armed with authority from Heaven as by that means it does and when the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdom shall be produced laid open and urged to make it good and enforce it The Scriptures themselves will be found of more authority in the Consciences of men than the best words men can speak though never so rational and true In a word as Apollos was a man mighty in the Scriptures so he mightily convinced his hearers by the Scriptures Acts 18.24 28. I need not mention unto you how much it was St. Paul's manner to reason out of the Scriptures of the old Testament before those of the New were in being when he had to do with those that owned them Acts 17.2 and 28.23 Nor how our Lord Christ himself collected and brought together the things concerning himself which were scattered up and down in Moses and the Prophets and expounded them to his Disciples and thereby opened their understandings and caused their hearts to burn within them and that I think is not unlike the operation of the Motives of the Gospel I have been speaking of Luke 24.27 32 45 46. There is one thing more which I must add to obviate an objection and another to explain and confirm something I have asserted I know some and perhaps your self will be ready to object That the tenour of my reasoning touching God's imputing Faith it self and other inherent Grace for Righteousness in justifying men tends to confound Justification and Sanctification and to make them all one But that follows not at all For Sanctification is the constituting or making men Evangelically righteous or holy by the joint operation of God's Holy Spirit and the Evangelical Doctrine but Justification is God's pronouncing or declaring them as he doth in the Gospel to be righteous according to the terms of the Gospel as having performed the condition upon which forgiveness of Sin and eternal Life are therein promised Justification is a Juridical act of God as Judge which doth not make a man righteous as sanctification doth but upon tryal pronounceth him to be so and by it the person tried is acquited and discharged from the accusation of unbelief impenitency and wilful disobedience to the Gospel and so also from Condemnation it self So that Justification is not Sanctification but supposeth it as antecedent thereunto at least in order of nature Whom he called them he also justified saith St. Paul and whom he justified them he also glorified Rom. 8.30 He doth not say whom he justified them he also sanctified but them also he glorified Sanctification is not brought in between Justification and Glorification in that golden Chain but is placed in order as going before both in effectual calling The other thing I would add for explanation and confirmation is this Whereas I have said that the Faith which is imputed for Righteousness is comprehensive of Repentance and Obedience to the Gospel Now least you should not be satisfied therewith I shall give you this plain account why we cannot reasonably understand otherwise For the Scripture doth exclude such from sharing in the saving benefits of the Covenant as are impenitent unregenerate and disobedient to the Gospel Luke 13.3 Joh. 3.3 Rom. 2.8 And if so then no man can share in those saving benefits whereof Justification is one until his Faith doth produce Repentance Regeneration and Obedience unless you will suppose that which no man does that these are no efffects of Faith For he that believes is born of God is to a degree renewed to his likeness 1 John 5.1 And when I say thus I am not of opinion that men cannot be justified until they have fulfilled some time in a course of holy living and new obedience internal and external But when a man so believes as that such a real change is thereby wrought in the heart as is the beginning of a new life for the present and the foundation of a holy life for the future then undoubtedly he passeth out of an unjustified into a justified state This change in the mind and will by means of Faith doth first constitute a man a good man and when this change first takes place then God's Laws are first put into the mind and written in the heart upon which God promiseth in the New Covenant to be our God and that we shall be his People and that he will be merciful to our unrighteousness and our sins and iniquities to remember no more Hebr. 8.10 12. and 10.16 17. And it is observable that the qualification upon which God in the New Covenant here mentioned promiseth to be our God and to forgive our sins is not mentioned under the Name or Notion of Faith or Believing but of having the Divine Laws put into the mind and written in the heart Which would be somewhat strange if this writing the Law in the heart were no part of the Condition without which God will not vouchsafe unto any man that great benefit of the Covenant Justification There is no doubt indeed but that though Faith be not here mentioned yet it is supposed and implyed in as much as without it the Law cannot be written in the heart in the sense we speak of it now But then when at other times Faith only is mentioned as that which qualifies men for Justification and as the Condition of the promise of Pardon and Salvation yet then this writing of the Law in the heart is also to be understood For it is not to be imagined that the putting of the Law into the mind and writing it in the heart would be mentioned in a description of the tenour of the New Covenant as that qualification upon which God will be our God take us for his people and forgive our sins which imply Justification if any Faith or Faith in any respect short of producing this effect would be available and sufficient unto Justification It 's true the Scripture in some places tells us that Faith is imputed for Righteousness without telling us what or what manner of Faith this is But then in other places it is plainly described to us by the nature of its operation as that it purifieth the heart Acts 15.9 worketh by love Gal. 5.6 overcometh the world 1 John 5.4 and sanctifieth the whole man Acts 26.18 We see then that the inseparable effects of Faith as here the writing of the Law in the heart are sometimes mentioned as those things which qualifie us for the blessing of the Covenant and sometimes Faith it self only But if we will take the whole testimony of the Scriptures together we shall find that both are intended And why then should we contend as some do about dividing these in qualifying us for Justification as parts of that Evangelical Righteousness which will be imputed to us for Righteousness After all this let me tell you Sir That there is a sense in which it is not disagreeable to the Scripture to say that a man is justified by such acts of
unto justification of life actually if they do not wilfully neglect and reject them And less than this I see not how the Apostle's words can signifie if you consider the nature of the Comparison he makes between the effects of the first Adam's disobedience and the second Adam's obedience in reference unto all men without exception of any As by the disobedience of the former all men were brought under an utter incapacity of being justified and saved so long as the original Covenant in the Rigour of its Sanction remained in force So by the obedience of the latter all men are put into a capacity of being justified and saved by vertue of new terms in the new Covenant which are obtained thereby and by which the old terms are Cancelled or Superseded These things being so I leave you to judge whether there be any need of or any occasion for such a formal imputation of Christ's righteousness unto our justification to answer the Law in its demands of perfect legal obedience as a condition of it and the accusations thereof for want of it as Mr. F. contends for and Mr. S. opposeth For this demand and this accusation was taken off so soon as the new Covenant founded by God in Christ's active and passive obedience took place And this benefit of having new terms of life granted which accrues to the world by Christ's Mediatory undertaking does not at all depend upon our believing in Christ but is absolutely free and that wherein he hath been aforehand with us and with all men which have been born into the world since the Covenant of Grace did first commence and remains made good to them whether they beleive it or no. So that from thence forth no man shall be condemned for want of a perfect legal Righteousness but only for want of an Evangelical righteousness And because this is a matter of weight I will add yet somthing further to prove that this new Covenant by which the terms of the old are cancel'd is made and establisht in Christ not only with some part of mankind viz. Such as shall be saved as some would restrain it who think it in the nature of it absolute and not conditonal no not in reference to particular persons which yet it must needs be if made to all unless all were eventually to be saved but it 's made with all men universally And to this purpose I pray you consider the declaration of God's grace and favour to all mankind in those words of his to Abraham Isaac and Jacob mentioned no less than five times in the book of Genesis viz. In thee and in thy Seed shall all families all Nations of the earth be blessed Chap. 12.3 and 18.18 and 22.18 and 26.4 and 28.14 By which the unbelieving Jews indeed understood that in time all Nations should become proselytes to Judaism and their Nation become the head of all Nations and the Messias a glorious visible head over them But in opposition hereto and to their expectations of Justification by the Law St. Paul interprets it to be meant of the Covenant of Grace established in Christ with all Nations and Families of the Earth who are all so far blessed hereby as to have new-terms of Salvation granted them Gal. 3. For whereas they understood by seed the whole posterity of Abraham in Jacob's line as if all Nations should be blessed in them St. Paul restrains it only to Christ as all Nations were to be blest in him as head of the Covenant vers 16. He saith not unto Seeds as of many but as of one and to thy Seed which is Christ And then that the blessing promised to all Nations in this Seed was the Covenant appeares by the next words in vers 17. And this I say that the Covenant which was confirmed before of God in Christ the Law which was 430 years after cannot disanull that it should make the promise of none effect This Covenant we see was then confirmed of God in Christ not then first made for it was extant in the world before And to the same sense St. Paul had said before in vers 8. The Scriptures foreseeing that God would justifie the heathen through Faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all Nations be blessed And when he saith that God in those words preached the Gospel unto Abraham it is all one as to have said he declared to him the Covenant for Gospel here and Covenant in vers 17. are two words indeed but signifie the same thing as frequently they do elsewhere And St. Peter expresly calls that promise to Abraham the Covenant Acts 3.25 And besides St. Paul declares what the nature and substance of that Covenant or Gospel was which is extended to all Nations in that promise and that he sayes was that God would justifie the heathen through Faith which is a breif description of the Covenant of Grace These things then being so that God hath established a new Covenant with all men and thereby cancelled the Rigorous Sanction of the Primitive Law as that required perfection of Obedience as the Condition of Justification I now leave you to judge whether Mr. F. doth not build the necessity of the imputation of Christ's Righteousness unto Justification in the sense he asserts it necessary upon an imaginary foundation and groundless Supposition and if he do that foundation being removed that which he builds thereon must needs fall Having I hope Sir by this time satisfied you and clearly evinced that I have not without cause charged Mr. F. with the former of the two grand mistakes above mentioned I shall now proceed to endeavour to do the like touching the Second which Second as you may remember was in that he holds that although we should answer all that the Gospel requires both in respect of a righteousnes of inherent Grace and of personal sincere obedience yet we could not be justified without such a perfect righteousness imputed to us and derived upon us as would adequately answer the demands and accusations of the Law That thus he holds is evident by what he sayes in p. 414. and in other passages in the same Section I shall not need here to do again what I have done already that is to prove the non-necessity of the imputation of such a righteousness unto us for our Justification as every way answers the demands of the Law as considered in its originall Rigour and severity That which remains for me to do is to demonstrate to you that M. Ferguson is under a mistake in denying that our answering all that the Gospel requires in a righteousness both of inherent Grace and personal sincere obedience is a vailable to justification without the imputation of Christ's righteousness in Mr. F's sense and withall to shew that we are said in a proper sense to be justified by believing and obeying the Gospel and that Mr. F. had neither ground nor fair pretence to charge Mr. S's sentiment of
