is all that he would require on our part conditionally to perform This should constitute us righteous upon the terms of the New Covenant This should legally intitle us by the Gospel to all the Advantages of Christ and to a righteous end justified state and this is so far from such a Justification by works as the Jews rested in and St. Paul disputes against that 't is a Justification that results wholly from grace and favour is the Effect of Christs purchase and of the terms of another Covenant And all merit and all reward that can be claimed out of debt is utterly excluded thereby And thus the two Apostles appear perfectly agreed in their doctrine Abraham was not justified upon terms of the Law and sinless perfection but he was justified as an ungodly person one that had sins and failings about him that needed forgiveness was justified by faith in way of the Gospel And that faith that justified Abraham then and justifies every person under the Gospel now and is by the tenour thereof accounted for righteousness is not a naked assent to the truth what God reveals but such a faith as implyes in its nature and comprizeth a suitable obedience to all he requires of us There is a wide difference as much as there is between the nature and terms of the two Covenants between such works as by an inherent vertue in themselves constitute just and so justifie from an innate perfection as to make the reward to be of debt and such works are in their own nature altogether imperfect and faulty and are accepted only thorough grace and favour and made but conditionally necessary to our Justification another way Works 't is true there are in the case both wayes but of very different natures upon very different Accounts and to very different Ends. Secondly On the other hand we must carefully avoid so to apprehend faith supposing it to comprehend all that the Gospel requires of us to believe and practice as if it had in it self any justifying vertue or were of any innate worth to acquit us before God from the guilt of sins The value of it is wholly from Gods gracious ordination as it is all the condition that is required on our part to be performed by the Law of grace And it is not of our selves neither but 't is the gift and bestowment of God We obtain the precious faith of the Gospel St. Peter tell us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Whenever we read of our Justification by faith 't is meant of our being justified in the Gospel way and that is by Christ alone meritoriously and by what he has done and suffered for the Apostle tells us that God for Christs sake hath freely forgiven us Nothing has the least meritorious interest in our forgiveness but Christ Grace and free forgiveness in Scripture is still opposed to our merit and by faith only with respect to its conditional relation to him and that Covenant which he hath purchased and proclaimed and in the method whereof we come to be actually pardoned and justified upon Believing To think otherwise is to subvert the grand design of the whole Gospel which we are often told is to declare Christs Righteousness for the remission of sins and to sot forth him as a propitiation through faith in his blood Faith is no part of the Propitiation but 't is he himself and his blood that is the Propitiation and faith but the conditional means by which we come to reap the fruit and benefit of it The whole Fabrick of the Gospel is bottom'd upon satisfaction made to the Justice of God on our behalf upon a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Savior sayes he came down to lay down his life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransome for many And St. Paul to Timothy calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a price of redemption We are every where in Scripture said to be ransom'd redeem'd purchas'd bought with a price And that must needs be by a valuable consideration pay'd and by satisfaction made And St. Peter tells us what that price of redemption is that was payed for us and by which we were purchased and ransomed 't was not corruptible things such as gold and silver or any thing we had to offer to God but 't was with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without spot No works nor performances of our own could ever have reached this purchase or so prevailed as to have been accepted for a satisfaction in this case For then a Justifying Righteousness might have subsequently resulted from the Law of Works which St. Paul denyes and tells us expressly Galat. 2.21 that it could not be that way it could not come by the Law For had there been a possibility of it he tells us it should so have been That is could men either pefectly have kept the Law or have sufficiently answered for the Breach of it ex post facto Righteousness would have been that way and Christ had not dyed for his death had been then in vain Two things still may be remembred about Faith by which we may receive some account of the use that is made by the Holy Ghost of this word in Scripture First By faith the Gospel is often denominated in opposition to the Law and the whole of it signified thereby And the Reason of this seems to be because the Gospel is in its nature a Revelation from God proposed to our belief and all that we are required by it to do flowes naturally from what we are first obliged to believe Belief is the spring of all Gospel obedience and does in its nature comprize all other Gospel-graces they being at first produced and ever after upheld and increased thereby Secondly by the tenour of the Gospel and Gods peculiar Ordination therein the whole condition required by it is at the first virtually performed by the bare act of believing as the representative of all other Graces and root of universal obedience 'T is all that at the first is made