be They are Lusus Dei the Fruit of his meer Pleasure things of no moment so when we experience in our selves that the Foot the Tongue the Hands the Eyes move in Obedience to the Will as Nimbly as we can think it doâ—â— not represent God's Essence but his Relative Sovereignty over his Creatures so 't is but an inferiour part of an Image 3. The Will of God is a Power and causes these real goods that are its Objects but the Liberty of Man is only admissive or rejective of these Objects in the Understanding and gives occasion to their Influence upon the Faculties of the Soul and so affords no Matter for Glory in the Work of our Conversion Suppose the Sun-beams should enter a Room before dark by some Casement or Cranny and fill this room with Light yea render its Earth flourishing and verdant should we ascribe this great Change to the Sun or to the Casement Nay suppose farther that the Sun by its perpetual Heat and repeated Influence has made the Boards give way and made its own entrance should we ascribe the Glory of the Action to that which so long hindered it and is yet the Cause of the Works being so weak And this is the very Case as far as Matter can represent Spirit for the Lord opened the Heart of Lydia and he says Rev. 3. Behold I stand at the door and knock and if any Man open I will come in 4. The Will of God never acts without the highest Wisdom Ephes 1. According to the Counsel of his Will Therefore the setting up of a Liberty in Man distinct from the Conduct of the Understanding is a Chimera no Image of God who cannot deny himself in any of his Works he never did any thing that might give us false Sentiments of his Nature 5. Our Liberty is much inferiour to God's because of the Narrowness of its Sphere The Beast has only Sense Man has also spiritual things for his Object to Converse about but the Divine Will converses about those things we never saw nor heard nor has it entered into our Heart to conceive 6. Our Liberty is a Gift God's is Self-originate ours a Shadow his the Substance ours but an Emanation of his as the Image of a Face in a Glass but we have no such Help distinct from him he is the Support and Spring of both 7. His is Infallible always equal vigorous active Ours faints and wearies as in Sleep and Infancy and fails as in every Sin 2 Prop. The Liberty of the Mind of Man consists to be more particular about it in a Freedom from Physical Necessity or Coaction in a Freedom from Sense or Matter It is a general Axiom and therefore needs the less proof That Free-will is only the Property of thinking and reasoning Creatures that propose an End to their Actions and deliberate about what is fittest for gaining that End The Fire burns whatever comes nigh it but the Will doth not choose every thing proposed The Imagination of a Beast is confined to Material Ideas but the Mind of Man is not determined nor limited to such Objects A Beast can only be allured by present things but things of a hundred years distance can move a Mind this is a great Priviledge but affords no matter of Glory For 1 It lays us under the greater Obligation to our Maker who made us Men and not Beasts 2 Our Abuse of it in making our selves worse than Beasts being carnally minded and lead by Sense who have more Noble Faculties to govern us 3 The more Knowledge the more Liberty by this Rule and therefore our Blindness and Ignorance should make us bemoan our Confinement The Natural man knoweth not the things of Godâ— and thereâ—ore can have no Liberty about them But more of this under another Head 3 Prop. Liberty consists in a Freedom from Restraint an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goes to the making up of this Perfection a Willingness as well as a Judgment Augustine de Spir. Lib. Chap. 31. defines it to be A Power of doing what we will and thus it doth principally consist in the Imperate acts called free because they proceed from a free Principle To will and to can are two different things a Man may will what he cannot and then the Will hath not this Freedom The Scripture seems to take it in this sence 1 Cor. 7.37 Having no Necessity but hath power over his own Will and hath so decreed in his heart By Freedom from Necessity there is meant a Power to put his Purpose in Execution And so Rom. 7. What I would that do I not The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak Taking Liberty thus for a freedom from Constraint or a Power of doing what we will it affords no matter of Glorying to Man he is under so many Restraints by his Nature by his Sin by Punishment all his Faculties are restrained about Objects Natural Moral and much more Spiritual he is restrained and limited As we see among sensitive Creatures some are confined to the Water as Fish some to the Earth