Principle of Sincerity and of the Divine Nature and Life is made the Condition of Pardon And now if what hath been said amounts to any fair account of the Apostle's scope and design in those forementioned verses and of the sense of the several Phrases by which it is exprest and I leave you to judg whether it doth or no then I can see no reason why by Righteousness imputed without Works we should understand the Righteousness of Christ but rather the Righteousness of Faith properly understood which Faith the Apostle there expresly affirms to be imputed for Righteousness but doth not so much as mention Christ in those verses much less the imputation of his Righteousness unto Justification as exclusive of all manner of Works It is not the Righteousness of Christ but Grace and Faith that are in this contexture of Scripture opposed to Works Nor are Works opposed to Faith neither but under the notion of Merit as they make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace And when I say this I do for all that with all thankfulness acknowledge and profess That the Righteousness or Obedience of Christ's Life and Death doth with a high hand operate to our Justification and so as neither our Faith nor any thing in us or done by us can do but in a way altogether transcending it though not in Mr. F's way of Imputation nor is it in this Scripture set forth as it is in others It 's true indeed the Righteousness the Apostle treats of in this place is stiled Righteousness imputed But the reason is not because it is not inherent in the persons themselves to whom it is imputed but in Christ and made theirs only by imputation for it is the Faith of the Person himself that is here said to be counted or imputed to him for Righteousness And the reason why it is called a Righteousness imputed may be because it is not naturally and of it self or in its own nature a Righteousness that would justifie a man as Adam's was before his fall but it is only by Divine Institution Grace and Favour that it is so God justifies us freely by his Grace Rom. 3.24 It is of Faith that it might be by Grace as it follows Rom. 4.16 As it is by the Justification or Ordinance of a King that such a piece of Coin passeth currant for so much whether it be of the intrinsick value or no even so by vertue of God's institution and for Christ's sake Faith is made to pass for and to be reckoned and accounted to us for Righteousness and to entitle us to those benefits which in its own Nature it doth not merit If it were a perfect Righteousness in its own Nature as Adam's was it would need no Pardon to accompany it as it does and would secure us as well from temporal as eternal death which yet it doth not But it being a Righteousness by Institution and Grace how far it shall be beneficial to us and to what ends and purposes it shall serve depend wholly upon the good will and pleasure of God and are knowable only so far to us as he hath been pleased to put them into promise by vertue of which promise made upon condition of such Righteousness and not by merit of the Righteousness it self we come to have a title to the promised benefits such as are remission of Sin and eternal Life But Mr. F. cannot understand but that it is repugnant to the immutability and essential Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience the Law commanding that which is perfect and thinks for him to do so would be to pronounce an unjust person just But he should consider That God in justifying us doth not pronounce us just as not having sinned for that 's impossible for him indeed to do but as having performed the Condition on which he in his Gospel-Covenant hath promised to pardon our Sin And in doing this he doth not prouounce unjust persons just for they are just with an Evangelical Righteousness just in the Gospel sense and so stiled from place to place in the Scripture as I have shew'd And although the Evangelical Righteousness and Obedience upon which God is pleased to justifie us be imperfect if measured by the Law yet it is perfect as to its end appointed by God when measured by the Gospel by which we are to be tryed whether we be righteous or unrighteous And whosoever being adult is not righteous in this sense shall not inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 69. but those that are thus righteous shall go into life eternal Matth. 25.46 But supposing Evangelical Righteousness or Obedience to be Comparatively imperfect whether compared with what man in innocency had and was capable to perform or whether compared with a gradual perfection of Righteousness and Obedience of the same kind and supposing it to be only sincere obedience according to the present circumstances a man is in Let us weigh and consider whether or no it be not consistent with the Holiness of God to justifie men upon such Righteousness and Obedience when found in them when withal we take in what hath been done by Christ the Mediatour to make way for it I conceive Mr. F. doth not suppose that God by the Holiness of his Nature is naturally and necessarily restrained from shewing favour to men after once they have been guilty of Sin and have made themselves obnoxious to the effects of his high displeasure for if he were we were all still in an ill case and there would be then no such thing as Grace extant in the World which yet is so illustrious and glorious as that it is the very subject matter of the Gospel Grace and mercy are as essentially in God as Holiness And therefore we must take heed of framing such notions of his Holiness as to leave no place for the exercise of his Grace and Mercy God no doubt is at liberty to recede from his own right as well as men are in remitting debts and pardoning offences to what degree and upon what terms he pleaseth only he as Rector of the World hath respect therein unto good order and government Supposing all this we must suppose again that such acts of Grace and Favour towards offending Sinners as do not in the least encourage them to continue in Sin nor any other Creature in the whole Creation that is innocent to fall into a state of like Rebellion as man hath done but are of a quite contrary tendency will very well consist with the end of his Government as he is Rector of the World and with the Righteousness and Justice of the Governour himself Now the reason and end of executing Justice upon Delinquents is either to recover them themselves to good order and behaviour or to deterr others from falling into like Rebellion against God For otherwise God delighteth not in the death as such of him that dies Ezek. 18. Provided then that
one in conjunction with Faith in Christ to be sufficient to that end Now whether Mr. F. himself doth deny inherent Grace to be at all imputed for Righteousness in our Justification or whether that it only is so I confess I cannot say But certain it is that he denies it to be sufficient without the imputation of Christ's Righteousness in the sense of imputation wherein he is opposed One while he grants that in reference to the mere demands of the Gospel we may in a proper sense be said to be justified p. 416. At another turn he saith that secluding not only the righteousness of Christ's life but the satisfaction of his death as the matter and the imputation of it as the formal Cause of Justification it seems repugnant unto the immutability and essential Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience such as he accounts Evangelical obedience to be the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure By which he seems to hold how consistently with what I before recited do you judge that it is inconsistent with the Holiness of God to justifie us upon an Evangelical Righteousness because imperfect But whether Mr. F. joyns the imputation of Christ's Righteousness and the imputation of inherent Grace together in the business of Justification or whether he wholly denies the imputation of the latter and affirms only the imputation of the former I shall not further enquire But it 's well known that those who are wont to plead the same cause with Mr. F. touching the necessity of the imputation of Christ's Righteousness unto Justification and in that sense wherein he is opposed are wont also to exclude inherent Grace as being neither imputed for Righteousness in Justification nor as necessary thereunto antecedently Mr. E. Polhill a Gentleman doubtless of a good Spirit another of Mr. S's Antagonists in his answer to him saith in p. 75. In Justification no other Righteousness can take place but the active and passive one of Christ which answers the pure and righteous Law in every thing And in p. 321. he saith Obedience to God's commands is indeed the way to Heaven but it s no where made an ingredient into our Justification And p. 365. speaking of Phil. 3.9 saith that the Apostle in this place doth not only exclude external Pharisaical righteousness but even inherent Graces in the matter of Justification And the common opinion of those that have gone that way hath been That Sanctification is subsequent to Justification and not so much as in order of Nature going before it or to be any ingredient in it and consequently not essentially necessary to it Now then that which I say is this that if I can make it appear that the denying the necessity of internal righteousness unto Justification was one part of the grievous errour of the Judaising Christians it will be enough to spoil the reputation of the same opinion though found in better men than they were And whether I shall not make it evidently to appear so to be I shall leave you to judge after you have weighed what I shall now lay before you Their Crime was I conceive a partial revolt or turning unto the worst of Judaism saving their retaining a profession of Faith in Christ to think that an external righteousness without an internal was available to justification and salvation The unbelieving Jews to whom they turned in part were quite degenerated from their worthy Ancestors and all that remained faithful among them who all held the internal Grace of Love to God fear of him uprightness of heart towards him truth in the inward parts necessary to interest them in his favour and the blessing of the everlasting Covenant But the degenerate Jews thought an external Righteousness such as Paul had while a Pharisee and such as would justifie them in the sight of men according to the terms of the political Covenant by which they were externally governed by God as they were his Commonwealth would justifie them as to their eternal estate Of which grand mistake our Saviour Matth. 