these ends of Government be secured in shewing favour the stighteousness and Justice of God will never suffer any disparagement how great soever the Grace and Favour be that is shewed to Offenders But now that God in justifying men upon account of sincere obedience and inherent righteousness considering what hath been done by our Lord Christ to make way for it and to bring things to that issue does not in the least countenance Sin past or encourage to the committing of it for time to come but that which is altogether contrary thereunto will sufficiently appear if you consider these two things First That notwithstanding God is so good and gracious so merciful and ready to forgive as he is yet he would not grant any terms at all of receiving us into favour again having once sinned except his own dear Son himself would take upon him our Nature and become a Sacrifice to make an Atonement for our Sin nor spare him when he had undertaken so to be notwithstanding that great love wherewith he loved him but delivered him up to death for us all when he undertook to become a propitiation for our Sins rather than we should have no terms of pardon granted God's granting terms of pardon and restauration to his favour upon no cheaper terms did clearly demonstrate him to be an enemy and hater of Sin in the highest and so irreconcilable to it as that no Sinner could have any ground to hope to escape the punishment due to it but upon observing that Condition of escaping it the obtaining of which cost so dear In that Christ thus suffered in the flesh he condemned Sin in the flesh as the phrase is Rom. 8.3 and that effectually and with a witness Hereby he condemned it in the sight of Heaven and Earth yea and of Hell too as a thing most abominable to God and contrary to his Nature and to the goodness and equity of his Laws and Government when deliverance from the desert of it could be obtained at no cheaper rate or easier terms than the Son of God his suffering in the Sinners stead no not upon repentance it self without this In that God hath thus set forth his Son to be a propitiation for Sin through Faith in his Blood it is to declare his Righteousness in the remission of Sins that are past that he is righteous although he forgive and that he might be just even when he is the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus Rom. 3.25 26. Secondly When God for Christ's sake and for what he hath done and suffered did grant terms of Grace by which we Sinners might come to be justified pardoned and saved yet they were such and none other but what tend to reclaim us from Sin and Rebellion and to reduce us to obedience and of Rebels to make us to become good Subjects And in doing this God is far from countenancing Sin or doing any thing disagreeable to the righteousness wisdom and goodness of his Government indeed so far from it that it highly commends and sets these off The terms of favour granted for Christ's sake are such as these That believing and being perswaded in our own minds that God is good and ready to forgive for his Son's sake we heartily repent that ever we rebell'd against him and that we desist from continuing in our Rebellion any longer and that we return to our duty and sincerely endeavour to please him in all things for the future It 's true indeed God knows that by reason of the wounds and disease we got by our fall and while we were in rebellion we have brought so great debility upon our selves as that though we do return to him yet we cannot do him such service now as man was capable of performing before the fall and his running into rebellion and therefore he is content for his Son's sake to accept of such service as we in this state of weakness and frailty are capable of performing provided we do the best we well can and make use of all helps and means afforded us whereby we may gather strength and grow better and do better and are heartily sorry that ever we have made our selves so uncapable as we have done of doing him better service These and such like are the terms granted us for Christ's sake But without some such Change as this God hath not promised to receive any man into favour Now then if it be not inconsistent with the righteousness and wisdom of his Government for God to offer and promise to receive Sinners into favour again upon these terms and conditions and I cannot think Mr. F. will say it is Then it cannot be inconsistent therewith for him to own that they have performed these conditions when indeed they have and so to own them now for his true and faithful Servants and Subjects to their power and according to the term set in his act of Grace which is his justifying of them or the imputing to them for righteousness such their faithful service as they are capable of performing These things considered I dare appeal to Mr. F's better and more impartial Judgment whether it be not consistent with the Holiness of God to justifie men upon the terms aforesaid I confess I cannot possibly understand why it should not as well consist with the Holiness of God to justifie us upon our believing and upon our obeying the Gospel too as it is to do it upon our believing alone And Mr. F. does not think that God doth justifie us at all or impute righteousness to us at all in one sense or another without our believing So that the imputation of