but others have a more ample Sphere of Activity and a more vigorous Principle to carry them through Water Earth or Air. So we find Man more confined than Angels we can only underâ—tand Earthly things John 3. Christ tells Nicodemus that there was a Necessity of representing Heavenly things under some Earthly Similitude that we might be capable of understanding them 1 Peter and Paul were Saints of the first magnitude and yet when they were brought to converse with Heavenly things the one confessed he knew not what he heard and the Spirit asserts of the other that he knew not what he said It is an old Jewish saying That God descends in a humane Mantle that we may have some suitable Apprehensions of him and it is most amazing Humility in God to reckon our highest Thoughts of him an Honour or a Glory to him 2 By Sin the Scripture calls Man Darkness led captive at the will of Satan a slave to Sin and deaâ— in Sin therefore he is wonderfully confined and restrained by it A Habit in any one particular Vice how doth it ensnare and confine one to its Courses How can you believe that receive honour one of another The Pharisees who were covetous derided the Doctrine of Charity They that are accustomed to do evil can no more do good than the Aethiopian can change his Skin or the Leopard his Spots 3 All Afflictions and Sufferings put Restraints on Mans Liberty John 21.18 Thou girdest thy self and walkedst whither thou wouldst here was Liberty but another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldst not here is a Restraint or Compulsion A man may have a will to move a gouty Finger or stop a Convulsive or Paralitick Motion of his Nerves but he has no Liberty to do it as Dr. Lock says well 4 In our Intellect and elicit acts of
Tyrannical Conqueror 2. Redemption is put for the Application of the Priviledge bought by this Price to the Person As when a Slave in Algiers has not only attained Money to be paid to his Patron but he himself is actually returned home and therefore in Scripture it is seldom or ever used for the Application of any one of the Priviledges apart but for the compleat Consummation of all of them in Glory Luke 21.28 The day of Judgment is called the day of our Redemption and also Ephes 4.30 Grieve not the Holy Spirit whereby you are sealed to the day of Redemption Because all the Priviledge purchased by that Price doth not so much as commence till then There is a beginning of Redemption from Guilt before in Justification and a Redemption from Enmity before in Reconciliation and from Sin before its Pollution and Dominion but they are not compleated nor a Glorification from Death and Mortality so much as begun So much for the Relation between Justification and Redemption The third Relative Priviledg is Reconciliation and that is of two kinds too either 1. As it puts on the Nature and form of an Inward Affection For we cannot conceive of God positively but under some humane resemblance thus it is rather a reconcileableness and belongs to the Love of good Will a Willingness that mutal Communion and Fellowship should be again renewed and that distance by which we are undone no more continue Gods becoming our Councel from Eternity some improperly calls this a Justification but Council praecedes the Tryal Justification follows and his so early Intimations of his kind Purposes and his giving his Son to be a Peace-Maker tho' the pulling down of the Partition Wall cost his Blood Reconciliation taken thus is the Foundation of Redemption and all built upon it These two viz. Love of God and Gift of his Son differ as a Natural and Artificial Foundation the natural Rock and the first laid Stone this Love and Reconcileableness is the very Nature of God or an immediate result from it on the Position of such an Object for God is Love and Love made him communicate of the fulness of his Being to nothing and he is a faithful Creator to protect and provide for what he brings forth Love makes him so 2. Reconciliation is taken for the Agreement of Minds Amos 3.3 Can two walk together and not be agreed Two Persons who once were of one Mind and of one Heart they had the same designs and ends mutually engaged in Amity and now this Temper and Condition after a miserable misunderstanding is again renewed as Davids bowels yearned after Absalom he was reconcileable but Communion was not renewed until he had lived a considerable time in Jerusalem So Pharaoh's Butler when he is again restored to his wonted Place Thus Reconciliation is the very same with Justification The divorced Woman is again reconciled to her Husband in the same State of Fellowship through the Covenant of Grace that she was before breach of the Covenant of Works as Justification is a restoring a Man to his former State