5. laboured to convince them by shewing that no less was required by God in order to that than an inward purity and upbraided them with their making clean the outside of the Cup and Platter when within they were full of extortion and excess of ravening and wickedness with their appearing outwardly Righteous unto men when within they were full of Hypocrisie and iniquity and told his hearers that except their Righteousness exceeded theirs they should never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that except they were born again they could not see the Kingdom of God Now it was to this monstrously corrupt part of Judaism to which the Judaising Christians did revolt or turn rather for many of them were Gentiles because without this their errour in adhering to the Law of Moses as necessary to be observed would not have been so damnable as the Scripture represents it to be calling it a perverting the Gospel of Christ a being removed to another Gospel a falling from Grace a making of Christ to become of none effect to them Gal. 1.7 and 5.2 4. which it would not have been if there had been nothing else in it than a perswasion that they were under an obligation of observing the Law of Moses as well as the Law of Christ For there were many thousands of the Jews which believed who were yet zealous of the Law of Moses and thought themselves still under the obligation of it Acts 21. who yet could never be said upon that account to be fallen from Grace or to be removed from the Gospel of Christ to another Gospel so long as they were really for an internal Righteousness as necessary to Justification and Salvation as well as an external For all the faithful Jews under the Law before the Law and after the Law yea and all the Gentiles too that had this internal Righteousness as well as an external were all justified through the Grace of God exhibited in the universal Covenant made in Christ and granted for his sake whether they had any explicite or distinct knowledge of that Covenant or not or of Christ in whom it was confirmed In every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him and if the Uncircumcision did but keep the righteousness of the Law the internal Righteousness designed by it their Uncircumcision was counted for Circumcision When on the other hand he was not a Jew at any time in the sense there spoken of who was one outwardly in the flesh only but he was a Jew which was so inwardly and Circumcision was that of the heart in the Spirit of the Law and not in the Letter only whose praise or approbation was from God whether it were from men or no Rom. 2. St. Paul would never have become as a Jew to the Jews to gain the Jews as he did in observing
Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure By all which you will perceive I suppose that Mr. F. holds that the Law remains still in force requiring a perfect obedience unto justification and for want thereof and in case of every failure denounceth wrath And that therefore unles the satisfaction of Christ's death and the righteousness of his life were formally imputed to us ie as I suppose he meanes so as that we may be said to have made satisfaction in and by him and perfectly kept the Law in and by him by having his obedience and satisfaction imputed to us it would be repugnant to the immutability and essentiall Holiness of God to justifie upon an imperfect Obedience In which assertions of his there seem to me to be two grand mistakes besides that of a formal imputation he speaks of The first is in holding the law to be still in force not only in requiring obedience to it self by way of Duty which is true but in requiring perfection of Obedience as a Condition of Justification and in its Rigor and severity in denouncing wrath in case of every failure Secondly In that he holds that though we should answer all that the Gospel requires both in respect of a righteousness of inherent Grace and of a personal sincere obedience yet we could not be justified without the formal imputation of a perfect legal righteousness as aforesaid and that these two are grand mistakes indeed I shall endeavor to demonstrate to you In opposition to the first of them I conceive the Scripture will warrant me to affirm That God by founding a new Covenant a Covenant of Grace with the world in his Son Jesus Christ and his Mediatory undertaking hath Rescinded or Superseded the Rigour and severity of the original Law in two things First as a legal perfection of obedience was by it required as the Condition of Justification and life And Secondly as it did denounce wrath and Condemnation in case of every failure Although the original Law of nature the moral Law be eternal and unchangeable in requiring obedience by way of Duty yet it is not so in the foresaid Rigour and severity of its Sanction To establish the Law again in this sense after the Covenant of Promise is made would be according to the Apostle's reasoning to make faith void and the Promise of none effect Rom. 4.14 Gal. 3.18 For the old and new terms of Justification cannot consist together without the one evacuating the other If by Grace saith the Apostle then is it no more of works otherwise Grace would be no more Grace But if of works then it is no more Grace otherwise work is no more work Ro. 11.6 And again whosoever of you are justified by the law ye are fallen from Grace Gal. 5.4 By the interposition of Christ we are redeemed from the Sanction or Curse of the Law which curseth every one that continueth not in all things which it requireth and that for this very end that the blessing of Abraham viz. of being Justified by faith according to the terms of the new Covenant might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ Gal. 3.13 14. Intimating that this blessing of the new Covenant could not have taken place if the Curse of the old had still remained When St. Paul saith that the Ministration of Death written engraven in stones is done away 2 Cor. 3 7. Compared with v. 11. I pray you what of this was done away by the Introduction of the Evangelical ministration if not the Rigour of the Condition of escaping the Curse of it For from that it is that it is denominated the Ministration of Death and Condemnation and it is done away as such a Ministration For otherwise the Law engraven in stones as it is a Rule of and obligation to Duty is not done away In this sense indeed Christ did not come to destroy the Law Mat. 5.17 This benefit by Christ in God's making a new Covenant and granting new terms upon account of his undertaking is not limited to some men only but extended to all In this sense Christ died for all men without exception And it is not unlikely but that one reason at least why God in his wisdome and goodness thought it meet to vouchsafe unto the whole race of Adam these new and gracious terms of recovery after the fall when no such thing is granted the lapsed Angels was this because the Condemnation into which the Angels fell was by their own personal actuall rebellion without Temptation from another whereas the Condemnation into which all the posterity of Adam fell proceeded originally from his and his wives transgression and that from the temptation of the Devil and not from the personal act of their Progeny And that the benefit of freeing men from the Rigorous Sanction of the Law by the active and passive obedience of Christ in which the new Covenant is founded is as extensive as ever the effect of Adam's disobedience was in subjecting all men to condemnation according to the Rigorous terms of the Law is I conceive plainly asserted by the Apostle when he saith in Rom. 5.18 as by the Offence of One Judgement came upon all men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto Justification of life By the free gift which comes by the Righteousnes of Christ upon all men unto Justification of life I understand the New Covenant For this free gift can neither be the righteousness of the One here spoken of but that which is procured by it Nor yet justification it self for that is the effect of it So that we cannot in reason understand it otherwise than of some middle thing and that in all probability can be none other than the Grace contained in the New Covenant which Covenant God by a most gracious graunt and free gift hath vouchsafed to all men for the Righteousness sake of Christ here spoken of in which remission of Sin and eternal life are promised upon condition of faith And this exactly agrees with what the same Apostle saith Eph. 2.8 when he saith that by Grace we are saved through faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God that is it is the Grace and gift of God that now we may be saved by faith a favour which the Law never afforded for the Law is not of faith but the man that doth them shall live in them And when the Apostle saith this free gift came upon all men unto justification of life we are not to understand it I conceive as if Justification in act came upon all men universally by the righteousness of Christ and this free gift but that for the sake of the one and in the other such gracious terms are granted and offered to all men without exception as by which they may attain
