of the Benefits promised by it which as it is now revealed is the Gospel Justification is a Law-term And no Man shall be Justified in Judgment or upon Tryal but he that is Just in the Eye of this New Law of Grace as every one that rightly Believes Repents and sincerely Obeys is because that is all that it requires of a Man himself to his Justification and Salvation And yet every Believer's Justification will be all of Grace because the Law by which they are Justified is wholly of Grace is wholly a Law of Grace and was Enacted in meer Grace and Favour to undone Man that was utterly undone by the Fall There are two things which I conceive do constitute and make up the Righteousness of the Law of Grace presupposing all to be procured by the Purchase which Christ hath made first The Righteousness which consisteth in the forgiveness of sins and secondly The Righteousness of sincere Obedience And in reference to both these Faith is imputed for Righteousness by virtue of the Law of Grace First Faith as practical is imputed to a Man for Righteousness as it is That and all That which is required of him himself by the Law of Grace to entitle him to the Righteousness which consisteth in the Remission of sins through Christ Now that remission of Sins is part of the Righteousness which is by Faith is evident from Rom. 4.5 6 7 8. Where the Apostle to prove that a Man's Faith in God who justifyeth the ungodly is counted to him for Righteousness he citeth a passage out of Psalm the 32d Even as David also saith he describeth the blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth Righteousness without Works saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin The Righteousness imputed in this sense doth consist in the non-imputation of sin Not to impute sin is not to reckon a Man not to have sinned but it is to deal with him not according to the demerit of his sin it is to pardon him for Christ's sake upon his penitential Faith and not to punish him for his sin and this by vertue of a New Law or Act of Indemnity or Covenant of Grace For although pardon of sin is obtained for Man by Christ's Sufferings for sin In whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins Ephes .1 7. and though God for Christ's sake doth forgive us Ephes 4.32 yet the actual collation of this great Benefit is not promised but upon condition of Man's Faith Him hath God set forth to be a Propitiation but it is through Faith in his blood Rom. 3.25 By him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 13.39 and 10.43 Although Christ is the Propitiation for the sins of the whole World 1 Joh. 2.2 yet that saying of Christ must and will take place If ye believe not that I am he ye shall dye in your sins Joh. 8.24 And that also Mark 16.16 He that believeth not shall be damned So that Faith is imputed for Righteousness partly as it is the Condition upon which Pardon of sin is granted Secondly That Faith is imputed for Righteousness which is practical or productive of sincere Obedience without which property it is not a fulfilling of the Law of Grace as a Condition of the promised Benefits and consequently cannot justifie a Man in the Eye of that Law For 1st Repentance and likewise forgiving Men their Injuries for instance are such Acts of Obedience as without which a Man cannot be Pardoned and if not Pardoned then not Justified And therefore Faith is not imputed for Righteousness unless it be productive of Obedience 2dly No Faith is available to Justification but such as worketh by Love Gal. 5.6 Which to say is all one as to say no Faith is imputed for Righteousness but such as worketh by keeping the Commandments of God and fulfilling the Law for that is the interpretation of Love both to God and Men 1 Joh. 5.3 Rom. 13.10 3dly Abraham who was set forth by God for a Pattern of his justifying Men by Faith was Justified by such Works as were the fruits of his Faith and not only by his Faith which was the Root of them And therefore his Faith as practical was imputed to him for Righteousness And such must be the Faith of all others that shall obtain Justification upon their Believing as he did Jam. 2.21 22 23. Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works when he had offered Isaac his Son upon the Altar Seest thou how Faith wrought with his Works and by Works was Faith made perfect And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham Believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness Where note these four things 1. That Abraham's Faith wrought with his Works about the same End as a Condition of obtaining it to wit his Justification 2. That by his Works his Faith was made perfect to wit in its aptitude by God's Institution to justifie him without which it would not have reached that End 3. Note further That it was his Faith as it wrought with his Works and as it was compleated and made perfect by them that was imputed to him for Righteousness 4. Note That in the Imputation of his Faith for Righteousness as it was thus accompanied with and perfected by Works was the Scripture fulfilled which saith Abraham Believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness And if so then the Justification by Works together with Faith of which St. James speaks here is a Justification before God and not before Men only and to a Man 's own Conscience For of such a Justification doth the Scripture in Gen 15.6 speak which is here cited by St. James Nor doth this that Faith accompanied with Obedience is imputed for Righteousness at all derogate from the Obedience and Sufferings of Christ in reference to the Ends for which they serve Because the whole Covenant and all the parts and terms of it both promises of Benefits and the Condition on which they are promised are all founded in Christ his undertaking for us and all the Benefits of it accrue to us upon our Believing and Obeying upon his account and for his sake We are in him who of God is made unto us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 For which cause also he is called the Lord our Righteousness Not as if his Personal Obedience to the Law was so formally imputed to us as that we should be reckoned to have kept the Law in his keeping of it which hath been the Opinion of some for if that had been so there would have been no more need that Christ should have Suffered for us than there was that he should have Suffered for himself who had no sin for neither should we if we had perfectly kept the Law in him
is justified in the Gospel-way which in the verse before is called the Law of Faith And not by the deeds of the Law or upon the terms of the first Covenant which in the verse before likewise is called the Law of Works Which two the Gospel-terms and the first Covenant-terms are still opposed to each other in the point of Justification Now although the conclusion here laid down is true in reference to the Jews as well as to the Gentiles yet it seems to be written here with special reference to the Gentiles Intimating that upon their Belief they might be Justified without turning Proselytes to the Jewish way as appears by that Interrogation in the very next words following ver 29.30 Is he the God of the Jews only Is he not also of the Gentiles yes of the Gentiles also Seeing it is one God which shall justifie the Circumcision by Faith and Vncircumcision through Faith And the words in the 31 ver do intimate that the words in the 28th ver are to be understood in such a limited sense as I have assigned in my Explication viz. as excluding the deeds of the Law in the act of Justification only in the Jews corrupt sense of the Law because St. Paul therein affirms his foresaid Doctrine of Justification by Faith without the deeds of the Law not to be at all destructive of the Law but contrariwise tending to establish the Law if we take the Law not in that distorted sense in which those Jews held it but as it was appointed by God to promote Holiness in the World which is the end and scope of all his Laws In which sense the Apostle was so far from excluding the Works of the Law from having any thing to do in the Justification of Men as that he had expresly affirmed before That though the hearers of the Law were not just before God yet the doers of the Law should be justified Rom. 2.13 Mâ—aning by doers such as do sincerely obey that Law of God under which they are and not such as do perfectly fulfil it as some would sâ—â—â— to understand it For I have shewed before that God never made promise of Justification upon naturally impossible Conditions as â—â—at would be and they are dishonourable thoughts of God to think he â—â—ath and therefore the Apostle may not be understood to promise Justification to the doers of the Law upon any such terms There is one vein of Texts more wherein the opposition is made in such a form of words betwâ—en the Jews way of seeking Justification by the Law and the Gospel-way of seeking it by Faith That being a little opened will both illustrate and confirm what I have been representing to you And they are such in vvhich the Jews erroneous vvay is called their own Righteousness and the true Christian way of Justification the Righteousness of God by Faith and the Righteousness of God Rom. 10.3 For they being ignorant of God's Righteousness and going about to establish their own Righteousness have not submitted themselves to the Righteousness of God Phil. 3.9 And be found in him not having mine own Righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith This Righteousness is called their ovvn Righteousness in opposition to the Righteousness of God upon a three-fold account as I understand it 1. Because they sought the pardon of their sins by that only vvhich vvas their ovvn their ovvn Sacrifices Sacrifices vvhich they themselves brought to be offered Whereas the Christian Justification is called the Righteousness of God because the Sacrifice by vvhich pardon of sin and acceptation vvith God is obtained vvas from God and given by God to vvit Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation Rom. 3.25 and Christ hath given himself an Offering and a Sacrifice for us Ephes 5.2 And he is made unto us of God Wisdom Righteousness c. 1 Cor. 1.30 2. It vvas called their ovvn Righteousness because they did not think Regeneration or Supernatural Grace necessary to the obtaining of it but a Literal observation of the Lavv and Circumcision such as passed for a Righteousness among Men and such as they vvithout Supernatural Aid vvere able to perform As for those Precepts vvhich commanded the loving of God vvith all the Heart and the Circumcising the Heart because these vvere not enjoyned under express penalties as those things vvere of vvhich the Rulers vvere to take cognizance therefore the Pharisees counted them but Counsels only and not direct Precepts But the Christians-Righteousness vvhich is by Faith may be said to be of God because by Grace they are saved through Faith in Christ Jesus and that not of themselves it is the gift of God And we are his Workmanship created in Christ Jesus Ephes 2.8 10. 3. It vvas called their ovvn Righteousness because it vvas a vvay of seeking to be justified of their ovvn devising and not of God's appointing And on the contrary the Gospel-Method of Justification is called the Righteousness of God through Faith because it is of God's Institution and Appointment It is the substance of God's New Law or Covenant The result of all then is That they were the Works of the Law as exclusive of Faith in Christ and his Death which the Apostle denied any Man to be justified by and not those Works of the Law which are the immediate effects of Faith in Christ in his Death and in his Doctrine CHAP. VI. How St. Paul's Doctrine of Justification by Faith and not by Works was then mistaken by some I Come in the next place to shew how that St. Paul's Reasonings about Faith and Works in reference to Justification were probably mistaken by such Solifidians as St. James reasoned against For he having taught that God did justifie the ungodly Gentiles upon their Believing and without the deeds of the Law but denying Justification to as many of the Jews as did not Believe though they were observers of the Law there were some who thereupon through mistake laid the whole stress of Salvation upon Believing to the neglect of a holy and virtuous Life And St. Paul being sensible how apt some were to make a bad use of his good Doctrine and to draw bad Conclusions out of good Premises he frequently mentions such Inferences on purpose to caution Men against them As for Instance He having said in Rom. 5.20 That where sin abounded grace did abound much more In Chap. 6.1 he saith What shall we say then shall we continue in sin that grace may abound as some it seems were ready to infer God forbid saith he how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein You may consult to like purpose in general Rom. 3.5 6 7 31. 6.15 Gal. 2.17 and find that St. Paul and others were slanderously reported to have said Let us do evil that good may come That there were such as did misrepresent St.
believed What Rebel is there or nature so bad that would not be won to leave off Rebelling against his Prince and to love and please him upon undoubted assurance that by so doing he should not only be pardoned and restored to Favour but also perferred to the greatest Honour and Happiness he is capable of receiving from any Mortal And yet how weak a motive is this in comparison of what comes from God to reduce Men to their love and loyalty to him God's love to Man when perceived and heartily believed is the great motive and attractive of Man's Love to God We love him because he first loved us 1 Joh. 4.19 Love is an active and commanding Principle in Man and procureth Thoughts Cares and Endeavours of pleasing God If any Man love me he will keep my words saith our blessed Saviour Joh. 14.23 And after this manner Faith worketh by Love Gal. 5.6 Thus I have represented to you how and after what manner Faith in the Understanding works a saving Consent in the Will unto the Condition of God's Covenant of Salvation CHAP. V. Some few Objections answered I. SOME have thought Men may be Justified only by their Believing even while they are Ungodly in their Lives and have thought that Scripture Rom. 4.5 will hear them out in such a conceit which saith He that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness But they grosly mistake the Scripture and deceive themselves For that Text speaks of God's Justifying the Gentiles upon their sincere conversion to the Christian Faith and Life though they had lived in Gentilism in all Ungodliness before and until then and though they should not work at all as the Judaizers would have had them in turning Proselytes to the Jewish way But otherwise it 's flatly against the express Doctrine of the Gospel and current of the Scriptures for Men to hope to be pardoned by any Believing whatsoever while they remain Impenitent as every Man doth while he remains Ungodly To justifie the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. It 's said that Christ made the Blind to See and the Deaf to Hear and the Dumb to Speak as well as it 's said God Justifieth the Ungodly But is any Man so senseless as to think that Christ made them to See to Hear and to Speak while they remained Blind Deaf and Dumb And if not but that they know the meaning is that Christ made those to See to Hear to Speak which had been Blind Deaf and Dumb before those Cures were wrought upon them they might as well know also that the meaning is that God justifieth those upon their believing which had been Ungodly until then and not that he justifies them while they remain Ungodly II. Some alledge that although the Faith which is alone and without the concomitant effects of it Repentance Regeneration c. doth not justifie yet that Faith alone which doth produce such effects doth justifie without the concurrence of these in the justifying Act. Which they illustrate by this Similitude A Man sees with his Eye alone though he doth not see with his Eye that is alone or separated from his Body In return to all which let these things be considered 1. They that go thus far do grant that which will secure the Notion of the necessity of Repentance Regeneration and new Obedience unto Justification They grant we see such a necessity of these as without which no Man can be justified no not by Faith In granting which though we suppose them to err in their foresaid Notion yet this makes their Error the less dangerous because the presence of Repentance Regeneration and Obedience are no less necessary to Justification according to this account than they esteem them to be who say they concur with Faith in the very act of Justification 2. When they say Faith alone is all that is necessary to the Justifying Act without the concurrence of any thing else done by us By Justifying Act they mean either God's Act or Man's Act. If Man's Act that 's nothing but Man's performing the Condition upon which God hath promised to Justifie Men. If they mean God's Act it is his imputing Mens performing the Condition of the Promise unto them for Righteousness The only thing then in question will be what it is which is a fulfilling of the Condition of the Promise of Justification which God imputes for Righteousness If they say it is only the Assent of the Understanding unto the Truth of God's Testimony in the Gospel or this Assent together with a Reliance on Christ for Salvation I have shewed before that both these may be found in Men Unregenerate and Unjustified And that these two of themselves without Repentance and hearty Obedience to the Laws of Christ are not a fulfilling of the Condition of the Promise and that consequently Men without these cannot be justified by any Faith whatsoever and so not by Faith alone unless they will call Repentance and Heart-Obedience in conjunction with the foresaid Assent of the Mind and reliance of the Soul by the name of Faith Which if they will we are agreed as to the Thing at least if not to the Name that we are justified by such a Faith alone And yet I doubt not that whenever Justification is promised to Believing singly and alone exprest but that there the foresaid effects are comprehended under the name also for the Reasons formerly given 3. They which say we are justified by Faith alone but not by that Faith which is alone do distinguish where the Scripture doth not distinguish The Scripture no where saith we are justified by Faith alone as contradistinguished from Repentance Evangelical Obedience c. The third Chapter of Rom. 28. and Tit. 3.5 are sometimes made use of to countenance their Notion but to how little purpose hath been shewed already in the Treatise which needs not be here repeated 4. The Scripture is not only silent in the case not any where affirming we are justified by Faith alone but it expresly affirms the quite contrary Jam. 2.24 Ye see then how that by Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only That this is affirmed in reference to our Justification before God had been shewed before 5. Faith and Repentance are a joint Condition upon which Justification is suspended and are both constituted so by the same means and that is by promise of pardon to such as do Believe to such as do Repent and by threatning the contrary to those that do not both And if they are a joint Condition of the Promise of Justification then Justification proceeds not upon either of them alone but upon both together 6. Whereas it is said in the Similitude that a Man sees with his Eye alone though not with his Eye which is alone or when it is alone I doubt this is no more true than that which is intended to be illustrated by it For Naturalists will
for this liketh you O Children of Israel saith the Lord God And much after this rate do carnal Christians bear up themselves in hopes that all their sins are done away by the Sacrifice of Christ the Lamb of God that taketh away the Sins of the World though they live from day to day in ungodliness Only indeed they sin at a cheaper rate for the present than the wicked Jews did The Jewish sinners were at the cost of many a Sacrifice to stop the mouth of Conscience but these are at cost only in making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof and depend upon Christ to pay all their Scores 4. Another of their Errors as consequent upon the former was this That without Circumcision and observing of the Law of Moses the Gentiles could not be saved This Opinion the Judaizing Christians retained after their Conversion to the Christian Profession Acts 15.1 5 24. Certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren saying Except ye be Circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved There rose up certain of the Sect of the Pharisees which believed saying that it was needful to Circumcise them and to command them to keep the Law of Moses In opposition to which Opinion St. Paul taught that the Righteousness of God by Faith without the Law is manifested unto all and upon all that believe whether Jews or Gentiles and that there is no difference Rom. 3.21 22. And that a Man is justified by Faith without the deeds of the Law though never Circumcised And that God is the God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews and that he doth justifie the Vncircumcision and the Circumcision those that had observed the Law of Moses and those that had not upon the same terms viz. of Evangelical Faith Rom. 3.28 29 30. Whereunto agrees the words of St. Peter Acts 15.9 11. He put no difference between us and them purifying their hearts by Faith i. e. us Jews and they Gentiles But we believe that through the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they and upon no other terms though we have observed the Law and they have not Gal. 2.15 16. Upon the same account St. Paul again affirms Rom. 4.5 That to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness That is the Idolatrous Gentiles that never had observed the Law but lived without God in the World should yet have their practical belief of the Gospel imputed even to them for Righteousness And he further exemplifies this in Abraham Ver. 9.10 11 12. whose Faith was reckoned to him for Righteousness before he was Circumcised that he might be the Patern and great Example of God's justifying the Heathen upon their believing and obeying as Abraham did in leaving his Idolatry and his Country upon God's Promise and Command though he never had been Circumcised And upon the like account he saith again Gal. 3.8 9. That the Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Heathen through Faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying In thee shall all Nations be blessed And from thence he concludes that those Gentiles that be of Faith that believe as Abraham did are blessed as Abraham was are blessed with faithful Abraham 5. Another Error which was held by some Judaizing Christians was this That Faith in Christ and Literal Circumcision with a Literal observation of the Law of Moses jointly were the Condition of Justification Though they were such as Believed yet they taught that except Men were Circumcised and kept the Law of Moses they could not be saved Acts 15.1 5. They seem to have retained the same false Opinion of Justification by the Law as the unbelieving Jews did but held the Death of Christ necessary to be super-added To convince them of which Error St. Paul sets before them the bad consequence of it in two respects 1. In that they hereby rendred the Death of Christ needless in it self Gal. 2.21 If Righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain There would then have been no need of Christ's Death to accomplish it as the unbelieving Jews indeed did hold 2. In that this Opinion of theirs made Christ and his Death useless unto them and cut them off from receiving any benefit by him Gal. 5.2 4. Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be Circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing Christ is become of none effect unto you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace And hereto agrees that in Hebr. 13.10 We have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the Tabernacle Those Judaizers who stand for the necessity of Mosaic Observations have no right to nor shall receive benefit by Christ who is the only Christian Altar to which we bring all our Sacrifices 6. They held the Law of Moses to be unalterable and of perpetual obligation In opposition to which the Author to the Hebrews improves to great purpose that Prophesie Jer. 31.31 32. Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah Not according to the Covenant that I made with their Fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt c. For in that he saith a new Covenant he hath saith he made the first old Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready saith he to vanish away And St. Paul shews how that the Legal Ministration how glorious soever it was was yet done away when that which was far more glorious did appear 2 Cor. 3.7 11. And again that we are become dead to the Law by the Body of Christ and delivered from the Law Rom. 7.4 6. 7. The last of their Errors I shall insist on was this They held the first Covenant as alone or separated to be the Covenant of Salvation only taking in with it the Covenant of Literal Circumcision which also was made a part of their Law That first Covenant which I have already described as a Temporal Covenant and the Promises and the Threatnings of it but Temporal they took to be established for perpetuity and the Promises of it to contain Promises of Eternal Redemption or Remission as well as Temporal and Eternal Life and Felicity as well as Temporal And such a Literal observation of the Laws of it to be the condition of those Promises as would render them inculpable in the eye of the Magistracy such a Righteousness sufficient to justifie them before God as St. Paul saith he had while he was a Pharisee Phil. 3.6 As touching the Righteousness which is in the Law blameless which then he accounted to be his gain Now that they did peremptorily adhere to this first Covenant and the terms of it for Justification and Eternal Life it doth plainly appear by the mighty opposition