righteousness to us for our justification in which sense soever we take it depends upon our own act in believing and so likewise is the application of what Christ hath done and suffered for our justification suspended upon our believing In what Notion soever you understand the application of the righteousness of Christ's life and satisfaction of his death to be made as whether by being imputed to us in it self or vertually by having our Faith for the sake thereof imputed to us for Righteousness yet still this application depends upon our believing because God hath made that the condition of it without which Christ shall profit us nothing I take notice further how Mr. F. by his Notion of having the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us otherwise than in its effects is led to think and say that our Sins also were otherwise imputed to Christ than in the effects of them To say saith he that our Sins were imputed to Christ in the effects of them but not in the guilt is to contradict all principles of Reason For guilt and obnoxiousness to punishment being equipollent phrases he cannot be supposed to be made liable to the last upon the account of our Sins without having been brought under the first p. 410. Nor is it imaginable let me say how any person should come under the
Evangelical Righteousness or Obedience as do not take place till long after he first believes and believes to Justification And thus Abraham's believing mentioned Gen. 15.6 which was not until some years after he first believed is said to be imputed to him for Righteousness And many years after that again he was justified by yielding obedience to God's Command about offering his Son James 2.21 And somewhat of like nature is also said of Noah Heb. 11.7 compared with Gen. 6.9 22. But these things are said I conceive in reference to the continuance of their Justification and not to their Justification at first For as those acts of believing repenting c. which do first constitute a man a new Creature are at first imputed to him for Righteousness so all after-after-acts of Evangelical Obedience and of Faith it self are still imputed to him for Righteousness to the continuance of his Justification To which agrees that reading of Revel 22.11 which runs thus let him that is righteous be justified still and the Righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith Rom. 1.17 But otherwise if the righteous turneth away from his Righteousness and committeth iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth all the Righteousness which he hath done shall not be mentioned In his trespass which he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Ezek. 18.24 Again when I say to the righteous he shall surely live if he trust to his own Righteousness i. e. his former Righteousness and commit iniquity all his Righteousness shall not be remembred Ezek. 33.13 Now the just shall live by faith but if he draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him Hebr. 10.38 If then you do but consider upon what terms men are at first justified and upon what terms they continue to be so afterwards you will easily perceive it to be a great and most important truth to say That we are justified by believing and obeying the Gospel These things Sir which I have thus done by way of Essay without regard to method I submit to your consideration I know right-well it 's in vain if I had a mind to it which yet I am far from to impose upon you or to perswade you to receive any thing for truth farther than it brings it's evidence to be so along with it And it were to wished that every one were able to discern when it doth so But that 's a thing rather to be desired than expected in this our present state in this World But it 's Argument enough to treat one another so almost as if we did if we have not apparent reason to think we are but insincere and dissembling friends to Truth and love it not for it self nor any further than it will accommodate us in some secular or carnal respect or other and it is not easie to determine when we have apparent reason so to think And therefore I conclude it safest for our selves rather to err in treating one another in our differences better than we deserve than worse And so to do is better for them also that differ from us so far as they differ from Truth yea and better for the Truth it self too For it is often seen that when a prejudice is taken up against the persons of men be the Cause never so just the Truth it self is the less esteemed if not shrewdly suspected because held by them especially when its evidence is not written as with a Sun beam So that when we by an undue behaviour in pleading the Cause of Truth draw upon our selves disrespect from them whom we would draw from Errour we prevaricate in the matter and act cross to our own design A thing which some engaged in Controversies have been to blame in However it will be our wisdom in reading of Books of this nature to mind the Argument and to take little notice of any unbecoming girds or reflections unless it be to bewail them and to endeavour to follow as indeed there is need that saying of our Saviour let him that readeth understand Mark 13.14 Thus desiring that you and I and all other Christians may speak the truth in love in love both to it and men and receive it in the love of it that we may be benefitted by it I take my leave and remain as ever Your most affectionately to serve you in all offices of Christian love and respect c. 