of our case and a thing easie to be understood By the other we are made to be justified as Innocents which is not the truth of our case unless we will suppose God to account us to have done all that Christ did that is to have performed all righteousness without sin which in fact was not so This Objection therefore is wholly grounded upon a Mistake We obtain not Heaven as the reward of the Law but upon the promises of the Gospel Our concern is not upon what Terms the Law does justifie but how the Gospel does justifie Our own sins have rendred impracticable the justifying power of the Law and Christs righteousness and satisfaction has superseded the condemning power of it SECT III I Come in the second place to consider What is the material procuring Cause of Justification before God And the Answer to it in general is this 't is a Satisfaction made suitable to his Justice for the breach of his Law And this satisfaction consists in the whole Active and Passive obedience of our Saviour intirely taken together and the infinite merit thereof with which God declares himself so abundantly satisfied and well pleased that he Relaxeth the Law of Works thereupon dispenseth with the rigour of it and superinduceth another Covenant upon the terms of which we are justified and saved God does not upon satisfaction made for the breach of the Covenant of Works thereupon immediately pardon and save us by that But he relieves and releaseth us from the obligation we lay under to it and proclaims a new Law and enters into another Covenant And 't is upon the terms of that we are actually pardoned and justified The Righteousness and Satisfaction of Christ fully answers for us in respect of the Law We stand no more obliged to it a 't is a Law of Works and 't is the procuring Cause and formal Reason of the new Law of the saving Covenant upon the terms of which we are pardoned and justified and which is in its nature but a method of forgiveness and that place the Righteousness of Christ bears in point of Justification So that the whole is Originated in our Redeemers Satisfaction and purchased thereby the inestimable value and merit whereof results from these four things the dignity of his Person the freeness and spontaniety of his undertaking the undertaking it self and the ordination of God in the case had there not been a concurrence of all these the satisfaction had been defective and ineffectual the Gospel had never been published Death and Condemnation had still reigned and the Law had continued still in its full force and vertue First What a stupendious dignity was there in Christs Person in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily 'T is no wonder we should be redeem'd by his blood when it was the blood of God and that the righteousness of this one should redound to All for the Justification of life as 't is expressed Rom. 5 18. when in him dwelt all fulness The Actions and Sufferings of such a person must needs be of unspeakable value because of his own transcendent Eminency above all creatures yea even Angels for he is Gods Fellow and was in the form of God Whatever was done and suffered by a person so qualified in whom concentred all the perfection both of the Humane and Divine nature must needs be of infinite value and of desert and merit beyond all bounds of imagination 'T is no wonder we should be bought with such a price and yet nothing less then this can we suppose without impeaching the wisdom of God who saw to bring it about this way could have answer'd for mans disobedience have stopt the current of Divine Justice and made a satisfaction for that Eternity of punishment that became due to us Secondly How free and voluntary what a meer act of Choice was Christs sufeeption of his Mediatory work How far was he exalted beyond the reach of all obligation or possibility of any Addition No Creature could oblige him that was God nor could the Divine nature lay a Constraint upon it self 't is an essential property of the Godhead to act freely 'T is true when he was man he was obliged as a man but he was under no engagement to become man A Servants work and a Creatures homage was due from him indeed when a Creature and a Servant but 't was his own free choice that brought him into the state of either Nothing but the workings of his own infinite bowells of Compassion over the fallen posterity of Apostate Adam could bring him to Tabernaclo in flesh and take up his abode with the children of Men. In a word he freely and out of choice became man and lived a life Natural And as freely resign'd up his life unto death and became a free-will-offering to God So himself declares Joh. 10. ver 17. I lay down my life no man taketh it from me And Mark 10.25 he tells us He came to Give his life a ransom for many And had not this been so God who is infinitely just could not have punished him in whom there was found no guilt Nor had it been Equal with God to accept him on our behalf unless he had freely espoused our interest Thirdly How admirable is the undertaking of Christ in it self First to assume humane nature from the very first moment of which assumption began the state of his humiliation and in that nature to yield a perfect obedience to all the Laws of God to which mankind were obliged and in the same to undergo the penalty due upon their breach submit himself to become a Curse for us What an amazing consideration is it that the Lord of all should become man in the form of a servant and subject himself to an obedience to all his own Laws yea even of those that were but the shadow as were the Ceremonial of which he as man incarnate was the substance And that he that was without all sin should submit to those Institutions that were grounded upon the supposition of sin and whose End and Tendency had a direct relation to it such was Baptism and Circumcision And yet so he was pleased to fulfill all righteousness to do all the Law required and yet to suffer what it threatned Now considering that he lay under no obligation with respect to himself for the doing of any of this what a vast stock of Merit must needs be treasur'd up for those to whom He and the Father shall please to impute it 'T is this undertaking of Christ that could alone face divine Justice and at the dreadful Tribunal of the great and eternal Jehovah be admitted as a sufficient Plea and Satisfaction for an open Rebellion from dust and ashes against Him His obedience to the Law qualified with such infinite perfections and representing us in our nature being both the Son of God and the Son of man redintigrated the honour of the Law to as great a degree as
