Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure By all which you will perceive I suppose that Mr. F. holds that the Law remains still in force requiring a perfect obedience unto justification and for want thereof and in case of every failure denounceth wrath And that therefore unles the satisfaction of Christ's death and the righteousness of his life were formally imputed to us ie as I suppose he meanes so as that we may be said to have made satisfaction in and by him and perfectly kept the Law in and by him by having his obedience and satisfaction imputed to us it would be repugnant to the immutability and essentiall Holiness of God to justifie upon an imperfect Obedience In which assertions of his there seem to me to be two grand mistakes besides that of a formal imputation he speaks of The first is in holding the law to be still in force not only in requiring obedience to it self by way of Duty which is true but in requiring perfection of Obedience as a Condition of Justification and in its Rigor and severity in denouncing wrath in case of every failure Secondly In that he holds that though we should answer all that the Gospel requires both in respect of a righteousness of inherent Grace and of a personal sincere obedience yet we could not be justified without the formal imputation of a perfect legal righteousness as aforesaid and that these two are grand mistakes indeed I shall endeavor to demonstrate to you In opposition to the first of them I conceive the Scripture will warrant me to affirm That God by founding a new Covenant a Covenant of Grace with the world in his Son Jesus Christ and his Mediatory undertaking hath Rescinded or Superseded the Rigour and severity of the original Law in two things First as a legal perfection of obedience was by it required as the Condition of Justification and life And Secondly as it did denounce wrath and Condemnation in case of every failure Although the original Law of nature the moral Law be eternal and unchangeable in requiring obedience by way of Duty yet it is not so in the foresaid Rigour and severity of its Sanction To establish the Law again in this sense after the Covenant of Promise is made would be according to the Apostle's reasoning to make faith void and the Promise of none effect Rom. 4.14 Gal. 3.18 For the old and new terms of Justification cannot consist together without the one evacuating the other If by Grace saith the Apostle then is it no more of works otherwise Grace would be no more Grace But if of works then it is no more Grace otherwise work is no more work Ro. 11.6 And again whosoever of you are justified by the law ye are fallen from Grace Gal. 5.4 By the interposition of Christ we are redeemed from the Sanction or Curse of the Law which curseth every one that continueth not in all things which it requireth and that for this very end that the blessing of Abraham viz. of being Justified by faith according to the terms of the new Covenant might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ Gal. 3.13 14. Intimating that this blessing of the new Covenant could not have taken place if the Curse of the old had still remained When St. Paul saith that the Ministration of Death written engraven in stones is done away 2 Cor. 3 7. Compared with v. 11. I pray you what of this was done away by the Introduction of the Evangelical ministration if not the Rigour of the Condition of escaping the Curse of it For from that it is that it is denominated the Ministration of Death and Condemnation and it is done away as such a Ministration For otherwise the Law engraven in stones as it is a Rule of and obligation to Duty is not done away In this sense indeed Christ did not come to destroy the Law Mat. 5.17 This benefit by Christ in God's making a new Covenant and granting new terms upon account of his undertaking is not limited to some men only but extended to all In this sense Christ died for all men without exception And it is not unlikely but that one reason at least why God in his wisdome and goodness thought it meet to vouchsafe unto the whole race of Adam these new and gracious terms of recovery after the fall when no such thing is granted the lapsed Angels was this because the Condemnation into which the Angels fell was by their own personal actuall rebellion without Temptation from another whereas the Condemnation into which all the posterity of Adam fell proceeded originally from his and his wives transgression and that from the temptation of the Devil and not from the personal act of their Progeny And that the benefit of freeing men from the Rigorous Sanction of the Law by the active and passive obedience of Christ in which the new Covenant is founded is as extensive as ever the effect of Adam's disobedience was in subjecting all men to condemnation according to the Rigorous terms of the Law is I conceive plainly asserted by the Apostle when he saith in Rom. 5.18 as by the Offence of One Judgement came upon all men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto Justification of life By the free gift which comes by the Righteousnes of Christ upon all men unto Justification of life I understand the New Covenant For this free gift can neither be the righteousness of the One here spoken of but that which is procured by it Nor yet justification it self for that is the effect of it So that we cannot in reason understand it otherwise than of some middle thing and that in all probability can be none other than the Grace contained in the New Covenant which Covenant God by a most gracious graunt and free gift hath vouchsafed to all men for the Righteousness sake of Christ here spoken of in which remission of Sin and eternal life are promised upon condition of faith And this exactly agrees with what the same Apostle saith Eph. 2.8 when he saith that by Grace we are saved through faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God that is it is the Grace and gift of God that now we may be saved by faith a favour which the Law never afforded for the Law is not of faith but the man that doth them shall live in them And when the Apostle saith this free gift came upon all men unto justification of life we are not to understand it I conceive as if Justification in act came upon all men universally by the righteousness of Christ and this free gift but that for the sake of the one and in the other such gracious terms are granted and offered to all men without exception as by which they may attain
