Imputed righteousness

“ Again, a race whose reasoning faculties are developed must needs repudiate the Church’s dogma of “Imputed Righteousness”—a righteousness not inwrought or attained to, but applied externally—a covering to what is corrupt and base, yet deemed sufficient to secure a perfunctory pardon of sin, a non-merited Divine favour. ”

“ Were we perfectly sanctified, we should stand upon our own bottom, and imagine no need of the continual and repeated imputation of the righteousness of Christ for our justification: we should confide in inherent righteousness, and slight imputed. ”

“ From what has been already argued on this subject, we infer, that as certain as the individuals of mankind are the proprietors of their own virtues or vices, so certain, the doctrine of imputation cannot be true. Furthermore, the supposed act or agency of imputing or transferring the personal merit or demerit of moral good or evil, alias, the sin of the first Adam, or the righteousness of the second Adam, to others of mankind, cannot be the act or exertion of either the first or second Adam, from whom original sin and righteousness is said to have been imputed. ”

“ For if sin or righteousness, vice or virtue, are imputable only to their respective personal proficients or actors, in this case original sin must have been imputed to Adam and Eve, to the exclusion of their posterity, and the righteousness of Christ as exclusively imputed to himself, precluding all others therefrom ”

“ Nor can any man propound such an essential way to cut off boasting as this, which is of God’s providing: For what is man here to boast of? No righteousness, nor yet of the application of it to his soul. The righteousness is Christ’s, not the sinner’s. The imputation is God’s, not the sinner’s. The cause of imputation is God’s grace and love, not the sinner’s works of righteousness. ”

“ Imputation by injustice is, when righteousnesse of quality or fact is imputed to an unjust man, and he is acquitted contrary to law. Imputation by grace, when righteousnesse is imputed to them that be unjust in themselves, and the guilty is acquitted, not of debt, but of grace, yet not against justice, but upon just and equall considerations. ”

“ It must be the same, because there can no more be any medium between sin and righteousness, or between being right and being wrong, in a moral sense, than there can be between being straight and crooked, in a natural sense. ”

“ No; you cannot compare yourself with another now; you see only your own sin, you can measure only your own unworthiness now, or, rather, it appears far beyond measuring to you. Your righteousness and this man's unrighteousness, your good and this man's evil—what difference is there between them in the presence of God's infinite holiness, that great leveller of all human gradations? ”

“ Imputation of sin or righteousness includes an alteration or transferring of the personal merits or demerits of sin or righteousness, from those who may be supposed to have been active in the one or the other, to others, who are premised not to have been active therein, otherwise it would not answer the Bible notion of imputation. ”

“ What sort of righteousness does the law demand, as the ground of our acceptance with God? It must originate in the heart. It must be commensurate with life, and not a broken link in the chain, for he that offendeth in one point is guilty of all. ”

“ They prevail so against us that we cannot pretend to balance them with any righteousness of our own, so that when we appear before God our own consciences accuse us and we have no reply to make; and yet, as for our transgressions, thou shalt, of thy own free mercy and for the sake of a righteousness of thy own providing, purge them away, so that we shall not come into condemnation for them. ”

“ For I warn you, that if you do not believe this, you will be tempted to forget God’s righteousness, and to invent a righteousness of your own, which is no righteousness at all, but unrighteousness. For there can be but one righteousness—mind what I say—only one righteousness, as there can be only one truth, and only one reason. Forget that, and you will be tempted to invent for yourselves a false justice, which is dishonest and partial; a false mercy, which is cruel ”

“ No one, who reflects upon a scheme of theology constructed after this type, can regard it as defective in moral power, or as betraying the interests of perfect righteousness. To place righteousness in the position of an end, rather than in the relation of means to an end, must be to exalt and glorify it. ”

“ If they could only believe this, it does appear to me. that they will forsake every evil practice, every evil thought, and banish them from their minds, and try to practise virtue and truth, and to live in that way that they will overcome: every evil disposition, and live so that they can control their reflections, and that their reflections will tend to virtue, truth, and holiness; for this is our privilege, until we become pure in our hearts, and find that the principles of righteousness dwell within us. ”

“ They say first, God must punish the sinner, for justice requires it; then they say he does not punish the sinner, but punishes a perfectly righteous man instead, attributes his righteousness to the sinner, and so continues just. Was there ever such a confusion, such an inversion of right and wrong! Justice could not treat a righteous man as an unrighteous; neither, if justice required the punishment of sin, could justice let the sinner go unpunished. To lay the pain upon the righteous in the name of justice is simply monstrous. ”

“ Justice may be contemplated as according to sin its due; and there is in righteousness, as we are conscious to it, what testifies that sin should be miserable. But justice, looking at the sinner not simply as the fit subject of punishment, but as existing in a moral condition of unrighteousness, and so its own opposite, must desire that the sinner should cease to be in that condition; should cease to be unrighteous, should become righteous: righteousness in God craving for righteousness in man, with a craving which the realization of righteousness in man alone can satisfy. So also of holiness. ”

