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founding a new Covenant a Covenant of Grace with the world in his Son Jesus Christ and his Mediatory undertaking hath Rescinded or Superseded the Rigour and severity of the original Law in two things First as a legal perfection of obedience was by it required as the Condition of Justification and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
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
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
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