being justified by believing and obeying the Gospel with any such absurdity or inconvenience as that it is not maintainable without perverting innumerable texts from their plain and natural sense to a Metaphorick Only let me premise this that it would alwayes be remembred that whatever benefits do accrue to us by vertue of the new Covenant are owing unto Christ and truly attributable unto him in whom for whose sake and upon account of whose undertaking the Covenant it self and all the benefits of it are vouchsafed unto men And accordingly this Covenant in Scripture is said to be confirmed of God in Christ Gal. 3.17 to be the new-Testament in his blood Mat. 26.28 and his blood to be the blood of the everlasting Covenant Heb. 13.20 And he himself given for a Covenant of the People Is 42.6 and all the promises of God are in him yea and in him amen 2. Cor. 1.22 What ever then depends upon this Covenant depends upon Christ and accordingly the benefits promised in it Remission of sin and eternal life are in Scripture ascribed unto him And although Faith as comprehending repentance and sincere obedience be imputed for righteousness yet it is not for its own sake that it is so but for Christ's sake and all by vertue of the divine will which hath of mere Grace and favour appointed that so it shall be This being premised I proceed now to shew that we are justified by God upon our believing and obeying the Gospel and that in a proper sense and that our believing and obeying the Gospel is our Evangelical righteousness upon the taking place whereof in men God accounts and by the doctrine in the Scriptures declares them just and deals with them accordingly which is his justifying of them To this end let it be considered that this Covenant as founded by God in the righteousness of Christ's life and Sacrifice of his death doth consist of two parts of Conditions required by God and to be performed by men and of promise of benefits made by God and to be performed by him but to be received and enjoyed by men The Condition upon which promise of benefits is made by God is that which Mr. S. rightly calls a believing and obeying the Gospel And the benefits promised upon the aforesaid condition Mr. S. truly saith are pardon of Sin and eternal life That such promises are made and upon such conditions appears every where in Scripture where things of this nature are spoken of as every one knows that knows the Scripture and Mr. F. himself stands declared no enemy to the Doctrine of the conditionality of the promises Things then being thus setled between God and all men in this Covenant the enquiry upon every man's tryall will be whether he hath performed the condition required on his part in believing repenting and sincerely obeying If it be found that he hath he is thereupon as truly and in a proper Sense justified that is accounted and by the Gospel declared and pronounced Evangelically just and righteous i. e. in the sense of this Evangelicall Law as he would have been in the sense of the Original Law in case he had observed the terms of that And had I been to have written to Mr F. I would have enquired of him which of these things now mentioned he would or could deny being all so perfectly agreeable as they are to the tenour and very letter of the Scripture Will he or can he deny belief in the Gospel and obedience to it to be the Condition upon which God in the Gospel or new Covenant hath promised pardon of Sin and eternal life or which is the same that he hath promised these benefits to such and to no other This I take for granted he will not deny Next I would demand whether Faith Repentance and sincere obdience be not all that is required of men themselves by God in the Gospel to make them Evangelically righteous and capable of the saving benefits promised in the Gospel If they be and I believe Mr. F. will not deny them to be so from one of his own assertions p. 414. then I further query whether these do not denominate a man Evangelically righteous or righteous in the gospel sense as well as the doing all that the Law required would have denominated a man legally righteous or righteous in the sense of the Law And further whether men from those qualifications aforesaid are not in Scripture so denominated As for instance Faith which is as I have said comprehensive of repentance and sincere obedience when saveing this as the Scripture tells us expresly was counted to Abraham for righteousness Rom. 4.3 Gal. 3.6 And we are told also that the Scripture speaking of this in reference to Abraham was not written for his sake only but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead vers 23.24 And then for Evangelical or sincere obedience that comes in also for a share in denominating a man righteous in a gospel sense He that doth righteousness is righteous saith St. John 1 Ep. 3.7 and he speaks it of that righteousness which men themselves do in a course of sincere obedience and not of the righteousness of another imputed to them In the righteousness which he hath done shall he live saith the Phophet speaking of a man that shall turn from all the sins which he hath committed and shall observe all God's Statutes and do all that which is lawfull and right Ezek. 18.22 If then Faith Repentance and sincere obedience be all that the gospel requires to denominate a man righteous in a gospel sense and to make him capable of the promised benefits Then all those in whom these are found are by God in the Gospel declared and pronounced righteous men which Declaration is their Justification For what is done in this kind by the gospel on Earth is done also by God in Heaven No man sure that understands and considers what he saith will deny this to be Justification in a proper sense nor assert it not maintainable without perverting the scriptures from their plain and natural meaning to a Metaphorick sense whereas its most evident it stands back't with the Scriptures understood in their plain proper and genuine sense But because Mr. Ferguson was somwhat sensible that he could not duly infer any thing from Mr. S's own words touching his apprehensions about Justification but what was agreeable to the Notion of justification in a proper sense in reference to the demands of the gospel as you may perceive by what he saith towards the beginning of the page 416. And because he had a great mind to fasten somthing by way of retortion upon Mr. S's Notion of Justification as if it had not been maintainable to be Justification properly so called without wresting the Scriptures from their plain and proper sense which was the the thing Mr. S. charged on them whose opinion Mr.
it selfe is oft to be understood then indeed it includes pardon of sin and then in this sense to be pardoned is to be justified and to be justified is to be pardoned In which sense or respect it may be it is that many renowned both Persons and Churches have made little or no difference between Justification and remission of sin And now Sir if what I have suggested have any weight in it which I submit to tryal then you may see that there is a Justification of believers properly so called plainly and without figure asserted in Scripture and yet not consisting in that imputation of Righteousness neither which Mr. F. so much contends for nor yet in Remission of Sin neither the necessity of which he would inferr in case the other be denyed but in the imputation of that believing and obeying the Gospel for Righteousness to which Mr. S. saith pardon is promised And if so then Mr. F. hath only shewed us what he had a mind to do but not at all performed what he undertook But when Mr. F. asserts That unless we are justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in his sense of Imputation we cannot be said to be justified properly but only to be pardoned and that to be pardoned is not to be justified properly he proceeds therein upon a mistaken ground and confounds the terms and conditions of the original Law and Gospel Covenant together For he supposeth that in order to our Justification in a proper sense we must one way or other have such a Righteousness as will answer the demands of the Law in point of perfect obedience and of the Gospel otherwise and which will justifie us against all accusations to the contrary And that therefore we having no such Righteousness of our own we cannot be justified but by having the Righteousness of Christ made ours by Imputation that we may therewith answer the demands and accusations of the Law Or in case we should not be justified by the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ to answer the demands of the Law yet that then we must be justified by being pardoned and Pardon is not Justification properly so called But while he argues at this rate he overlooks what God hath done to supersede and relax the rigorous terms of the primitive Law by a new Law of Grace established in Christ with all Mankind and according to which he will now proceed with us and not according to the rigorous demands of the primitive Law By reason of this to wit God's relaxing the old and introducing new terms of Justification and Life it follows that neither a perfect Legal Righteousness is now necessary to Justification nor yet that Justification must consist only in pardon of Sin though we have no such Righteousness inherent or imputed in Mr. F's sense of Imputation as will answer the demands of the Law in point of perfection Such a Righteousness is not now necessary to Justification First because that which once made it necessary to that end is now relaxed by a new Law this I have shewed before * This new Law doth not relax the duty due by the old hut alter the condition onwhich the divine favour was at first enjoyable and hath now made sincere obedience to it and to the Gospel the condition of it instead of sinless perfection And it grants pardon of all past offences against both to such as are justified against the accusation of not having performed the Condition and of all after-offences also that are consistent with godly sincerity By reason whereof an answering the old demands of the Law absolute perfection is not now necessary to justification neither as inherent in us nor as imputed to us otherwise than as Christ's perfect righteousness is imputed to us in the fruits and benefits of it which is quite another thing than the imputation of his righteousness it self to us differing as much as the ects of his mediation differ from the benefits received thereby Secondly because by this new Law the Righteousness which consisteth in a penetential regenerating obediential Faith is made the condition upon which Pardon and Life are promised And because likewise the performance of this Condition is by God counted to us for Righteousness like as a fulfilling of the Legal Condition would have been counted our Legal Righteousness had we never sinned Although the Righteousness of Christ's Active and Passive Obedience is that Righteousness by which the Covenant it self and the benefits of it were conditionally obtained for us and granted to us And although it is of God's mercy and by vertue of Christ's Merits and the Promise and Ordination of God that we come to have any title to Pardon and Life when we have performed the Condition and not by vertue of any merit or desert in the performance it self yet this Righteousness of Christ does not entitle us to Pardon and Life until we have performed the Condition on our part required thereto which is such a believing as aforesaid And in the last issue we are accounted by God Righteous or Unrighteous according as we have or have not perform'd the Condition God's design towards us is to restore us to happiness and in order thereto to recover and bring again into our Nature those Vertues in which our likeness to God at first did consist by the loss of which we became miserable and without a recovery of which we cannot be happy And as most suitable to this design God hath made such a Faith the Condition of Pardon and Life as by which the renovation of our Nature is gradually wrought and without which we have no ground to expect those benefits how desirable soever they are to us and notwithstanding all that Christ hath done and suffered to obtain them for us To suppose that God accounts us Righteous and so confers a title to Pardon and Life only by the Righteousness of Christ imputed without respect to our being renewed in the Spirit of our minds and sanctified by Faith is to suppose him acting disagreably to his own design and method of Grace in recovering us from our undone condition To think we are made Righteous only by what our Saviour hath done without us without being renewed by a work of Faith within us To suppose we are by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness delivered from the danger of the Hell without us without being at all freed from the Hell within us which consists in unnatural Lusts and the uneasie effects of them To imagine that God should restore us to a participation of the priviledges of his Children by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness without restoring us at all to a participation in the Divine and New Nature of his Children is absurd and that which is opposed by the constant tenour of Divine Doctrine in the holy Scriptures And yet these are but the natural consequences of the Doctrine of being justified by the imputation of Christ's Righteousness alone and of