Paul's Doctrine touching God's Grace and Long-suffering and wrest several passages in his Epistles and other Scriptures to their own destruction we are told by St. Peter also 2 Pet. 3.15 16. And account that the long-suffering of the Lord is Salvation even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given him hath written unto you as also in all his Epistles speaking in them of these things In which are some things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures to their own destruction And after St. Paul in his 2 Tim. 3.2 3 4 5 verses had by many black Characters described a sort of Christians that had a form of godliness but denied the power thereof In ver 8. he further describes them by that which was the cause of the forementioned unsavoury fruits of the Flesh to wit that they were men of corrupt minds or understandings and reprobate concerning the Faith or void of Judgment concerning the Faith as the Margin hath it They were Men of corrupt Principles and injudicious concerning the Doctrine of Faith They did not discern Faith to be necessary in the operative and practical nature of it But as they did satisfie themselves with a form of Godliness without the power so they did likewise with a formal inefficacious and liveless Faith which made them so unsavoury in their Lives And St. John after he had in his first Epistle antidoted the Christians against the pretentions of the Gnosticks who held a bad Life consistent with Communion with God through illumination of mind and the Christian Faith deceiving themselves and labouring to deceive others in thinking they might be Righteous without doing Righteousness 1 Joh. 3.7 He towards the conclusion of that Epistle sums up his general scope in it in these words These things have I written unto you that believe in the Name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have Eternal Life and that ye may believe on the Name of the Son of God Chap. 5.13 His meaning is as I conceive that he wrote this Epistle first to the end they might be the better assured of Salvation by Christ upon their rightly Believing on him And secondly To the end they might not be drawn into mistakes in the point of Believing as if any Faith less than such as is accompanied with a constant adherence to Christ's Doctrine and Example touching a holy Life would give them that Assurance He wrote to them that did Believe that they might Believe that is that they might Believe yet more understandingly more groundedly and so perseveringly against all temptations to Apostacy from the profession of the Faith or to loosness in the profession of it St. Jude also ver 3 4. stirred up the Christians to contend earnesâ—ly for the Faith the Doctrine of saving Sinners in the way of Believing because as he told them there were certain Men professing Faith but of ungodly Lives that were among them that turned the grace of God into lasciviousness so understanding the Law of Grace the Gospel as if it had been a Proclamation from Heaven of a general Pardon for Christ's sake and through Faith in him of as many sins as Men had a mind to commit The which Error led them into those Monstrous Impieties charged upon them in that Epistle By reason of which the way of Truth the right Faith they pretended to was evil-spoken of in the World as St. Peter notes they being indeed Spots and Blemishes to the Christians and Christian-profession so long as they were admitted to their Feasts of Charity as owned by them to be of their Number This was indeed an ungodly Faith But the Faith which he exhorted them to contend for and to build up themselves upon as on a sure Foundation he calls their most holy Faith vers 20. such a Faith as is an Operative Principle of a holy Life And they were such Christians as St. James in his Epistle did expostulate with that did lean so much upon a meer Believing upon a meer Assent of the mind unto the truth of certain Propositions as that they were careless in the subduing of their Passions and bridling their Tongues and regulating their Actions as if these had not been necessary to Salvation But thought themselves safe upon account of their barren Faith though they were Proud and Conceited of their Knowledge and Attainments Censorious and Contentious Unmercifull and Uncharitable In a word they were such as were injudicious concerning the Faith that will Save and under mistakes of the Apostles Doctrine about it All this will easily appear to any that shall but with a competent measure of Understanding view and consider the scope and contents of that Epistle And thus you see how plainly it appears by the Epistles of the Apostles that the Doctrine of Justification by Faith without Works in the sense in which the Apostles asserted it was misunderstood by many Gnosticks carnal Gospellers or Solifidians The sense in which the Apostles did assert it was that Faith justifies without Works Antecedent to Believing and without Works as the Works of a literal observation of Moses's Law which was opposed by the Jews to Faith as having Christ Crucified for its Object and Repentance Regeneration and sincere Obedience in a holy Life for its inseparable Effects But these deceived Souls that deceived their own Hearts seem to have understood the Apostles as if they had taught Justification by Faith considered only as having the Death of Christ and the Atonement made thereby for its Object without respect to Regeneration and new Obedience as any part of the Condition And it had been much better for the Christian World if those corrupt Notions about the Doctrine of Faith as Justifying had died with those Men which in the first Ages of the Christian-Church were infected with them But alas it is too apparent that the same or much of the same dangerous and destructive mistakes have been transmitted to or revived in these latter Ages of the Church For we find by experience in this present Age that very many of those who are called Christians presume themselves to be Christians indeed and such as shall be saved by Christ though their Lives declare them to be far from being New Creatures from being renewed in the Spirit of their Minds Wills Affections and Conversations as those are that have been taught as the Truth is in Jesus Ephes 4.21 24. For they are confident they Believe all the Articles of their Creed and in doing so they are confident they shall be Saved and so they would if that Belief of theirs were but so effectual and operative as to produce such a change in Heart and Life as would denominate them New Creatures But the mischief is they deceive themselves in the nature of their Faith it being but an Opinionative Inoperative and dead Assent to the Truth of the Gospel such as is only an
hereto that to be justified and to be saved is the same thing with St. James as well as it is with St. Paul according to the tenour of his Reasoning Chap. 2. from ver 14. to the end What doth it profit my brethren saith he though a man say he hath Faith and have not Works Can Faith save him Vers 14. This Interrogation implies an Emphatical Negation and the meaning is that such a Faith can by no means save a Man and he gives the reason of it twice over in vers 17 20. because Faith without Works is dead And then afterwards argues the necessity of Works together with Faith unto Justification or unto Salvation which was the thing he began with by God's justifying Abraham by Works together with his Faith who was the great Pattern or Example of God's justifying all others If then to be justified and to be saved amounts to the same in St. James's Discourse here then by the way they do not rightly understand St. James who think he doth not speak of a Justification before God in this his Discourse about Justification by Works together with Faith but of a Justification before Men and to their own Conscience only Which supposition of theirs doth directly thwart the very scope and design of his whole Discourse which is to set forth what will and what will not avail a Christian-Professor in the sight of God to the saving of his Soul as abundantly appears So that the Scripture which saith Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for Righteousness and which St. James saith was fulfilled in Abraham's being justified by Works as well as by Faith was not fulfilled in Abraham's being justified to others and to his own Conscience but in his being justified before God and so St. Paul understood it Rom. 4.3 Gal. 3.6 But this was touched before in Chap. 1. The result then of what hath been argued in Answer to the Objection is this viz. That all that are justified are thereby put regularly into an immediate capacity of Salvation so that if they should dye the very next moment after they are once justified they would undoubtedly be saved And therefore Evangelical Obedience can be no more necessary to Salvation than it is to Justification and it is as necessary to the one as to the other And if to say Evangelical Obedience is necessary to Justification be injurious to Christ and to the Grace of God as some would pretend how comes it to pass then that to say Evangelical Obedience is necessary to Salvation is not so too For our final Salvation is as much the effect of God's Grace and of Christ's Undertaking for us as our Justification it self is and of as much Value And therefore if the one be not injurious in this kind neither is the other 8. As the Promise of forgiveness of sins by the Blood of Christ or the Promise of an interest in his Blood to the pardon of Sin is sometimes made unto Believing so sometimes again it is made unto Evangelical Obedience or a holy Life as in 1 Joh. 1.7 If we walk in the light as he is in the light that is endeavouring to be holy as God is holy then have we fellowship one with another and the Blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all Sin but otherwise it doth not And so the Christians to whom St. Peter wrote were said to be elect according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father through Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.2 But they were not elect to the benefit of being sprinkled with the Blood of Christ without Obedience And therefore by this we see also that Evangelical Obedience is part of the Condition of the Promise of Justification by the Blood of Christ 9. To forgive Injuries is an act of Evangelical Obedience to that Precept of our Lord Mar. 11.25 And yet without this act of Obedience Men that have been injured cannot be justified because they cannot be pardoned according to the Word of our Lord Mark 11.26 Mat. 6.15 and 18.35 Therefore Evangelical Obedience must needs be part of the Condition of Justification 10. Repentance is an eminent Act of Evangelical Obedience Acts 17.30 and yet pardon of sin which is essential to Justification is not to be obtained without it Luke 13.3 5. Therefore again it follows that Evangelical Obedience is necessary to Justification and part of the Condition of it And now by this time I suppose it fully appears to any unprejudiced Reader that the Doctrine of St. Paul yea and of St. Peter and John too do fully accord with the Doctrine of St. James touching the necessity of Evangelical Obedience unto Justification The opposition then which some have made between Faith and all Internal and External Works in reference to Justification as well Evangelical as Mosaical hath not been only without Scripture-ground but against Scripture-evidence and looks more like that which was made by the Gnosticks or other Solisidians opposed by St. James if it be not the very same than any the Scripture any where maketh And how much injury the Christian Religion and the Souls of Men may have suffered thereby is a thing to be thought on and sadly laid to Heart It is a pleasant Doctrine and the worst of Men called Christians are glad to hear that they may be justify'd by Christ only upon their Believing in him without any Works of Righteousness or Self-denial of their own And upon that account presuming verily that they do Believe they are confident that they are justify'd though they are unsanctify'd But those especially are in great danger of deceiving their own Souls by building their Confidence upon this Doctrine who together with this Belief have more of the form of Godliness than the other have and are found much more in the use and exercise of the external Devotional part of Religion and are zealous for this or that Opinion Party or Way which they think most Orthodox though they be greatly destitute of Love to the Nature of God and of Humility Charity strict Justice Fidelity Peaceableness Sobriety Temperance Modesty and Meekness and of that renewed frame of Soul which would make them like Christ Jesus wherein the power of Christianity doth consist The external Duties of Hearing Reading Praying and the rest being in great part but means referring to the other as the end So that no Man is to account himself truly Religious further than he attains to these truly Christian Qualifications by the use of the External Mâ—ans and Internal Aids Yea the â—â—â—shly part even in Mâ—n good in the main is very apt to make an advantage of such a Doctrine as aforesaid to the lessening of their Care Dilience and Zeal in working out their Salvation in striving to enter in at the straight Gate in governing their own Spirits and Appetites in cleansing themselves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit and
tell them the contrary That it is not the Eye alone by which a Man sees but that it is the Soul that sees by the Eye as its Organ The Eye sees not when the Soul is departed though it be not then alone I confess I cannot possibly conceive either how the Soul should not concur with the Eye in the Act of seeing when the Eye cannot see without it nor yet that Repentance should not concur with Faith in the Act of Justification so long as Men cannot be Justified by Faith it self without it or in the absence of it as they themselves grant 3. This lies in the way of some they cannot conceive how Justification by Evangelical Obedience as well as Faith should consist with the possibility of somes being justified by Believing who yet may not live so long after as to have an opportunity of doing good Works How rare Instances of this kind are I shall not dispute But doubtless whenever Men so believe God's Promise of pardon through Christ upon their Repentance and the necessity of their own Repentance for the obtaining of it as that they in VVill and a fixed and lasting Resolution become new Men then they first believe unto Justification And it is not impossible but that some may so believe that may never after they do so have opportunity to be much active in External Acts of Obedience But though this should so fall out yet such are not justified without Evangelical Obedience as well as Faith For 1. These Motions and Acts of the VVill are themselves Acts of present Evangelical Obedience 2. They are in the Root and Cause Evangelical Obedience future and to come First They are in themselves Acts of present Evangelical Obedience For by these Motions and Acts of the VVill Men do whenever they take place turn from Sin to God and their Duty out of Hatred to that they turn from and out of Love to that they turn to And these Acts of the VVill which consist in Affection and Resolution are proper effects and fruits of Faith in the Understanding and Acts of Heart-Obedience in the sight of God and a conformity of Soul to his declared VVill and Commandment And they may as well and as truly be called VVorks as evil Acts of the VVill may such as are a love to evil and desires and resolutions of perpetrating it VVhich evil Acts of the VVill are yet in Scripture called VVorks and a working of wickedness Psal 58.2 Ye work wickedness in your Hearts Micah 2.1 He that looketh upon a Woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart Matth. 5.28 And envy wrath and hatered which are Internal Acts of the Soul are called VVorks of the Flesh Gal. 5.19 20 21. And if such inward fixed Resolutions in Men of obeying God in external Acts if ever they have opportunity and a Call to it did not pass in God's account for Obedience and were not accepted instead of the Deed when opportunity for the Deed is wanting the best Man in the World could be no Disciple of Christ who doth not actually forsake all that he hath and lay down his Life for him Whosoever of you forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my Disciple saith he Luke 14.26 33. Whereas Christ pronounceth the Poor in Spirit Blessed many of whom never became actually Poor for his sake as not being called to it But if they are Poor in Spirit if they firmly resolve to become Poor in forsaking all for Christ's sake when called to it these are capable of Blessedness in Christ's account as well as those that suffer the loss of all for Righteousness sake Matth. 5.3 Secondly Those Acts of the Will are in the Root and Cause Evangelical Obedience future and to come Because those Resolutions against evil and for good when they are of a fixed and lasting nature as they always are when together with Faith they make Men capable of Justification will certainly produce external Acts of sincere Obedience as opportunity doth occur When the Tree is made good it will bring forth good Fruit in the season of Fruit if it be not cut down before When the Heart is renewed in affection and resolution the course of a Man's Life will certainly be answerable to it if ever it have opportunity of shewing it A good Man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things Mat. 12.35 And God who knows the Heart doth judge of and estimate Men according to what they are in the inward frame of their Heart and prevalent bent of their Wills If there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a Man hath and not according to that he hath not 2 Cor. 8.12 We judge of the Cause by the Effects of the goodness of Mens Hearts by the goodness of their Lives to us the Tree is known by its Fruit But God who is greater than our Hearts and knows them better than we do judges of the Effect by the Cause and knows what a Mans Life will be by what his Heart is upon its first Conversion to him and so confers on him the benefit of Justification when the Foundation of a good Life is laid in the conversion and renewing of the Heart The Understanding of this Part of Discourse will serve not only to satisfy the foresaid Doubt but also to inform us what Evangelical Obedience is necessary to Justification in its beginning Not but that actual Obedience in Life is necessary to the continuance of Justification where Life is continued And therefore we find that Abraham was justified by his after-believing and after-obedience as well as by his first and so was Noah before him Noah was a Righteous Man and justified before he became heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith by his believing and obeying God in preparing the Ark Gen. 6.9 Heb. 11.7 It was by Faith in God's Promise that Abraham left his Country to obey God at the first and by that he was first justified Heb. 11.8 And yet his believing God's Promise so shall thy Seed be which was not made till some years after was imputed to him also for Righteousness Gen. 15.9 It was many years after that again that by Faith he offered his Son Isaac upon the Altar and yet by that he was justified as well as by his first Faith and Obedience Jam. 2.21 Pardon of sin is our Justification from sin Acts 13.39 And this we are directed by the Lord's Prayer to pray for daily all our days And the continuance of Justification is promised upon condition of continuance of Faith and Obedience to the Gospel Col. 1.21 22 23. and a discontinuance of it threatned in case of disobedience according to the Tenour of the Parable Mat. 18. from ver 23. to ver 35. By all which we may see what need there is for all Christians to work out to work through their own Salvation with fear and trembling to which they are
earnestly exhorted Phil. 2.22 and to run so that they may obtain 1 Cor. 9.24 IV. Some to evil affect their own and others Minds with prejudice against Discourses of this nature do suggest That the laying so great a stress upon Duty as to esteem any thing of it necessary to Justification save Believing only doth derogate from the Glory of Christ's great Undertaking in the business of Man's Salvation and that it is a trusting in our own Righteousness But it will appear far otherwise if they will but impartially consider in what sence and upon what account such stress is laid upon Duty which I shall open in two Particulars 1. They that rightly understand themselves in this matter do not look that any of their Duties of what nature soever should of themselves as such be available to their Justification or Salvation but that it is for the sake of Christ and upon account of his Undertaking for us that God accepts and imputes for Righteousness to us such Duty as Faith Repentance and Obedience is and that he doth make promise of Justification upon Condition of these Since the Fall we say all our Duties that are acceptable to God or available to us become so through Christ and for his sake And therefore so long as we attribute and ascribe the benefit we expect upon our Repentance and sincere Obedience or Belief unto Christ and to his great and worthy Undertaking for us we are far from derogating from the Glory of it and from trusting in our own Righteousness in that Notion in which Mens trusting in their own Righteousness is condemned in Scripture or any otherwise than as our Duty is made a Condition without which we shall have no part in Christ nor be qualified for Glory 2. When we lay such stress upon Repentance Obedience c. as a Condition or part of a Condition of the Promise of Justification and Salvation as without which we say we cannot be Justified or Saved by Christ's Undertaking for us yet then this stress is laid and depends upon the Will and Appointment of God by which these Duties are thus made the Condition and not on the intrinsick worth or value of the Duties themselves simply considered without reference to God's Ordination appointing them to that use For if God had not made a New Covenant promising pardon for Christ's sake to such as do Repent and Acceptance and Reward to such as sincerely Obey him they would have had no sufficient ground to have been confident of Pardon Acceptance or Reward though they should have Repented and so Obey'd And the reason is because Men are not Justified in the Eye of the Natural or Moral Law upon any such account as that is So that all the stress which is laid on Duty by them that rightly understand their Duty in this matter doth terminate partly in Christ's Undertaking for them and partly in God's Institution and Appointment who hath made his Promise of Justifying us for Christ's sake so as that he hath made our Duty of Repentance and sincere Obedience a necessary Condition of it And he that trusteth to be Pardoned Accepted and Rewarded for Christ's Sake upon his Repentance and sincere Obedience because God hath promised that he shall trusteth in God and in the fidelity of his Word and Promise And in doing so what more stress doth he lay upon Duty in this kind than they that trust to be Justified and Saved upon their Believing For their Believing is matter of Duty as well as their Repenting and Obeying And their Believing would no more have entitled them to the benefit without the Promise which gives them that Title than other Acts of Duty would do And other Acts of Duty do entitle to the same benefits as fully as Faith itself doth where there is promise of the same benefits annexed to them as Faith hath And that they have I have shewed before So long then as the stress which is laid on Duty terminates in Christ and in God's Will and Appointment in the New Covenant and is regulated by his Word and Promise there is no danger of overcharging Duty It 's true indeed if we should expect that Duty should do that for us which is proper only to Christ as to expiate our sin or the like we should sinfully overcharge it as the Pharisaical Jews did their Sacrifices and other Legal Observances in expecting remission of Sin by them without Christ's Atonement Which Righteousness of theirs is for that cause called their own Righteousness which was by the Law as being no method of Justification of God's appointment but of their own devising which in that respect was indeed but as filthy Rags and loathsome to God But this is not the case with Protestant Christians who lay no such stress upon Duty no not upon Faith itself but do acknowledge that all the power and virtue it hath to justifie depends wholly upon and is derived from the Will and Ordination of God in Christ Joh. 6.40 and 1.12 Ephes 2.8 And we say the same of Repentance and sincere Obedience also And a confidence of being saved in a way of Duty upon such terms is represented in Scripture as trusting in the Righteousness of God through Faith in opposition to ones trusting in his own Righteousness Phil. 3.9 so far is it from trusting in our own Righteousness or from derogating from Christ in the Glory of his Undertaking for us And now for a Conclusion It would be considered whether such as are educated in Christianity are not hardlier brought to live as becomes the Gospel in point of Practice than to believe that Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners and that he Died for them and Rose again And whether there is not cause to fear that very many more such do eternally miscarry through neglect of the former than for want of the latter And if there be as doubtless there is then Practical Discourses among such must needs be highly necessary however some of weak minds thirst more after Discourses Consolatory upon account of Believing only Which may serve instead of an Apology for writing this Discourse Saint Paul charged Titus to affirm this constantly that they which have Believed be careful to maintain good Works Tit. 3.8 FINIS 〈…〉 On the Preliminary QUESTIONS and ANSWERS OF THE Church-Catechism Giving an Account of the whole Doctrine OF THE Covenant of Grace And of the Nature Terms and Conditions of the same SHEWING ALSO By whose Mediation it was obtained for us by what Assistance we shall be enabled to perform it and our Obligations thereunto The Third Edition By THOMAS BRAY D. D. LONDON Printed by J. Brudenell for William Haws at the Rose in Ludgate-street 1703. TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD WILLIAM LORD BISHOP of Coventry and Lichfield Lord Almoner to the KING MY LORD HAving your Lordship's Commands for the Publication of these following Discourses I have reason to hope my Readers will prove candid and
That Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us Gal. 3.13 And that he Blotted out the Hand-writting of Ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his Cross Col. 2.14 and that He is the Mediator of a Better Covenant Heb. 8.6 In short the Case is this All Mankind having Rebell'd against God and by their Breach of Covenant with Him made it impossible for 'em to be Justify'd by that Original Law of Righteousness which requir'd an Unsinning Obedience and whilst Vnjustified they must of necessity be in a State of Damnation that to the Honour of God's Government his Justice might be satisfied for the Violation of his Laws and yet that we might be reinstated in a Capacity of being Justified and Sav'd by virtue of a more Gracious Covenant consisting of Terms and Conditions performable by us our Saviour Jesus Christ did Satisfie for our Transgressions and moreover Purchase with the Price of his Most PRECIOUS BLOOD such Terms and Conditions for us as by His Grace and Assistance we might be able to perform and upon such Performance God being always ready to Approve of us and to Judge us as having Obey'd his Gospel Therefore it must be that through Jesus Christ it is that God does accordingly Justifie and Adjudge us as Righteous Persons And therefore in this sence it is true and none other that Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us Christ's Righteousness imputed to us no otherwise than in its Effects and Consequences It is not possible that his Personal Righteousness should be imputed to us as ours so that we shall be look'd upon as having perfectly kept the Law in him an Opinion that has no Foundation in Scripture is absurd in Reason and is dangerous with respect to Practice it being a very great Temptation to Persons to cease their Endeavours to be inherently Righteous themselves which at best cannot be but in imperfect degrees when they are perswaded that they shall be accounted such by having the unspotted Righteousness of Christ thus imputed to 'em But let no Man deceive you saith St. John he that doth Righteousness is Righteous as he is Righteous 1 John 3.7 Yet however the Righteousness of Christ is imputed to us in its Effects and Consequences for by his fulfilling the Law of Mediation and those Conditions concluded upon betwixt Him and the Father in which consisted his Mediatorial Righteousness he procur'd and purchas'd for us that Inestimable Favour that our imperfect Righteousness such as we by his Grace are enabled to perform according to the Terms of the Gospel should be accepted to our Justification and thereupon that we should be Approved as Just and should stand recti in Curia according to Evangelical Terms the Gospel Rules and Measures of Righteousness Thus all having sinned and come short of the Glory of God we are Justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation for our Sins through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of Sins that are past through the Forbearance of God Rom. 3.23 24 25. That is all Mankind both Jews and Gentiles being found Sinners neither Justification nor Salvation could be had for 'em according to the Terms of the First Covenant Whensoever therefore any are Justify'd it must be freely by the undeserved Favour of God through the Great Work which Jesus Christ hath wrought for the Redemption of Man accepting of their imperfect Righteousness instead of an unsinning Obedience and pardoning their Sins through the same Christ Which brings me to the last Particular to be accounted for in my Description of Justification but makes it unnecessary to add much more explication of it And that is this Fifthly 5. Justification an Acquitting of all sincere Penitents from the Punishments of all those Sins of which according to the Terms of any preceeding Covenant there was Remission That Justification is an Acquitting of all sincere Penitents from the Punishment of those Sins of which according to the Terms of any former Covenant there was no place for Pardon By what has been already said you see that the First Covenant which requir'd a Righteousness not performable by us in our fallen State being cancell'd through Christ there is place for Repentance in this Covenant of Grace And as under this our Repentance is a great part of our Evangelical Righteousness so the Acquitting us upon our Repentance from the Punishment of our Sins is a great part of God's Justification of us through our Saviour Christ And that God's Acquitting of us from the Punishment of those Sins we have Repented of is one Notion of a Christian's Justification appears from that eminent Place Acts 13.38 39. Be it known unto you Brethren that through this Man is preached unto you the Forgiveness of Sins and by him all that Believe are Justify'd from all things from which ye could not be Justify'd by the Law of Moses In which words as it is evident that the Gospel of Christ allows Pardon upon our Repentance for those Sins for which the First Covenant that of Moses and much less that made with Adam allow'd no Mercy So it is also manifest from hence that the Justification which is now declar'd from Christ consists in God's pardoning such Sins Acquitting the Penitent Believer that now comes into the Obedience of Christ whatsoever his past Sins have been And this part of Justification the Pardoning of our Sins is that which the Apostle means by not Imputing of our Sins Rom. 4.7 8. Blessed are they whose Iniquities are Forgiven and whose Sins are Covered Blessed is the Man unto whom the Lord will not impute Sin In which place he who considers the drift and force of St. Paul's Discourse will easily perceive that Justification Forgiveness of Sins Covering of Sin and not Imputing of Sin are equivalent Phrases and signifie the same thing And thus at length I think I have fully and sufficiently declar'd unto you the meaning of Justification And from what has been said it does appear that to the Praise and Glory of his Grace he hath made us acceptable in the Beloved in whom we have Redemption through his Blood the Forgiveness of Sins according to the Riches of his Grace Eph. 1.6 7. That is from what has been said in the Explication of this Point of Justification it is manifest that as it consists in God's Adjudging of us as Righteous according to the Terms of the Second Covenant and in his Acquitting of us from the Punishment of such Sins as would not be pardon'd under any other So the Favour of being thus Justify'd by God in both its parts is owing to the Mediation of his Beloved Son our Saviour Christ in whom he is so well pleased as to be pleased also with us upon his Account And thus having given you