before the Charge or Suspition of guilt so Reconciliation is a restoring to that State we were in before Enmity they have both the same blessed Author God the Father Son and Holy Ghost they have both the same moving Cause Goodness and Love breaking forth in Grace and Mercy from Eternity God became Mans Council in this Trial wherein he is justified and that Council was a Council of Peace they have the same meriting Foundation Christs Redemption they commence both at one and the same time Guilt and Enmity falls at once The one Simile only helps to illustrate wherein the other may become defective for all the Transactions between Men and Men have their Exceptions and Dissimilitudes when they are brought to represent the Case between God and us The one represents the Case as friendly made up without going to Law the other represents a fair Trial the one represents it as a private Case the other represents it as a publick Crime pardoned Authority being appeased by a Satisfaction By the one Guilt is removed by the other Enmity the one teaches that the other is not to be wire-drawn for finding of something in it answerable to all the parts of the Simile The fourth is Adoption which is of the same Relative Nature with the former and has the same Causes and Means of Conveyance and commences at one and the same time but yet seem to differ in these things 1. Adoption comprehends a greater Blessing Justification gives Life but Adoption gives an Inheritance Justification makes us free Subjects but Adoption makes us Sons Justification puts us in Adam's Condition but Adoption gives a right to Adam's Expectation for Adam's Marriage from its very Original seems to be a Type of our Communion and Fellowship with Christ Gen. 2.24 They shall be one Flesh Eph. 5.32 it is said to be a great Mystery Vid. Dr. T. Goodwin 2. Justification of a Sinner is a Sublapsarian Blessing but Predestination to Adoption is an Antilapsarian Blessing design'd for Man before he fell Eph. 1.5 3. Justification is a Mean Adoption is an End Tit. 3.7 That being Justified by his Grace we should be made Heirs according to the Hope of Eternal Life and so in this Chapter it is treated of from the 13th Verse as posteriour to Justification 4. Justification is a more immediate Effect of Christ's Death Adoption more mediate it is by Justification that the blessed Line of Divine designs that was broken by Sin is again tyed God designed a perpetual ascending Line of Blessings to his Creatures but from Sin to Justification is a Parenthesis in this Line John 12.24 Christ compares himself to a Corn of Wheat that dyes that it may bring forth fruit so Psal 45. Christ dyed and was Anointed to the Office of a Mediator that he might recover those who were design'd his Fellows and Companions from their Forfeiture of it and Unfitness for it Hence it is call'd a Purchas'd Possession Eph. 1.14 by reason that is Purchas'd without which we could not enjoy it We can have no Priviledge without Life 5. The one seems to require a more Noble and Heavenly Temper of Spirit correspondent to it Regeneration answers the one but the Spirit of Adoption which is a higher degree answers the other The Regenerate Man may be under a Spirit of Bondage but they who have received the Spirit of Adoption are more free from that slavish Temper Rom. 8.14 Heb. 11.16 their Desires are fix'd upon and more proportion'd to their Estate 6. The one is ascribed more to the Death of Christ the other to his Life We are Justified by his Blood Saved by his Life Rom. 5.9 By Authority he forgives sins but by his Intercession he prays for the Priviledges of Adoption But whatever dictinction there may be there is no Separation which is frequent among Men who have their Life often spar'd without restoring their
God being Judge and Witness and consequently Matter of Justification for they differ but in this that Justification presupposes the Charge of a Crime or Suspition of one Praising or Glorying doth not So that Praising and Justifying differ only as Comfort and Joy and Grotius himself being Judge on John 1.1 this is the Sense of the Phrase 2. Glorying in God is expressed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 2.17 And makest thy boast of God 1 Cor. 1.41 He that gloryeth let him glory in the Lord Psal 34.2 My Soul shall make her boast in the Lord. These two are vastly different to have Matter of Glorying in our selves in our Actions towards God God himself being our Judge and Witness and to Glory in God his Favour and Kindness when we have deserved nothing but Wrath. A second Grammatical Error is to think that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 differ in Scripture for we find that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glorying