being justified by Faith alone as abstracted from it's effect of renewing us And if either of these Doctrines were true we might have an immediate title to Pardon and Salvation without Repentance and without being born again unless we will suppose that Justification does not immediately entitle us to these which to suppose is as absurd as any of the rest For what I pray you would such a Justification signisie And then as concerning the other thing viz. That if we have not by the Imputation of Christ's perfect Righteousness a Rightteousness to answer the demands of the Law that then as Mr. F. infers we can have no Justification but what consists in the remission of Sins I answer That for the same reason that we are accounted Righteous upon our performing the Condition of the promise pardon cannot be our Justification but a benefit consequent upon it For if God's owning or avouching the Condition to be performed on our part as he does when it is performed on which he hath promised Pardon and Salvation be his justifying of us or his accounting us righteous according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace as indeed it is then Pardon is not our Justification it self but one of the benefits unto which our Justification by vertue of the New Covenant doth entitle us for the one is promised but on condition of the other And as the thing promised and the Condition on which it is promised are not the same so neither is the reckoning or accounting us righteous as having performed the Condition of the Promise of Pardon and the actual Pardon it self the same but so much as these differ so much does Justification and Pardon differ But yet for all that I do not deny but that in a large sense as Justification is opposed to Condemnation it may comprehend remission of Sins That is if by Condemnation you understand both conviction of impenitency which is the opposite to Justification properly and the obligation or obnoxiousness thereby to suffer the pains of the second Death And by Justification both a vindication from impenitency and unbelief which is Justification properly and also a discharge thereby from obnoxiousness to eternal punishment then as I said Justification thus opposed to condemnation does indeed include in it remission of Sin though when strictly and most properly considered Justification seems to be one thing and Pardon of Sin another It is wont to be alledged That when St. Paul saith in Rom. 4.6 that God imputeth Righteousness without Works the meaning is That he imputeth the Righteousness of Christ to us without any Works of ours at all Legal or Evangelical External or Internal And because great stress is laid on it by some I will briefly shew how the Context directs us to another sense of those words The Scope of the Apostle in this and the former Chapter is to prove that Justification proceeds from God of Grace and favour and not of Debt To make this good he shews here that it must needs be so because it is vouchsafed not unto such who have been alwayes righteous for he had proved before Chap. 3. that there are none such but that all both Jews and Gentiles have sinned but to such as have been ungodly when once they believe and therefore cease to be so and become sincerely righteous And the Apostle's reason depends upon this manifest truth That such as have once sinned can never by any after-works which they can do merit the Divine favour as a Debt due to them by desert of their Works nor are capable of that favour upon any other terms than what God of his mere Grace is pleased to appoint as the Condition of it as he hath done that of Faith For to him that worketh not saith he but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted to him for righteousness ver 5. And to prove as well as to assert that God justifieth none upon account of their having been alwayes righteous and in his favour as some Jews fancied themselves to have been upon account of their observing the Law of Moses as he in the Gospel who said All these have I kept from my youth up he shew's out of the Psalms of David how that the ancient godly Jews did alwayes esteem their happiness of being in God's favour not to proceed from the merit of their Works in observing the Law of Moses but from the Grace and Mercy of God in forgiving their Sins and accepting their sincere endeavours to please him Even as David saith he describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth righteousnes without works saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered ver 6 7. And you may easily discern if you observe it that what is said in this sixth and seventh verses is to back and make good what he had said in vers 5. touching God's justifying men upon their believing notwithstanding they had been in a state of ungodliness before And to shew that if he justifie such men upon such terms Justification must needs proceed of Grace and not of Debt or merit of Works of which he had spoken vers 4. saying Now to him that worketh the reward is not reckoned of Grace but of Debt So that in making a Judgment of what Works St. Paul speaks when he saith Righteousness is imputed without Works vers 6. if you do but take your rise from what 's said in vers 4. touching such Works the reward of which is reckoned not of Grace but of Debt and so follow the discourse and the design of it to vers 6. you will find that you cannot fairly turn aside to another but must needs understand him to this sense to wit That the Righteousness which is by Faith of which he had spoken in vers 5. is imputed without such Works as make the reward to be not of Grace but of Debt mentioned v. 4. His Argument runs thus in other words They to whom God imputed Righteousness heretofore were such as stood in need of forgiveness from God therefore they could not possibly merit his favour And although St. Paul doth not improve the words of the Psalmist further than to prove that no man is restored to the Divine favour and the blessedness consequent upon it without forgiveness of Sins and that therefore it must needs be of Grace and not of Debt and Merit that any man attains it by being justified this being his end in alledging them Yet it 's also evident by the words immediately following those the Apostle here recites That Godly sincerity is the conditional qualification required of such to whom the favour of forgiveness is vouchsafed For it 's there said Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose Spirit there is no guile No guile notes the Sincerity I speak of Psal 32.2 And it 's to the same sense when in the writings of the New Testament Faith as the
guilt of Sin that hath not been accessary to the fault For guilt implyes two things a fault committed by him that is guilty of it and the being under an obligation thereby to suffer the punishment due to it and this obligation of a guilty person to suffer proceeds from the demerit of his fault or crime And will Mr. F. say that Christ was guilty of our Sins by being in the fault Or that he came under an obligation to suffer by being in the fault and from the demerit of the fault God sorbid Christ was no otherwise obliged to suffer for our Sins than by his own voluntary consent in concurrence with the will of God his Father in offering himself as a Sacrifice to make an Atonement by his own Blood And after this manner indeed by being a Sacrifice the Beasts in time of the Law that were offered in Sacrifice for Sin did bear the Sins of those for whom they were offered But I should think he were little better than a Beast in his understanding that should say those Beasts were guilty of the Sins of those for whom they were offered in Sacrisice But it 's true as one truth leads to another so it 's too commonly seen men are tempted to commit one errour tō defend another which I think is the Case now before us Otherwise Mr. F. would hardly have ventured to say Christ was brought under the guilt of our Sins and had the guilt of them derived upon him but only the better as he thought no doubt to accommodate his Notion of our being in the Innocency and Righteousness of Christ by having it imputed to us and derived upon us But this is not the only inconvenience that attends this Notion of having the Righteousness of Christ it self imputed to us for our justification and not only in its happy effects for it seems to me to oppose the doctrine of forgiveness of Sin Nay I pray you consider whether it doth not evacuate it and leave no place for such a thing For if we in Mr. F's Law sense have by Christ paid all the Debt the Law could any wayes demand of us both in point of obedience and of suffering for our disobedience by having his obedience and sufferings themselves imputed to us and not only in the beneficial effects of them How then I pray you can we be said to be forgiven by God to whom the Debt thus paid was due Does that man forgive a Debt to me which I have paid him by another though not by my self A Legal Discharge I may have in such a case from the Creditour but no man will say he hath for given me my Debt I think it will best become us to say as the Scripture doth That God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us and not to say we have paid him what in the rigour of Justice he could demand of us if not more to wit perfect obedience and suffering too which the Law in its utmost rigour never demanded nor required We may well and thankfully take up with this That God in consideration of what Christ hath become done and suffered for our sakes for our benefit hath past an Act of Oblivion to remember our Sins and Iniquities no more provided and on condition that we repent of our rebellion against God and return to our Loyalty and Duty in obeying him truly sincerely and heartily as every one doth that so believes as thereby to become capable of being justified pardoned and saved Furthermore consider I pray you That if Christ's fulfilling of the Law be so imputed to us as that we are looked upon as having fulfilled it in him how could it then be necessary that Christ should dye for our Sins If we by the imputation of Christ's fulfilling the Law have paid the whole debt of Obedience which was owing to it we should then owe no debt of Suffering for the breach of it and consequently Christ would not have needed by suffering to have paid any such Debt for us no more than for himself who had no Sin to suffer for Again consider yet further That if Christ hath paid our whole debt of Obedience to the Law by fulfilling it for us and then imputing it to us is there not by this Notion if admitted a way paved and prepared for Libertines to think that then they need not pay it too to think that God is no such austeer Creditour as to exact the same debt twice first of the Surery and then of the Principal too And let me tell you this Sir that I have very great reason from my observation formerly to be confident that it was from this Opinion which Mr. F. now defends touching the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us otherwise than in its blessed effects that Antinomianism took its first rise among us in this Nation and Ranterism also out of that For how else could it be possible that men should fancy themselves pure and perfect and free from all Sin in the midst of those abominations some of them gave themselves up to but only that they thought themselves to be so by having another's righteousness imputed to them so as they to become formally righteous by it as he himself was save only in the point of imputation I must confess I cannot think that any Doctrine that is of the Gospel indeed which is a Doctrine according to Godliness in the whole and every part of it can be so liable as this is to natural inferences tending to ungodliness or to weaken that which is in the Doctrine of Justification rightly understood against Ungodliness But on the other hand when the promise of the great benefits of remission of Sin and eternal Life is suspended upon our being righteous by a righteousness inherent in us such as consists in Repentance Faith c. this becomes the greatest motive to Godliness imaginable and so comports directly with that which is God's great design by the Gospel which is to recover man again to Happiness by Holiness from which he first fell by transgression But that you may have down weight in this Argument and more if more can be I will offer one thing more to your consideration which perhaps may deserve it and that is Whether those that deny the inherent Grace of Faith and Sanctification by Faith to be imputed for Righteousness in Justification as they usually do who hold that Christ's Righteousness it self is so imputed do not thereby make themselves guilty in some respect and to a degree of the pernicious errour of the false Apostles and Judaising Christians for which in the gross they were charged with falling from Grace with making Christ to become of none effect to them and with perverting the Gospel of Christ For I think I shall make it evident that their errour lay in two things unless you will add thereto their opinion of meriting the one in denying the necessity of Internal Righteousness unto Justification the other in holding an external