Nature and the Law of Moses And St. Paul disputing with the Jews about the Invalidity and Insufficiency of any other Dispensation or Law to render us Just and Accepted by God besides the Gospel and the Necessity for all Persons that will be Justify'd and Sav'd to Believe and embrace the Gospel as the only means of both By Law he understood both the Law of Nature and the Law of Moses according to either of which if they would stand a Judgment he shews it was not possible for any to be Justified or accounted as Just because there was no Man living but had transgress'd and violated those Laws and fallen short of those Conditions prescrib'd in 'em according to which a Man was to be accounted Just and Righteous He had prov'd before both Jews and Gentiles that they were all under Sin and that therefore by the Deeds of the Law there shall no Flesh be Justified in his sight Rom. 3.9 20. So that the whole of St. Paul's meaning when he denies Justification to be by the Law is this That according to the perfect Rule of Righteousness prescribed to Adam or by Moses no Man now in this our fallen State can be accounted reputed or Adjudged Righteous By Works and Deeds of the Law are meant both Moral and Ceremonial Duties as performed by the Power of Nature without Faith and as meritorious of the Reward Nor can any be Justified by the Works and Deeds of the Law for another reason for by Works and Deeds of the Law in the Jews meaning of those Words in that Dispute St. Paul had with 'em were meant the observance of the Moral and Ceremonial Works and Duties of the Law as performed by their own Natural Strength without the Supernatural Assistance of God's Grace and not consider'd as flowing from Faith and moreover these Works and Deeds of the Law they accounted as meritorious of the Reward they were Works upon which the Reward would have been reckon'd not of Grace but of Debt Rom. 4.4 and which would have given occasion for Boasting v. 27. And now this being the meaning of the Law and the Deeds and Works of the Law in St. Paul's Dispute with the Jews and the Jews Doctrine being this That by observation of the Law of Moses they could approve themselves as Just and Righteous before God and by the Deeds and Works of the Law perform'd by their own Natural strength they could merit the rewards of Obeying and could have good reason to Boast of their Righteousness which the Pharisees amongst 'em were so apt to do In opposition to which sence of the Law and Works St. Paul does plead Justification to be attainable only upon Gospel Terms as we see Luke 18.11 In opposition to this St. Paul does bend the Force of his Arguments as there was great reason to prove to 'em That since according to the Tenor of either the Law of Nature or the Law of Moses all both Jews and Gentiles are under Sin so that there is none Righteous no not one Rom. 3.9 10. That therefore we are Justified freely by God's Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that he might be Just and the Justifier of him that Believeth in Jesus v. 24 25 26. That is Christ has reveal'd this way of Justifying Sinners namely that he will accept and reward all those as Righteous Persons who shall Believe and embrace those Terms of Salvation propos'd in the Gospel and shall accordingly give themselves up to be rul'd by it And this is to be Justified freely by his Grace And this is to be Justified freely by God's Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ and does also sufficiently exclude Boasting This I say is to be Justified freely by his Grace for that we have this condescending Rule of Righteousness given us whereby we shall be accepted of as Righteous and Acquitted from Punishment upon our Practical Faith a sincere Obedience and unseigned Repentance is an Act of meer Grace and Mercy in God through Jesus Christ the Purchase of which cost Christ His BLOOD but cost us nothing And it is by the Grace and Assistance of his Holy Spirit that we are enabled to perform these Conditions of our Justification viz. Repentance Faith and Obedience And it does also sufficiently exclude all reason for And it does also sufficiently exclude all occasions of Boasting and occasion of Boasting For when all is done our Repentance Faith and Obedience hath nothing of Virtue or Merit of Natural or Moral Efficiency in it towards the purchasing of the Pardon of our past Sins and to render us Righteous were it not for his Mercy in Christ in giving us such gracious Laws and Terms of Righteousness as those contained in the Gospel All which Reasons sufficiently make it appear how we are Justified freely by his Grace notwithstanding the necessity of our inherent Righteousness to Justification and are far from having any reason to pride our selves in any of our most Holy and Virtuous Performances And by what hath been said in the Explication of this Part And from the same account it will easily appear how S. Paul and S. James may be Reconciled I hope it does also sufficiently appear that there is no real opposition between St. Paul and St. James when the former does assert That a Man is Justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law and the latter That by Works a Man is Justified and not by Faith only For it is not you see the same Law nor the same Works upon which their Discourses proceeded but quite different both Laws and Works and therefore there could be no Contradiction between ' em The Works and Deeds of the Law by which S. Paul denies we can be Justified are either an unsinning Obedience according to the Law of Nature or the Observance of Moses's Laws The Works by which according to S. James we shall be Justified are the Works prescribed by the Laws of the Gospel flowing from Faith The occasion also of these Discourses was different The Law St. Paul excludes from being a Rule of Justification was both the perfect Law of Nature and the Law of Moses and the Deeds and Works of the Law which he likewise excludes from being the Terms on which God will Justifie us were a perfect exact unsinning Obedience such as is requir'd by the Original Law of Righteousness or an Observance of all the Laws of Moses By neither of which Laws nor the Deeds and Works of such Laws could we at all be Justified since according to those Rules of Righteousness Cursed is every one that continues not in all things to do 'em Gal. 3.10 But the Works St. James c. 2.24 seems so carefully to interess in the Affair of our Justification jointly and equally with Faith are those Works prescribed by the Laws
the several Points both Doctrinal and Moral How can it be expected any Minister should sufficiently discharge his Duties by thus instructing them without the Supplies of such Books written on the several Subjects both general and particular No it is not possible out of the mean Profits of most Parishes scarce sufficient to provide the mere Necessaries of Life he should be capable to buy himself such necessary Helps It was for these Reasons thought a great Work of Piety or Charity to the Souls of Men not the least wanted in this Nation where there are more Cures of Souls unprovided of necessary Maintenance than in any Establish'd Church perhaps throughout Christendom to furnish as many as possible with Parochial Libraries Some of which tho' slenderly provided of Books at first may probably in time become well replenish'd And as such Parochial Libraries are form'd in the main Part thereof the Didactical on the Plan of the Doctrine of the Covenant consider'd both in its general Nature and its particular Terms both Mercies on God's Part and Conditions to be perform'd on ours on the Means by which we shall be enabled to perform our Covenant Engagement On the Seals of the Covenant and on Repentance after Breach thereof And the first general Doctrine in such Plan being the Doctrine of the Two Covenants on which Subject Mr. ALLEN having written so judiciously in the following Tracts as not to be omitted in any one Library and is therefore so material an Ingredient in the whole Collection so it was thought not improper here to give some Account thereof and with what View it has been publish'd so as to appear Introductory as it were to all that follows As to the Discourse on Faith annext to his Discourse on the Two Covenants that also has its peculiar Excellency as coming from the Pen of so judicious a Person And being so stated by him as not to exclude Conditions in the Covenant necessary to be perform'd on our Part in order to our Justification through CHRIST is very requisite to be perus'd in order to the better understanding the Covenant it self and was therefore annex'd by the Author himself to his former Discourse on the Two Covenants A DISCOURSE OF THE Nature Ends and Difference OF THE Two Covenants THE mistake of the unbelieving Jews about the true import of God's Promise to Abraham and of the Law of Moses was a principal cause of the rejecting Christ and his Gospel and their own Salvation thereby To rectifie which mistake the Apostle St. Paul used various Reasonings according to the various Errors contained in it In which Reasonings of his there being some things hard to be understood there are others again which probably mistaking the Apostles reasonings against the Jewish Notion of Justification by Works ran into a contrary Extream thinking they might be Saved by Faith without Works as on the conrary the incredulous Jews thought they might be Saved by Works without Faith And if many in our days had not run into somewhat alike Extream through a misunderstanding also of the Apostles Writings labour and pains would not have been so necessary as now they are to rectifie their mistake and to prevent it in others To the end therefore that the plain Truth may the better appear touching God's Promise to Abraham touching the Law of Moses and the Apostles arguings about these I shall very briefly endeavour these seven Things I. To open the Nature and Design of God's Promise to Abraham And to shew II. For what end the Law was added to the Promise III. By what Faith and Practice the Iews under the Law were saved IV. That the Law contained a Covenant different from that with Abraham V. The grand mistakes of the unbelieving Iews and St. Paul's counter-arguings touching both the Law and the Promise VI. The Mistake of some pretended Christians in the Apostles days Touching the Doctrine of Justification by Faith without Works VII That the Doctrine of St. Paul and St. James about Faith and Works in reference to Justification do not differ I shall begin with the first of these CHAP. I. The Nature and Design of God's Promise to Abraham I Shall endeavour to open the Nature and Design of God's Promise to Abraham Which Promise is also called the Covenant Act. 3.25 Gal. 3.17 In doing of which these eight things will come under consideration 1. What the Nature of this Promise is in general 2. What the Design of it is 3. What are the special Benefits promised 4. What the Extent of it is 5. The Security given by God for the performance of it 6. That this Promise was Conditional 7. What the Condition of it was 8. What we are to understand by God's accounting Abraham's Faith to him for Righteousness Sect. 1. Of the Nature of it in general This Promise I take to be of the same nature with that which in the Gospel is called the New-Covenant It 's true indeed they greatly differ in the Administration the one being but general implicite and obscure and the other more particular express and perspicuous But though in this they differ yet in their general nature they agree in one and are the same For 1. This Covenant as delivered to Abraham was confirmed in Christ as well as the Gospel afterwards Gal. 3.17 and that 's a Character of the New-Covenant Mat. 26.28 2. The Gospel is said to have been Preached to Abraham in the Promise that was made him Gal. 3.8 3. He was justified by Faith which he could not have been but by vertue of a New-Covenant And it was by Faith in the Promise made to him by God by which he was justified Which two things supposed it necessarily follows That that Promise was of the Nature of the New-Covenant 4. St. Paul argues against the erroneous Jews in his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians the necessity of Evangelical Faith unto Justification now under the Gospel from Abraham's being justified by Faith and from God's setting him forth for a Pattern and Example to all after-Ages of his justifying both Jews and Gentiles upon the Condition of Believing The strength of which arguing seems to depend upon this supposition That the Promise by the belief of which Abraham was then justified and the Promise in the Gospel by the belief of which Men are now justified do both agree and are one in the general nature of them And upon these grounds and under this notion of the Promise to Abraham I intend to discourse of it But when I consider for what reason he that is least in the Kingdom of God is said to be greater than John the Baptist though not Abraham himself nor any of the Prophets were greater than he and when I consider likewise how ignorant the Apostles were for a time touching the necessity of the Death and Resurrection of Christ notwithstanding the many plainer Revelations thereof in the Prophets than we find Abraham had I cannot I confess think that Abraham had or
to Abraham as it was a Promise of sending Christ to be the Saviour of the World was expressive of the greatest love For in this was the love of God manifested towards us because God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 4.9 10. A Propitiation for our sins That is one that by his Death hath procured favour having taken off that sore displeasure which God by his Law had declared against all the transgressors of it For the wise and just God did not think the Righteousness of his Government and the Honour and Reputation of his Law would be sufficiently saved and his great hatred of Sin sufficiently manifested without some considerable satisfaction given for the dishonour done to Him and his Law by Mans Transgression And yet that this might not be exacted at the hands of the Guilty in executing the Curse of the Law on themselves he was most graciously pleased to accept of the Sufferings of his own dear Son instead of what the sinners themselves were to have undergone He hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us Gal. 3.13 Christ suffered for sins the just for the unjust or in their stead 1 Pet. 3.18 Upon account of which undertaking of Christ for us all the benefits of the Covenant do accrue to Man Whatever is required of Man by way of condition of his acceptation with God becomes accepted to that end upon account of Christ's suffering And his Intercession in Heaven through which all our sincere though otherwise imperfect performances become acceptable to God and rewardable by him is made in the virtue of it For the whole Covenant itself is founded in the Blood of Christ which he shed for the remission of sins Therefore it is called the New Testament in his Blood Mat. 26.28 And his Blood the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant Hebr. 13.20 2. It contained a Promise of Justification or Remission of sin through Christ unto all that should so believe as thereupon to repent of their former folly and become sincerely obedient for the future For that is necessarily implyed in the Promise of Blessedness to the Nations in Abraham's Seed it being impossible Men should be Blessed without Remission of sin which consisteth in removing the Curse of the Law in remitting the penalty Blessed is the Man whose iniquity is forgiven and whose sin is covered Psal 32.1 St. Paul acquaints us that this Blessing of the New Covenant was declared to Abraham in the Promise Gal. 3.8 The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Heathen through Faith preached the Gospel before unto Abraham saying In thee shall all Nations be blessed 3. It contained in it tacitly a Promise of Divine Assistance unto Men in their endeavours to fulfil the condition of the Promise For God in promising Blessedness to the Nations through Abraham's Seed therein promised all that was absolutely necessary for him to vouchsafe to make them blessed and without which they could not be blessed And if so then he therein implicitly promised to assist the endeavours of Men to perform the condition of the Promise without the assistance of whose Grace they cannot savingly Believe Repent and Obey And so it should seem the Old Testament-Church understood God's subduing of sin as well as his pardoning of sin to be comprized in the Promise to Abraham Mich. 7.19 20. He will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the Sea Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham which thou hast sworn to our Fathers from the days of old And Christ his turning Men from their iniquities which he doth accomplish by appointing them means and by assisting them in the use of them to that end is part of the Blessing contained in the Promise made to Abraham and was so reckoned by St. Peter Act 3.25 26. Ye are the Children of the Prophets and of the Covenant which God made with our Fathers saying unto Abraham And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed Vnto you first God having raised up his Son Jesus Christ sent him to bless you in turning every one of you from his iniquities 4. It implicitly or somewhat obscurely contained in it a Promise of Eternal Life I say implicitly For I do not find that Eternal Life was expresly promised to Abraham But yet that was expresly promised him from which the hope of Eternal Life might well be inferred As first Blessedness through his Seed the Messias And secondly That God would be a God to him and his Seed For Blessedness is a Happiness that runs parallel with the duration of Man's Immortal Soul And God's Promise of being a God to Abraham carried in it a Promise of a Happiness worthy of God to bestow such as Everlasting Life or Happiness is And therefore he was not ashamed to be called their God meaning Abraham Isaac and Jacob because he had prepared for them a City meaning that in so doing he had answered that title of relation of being their God and done like himself Heb. 11.16 And upon these and the like Revelations of God's mind to him Abraham looked for a City which hath Foundations whose Builder and Maker is God and a Heavenly Country Heb. 11.10 16. If Abraham did but use his reason about these Promises as he did about reconciling God's Promise that in Isaac his Seed should be called with his command to Sacrifice him Heb. 11.17 18 19. he might discern Eternal Life in them though but very obscurely in comparison of what is now revealed in the Gospel by which Life and Immortality is brought to light 2 Tim. 1.10 But how obscurely soever a future Happiness was promis'd to Abraham yet promised it was for which we have the testimony of St. Paul Gal. 3.18 If the inheritance be of the Law it is no more of Promise But God gave it to Abraham by Promise He was here proving against the Pharisaical Jews and Judaizing Christians that Justification unto Life was to be had by the Promise and not by the Law by Faith and not by Works of the Law that the Just should live by Faith as vers 12. And therefore by Inheritance here which he saith God gave to Abraham by Promise he doubtless means Eternal Life which elsewhere he calls the Promise of eternal Inheritance Heb. 9.15 Consider now how God carry'd on his design of restoring Man by the promise of those benefits For if expressions of the greatest Grace and Love in God to Men is the way to beget in them a love to God again and in begetting that to beget all the desirable effects of Love which are no less than a sincere conformity in Man's Nature and Life to the Divine Law and if the giving of great and
do not know how better to define it than thus Faith is such a hearty belief of God's Declaration concerning his own Grace and Man's Duty as doth effectually cause a Man to expect from God and to act in a way of sincere Obedience according to the Tenour and Import of such a Declaration Or if you will take in the Belief of God's Threatnings against sinners into the definition then it will be thus Faith is such a hearty belief of God's Declaration concerning his own Grace and Displeasure and Man's Duty as doth effectually cause a Man to expect from God and to act in a way of sincere Obedience according to the Tenour and Import of such a Declaration Faith thus defined we have already seen exemplified in Abraham who is the great Exemplar of Believing and the Father of Believers And that it was his belief of God's Promise or Declaration of Grace and Favour to him as it is practical in producing Repentance Self-denial and sincear Obedience by which he was justified and made happy appears farther not only in that it 's said by St. James That his Faith wrought with his Works and was made perfect by them and that he was justified by Works as well as by Faith of which more anon but also in that it 's said that he received the sign of Circumcision which was the Condition upon which God Covenanted with him to be his God and upon the same terms to be the God of his Seed a Seal of the Righteousness of the Faith which he had while he was yet uncircumcised For supposing which is not denied Circumcision to be an outward Sign of inward Grace of the Circumcision of the Heart consisting in Mortification or a Penitential change of the Heart which is the effect of Faith his Circumcision as such was a Seal of confirmation to Abraham that it was upon his former so believing God upon his Promise as thereby to be induced to leave the evil Customs of his Country and his Country it self with his Kindred and his Father's House that God would be his God indeed In which Promise was implicitly promised all that would make him Eternally Happy And God's farther design of giving to Abraham this Covenant of Circumision as a Seal to assure him the enjoyment of the benefit wrapt up in that Promise upon the terms aforesaid was that he might be the Father of all them that Believe whether literally Circumcised or not that is that he might be a great Example and Pattern to all others of obtaining the same benefits in the same way and so might be a means of begetting others to Believe in God and to Obey him as he had done to be a great Instrument to propagate the kind of New Creatures of Men renewed to God to the end they might be Blessed as he was This or somewhat to this effect is doubtless the meaning of Rom. 4.11 12. And he received the sign of Circumcision a Seal of the Rightousness of the Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised That he might be the Father of all them that Believe though they be not circumcised that Rightousness might be imputed to them also And the Father of Circumcision to them who are not of the Circumcision only but also walk in the steps of that Faith of our Father Abraham which he had being yet uncircumcised and it is not unlikely but that as Heart-Circumcision under the figure of Literal-Circumcision was together with Faith made the condition of the Covenant then so Spiritual Baptism which is a Death unto sin and a living unto God is under the Figure of Water-Baptism joyned with Believing as the condition of the Promise of Salvation now Mark 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved According to which St. Peter having spoken of Noah's Ark saith The like figure whereunto Baptism now saveth us not the putting away of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards God 1 Pet. 3.21 Now as it was in Abraham such a belief of God's Declaration of Grace and Favour as did effectually induce him to Love and Obey God by which he was Justified so I shall shew afterwards it was the very same kind of Faith working after the same manner by which the Saints under the Law of Moses were Saved But Faith as Evangelical and Christian is such a hearty assent and consent unto God's Declaration in the Gospel by his Son concerning Christ himself and his Grace and Favour towards Men by him and concerning their own Duty as causeth a Man to expect from God and to act in a way of duty according to the Tenour of such a Declaration and his own concerns in it And Faith thus defined is fully agreeable to the Tenour of the Gospel Mark 16.15 16. Go ye into all the world and Preach the Gospel to every Creature He that Believeth and is Baptized shall be saved He that believeth What Why he that believeth that Gospel which was to be Preâ—â—hed to every Creature Which Gospel contains a Declaration of God's â—â—â—â—e and Man's Duty and of his Wrath against all Ungodliness and Unrighteousness of Men. For 1. It declares from God that he hath given his Son Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the World by being a Propitiation for the sin o fit in becoming a Sacrifice to expiate sin 2. It declares That God upon account of his Son's giving himself a Ransom for all hath made and doth establish a New Covenant with the World to Pardon and Eternally to Save as many as shall Believe in his Son and Repent of their sinfulness in changing their Minds and reforming their Lives and becoming New Men in yielding sincere Obedience to the Precepts of the Gospel 3. It declares That those that believe not shall be damned and such as repent not shall perish and that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God This summarily is that which the Gospel declares concerning God's Grace and Displeasure and Man's Duty Now it is the practical belief of all this that is the saving Faith It is not the bare belief that God hath given his Son to be the Saviour of the World and a Propitiation for the sin of it Nor is it a bare belief that he will for Christ's sake pardon and save as many as truly Repent and amend their lives and become New Creatures unless they so believe all this as seriously and heartily to Repent themselves of their former folly and to return to their duty in new Evangelical Obedience For otherwise for a Man barely to believe all this and not act according to his own concerns in it will be so far from being a believing to the saving of the Soul as that it will rather plunge him the deeper in Destruction for living and acting contrary to his own light and belief as holding the truth in unrighteousness the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against all such Rom. 1.18 A Man of this