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one in conjunction with Faith in Christ to be sufficient to that end Now whether Mr. F. himself doth deny inherent Grace to be at all imputed for Righteousness in our Justification or whether that it only is so I confess I cannot say But certain it is that he denies it to be sufficient without the imputation of Christ's Righteousness in the sense of imputation wherein he is opposed One while he grants that in reference to the mere demands of the Gospel we may in a proper sense be said to be justified p. 416. At another turn he saith that secluding not only the righteousness of Christ's life but the satisfaction of his death as the matter and the imputation of it as the formal Cause of Justification it seems repugnant unto the immutability and essential Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience such as he accounts Evangelical obedience to be the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure By which he seems to hold how consistently with what I before recited do you judge that it is inconsistent with the Holiness of God to justifie us upon an Evangelical Righteousness because imperfect But whether Mr. F. joyns the imputation of Christ's Righteousness and the imputation of inherent Grace together in the business of Justification or whether he wholly denies the imputation of the latter and affirms only the imputation of the former I shall not further enquire But it 's well known that those who are wont to plead the same cause with Mr. F. touching the necessity of the imputation of Christ's Righteousness unto Justification and in that sense wherein he is opposed are wont also to exclude inherent Grace as being neither imputed for Righteousness in Justification nor as necessary thereunto antecedently Mr. E. Polhill a Gentleman doubtless of a good Spirit another of Mr. S's Antagonists in his answer to him saith in p. 75. In Justification no other Righteousness can take place but the active and passive one of Christ which answers the pure and righteous Law in every thing And in p. 321. he saith Obedience to God's commands is indeed the way to Heaven but it s no where made an ingredient into our Justification And p. 365. speaking of Phil. 3.9 saith that the Apostle in this place doth not only exclude external Pharisaical righteousness but even inherent Graces in the matter of Justification And the common opinion of those that have gone that way hath been That Sanctification is subsequent to Justification and not so much as in order of Nature going before it or to be any ingredient in it and consequently not essentially necessary to it Now then that which I say is this that if I can make it appear that the denying the necessity of internal righteousness unto Justification was one part of the grievous errour of the Judaising Christians it will be enough to spoil the reputation of the same opinion though found in better men than they were And whether I shall not make it evidently to appear so to be I shall leave you to judge after you have weighed what I shall now lay before you Their Crime was I conceive a partial revolt or turning unto the worst of Judaism saving their retaining a profession of Faith in Christ to think that an external righteousness without an internal was available to justification and salvation The unbelieving Jews to whom they turned in part were quite degenerated from their worthy Ancestors and all that remained faithful among them who all held the internal Grace of Love to God fear of him uprightness of heart towards him truth in the inward parts necessary to interest them in his favour and the blessing of the everlasting Covenant But the degenerate Jews thought an external Righteousness such as Paul had while a Pharisee and such as would justifie them in the sight of men according to the terms of the political Covenant by which they were externally governed by God as they were his Commonwealth would justifie them as to their eternal estate Of which grand mistake our Saviour Matth. 5. laboured to convince them by shewing that no less was required by God in order to that than an inward purity and upbraided them with their making clean the outside of the Cup and Platter when within they were full of extortion and excess of ravening and wickedness with their appearing outwardly Righteous unto men when within they were full of Hypocrisie and iniquity and told his hearers that except their Righteousness exceeded theirs they should never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that except they were born again they could not see the Kingdom of God Now it was to this monstrously corrupt part of Judaism to which the Judaising Christians did revolt or turn rather for many of them were Gentiles because without this their errour in adhering to the Law of Moses as necessary to be observed would not have been so damnable as the Scripture represents it to be calling it a perverting the Gospel of Christ a being removed to another Gospel a falling from Grace a making of Christ to become of none effect to them Gal. 1.7 and 5.2 4. which it would not have been if there had been nothing else in it than a perswasion that they