is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matter of Glory 2 Cor. 1.12 Our rejoicing is this the Testimony of our Conscience Rom. 15.17 I have therefore whereof I may Glory in things that pertain to God And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Act of Glorying 1 Cor. 5.6 Your glorying is not good 9.15 Make my glorying void 2 Cor. 5.12 Occasion to glory on our behalf But beside if Man had Matter of Glorying there might be justly glorying where there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God doth never deny any man his due The deepest Degrees of Humility God requires are but suitable Apprehensions and Conversations to what we are And Lastly a Man's Works affords Matter of Glorying as well as his Faith Heb. 11.17 James 2.20 God praises Abraham's Works as well as his Faith 6. The Criticks generally are against this Translation and so the Ancient Versions as the Ethiopick which puts a Reward here in place of Glorying and the Arabick which says If he was Justified by Works he should have Glory in them Lastly It is the making of a Neutral Verb active without any Authentick Examples to Countenance it But I come to the second thing which is the Truth of the Argument That Abraham had no Matter of Glorying before God I shall form it into this general Doctrine That no meer Man has any Matter of Glorying before God This I shall Confirm and Illustrate from these four general Topicks 1. From Mans Existence and Being 2. From his Constitution or Essence 3. From his Undoing of himself his ruining and destroying his Soul by Sin his guilt which not only affords matter for Humility but of mixing it with Sorrow Shame and Confusion of Face 4. From our Impotence to restore our selves from this Fall tho' there is matter in it to remove our Sorrow none to remove our Humility or lay a Foundation of our Glorying I shall begin with the first of these Topicks First Our Being or Existence this has seven Properties that are inseparable from it or from any Creature whether Angels above us or Beasts below us They are the seven Properties of a Creature as a Creature and the just Consideration of them is that which makes Angels never Mind themselves but be unwearied and without Intermission taken up with the Praises and Contemplations of a God These are the things which make Seraphims cover their Face and their Feet with their Wings The first is Creatures Contingency that is tho it now is it might not have been and may not be again there is no repugnancy to not Being in its Constitution which I shall thus Illustrate Before our Birth we were not Men Atheists that pretend our matter to have been from Eternity and that when we dye we only dissolve into that Common Mass yet they grant that we begin to be Men and cease to be Men and that every individual Man hath a beginning 1. If there is no Necessity of our being Men there is no Necessity of our being any thing especially Inferiour to Man as Matter is owned to be for Necessity of Existence is a high Perfection Contingency that borders next to nothing is a great Imperfection and therefore the greater Perfection is to be placed in the more perfect Being Therefore if no Necessity of his Being man there is no Necessity of being any thing Inferiour to him Necessary Existence must be the Attribute of something for since something now is something always has been and that which hath been always doth Exist by the Intrinsick Perfection of its own Essence for what suffers nothing to be before it admits of no External Cause But 2. That which hath the least Imperfection of any kind it wants this Perfection of necessary Existence whatever has any Imperfection is but a Contingent thing For if there be not a reality of Perfection to exclude a little Imperfection there cannot be a sufficient reality to exclude a greater Imperfection If the fulness of the Beings Perfections do not include a lesser Perfection they cannot include a greater for instance if Matter cannot include among its Perfections these lesser ones of Thinking Reasoning Speaking Feeling it cannot include a more Noble Perfection of Necessary Existence for not to be is a greater Imperfection than not to be Reasonable or not to be Sensitive Necessary Existence is at the greatest distance from not Being that is possible and therefore since not Being is the greatest Imperfection necessary Being is the greatest Perfection and whatever has it must want no Perfection and whatever wants it is but a Contingent thing 3. All that own a God own that necessary Existence is his incommunicable Attribute and does contain an incomparable an incomprehensible Perfection it is the highest Degree of removal from nothing a grain of Dust is better than nothing all Creatures are in a middle State