practical Faith which I have described eyes as well the condition upon which the saving Benefits are promised through Christ as the Promise it self of those benefits and expects the enjoyment of those benefits upon God's Promise and Christ's Purchase no otherwise than as he with the assistance of God's Grace is careful to perform the Condition Which belief of his makes him as careful to perform the Condition in discharge of his own duty therein as ever he hopes to enjoy the promised Pardon and Salvation by Christ and to escape the Damnation threatned against those who perform not the condition So that a Man by this practical Faith belives one part of God's Declaration in the Gospel as well as the other and his own duty to be as well necessary to his Justification as the condition appointed by God as the Grace of God through Christ it self is upon another account And by this belief he is effectually moved as well to act in a way of duty to God as to expect mercy from him considering how his Happiness is concerned in both when he hath the whole of God's Declaration in all the parts taken together in prospect as the Object of his Faith When he hears that God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life When he hears that God hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood And when he hears again that God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them he believes all this to be true as coming from God that cannot lye and accordingly is incouraged to hope in God's Mercy and is comforted thereby But then when he hears again that except we repent we shall all perish that except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God That without holiness no man shall see the Lord and that the pure in heart shall see God That not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of the Father which is in Heaven That the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angles in flaming fire to render vengeance to all those that know not God and which obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ But that he is the Author of eternal Salvation to all those that obey him I say when he hears all this he as verily believes this part of God's Declaration in the Gospel to be the faithful and true Sayings of God as he acounted the other to be And accordingly doth as seriously and sincerely set upon the Work of Repentance and as carefully useth God's appointed means for the changing of his Heart and renewing of his Nature for the purifying of himself as God is pure and doth as carefully obey all the Precepts of the Gospel as he hopes upon the account of Christ's Sufferings and God's Promise to be Pardoned and Saved as beliving that those Benefits are neither promised nor can be obtained but in this way of performing the Condition And I doubt not to say that this practical Faith as it respects God's Declaration touching Man's duty in conjunction with his own Grace in Christ is where the Gospel comes the only saving justifying Faith 3. Come we now to shew Reason why Faith is made the Condition of the Promise 1. It is of Faith that it might be of Grace saith the Apostle Rom. 4.16 It is that the Grace of God to miserable Men might the more shew it self For so it doth not only in promising unspeakably great things through Christ to Man who is not only undeserving but illdeserving also but also in that these are promised upon such a possible practical easie Condition as Faith is considering the means and assistance promised by God to work it And considering also that the Promise is made to the truth unfeignedness and sincerity and not to perfection of Faith Repentance and new Obedience in their utmost degree So that Christ might well say my Yoke is easie and my Burden light Matth. 11.30 Whereas the old way of promising the Inheritance on the Law-terms would have been to have promised it upon impossible conditions as the case now is with fallen Man And if God should have promised never so great things to Man in his impotent and miserable state upon an impossible condition he would have been so far from manifesting abundance of Grace Compassion and Love to him in that condition as that he would rather have seemed to insult over him in it And therefore if the Promise should have run upon the Law-terms and not of Faith it would utterly have frustrated God's design of manifesting his Grace to Man and of recovering Man's Love and Loyalty to him thereby Rom. 4.14 If they which are of the Law be Heirs Faith is made void and the Promise made of none effect But it is of Faith that it might be by Grace to the end the Promise might be sure to all the Seed not to that only which is of the Law but to that also which is of the Faith of Abraham ver 16. 2. This may be another reason why such a Faith as I have described is made the condition of the Covenant of Salvation viz. Because it best answers God's design in this Covenant of renewing the Nature of Man in Holiness and Righteousness and by that means restoring it to Happiness For by Faith Men are born of God or made the Children of God Gal. 3.26 Ye are all the Children of God by Faith in Christ Jesus Joh. 1.12 13. As many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to those that believe on his Name Which are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God Now to be born of God or which is the same to be made the Child of God is to have ones Nature restored to the likeness of God in which Man was first made and is the same thing with that which is called Regeneration and a being born again and a new Creature Which new Creature or the Nature of Mâ—n renewed by Faith is also called the new Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Ephes 4.24 To be born again is to have the Faculties of Mans Nature restored to a rectitude in their motions and operations in reference both to God and Man to be restored to their proper moral use for which they were made It is in a word that which is called a being made partakers of a Divine Nature For those which are begotten of God are begotten in or to his likeness Men can adopt those which are not their natural Children to inherit their Estates but they cannot adopt them to a participation of their Moral Endowments But God adopts his Children to a participation with him in the
or in his keeping of it CHAP. II. For what Ends the Law was added to the Promise I Now come to shew in the next place for what end the Law of Moses was added to the Promise And before I do this in particular I shall note only in general That it was not added to cross or confront the Promise or God's Design in it but to be subservient to it Gal. 3.21 Is the Law then against the Promises God forbid For it is not to be thought that God would prevaricate in his Design so that when he had once made a New Law of Grace for the Saving of faln Man he would yet afterwards give any Law but what should one way or other subserve to the same End if Men do not deprive themselves of the intended Benefit by perverting it And therefore to be sure God did not intend to revive the Old Covenant of Works made with Adam in Paradise in the after promulgation of the Law of Nature which we call the Moral Law already broken He did not therein come to demand his full Debt of Innocency in Mans Broken and Bankrupt Condition or to let him know that he would without any other Condition than perfect Innocency cast him into Prison until he had paid the utmost farthing For if he had then the Law indeed would have been against the Promise which declares quite otherwise It is true the Law of Nature as it is a perfect Rule of natural Righteousness founded in God's Nature and Man's Nature doth of it self require perfect Innocency and can require no less being suited to the Nature of Man in its perfect State But when God brings this Law forth and sets it before Men that are now faln from that state as he doth in the promulgation of it it is to let them know indeed what they once were and from whence they are fallen and how unhappy their Condition now is according to the Tenour and Terms of that Law and that it would have continued so for ever if God had not made a New Law of Grace to over-rule that Law and to let all know that they shall still remain in that Condition that wilfully exclude themselves from the benefit of the Law of Grace by not performing the Condition of it But not to let them know they should have no better terms from him than that Law affords them nor to make their perfect keeping of it the condition of their Justification But the Law of Moses entirely taken in all its parts was rather given as an Appendix to the Promise both as a Rule of the material part of that Obedience which God would now require of the Israelites in conjunction with their Faith in the Promise and as a Motive to that Obedience This in general The Question is put Gal. 3.19 Wherefore then serveth the Law And the Answer there is That it was added because of transgression until the Seed should come And it was added because of transgression in more respects than one 1. It was added to discover Sin to make that known to be Sin which was so of it self and in its own nature before the promulgation of the Law For by reason of that grievous Wound which Man got in his Understanding by the Fall and by reason also of a progressive Degeneration in Mankind the natural Sense of Moral Good and Evil was to a great degree worn out of the minds of Men. For the repairing of which decay a promulgate Law the Ten Commandments answerable to the Law of pure Nature in the Spirituality of it was set on foot in the World And by this Law came Sin and Duty to be more clearly known than they were before Rom. 3.20 By the Law is the knowledge of Sin Rom. 7.7 I had not known Sin but by the Law For I had not known Lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not Covet 2. The Law was added not only barely to make known that to be Sin which was so of it self before but to set it out in its Colours to make it known in the horrid nature and consequence of it that Men might be the more afraid to have to do with it The Law entred that the offence might abound That is that by that means it might be rendred the more Criminous and Demeritorious That Sin by the Commandment might become exceeding sinful Rom. 5.20 and 7.13 3. The Law as it discovered Sin and made it more criminous and the People the more sensible of guilt and more apprehensive of their obnoxiousness to punishment was given to set off so much the more the Glory Beauty and Desirableness of God's Grace in the Promise of Pardon and Salvation Rom. 5.20 The Law entered that the offence might abound But where Sin abounded Grace did much more abound By how much the more Sin appeared Sin and was enhanced and aggravated and rendred manifestly mischievous by a Promulgate Law by so much the more Grace appear'd to be Grace in all its Glory that brought Deliverance from it Rom. 5.21 That like as Sin hath reigned unto death viz. by the Law that being the strength of Sin 1 Cor. 15.56 Even so Grace might reign through Righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. After Christ came the Rest which he gave was so much the more sweet to those Jews who received him by how much they had been weary and heavy-laden under a Spirit of Bondage before 4. The Law saith St. Paul was our Schoolmaster to bring â—s unto Christ that we might be justified by Faith Gal. 3.24 That is It was a lower sort of Institution accommodated to the weak and more imperfect state of the Church until afterward it should deliver them over to a more perfect Institution under Christ Parents first teach their Children to Speak and after put them to School to learn Letters Syllables Words and Sentences the use and design of all which they do not understand while they are Children as they do when they come to be Men. In proportion to this hath God dealt with his Church in the World beginning with a lower and more imperfect sort of Instruction Precepts and Promises and so proceeding to those that are higher and more perfect and so by certain gradations to lead on and build up his Church to a more perfect Spiritual and compleat state of Faith and Holiness To all the riches of fulness of understanding of the Mystery of God of the Father and of Christ Col. 2.2 And thus the Law as Schoolmaster had a double end and use The one respecting the time then present The other that which was then future and to come The then present use of it was twofold also 1. To reclaim and restrain them from the Superstitious Customs of the Heathen to which they were addicted in which respect also it was added because of transgression The Heathen-Worship stood in divers Superstitious Rites or Ceremonies And because the Israelites were addicted to a bodily Worship
like theirs for they said Let us make us Gods to go before us Exod. 32.1 and were in danger thereby of being drawn to Worship their Gods therefore to prevent this as Parents put their Children to School partly to keep them out of harms way the Lord by way of condescention to their childish humour did ordain a Worship consisting much in bodily Exercise and Instituted divers Laws which stood in Meats and Drinks and divers Washings and carnal Ordinances until the time of Reformation till he should by sending his Son appoint more excellent Laws for Reforming both them and the rest of the World Lev. 18.3 4 5. After the doings of the Land of Egypt wherein ye dwelt shall ye not do and after the doings of the Land of Canaan whither I bring you shall ye not do neither shall ye walk in their Ordinances Ye shall therefore keep my Statutes and my Judgments Which if a Man do he shall live in them Ezek. 20.6 11. 2. The Lord did Institute divers Temporary Laws for tryal and exercise of their Obedience in those lesser things for a time as being such as they were as yet best capable to receive thereby to lead them on to higher instances of Obedience afterward Those many Ceremonies which they were obliged to observe were not things of any natural or intrinsick Goodness but only made use of by God for a present turn which when that was served they as to practise were of no value but became beggerly Elements But yet while they continued commanded of God their Obedience in the use of them was Rewardable as well as their Obedience to any other Laws The other end and use of the Law as it was a Schoolmaster respected the time then to come For the High Priesthood and Sacrifices of the Law as they were Types of what Christ should be do and suffer as Mediator were of great use to the Jews after Christ had Suffered and was Risen again and Ascended into Heaven to facilitate both the knowledge and belief of the Mystery of Redemption by Christ 1. To facilitate the knowledge thereof and to beget in them a right Notion of those things in Christ by which forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God is obtained on our behalf For those who had long seen and known the effect of Legal Sacrifices as how they did procure Legal Impunity for Offences commited God accepting the Life of a Beast that had not sinned instead of the life of a Man that had might soon come to understand by parity of reason that God would much more accept of his own Sons offering himself in Sacrifice for us so as to excuse us from suffering Eternal Punishment for our sin For if the blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your Conscience from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.13 14. And so the High Priest's entering into the Holy of Holies in the behalf of the People with the Blood of the Sacrifice and burning Incense there doth greatly assist the mind in understanding the nature of Christ's Intercession for us in Heaven in virtue of his Bloodshed for us on Earth Heb. 9. 2. The Law in the Typical nature of it was of great use to the Jews to facilitate and strengthen their Belief in Christ and so were the Predictions of the Prophets in conjunction with it For these and the accomplishment of them in Christ did so answer each other as in Water Face answereth to Face that those who believed the Law and the Prophets had a great advantage by means thereof to believe in Christ And therefore our blessed Saviour when he would satisfie his Disciples touching himself that he was indeed the Christ and of the necessity of his Death which Death occasioned at first a staggering in their Faith beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself Luke 24.27 And St. Paul when he laboured the Conversion of the Jews at Rome to Christianity as the chiefest way to effect it he expounded to them and testified the Kingdom of God perswading them concerning Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and of the Prophets from morning to evening Acts 28.23 Had ye believed Moses Saith our Saviour to them ye would have believed me for he wrote of me But if ye believe not his Writings how shall ye believe my Words Joh. 5.46 47. And thus in both the forementioned respects the Law was a Schoolmaster indeed to bring them to Christ that they might be Justified by Faith 5. The Law was given to the Jewish Nation not only for their behoof and benefit but also for a general Good to the World That the Nations round about hearing of such excellent Laws and percieving how happy and prosperous those People were so long as they observed them might thereby be invited to quit their Idol Gods and to take hold of the Covenant and to join themselves to the people of the God of Abraham even as it came to pass in such as were Proselited And upon this account it seems to be that the Psalmist prayed thus God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause thy Face to shine upon us That thy way may be known on Earth thy saving health unto all Nations Psal 67.1 2. and concludes ver 7. That if God should so do his fear would be propagated through the World God shall bless us and all the ends of the Earth shall fear him Deut. 4.6 7 8. Keep therefore and do them for this is your Wisdom and your Vnderstanding in the sight of the Nations who shall hear all these Statutes and say surely this great Nation is a Wise and an Vnderstanding People For what Nation is there so great that hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for And what Nation is there so great that hath Statutes and Judgments so Righteous as all this Law which I set before you this day To them were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3.2 They were committed in trust to them as Feoffees for the World to communicate the knowledge of God and of his Laws to the Nations to carry on further the Reformation of the World begun in their Father Abraham and which was promised to be more compleatly effected by the Messias in that all Nations of the Earth should be Blessed in him And as God's Judgments on the Jews for breaking his Laws was Admonitory to the Nations about them Deut. 29.24 28. so his famous Deliverances wrought for them upon their Repentance for breaking his Laws made God known abroad to be a great favourer of such as repent of their worshipping and serving other Gods and such a one as could and would Save
Eternal Redemption for us Heb. 9.12 4. They differ in respect of the Sins made pardonable by each Covenant respectively There were many sins for which the first Covenant granted no Pardon upon any terms whatsoever They that despised Moses's Law died without mercy Heb. 10.28 But the Covenant of Grace makes promise of the pardon of the Greatest Sins upon Repentance All manner of Sin and Blasphemy except the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost are pardonable upon Repentance This difference is set down Acts 13.39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses We may well suppose that the first Covenant did finally Condemn some which the Covenant of Mercy Pardoned David in the matter of Vriah did that which was unpardonable by the first Covenant it was a Fact to have been punished with Death by the Law but that there was none but God that could duly inflict it upon him in his capacity and yet upon his Repentance it was pardoned as to his Eternal Concerns as well as Temporal by virtue of God's Covenant of Mercy On the other hand a Man probably might be so Righteous in the Eye of the first Covenant as not to be visibly blameable and yet even then be obnoxious to the Curse of the Everlasting Covenant Paul while he was Saul and in the state of Unbelief was even then as touching the righteousness which is in the Law blameless as he himself saith Phil. 3.6 So different were these two Covenants that him whom the one Condemned the other might Justifie and likewise Justifie him whom the other Condemned 5. They differed in respect of the condition to be performed on Man's part for the obtaining of pardon Pardon was promised in the first Covenant upon condition of Doing only without reference to Faith but so are not the pardons of the New Covenant Gal. 3.11.12 But that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God it is evident for the Just shall live by Faith And the Law is not of Faith but the man that doth them shall live in them So much concerning the first Part of the Sanction of the first Covenant Come we now to the second The other part of the Sanction of this Covenant did consist in the Curse of it denounced against the breakers of it Though it 's true that every Man is under a Condemnation that would be Eternal unless he comes to be absolved by virtue of the Law of Grace yet more than temporal Death was not expresly threatned for breach of the Political Covenant as such 1. For first a violent Death inflicted by the hand of the Magistrate for Capital Offences is called the Curse Deut. 22.23 He that is hanged is accursed of God or is the Curse of God 2. Christ who did not suffer Eternal Punishment for Man's Sin did yet suffer the Curse of the Law in that he was hanged on a Tree Gal. 3.13 It is true indeed that by that temporary Sufferings of his he redeemed us from Eternal Punishment which we were obnoxious to 3. Those who Apostatize from Christ and reject his Gospel merit sorer punishment than what was inflicted on them that despised Moses's Law and yet sorer Punishment for kind they cannot suffer if Eternal punishment had been the penalty of that Covenant as such Heb. 10.28 29. 4. As the Promises of that Covenant when particularly expressed did appear to be but temporal so the Curses of it appear to be no other in the particular enumeration of them As for instance a violent Death inflicted by the Hand of the Magistrate was the punishment threatned for many Capital Offences Such as was Idolatry Blasphemy Witchcraft Working on the Sabbath invading the Priests Office and for being a false Prophet and also for Murder Adultery Sodomy Buggery Man-stealing Cursing or Smiting of Parents or being stubbornly Rebellious against them and some other And a cutting off from among the People whither by God's hand immediately or by Man's I determine not was the penalty threatned for eating Leavened Bread within the time prohibited for not Purifying ones self when Unclean for profaning holy things for ones eating of the Sacrifice with his Uncleanness upon him for offering Sacrifice any where but at the Tabernacle for eating of Blood and for eating of the Fat of the Sacrifice for neglecting to keep the Passover and for not afflicting the Soul in the Day of general Atonement and for several other Offences And those Offences for which cutting off from among the People is threatned being less criminous than the former we have no reason to think the penalty of cutting off from among the People to signifie more if so much than the suffering of a temporal Death We may observe how the Israelites various Punishments are exprest for their manifold Crimes in the Wilderness by God's overthrowing them in the Wilderness by Pestilence and otherwise 1 Cor. 10. In brief The temporal Evils threatned in this Covenant were either Personal Domestick or National The Personal and Domestick Evils were no less than whatsoever tended to the infelicity of Man's Life as Diseases in Body Perplexity of Mind Unfruitfulness in Body in Cattel in Ground Scarcity Poverty Oppression loss of Relations fewness of Days and an untimely cutting off from the Promised Land The National were wild Beasts Pestilence Sword Famine Captivity and such like These were inflicted when the breach of the Covenant became National in the generality of the People But especially when those who had the management of Publick Affairs Civil and Ecclesiastick did not restrain the People by a due Execution of Laws but rather led them into sin by their Example and sometimes by their Commands corrupting Religion and perverting Justice Levit. 26. Deut. 28. And the Evils threatned being National as the Covenant it self was they must needs be but Temporal because there is no Judging Condemning and Executing Nations as Nations but in this World 4. Come we now to shew reason why this Covenant is called the first Covenant since there were others made before it as that with Adam in Paradise and that Covenant of Salvation with Adam after his Fall and with Noah and Abraham And 1. Negatively It is not so called as if it were the same for substance with that which was first made with Adam in Paradise as many have thought or because it was proposed upon the same terms For First That Covenant was established upon the terms or condition of perfect Innocency no provision being made in it for pardon in case of failure upon any condition whatsoever But it was otherwise in this Mosaick Covenant as I have shewed in that it contained several Laws of Indemnity for the Relief of delinquent Persons upon certain possible and practicable Conditions Secondly If this and the Paradisical-Covenant had been of the same nature then it and the Promise made to Abraham and his Spiritual Seed would have been inconsistent the
one promising Eternal Life upon Believing the other only upon condition of sinless Obedience If this had been the case the Law would have been against the Promise which God forbid it should Gal. 3.21 and the one would have excluded the other according to St. Paul's reasoning Rom. 11.6 If by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace But if it be of works then is it no more grace otherwise work is no more work But 2. Affirmatively It is called the first Covenant because it is the first of the two under question and dispute between the Apostles and unbelieving Jews The Question and Controversie between them was which of the two Covenants that by Moses or that by Christ was to be finally adhered to as the way of Salvation In the handling of which Controversie that by Moses is called the first and the Gospel-Covenant established by Christ as was Prophesied by Jeremiah is called the second Even as the one is called the Old Covenant not because it was the oldest of all Covenants but because opposed to that which was Prophesied of under the name of a New Covenant It is observable that where we meet with the first mention of the first Covenant under that denomination it is not stiled the first Covenant absolutely but that first Covenant as pointing at that under Dispute Heb. 8.7 For if that first Covenant had been faultless then should no place have been sought for the second CHAP. V. The grand Mistakes of the Jews about the Law and Promise and how St. Paul counter-argues these Mistakes I Am now in the next place to shew the fatal mistakes of the unbelieving Jews about God's Promise to Abraham and the Law of Moses and how St. Paul doth counter-argue these mistakes A distinct understanding of which Errors and of St. Paul's arguings against them sometimes severally and sometimes conjunctively and in the gross will be as a Key to open many passages in his Epistles which otherwise will be hard to be understood 1. They held Circumcision in the Flesh to be the condition in special upon which all the Blessings of God's Covenant with Abraham were promised but did not understand that Spiritual Circumcision viz. the Mortification of sinful Affections and Lusts was principally intended when God made Circumcision the condition of his Covenant For they were it seems grosly ignorant of the necessity of Regeneration and so of the Spiritual design of Circumcision which was the reason why Nicodemus though a Ruler among the Jews answered Christ so aukardly as he did when he Preached to him the necessity of being born again Joh. 3. An Ignorance that some allowance possibly might have been made for had not the Circumcision of the Heart and the making themselves a new Heart been expresly called for as it was Deut. 10.16 Jer. 4.4 Ezek. 18.31 Now this Ignorance of theirs in the Doctrine of the Circumcision of the Heart and the sense they put upon God's making Circumcision to be the condition of his Covenant of being their God was doubtless the reason why they placed so very much as they did in Literal Circumcision For although Circumcision first given to Abraham by way of Covenant was afterwards incorporated with the body of Moses's Law yet it should seem these Jews considered it not so much as it was a part of that Law but chiefly as a Condition of God's Covenant with them in Abraham as they were his Seed And therefore St. Paul where he reckons up his Jewish Privileges whil'st he was a Pharisee puts Circumcision in the head of them all and as accounted by him while a Pharisee a Privilege distinct from his being blameless touching the Righteousness which was in the Law Phil. 3.5 6. Whence also the Judaizers said it was needful to Circumcise them and to command them to keep the Law of Moses Acts 15.5 24. As if Circumcising did import something different from or at least something more than keeping of the Law did though otherwise it was a part of the Law Upon this account doubtless it was that we find them more zealous for Circumcision than for any other Point of the Law besides Against this Erroneous Opinion of theirs touching Literal Circumcisions being the condition of the Spiritual Benefits of the Covenant St. Saul argueth several ways First By maintaining that the Covenant did chiefly respect Circumcision in the Spirit Rom. 2.28 29. He is not a Jew which is one outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the flesh that is it was not that Circumcision which would savingly avail them as they thought it would but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the Heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter whose praise is not of Men but of God Again by shewing that Abraham could not have been Justified before Circumcision if the great Benefits of the Covenant of which Juâ—tification was one were suspended upon that as a necessary condition And yet that he was Justified vvhen not Circumcised there is the express Authority of Scripture for This he asserts Rom. 4.9 10. For we say that Faith was reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness How was it then reckoned when he was in Circumcision or in Vncircumcision Not in Circumcision but in Vncircumcision Afterwards he proceeds to undeceive them in the apprehension they had that the Benefits of the Covenant were entailed upon Abraham's Natural Seed as such or at least as such with the addition of a Literal observation of Circumcision and the Law without respect to the Spiritual and New Birth Rom. 9.6 7 8. They are not all Israel which are of Israel as they thought they were neither because they are the Seed of Abraham are they all Children But in Isaac shall thy Seed be called That is those shall be called Abraham's Seed which are born as Isaac was by Faith in the Promise which are therefore called Children of the Promise For so the Apostle expounds it saying They which are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God but the Children of the Promise are counted for the Seed to wit such as are born after the Spirit as it is explained Gal. 4.28 29. And this agrees to what he had said before Rom. 2.28 He is not a Jew which is one outwardly c. Against which corrupt Opinion John the Baptist did oppose himself when he admonished the Pharisees to bring forth fruit meet for Repentance and think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father Mat. 3.7 8. The Apostle labours to cure this grand Error about Literal Circumcision as disjoyned from Spiritual in many other places and shewâ— how that Circumcision availeth nothing but a New Creature such as Spiritual Circumcision makes a Man to be Gal. 6.15 Not Circumcision but Faith Gal. 5.6 Not Circumcision but keeping the Commandments is that which would only reach those great Ends which they sought after in Literal