were under an obligation of observing the Law of Moses as well as the Law of Christ For there were many thousands of the Jews which believed who were yet zealous of the Law of Moses and thought themselves still under the obligation of it Acts 21. who yet could never be said upon that account to be fallen from Grace or to be removed from the Gospel of Christ to another Gospel so long as they were really for an internal Righteousness as necessary to Justification and Salvation as well as an external For all the faithful Jews under the Law before the Law and after the Law yea and all the Gentiles too that had this internal Righteousness as well as an external were all justified through the Grace of God exhibited in the universal Covenant made in Christ and granted for his sake whether they had any explicite or distinct knowledge of that Covenant or not or of Christ in whom it was confirmed In every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him and if the Uncircumcision did but keep the righteousness of the Law the internal Righteousness designed by it their Uncircumcision was counted for Circumcision When on the other hand he was not a Jew at any time in the sense there spoken of who was one outwardly in the flesh only but he was a Jew which was so inwardly and Circumcision was that of the heart in the Spirit of the Law and not in the Letter only whose praise or approbation was from God whether it were from men or no Rom. 2. St. Paul would never have become as a Jew to the Jews to gain the Jews as he did in observing
Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure By all which you will perceive I suppose that Mr. F. holds that the Law remains still in force requiring a perfect obedience unto justification and for want thereof and in case of every failure denounceth wrath And that therefore unles the satisfaction of Christ's death and the righteousness of his life were formally imputed to us ie as I suppose he meanes so as that we may be said to have made satisfaction in and by him and perfectly kept the Law in and by him by having his obedience and satisfaction imputed to us it would be repugnant to the immutability and essentiall Holiness of God to justifie upon an imperfect Obedience In which assertions of his there seem to me to be two grand mistakes besides that of a formal imputation he speaks of The first is in holding the law to be still in force not only in requiring obedience to it self by way of Duty which is true but in requiring perfection of Obedience as a Condition of Justification and in its Rigor and severity in denouncing wrath in case of every failure Secondly In that he holds that though we should answer all that the Gospel requires both in respect of a righteousness of inherent Grace and of a personal sincere obedience yet we could not be justified without the formal imputation of a perfect legal righteousness as aforesaid and that these two are grand mistakes indeed I shall endeavor to demonstrate to you In opposition to the first of them I conceive the Scripture will warrant me to affirm That God by founding a new Covenant a Covenant of Grace with the world in his Son Jesus Christ and his Mediatory undertaking hath Rescinded or Superseded the Rigour and severity of the original Law in two things First as a legal perfection of obedience was by it required as the Condition of Justification and life And Secondly as it did denounce wrath and Condemnation in case of every failure Although the original Law of nature the moral Law be eternal and unchangeable in requiring obedience by way of Duty yet it is not so in the foresaid Rigour and severity of its Sanction To establish the Law again in this sense after the Covenant of Promise is made would be according to the Apostle's reasoning to make faith void and the Promise of none effect Rom. 4.14 Gal. 3.18 For the old and new terms of Justification cannot consist together without the one evacuating the other If by Grace saith the Apostle then is it no more of works otherwise Grace would be no more Grace But if of works then it is no more Grace otherwise work is no more work Ro. 11.6 And again whosoever of you are justified by the law ye are fallen from Grace Gal. 5.4 By the interposition of Christ we are redeemed from the Sanction or Curse of the Law which curseth every one that continueth not in all things which it requireth and that for this very end that the blessing of Abraham viz. of being Justified by faith according to the terms of the new Covenant might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ Gal. 3.13 14. Intimating that this blessing of the new Covenant could not have taken place if the Curse of the old had still remained When St. Paul saith that the Ministration of Death written engraven in stones is done away 2 Cor. 3 7. Compared with v. 11. I pray you what of this was done away by the Introduction of the Evangelical ministration if not the Rigour of the Condition of escaping the Curse of it For from that it is that it is denominated the Ministration of Death and Condemnation and it is done away as such a Ministration For otherwise the Law engraven in stones as it is a Rule of and obligation to Duty is not done away In this sense indeed Christ did not come to destroy the Law Mat. 5.17 This benefit by Christ in God's making a new Covenant and