between Nothing and a necessary Being Nothing is not Gods Name is Being Exod. 3.14 I am what I am his Name alone is Jehovah But Creatures are indifferent to be and not to be there is no repugnancy in us against Being nor no impossibility in our Constitution to hinder us from not Being Christ himself bears a Similitudinary Image of Independency because having once a Life given he is said to have Life in himself in his own Power but there is no Image of this Necessary Existence Atheism is very unreasonable to place this Perfection in Matter which as the Reverend Mr. Howe says is next to Nothing for it can do nothing and shall we place the Attribute that is most distant from Nothing in the Subject which is next to nothing What great ground of Humility doth this afford that I am more than a Fly it is of God not of me that I differ from the Dust or the Dirt I tread on I owe it to God I am not so much as one Breath yea the smallest particle of the most subtil Air of my self that I am more than
Law of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith So where-ever there is place for Works as the Condition of our Justification there is place for some boasting but the Scripture every where stops Man's mouth Rom. 3.19 That every mouth may be stopped and all the World may become guilty before God And it ascribes all the Glory to him Psal 115.1 Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give Glory for thy Mercy and for thy Truths sake Eph. 1.6 To the praise of the Glory of his Grace 7. All kind of Works affords some Plea and pleading is a Glorying for it is a standing upon our own defence and this is another way of addressing God than either the Example of the Saints or the Rules of Holy Writ teach us Petition and Confession Deprecation and Lamentation with Praise and Thanksgiving on the Receipt of Mercies are the only ways we are taught to approach God The lowest kind of pleading is one of these four First By way of Comparison as when a Man can say I must have either done that or worse either to have neglected a Parent or a Wife either to have fled or suffered the Army to be cut off there was no room for this Excuse in Adam's Sin Secondly Relation when we throw the fault upon them that accuse us this did but aggravate Adam's Crime and add to the Sin when he said The Woman whom thou gavest me Thirdly When we remove the Evil of the Fact upon some other Person as Eve did the eating of the Apple upon the Serpent and Adam upon Eve Lastly A Purgation when we acknowledge the Fact but diminish it thrô some necessary Circumstances or Ignorance We do not find any of these ways usual or acceptable at the Throne of Grace but rather an aggravating of our own Guilt like Poreus when he was Converted from the Pelagian Error to the Catholick Truth What I shall first condemn in my self I know not wherein to excuse my self I know not Petition or Deprecation says the Learned Vossius out of Cicero is no pleading except for a Person whose former Actions have highly merited and therefore it becomes not a Court of Justice as Cicero for Ligarius before Caesar O Caesar I have brought many Pleas and that before thee when in Court where thy Honour and Authority was concerned but never as now when privately and before a Parent then I pleaded the Crime is a Fiction the Witnesses are false he never did it he never thought it But now O Father he has erred he has fallen he will never do the like But a Justifying Defence must be made before Authority Juridical I shall conclude this with Answering some Objections briefly that are brought as Arguments to prove that since no Works are excluded but what affords occasion of Glorying then some Works may have room for an Interest in our Justification For instance 1. God may freely first give Grace to work give Faith and Repentance and then justifie us for the Exercise of them whereof we cannot Glory because the Grace is receiv'd and they are the Fruits of Grace 2. God gives a Gracious Law a New Law the Law of Faith Rom. 3.27 that excludes Glorying and therefore we may be justified by the Works thereof 3. These Works come not in as the Meriting Cause of Justification but as the Condition of it Resp. In general this Contrivance of the Method of Justification is such a Fruit of Divine Wisdom that it is the special Glory thereof and therefore there is no wonder that the feeble Beam of our Light cannot show us the depth of it or pierce into all the Harmonies and Connexions of it's parts or their mutual Relations and Influence and consequently no wonder Divines do not agree about such things and the Disagreement ought to be born with Meekness Patience and mutual Endeavour to instruct one another I profess my self a Seeker and a Learner in many of these mysterious