unto justification of life actually if they do not wilfully neglect and reject them And less than this I see not how the Apostle's words can signifie if you consider the nature of the Comparison he makes between the effects of the first Adam's disobedience and the second Adam's obedience in reference unto all men without exception of any As by the disobedience of the former all men were brought under an utter incapacity of being justified and saved so long as the original Covenant in the Rigour of its Sanction remained in force So by the obedience of the latter all men are put into a capacity of being justified and saved by vertue of new terms in the new Covenant which are obtained thereby and by which the old terms are Cancelled or Superseded These things being so I leave you to judge whether there be any need of or any occasion for such a formal imputation of Christ's righteousness unto our justification to answer the Law in its demands of perfect legal obedience as a condition of it and the accusations thereof for want of it as Mr. F. contends for and Mr. S. opposeth For this demand and this accusation was taken off so soon as the new Covenant founded by God in Christ's active and passive obedience took place And this benefit of having new terms of life granted which accrues to the world by Christ's Mediatory undertaking does not at all depend upon our believing in Christ but is absolutely free and that wherein he hath been aforehand with us and with all men which have been born into the world since the Covenant of Grace did first commence and remains made good to them whether they beleive it or no. So that from thence forth no man shall be condemned for want of a perfect legal Righteousness but only for want of an Evangelical righteousness And because this is a matter of weight I will add yet somthing further to prove that this new Covenant by which the terms of the old are cancel'd is made and establisht in Christ not only with some part of mankind viz. Such as shall be saved as some would restrain it who think it in the nature of it absolute and not conditonal no not in reference to particular persons which yet it must needs be if made to all unless all were eventually to be saved but it 's made with all men universally And to this purpose I pray you consider the declaration of God's grace and favour to all mankind in those words of his to Abraham Isaac and Jacob mentioned no less than five times in the book of Genesis viz. In thee and in thy Seed shall all families all Nations of the earth be blessed Chap. 12.3 and 18.18 and 22.18 and 26.4 and 28.14 By which the unbelieving Jews indeed understood that in time all Nations should become proselytes to Judaism and their Nation become the head of all Nations and the Messias a glorious visible head over them But in opposition hereto and to their expectations of Justification by the Law St. Paul interprets it to be meant of the Covenant of Grace established in Christ with all Nations and Families of the Earth who are all so far blessed hereby as to have new-terms of Salvation granted them Gal. 3. For whereas they understood by seed the whole posterity of Abraham in Jacob's line as if all Nations should be blessed in them St. Paul restrains it only to Christ as all Nations were to be blest in him as head of the Covenant vers 16. He saith not unto Seeds as of many but as of one and to thy Seed which is Christ And then that the blessing promised to all Nations in this Seed was the Covenant appeares by the next words in vers 17. And this I say that the Covenant which was confirmed before of God in Christ the Law which was 430 years after cannot disanull that it should make the promise of none effect This Covenant we see was then confirmed of God in Christ not then first made for it was extant in the world before And to the same sense St. Paul had said before in vers 8. The Scriptures foreseeing that God would justifie the heathen through Faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all Nations be blessed And when he saith that God in those words preached the Gospel unto Abraham it is all one as to have said he declared to him the Covenant for Gospel here and Covenant in vers 17. are two words indeed but signifie the same thing as frequently they do elsewhere And St. Peter expresly calls that promise to Abraham the Covenant Acts 3.25 And besides St. Paul declares what the nature and substance of that Covenant or Gospel was which is extended to all Nations in that promise and that he sayes was that God would justifie the heathen through Faith which is a breif description of the Covenant of Grace These things then being so that God hath established a new Covenant with all men and thereby cancelled the Rigorous Sanction of the Primitive Law as that required perfection of Obedience as the Condition of Justification I now leave you to judge whether Mr. F. doth not build the necessity of the imputation of Christ's Righteousness unto Justification in the sense he asserts it necessary upon an imaginary foundation and groundless Supposition and if he do that foundation being removed that which he builds thereon must needs fall Having I hope Sir by this time satisfied you and clearly evinced that I have not without cause charged Mr. F. with the former of the two grand mistakes above mentioned I shall now proceed to endeavour to do the like touching the Second which Second as you may remember was in that he holds that although we should answer all that the Gospel requires both in respect of a righteousnes of inherent Grace and of personal sincere obedience yet we could not be justified without such a perfect righteousness imputed to us and derived upon us as would adequately answer the demands and accusations of the Law That thus he holds is evident by what he sayes in p. 414. and in other passages in the same Section I shall not need here to do again what I have done already that is to prove the non-necessity of the imputation of such a righteousness unto us for our Justification as every way answers the demands of the Law as considered in its originall Rigour and severity That which remains for me to do is to demonstrate to you that M. Ferguson is under a mistake in denying that our answering all that the Gospel requires in a righteousness both of inherent Grace and personal sincere obedience is a vailable to justification without the imputation of Christ's righteousness in Mr. F's sense and withall to shew that we are said in a proper sense to be justified by believing and obeying the Gospel and that Mr. F. had neither ground nor fair pretence to charge Mr. S's sentiment of
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