which the Apostle made against them in it For they did still oppose another Covenant as the Covenant of Justification and Eternal Life unto this Mosaical Covenant and Faith as the Conditon of that in opposition to Works as the Condition of this as will appear if we come to Instances 1. St. Paul argues it with them that the Promise of God to Abraham and his Seed was not through the Law but through the righteousness of Faith Rom. 4.13 Not through the Law that is not upon the terms upon which the benefits of the first Covenant were promised to the Nation of the Jews but upon quite other terms express'd by the Righteousness of Faith 2. He argues it farther with them That God's way of accounting Men Righteous by Faith and their way of seeking Righteousness upon the terms of the first Covenant were utterly inconsistent and the one destructive of the other and that but one of these ways could possibly stand For if they which are of the Law be Heirs Faith is made void and the Promise made of none effect Rom. 4.14 And again If the Inheritance be of the Law it is no more of Promise But God gave it to Abraham by Promise Gal. 3.18 And if by Grace then it is no more of Works otherwise Grace is no more Grace c. Rom. 11.6 3. And that the Law did not exclude the Promise to Abraham he farther argues in that the Covenant with Abraham was confirmed and unalterably setled and established in the Messias 430 Years before the Law by Moses was given and that therefore for them to go about to introduce the Law in the room of the Promise to Abraham so confirmed would be as unreasonable and unjust as for one Man to alter or make void anothers Covenant after he hath confirmed it Gal. 3.15 17. Brethren I speak after the manner of men though it be but a Mans Covenant yet if it be confirmed no Man disannulleth or addeth thereto And this I say that the Covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ the Law which was 430 Years after cannot disannul that it should make the Promise of none effect 4. St. Paul argues it impossible in the nature of the thing that they should be justified by the Law because one main end of God's promulging the Law of Nature which yet was a great part of the first Covenant was to convince Men of their Guilt and of their obnoxiousness to Wrath and to stop their Mouthes and to leave them without any plea of defence as from it Rom. 3.19 20. Now we know that what things soever the Law saith it saith to them who are under the Law That every mouth may be stopt and all the world may become guilty before God Therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by the Law is the knowledge of sin And if the Law doth convict Men it cannot justifie them For the same Law cannot both Condemn and Justifie the same person in reference to the same Charge If all are Cast and Condemned by the Original Law as they are for he hath concluded all under sin that he might have mercy upon all Gal. 3. then so many as come to be justified after this must needs be justified by another Law superceding that and that is none other than the Law of Grace The Law of Nature Curseth every one that hath broken it though but once and therefore it cannot justifie them too Out of the same mouth in this case doth not proceed Blessing and Cursing 5. He argues this Opinion of theirs to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Prophets many hundred years after as well as contrary to the Promise to Abraham long before the Law That no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God it is evident For the just shall live by Faith and the Law is not of Faith but the man that doth them shall live in them Gal. 3.11 12. from Heb. 2.4 The Law is not of Faith that is it doth not promise Pardon or any other Blessing upon Believing but upon condition of Doing the things therein required the man that doth them shall live in them Levit. 18.5 6. The insufficiency of the first Covenant to make Men Eternally Happy and the necessity and validity of the second to that end as further argued in Heb. 8. from another famous Prophecy in Jer. 31.31 c. of God's making a New Covenant with Israel and Judah in the latter days not according to that he made with their Fathers when he brought them out of Egypt 1. It 's argued that the first Covenant was but Temporary and being old was ready to vanish and to give place tâ— a New and Everlasting Covenant Chap. 8.13 2. That the first Covenant was faulty or defective or else there would have been no place sought for a second ver 7. 3. That the Promises of that first Covenant were not of such things as Men stand in need of to make them everlastingly Happy as those better Promises of the second Covenant are ver 6. 4. And yet more particularly that in this New Covenant there is promise of such a forgiveness of sins as that iniquity shall be remembred no more ver 12. whereas the first Covenant did not promise any such Pardons All that it promised was a forgiveness only as to the concerns of this Life otherwise their sins were still kept upon the File to be taken away if ever taken away by the Mediator of the New Testament by means of his Death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament Chap. 9.15 But in those Sacrifices which were but the Sacrifices of the first Covenant there was a remembrance again made of sins every year Heb. 10.3 And now by all these reasonings of the Apostle put together it sufficiently appears that the unbelieving Jews did expect Justification and Eternal Life only upon the terms of the first Covenant and that they held that Covenant as comprehending the Covenant of Circumcision to be the Covenant of Eternal Life And indeed this last mentioned Error of theirs in holding the first Covenant to be the Covenant of Salvation did in a manner contain in it all the rest mentioned before which did naturally grow out of it For if that had been the Covenant of Salvation then it would have followed that the Sacrifices of that Covenant had been sufficient and the Death of Christ needless and that Circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses would have been necessary to the Salvation of the Gâ—ntiles c. And now after all this considering what Erroneous Opinions the incredulous Jews held about the Law and about Circumcision and considering in what sense they asserted Justification by the Law and by Circumcision it will be no difficult thing to understand exactly in what sense the Apostle doth every where deny Justification to be by the Law or by the Works of the Law
For doubtless St. Paul's denial of Justification and Salvation to be by the Law or Works of the Law is to be understood in the very same sense in which the incredulous Jews against whom he Disputed did hold these to be attainable thereby For else his Reasonings would have been beside the Question under debate between them And therefore we must take our measure of St. Paul's sense in the Negative part of the Question by his Adversaries sense of it in the Affirmative And if so then in his denying Justification and Salvation to be by the Law or by Works of the Law we must understand him to deny a freedom from the Eternal Punishment to be attainable by Legal Sacrifices And also to deny that the promise of Eternal Life was made upon condition of Literal Circumcision and a Literal observation of the Mosaical Law without being by Faith renewed in the inward frame and moral constitution of the Soul and likewise to deny Eternal Life to be attainable by the terms of their Political Covenant the Promises whereof were not made upon condition of Believing but of Doing The Law is not of Faith but the man that doth those things shall live in them Gal. 3.12 For these and such-like were the Opinions which those Jews did hold as I have shewed and these were the things in which St. Paul opposed them They divided and separated Circumcision and the Law in the Letter of them from the Spirit of them both claiming Justification by the Letter alone And they divided the Law from the Promise rightly understood and looked to be Justified by Works of the Law without Faith in the Promise rightly understood They looked for the Messias indeed but not to become a Propitiation for Sin or to establish a New Covenant of Salvation but to further their Temporal and Eternal Felicity in the way of their Obedience to the Political Law But then it doth not in the least appear that St. Paul in denying Justification to be by the Law in the sense thus explained doth also thereby deny Works of sincere Obedience to God to concur with Faith in Man's Justification in all respects And if any shall yet suppose that St. Paul in denying Justification by Works in the Jews corrupt sense doth also on the by deny all Works of Evangelical Obedience to bear any part of the Condition on which God promiseth to justifie Men through Christ such a Supposition if admitted would make his Doctrine herein inconsistent not only with the Faith of the holy Men of Old who were wont to express the Condition of the Covenant of Mercy by loving God and keeping his Commandments but it would also make him inconsistent with himself and his own Doctrine and the Doctrine of other Apostles as I doubt not but plainly to make appear before I have done with this Discourse There is one Character of Works given by which you may certainly know what Works they were which St. Paul denied Men were justified by and they were such Works which were apt to occasion boasting Ephes 2.9 Not of Works lest any man should boast Rom. 4.2 For if Abraham were justified by Works to wit in the Jews sense by Circumcision in the Flesh to which St. Paul alludes ver 1. he hath whereof to glory but not before God but only before Men who were not Circumcised as he was For the unbelieving Jews who sought and expected Justification by Circumcision and other Legal Observations did glory over the poor Gentiles that were destitute of those Works which consisted in the outward Privileges which the Jews had and looked down upon them with contempt though some of them were much better than themselves such as Cornelius whom they looked upon as unclean This boasting humor of the Jews over the Gentiles is described and reproved Rom. 2. from ver 17. to 29. Now the Doctrine of Justification by Faith of obtaining pardon by anothers Undertaking for us to wit Christ Jesus and of being accepted with God through him upon our sincere though otherwise imperfect Obedience which sincere Obedience too is not performed without his special Grace and Assistance takes away all occasion of boasting in reference both to God and Men and laid the Jews as low as the Gentiles and made St. Peter a Jew to say But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they Acts 15.11 And therefore vvheâ— St. Paul had said that now the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested even the righteousness of God which is by Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference meaning betvveen Jews and Gentiles Rom. 3.21 22. he thereupon demands in ver 27. saying Where is boasting then It is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith Therefore we find the holy Men of old among the Jews who expected Acceptance with God upon other terms than the Pharisaical Jews did who placed their Confidence called trusting in the flesh Phil. 3.4 in their External Privileges and Performances alone were so far from glorying in such a Righteousness as that that they cryed out in reference to that All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags Isa 64.6 Thus Regenerating Grace made David so far from boasting either of Privileges or of his Performances that he said unto God Who am I and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort for all things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee 1 Chron. 29.14 This made St. Paul to say We are not sufficient of our selves as of our selves to think any thing but our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. 3.5 And by the grace of God I am what I am 1 Cor. 15.10 And of him are we in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption that he that gloriet h may glory in the Lord having nothing but what he hath received from him gratis and without all desert yea contrary to his demerits 1 Cor. 1.30 31. The good Works which the Saints do they do them by vertue of their being created in Christ Jesus in order thereunto Ephes 2.10 and all that is good is through Christ strengthening them Phil. 4.13 From whence therefore we may well conclude that if the Works which St. Paul wholly excludes in the matter of Justification were only such as were apt to occasion boasting that then Acts of Evangesical Obedience were none of those Works According to the sense explained then I presume we may well understand that Text Rom. 3.28 which of all others seems in the Phrase and Expression to be most Exclusive of Works in the point of Justification the Words are these Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by Faith without the deeds of the Law Which words if you consider the context seem to import no more but this viz. That a Man
Act of the Mind or Understanding and doth not powerfully influence the Will and so it is not a believing with all the Heart but is the act only of one such faculty of the Soul A Belief it 's probable may be found in the Devil himself And such a Belief was found in some who were so convinced by the power of Christ's Miracles in concurrence with his Doctrine and Life that they could not choose but believe him to be an extraordinary Person sent from God though their carnal Interest prevailed so much in them as that it would not suffer them to confess him openly because they loved the praise of Men more than the praise of God Joh. 12.42 43. And besides these Men deceive themselves about their Faith in this also that they do not heartily Believe the whole Doctrine of the Gospel but are partial in their Faith They in a sort believe Christ to be the Son of God and that he came into the World to save sinners and that he Died for our sins and the like But then they do not heartily believe his Doctrine touching the necessity of Repentance of being born again of denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts and of living righteously godly and soberly in this present world Or else they frame such Notions of these things unto themselves of Repentance and Regeneration as that they think they believe Christ's Doctrine touching them when they believe only the lying Imagination of their own Brains And there is too much ground to fear that many Mens ill managing the Doctrine of Justification by Faith hath not a little strengthened Men in this vain confidence For while Evangelical Obedience it self under the Notion of those Works to which Faith is opposed hath been decryed as Popish when interessed in Justification and Justification asserted to be by Faith alone in opposition to all Works whatsoever Inward and Outward as well Evangelical as Legal as well those after Conversion as those before yea and the disposition thereunto the Flesh and the Devil to help it hath got great advantage thereby to perswade Men against the necessity of a holy Life in such a sense of a holy Life as the Scripture makes absolutely necessary to Salvation For though it 's true that good Works have been acknowledged and pressed too as necessary to Salvation yet when withal they have been denied to be necessary to Justification and Men have been taught that when once they are Justified they can never fall away from a State of Justification they have easily been drawn to believe that good Works are not absolutely necessary to Salvation no more than to Justification but Faith only And upon supposition that the other two Points of Doctrine are true it would be but rational for them so to believe For if good Works be not necessary to Justification at all And if it is impossible but that those who are once justified should be saved how should Men chuse but infer from hence that good Works are not absolutely necessary to Salvation Unless it shall be said that Men are not put into an immediate capacity of Salvation by being justified Which to affirm would be to say Men are not freed from Condemnation by being freed from Condemnation which would be a contradiction in terms For to be justified is to be freed from Condemnation Rom. 8.33 34 and 5.16 18. and therefore Justification must needs put Men into an immediate capacity of being saved And as there is great reason to think that the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone in opposition to the Works of Evangelical Obedience hath been a stumbling-stone unto many and a back-friend to the power of Godliness so there is another which hath been wont to be joyned with it that hath rendred it the more dangerous and it self no good friend to holy Living and that is the Doctrine of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness unto Justification in that way in which it hath been managed by very many For otherwise there is a sense as I have shewed in which it is a great and a comfortable Truth For when Men have been taught to esteem their own Righteousness but as filthy rags not only because of its utter insufficiency to justifie instead of Christ or as he justifies in which respect indeed it is no better but also as any part of a Condition of Justification or of our acceptance with God And when they have been taught also that upon their Believing only Christ's Righteousness in fulfilling the Law for them becomes imputed to them in it self and not only as the procuring cause of their Justification upon the terms of the Gospel so that they are looked upon as having themselves perfectly kept the Law in him it hath doubtless infeebled their endeavours after an inherent Righteousness and proved a temptation to them to think that so long as they have such anothers Inherent Righteousness essentially in it self imputed to them as Christ's is they have no great need to find it in themselves considering also that if they had it they must rather loath themselves for it than take any comfort in it But let no man deceive you saith St. John he that doth righteousness is righteous as he is righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 I do acknowledge that many of them have been worthy Men who yet have propagated these Opinions But that makes the Opinions never the better but have done more hurt in gaining thereby the more credit It is true also that those worthy Men have zealously pressed the necessity of Repentance Regeneration and a Holy Life Which proved indeed an Antidote against the Poyson of the other Opinions so that they did not become Mortal to many as otherwise they would have done And indeed they would have made mad work if they had not been yoaked with wholesomer Doctrine as we see they did among Antinomians Ranters and other carnal Christians that have followed the Ducture of those Opinions but have been shy of letting the Doctrines of Mortification and strict Living to have any power over them But then if the preaching of those sounder Doctrines of Repentance Regeneration and a holy Life have done much good notwithstanding they have been clogged with Opinions of another tendency it is easie to imagine that they would have done much more good if they had not been checkt by those unsound Principles But I shall say no more of this though more might be said because I hope I may say that most of those who have formerly imbibed these Opinions are now come to deliver themselves with more caution than heretofore And so I shall proceed to the last thing I propounded to touch upon and that is to shew CHAP. VII That the Doctrine of St. Paul and of St. James about Faith and Works in reference to Justification do not differ but are wholly one IT is true indeed though the Doctrine of St. PAVL and St. JAMES was in nothing opposite the one to the other yet the nature
of the subject-matter of their Epistles did differ just as the Errors they engaged against did differ The Errors of the unbelieving Jews consisting much in denying Justification to be by Christ and Faith in him and in placing it in their own Works of Circumcising Sacrificing and other Mosaical Observations And St. Paul designing in some of his Epistles to antidote the Christians against the Infection of them and to establish them in the saving Doctrine of the Gospel was led of course to bend his Discourse in great part against Justification by Works of the Law and on the contrary to assert it to be by Faith in Christ in his Death and in his Doctrine without those Works Whereas St. James having to do in his Epistle with such as professed the Christian Faith and Justification by it but erring dangerously about the nature of Faith as justifying thinking that opinionative Faith would save them though destitute of a real change in the moral frame and constitution of their Souls and of a holy Life Hereupon it became in a manner as necessary for him to plead the Renovation of Man's Nature and Evangelical Obedience to be some way necessary unto Justification as it was for St. Paul to contend for Justification by Faith without the deeds of the Law And therefore though their Doctrines in this respect did in great part differ yet they did not differ as Truth differs from Error nor as opposites but only as one Truth differs from another For otherwise when St. Paul had to do with the like Erroneous and Scandalous Christians as those were which St. James expostulated the matter with When he had to do with such as had a form of Godliness but denyed the power thereof he could and did decry a reprobate Faith and plead the necessity of a Faith that is unfeighned and of a holy Life as well as St. James as appears in part by what was said in the former Chapter and will I doubt not be made sufficiently evident in this In order whereto I shall recommend to consideration these ten things 1. That Works of Evangelical Obedience are never in Scripture opposed to God's Grace 2. That St. Paul in speaking against Justification by Works gives sufficient Caution not to be understood thereby to speak any thing against Evangelical Obedience in reference thereto 3. That Regeneration or the New Creature as including Evangelical Obedience is opposed to Works in the business of Man's Justification as well as Faith is and as well as the Grace of God it self is 4. That Evangelical Obedience as well as Faith and together with Faith is opposed to the Works of the Law in reference to Justification 5. That Evangelical Obedience alone is opposed to the Works of the Law 6. Faith it self is an Act of Evangelical Obedience 7. By Evangelical Obedience Christians come to have a Right to Salvation 8. The Promise of benefit by the Blood of Christ is made to Evangelical Obedience 9. Repentance And 10. Forgiving Injuries are both Acts of Evangelical Obedience without which a Man cannot be justifyed And if these things be made out they will I think amount to such a demonstration as that we cannot well desire a clearer or fuller proof that St. Paul together with others the Apostles taught Justification by Evangelical Obedience as the effect of Faith as well as St. James 1. The Works of Evangelical Obedience as the effects of Faith and Regeneration by Faith are never in St. Paul's Epistles or any other the holy Scriptures opposed to God's Grace in reference to Justification and Salvation Works and Grace indeed are opposed to each other But then by Works we are to understand either Works antecedent to Conversion or as they are denied to merit at the hands of God Or the Works of the Law of Moses as Erroneously contended for by the Jews Or the Works of the Law as Typical and as opposed to things Typify'd Or the Works of the Law as the Law is in its rigour opposed to the milder Oeconomy of the Gospel But the Works of Evangelical Obedience are never opposed to Grace no more than Faith it self is And there is no reason why they should because Evangelical Obedience is the effect of Divine Grace as well as Faith it self is and tends to the praise of it and is accepted and will be rewarded through Grace Contrary hereunto those words in Titus 3.5 Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us are wont to be alledged to prove that Works after Conversion as well as those before are opposed to the Mercy of God in the saving of Men. But whether this be duly collected from these words will best appear by opening the scope and meaning of the words with the Context The words in the 3 4 and 5 Verses are these For we our selves also were sometimes foolish serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards Man appeared Not by Works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost By their being Saved here is meant their being rescued and delivered from their sinful state mentioned vers 3. In that this is said to be done not by Works of Righteousness which they had done but according to God's Mercy The plain meaning I doubt not is that this change of their condition and deliverance from their sinful state was not effected or so much as begun among them by any Reformation of their own till the Gospel came to work it which is meant by the appearing of the Kindness and Love of God vers 4. and is of like import with that Chap. 2.11 12. which God of his Mercy and not of their Desert sent among them to that end And if this be the meaning of the words the Apostle was far from intending by Works of Righteousness in this place Works after Conversion I might rather well argue on the contrary from this place That Baptism which is an act of Evangelical Obedience in the Person Baptized and Regeneration which is Evangelical Obedience in the Root and Principle are together with the Mercy of God and as subordinate to it opposed to the Works of Righteousness here mentioned in the Work of Salvation For it is probable that by the washing of Regeneration here is meant Baptism as the Figure of Regeneration and by the Renewing of the Holy Ghost Regeneration it self By both which as subordinate to God's Mercy therein they were said to be saved and not by the Works of Righteousness which they had done before these There is another place in 2 Tim. 2.9 which is wont to be urged with this to Titus to the same purpose But it being of the same nature with this the same Answer may serve both with a little variation 2. St.