Jewish Rites Acts 21. and in circumcising Timothy nor have said as he did that God had received such Christian Jews who yet made Conscience of Jewish difference and distinction of meats and dayes Rom. 14. if a mere perswasion of being under the obligation of the Law of Moses had been so dangerous and damnable as he affirms the errour of the Judaising Christians to be The very nature of the opposition which the Apostles made against the errour of the Judaising Christians in their Epistles to the Churches among whom they were sufficiently discovers to us the nature of their errour to be the placing Justification in an external Righteousness and not in an internal When St. Paul had said if they were Circumcised Christ should profit them nothing and that they were fallen from Grace that would be justified by the Law and that the true Christians waited for the hope of the Righteousness which is by Faith or which Faith produceth he gives this reason of all saying For in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love i. e. by causing Love to God and Men Gal. 5. And again for in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision but a new Creature Gal. 6.15 And if any man be in Christ he 's a new Creature 2 Cor. 5.17 And the Gospel is declared by St Paul to be the ministration of Righteousness not in the Letter of the Law but in the Spirit or internal Righteousness which was required in the Law and more plainly and expresly in the Gospel 2 Cor. 3. and that Christians must serve in newness of Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter And the benefits of the new Covenant of having God to be our God and our Sins pardoned belong only to them who have his Laws put in their mind and written in their heart Heb. 8. And that those who are born after the Spirit by regeneration are Children according to promise or tenour of the New Covenant when as those who were born after the flesh and adhering only to the Letter of the Law for an external Righteousness were Children of the flesh or Legal Political Covenant And this is set forth in an Allegory touching the two Covenants Gal. 4. All this serves not only to let us see the nature of that Righteousness by which the Judaising Christians could not be justified as they expected but also by way of opposition to that truly and plainly to represent to us the nature of that Evangelical Righteousness by which in subordination to Christ's Righteousness we must be justified if ever justified both which doubtless were the true design of the Scriptures I have brought together that you uright see the harmony and concurrent testimony of the Scriptures in this matter By this time I presume you perceive that the difference between the two sorts of Judaising Christians the better and the worse lay much in this one point to wit that the one did and the other did not hold internal Righteousness necessary to Justification For excepting in this they seem both to have been of one mind both in professing Faith in Christ and in holding themselves under the obligation of the Law of Moses for Circumcision and other Legal Rites Now then if that very thing made so great a difference between them as I have shew'd what shall we then think of that opinion by which some better men among us than the corrupt Judaising Christians were do thus far agree and fall in with them as they do in denying internal Righteousness of inherent Grace to be necessary to our Justification or that it doth enter it or is any ingredient in it but think it perfectly subsequent to it not so much as admitting it to take place or to come into being until we are first justified nor so much as admitting that Faith in it self is imputed for Righteousness but only the Righteousness of Christ as apprehended by Faith I say what shall we think of this Can we possibly think the same opinion to be a grievous errour in the Judaising Christians and yet to be Orthodox and Innocent in others Doubtless where this opinion is as practically held as it was by the corrupter sort of the Judaising Christians it is as criminal and dangerous as it was in them but so it is not I confess where it is held only speculatively as I suppose it to be by all those of that perswasion that are Regenerate and truly good For they hold Regeneration and the inherent Grace of Sanctification necessary to Salvation though not to Justification and in holding this they practically hold it necessary to Justification even then while in speculation and opinion they hold no absolute necessity of it in order thereto For the practising upon this better principle as believing Regeneration and Sanctification necessary to Salvation and becoming Regenerate Sanctified and internally Righteous thereupon they come thereby to have this Evangelical Righteousness imputed to them for such as it is that is for Righteousness for so it is in the eye and according to the tenour of the Evangelical Law which Imputation is their Justification This God does although they do not know and believe all this but think they were justified before they were sanctified which by interpretation is to think they were accounted righteous before they were so that they were accounted righteous in the Righteousness of another before they were at all righteous in themselves But God proceeds in justifying men not according to by-opinions in men while consistent with real Holiness but according to what they are indeed and in truth in the temper of their hearts and tenour of their lives I have said thus much to ease those of the opinion I oppose as much as I can For by reason that it is counter-ballanced by better principles in many it is not so dangerous in them as it was in the corrupt Judaising Christians It was in them indeed mortiserous and damnable if practised upon and persisted in because there was in them no such thing to counter-ballance it in its operation as a perswasion of the necessity of internal Righteousness unto Salvation no more than unto Justification as there is in these And in this very respect and their opinion of merit doubtless it was that the promoters of this grand errour were charged with perverting the Gospel of Christ and those that practically adhered to them therein with falling from Grace and depriving themselves of the benefit of Christ's death And the reason of this is plain because the Grace of God in the Gospel is limited and restrained in the last issue and event unto mens becoming Regenerate and internally righteous as the condition without which they shall neither be justified pardoned nor saved by the death of Christ or any thing he hath done for the Salvation of Sinners And therefore those false Teachers that taught Justification and Salvation attainable by Christ
without such internal Righteousness might well be charged with perverting the Gospel of Christ and those Christians with falling from Grace who closed with them in that opinion For therein they departed and fell off from the true Notion and Idea of the Grace of the Gospel and the terms on which all the saving benefits are in the Gospel promised by Jesus Christ Now although this opinion of the non-necessity of the inherent Grace of Sanctification unto Justification is check't and controlled in its operation in those that are full of the sense of the necessity of it unto Salvation yet by what hath been now represented it seems in it self and abstracted from the better principle I have mentioned to be the first step towards falling from Grace in the sense before explained and is of dangerous consequence when it takes place in men who have no such sense of the necessity of internal Sanctification unto Salvation For in such case Libertines and Carnal men will be apt to bear up them selves in hope as is much to be feared they too frequently do that if their believing only abstracted from its effects in renewing men be sufficient to procure the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to them for their Justification in the fight of God or otherwise of it self to obtain it that then it will be sufficient also to save them in as much as the Scripture saith whom God justifieth them he also glorifieth and stileth the Justification of men Justification unto life and if God justifie who is he that condemneth And in this very respect it is much to be seared that this opinion too frequently becomes a snare of Death and a stumbling stone to many to content themselves with that which is but a dead Faith and some external form of Devotion and Righteousness without the internal in mortifying all inordinate affection and in governing their thoughts and passions and to think themselves safe and in a good condition upon account of that to the betraying of their Souls to destruction And whether it may not be pronounced concerning all those who expect Justification and Salvation upon account of their believing and hoping in Christ and of an external Righteousness without an internal that they are fallen from Grace and that Christ shall profit them nothing as well as it was concerning the corrupt Judaising Christians is a question I think you will easily resolve When we see then how fatal it was to the unbelieving Jews and Judaising Christians to mistake the tenour of God's Covenant and the nature of the Covenant-Righteousness and to introduce a Righteousness of another kind into the place and office of the internal Righteousness which is by Faith it may well make wary men cautious how they entertain any opinion that is in any degree like unto it It hath been a mistake of the Scriptures about the nature and kind of the Evangelical-Covenant-Righteousness that hath occasioned our Disputes about it in these latter times as well as it did among Christians in the Apostles times though the difference hath not been altogether so great nor perhaps so dangerous now as it was then And if it may not be burthensome to you I will very briefly give you yet some farther