granting new terms upon account of his undertaking is not limited to some men only but extended to all In this sense Christ died for all men without exception And it is not unlikely but that one reason at least why God in his wisdome and goodness thought it meet to vouchsafe unto the whole race of Adam these new and gracious terms of recovery after the fall when no such thing is granted the lapsed Angels was this because the Condemnation into which the Angels fell was by their own personal actuall rebellion without Temptation from another whereas the Condemnation into which all the posterity of Adam fell proceeded originally from his and his wives transgression and that from the temptation of the Devil and not from the personal act of their Progeny And that the benefit of freeing men from the Rigorous Sanction of the Law by the active and passive obedience of Christ in which the new Covenant is founded is as extensive as ever the effect of Adam's disobedience was in subjecting all men to condemnation according to the Rigorous terms of the Law is I conceive plainly asserted by the Apostle when he saith in Rom. 5.18 as by the Offence of One Judgement came upon all men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto Justification of life By the free gift which comes by the Righteousnes of Christ upon all men unto Justification of life I understand the New Covenant For this free gift can neither be the righteousness of the One here spoken of but that which is procured by it Nor yet justification it self for that is the effect of it So that we cannot in reason understand it otherwise than of some middle thing and that in all probability can be none other than the Grace contained in the New Covenant which Covenant God by a most gracious graunt and free gift hath vouchsafed to all men for the Righteousness sake of Christ here spoken of in which remission of Sin and eternal life are promised upon condition of faith And this exactly agrees with what the same Apostle saith Eph. 2.8 when he saith that by Grace we are saved through faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God that is it is the Grace and gift of God that now we may be saved by faith a favour which the Law never afforded for the Law is not of faith but the man that doth them shall live in them And when the Apostle saith this free gift came upon all men unto justification of life we are not to understand it I conceive as if Justification in act came upon all men universally by the righteousness of Christ and this free gift but that for the sake of the one and in the other such gracious terms are granted and offered to all men without exception as by which they may attain
unto justification of life actually if they do not wilfully neglect and reject them And less than this I see not how the Apostle's words can signifie if you consider the nature of the Comparison he makes between the effects of the first Adam's disobedience and the second Adam's obedience in reference unto all men without exception of any As by the disobedience of the former all men were brought under an utter incapacity of being justified and saved so long as the original Covenant in the Rigour of its Sanction remained in force So by the obedience of the latter all men are put into a capacity of being justified and saved by vertue of new terms in the new Covenant which are obtained thereby and by which the old terms are Cancelled or Superseded These things being so I leave you to judge whether there be any need of or any occasion for such a formal imputation of Christ's righteousness unto our justification to answer the Law in its demands of perfect legal obedience as a condition of it and the accusations thereof for want of it as Mr. F. contends for and Mr. S. opposeth For this demand and this accusation was taken off so soon as the new Covenant founded by God in Christ's active and passive obedience took place And this benefit of having new terms of life granted which accrues to the world by Christ's Mediatory undertaking does not at all depend upon our believing in Christ but is absolutely free and that wherein he hath been aforehand with us and with all men which have been born into the world since the Covenant of Grace did first commence and remains made good to them whether they beleive it or no. So that from thence forth no man shall be condemned for want of a perfect legal Righteousness but only for want of an Evangelical righteousness And because this is a matter of weight I will add yet somthing further to prove that this new Covenant by which the terms of the old are cancel'd is made and establisht in Christ not only with some part of mankind viz. Such as shall be saved as some would restrain it who think it in the nature of it absolute and not conditonal no not in reference to particular persons which yet it must needs be if made to all unless all were eventually to be saved but it 's made with all men universally And to this purpose I pray you consider the declaration of God's grace and favour to all mankind in those words of his to Abraham Isaac and Jacob mentioned no less than five times in the book of Genesis viz. In thee and in thy Seed shall all families all Nations of the earth be blessed Chap. 12.3 and 18.18 and 22.18 and 26.4 and 28.14 By which the unbelieving Jews indeed understood that in