with justice, it required to be by the same all perfect sacrifice. I felt persuaded that if Mr. B. admitted this principle in all its bearings, there could be no material difference betwixt us.

In his  letter to me of September 3rd, he says, “I deliberately aver that in our second and last conversation I understood you to deny that Christ obeyed and died as a substitute, and that you did not admit a real and proper imputation either of sin to Christ, or of his righteousness to those who believe.” I give him credit for this; but insist upon it that (excepting what relates to the terms “real and proper” – terms not used in the first note) he has no grounds for so understanding me, and that there were grounds, whether he  attended  to  them or not,  for  a  contrary  conclusion.  I declare  that  I never  suspected, while  in his company, that I was charged with any such things; but merely that my views concerning those doctrines were not just. Under this impression, I said to Mr. B. to this effect, – “I do suspect, sir, that your views on imputation and substitution are not Scriptural.” – I did not mean by this to charge him with denying either of those doctrines; and I had no apprehension of his having any such charge to prefer against me. The whole difference between us appeared to me to consist in the manner  of  explaining  doctrines which we both acknowledged and held fast.

Mr. B. alleges, as a reason for his understanding me to deny the doctrines in question, that in direct opposition to this  he pleaded 2 Cor. v. 21; to which, he says, I replied, “made sin means became a sacrifice for sin;” to which he could not accede. Granting this to be a fair statement, surely it does not follow that understanding the phrase “made sin” of Christ’s being “made a sin-offering” amounts to a denial  of the imputation of sin to him. If it does, however, many of our best writers, among whom is Dr. Owen, [Answer to Middle, pp. 509, 510. Vide Dr. Owen on Justification, eh, xviii. pp. 504, 505, 4to.] are subject to the same charge. But Mr. B. is mistaken in saying that I affirmed “made sin” to mean “made a sacrifice for sin.” I merely asked him whether it did not, whether some expositors did not so interpret it, and whether there was not something in the original  word which led to such an interpretation. This, I am certain, was the whole; for I had not at that time any decided opinion as to the meaning of the passage, and therefore asked him merely for information. I well recollect the substance of his answer, namely, that the word avmartiva, it was true, was sometimes rendered “sin,” and sometimes a”sin-offering;” but the sin which Christ was made was that which he knew not, and which stood opposed to “the righteousness of God,” which we are made in Him; to this I made no reply, as thinking there appeared to be force in what he said.

I also very well remember his arguing from Gal. iii. 13, and contending that Christ must in some sense be guilty, else God could not have been just in punishing him: this argument did not approve itself to my judgment like the former. I admitted guilt to be necessary to punishment, and had no doubt but that the sufferings of Christ were penal; but I had my doubts whether it were so proper to say Christ was punished, as that he bore our punishment; but as I shall give my thoughts more particularly on this hereafter, I only say in this place that this conversation TOOK  PLACE BEFORE  I  PREACHED  FOR HIM,  AND BEFORE HE ASKED ME TO PREACH FOR HIM. [Mr. B. speaks in his letter of September 3rd of these things occurring in our second and last conversation; but I am certain that all those things on which he grounds his charge, and his alleging 2 Cor. v. 21, and Gal. iii. 13, occurred in the first, and before he asked me to preach for him.] It is somewhat surprising to me, therefore, if I was considered as denying the doctrines of imputation and substitution, that I should receive such an invitation. Whatever he may think of me, I would never consent to a man’s going into my pulpit whom I considered as denying either the one or the other.

I have said Mr. B. had grounds for a contrary conclusion, whether he attended to them or not. He cannot but remember his putting the Liverpool Magazine into my hands, where he conceived it was proved that I had changed my sentiments. On this, I said that I was not aware of any such change as he ascribed to me. Mr. B., I well remember, answered, in a tone of surprise, “No? Then you are lost!” that is, as I understood him, “You are bewildered in inconsistency, not knowing what you believe.” Now, be it so, that I am lost in inconsistency, this is a very different thing from a denial of what I had before advanced. If I was not aware of having relinquished the leading principles of my answer to Philanthropos, I could not be aware of having given up the doctrines of imputation and substitution.

It might also have been supposed that my pleading for Christ’s being made a sin-offering, as I was accounted to do, was not the language of one who “denied that Christ obeyed and died as a substitute;” for what else was the sin-offering but a substitute for the people?