account of my thoughts and apprehensions of the nature of this Righteousness and of the sense and meaning of some of those Scriptures that treat of it and have been mistaken on the one side or on the other The tenour of God's Grace in the Gospel is to exhibit declare and shew that since man by his fall hath made the enjoyment of felicity and the avoiding of misery by perfect sinless obedience impracticable that yet God will for Christ's sake as having undertaken for us receive him into favour again upon condition that he do but heartily desire resolve and sincerely endeavour for the future to become obedient and to please him in all things so far as he is able with the helps and assistances internal and external which God will vouchsafe and heartily repent that ever he did otherwise and that upon the same condition he will pardon all past sins and future failings also so far as they are consistent with sincerity of Love and Obedience This is summarily the glad tidings which by the Gospel is published to the World And a practical belief of this glad Tidings is that which God accounts unto men for Righteousness as being the New-Covenant-Righteousness And that 's a practical belief of it when men so believe it as to practise according to it in repenting and sincerely obeying in hope of the promised benefits And this godly sincerity is the Righteousness of the New Covenant or Gospel as distinguished from the Righteousness which is of the Law either as that imports perfect sinless obedience or else only an external Pharisaical Righteousness The Evangelical Righteousness afore described is in the New Testament sometimes stiled the Righteousness of God as opposed to the unbelieving Jews and corrupt Judaising Christians own external Pharisaical Righteousness Rom. 10.3 Phil. 3.9 And this is called their own Righteousness as being only of their own chusing and not of God's appointing as the condition on which they promised themselves Justification in the sight of God when he had promised them no such thing And the internal with the external Righteousness of godly sincerity is called the Righteousness of God and the Righteousness which is of God partly because it is of his institution and partly because it is of his operation It is the Righteousness of God because it is of his institution He hath in and by the New Covenant ordained That this shall be accounted and taken for that Righteousness upon which he will accept men as Righteous and justifie them as such against all condemnatory accusations This is his Institution and Revelation in the Gospel in which this Righteousness of God is said to be revealed from faith to faith Rom. 1.17 to wit as that which is the object of Faith or that which is to be believed to be the stated terms on which God will now justifie and save men And that it is meant of a Righteousness inherent in men the rather appears by the antithesis in the next words where on the contrary it 's said the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Where the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men is put in opposition to the Righteousness of God It is the Righteousness of God also because it is of his operation and working in us It is of his Creation and therefore called the new Creature the new man created after the Image of God in Righteousness and true Holiness the Divine nature begotten of God by the word of Truth born not of the will of man or of the will of the flesh but of God And it being of his institution and operation it must needs be of his approbation too This Evangelical Righteousness is called the Righteousness of
God in the same sense in which the Christian life is called the life of God Ephes 4.18 not the life which he himself lives but the life which he commands and the life which by his Grace he enables men to live As the Sacrament is called the Supper of the Lord because it is of his institution so is this inherent Righteousness and Justification by it said to be the Righteousness of God for the same reason To restore fallen man to this Righteousness and to acceptation with God and Justification thereby and to render him capable of the happiness designed him in another World was the reason of sending Christ into the World and of his suffering for us and of all the rest of his Mediatory undertaking For that I take to be the plain meaning of 2 Cor. 5.21 * When I compare the foregoing verses therewith noting God's design of reconciling us to himself by Christ which is done by an inward change of mind and will He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him that is by means of him Parallel to which is 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God This inherent Righteousness is called the Righteousness which is of God by Faith because it proceeds from God by the means of Faith and not without it Rom. 3.22 Phil. 3.9 by believing that God will justifie and save men by Jesus Christ in this way and upon these terms of becoming inherently righteous and not otherwise men come to be so that they may be justified and saved I have the rather given this brief Gloss upon these Scriptures because I find Mr. Polhill still as others have done before him will needs understand that this Righteousuess is meant of the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and that it is called the Righteousness of God because it is the Righteousness of Christ which is God But methinks he and they should consider that because the Righteousness of Christ is the Righteousness of him that is God as well as Man that therefore it is nowise likely it should ever be imputed to us any otherwise than in its blessed effects and consequently that which they surmise cannot be the sense of the Scriptures aforementioned For as such it is a mediatorial righteousness a Righteousness resulting from his conformity to the Law of his Mediation which was a Law peculiar to himself alone And it seems very rational to think this righteousness no more communicable to us otherwise than in its happy effects than the acts and office of his Mediation are And although upon the account of its being so transcendent and glorious a righteousness it is a very great ground of consolation and of confidence to us that for the sake of it our Evangelical righteousness will be accepted with God and all our defects so far as consistent with sincerity freely pardoned yet it is a great question whether it will agree with Christian modesty to presume our selves invested therewith any otherwise than in the beneficial effects of it unless there were more ground for it than we can find in Scripture We may well bethink our selves whether it be not a Garment too rich and glorious for us to wear and proper only for the person of the Mediatour the Son of God himself If it shall yet be demanded that if this be true that we are justified upon account of all other inherent Grace as well as that of Faith then how comes it to pass that in Scripture Faith is still said to be imputed for righteousness and not love or humility or the like If there should be no other reason but this yet this might well satisfie us in this enquiry viz. in that this Grace of Faith above any other is in the nature of it adopted and fitted to subserve God's design in recovering us from the state of sin and misery into which we were sunk unto a state of holiness and happiness from which we were fallen God's design was to restore us to happiness by holiness and to make his own Grace glorious in the eyes of his Creatures in doing of it And when you have well considered it I think you will find that there is no one Grace or Vertue that could be so serviceable to God in this design as Faith Nay which is more that those Divine Vertues themselves which constitute the New Creature or Divine Nature without which we are not capable of being made happy could not have been introduced and brought again into the nature of fallen man but by Faith I will suppose that you cannot imagine how God should restore us to happiness without reconciling us to himself and being reconciled to us Nor how he should reconcile us to himself without making some Overtures of Grace to us Nor how he should be reconciled to us without our submitting to his terms of Grace And if not I can easily shew you that we cannot be affected and wrought upon by God's overture and offer of Grace so as to answer his end in making it nor submit to or comply with his terms of Grace without believing and consequently that the execution of God's design in restoring us to happiness and of glorifying the riches of his Grace therein depends very much upon Faith and more on that than on any other Grace or Vertue whatsoever First We cannot be affected and wrought upon with God's offer of Grace so as to give him the glory of it in thankful acceptance due acknowledgments and sutable returns in loving him that shewed such love to us without this Grace of Faith For the sense of God's Grace in offering to sinners through Christ pardon restauration to his favour and salvation at last upon condition of repentance cannot enter into the heart of man but by Faith And the reason hereof is because the offer of Grace and the things offered by Grace are matter of supernatural revelation which do not further affect than they are believed as I shall farther shew in the next particular But by believing that God of mere Grace in and by Christ hath promised pardon acceptance into favour the assistance of his Spirit and eternal life unto Sinners otherwise under condemnation upon condition of repentance and a sincere returning unto God I say by this belief we come to trust in and rely upon that Grace and on Christ as an All-sufficient Saviour for those promised benefits even in the performance of that Condition and that in opposition to all opinion of meriting them by that performance or by any thing we can do And it is by this belief and affiance that God receives from us the glory of his Grace and Christ the honour of his performance for us which answers one of the great ends designed by our recovery for which cause it may very well be one reason why this Faith rather than