Points and I am never satisfied with a Sermon except I receive some Edification to my Understanding by it And if Divisions and bitter Language unbecoming Christians Scholars or Men were not the sad Fruits of these Disputants not the Disputes they ought to be encourag'd I bless God for the Sparks I have already receiv'd from them and I hope to receive more and that my Heart is as much united in Love to both Parties as ever and I am as much at a Loss as the poor Children when ask'd whether they Love Father or Mother best But in particular I shall begin with the first Objection Resp. 1. It is inconsistent with what I have before prov'd viz. that the Gift of absolute and distinguishing Grace the Spirit a New Heart c. that beside its absolute and sanctifying Vertue it is of a Relative Nature both to signifie and entitle as the Ring in Marriage or other Earnests and entitling Symbols Phil. Melanct. in his Annotat. on this Epistle in Comparison of which Luther says that Jerom and Origens Commentaries are but Merae nugae Ineptiae says Deus solus Justificat transfundens in nos Spiritum suum p. 17. We must either reckon him a Papist who was the first Protestant this Book I have is Printed 1522. or else say that Gift was the Sentence or its declarative Sign Mr. Baxter says When a Person is Converted the Angels rejoyce and therefore have some Notification of it and they who know our Conversion cannot be ignorant of our Justification which they cannot know without some Divine Manifestation A second part of the express'd or declar'd Sentence of our Justification he says is the illustration of our Minds with the Holy Spirit althò often obscure I think there is great Reason to unite these two in one thus The Angels who are so well acquainted with our Minds and the Language of Divine Operations know our Justification from the ruling of the Spirit in us after such a special manner Eph. 1.17 Who is the earnest of our Inheritance and so the Earnest of total and Compleat Pardon Now if Absolute Grace bear the Nature of a Title or Sentence the Exercise cannot be the Cause tho' it may be the Condition that is orderly Connexion for tho' it procure it 's own Confent it is not receiv'd except complyed with and yielded to Our Confession of Faith says We are not justifyjd until the Holy Spirit apply Christ to us and confirms it from Tit. 3.6 7. which Text seems to shew a greater Connexion between them than that of Time By the renewing of the Holy Ghost that being justified c. Resp. 2. All Glorying of boasting is not excluded by this half-workers should receive half-wages and half Credit Now when Grace is exercised the Work is ours Believing Repenting c. Tho' this is not Pelagian it is Popish Suppose a Man have a broken Arm or Leg and do some great or Heroick Act after it's Cur'd he will not ascribe the Glory of the
Action to the Physician or the Medicine tho' he own them Author and Cause of the Cure Mr. Sclater is large on this Subject against Bellarm. Resp. 3. Such a Special Gift as the Spirit is the Grace of Faith and Repentance is supposes the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness tho' such Gifts as Men in Common receive viz. A Reprieve from Hell and outward Benefits may not yet such as Spiritual Life cannot be given without it A Prisoner for Treason may have Conveniencies allow'd him and some Favours but Places of Trust cannot be bestow'd on him there is a necessary Connexion among all Spiritual Blessings in due order to be possess'd whereof Faith is the first and therefore the Argument is good from the first to the last if Faith Justification Adoption Eternal Life It is of Faith that it might be of Grace Thus Poieret argues It is not Consistent with our Soveraign Lord and Governour to forgive Impenitent Persons for that were to let them have all the Glory for by yielding he should lose his own Authority and it is as inconsistent to give the best of his Blessings to them to deal equally with Friends and Foes Rebels and Obedient Subjects but to give his Spirit is to give the richest Fruit of his Love How shall then Man be saved He Answers By providing a Mediator and granting to them an Interest in his Satisfaction therefore this Interest is first in order to be enjoyed Faith and Repentance are Fruits of his Death and inseparably united with the others The first Fountain is Mercy and Favour on the Mediators Account Pardon of our Sin follows Imputation of his Righteousness immediately therefore as soon as such Gifts are Pardon is Resp. 4. That Exercise of Faith needs a Pardon being imperfect and must first be accepted before it can render us acceptable It is common Doctrine That the Person must be justifi'd before the Actions The Tree must be good then the Fruits A Cause must