time all Nations should become proselytes to Judaism and their Nation become the head of all Nations and the Messias a glorious visible head over them But in opposition hereto and to their expectations of Justification by the Law St. Paul interprets it to be meant of the Covenant of Grace established in Christ with all Nations and Families of the Earth who are all so far blessed hereby as to have new-terms of Salvation granted them Gal. 3. For whereas they understood by seed the whole posterity of Abraham in Jacob's line as if all Nations should be blessed in them St. Paul restrains it only to Christ as all Nations were to be blest in him as head of the Covenant vers 16. He saith not unto Seeds as of many but as of one and to thy Seed which is Christ And then that the blessing promised to all Nations in this Seed was the Covenant appeares by the next words in vers 17. And this I say that the Covenant which was confirmed before of God in Christ the Law which was 430 years after cannot disanull that it should make the promise of none effect This Covenant we see was then confirmed of God in Christ not then first made for it was extant in the world before And to the same sense St. Paul had said before in vers 8. The Scriptures foreseeing that God would justifie the heathen through Faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all Nations be blessed And when he saith that God in those words preached the Gospel unto Abraham it is all one as to have said he declared to him the Covenant for Gospel here and Covenant in vers 17. are two words indeed but signifie the same thing as frequently they do elsewhere And St. Peter expresly calls that promise to Abraham the Covenant Acts 3.25 And besides St. Paul declares what the nature and substance of that Covenant or Gospel was which is extended to all Nations in that promise and that he sayes was that God would justifie the heathen through Faith which is a breif description of the Covenant of Grace These things then being so that God hath established a new Covenant with all men and thereby cancelled the Rigorous Sanction of the Primitive Law as that required perfection of Obedience as the Condition of Justification I now leave you to judge whether Mr. F. doth not build the necessity of the imputation of Christ's Righteousness unto Justification in the sense he asserts it necessary upon an imaginary foundation and groundless Supposition and if he do that foundation being removed that which he builds thereon must needs fall Having I hope Sir by this time satisfied you and clearly evinced that I have not without cause charged Mr. F. with the former of the two grand mistakes above mentioned I shall now proceed to endeavour to do the like touching the Second which Second as you may remember was in that he holds that although we should answer all that the Gospel requires both in respect of a righteousnes of inherent Grace and of personal sincere obedience yet we could not be justified without such a perfect righteousness imputed to us and derived upon us as would adequately answer the demands and accusations of the Law That thus he holds is evident by what he sayes in p. 414. and in other passages in the same Section I shall not need here to do again what I have done already that is to prove the non-necessity of the imputation of such a righteousness unto us for our Justification as every way answers the demands of the Law as considered in its originall Rigour and severity That which remains for me to do is to demonstrate to you that M. Ferguson is under a mistake in denying that our answering all that the Gospel requires in a righteousness both of inherent Grace and personal sincere obedience is a vailable to justification without the imputation of Christ's righteousness in Mr. F's sense and withall to shew that we are said in a proper sense to be justified by believing and obeying the Gospel and that Mr. F. had neither ground nor fair pretence to charge Mr. S's sentiment of
armed with authority from Heaven as by that means it does and when the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdom shall be produced laid open and urged to make it good and enforce it The Scriptures themselves will be found of more authority in the Consciences of men than the best words men can speak though never so rational and true In a word as Apollos was a man mighty in the Scriptures so he mightily convinced his hearers by the Scriptures Acts 18.24 28. I need not mention unto you how much it was St. Paul's manner to reason out of the Scriptures of the old Testament before those of the New were in being when he had to do with those that owned them Acts 17.2 and 28.23 Nor how our Lord Christ himself collected and brought together the things concerning himself which were scattered up and down in Moses and the Prophets and expounded them to his Disciples and thereby opened their understandings and caused their hearts to burn within them and that I think is not unlike the operation of the Motives of the Gospel I have been speaking of Luke 24.27 32 45 46. There is one thing more which I must add to obviate an objection and another to explain and confirm something I have asserted I know some and perhaps your self will be ready to object That the tenour of my reasoning touching God's imputing Faith it self and other inherent