Before I left town, I gave Mr. B. the manuscript of our last year’s Circular Letter, on the Practical uses of Believers’ Baptism, requesting his corrections. In this was the following sentence, with several others of like import – “Christ sustained the deluge of wrath due to our sins:” nor did this passage escape him; his first note holds this sentence up as an example of my inconsistency. Some men would have drawn a different conclusion. They would have said, Surely I must have mistaken the writer when in conversation; he cannot mean to discard these doctrines. If  he did, why does he thus fully avow them? Instead of this, Mr. B.,  in  the note accompanying the MS., flatly charges me with the denial of substitution and of imputation; not merely in his sense of them, nor with the epithets “proper and real” (since added as saving terms); but so as to disown the vicariousness of what our Saviour did and suffered, which he never did, even “in his juvenile” years, when I suppose he was a professed Arminian.

As this note did not reach me till I was just setting off for home, about the 2nd or 3rd of June, I could not see Mr. B. any more; and being conscious that I never thought of  denying either of the doctrines in question, I supposed Mr. B. could only mean to charge such denial  as the consequence of what I avowed. I  therefore  took  three  or  four  weeks  to  consider  and  re-examine my  sentiments, that if any such consequences did attach to them I might discover them.

Early in July I answered the note, declared my belief of both the above doctrines, and complained of things being imputed to me as my principles which I did not avow, and which, if they had any connexion with my principles, were merely consequences, which consequences I did not perceive.

About the middle of July reports were circulated, both in town and country, that I had acknowledged myself to Mr. Booth to be an Arminian, &c. &c. One of my friends was in London, and heard it in a great number of places; “from Oxford-street,” as he said, “to Ratcliff Highway;” and in every instance it was said to be authorized by Mr. B. I was informed also that it was common talk among those congregations in Northamptonshire which rejected all invitations to the unconverted, and nearly all obligations to spiritual religion. A person residing amongst them, who bore good-will to me, came to my house to know whether the report were true; and he assured me that the whole rested on the testimony of Mr. B. Knowing that I had written to Mr. B., avowing my belief both in imputation and substitution, I knew not what to make of things.

Early in September, while I was at Edinburgh, I received a letter from Mr. B., partly averring that he understood me, in conversation, to deny that Christ obeyed and died as a substitute, and to disown a real and proper imputation; and partly inquiring whether I did believe these doctrines, and in what sense it was that I held them.

On receiving this letter, it appeared to me to contain a request which, had it been made previously to the sending abroad of a report to my disadvantage, had been fair, and I should freely have complied with it. But as things were, I did not feel  free to write any explanation to Mr. B., till he should have given some explanation of his conduct towards me. I wished for no humiliating concessions from a man so aged and so respectable as Mr. B.; but I did think myself entitled to some explanation;  and  that  to have complied with his  request without  it had been  a  tame  acknowledgment of guilt and fear, of neither of which I was conscious.

To this purpose I wrote, (on October 7th,) in answer to his of  September 3rd, wishing for nothing but a few lines, acknowledging that if he had mistaken my meaning, and thereby injured me, he was sorry; or any thing, however expressed, that should have discovered his regret for having been the occasion of misrepresentation.

But to this letter Mr. B. has written no answer. I have to thank you, however, for the copy of a letter which he addressed to you, dated December 6th. Here I find myself charged with having changed my sentiments; with agreeing with Mr. Baxter in several of his leading peculiarities; and with denying the doctrines of imputation and substitution,  IN THE SENSE  IN WHICH CALVINISTS COMMONLY HOLD AND HAVE HELD THEM.

I own I feel  dissatisfied with this second-hand method of attack, in which the oracles of God are nearly kept out of sight, and other standards of orthodoxy set up in their place. Each of these charges may be true and yet I may be in the right, and Mr. B. in the wrong. It is no crime to change our views, unless in so doing we deviate from the Scriptures; nor is it an article of revelation that Mr. Baxter’s views are erroneous, or that the notions of Calvinists in general  concerning imputation and substitution are true. I write not thus because I feel  the justice of either of these charges, but because I dislike such circuitous methods of judging concerning truth and error. They are unworthy of a candid inquirer after truth, and chiefly calculated to inflame the prejudices of the ignorant. If I have used the term Calvinistic in controversy, it has been merely to avoid circumlocution, and not as criminating my opponents on account of their differing from Calvin. Mr. B. supposes that I suspect him of “insidious designs.” No; I do not, nor ever did. I never thought him capable of this; but I do think him capable of being so far prejudiced against another as to think that to be right towards him which he would think very wrong if done to himself.