Paul in speaking against Justification by Works gives sufficient caution not to be understood thereby to speak against Evangelical Obedience in the case When he had asserted Justification to be by Faith without the deeds of the Law and that the Gentiles might be Justified by Believing without ever observing Moses's Law Rom. 3.28 lest he should be understood thereby to favour Gentilism or loose living in Men provided they would but turn Christians he frames and answers on Objection thus vers 31. Do we make void the Law through Faith God forbid Yea we establish the Law And how did they so Certainly they did not thereby establish the Ceremonial Law in the Letter of it but in the Spirit of it they did in as much as in Preaching Justification in the Gospel-way they Preached in plain Precepts the necessity of that Spiritual purity unto Salvation which was but darkly and in a figure taught by the Ceremonial Law And this they did in Preaching the necessity of Mortification instead of Circumcision And by the Doctrine of Justification by Faith they established the Moral Law both in the Letter and â—pirit of it in teaching the necessity of Evangelical Obedience to it 〈…〉 more spiritual and forcible manner than had been taught beâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 in when he had charged the unbelieving Jews with a great Erroâ— in going about to establish a Righteousness of their own in opposâ—â—iâ—â— to God's in adhering to their Law against the Gospel Rom. 10.3 to the end it might not be thought that he would take them off their Law that they might be Lawless or less Religious he adds vers 4. that Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth For so he is in his Doctrine having therein taught that Righteousness of living which the Law it self taught but in a far more excellent spiritual and effectual manner than was taught by the Law So that all that he designed in taking them off from their Law was but to put them under a better conduct To make them dead to the Law that they might be married to another viz. to Christ by his Gospel that they might bring forth fruit unto God as it is Rom. 7.4 And likewise in ver 6. he saith We are delivered from the Law but not to be Lawless but that we might serve in newness of Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter that is according to the Spirit Scope and Design of the Law now expressed in plain Precepts and not in the oldness of the Letter and Ceremony And so he saith of himself Gal. 2.19 I through the Law am dead to the Law i e he through a better understanding of God's design in the Law became dead as to all his former expectations of Justification by it But then if he were dead to the Law it was as he saith that he might live unto God live a life in the flesh through the Faith in his Son through believing his Gospel in its Precepts and Promises the one directing and the other quickning unto a most excellent Life ver 20. And if St. Paul were thus careful in denying Justification by Works to assert the necessity of Evangelical Obedience we may well conclude that he never intended under the notion of Works of the Law to exclude Evangelical Obedience from having any hand sooner or later in Justification 3. Regeneration or the New Creature as including Evangelical Obedience is opposed to Works of the Law in the business of Man's Justification as well as Faith is and as well as the Grace of God it self is Gal. 6.15 For in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but a new Creature Circumcision is here as elsewhere by a Synecdoche put for the Works of the Law in general For there were none that were for Circumcising but who were also for keeping the Law of Moses Only Circumcision is mentioned frequently instead of all the rest because they held it to be not only a part of the Law but more and because they laid the greatest stress upon it as I shewed before Chap. 5. Now in that which the Apostle denies Circumcision and the Works of the Law to avail a Man in that he affirms the becoming a New Creature will avail him and that was in the business of Justification and Salvation For in that sense the unbelieving Jews and Judaizers held Circumcision and other Works of the Law available And this New Creature thus opposed to Works and thus available to Justification consisteth in a new frame of Spirit and the Vital Operations thereof and which we can have no right notion of without Evangelical Obedience in will and resolution at least which are really inward acts of that Obedience and are a conformity of the renewed Will to the Divine Law 4. Evangelical Obedience as well as Faith and together with Faith is opposed to the Works of the Law in reference to Justification and Salvation Gal. 5.6 For in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but Faith which worketh by love Here again Circumcision by the same Figure and for the same reason as before is put for the Works of Moses's Law And as these are denied to avail any Man to Justification and Salvation so on the other hand it is affirmed that that Faith which worketh by Love doth avail to these great ends For to say that Faith which worketh by Love doth so is the same in sense as to say that Faith which worketh by fulfilling the Law and by keeping the Commandments doth so avail For so Love is said to be Rom. 13.10 1 Joh. 5.3 The Assemblies Annotations upon the place give notice that the Word here translated Worketh Faith which worketh by Love being in the mean or middle voice may be taken either Actively or Passively And several other Learned Men among whom Dr. Hammond is one do render and understand it passively as if the Apostle should have said Faith which is wrought or perfected or consummate by Love and so make it directly parallel with that in St. James Chap. 2.22 By Works was Faith made perfect So far is the Scripture we see from opposing acts of Evangelical Obedience to Faith in the Works of Justification as that it conjoyns them with Faith in the title to it and in opposition to false pretentions to it 5. Evangelical Obedience alone is opposed to the Works of the Law in reference to Justification so far is it from being true that where the Works of the Law are excluded there Evangelical Obedience is excluded from having any share in the Work of Justification 1 Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing and Vncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Circumcision is here again as before put for the whole Law And indeed he that was Circumcised was bound to keep the whole Law as this Apostle noteth in Gal. 5.3 And when he saith Circumcision is nothing he means here doubtless as in
those other places already opened that it avails nothieg to any Mans acceptation with God or to his Justification and Salvation as the Judaizers of those Times thought it did But then the keeping of the Commandments of God will avail to these ends For that I conceive was intended and ought to be understood by the opposition that is made between Circumcision and keeping the Commandments 6. Faith it self is an act of Evangelical Obedience this as well as Love is an act of Conformity to our Lord's Commands and therefore a Man cannot be justified by Faith but in being so he must be justified by Evangelical Obedience 1 John 3.23 This is his Commandments that we should believe in the Name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us Commandment This by our Saviour is called a work Joh. 6.29 This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent And there is so much of the nature of Evangelical Obedience in Faith it self as that to Believe and to Obey are promiscuously put one for another and so is Unbelief and Disobedience Accordingly you have in many places the one reading in the Text and the other in the Margin as Acts 5.36 Rom. 11.30 31. Ephes 5.6 Heb. 4.11 and 11.31 And Belief and Disobedience are in Scripture opposed to each other as direct contraries Rom. 10.16 1 Pet. 2.7 2 Thes 2.12 So that since Faith is an act of Evangelical Obedience it follows that to say the Works of Evangelical Obedience do justifie does no more derogate from the Grace of God or the freeness of his Grace in justiying than to say Faith justifies First Because other acts of Evangelical Obedience are the effects of God's Grace and produced by it as well as Faith It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.13 And secondly Because it is meerly of the Law of Grace that Faith and other Acts of Evangelical Obedience are made the condition of the Promise of Salvation Ephes 2.8 By grace are ye saved through Faith in Christ Jesus and that not of your selves it is the gift of God As Men do not Believe or Obey of themselves without supernatural Assistance so neither is it of themselves that they are Justified or Saved upon their Believing but both the one and the other is the Gift of God It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy It is by virtue of God's New Covenant that a promise of Pardon is made to Repentance or to Faith for the primary Law the Law of Nature promised no such thing upon Repentance And it is by virtue of the same Law of Grace that a Promise of Justification and Reward is made to sincere Obedience in other Acts of Obedience as well as those of Faith and Repentance That which hath made many afraid of interessing Evangelical Obedience with Faith in justifying Men hath been an Opinion that so to do would derogate from God's Grace and attribute too much to Man But you see there is no ground for such an Opinion It 's true indeed the proper merit of Works and God's Grace are inconsistent And therefore are opposed to each other in Scripture But Evangelical Obedience and Grace are no more opposite or inconsistent than Cause and Effect or than Causes principal and subordinate And as it doth not follow that because we are justified freely by God's Grace that therefore we are not justified by Faith So neither doth it follow that because we are justified by Faith that therefore we are not justified by sincere Obedience For these and the Blood of Christ do all concur in producing many of the same Effects though not in the same respect 7. By Evangelical Obedience Christians come to have a right to Salvation Revel 22.14 Blessed are they that do his Commandments â—hat they may have a right to the Tree of Life and may enter in through the gates into the City This is left on Record as a special Memorandum â—or Christians in closing up the Canon of the New Testament and therefore is to be taken special notice of This right to the Tree oâ— Life and of entring into this blessed City upon keeping the Commandments is from a New Covenant or Law Act or Grant from God For otherwise Man that had transgressed the first Law hâ—â—as put under would have been far from having any right to such Happiness upon the terms here mentioned viz. of sincere though imperfect Obedience But seeing that a Right to Salvation doth accrue to Men upon a sincere keeping of God's Commandments notwithstanding their forfeiture of their first Right by Man's first Fall it evidently follows that Evangelical or Sincere Obedience is part of the condition of the Promise of Blessedness in the New Law or Covenant and is here put for the whole of it as at other times Faith is put for the whole of the Condition And that Moses David Solomon Nehemiah and Daniel received it in this sense and understood all along that sincere Obedience flowing from Love was the condition of God's Covenant of Mercy when they stiled him a God keeping Covenant and Mercy with those that Love him and keep his Commandments Deut. 7.9 1 Kings 8.23 Neh. 1.5 Dan. 9.4 I have before shewed If it shall be here said that sincere Obedience is indeed a condition of Salvation but not of Justification and that it is so made here in this 22d of the Revelation I have I think sufficiently answered this Objection in the former Chapter but shall here add That such as thus say are more curious and nice in distinguishing between Justification and Salvation than St. Paul was For he calls Justification the Justification of Life Rom. 5.18 Whom he justified them he also glorified Rom. 8.30 and proves that Men shall be justified by Faith because it is written that the Just shall live by Faith Gal. 3.11 Thus with him to be justified and to be blessed are all one Gal. 3.8 9. Rom. 4.7 8 9. And to confirm this Righteousness or Justification and Life are used by him as Synonimous terms Gal. 3.21 For if there had been a Law given which could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law And Justification and Condemnation are but in direct opposition to each other Rom. 5.18 and 8.33 34. And to be freed from Condemnation which is Justification and to be Saved are as much one as not to Dye is to Live In short Salvation as well as Justification is promised to Believing Joh. 3.16 Act. 3.31 Heb. 10.39 And therefore Salvation as well as Justification must needs be the immediate effect of Faith if we take Salvation as begun here in this Life as the Scripture represents it to be Joh. 5.24 1 Joh. 3.14 and 5.12 From all which we may conclude That what is absolutely necessary to Salvation must needs also be necessary to Justification Add we
in perfecting holiness in the fear of God And therefore there is great need for those that are Spiritual Guides to the People to insist much upon the necessity of Repentance Regeneration and a holy Life as well as Faith in order to their being justified and saved by Christ Jesus For the People yea the better sort of them stand most in need as of being well-grounded touching the Truth of the Christian Religion so especially of having the Doctrines of Morality inculcated upon them the Precepts of the Gospel being almost all of that Nature thought some speak diminutively of moral Preaching and tend to the perfecting of the Nature of Man in regulating the Internal Operations of the Soul and the External Actions of Life in reference both to God and Man our Selves and Others The recovering of Men to which is God's great Design by the Gospel in order to their being made perfectly Happy at last as I have shewed in Chap. 1. There is indeed an absolute necessity of Believing the Gospel in order to Christian Practice And therefore our blessed Saviour did not only Preach the necessity of Faith in him and his Doctrine but also wrought abundance of Miracles to beget this Faith in Men. And yet he knowing the great danger of Men's miscarrying in point of Morality in the disposition of Soul and actions of Life insisted chiefly in his Preaching upon Doctrines of that nature as you may see in his Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere He taught the necessity of being born again Of making the Tree good that the Fruit might be good And to inforce this Doctrine of his he was not wont to tell his Auditors that every Man shall be Rewarded according to his Belief but that when the Son of Man shall come every Man shall be rewarded according to his Works That those that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life and those that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation That by their words they shall be justified which are no more Faith than Works are and by Their words they shall be condemned That in the Great Day of the Tryal of all Nations every Man shall be Acquitted or Condemned according to the Good they have done or neglected to do Mat. 25 And that then not every Man that had Faith enough to Cry Lord Lord or to Prophesie cast out Devils or do wonders in his Name shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but such and such only as have done the will of his Father Great need there is therefore of Peoples examining themselves impartially and of being often admonished to take heed lest they mistake and decâ—ive themselves in the nature of Religion and in what is absâ—lutely necessary to be done on their part â—ecause Men are very aâ—t to flatter and deceive themselves in that and to think that whâ—n their Faith is right in the object of it as wâ—en they â—elieve in the true God and in his Son Jesus Christ and expect Salvation by him alone that then they are true Believers and such as shall be saved especially if therewith they joyn the frequenting of God's Ordinances and the paring off of some of the grosser Enormities of their Lives though in the mean while they make no Conscience of cleansing their Hearts and governing their Spirits of subduing their Passions and inordinate Affections and of bridling the Tongue For this cause it is that Christians are so often in Scripture cautioned to take heed lest they should be deceived Be not deceived God is not mocked For whatsoever a Man sows that also shall he reap Gal. 6.7 8. Little Children let no Man deceive you He that doth Righteousness is Righteous even as he is Righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 1 Cor. 6.9 Ephes 5.6 FINIS THE CONTENTS Of The Discourse of the Nature Ends and Difference of the Two Covenants INTRODUCTION THE Principal cause why the Jews rejected Christ and his Gospel To Remove which the Apostle St. Paul used various reasonings wherein some things are hard to be Vnderstood Which others mistaking ran into a Contrary extream The method which the Author proposes to remove mistakes CHAP. I. The Nature and Design of God's Promise to Abraham What is necessary to open the Nature of it Sect. 1. That it 's of the same Nature with the New Covenant tho' they differ in the Administration For First The Covenant delivered to Abraham was confirmed by Christ as well as the Gospel Secondly the Gospel was Preached to Abraham Thirdly he was Justified by Faith and therefore by a New Covenant Fourthly St. Paul Argues against the Jews from Abraham's being Justified by Faith That Abraham had not a distinct Notion of all that was imply'd in the Promise What the New Covenant is namely a New Law by way of Remedy against the Rigour and Extreamity of the Law of Nature under which Man was Created Page 1. 2. 3. This proved and Reasons for it p. 4. Sect. 2. God's design in the New Covenant or Promise made to Abraham next to his own Glory was the Recovery of Humane Nature from its degenerate State to a State of Holyness without which no Happiness p. 4. and 5. This proved p. 6. Sect. 3. The Benefits contain'd in the Promise made to Abraham First of sending the Messias and what a benefit this was p. 7. and 8. Secondly a Promise of Remission of Sin to all who would Believe in him Repent and become sincerely Obedient for the future ibid. Thirdly A Promise of Divine Assistance to Men in their faithful endeavours tho' tacitly ibid. Fourthly a Promise of Eternal Life tho' implicitly ibid. Sect. 4. The Extent of God's Promise to Abraham p. 9. That it did extend to all Nations of the Earth p. 10. Sect. 5. The Security given by God for the Performance of the Promise made to Abraham p. 10. The Reason why God gave such a Security ibid. Sect 6. That the Promise made to Abraham was Conditional ibid. That Repentance and Faith were to be performed by Man as his part of the Covenant p. 11. The Reason of this ibid. How God Works that change in Man's Nature designed in the New Covenant First by proposing important Truths to his Vnderstanding Secondly By proposing Motives to the Will to incline it to follow the Dictates of the Mind p. 12. Sect. 7. That the Condition of the Promise made to Abraham was a practical Faith p. 13. The Nature of Abraham's Faith p. 14 The difference of believing God and believing in God ibid. A Description of Faith in General ibid. Faith Strictly taken is an Assent unto the Truth of any proposiion upon the Credit of the Speaker ibid. Yet Saving Faith is of a more Comprehensive Nature If God 's Threatnings against Sinners be taken in the definition will be this Faith is such a hearty Belief of God's Declaration concerning his own Grace and Displeasure and Man's Duty as doth effectually cause a Man to expect from God and to act
of God's Promise until it hath produced that Repentance Regeneration Love and Obedience Which is a full and an undeniable proof of the necessity of such a consent of the Will as aforesaid to render Faith justifying and saving Now this Consent and resolution of the Will to Repent and Obey Christ and to forsake all for him is the Moral Change of the Soul and the New Life in its first beginning And so a Man's first effectual Belief is his whole Christian Life in its beginning And a Man's first Faith is perfected afterwards by Works Jam. 2.22 as a Child is perfected in his manly state as he grows up to manly actions or as the Seed is perfected when it grows to a full Ear. By this first Consent of the Will we restipulate and strike Covenant with God and not only so but we hereby begin also to keep and perform Covenant with him on our part When this Consent is first wrought in the Will then the Laws of the new Covenant are first put into the Mind and written in the Heart And by this we first begin to become savingly a People unto God to Believe in him to Love and Serve him as he by Covenant and Promise becomes a God unto us to make us Happy Heb. 8.10 This is the Covenant that I will make I will put my Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People 3. The other act of the Soul which I call the act of the Understanding and of the VVill conjunct is an Affiance in God through Christ a trusting in him or a relying on him for the fulfilling of his Promise of saving Benefits while we continue sincerely to Consent resolve and endeavour to perform the Condition on our part This is that or part of that which is called a Believing on God a Believing on Christ and a Trusting in him Noting the Souls dependence upon Christ for the saving Benefits which accrue to Men by his Mediation Office and Undertaking and on the Truth and Faithfulness Power VVisdom and Goodness of God to perform all that he hath promised them through his Son and upon the terms he hath promised and not otherwise For the Promise of saving Benefits being made but upon the Condition before-mentioned a true Believer or he that is Rational and Wise considers as well upon what terms the Benefits are promised as who hath promised them and what they are and expects the one no otherwise than as he sincerely resolves and endeavours to perform the other And therefore if any shall Rely on God and Christ for those Benefits in whom yet the qualifying Condition of the Promise of them is not found such a Reliance is but a groundless Presumption and not Faith or Affiance duly so called For such do not only rely on Christ for that for which they have no promise but for that which God hath expresly declared they shall have no share in whilst they remain destitute of that qualification which is the Condition upon which and not without it the promise of those Benefits is made These three acts of the Soul exercised on their Objects do make up that Faith which is justifying and saving And when justifying Faith in the compleat nature of it is spoken of in Scripture all these three acts of the Soul are to be understood and especially the two first though perhaps they are many times mentioned severally and apart Faith being described sometimes by one of them and sometimes by another As God himself is represented to us sometimes by one Attribute sometimes by another CHAP. II. Wherein the Defect lies of that Faith which is not saving BY what hath been discoursed touching the nature of that Faith which is saving it is easie to discern wherein the defect lies of that Faith which is not so And the defect lies chiefly in the Will in its not Consenting to perform the Condition of the Promise in Repenting and in receiving Christ as Lord to be governed by his Laws I will not deny but the defect in part may be in the Understanding when its Assent unto the Truth of Divine Revelation is so weak as that it can make but a too weak and faint impression upon the Will to procure its Consent unto the Condition of the Promise But then that defect in the Assent of the Understanding doth usually at least in great part proceed from the Will as I shall shew afterwards Now that the defect lies mainly in the Will 's not Consenting to the Condition of the Promise appears by this because unregenerate Men may assent unto the truth of God's Testimony and may trust that they shall be saved by Christ which contain the other two acts of the Soul but no Man truly consents to perform the Condition of the Promise but in doing so he is Regenerate in the first Act and Justified 1. Unregenerate Men may have the same Faith of Assent in the Understanding to a degree as the Regenerate may They may believe God to be the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and Jesus Christ to be his only Son and the rest of the Articles of the Creed and they may believe in great part that to be their Duty both towards God and Man which is so indeed and yet hold that Truth in unrighteousness which they do believe Rom. 1.18 Many of the chief Rulers believed on Christ who yet loved the Praise of Men more than the praise of God and durst not confess him Joh. 12.42 43. As also did many others when they saw his Maricles who yet were such as Christ had no mind to commit himself to Joh. 2.23 24. And Simon Magus believed wondering and being astonished at the signs which were done by Philip who yet remained in the bond of iniquity Acts 8. Such as are resembled by the stony Ground believed who yet loved their ease and worldly Interest more than Christ and those that St. James expostulates with Chap. 2. were thus far Believers also 2. Excepting the Consent of the Will to the Condition of the Promise Unregenerate Men may hope to be saved by Christ and rely on him for Salvation as well as the Regenerate Only for want of their performing the Condition of the Promise their hopes and confidence are groundless and will deceive them But otherwise Men that are but carnal and live in some known sin may and oftentimes do perswade themselves that they shall be saved by Christ Jesus because they believe that he died for Sinners and because they ask God forgiveness and perform some acts of Religion Our Saviour saith Many will say unto me in that day Lord Lord open unto us Have we not prophesied in thy Name and in thy Name have cast out Devils and done many wonderful works We have eaten and drunk in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets To whom he will say for all that Depart from
a Place it will not make you go there because it is a Promise that you are not Concern'd in but the other Person if he be certainly perswaded the Promise will be made good to him will certainly go to the appointed Place because it is a Promise that he is Concerned in And so likewise as to the Case in hand That a sure Promise of the Pardon of our Sins and Eternal Happiness is made over to us in the Second Covenant on Condition we will forsake the Service of Satan and of Sin that we will Repent heartily Believe practically and Obey sincerely is a Truth that the Devils to their great Grief are fully perswaded of for they believe and tremble St. James tells us But this Faith of theirs does not put them upon Repentance and Amendment because those gracious Promises do not Concern them and they have no Promise of Salvation tho' they should Repent and Amend But as to us whom they do Concern and to whom they are made if we are really perswaded that if we amend we shall be certainly Saved we shall immediately upon such Perswasion seriously Repent of what has been done amiss heretofore and take care to Obey God for the future For every Man that hath this Hope in God purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 Joh. 3.3 In short the Articles of our Christian Faith are every one of 'em so many Motives and those the most powerful ones in the World to stir us up to a diligent Reformation of our Hearts and Lives They are in themselves the most obliging Arguments to it and with respect to us they are the most Concerning and Important Truths that can be containing in the meaning of 'em either Threatnings to scare us out of Sin or Promises to allure us to Obedience Either such Considerations as are apt to excite our Fears when we are in a Course of Impiety or are Grounds whereon we may build the vastest Hopes in the Performance of our Duty And if any One does not live accordingly a Godly Righteous and a Sober Life I dare be bold to say it is owing to some spice of Infidelity lurking in his Heart whereby he is not throughly perswaded of or does not actually consider these Truths But he that does throughly Believe and Consider them can hardly fail of being a Good Liver Thus necessary you see it is that our Belief of all the Articles of our Christian Faith be such as does Influence us to good Works And then after all II. To Believe savingly we must apply our selves to Jesus Christ to intercede w th God the Father for our Gracious Acceptance II. It must be a Belief that causes us to betake our selves to Jesus Christ to Intercede with God the Father for their Gracious Acceptance This I have formerly in the beginning of my Exposition insisted upon yet such is the growing Infidelity of the World with respect to this which is the most Essential part of Christian Faith that it would not be unseasonable should I again shew you that we must depend upon the Mediation of Christ with the Father for us that our imperfect Righteousness may be graciously accepted to our Justification This is that Act of Faith which is called in Scripture Believing in Christ and to such a Believing as this it is that our Justification is Attributed by St. Paul Gal. 2.16 Know this that a Man is not Justified by the Works of the Law but by the Faith of Jesus Christ even we have Believed in Jesus Christ that we might be Justified by the Faith of Christ and not by the Works of the Law for by the Works of the Law shall no Flesh be Justified And as this Act of Faith the Relying upon God's Mercies in Christ does wonderfully exalt the Divine Justice and Mercy so it leaves no place to the Creature to Attribute any part of its Happiness to it self but does utterly exclude all occasions of Boasting God hath set forth Jesus Christ his Son to be a Propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of Sins that are past through the forbearance of God Where is Boasting then it is excluded By what Law of Works nay but by the Law of Faith Rom. 2.25.27 So that it is not enough that we Believe punctually but it is moreover necessary that we rely also on God's Mercies in Christ that our imperfect Holiness may be accepted or otherwise even our Assent to all the Articles of the Christian Faith will not avail us to our Justification and Salvation which brings me Lastly To shew you what it is to Believe ALL the Articles of our Christian Faith What to Believe All the Articles of the Christian Faith And 1. To Believe them All does Import that we must Assent to all and every one of those great Articles of Christian Doctrine contain'd in the Apostle's Creed 1. To Believe ALL these Articles does Import that we must Assent with a through Perswasion of their undoubted Truth and of their Divine Authority to all and every one of those great Articles of Christian Doctrine contained in the Apostle's Creed This Collection or Summary of Christian Doctrine is called by St. Paul Rom. 6.17 That Form of Doctrine which was deliver'd to the Christians that is that Summary of Christian Doctrine to the Belief and Practice of which they were deliver'd up and solemnly Consecrated in their Baptism And the same is call'd 2 Tim. 1.13 The Form of sound words which was heard of the Apostle himself and we are commanded to hold it fast that is to take care not to depart from it in any part thereof And as we must not shrink from the Confession and Belief of any one of those Articles which have been Handed down to us from the Apostles in that Summary or Form of sound words which makes up the Body of our Christian Faith so we must content our selves with the Belief of All those saving Truths and must not think there is any thing more to be Believ'd by our selves or others as necessary to Salvation But especially Such as tend to destroy a good Life and send us to other Mediators than Christ to Intercede with the Father for its Acceptance no Articles of Christian Faith we must take care of possessing our Minds with a Perswasion of the Truth of such Articles as do tend to destroy what the true Genuine Doctrines of Christianity viz. All the Articles of our Christian Faith do Build as do all or most at leastwise of the New Articles impos'd upon the Belief of Christians in the Romish Church Some of those Articles in the Romish Creed do plainly take away the necessity of a Good Life as might be easily made appear were it proper here to inlarge on that Point And other Doctrines of that Church do as apparently take Men off from depending solely upon the Mediation of Christ with his Father that he would graciously accept