any other Grace is said to be imputed to us for Righteousness For we are told expresly that it is of Faith that it might be by Grace Rom. 4.16 That is to cut off all pretence of merit the same saving benefits are promised and on the same Condition to wit that of Faith to Heathen Idolaters Sinners of the Gentiles as was to the strictest observers of the Law of Moses The reason in the close of the verse gives that to be the meaning And accordingly Faith whether it be in one that hath been a great sinner or in one of a more inoffensive life hath God's Grace not Man's merit for its object on which it doth depend for all and accordingly attributes and ascribes all to it Gal. 2.15 16. Which is one reason we see of God's electing of it to be the Condition on which his great and precious promises are made and may well be a reason also of his imputing it to men for Righteousness when they do believe For by the account we have why Abraham's Faith was imputed to him for Righteousness we have reason to believe that our giving to God the glory of his Grace and Goodness Truth and Power by this belief and affiance and to Christ the honour of his undertaking is of such high acceptation with God as that he of his goodness is pleased to honour and reward it by imputing it to us for Righteousness For we see when Abraham's Faith in God's promise touching a numerous Issue had nothing to lean upon but the Goodness Veracity and Power of God and that these carried it with Abraham against all doubts and objections that might arise from the utmost humane and natural improbabilities of ever coming to pass so that he gave glory to God in being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform that St. Paul hath told us that therefore or for this very cause his Faith was imputed to him for righteousness Rom. 4.21 22. But the glorifying the riches of his Grace was not all that God had in design in our recovery but also the Renovation of our nature and the restoring us to happiness thereby And Faith is as necessary and useful for the accomplishing this part of God's design as it was to effect the other and therefore secondly this may be another Reason why Faith is imputed for Righteousness and why it 's said to be so rather than any other Grace Without believing we cannot comply with the terms and condition on which Pardon and Salvation are promised and without which they are not to be had and that is in being renewed in our nature For without believing those Motives that tend to perswade us to comply with and submit to the terms or condition on which God for Christ's sake hath promised to pardon us to receive us into favour and finally to save us we can never actually comply with those terms or that condition and consequently without that can never be capable of receiving the benefits promised on that condition For it is Faith as it takes in those Motives in their strength and perswasive efficacy that becomes a vigorous and operative principle of all other Graces Repentance Love Obedience and the like by which our nature becomes renewed All which depend upon our believing And therefore well may our Faith be named and put for all the rest as comprehending them in it when it rather than any other Grace is said to be imputed for Righteousness To make this evident I shall suggest two things to you 1. That they are the great Motives of the Gospel the Grace of God and Love of Christ to lost man the good hoped for and the evil feared the good promised to those that are good and the evil threatned to those that are evil that operate upon the mind and will in men to the producing that change in them by which they become new men sincerely good men If we love God it is because he loved us first 1 John 4.19 If we live to Christ that died for us it is because the love of Christ constrains us 2 Cor. 5.14 If we are made partakers of a Divine Nature it is by the great and pretious promises that we are so 2 Pet. 1.4 And 2. the operation of these Motives of the Gospel upon the mind depends upon our believing and so consequently do all those happy effects in heart and life which are produced by the operation of those Motives For until the reality of those Motives are believed they have no existence or being in the Soul and where they have no being they have no operation The Word preached did not profit them not being mixed with Faith in them that heard it Heb. 4.2 The Love Grace and Favour of God to Sinners in giving Christ for us and of his Love in giving himself for us and intending and promising us the benefit of pardon and salvation thereby only upon condition of our Repentance and Conversion unto God being all of them things invisible and not objects of sense do not affect us or perswade us to repent and in good earnest turn to God that we may be pardoned and saved until we really believe these things It is our Faith or the credit we give to the Revelation which God hath made of these things that gives them an existence or being in the Soul and upon that depends the efficacy and power of their prevailing with us to become new men Faith is the substance or subsistence of things hoped for and the evidence or conviction of things not seen Heb. 11.1 Unless men first believe that God is so good merciful and gracious to men notwithstanding they have sinned against him as to pardon and save them if they repent and become sincerely obedient for the future and not otherwise they will never deny ungodliness and worldly lusts when they are sollicited thereby to gratifie the flesh Men must first believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him indeed before they will seek his Grace and Favour by becoming such and doing that upon which and not without which he hath more or less declared his Grace and Favour is to be obtained and found Without this Faith it is impossible to please God it is impossible to leave off those things by which they have displeased him and to betake themselves to do those things that are pleasing in his sight Heb. 11.6 It was the belief that all good men had before the Law and under the Law that God would keep Covenant and mercy with those that love him and keep his Commandments and not otherwise that brought them so to love him and to keep his Commandments It was their belief that there is forgiveness with him that he might be feared as an encouragement to men to fear him that prevailed with them to fear him indeed Psal 130.4 It was the hope which even the Heathen Ninevites had from the natural
Notion they had of God and from their observation of his general and common goodness to the World notwithstanding mens sins that if they did but repent and leave their sins forgiveness might possibly be obtained that caused them to turn from their evil way and from the violence that was in their hands Jona 3.8 10. Now then since so much as you see depends upon Faith as Repentance Conversion Regeneration and all inherent Righteousness and Holiness of living there is great reason why it should usually be mentioned as that which is imputed for Righteousness rather than any other inherent Grace and in the name and as the representative of all the rest as being the productive cause of them all By the way you may observe then that since it is as you see the Operation of the great Motives of the Gospel as believed that in conjunction with the operation of the Holy Spirit effects that great Change in men by which they become regularly capable of all the blessedness of pardon and salvation which the Gospel reveals it must needs be very necessary for such as you who are ministers of the Gospel to insist much upon those Motives in your discourses to the people and to inculcate and work them into their minds To set life and death heaven and hell before them and to convince them of the reality of such a future state and of the inseparable connexion that is between happiness and their duty and between a sinful and hypocritical life and their eternal misery And to convince them that every one shall have in the next World according as he chuseth in this he that chuseth the right way shall come to the right and best end as he that chuseth the wrong shall certainly come to the wrong and worst and that every he that shall perish hereafter is a self murderer And likewise to set in the peoples eye the preventing grace of God what he hath already done for us as a most affecting motive tending to reconcile us to him and to think well of him as of one that never sought our ruin but as pitying us and taking compassion on us when we had brought it upon our selves and not pursuing the advantage we have given him against us nor revenging himself on us But contrarily contriving a way of our recovery from sin and from the misery into which that hath brought us yea though it cost him very dear to do it in giving his Son to dye for us when he could not otherwise do it with satisfaction to himself in reference to the honour of his Government Besides he hath done this for us men and for our salvation when he hath past by the fallen Angels Christ the Son of God did not take hold of Angels the Apostate Spirits to rescue them out of that destruction and misery into which they plunged themselves and yet hath taken hold of the seed of Abraham of the humane nature to rescue and pluck mankind out of the horrible pit of destruction into which we were fallen Heb. 2.16 And now is not all this Grace of God and Love of Christ which thus far is unconditionate and absolutely free and unsought for on our part and altogether antecedent to any thing done by us to obtain it a wonderful motive thankfully and joyfully to accept of those most reasonable and gracious terms of our Recovery which God in the Gospel hath offered us When it shall be considered that God of his mere commiseration and compassion towards us hath now tried us once again when we were all but as dead men before him and hath put us in a way once again of being happy with what face can we slight despise and abuse such Love by rejecting those gracious terms of reconciliation that were procured for us on such costly terms as the sufferings of the Son of God amount unto But if we do and after all this will persist in our rebellion against Heaven how can we possibly expect that any other way or terms of pardon and salvation should ever be offered unto us again How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation and so mercifully and freely offered us and that on no harder conditions neither than to cease our wilful rebellion against God and to become dutiful and loyal under his easie yoke and gentle Government by the Evangelical Law Heb. 2.3 If then such mighty Motives as the Love of God and his Son Christ Jesus our Lord so wonderfully exprest and the hope of Heaven and the fear of Hell will not work upon us to repent to change our minds and amend our lives and to become new Creatures what greater Motives think we can God use to perswade men by Doubtless they are these Motives will do it if any thing will do it and for that reason they should as I said be insisted on by those whose special business appointed them by God is to win Souls And as these Motives should be much and often inculcated upon the minds of the people for the reason aforesaid so for the same reason they should be managed with all the advantage in respect of circumstance that can be thought on to reach their end in operating powerfully upon the people's Souls Such for one is plainess of speech as the phrase is 2 Cor. 3.12 and not as Moses who put a vail over his face By which plainness of speech if it be what I mean things are fitted and prepared for the understanding and capacity of the meanest whose salvation God hath designed as much as the salvation of the more learned and wise If Peter will express his love to his Master indeed he must as well seed his Lambs as his Sheep Joh. 21.15 And by how much the more matters so affecting in themselves as the Motives of the Gospel are are delivered with an inward sense seriousness and gravity by so much the more they will command attention and consideration from the people and the sooner sink down into their hearts and the more powerfully operate upon the mind and will And if the experience of many among whom I number my self be of any consideration in place of proof then the intermixing Scripture Texts in Divine Discourses aptly applyed and wisely managed is much more edifying to the people than such Discourses without that can be though otherwise for the matter of them they may be agreeable to the Scripture For besides that so doing greatly helps memory and retention of the matter without which the operation of the matter vanisheth with the matter it self And besides also the benefit of growing thereby into better acquaintance with the Scriptures the Mine of these Motives of which I speak and of becoming able by use to reduce scattered Texts of one and the same import to heads of Doctrine I say besides all this and more which might be said it tends greatly to bind the matter delivered the faster upon the Conscience when it shall come so visibly