conditionally necessary to constitute a Justified state though to the after-continuance in it the exercise of every other grace is equally requisite He that sincerly believes in Christ as he is proposed is truely in a Justified state by such an Act of Faith and herein Faith hath the preference of all other Graces in point of Justification if we never live to perform any subsequent Act of Obedience And the Reasons of this may be these two First The grace of Faith has in its nature a Nearer relation to the satisfaction of Christ wherein the Essentials of our Justification consist then any other Grace whatsoever For all we can do with reference to that and the nearest approach we can make to it to receive the benefit and advantage of it is to believe it and to rely upon it Secondly A true and sincere faith and belief of the Gospel supposeth and includeth a firm resolution to
that we might gradually possess that Gift of God which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Quest Secondly By this Doctrine how can we ever come to know we are carefully and compleatly Justified till we have fully perform'd and accomplished all the conditions made requisite to a justified state That is how can we upon good ground be assured of our Justification till our faith and obedience be consummuated Which is not till we dye Answ Every man is then Actually justified according to the Gospel-Law and Compleatly so when he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ with all his heart Because no more is at the first required Legally to constitute a justified state But Justification is a continued act of God and the constant performance of all those duties which a sincere reception of Christ as he is offered in the Gospel implyes are indispensibly necessary to the continuance of it 'T is in this case as 't is in Marriage A Marriage is perfected by a mutual consent But the performance of all matrimonial duties is implyed in that consent The Marriage continues valid till somwhat be done as 't is very possible there may be that does vertually Null and Revoke such consent and what was implyed therein and does ex natura rei Dissolve the Vinculum matrimonij 'T is plain the Apostles did look upon such as declared a firm assent to the Gospel and a sincere and hearty reception of Christ as he is there proposed to be in Christ That is to be in a Justified saved state admitted them to all Gospel-priviledges and never esteemed them otherwise till by their Lives or Professions they contradicted and denyed what by such a faith and consent they had before affirmed and thereby Apostatized from it And of such tergiversation the Gospel every where warns men That they should take heed of an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God And St. Paul tells the Corinthians I am jealous over you sayes he with a godly jealousie for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste Virgin to Christ But I fear least by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ Whoever avows the faith of the Gospel and a sincere closure with Christ upon the Terms thereof and does after fall into an open Rebellion against him and lives in an allowed disobedience to his Laws such a man is as the Apostle speaks of an Heretick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man condemned by himself For he that in his Baptism and at his first admission into the Christian-Church had made a solemn Profession of the true Christian Doctrine and did after degenerate into Corrupt and Heretical Opinions contrary and destructive to it passed sentence upon himself So He that declares to close with Christ as a Prince and a Saviour which supposeth a general submission to all the Laws of his Kingdom and shall after Indulge himself in a course of open disobedience and choose a continued practice of sin against that grand fundamental Law of Christ That he that names his name must depart from iniquity gives Judgment against himself in this case Disowns Christ and the Gospel Dissolves the Relation that seem'd to be between them and publickly retracts what he before obliged himself to So that a man is at the first actually and legally according to the tenor of the Gospel justified by a true and sincere Faith But a constant prosecution of such a faith in all its proper Ends and Tendencies by an universal submission to all the Laws of Christs Kingdom is of absolute necessity to our continuance in a Justified state Quest 3. Do not divers Scriptures in the New Testament seem to establish Justification solely upon believing and upon Faith only as an instrument receiving and no more in opposition to all sort of working Especially that Text Rom. 4.5 But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness Answ We are said to be justified in the New Testament by faith alone upon these three accounts First as faith intends the Gospel and the Principles of Christianity in opposition to the Law and the principles of Judaisme Secondly As 't is a comprehensive word for all that the Gospel requires at our hands For by Believing in Christ the Scripture intends such a closure with him as receives him in all his offices and sujects us to all those obligations which 〈◊〉 Prince and Saviour he thinks fit by the Gospel to lay upon us And upon that account to Believe and to obey are often in Scripture put one for the other promiscuously and so are unbelief and disobedience All obedience and subjection to Christ is originated in and flows from our Belief of that Revelation God makes to us of him and is naturally implyed and compriz'd in it And so it has by Gods appointment the precedence and preferrence of all other Graces in point of Justification and we do not find any other grace so related to Justification as this And upon that account it is that we are not said