or in Judgement Not by infusing a habit for it is evident that both the Hebrew and the Greek Verbs from whence we must fetch the true sense of the Latin and English are Judicial and Forinsical words and arc scarce ever taken throughout the Bible to Juslify by making inherently Just or Just by Infusion The natural and primitive signification of them both is to justifie Legally and Judicially to make just by Plea and in Judgement And in that original sense or in a sense relative to it and derivative from it are the words generally taken in Scripture When either God is said to Justifie man or man is said to justifie God or one man is said to justifie another or one and the same man to justifie himself for all these wayes we read of Justification in Scripture 't is still without any signification of infusing righteousness or making just that way But that which is intended by the word is to make just defensatively declaratively judicially and not qualitively To give some instance of many Rom. 2. v. 13. Not the hearers of the Law but the doers of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be justified That is pronounced and declared Just in judgment In the 11 Chap. of Job v. 2. Should a man full of talk be justified that is should he be defended and acquitted upon that account because he is full of words Shall that be a sufficient Plea for him So when we are told Pro. 17. v. 15. that To justifie the wicked is an abomination to the Lord 't is meant to justifie them by pleading for them and defending them or to justifie them in judgment while wicked For to justifie them in the other sense to make them inherently just and righteous is no abomination to the Lord but a thing he has every where declared himself to be well pleased with In the 8 of the Rom. St. Paul puts this question Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is God that justifieth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who shall condemn where by Gods justifying is meant his acquitting and clearing in judgment 'T is evident to be such a justifying as stands in opposition to charging and condemning Of the same import are the words most generally wheresoever we find them used by the Holy Ghost either in the Old or New Testament And this we have acknowledged by many of the Papists on the one hand and some of the Socinians on the other though both of them endeavour to prove that Gods justifying men is not his pronouncing them just and his declaring them so in a judicial way but his infusing of habits and making them in themselves actually and habitually righteous Justification in general may be considered as it may relate to two sorts of men First to righteous and innocent men and Secondly to Offenders Justification in both cases supposeth Charge and Accusation and stands in opposition to Condemnation A Righteous person when he is accused and found faultless that is inherently Righteous and Just he is by his righteousness made evident thereby justified that is declared and approved to be just acquitted and cleared both from accusation and condemnation David hath an expression to this purpose of God Psal the 51. That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest That is be justified by being manifested to be really righteous and just So Good men are sometimes said to be justified by their works that is defended and vindicated against false accusation and charge approved and declared to be just thereby A person so qualified is justified because he appears to be in himself righteous and just not righteous and just because justified Secondly an Offender when he is accused he can be no other way justified that is defended against accusation and acquitted in judgment but by pleading ample and proportionable satisfaction made for an offence and an acceptance of that satisfaction as such and procuring a remission of the offence thereupon 'T is not possible to contrive any other way of Justification in that Case For free and absolute remission of an offence cannot well be called Justification The more freely a man is pardoned without any sort of satisfaction the less he can be properly said to be justified Such a man now is not justified because he is found to be inherently just and without fault but he becomes Just is brought into the state of a just man because he arrives at a Legal Justification and upon satisfaction made obtains an acquitment in judgment Justification in scripture as 't is an act of God relating to Men is ever spoken of in this later way 'T is never meant to excuse or justifie a Sinner from being a sinner but to justifie a sinner supposing him a sinner to the utmost All Gospel-justification being founded upon Satisfaction as the grand fundamental of it But to come more nearly to the Scripture-sense and meaning of Justification by which we are generally told that all Sinners unpardoned are under Divine Wrath and stand Condemned at Gods Bar and that such whom God is pleased in the method of his Grace judicially to pardon and receive into favour he is thereby said to justifie To be justified therefore in Scripture sensee is to be Cleared and Discharged before the Tribunal of God from the Guilt of sin resulting from the breach of his Laws and Absolved from the Punishment due from Divine Justice thereunto This without any obscuring Speculation about the nature of Justification in general is that practical account we find the Scripture to give us of it suitable to its nature as it relates to sinful offending Man for it must still be remembred that Gods justifying in Scripture is his giving sentence with the Guilty party and so we can only be righteous because justified and justified by being pardoned and according to what it Operates and effects upon the subject by which also 't is best understood and becomes most accountable to every Capacity I include not herein the Cause of Justification nor the Condition of it but speak of it in its own proper form and simply in it self considered For had I so done I would after this manner have expressed my self Justification is an act of God whereby he does for the sake of Christs Satisfaction to his Justice upon mens sincere Beliefe of the Gospel account their faith for righteousness pardon their sins and Acquit them in Judgement That this Description I have given of Justification and our being justified is that which ought to be given and the direct account we have of it in Scripture will evidently appear from these four considerations Fist Sin being a transgression of Gods Law and so an Offence accountable for to Him nothing less can justify a sinner then the Supream judgement of God Himself as the Soveraign Lord and Judge of all the Earth The Apostle tells us that in few words It is God that justifies And He does it as an