be before the Effect so these two things prevents this Order the Posteriority and Pollutedness of our Actions Tho' Grace is pure as from the Spirit sinful Infirmity accompanies every Action of ours and so there must be an Interest in Christ antecedently for the Pardon of these Actions Resp. 5. This would make the Covenant of Grace a Covenant of Works for our Ability to obey was from God then as is mention'd Argument 5. before Obj. 2. That we may be justilled by Obedience to the Law of Faith without boasting Rom. 3.27 Resp 1. It is the Common sence of Interpreters that the word Law here is put in figuratively for Faith or the Doctrine of Faith because it comes in the room of the Law as Christ's Satisfaction is call'd a Righteousness because it comes in place of ours for suffering is a bearing of the Threatning of the Law and not properly Righteousness 2. Beside the Name of a Law being honourable in the Jews esteem and frequently in their Mouths as the Foundation of all their distinguishing Priviledges the Apostle in imitation of them calls Faith a Law 3. From the Likeness of Faith to a Law it being a powerful productive principle of Good Works On the same account we read of the Law of the Mind the Law of the Spirit of Life may be Faith is meant by both so we read of the Law of our Members which is Flesh or our fleshly Disposition Thâ—s Chrys and Theophil Ambros and Austin among the Fathers Expound it Among Modern Divines Philip. Melanct. Calvin Pet. Mart. Gr. Gom. Pisc Beza Willet Zaegerus Pareus who say Glorying is excluded by the Law of Faith because that is to be justified by anothers Righteousness to wit Christ's which Faith apprehends Wilson adds Faith is the hand by which we receive Christ's Righteousness it is the Gift received enriches not the stretching out of the hand the poor Leper may remain poor all his days tho' he stretch out his hand as long as he is able he may starve for want if nothing be given him The Gift and the Giver is to be Gloried in and not the extended Palm Sclater thus The Law of Faith is the Gospel Law and Christ's Righteousness is the Gospel Righteousness his fulfilling of the Law for us is our Gospel Righteousness So much for Authority But to come more particularly to the Text it being the Foundation of one of our Late Controversies I am willing to shew my self not unconcerned in Sions Afflictions and throw all the Water upon that Fire I can to extinguish the Heat not the Light that may be received from it The Text is thus The APPENDIX ROM III. 27. Where is Boasting then it is excluded by what Law of Works nay but by the Law of Faith ALL the valuable Translations agree with ours and all to the Original except the Vulgar Latin which adds Thy Where is Thy boasting then And the Ethiopick who read it thus Wherein shall ye Glory in what law shall ye work there is not another law but by Faith But these are of no value to oppose others The Syriack for excluded has Aethbatela useless in vain to no purpose the word is but once in the Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eccl. 12.3 The grinders cease but often in the New Ver. 31. Is the Law made void It 's the same word there it 's an Emphatical Explication because Works afford a Ground for Glorying therefore if a Man be justified by the Law he would have Matter of boasting in it The Papists add thy because they think Glorying is only excluded from Works entirely our own the Fruit of our Free-will The sense of the Aethiopick seems to be that the Works of no Law will bring us to Glory but thro' Faith without Faith the Work of no Law is acceptable The Substance of the Text lyes in this Syllogism Major Sinful Man must be Justified in such a way as must exclude all Matter of Glorying The Minor is express'd by way of a Rhetorical Dialogism by which as Calvin says the Apostle insults over his Adversaries having demonstrated the Truth he thunders against Pride the Foundation of their Error Where is boasting then The Law of Faith not of Works does exclude boasting The Conclusion is in the 28th Verse That therefore a Man is justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law the very same Argument that is in the Text I have been treating of And because of the Affinity or rather Identity with the former I shall the more amply discourse of it and to begin with the Major Proposition I may call it the Fifth Principle of the Apostles accurately connexed Discourse the first is That Salvation Forgiveness of Sin Justification is a possible thing it is vain to preach what is not attainable Despair plucks up the very Roots of Diligence Hope is the very Spring to Vertue The second is that there is no Justification without a Righteousness God cannot be just and justifie the unjust too that is an