in Scripture to be justified by repentance or by love or any other single grace but only by Faith as comprehensive of all the rest And thirdly because we are actually brought into a justified state at first solely by Faith without the actual exercise of any other grace The very act of sincere believing by Gods peculiar and gracious ordination intitles us to Christ and all his Benefits And the reason of that Ordination is evidently this That who ever believes in Christ receives him as he is by God proposed and whoever does so obliges himself therey to all the duties of Christianity But upon no one of these accounts can Faith be said to justifi◠〈◊〉 barely as an Instrument but as 't is comprehensive and productive of all other Gospel-duties and by the subsequent performance of them Faith as St. James tells us is perfected 'T was the fear many good men had of interesting any Works or any thing of our own Justification and Ecclipsing free grace thereby that made them that they would neither allow Faith to be a condition nor a work When they ought to have considered that Gospel works are never opposed to Grace nor can any thing done by Divine assistance be so and when the Apostle opposeth Works to Grace he means such Works as are inconsistent with Grace and so justifie by their merit as to put us out of need of Grace and render it useless but invented that unscriptural notion of its instrumentality of no other use but to make way for metaphysical subtilties and to obscure a plain point when indeed Faith is both a work and a condition First 'T is a work so our Saviour himself calls it Joh. 6.29 This is the work of God that you believe Indeed 't is the chiefest part
of Evangelical obedience the greatest work the Gospel requires at our hands and that which produceth all other and 't is plainly made as such every where in Scripture the Condition of the New Law and that which it requires on our part to be performed in order to our Justification and Salvation And so the Apostle declares when he sayes We have believed that we might be justified That is We have performed the Condition required by the Gospel in order to Justification that so we might be justified thereby upon the terms thereof And for that reason as 't is the Condition of the New Law 't is accounted for Righteousness And so when God justified Abraham upon the terms of the New Covenant his Faith is said to be accounted for Righteousness because it was the performance of the Condition thereof And God was pleased to give an Instance in him what was to be the Condition of it which was a sincere Faith including a suitable obedience So far different was Abrahams Faith in its Nature and so far is all true Gospel-Faith from that Idea some men frame of it who ascribe no more to it then a Bare naked notional instrumentality Nor is there one Text in all the New Testament that excludes Gospel Works Evangelical obedience from being Conditionally necessary to our Justification and Salvation but they are universally made so as has been proved before For Whatever is requisite to constitute a man a good Christian is conditionally necessary to his Justification and no man can be interested in the Salvation purchased by Christ that does not subject himself to an universal obedience to all his Laws To distinguish as some do between Justification and Salvation and say that Gospel-works are necessary to the Latter but not to the Former is to distinguish where the Scripture makes no difference For The Apostles speak of a Justified person and a saved person as the same and of Justification and Salvation as so and they are both promiscuously promised to Believing St. James when he is discoursing of Justification asks this question can faith without works save you Where he means the same thing as if he had said can it justifie you Nor does it any more derogate from free Grace to make Gospel-works necessary to Justification then it does to ake them necessary to Salvation For they are both inseparably included each in other No man can be saved that is not Justified for whosoever is not justified at Gods Bar is condemned and whoever is justified is also glorified That Text of St. Paul Rom. 4. v. 5. duly considered does no way counenance any such Doctrine for the right understanding of which it wil be necessary to consider the whole Context In the first ver What shall we say then sayes the Apostle that Abraham our father from whom we derive our selves and who first received the Law of Circumcision the father of our Persons and of our Religion as pertaining to the flesh hath found 'T is an Interrogation importing a Negation Abraham did find nothing as pertaining to the flesh By flesh in Scripture besides the Corrupt acceptation it sometimes is meant the strength of natural abilities So Ismael is said to be born after the flesh that is by the meer and sole efficacy of nature in opposition to Isaacs being born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the spirit and after the promise And sometimes by Flesh is meant the Legal external priviledges of the Jews So in the 3d. of the Philip. 