“ But it is no uncommon thing for men to mistake their own wills for the will of God—and their fierce and malignant passions for zeal for the glory of God: their duty is identified with the performance of their wills and the gratification of their unhallowed passions—and doctrines the most absurd—conduct the most irrational—and deeds the most unchristian—are advanced, exhibited and performed: and this is self-righteousness ”

“ Imputation confounds virtue and vice, and saps the very foundation of moral government, both divine and human. Abstract the idea of personal merit and demerit, from the individuals of mankind, justice would be totally blind, and truth would be nullified, or at least excluded from any share in the administration of government. ”

“ So far from furnishing man with a real righteousness, so far from making him such as he should be, correspondent to the true ideal of his nature, the law only inflicted on every conscience that was not fatally benumbed a depressing and overwhelming conviction that righteousness, at least in the way of legal obedience, was a thing impossible. ”

“ God, in justifying a sinner in the way of the gospel, is gracious to him, and yet just to himself and his law, forgiveness being through a perfect righteousness, and satisfaction made to justice by Christ, who is the propitiation for sin, and not merited by the sinner himself. So it is here: Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, that, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. ”

“ Every unperverted conscience declares the eternal law of righteousness that punishment shall follow inevitably on sin. In the moral realm, there is another way of satisfying righteousness—that of atonement. ”

“ I am not conscious of self-righteousness; I have no complacency in any thing ever done by me. I not only believe that in all things I come short, and that sin is mixed in all I do, because God hath said so, but am sensible of the particular depravity. It is my sincere desire to be stript of every thing that is mine — sins and duties laid in one heap — and to be clothed in the surety-righteousness of my Redeemer; all that is mine put to his account, and all that he did and suffered, as the Mediator and surety of the covenant, to mine. ”

“ Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the [pg 521] wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth. ”

“ In practical life this means, what everybody knows so well, that an isolated, unduly holy righteousness, a sort of touch-me-not goodness, is bound to be empty, to be only ritualistic and aristocratic or pharisaical, and in any one of these respects it appears decidedly unrighteous; while an isolated unrighteousness, besides having at least the moral worth of a protest against its counterpart, is in itself exactly like the original [p.046] sinfulness of the theologian; being unavoidable, it is wholly without any warranted opprobrium. ”

“ In other words, unless there be a rightness in connecting sin with misery, and righteousness with blessedness, looking at individual cases simply in themselves, I cannot see that there is a rightness in connecting them as a rule of moral government. ”

“ If righteousness is a seed, and is sown, and has a certain crop, then, in this way, “righteousness is unto life,” but he that pursues evil does so to his death; that is, he sows in spiritual corruption, and that eternally. He grows in spiritual corruption, not because creatures are self-subsistent, and advance by laws implanted in themselves; but because sin is the punishment of sin, and advance by laws implanted in the Almighty. Eternal justice declares that sin must be given up to an advance in sin.—Miller. ”

“ Justification involves what pardon does not, a righteousness which is the ground of the acquittal and favor; not the mere favor of the sovereign, but the merit of Christ, is at the basis—the righteousness which is of God. The ends of the law are so far satisfied by what Christ has done, that the sinner can be pardoned. ”

“ If these things are done by divine ordinance, surely the laws of human justice, framed for the punishment of wickedness and vice, and for the maintenance of virtue and its reward, are more in accord with a true conception of a government of Love and Justice! Can it truly be the Will of God that the innocent shall suffer for the guilty, the pure for the impure, the just for the unjust? ”

“ And it awfully exemplified the inspired declaration: "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." [10] With regard to the impenitent, as individuals, though in this world they find by experience that "the way of transgressors is hard" yet the full measure of their punishment will not be meted out to them until the final judgment. Then God "will render to every man according to his deeds." [11] "Unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness; indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil." ”

“ Nor can it be the act or doings of those individuals, to whom the supposed merit or demerit of original sin or righteous is premised to be imputed; so that both Adam and each individual of mankind are wholly excluded from acting any part in the premised act of imputation ”

“ For Job hath said, "I am righteous, And God hath taken away my right." Therefore hearken unto me, ye men of understanding: Far be it from God, that he should do wickedness; And from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity. For the work of a man shall he render unto him, And cause every man to find according to his ways. Yea, of a surety, God will not do wickedly, Neither will the Almighty pervert judgment. Is it fit to say to a king, "Thou art vile?" Or to nobles, "Ye are wicked?" How much less to him that respecteth not the persons of princes, Nor regardeth the rich more than the poor? ”

“ But to call that which I owe my being to, a crime—to take that position, when I know it is God's eternal truth, I would be a coward and a poltroon, I would be undeserving the respect of any man if I should thus reflect upon the holy institution to which I owe my being. ”

“ It is true, some who plead for justification by our own righteousness, allege these scriptures as a proof of it, without distinguishing between the justification of our persons in the sight of God, and the justification of our righteous cause; or our being justified when accused at God’s tribunal, and our being justified, or vindicated from those charges that are brought against us at man’s. ”

“ Many times the righteous are recompensed for their righteousness here in the earth, though that is not the principal, much less the only reward either intended for them or intended by them; but whatever the word of God has promised them, or the wisdom of God sees good for them, they shall have in the earth. The wicked also, and the sinner, are sometimes remarkably punished in this life, nations, families, particular persons. ”