2 A Hot Pepper Corn

In 2004, Regent College Publishing published the work of Hans Boersma entitled "A Hot Pepper Corn - Richard Baxter's Doctrine of Justification in Its Seventeenth-Century Context of Controversy", and I picked it up soon after. It's a very worthwhile study of the differences between Richard Baxter and his contemporaries on the questions of the righteousness of Christ and imputation - in short, the relationship between Christ's righteousness and that which believers have in justification. As I've begun to read the treatise by John Brown (of Wamphray) on Justification, wherein he interacts with Baxter's ideas, I thought of the Hot Pepper Corn, and grabbed the book from the shelf. On the first page of the work, Boersma includes a pair of quotes, which I thought I'd share - they highlight the conflict, and the second of these quite succinctly calls a spade a spade.

If in acknowledgment of the favor of his Redemption, he will but pay a pepper corn, he shall be restored to his former possession, and much more. (Richard Baxter)

If we magnifie one grain of our own pepper to that height that we make it a part of that righteousness by which to stand at Gods tribunall this one grain will sink us down to hell, so hot a poyson is Mr. Brs pepper-corn. (John Crandon)

(iii, Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, Regent College Publishing, 2004)

Not shy, that Mr. Crandon.