Christ did and suffered in the effects and advantages of it should accrue to us and our account because he accepted him on our behalf and in our stead and that we should reap all the fruit and benefit of his Mediatorship And in this sense God is pleased to impute his whole Mediatory transaction unto us but no otherwise The whole of Christs satisfaction is imputed to us as made For us and so he is the Lord our righteousness but not as made By us but actually made by him And what can be more desired then to reap all the benefits of Christs whole undertaking and upon the account of it and its being accepted of God on our behalf to be pardoned justified sanctified and saved and as the Apostle expresseth it to have Christ made to us of God that is as the Fundamental cause procurer and spring of them a common head from whence they are all derived to us as his body wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption Those that will press the point farther and insist upon personal imputation to every believer what Christ did ought well to consider these things First If every believer be personally righteous before God in the very individual Acts of Christs righteousness one of these two things will thence ensue Either that Christ in his own person did perform all the particular acts of righteousness required as due from each saved person or else that every is saved persons righteousness before God is identically and numerically the same with Christs in his publick capacity as Mediator and so every saved person is personally righteous with a righteousness that has a stock of merit in it sufficient to save the world unless you will say Christ had some righteousness that belong'd to him as Mediator and some that did not which is absurd to affirm for 't is plain all he did he did as Mediator nor had he any any concern in the world but as Mediator and none of his actions can be seperated from his Office being all pursuant of it The first will be granted was not nor had a possibility to be and yet no man can be personally righteous with respect to the Law but by an exact performance of every tittle and iota the Law required from him And the other has two very gross absurdities in it First That we should be accounted to have done that which was done long before we were in a capacity to do any thing And secondly That we should be reckoned personally righteous with the righteousness of God-man When first There is not a possibility that Man or Angel could perform any one Action with the Circumstances or in the Manner as he did Secondly Much of what he did was in its nature unlawfull for any else to undertake And thirdly The Whole of what he did was peculiarly appropriated and appurtenant to his Office as he was Mediator and cannot be suited to any other person nor is any part of it transferrable or imputable to any creature otherwise then in its operations and effects For he neither did nor suffered the very idem that we are obliged to for then he must have particularly done all the Law required from us and have suffered to eternity But he mad such a satisfaction to God for our Non-performance and on our behalf as became him as Mediator and such as that God is pleased thereupon to suspend the strict and rigorous execution of the Law and to bring us under a better Covenant Our case is not strictly that of a Debtor but of Rebellious Subjects nor stand we in our sins related to God as a Creditor but as a Supream Soveraign and Judge Nor did Christ sustain properly the place of a Surety to pay individually and identically our Debt but of a Mediator tomake reparation to divine Justice by another way then putting the Law in execution against us Secondly If every justified person be justified in judgment by the very acts of Christs personal righteousness accounted to him as his own it will then follow beyond any good answer that every man is justified by the works of the Law For Christs personal righteousness with respect to which he was justified as Mediator and approved of God to become a sufficient Saviour was a Legal righteousness and not an Evangelical This if sincere though imperfect will be accepted from us for Christs sake but would not so have been accepted from Christ for our Justification nor can it be well affirmed that Christ believed and obey'd his own Gospel That lyes on our part to perform Now that we should be justified by the works of the law is confuted by many Texts Rom. 3.28 the Apostle sayes Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law And Galat. 3.11 But that no nun is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by Faith and so in many other Texts And the whole scope of St. Paul in his discourses of Justification is to establish this point That no man is justified by an unsinning obedience perform'd to the Law and so Not by works but by believing and in the way of Gospel-faith which God is pleased out of Grace to accept and account for righteousness Nor will it be to any purpose to say it is one thing to be justified by our own obedience to the Law and another thing to be justified by Christs obedience imputed For if his obedience be so imputed as that we are accounted by God in judgment personally to have done what Christ did it is all one as to this matter and we are as much justified by the Law and do as much live in the works thereof as if we had in our own proper persons performed an unsinning obedience to it Thirdly if the rigid notion of imputation should be admitted as true then every particular person that is saved did merit his own salvation For if the very Acts of Christ be reckoned as ours and so imputed as if done by us the effects must needs be imputed so too If I am reckoned by God in my own person to have performed that righteousness that does merit my Justification I must of necessity be accounted to have merited my Justification And besides all this many the most dangerous and unsound principles of Antinomianism have their rise from this Doctrine I chuse to express it in the words of Reverend Mr. Gibbons in his Discourse of Justification I inferr says he that they are dangerously mistaken who think that a believer is righteous in the sight of God with the self-same Active and Passive righteousness wherewith Christ was righteous m though believers suffered in Christ and obeyed in Christ and were as righteous in Gods esteem as Christ himself having his personal righteousness made personally theirs by imputation This is their fundamental mistake and from hence tanquam ex equo Trojano issues out a throng of such false and corrupt