APPENDIX, CONTAINING A COMPARISON OF SOME OF THE DOCTRINAL VIEWS OF J.J. GURNEY, WITH THOSE OF SEVERAL STANDARD WRITERS AMONG THE EARLY FRIENDS, AND SEVERAL TESTIMONIES AND LETTERS RELATIVE TO THE DOCTRINES AND CONDITION OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

[7: IMPUTATIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS, PAGES 298-299]


John Wilbur

Wilbur, John. A Narrative and Exposition of the Late Proceedings of New England Yearly Meeting, With Some of its Subordinate Meetings & Their committees, in Relation to the Doctrinal Controversy Now Existing in the Society of Friends: Prefaced by a Concise View of the Church, Showing the Occasion of its Apostacy, both Under the Former and Present Dispensations, With an Appendix. Edited from Record Kept, From Time to Time, of Those Proceedings, and Interspersed With Occasional Remarks and Observations. Addressed to the Members of the Said Yearly Meeting. New York: Piercy & Reed, Printers, 1854, pages 277-325.

(All italics added by J.W. for emphasis. All words supplied in [Square Brackets] by J.W.
Page numbers from original publication by -pds in {Set Brackets.}

This Document is on The Quaker Writings Home Page.


J.J. Gurney (Portable Evidences, p. 58): "Yet surely it is because of his [Christ's] infinite worth and dignity in the glorious Godhead, that Christ becomes 'our righteousness,' and that his righteousness, imputed to believers, procures for them the reward of a happy immortality."
(p. 138.) "In himself indeed as a transgressor from his birth, he [man] is vile and polluted, but by the blood of Jesus sprinkled on his heart, his conscience is purged from every dead work; and having obtained an interest in the Saviour of men, he wears a robe of righteousness in which there is no spot."
(Essays, p. 390.) "Our only claim on the heavenly inheritance therefore consists in this; that God is pleased to impute to those who believe, the perfect righteonsness of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Contrast the above with--

Robert Barclay  (Truth Cleared, &c., Works, Vol. I, p. 177.): "Thy last argument from 2 Col. v: 21, is most absurd and impious, for accordingly it would follow, that as Christ was made sin for us, or suffered for our sins, who himself had no sin, no not in the least, so we may be made righteous before God, though we have no righteousness, no holiness, no faith, no repentailce, no mortification, no good thing wrought in us. And doth not this strengthen the wicked, ungodly and profane in their presumption, to have title to Christ's righteousness ?" We find the apostle makes a far better inference from Christ, his dying for us, 2 Cor. vi: 15. 'He died for all, that they who live, might not any longer live to themselves, but to God;' yea, and every where he holdeth forth inward holiness and righteousness, as that without which no man can lay claim to Christ.' 'If any man be ill Christ, he is a new creature ;' but he doth not say, God reputes him a new creature, though he be not really renewed."
{p. 299} I. Penington (Works, Vol. I., p. 97.): "He whom God maketh righteous, was ungodly before he made him righteous. There was nothing but unrighteousness could be imputed to him in transgression, before He gave him His Son, and made him righteous in his Son; for nothing is righteous with God but Christ, and man only as he is taken into his righteousness; which is done not by a believing from the bare letter, but by
a receiving of faith in the life."
(p. 97.) "Faith is the gift of God, and this gift justifies; this is that which God imputeth for righteousness. The faith is in, the blood, and the blood in the Son; and in the true receiving of the Son both the faith and the blood are known and felt. These are true words, though hard to the fleshly ear."
 

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