deny in the World to come his knowing of or having any thing to do with you as he declares he will Matth. 10.33 You see in Matth. 26.70 how Peter being asham'd of his persecuted Lord and Master and afraid for himself did deny his Saviour But withal you see how severely he smarted for it for being prick'd at the heart with an extreme remorse of Conscience for such a base piece of Cowardice he went out and wept bitterly v. 75. And it was well he did or else he had perish'd everlastingly So that to conclude you must not only rehearse that is give an Account of the Christian Faith to us the Ministers of Religion and pronounce it amongst those who are Friends to it in the House of God but upon all just occasions you must elsewhere even in the Face of its greatest Enemies openly declare and profess your Belief of those great Christian Truths and that when you are sure to suffer the severest Persecutions and Reproaches for so doing This last I must confess is not so directly the meaning of the Word Rehearse in this place But if ever there were occasion to extend the Importance of it to such a Sense it is now when the Confidence of Infidels in professing their impious Principles and the Cowardice of Believers in Confessing the True Articles of their Christian Faith is so extremely and on both sides so shamefully great And thus I have given you the utmost that I conceive can be the Importance of these Words Rehearse the Articles of thy Belief which may serve as a Prefatory Discourse to the Exposition I design by God's Assistance to make you of the Creed upon the Explication of which I shall next enter THE XXIX Lecture I Believe COmmenting upon these Words Rehearse the Articles of thy Belief I have given you by way of Preface to the Exposition of the Creed it self an Account of its Authority how that it is a summary Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine collected as is highly probable by the Apostles themselves however undoubtedly containing the most weighty and essential Points of Apostolical Doctrine that are necessary to be Believ'd in order to Salvation And then as to the Importance of the Word Rehearse I have told you how necessary it is 1. that you should give a good Account to God's Ministers of what you Believe 2. That you ought openly and solemnly to pronounce your Belief every time you meet together to worship God in the Publick Assembly Nay and 3. That you must undauntedly confess and own all these Christian Truths before the Face of any Man though you should incur the greatest Danger of Life Livelihood or whatever is most dear to you or expose your selves to the Reproaches of wicked Men for so doing And having thus by way of Preface to the Creed it self spoken what I thought necessary to its Authority and the Confession you are to make of it I come now by God's Assistance to lay open before you the Meaning and Importance of every particular Truth therein contain'd And that which does first offer it self to our Consideration and will indeed require a very large and full Explication is the single Word Believe Every particular Article of the Creed and every single Truth as there are many contain'd in each Article is to be Believed by us It is therefore I presume very requisite that we should with all possible Clearness and Exactness explain the Nature of Faith and shew you what it is to Believe to your Soul's Health before we come to consider the several Truths that are to be Believed accordingly Faith and Belief are two Words that signifie the same thing Faith and Belief synonomous Terms and so indispensable a Condition of our Justification and Salvation it is to Believe that not to mention more Texts Rom. 3.28 It is said a Man is justify'd by Faith And Mark 16.16 we are told in plain and express Words that he who Believeth shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned You must not therefore think me tedious if in the Explication of this Point I shall be something large since to Believe is a thing which you are not only to do in reference to every particular Article of our Creed but that also as ever you will be justify'd and sav'd And for the more full Explication of this Point I will do these Three Things I. I will shew you in general what it is to Believe together with the Effects and Fruits of True Believing II. I will more particularly explain unto you the Nature of Justifying and Saving Faith And then III. By way of Inference I will lay before you wherein the Defect of several sorts of Faith does lie which we find by Scripture and Experience that many do rely upon but yet will by no means justifie and save ' em And 1. I am to shew you in general What it is to Believe And to Believe both in the proper and in the common Meaning of the Word is to give Credit to the Report of another Faith is founded upon a credible Testimony And herein it is distinguish'd from those other Acts of the Mind Opinion Experience and Knowledge that Opinion is when one varies in his Judgment being not without some doubt whether the thing may not be otherwise than he thinks Experience is when one's own Senses tell one it is so and so and Knowledge is when I gather from undoubted Causes and Reasons that the Effect is thus But Belief as it is more certain than Opinion so it is founded not upon my own Experience and Knowledge but upon the Authority of some one else who does relate the thing to me It is indeed thought by some that to Believe in the Language of the Scriptures which are the Words of plain Men spoke to the general Bulk of Mankind does many times signifie a full Perswasion of the Mind whether wrought within us by the Evidence of the Matter or by our own Sense or Experience or by some strong Argument and Reason as well as by some Credible Testimony and accordingly we Believe God's Being and Existence by the strongest Evidences of Reason but yet however tho' the Belief of God's Being be indeed a Knowledge that he Is a Knowledge I say that we have from several demonstrative Proofs and Reasons besides what we have from the Testimony that he Himself has given us of his own Existence yet as the Testimony that he has given us by Miracles Prophecies and his Providences are properly his Attestation to the Truth of the Article so it is the nearest and the plainest Proof thereof and that upon which the Faith of the far greatest part of Mankind who do not much employ their Reason to search after Truth is founded so that generally as well as properly speaking to Believe is to give Credit upon the Authority and Testimony of another that his Relation is true Human Faith upon Human Testimony And
be less efficacious to the subduing the Temptations arising from the Flesh that is from our own Lusts and Appetites there being no Considerations of that force to oblige us to deny all Vngodliness and worldly Lusts and to live Soberly Righteously and Godly in this present World as all the Articles of our Creed particularly the looking for that blessed Hope and the glorious Appearing of the Great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave Himself for us that he might Redeem us from all Iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar People zealous of Good Works Tit. 2.12 13 14. A thorough Perswasion apply'd home to the Heart by serious Consideration that the Son of God did Himself descend from Heaven by wonderful and amazing Methods to rescue us from the Slavery of our brutish Lusts and Appetites and that he will again come in Glory to Judge and Reward us for the Victory we shall gain over 'em are enough to work upon all Reasonable and Thinking Creatures and nothing can prevail with us to abandon our Lusts if these will not And III. Lastly but above all 3. The Devâ—â— the great Power and the glorious Effects of Faith are seen in the Victories it will enable us to obtain over that Great Adversary the Devil We had need to put on the whole Armour of God that we may be able to stand against the Wiles of the Devil For we wrestle not against Flesh and Blood a contemptible Enemy in comparison but against Principalities against Powers against the Rulers of the Darkness of this World against spiritual Wickedness in High Places Wherefore St. Paul does warn us to take unto us the whole Armour of God that we may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand But above all to take the Shield of Faith wherewith we shall be able to quench all the fiery Darts of the Devil Eph. 6.11 12. The Temptations and Assaults of the Devil which the Apostle does here so solemnly rouze us up to resist are I suppose the terrible Persecutions that Satan does in all Ages raise against one part or other of the Church and these tho' dreadful indeed and most likely to over-power us yet are conquerable by a firm Faith Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith who for the Joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the Shame and is set down on the Right hand of the Throne of God For if we consider him that endured such contradiction of Sinners against himself we shall not be weary nor faint in our Minds Heb. 12.2 3. So that in short the true and genuine Effects of Faith are constant and perpetual Victories against the World the Flesh and the Devil and an universal Obedience notwithstanding any of 'em to the Commands of God And therefore since so much depends upon a true Faith that he who believeth shall be saved Mark 16.16 And by the Grace of God we are saved through Faith Eph. 2.5 It does infinitely concern you to examine your selves whether ye be in the Faith and to prove your selves 2 Cor. 13.5 And the only way to prove the Sincerity of your Faith is by examining the fore-mention'd Fruits of it in your own Lives and Conversations and by seeing whether it produces a good Life For this we may assure our selves having the Authority of an Apostle for it Jam. 2.26 That as the Body without the Spirit is dead so Faith without Works is dead also So that except upon examination you shall find your spiritual Enemies in a great measure subdu'd and an Habit of Vertue rooted in your Souls your Faith is not sincere THE XXX Lecture I Believe HAving already explain'd and laid before you the Nature and Effects of Faith or Believing I might now proceed to the Consideration of those main Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity summ'd up in the Apostles Creed and which are to be Believ'd accordingly But since so great Weight is laid in the Covenant of Grace upon Faith that on Condition thereof we are said to be sav'd Sirs said the Keeper of the Prison to Paul and Silas What must I do to be saved And they said Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy House Act. 16.30 31. since whosoever Believeth in Christ shall receive Remission of Sins c. 10 43. And which has most perplexed Persons Heads to understand the meaning of it and from the misunderstanding of which the most Fatal Errors have ensu'd since a Man is Justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law Rom. 3.28 And being Justified by Faith we have Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 5.1 And lastly since a true state of this Doctrine of Justifying Faith will above any other single Doctrine excepting that of the Covenant of Grace let you into the full Understanding of the Nature Texture and Constitution of the Whole Christian Religion For all these Reasons I think I ought not to dismiss this Subject of Faith without giving you a State of the Doctrine of Justifying Faith and without distinguishing betwixt it and other sorts of Faith which will fail us in the great Business of Justification and Salvation And in order to the Explication of so considerable a Point I. I will give you to understand what is meant by Justification II. I will then shew by what sort of Faith we are accordingly Jâ—nstified And III. And lastly in what sence we are said to be Justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law And I. I will give you to understand what is meant by Justification Justification defin'd And Justification is God's Adjudging us through Christ as Just and Righteous according to the Terms of the Covenant of Grace and his acquitting of such from the Punishment of those Sins of which according to the Terms of the First Covenant there was no place for Pardon To make this Description more plain to you I will a little enlarge upon it and prove the several Parts thereof And 1. There are Just and Righteous Persons since the Fall First I say there are those who even in this lapsed and fallen state of Man have the Testimony of God Himself that they are Just and Righteous Men. Thus Abel obtained witness that he was Righteous God testifying of his Gifts Heb. 11.4 And Lot is also mention'd in Scripture as a Righteous Man 2 Pet. 2.8 And Joseph Simeon Cornelius and others are said in the Gospel to be Just Men and at the end of the World the Angels shall come forth and separate the Wicked from the Just Matth. 13.49 Which supposes that all those who shall be saved shall be Just and Righteous Persons 2. It is according to the Terms of the Gospel that any are such Secondly Those who are thus Just and Righteous are such according to the Terms of the Gospel Justice and Righteousness are to be measured according to some Rule in conformity to which
the full meaning of Justification II. I am now to shew you by what Faith it is that we are accordingly Justify'd 2. By what Faith we are accordingly Justified By what has been said as it does appear that Justification is a Judicial Act of God Adjudging us as Just and Righteous according to the Terms and Conditions of the Second Covenant so likewise that Repentance and Obedience are no less necessary in the Gospel-Covenant than Faith it self is to render us Evangelically Just and Righteous and therefore when our Justification is by Scripture in so peculiar a manner attributed to Faith it cannot but be of mighty Importance rightly to understand what that Faith is by which we shall be approved by God as Just and Righteous And in order to this I must here premise That nothing is more usual in Scripture-Language than to attribute the whole Rewards of a Christian Life to any one of those Conditions of Christianity which by the great Influence they have upon other Parts of Religion may be said to imply all the rest Thus for instance the Mercy of God is promised to be from everlasting to everlasting upon them that Fear him Psal 103.17 The Reason is because Fear is such an active Principle in us that no one who really fears God but immediately seeks out all ways and betakes himself to all Courses to obtain his Favour So again Blessed is the Man that maketh the Lord his Trust Psal 40.4 The reason is because no Man can reasonably trust in God for the performance of his Promise but he must perform those Conditions upon which such Promises are made to him and the greater are his Hopes in God's Goodness and Truth for the making good his Promises the greater will be his Care and Diligence in such ways in which alone he can with reason Trust and Hope in Him And not to mention more even Life eternal is promis'd to the Knowledge of God and Jesus Christ This is Life eternal to Know Thee the only True God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent John 3.17 And why shall the Knowledge of God entitle any one to eternal Life Shall this be exclusive of Repentance and Obedience No by no means but as productive of 'em and indeed including 'em for it cannot easily be imagin'd but that he who throughly knows the Nature and Attributes of God and the Wise and Great Methods he has taken to Recover Mankind from their lost State and to reconcile 'em to Himself by his Son it cannot easily be imagin'd I say but that lie who thoroughly knows these things must betake himself to such Courses as will Reconcile both himself to God and God to him And he who seriously considers what he thus knows will undoubtedly take this Care And now this being premis'd By a Faith that is perfect and compleat as to all those Acts before-mention'd the like Observation may be made of the Promises of Justification and Salvation made to Faith or Believing Rom. 5.1 Gal. 3.8 Eph. 2.8 and in many other places These great and precious Promises are made to Faith as productive of Repentance and Obedience and indeed as including them for in Jesus Christ or in the Christian Religion or under the Christian Dispensation nothing availeth any thing but Faith which worketh by Love or which is perfected by Love Gal. 5.6 So that the Faith or Belief by which alone we shall be Justified and Sav'd must be perfect and compleat as to all those Acts before mention'd that is it must be so through a Perswasion of the Infallible Truth and Certainty of whatever God has reveal'd to us in the Holy Scriptures as thereby we must not only Assent with our Minds that all these Great Things are true which are revealed to us in the Gospel and summ'd up in our Creed but we must also heartily yield up the Consent of our Wills of our Affections and of the whole Man to be Govern'd in our whole Life and Conversation by those Great Truths and Doctrines And farther yet it must be a firm and steddy Reliance upon God that all his precious Promises of Pardon and Happiness shall be fully made good to us through Christ's Mediation upon our performing of the Conditions on which such this Promises were made Such a Faith as this through the Mediation of Christ obtaining that Benefit of God for us shall be accepted so that they who do so Believe shall be justified and saved but that Faith which is short of this is but maimed and imperfect it is but either the Faith of Devils mentioned by St. James 2.19 or the Faith of Hypocrites or in some respects or other defective and so shall not avail us to Justification or Salvation And this will fully appear to us This exemplify'd in the Faith of Abraham who if we consider the Faith of Abraham what it was concerning which we find several times in Scripture as Rom. 4.22 Jam. 2.23 this Honourable mention That it was imputed to him for Righteousness For such as was Abraham's Faith the Father of us all Rom. 4.16 Such must be our Faith if we will be the Children of Abraham and be blessed with Faithful Abraham Gal. 3.7.9 And as to Abraham's Faith The first great Act of it we find mentioned in the Scripture 1. Consented to the most difficult Performances at God's Command was his readily leaving at God's Command his own Country and his Father's House and his going into a Country that God should shew him Gen. 12.1 2. Which ready Obedience to God's Command of leaving his own Country was so acceptable to God that Gen. 15.6 it is said That this Believing on the Lord was accounted to him for Righteousness And this teaches us that whenever God is pleased to lay upon us the hardest Conditions such as was Abraham's leaving his own Country and his Father's House we must not boggle thereat but immediately consent to set about the performance of them as we will approve our Faith to God and have it accepted by him to our Justification 2. Rely'd firmly upon God's Promises in full assurance of his Power and Goodness to perform ' em A second Act of that Faith which was imputed to Abraham for Righteousness was his steddy Reliance Trust and Confidence in the Promises of God of granting him a numerous Offspring even after that in all human appearance it was impossible for him and Sarah to have Children Yet he against Hope believed in Hope that be might become the Father of many Nations And being not weak in Faith he considered not his own Body now dead when he was about an hundred years old neither yet the deadness of Sarah 's Womb He stagger'd not at the Promise through Vnbelief but was strong in Faith giving Glory to God And being fully perswaded that what he promised he was able also to perform therefore it was imputed to him for Righteousness That is this steadfast Faith and Reliance of
his upon the Divine Promises was a sign of the good Opinion he had of God's Power and Fidelity and was therefore most graciously accepted by him Rom. 4.18 19 20 21 22. Now this as the Apostle goes on v. 23 24 25. was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we Believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our Offences and was raised again for our Justification That is in this Act of Faith also in a steddy Reliance upon the Promises of God was Abraham a Pattern to us whereby we may see that if we distrust not his Power and Goodness in Matters of the greatest difficulty but firmly Relie upon him without Doubt or Dispute this will render us acceptable to him But especially it will be a most acceptable Act of Faith in us wholly to Relie upon his Promises in Christ who became a Sacrifice for our Sins that all our most heinous Offences will be pardon'd if we unfeignedly Repent and our imperfect Obedience will be eternally rewarded if it be but sincere in Testimony and Assurance of which Promises God has raised our Saviour from the dead And thus you plainly see what sort of Faith or Believing it is that must now Justifie and Save us It must not be only giving up the Assent of our Minds that all that God has spoken is true but we must with all our Hearts Consent to a sincere and faithful Obedience to all his Commands such as may be expected from those who are undoubtedly perswaded of the Truth of all the Articles of the Christian Faith which are every one of 'em Doctrines very apt to move us to Holy Living And moreover it must be a firm Reliance on God's Truth that all his Promises shall certainly be made good to us on Condition of our Performances Especially as the case now stands with us Christians it must be an Entire Dependance upon Christ that through his Mediation with the Father on our account we shall be Justify'd Pardon'd and Sav'd on Condition we perform the Covenant of Grace that is Believe and sincerely Obey the Commands of God given us in the Gospel Reliance upon God's Promises of Pardon to us through Christ an essential Act of Faith incumbent upon us as the case now stands with us Christians I say as the case now stands with us Christians for all Mankind by reason of Adam's and our own Transgressions were liable to the Wrath of God and had been condemn'd to eternal Destruction had not Jesus Christ interpos'd betwixt his Father and us and Mediated with him that we might have Pardon and Happiness on Condition we would turn from our evil Ways and sincerely Obey him for the future so that through the Blood of Jesus Christ it is that we have Redemption and the Forgiveness of Sins according to the Riches of his Grace Eph. 1.7 And as in him are given unto us exceeding great and precious Promises 2 Pet. 1.4 so all the Promises of God in him are Tea and in him Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 That is upon the account of Christ all his Promises of eternal Life and Happiness shall be certainly and infallibly made good to us on condition we forsake our Sins and obey him And yet when we have done all things which are commanded us we are to account our selves but unprofitable Servants having done no more than was our Duty to do Luke 17.10 And we cannot lay claim to those unspeakable Rewards laid up for his Obedient Servants meerly upon our own Deserts as if we had merited and deserved 'em but that no Flesh might Glory in his Presence it is Jesus Christ who is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 That is it is Jesus Christ who is the cause of our Justification and Sanctification and by the Merit of what he has done for us shall our imperfect Righteousness be so accepted of by God that we shall be unspeakably rewarded for it And if so if all our holy Performances shall be Accepted and Rewarded only through Christ it is on Him then and not on any thing that we have done our selves that we must depend and Relie for Pardon and Happiness For without his Merits to supply our Defects our best Performances will want Pardon and all that we can do will not merit nor deserve eternal Life and Glory Thus we must Believe that is Relie on Christ and we shall not perish but have everlasting Life John 3.16 And indeed this Reliance and Dependance upon God for Mercy Because it excludes Confidence in our own Merits and Boasting in our own Performances on the account of what Christ has Merited for us not on the account of any Deserts of our own appears in the Scriptures as I before said to be an Act of Faith more well-pleasing to God and acceptable unto him in that it excludes Boasting or Glorying in our own Righteousness which the Apostle makes very necessary to Justification Rom. 3. and expects the Reward meerly from God's Free Mercy in Christ without any Reliance upon our own Performances For as it is vers 23 24 25 26. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God being Justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Rightoousness that he might be Just and the Justifier of Him that Believeth in Jesus Where is Boasting then It is excluded By what Law The Law of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith therefore we conclude a Man is Justify'd by Faith without the Deeds of the Law Which brings me III. To shew you in what sence we are said to be Justify'd by Faith 3. In what sence we are said by S. Paul to be Justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law without the Deeds of the Law Both this Text of the Romans now mentioned and that Parallel place Gal. 2.16 seem to exclude Good Works from being at all necessary to our Justification And yet by what has been already said from St. Paul it does appear that Repentance and Obedience are Conditions equally requisite to our Justification with Faith Or when Faith alone is mentioned it is as including the other two and St. James also does most expresly assert that by Works a Man is Justified and not by Faith only Jam. 2.24 So that to clear the Holy Scripture from any Contradiction in this case it will be requisite to consider what St. Paul means by the Law and by the Deeds of the Law when he excludes either from having any thing to do in our Justification and what that Faith is upon which he does sometimes seem to lay the whole stress in that great Affair By Law in St. Pual's discourse with the Jews was meant both the Law of
of the Gospel proceeding from and produced by Faith or Works by which our Faith is demonstrated to be a true and real Faith c. 2.18 And the occasion of these Discourses of St. Paul and St. James was different which also was the reason they did so differently express themselves in this matter St. Paul had to deal with Jews Pharisees and false Teachers who pleaded the necessity of Observing the Law of Moses and also those Works and Deeds it prescrib'd which gave occasion to him to preach the Abrogation or Cancelling of that Law S. Paul having to deal with Pharisaical Jews boasting of their own Righteousness according to the Law and the substitution of the Gospel in its stead as a Rule of Righteousness the Believing of which in such a manner as has been spoke he declared would be sufficient through God's Mercy in Christ to their Justification And tho' he took all care that was requisite to prevent the misunderstanding of him as if a meer Opinionative Faith would serve the turn by assuring them at the same time he told 'em that in Christ neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision would avail any thing yet that Faith which worketh by Love would Gal 5.6 That is that it must be such a Faith as must be made perfect by the addition of those Duties which we owe to God and our Neighbour yet Men of corrupt Minds reprebate concerning the Faith or void of Judgment concerning the Faith as St. Paul complains of some 2 Tim. 3.8 perverted his meaning in this his excellent Doctrine and turn'd all to this sence That a meer Assent of the Mind to the Truth of the Gospel tho' they were careless in the subduing of their Passions and bridling of their Tongues and regulating of their Actions S. James having to do with Solifidiant Libertines pleading their Faith separated from Gospel Righteousness was all that was necessary to their Justification And thereupon they thought themselves safe upon the Account of their Barren Faith though they were Proud and Conceited of their Knowledge and Attainments Censorious and Contentious Unmerciful and Uncharitable which Error concerning Faith prevailing much in those Early Times occasion'd St. James with a great deal of Earnestness to plead and to prove the Necessity of Good Works to our being justify'd before God And that neither Faith nor good Works alone but both jointly were the Condition now under the Gospel upon which we shall be justify'd and approved of by God as Just and Righteous Persons And he proves it by the Instance of Abraham's Faith Jam. 2.21 22 and 23. Was not Abraham our Father justify'd by Works when he had offer'd his Son Isaac upon the Altar See'st thou how Faith wrought with his Works and by Works his Faith was made perfect And the Scripture was fulfill'd which saith Abraham Believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness and he was called the Friend of God So that St. James's Doctrine of Justification is not a contradiction but a vindication of St. Paul's from the False Glosses of Solifidian Libertines And it were happy for these latter Ages if St. James's Doctrine concerning the necessary Conjunction of Faith and good Works to our Justification could have put a stop to Men's Mis-interpretations of the other Great Apostle in this Point But alas to the grievous Scandal of the Reformation too many amongst us have heretofore and do to this day earnestly contend for those Mistakes which our Adversaries make great Advantages of who greedily catching at any thing of Error profess'd by any Party of Men under the Denomination of Protestants are never backward to lay the Scandal of it to the whole Reformation to the very great hindrance of its Progress But above all the Mischief of this Opinion reacheth directly to the Destruction of Men's Souls whilst being deceiv'd in the Nature of Justifying Faith and thinking it to be a meer Assent of the Mind to the Great Truths of Christianity which is but the Act only of one Faculty of the Soul and not looking upon it as implying a Consent also of the Will to act agreeably to the Nature of such practical Truths they do most fatally presume themselves to be Christians indeed and such as shall be saved by Christ tho' their Lives declare them to be far from being New Creatures from being renewed in the Spirit of their Minds as those are who have been taught as the Truth is in Jesus Eph. 4 21 23. And therefore since so much depends upon a right Understanding of this great Doctrine of Justifying Faith it will not appear to you to be without Reason that I have been so large in the Explication thereof In speaking to which having 1. shew'd you in general what it is to Believe together with the Effects and Fruits of True Believing and 2. having more particularly explain'd unto you the Nature of Justifying and Saving Faith 3. Now it remains only that by way of Inference I should lay before you 3. The several sorts of Defective Faith mention'd in Scripture wherein the defect of several sorts of Faith does lie which we find both by Scripture and Experience that many do relie upon but yet will by no means justifie and save ' em And from what has been said it does appear that the Faith which will not Justifie and Save us must be some way or other defective and lame as to those several Acts which I have shew'd must go to compleat the Nature of Justifying Faith And there are several sorts of Believers we find mention made of in the Scripture which fall short of having that Faith which will alone Justifie and Save us And 1. We have the Faith of Devils mention'd Jam. 2.19 1. The Faith of Devils which is no more than a bare Assent of the Mind that there is a God One who is Merciful to them that serve Him but terrible in Judgment to those who disobey Him and the like of the other Articles Thou Believest there is one God thou dost well the Devils also Believe and tremble But wilt thou know O vain Man that Faith without Works is dead Jam. 2.19 20. The Devils though they do Believe and are throughly perswaded and do know that there is a God infinitely Merciful Just and Holy who cannot endure Iniquity nor Sin yet out of Enmity to Him or because they will not conform themselves to that Holy Being which they so much hate or because no Promise is made to them of Pardon and Happiness that should encourage them to Repent of their Apostacy from God and to conform themselves to his Holy Laws whatever is the reason this is certain that they are utterly disobedient and though they do Believe yet because their Faith is only a meer Assent of the Mind to the Truths of Religion and does not render 'em Obedient their Believing therefore will avail 'em nothing to Pardon and Happiness 2. Another sort of Lame and Defective Faith