't is taken St. Paul sayes there If any other man thinketh he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more Circumcised the eighty day c. But 't is plain what St. Paul means here by flesh For what he calls flesh in the first ver he calls works in the second For if Abraham were justified by works he hath whereof to glory but not before God If Abraham were justified by the worth and value of his own performances of any works wrought in his own Strength and by his own Ability he had whereof to Glory But not before God which last clause is a positive Negation and comes in as a Minor proposition And so the the Apostles Argument is thus framed If Abraham were justified by works he had whereof to glory before God For 't is faith only that excludes glorying before God his reward would have been a debt But he had not whereof to glory before God Therefore he was not justified by works And that this is his meaning in those words But not before God is plain Because in the next words he applies himself in the proof of it For what saith the Scripture sayes he It does not say that Abraham was justified before God by works but Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for Righteousness God out of favour and grace accepted his Faith for Righteousness which is implyed in the word Counted when he might justly have Refused so to do Abraham could not have claim'd it from any merit in strict rules of Justice Now to him that worketh in the 4th ver is the reward not reckoned of Grace but of Debt That is he that hath any thing due to his for what he has himself in his own strength done that Reward is a Debt and is not a reward of Grance And so if Abraham had been a man of such merits had done such works as would in their own nature have justified him and constituted him Righteous in the sight of God Gods justifying him and adjudging him righteous had been a debt due to him But Abraham was not so he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sinner and could claim nothing of Debt And God was pleased out of favour and grace to Reward Abrahams Faith and suitable obedience with an accounting it for Righteousness and to justifie him thereupon But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifyeth the ungodly his faith is accounted for Righteousness That is Dependeth not upon the strength of his own performances and such a sinless innocency as will in strict rules of Justice acquit him before God as Abraham did not but Believeth on God that justifies the ungodly That is a man that has not a Legal sinless perfection for that is meant by the ungodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness That is his Faith through Grace shall avail him as much to all intents and stand him in as much stead as a perfect sinless Righteousness would do Abrahm's Justification was not upon the terms of the Law or by perfection of Works which is inconsistent with Pardon for he was a great sinner and had lived for some time in Heathen Idolatry But he was justified upon the terms and conditions of another Covenant that is upon his believing God and reforming his Life was Pardoned and Accepted and his Faith and sincere reformation though the Grace of another Covenant was accounted to him for Righteousness Even so as the Idolatrous Gentiles though
Where God hath so forgiven sin all the effects and consequences of it as such an Action are utterly extinguished and so it self ceaseth after a sort to be And he that hath committed Acts of sin when he is Legally pardoned is no more a Sinner nor ought he in Justice so to be accounted For 't was the judgment of the Law by which he is Acquitted that â—â—â—de him so to be 'T is true those sinful Acts do not naturally cease to be but all that was in those Acts obnoxious to the Law from whence their sinfulness arose upon Judicial pardon legally ceaseth to be and that is sufficient in this case For we are not in the discourse of this point making inquiries into a natural or metaphysical existence of things but only into a judicial and legal Secondly Let it be thus farther considered that nothing can more extinguish the denomination of sin and sinner then Legal and Judicial pardon As take it in the present instance of David in those sinful Acts of his The Acts 't is true were the same naturally considered after his pardon that they were before but legally and forensically considered they were not And how is it possible to be otherwise but that the very acts must be still naturally the same For suppose the righteousness of Christ to be personally imputed to David as those that thus Object would have it to be to denominate him a Righteous person and so render him a fit subject for Justification such Imputation will not make the Actions of his own sin to be naturally otherwise then indeed they are nor the Obliquity of them more cease to be then it does by Forgiveness There being no other possible way to bring an offender in the judgment of the Law into a righteous estate and condition but by Judicial pardon And if after such pardon what is here objected be true that the denomination of sin and sinner as such notwithstanding remain it will unavoidably follow by the strict Doctrine or personal imputation that a man may be under the proper denomination of a righteous man and a sinner at one and the same time which implyes a loud Contradiction For a man may be accounted righteous in respect of Christs righteousness personally made his own by imputation and yet he may be justly denominated a sinner however For although his sins be pardoned and cease to be in respect of the guilt of them yet not in respect of the denomination of the subject as 't is here Objected Whoever that was once an offender comes to be justly accounted righteous must first be fully cleared from the denomination of an offender for those two are visibly inconsistent in one subject And nothing else can more Effect that then forgiveness Thirdly To the latter part of the Objection That Justification doth denominate a man to be just and a righteousness is requisite to it A man is not justified and therefore just but just and therefore justified in the order of Justification I Answer The first thing affirmed herein That Justification doth denominate a man to be just and a righteousness is requisite to it is thus true That Justification necessarily supposeth a man to be just and it includeth the notion of his being so one of these two wayes either inherently or legally and judicially the one relates to an