By Jacobus Arminius
ON THE JUSTIFICATION OF MAN AS A SINNER, BUT YET A BELIEVER, BEFORE GOD
1. QUERIES. -- was it possible for the justice of God to be satisfied unless the law were likewise satisfied,
2. Is the satisfaction which has been rendered in Christ to the justice of God, the same as that rendered to the law through Christ?
3. Do legal righteousness and that of the gospel differ in essence? Or, Is the essence of both of them the same, that is, the matter -- the obedience performed to God, and the universal form -- the necessary conformity to the law?
4. Are there three parts of the righteousness of Christ by which believers are constituted righteous? Is the first of them the holiness of the nature of Christ, which is denominated habitual righteousness? Is the second those sufferings which, from infancy to the moment of his decease, he sustained on our account, and is this denominated his passive obedience, or that of his death? Is the third the most perfect, nay, the more than perfect fulfillment of the moral law, (add also that of the ceremonial law,) through the whole of his life to the period of his death; and is this denominated his active obedience, or that of his life?
5. Were not the acts of that obedience which Christ performed, and by which we are justified, imposed on him according to the peculiar command of the Father, and according to a peculiar compact or covenant entered into between him and the Father, in which he prescribed and stipulated those acts of obedience, with the addition of a promise that he should obtain eternal redemption for them, [the human race] and should see his seed, whom this obedience should justify through his knowledge, that is, through faith in him,
6. To which of the offices of Christ do those acts of obedience belong,
7. Is the righteousness of Christ the righteousness of a believer or of an elect person, before God imputes it to him?
8. Does God impute this righteousness to him before he justifies him through faith?
9. Or, which is the same thing, Is the object about which God is occupied in the act of justification, an elect person, unrighteous indeed in himself but righteous in Christ his head; so that he accounts him righteous because he is already righteous in Christ, that is, because the punishment due to him has been paid and endured by him in His Surety and Head, or because he has thus performed the obedience which was due from him?
10. Has an elect person really endured punishment in Christ and performed obedience, or only in the divine estimation or reckoning! And is this divine estimation, by which the elect person is reckoned to have endured punishment and performed obedience, an act preceding justification?
11. Does not the act of acceptation, by which God accepted the obedience of his Son, precede the oblation by which, through the gospel, he offers his Son for righteousness,
12. Is the accepted imputation of the righteousness of Christ justification itself, or a preliminary to justification?
13. Is not the act of apprehension, by which faith apprehends Christ and his righteousness, or Christ for righteousness, prior to justification itself?
14. If this act [of apprehension] be prior to justification, how is faith the instrumental cause of our justification; that is, at once the instrumental cause of the apprehending which precedes justification, and of justification itself which succeeds this apprehending,
15. Or, Does not faith apprehend Christ offered for righteousness, before faith is imputed for righteousness?
16. In this enunciation, "faith is imputed to the believer for righteousness," is the word "faith" to be properly received as the instrumental act by which Christ has been apprehended for righteousness? Or is it to be improperly received, that is, by a metonymy, for the very object which faith apprehends?
17. Is this phrase, "faith is received relatively and instrumentally," the same as "by the word Faith is signified, through a metonymy, the very object of faith"?
18. Or, Is it the same thing to say "we are justified by faith correlatively, and as it is an instrumental act, by which we apprehend Christ for righteousness" as we say "we are justified by obedience or righteousness"?
19. May the righteousness of Christ be correctly said to be graciously imputed for righteousness, or to be graciously accounted for righteousness?
20. When the apostle expresses himself in this manner, "Faith is imputed for righteousness," must not this be understood concerning the imputation which is made, not according to debt, but according to grace?
21. May that of which we are made partakers through faith, or by faith, be called the instrumental effect of faith?
22. When God has decreed to justify no one through grace and mercy, except him who believes in Christ, and, therefore, through the preaching of the gospel, requires faith in Christ from him who desires to be justified, can it not be said "when God is graciously judging according to the gospel, he is occupied about faith, as about a condition, which is required from, and performed by, him who appears before the throne of grace to be judged and justified"?
23. If this may be asserted, what crime is there in saying "through the gratuitous and gracious acceptance [of God] is faith accounted for righteousness on account of the obedience of Christ"?
24. Is "If the work of men who are born again were perfect, they might be justified by them, though they may have perpetrated many evil works when [or before] they obtain the remission of them" a correct assertion?