2. The faith without Works which we find mention made of in the Scriptures as that which will as little avail us as the former is a Dead Faith And this we are told in the same Scriptures what it is that it is also a bare Assent of the Mind only which does not stir up the Will to chuse nor the Affections to delight in the Laws of God but is utterly barren and fruitless in Good Works Faith if it hath not Works is dead being alone Jam. 2.17 And so far is such a Faith as this which does not move and stir us up to Good Works from being acceptable to God to our Justification and Salvation that v. 19 20. it is compared to the Faith of Devils and is reckon'd no better 3. A little Faith and Faith which has not taken deep root in the Heart 3. Again We find mention in the Scriptures of a Little Faith Matth. 6.30 and of Faith that has not taken root Luke 8.13 Either of which is a Faith which will carry Men to something of Religious Performances but is not strong enough to bear 'em up under the Difficulties of Religion and through all the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil Thus those who in the use of honest means cannot trust in God for the providing themselves of all things necessary for this Life but are full of carking Thoughts for the morrow that is for the future are upbraided by our Saviour Matth. 6.30 as Persons of Little Faith Why take you thought for Raiment If God so cloath the Grass of the Field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the Oven shall he not much more cloath you O ye of little Faith And those who when shockt with any Temptations do thereupon yield because their Faith hath taken no root they are compared to stony Ground of which it is said that when they hear they receive the Word with Joy but not having root these do but for a while Believe and in time of Temptation fall away Luke 8.13 4. Even the Faith of Miracles will prove insufficient to Justification if not accompany'd with Obedience 4. As to that which may be defective and fall short of a Justifying and Saving Faith this we are told even the Faith of Miracles will do if it be not accompany'd with Good Works This Miraculous Faith we find often mention'd in the Scriptures And it was a strong Perswasion wrought in the Party by the Spirit of God that by the Power and Authority of Jesus he should do such a Miracle beyond the Power of Nature to be perform'd as the casting out Devils by the Word of his Mouth But even this Faith of Miracles if it is not accompany'd with Good Works of which Charity and Love to one another is the chief will signifie nothing so says St. Paul 1 Cor. 13.2 Tho' I have all Faith so that I could remove Mountains and have no Charity I am nothing Especially accompany'd with Pride Many we are told Matth. 7. will presume much upon their excellent Gifts of Prophecying or Preaching fluently and of their Power even to cast out Devils but yet our Saviour protests he will not so much as know them if they have been wicked Livers if proud and full of themselves and contemptuous of others as Gifted Persons are apt to be Many will say unto me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophecy'd in thy Name and in thy Name cast out Devils and in thy Name done many wonderful Works And then will I profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work Iniquity vers 22 23. No nothing he assures us will ever avail us to Happiness and Salvation less than such a Faith as will procure a sincere Obedience to his Holy Will and Commandments Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the Will af my Father which is in Heaven v. 21. 5. The Faith of Hypocrites Lastly Another sort of Faith which will not Justifie nor Save us may be stiled the Faith of Hypocrites and this is the Faith of such who expect to be Justified and Sav'd meerly for Believing or rather for Relying and Recumbing upon Christ without performing the other Conditions of Repentance and Obedience which are the necessary Effects or Ingredients rather of Justifying and Saving Faith and without which it is not our Believing alone which will at all avail us Of this sort were many among the Jews of old of whom the Prophets do often complain that looking upon themselves as a Chosen Nation as a peculiar People whom God had Elected out of all the Nations of the Earth to bestow his Favours upon Such was the Faith of many among the Jews presuming that they were a chosen People they would confidently lean and depend upon him that he would assuredly be their God and that they should be his People notwithstanding that they gave themselves up to work all Unrighteousness and were cruel Extortioners Oppressors and the like Thus Micah 3.9 11. They abhor Judgment and pervert Equity yet they will lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord among us None Evil can come upon us And Isaiah complains that tho' they would swear falsly by the Name of the Lord yet they had the Confidence to call themselves the Holy City and to stay themselves upon the God of Israel Isai 48.1 2. And there are too many also amongst us Christians And such is the Faith also of many Christians presuming likewise that they are the Elect. who confidently presuming that they are the Elect Children of GOD do undoubtedly hope for all that Pardon and Happiness which Christ with the Price of his most Precious BLOOD hoth obtained for us meerly upon the account of their firmly Believing that Christ hath done all for 'em and if they can but Believe this they fondly perswade themselves they shall certainly be Justify'd let them be never so Wicked and Disobedient to God's most Righteous Laws yea tho' they are Proud Boasters Covetous Envious and Bitter Revilers of those who are much better than themselves And in this their wholly depending upon Christ without any Good in themselves they think they shall most Honour Christ and set forth the Greatness of his Redemption of us whereas to preach the necessity of our own Righteousness tho' wrought by his Grace and accompany'd with many Defects were to teach Men to depend as they foolishly enough imagine not upon the Merits of Christ but their own Deserts which are none at all and so would derogate from and lessen the Grace of Christ and the Greatness of that Redemption he hath wrought for us And this sort of Faith or Dependence upon Christ alone as those before mention'd Micah 3.11 and Isai 48.1 2. So our Christian Hypocrites likewise call Leaning upon the Lord and casting themselves upon the God of Israel a
Leaning and Rolling themselves upon the Promises of Christ for Salvation But for any to expect to be Justify'd and Accepted by God without forsaking their evil Ways and without working out also their own Salvation with fear and trembling that is without being extreamly careful themselves to be Obedient to God's most Holy Laws is gross Hypocrisie and will miserably deceive us Hypocrisie is with vain Shews and Pretences to deceive our selves or others and to be only Hearers or Believers of the Word and not Doers is to deceive our selves St. James tells us 1. 22. And a greater than he even our Blessed Saviour himself hath assured us Mat. 7.21 That not everyone who saith unto him Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the Will of his Father which is in Heaven And as for the Pretence they have to live securely in unrepented Habits of Sin that the Grace and Mercy of Christ is more Magnify'd the greater Sinners they are I answer That the greater Sinners they have been the greater is the Mercy which Forgives 'em when they do repent according to that of the Apostle Rom. 5.20 21. Where Sin abounded Grace did much more abound that as Sin hath reigned unto Death even so might Grace reign through Jesus Christ our Lord. But to make the Magnifying of God's Grace a Reason for Security whilst Men continue in Sin this indeed was a false Conclusion that some in the First Times as well as now were apt to draw from St. Paul's Doctrine of Justification but which that Great Apostle rejected with the utmost Indignation and Abhorrence in the next Chapter v. 1 2. What shall we say then Shall we continue in Sin that Grace may abound God forbid How shall we that are dead to Sin live any longer therein No sure the Doctrine of Christianity tho' it lays aside the Original Law of Righteousness and the Law of Moses from being either of 'em a Rule of Righteousness in conforming to which we shall be Justify'd yet this Doctrine most strictly obliges us to a sincere Reformation from all former Sins and to a Newness of Life as the indispensible Condition of being Justify'd by God Nor is there the least occasion given us by this Doctrine to value our selves upon our own Righteous Performances when it is only of Grace that we are able to do any thing which is good and the Acceptance of the Good we do is owing to the Mediation of Christ who obtained such Gracious Terms and Conditions of Justification for us Which Considerations as I have already made appear do sufficiently shew that we are Justify'd freely by God's Grace in Christ and do exclude all Grounds and Occasion of Boasting A summary account of justifying Faith In a word and to conclude this whole Point the only Faith or Belief that will Justifie and Save us must be such a full Perswasion of the Truth of Christianity and all its Great Doctrines those I mean which are in a peculiar manner call'd the Articles of our Christian Faith it must be such a through Perswasion I say of those great and powerful Truths as will purifie us in Heart and Life and will effectually excite us to live up to the Rules of Christianity and make us sincerely and heartily to Obey God in all his most Holy and Righteous Laws And it must be such withal as will cause us to depend solely upon God's Mercies in Christ for the Acceptance of our imperfect Righteousness to our Justification And all those kinds of Faith call 'em what you will which are barren of unfruitful in Good Works or if they stir us up to encounter some Difficulties do not bear us up under all Temptations nor enable us to perform the more difficult Instances of Christian Duty and Obedience those which are most contrary to our Lusts and Interests as well as the more easie which are agreeable to our Profit or Pleasure The Faith that is not powerful enough to carry us through all Temptations is defective to the great Purposes of Justifying and Saving us The necessity of our often incalculating such a Faith And moreover I must acquaint you that the necessity of a working Faith to that end as it is the great Doctrine of Christianity so it ought to be throughly explain'd and often insisted upon by us Ministers of the Gospel for fear of People's Mistakes in this matter which will be most dangerous to their Souls And accordingly St. Paul lays a solemn Charge upon us Tit. 3.8 that we should in the same manner I have already done explain and inculcate the Doctrine of Faith unto you This is a faithful Saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have Believed in God might be careful to maintain Good Works for these things or these Doctrines are profitable unto Men. THE XXXI Lecture I Believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth I Have already shew'd you what it is to Believe that our Faith must be such as rectifies and renews our Corrupt Nature as moves us to the performance of the most difficult Instances of Christian Duty and such as after all causes us to relie solely upon the Mercies of God in Christ for the Acceptance of our imperfect Obedience to our Justification And now by the Divine Assistance I shall proceed to explain unto you all those sacred Truths contain'd in your Creed which are of such mighty Importance And there are not a few such powerful and practical Truths imply'd in this one Article I Believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth Towards the full Explication of which that it may effectually work a blessed Change both in our Hearts and Lives I will do these Things I. I will in some measure declare unto you the Nature and Infinite Perfections of that Divine Being which we call God I Believe in God II. I will prove to you that this Infinitely perfect Being out of his Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness made the Heaven and the Earth and all Things both Visible and Invisible therein contain'd Maker of Heaven and Earth III. I will explain and prove that this same God who made the Heaven and the Earth does now exercise a most Wise Just and Good Providence over it and every thing therein contain'd which is the Importance of the Word Almighty in this Article as shall be shew'd hereafter IV. I might here demonstrate to you that there is but one God for so the Nicene Creed which is but a Paraphrase upon this does teach us I Believe in one God And Lastly that in the Vnity of the Godhead there is a Trinity of Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost I Believe in God the Father And the other two Persons are also mention'd in their proper place But because I would be as little guilty as possible in this Exposition of repeating hereafter what I have said before I shall referr the Doctrine of
understood were it not that the many Controversies about it about its Object and the Acts of the Soul necessary to it had puzzled Mens Minds and distracted their Apprehensions concerning it Things absolutely necessary to Salvation as they are not many so there are hardly any Doctrines delivered with more plainness than they that the Weak who are as much concerned in them as the Strong might competently understand them as well as they Men may multiply Notions about Faith as the Scripture useth various expressions about it But I doubt not but that the general sense of the Scripture hereabout may be summarily expressed in this plain Proposition That saving Faith is such a Belief of Christ to be the Son of God and of the truth of his Doctrine especially touching the virtue of his Death and Resurrection and the necessity of amendment of Life for the obtaining Remission of Sin and Eternal Life as causeth a Man to deny all Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts and to Live a Godly Righteous and a Sober Life This is so plain in Scripture as that there is no Christian so weak but may easily come to understand it and so evident that none who acknowledge the Truth of the Gospel can deny it That I may state the difference then between Effectual and Ineffectual Faith and matters relating to them with all the plainness I can I shall very briefly endeavour these five things I. To open the comprehensive Nature of Faith II. Shew wherein the defect lies of that Faith which is not saving III. Shew whence that defect proceeds IV. How and after what manner Faith in the Vnderstanding works savingly upon the Will V. Answer some few Objections CHAP. I. I. The Comprehensive Nature of saving Faith opened THat I may open the comprehensive Nature of Faith the better I shall first observe how variously the Condition upon which saving Benefits are promised is expressed in Scripture and then what actings of the Soul are thereby signified It is thus variously expressed in Scripture Sometimes it 's called a believing God Rom. 4.3 Gal. 3.6 a believing in God 1 Pet. 1.21 a believing on God Rom. 4.24 a believing the Record which God hath given of his Son 1 Joh. 5.10 Sometimes it 's called a believing on Christ Joh. 3.16 36. Acts 16.31 a believing him to be the Christ the Son of God Joh. 20.31 1 Joh. 5.5 It 's called Faith in his Blood Rom. 3.25 a believing that God raised him from the dead Rom. 10.9 Sometimes it 's called a believing of the Gospel Mar. 16.15 16. a believing of the Truth 2 Thes 2.15 a believing the testimony of the Apostles 2 Thes 1.10 Sometimes it is expressed under the Notion of Repentance Acts 2.38 and 3.19 and 11.18 2 Cor. 7.10 and sometimes of Obedience 1 John 1.7 Pet. 1.2 Heb. 5.9 The Condition of the Promise of saving Benefits being thus variously expressed can signifie no less than a three-fold Act of the Soul The first being the Act of the Understanding The second of the Will The third of the Understanding and Will conjunct 1. Such expressions of the Condition of the Promise as is the believing in God the believing his Record the believing the Gospel the believing Christ to be the Son of God do most properly signifie the Act of the Mind or Understanding in Assenting to the truth of what God testifieth or promiseth Which assent is grounded upon a knowledge or belief of God's Veracity his Truth and Faithfulness armed with All-sufficiency of Power Wisdom and Goodness to make good his Word to a tittle And although such expressions as aforesaid do most properly signifie the act of the Understanding yet whenever saving Benefits are promised and the Condition expressed in such a form of Words as doth most properly and primarily signifie the Assent of the Mind even then the act of the Will in Consenting to the Condition is implyed and ought to be understood as I shall fully prove in the next Particular And the reason why the whole of the Promise relating to the Consent of the Will as well as the Assent of the Understanding is frequently expressed in such a form of words as primarily and strictly signifie the Assent of the Mind is I conceive because such Assent of the Mind is the Principle from which all concurrent acts of the Will necessary to Justification and Salvation do proceed And it is of frequent use in Scripture to denominate the whole of Religion by some one Principal part which is a fruitful Principle of all the rest Thus the Knowledge of the true God and of Jesus Christ whom-he hath sent is said to be Eternal Life Joh. 17.3 And thus some times the Fear of God and sometimes the Love of God is put for the whole of Mens saving Religiousness and the same Promise of Blessedness made to one of these singly exprest is to be extended to the whole In like manner the whole of Christianity is frequently denominated by Faith and the Christians stiled Believers and the Houshold of Faith and the like and all because that Christian Life of theirs by which they differ from other Men flows from their Faith which is the first active Principle of it 2. Another act of the Soul essentially necessary to that Faith which is the Condition of the Promise is the Consent of the Will to Repent to receive Christ as Lord and King to be governed by his Laws as well as to own him for a Priest once Offering himself and ever making Intercession for us For the Condition of the Promise of Pardon and Salvation is expressed under the notion of Repentance and sometimes of Obedience as I shewed before And Repentance and Obedience are acts of the Will as renewed And that there is no Promise of saving Benefits upon meer Believing without observing that part of the Condition which consisteth in Repentance Regeneration and Obedience is most evident Because they are expresly excluded in Scripture from having any share in the saving Benefits of the Covenant Justification or Salvation who do not Repent Luke 13.3 who are not Regenerate Joh. 3.5 who Love not the Lord Jesus Christ and that above any Worldly Enjoyment 1 Cor. 16.22 Matth. 10.37 and who do not Obey him Acts 3.22 23. Luke 19.27 2 Thes 1.7 By all which we may certainly know that whenever there is Promise of Justification and Salvation made to Believing it is to be understood of such a Believing as doth at that instant in which a Man believes savingly produce a sincere Consent of the Will to Repent to Love Christ and to Obey him For otherwise those Scriptures and these would be inconsistent For if Men cannot be Pardoned nor delivered from the Curse nor be safe from Destruction until they have Repented are Regenerate do love Christ and Obey the Gospel as the forecited Scriptures do assure us they cannot then no Faith whatsoever is justifying or can entitle them to Pardon and Salvation according to the Tenour
a Conclusion we must not content our selves in this great Work of Renouncing ALL the sinful Lusts of the Flesh that we have our Minds enlighten'd so as to know what we ought to do whilst our Affections and Bodily Powers do remain Rebellious against the Dictates of our Minds and Consciences But we must have our whole Natures possest with an Aversion an Antipathy from the very Heart against all Sin and we must have both the Mind Will and Affections nay the very Lusts and Appetites fully bent against it And we must have on the contrary a hearty Love and Disposition to all Vertue wrought in all the same Faculties both of Soul and Body We must be Renewed in the Spirit of our Minds and put on the New Man which after God is Created in Righteousness and true Holiness Eph. 4.23 24. And when a Person is thus inwardly Chang'd throughout in all the Faculties and Powers of Soul and Body it is then only that he can be truly said to be a New Creature a New Man And this indeed This the hard Part. to become thus Renew'd in the Spirit of our Minds so as to have the Heart and Affections set against Sin and sinful Pleasures as well as the Mind convinc'd of the Evil of 'em is the hard Work This is certain that it is not possible for any Man to work so great a Change in his Nature of himself but it is the Spirit of God that must assist wonderfully in the doing of it And indeed That we may be said sincerely and throughly to Renounce the Flesh and ALL its sinful Lusts that Renovation of our Corrupted Nature wherein this Renunciation does consist must be such as is wrought in us by the Spirit and Grace of God This I say because it is very possible for a Man to be Chang'd from some sensual Courses to an utter Hatred thereof and yet remain in God's Eyes a Carnal and Vnregenerate Man and the reason is because his Change proceeds not from any Inward Vital Principle of Vertue but from some prudential Methods in the management of his Pleasures as some the most sensual Epicures that live shall become at length temperate and sober because their Constitutions will not bear a Debauch but as the Spirit of God had nothing to do in the Change so in their Hearts and Minds they remain still to be sensual And others again you shall meet who have a full Conviction in their Minds and Consciences through the Preaching of the Word of the Evil of Sin and yet in their Affections they Love it and their Lusts and Appetites Rebelling against the Reason of their Mind will have it and their Wills do finally chuse it so that these Persons with the Mind do serve the Law of God but with the Flesh the Law of Sin as St. Paul in that much mistaken Chapter Rom. 7.25 does represent as was now shew'd you the Case of the Carnal Jew abiding only under the Conviction of the Law But where the Spirit of God works the Change that Person is Sanctify'd wholly and the whole Spirit and Soul and Body will be preserved Blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Thes 5.23 So that such a Person shall effectually Renounce the Flesh and all its sinful Lusts both of the Inward and of the Outward Man And accordingly as we will draw nigh to God and have him draw nigh to us we must cleanse our hands and purifie our hearts and not be double-minded Jam. 4.8 We must through the Help of his Grace Cleanse our selves from all Filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting Holiness in the Fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 We must be always I say in the perfecting of one Degree after another our Holiness and that Image of God which we lost by our Fall for the subduing of All our Lusts must be the Work of Time and it is not of a sudden that we can get an entire Conquest over 'em ALL. But if in our Strivings against 'em we find our selves still more and more to get ground upon 'em we are in a hopeful Condition In a Word therefore Brethren we are Debtors not to the Flesh to live after the Flesh for if ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if through the Spirit ye do Mortify the Deeds of the Body ye shall live for as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. 12.13 14. The Reason of having enlargd so much upon this one Article of Renouncing the Devil c. And so I have at length done with this no less Important than Copious Subject the Renouncing of the Devil the World and the Flesh It may seem indeed as if I have been too long upon the Explication of one single Article of our Covenant viz. the Renouncing the Devil and all his Works the Pomps and Vanity of this wicked World and All the Sinful Lusts of the Flesh But if it be considered that half the Business of our Christian Religion is performed in Resisting the Enemies of our Salvation it will not be a Matter of Blame that I have been so long upon this Point especially in Instructing of Youth about it who ought to be very well fore-arm'd in order to their coming off Conquerors The truth of it is this Renouncing of the World the Flesh and the Devil that is the Resisting and Overcoming of all their Numerous Host of Temptations is the Christian's Warfare and great Work For as the Holy Scriptures do in a multitude of Texts Represent our State as a State of Warfare Fight the good Fight of Faith lay hold on Eternal Life for hereunto ye have been called before many Witnesses 1 Tim. 6.12 That is we Listed our selves in this Warfare at our Baptism in the Presence of the Church of Christ As our State I say is a State of Warfare against all these Spiritual Enemies so it does infinitely concern all of us to know as far as is possible All their Arts and Stratagems to deceive us and this I hope will be a sufficient Apology that I have been so improportionably long to what I have and shall be upon other Heads in shewing you what it is and how far you must Renounce the Devil and all his Works the Pomps and Vanity of this wicked World and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh THE XXII Lecture Secondly That I should Believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith HAVING largely Explain'd the first Condition of Life and Happiness and shew'd you what I conceive is meant by Renouncing the Devil and all his Works the Pomps and Vanity of this wicked World and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh I come now to do the like as to the Second Condition upon which we are to expect to be Justify'd to have our Sins Pardon'd and Eternal Life and Happiness conferr'd upon us and which we have also Covenanted with God to do and that is that We Believe all
the Articles of our Christian Faith In order to the Explication of which Point 1. I will declare to you the General Nature of those ARTICLES or Christian Truths which are to be Believed 2. I will shew you What it is to BELIEVE those Articles or Christian Truths so as to make us capable of Life and Happiness And 3. I will shew you how we must Believe ALL the Articles of the Christian Faith And First I am to declare to you something in General Articles of Christian Faith of what Nature The whole Bible the Object of a Christian's Faith both concerning the Nature of those ARTICLES or Christian Truths which are to be Believed The whole Bible both Old and New Testament is the proper Object of a Christian's Faith and whatever we find therein Recorded or deliver'd down to us we are to believe as a Divine Certain and Infallible Truth because all things therein contain'd are the Word of Him who will not who cannot Lie who neither can be deceiv'd himself nor will he deceive others As to the Old Testament and the Writings of the Prophets the Old Testament and the Jehosophat in a solemn Assembly of the whole People upon a solemn Fast-day 2 Chron. 20.20 Proclaimed unto them stood up and said Hear me O Judah and Inhabitants of Jerusalem believe in the Lord your God so shall you be Established believe his Prophets so shall ye Prosper And let the Declarations of God Recorded therein be of what Nature they will the Truth of them is by no means to be called in doubt If you will not Believe surely ye shall not be Established Isa 7.9 And so likewise as to the New Testament New Our Saviour upon his Entrance to preach the Gospel did in the first place require of all Men to Believe it Jesus came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and Believe the Gospel Mark 1.14 15. And when he was also leaving the World and Commission'd his Disciples to go into all the World and to preach the Gospel to every Creature He declar'd that he that Believeth shall be Saved but he that Believeth not shall be Damned Mark 16.15 16. So that both the Old and New Testament and every part and parcel of Scripture therein contain'd is firmly to be Believ'd as the Divine Certain and Infallible Truth of God And the reason thereof as to the Old Testament is Because Prophecy came not in Old time by the Will of Man but Holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 And we are also firmly to believe all the parts both of Old and New indifferently because all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in Righteousness that the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good Works 2 Tim. 3.16 All the parts of it are the Dictates and Word of God himself and are more or less Useful to our Edification and Improvement in Divine Knowledge Faith and Practice And therefore all Ranks and Degrees of Men and of every Age Young as well as Old ought diligently to Study and firmly to Believe the Holy Scriptures The Bereans did so and they were accounted the more Honourable for so doing The Bereans were more Noble than those in Thessalonica in that they Received or Believed the Word with all readiness of Mind and searched the Scriptures daily Act. 17.11 And it is Recorded to the Immortal Honour of Timothy 2 Epist 3.15 that from a Child he had known the Scriptures which were able to make him wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus Some Truths Revealed in Scripture of greater Importance and Concernment to us than others Well but tho' all Scripture as being the Infallible Word of him who neither can be deceiv'd himself nor will deceive others does Challenge the Belief of every Christian yet among the great multitude of Truths of various Kinds deliver'd in the Scriptures some are of far greater Importance and Concernment to us than others because they do more immediately and directly tend to give us due and worthy Apprehensions of God and to Instruct us in the only sure Method of Salvation by Jesus Christ There are some Principal Doctrines of Christianity which are in their own Nature apt to have a greater Influence upon our Lives and more powerfully to restrain us from a Course of Sin and to unite us to the Practice of Vertue and Holiness than others and when they have done this to send us to God the Father to seek for Acceptance meerly through Christ his Son And upon these and the like accounts therefore such Truths as these are more particularly necessary to be Believ'd by us in order to our Justification before God and to our Salvation in the other World And must therefore be distinctly Known and explicitely Believ'd and are therefore called the Articles of our Christian Faith being a Summary and Collection of such Doctrines out of the Holy Scriptures as are of a more Concerning Nature than the rest All those other Truths of what Nature soever contain'd in the Holy Scriptures are indeed necessary also to be Believ'd at least-wise Implicitely that is we are to be possest with a General Perswasion that they are all certainly true because God has Reveal'd them as such But these latter which we call the Articles of our Christian Faith must be positively and Explicitely Believ'd that is we must throughly understand 'em and be assuredly and distinctly perswaded of each single Truth contained in 'em as without which understanding and perswasion a Good and Christian Life will not be wrought in us nor a reliance on God's Merits in Christ for the acceptance thereof Created in our Souls Such for instance is the Belief that there is a God Some Instances of such Truths for this is the very first Principle of all Religion and must necessarily make us stand in awe and fear of offending him if we throughly believe and consider it Such is the Belief that he is our Father who Created us and all the World for this will make us love him who gave us our Being And such again is the Belief that he Exercises a just and wise Providence in the Government of the World for this will make us submit our selves to all his Dispensations as being the Appointments of One who knows better than our selves what is Best for us And to instance also in some which are the Truths purely of Reveal'd Religion Such is the Belief that the Son of God came down from Heaven to suffer Death for us to Redeem us from the Punishments of Hell for this as it shews us how Odious a thing Sin is when nothing less could satisfy God's Justice against it than the precious Blood of the Son of God and