Grace for Righteousness in justifying men tends to confound Justification and Sanctification and to make them all one But that follows not at all For Sanctification is the constituting or making men Evangelically righteous or holy by the joint operation of God's Holy Spirit and the Evangelical Doctrine but Justification is God's pronouncing or declaring them as he doth in the Gospel to be righteous according to the terms of the Gospel as having performed the condition upon which forgiveness of Sin and eternal Life are therein promised Justification is a Juridical act of God as Judge which doth not make a man righteous as sanctification doth but upon tryal pronounceth him to be so and by it the person tried is acquited and discharged from the accusation of unbelief impenitency and wilful disobedience to the Gospel and so also from Condemnation it self So that Justification is not Sanctification but supposeth it as antecedent thereunto at least in order of nature Whom he called them he also justified saith St. Paul and whom he justified them he also glorified Rom. 8.30 He doth not say whom he justified them he also sanctified but them also he glorified Sanctification is not brought in between Justification and Glorification in that golden Chain but is placed in order as going before both in effectual calling The other thing I would add for explanation and confirmation is this Whereas I have said that the Faith which is imputed for Righteousness is comprehensive of Repentance and Obedience to the Gospel Now least you should not be satisfied therewith I shall give you this plain account why we cannot reasonably understand otherwise For the Scripture doth exclude such from sharing in the saving benefits of the Covenant as are impenitent unregenerate and disobedient to the Gospel Luke 13.3 Joh. 3.3 Rom. 2.8 And if so then no man can share in those saving benefits whereof Justification is one until his Faith doth produce Repentance Regeneration and Obedience unless you will suppose that which no man does that these are no efffects of Faith For he that believes is born of God is to a degree renewed to his likeness 1 John 5.1 And when I say thus I am not of opinion that men cannot be justified until they have fulfilled some time in a course of holy living and new obedience internal and external But when a man so believes as that such a real change is thereby wrought in the heart as is the beginning of a new life for the present and the foundation of a holy life for the future then undoubtedly he passeth out of an unjustified into a justified state This change in the mind and will by means of Faith doth first constitute a man a good man and when this change first takes place then God's Laws are first put into the mind and written in the heart upon which God promiseth in the New Covenant to be our God and that we shall be his People and that he will be merciful to our unrighteousness and our sins and iniquities to remember no more Hebr. 8.10 12. and 10.16 17. And it is observable that the qualification upon which God in the New Covenant here mentioned promiseth to be our God and to forgive our sins is not mentioned under the Name or Notion of Faith or Believing but of having the Divine Laws put into the mind and written in the heart Which would be somewhat strange if this writing the Law in the heart were no part of the Condition without which God will not vouchsafe unto any man that great benefit of the Covenant Justification There is no doubt indeed but that though Faith be not here mentioned yet it is supposed and implyed in as much as without it the Law cannot be written in the heart in the sense we speak of it now But then when at other times Faith only is mentioned as that which qualifies men for Justification and as the Condition of the promise of Pardon and Salvation yet then this writing of the Law in the heart is also to be understood For it is not to be imagined that the putting of the Law into the mind and writing it in the heart would be mentioned in a description of the tenour of the New Covenant as that qualification upon which God will be our God take us for his people and forgive our sins which imply Justification if any Faith or Faith in any respect short of producing this effect would be available and sufficient unto Justification It 's true the Scripture in some places tells us that Faith is imputed for Righteousness without telling us what or what manner of Faith this is But then in other places it is plainly described to us by the nature of its operation as that it purifieth the heart Acts 15.9 worketh by love Gal. 5.6 overcometh the world 1 John 5.4 and sanctifieth the whole man Acts 26.18 We see then that the inseparable effects of Faith as here the writing of the Law in the heart are sometimes mentioned as those things which qualifie us for the blessing of the Covenant and sometimes Faith it self only But if we will take the whole testimony of the Scriptures together we shall find that both are intended And why then should we contend as some do about dividing these in qualifying us for Justification as parts of that Evangelical Righteousness which will be imputed to us for Righteousness After all this let me tell you Sir That there is a sense in which it is not disagreeable to the Scripture to say that a man is justified by such acts of