innocent persons Justification the other to an offenders And when justified they are both alike just in Law-sense though differently to be considered in the manner of their Justification and in their antecedent condition to it He that is not justified upon inherent righteousness but is an offender he can only arrive at the state of a just man by Legal acquitment in judgment and by having a sentence in law pass for him For whatever satisfaction he makes though it be true that there is virtually contained a righteousness in satisfaction yet being actually an offender in the judgment of the Law till the Plea of his satisfaction be accepted and he thereupon judicially acquitted he can never be accounted of as righteous and so can never be righteous previously to his Justification To speak of a previous righteousness properly so called requisite to an offenders Justification such as will justifie and defend him in Judgment has no tolerable sense in it For it supposeth a man to come under the notion of an offender and a righteous person at the same time This only is true in that case that a sufficient reason must be pleaded for the pardon and Justification of an offender before a righteous Tribunal And that alone can be plenary satisfaction and cannot be any thing else And that upon acceptance must needs produce Pardon And the natural End both of satisfaction and pardon is to re-instate an offender into a righteous condition The second thing affirmed That a man is not justified and therefore just but just and therefore justified is a great Mistake For it relates Justification solely and singly to innocents and renders the Justification of offenders about which the Scripture is only conversant utterly impracticable and impossible Persons inherently righteous are justified because found so and their Justification is but affirmative and declarative of such inherent righteousness But offenders are brought into the state of Just men upon legal pardon and discharge Nor can any Satisfaction in its nature operate farther Thirdly 'T is Objected That God requires a positive righteousness of us conformable unto his Law in the perfect obligation of it And therefore it follows that meer remission of sin under what distinction soever cannot be our righteousness Remission of sin frees from punishment but 't is perfect obedience that entitles us to eternal happiness To this I answer Legal sinless-righteousness which the Law requires God accepts satisfaction for in Christ 'T is Gospel-righteousness we are now to enquire after If God had not accepted Christ in our stead and his satisfaction to answer for all our obligements to the law as a Law of works and super-induced a better covenant thereupon this Argument had been good But seeing he has 't is of no force at all The Apostle tells us Rom. 10.4 that Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth To understand which expression of the Apostle aright we must consider Finem alicujus rei as the School-men speak dici dupliciter in quem tendit res vel naturaliter vel ex ordinatione Agentis The End to which the Law naturally tended was such a particular personal sinless-righteousness in each man as he might justifie himself upon and claim the reward promised as a debt due This end the Jews pursued and sought after and the Apostle rejects as appears in the 3d ver But the end to which the Law tended by the ordination of God was Christs righteousness to make satisfaction for our disobedience and thereby to introduce another method of Justification in a way of saith and believing that we might no
longer be under a Law of works but under a Law of grace The Law could not attain its natural end by reason of mans impotency and so 't was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ Nor did it in Christ for the Law required an unsinning righteousness from every particular person and not from Christ to satisfie for all others That depends purely upon Gods ordination To all unbelievers the Law remains still in force as it was first given and the wrath of God abides upon them thereby but to those that believe and so are within the Kingdom of the Mediator the Law is not in force as a Law of works but re-established by Him as part of the New Law and upon the same gracious terms that all other gospel-precepts are For the Apostle tells us we are not under the Law but under grace and yet tells us also the law is established by the Gospel All that discuss this point ought still to consider that our Justification is not Legal but Evangelical For we are justified with respect to the Law that is interested in Christs satisfaction upon performance of the Gospel-Condition and not otherwise 'T is not by the Law of Works any way considered that we are Actually and Personally justified The Apostle so concludes Rom. 3.38 A man is justified without the deeds of the law But 't is by the law of faith Whatever the Law of works requires God has accepted of satisfaction for our non-performance of it in our Surety and Representative and has impowered him to offer salvation upon the terms of a better covenant And the righteousness of God the Apostle tells us is now manifested without the law Our Justification is now upon the terms of a new recovering law of grace And 't is the righteousness of that we are now only obliged to perform When we are impleaded at the Bar of the Law we plead satisfaction in Christ for our Non-performance when we are impleaded at the Bar of the Gospel and put to prove our personal interest and propriety in that satisfaction then we are obliged to manifest our performance of the Gospel-condition and evidence the truth of our faith by which we are intituled to it Our Plea must then lye there So that with reference to the Law we are Justified that is Judicially pardoned and acquitted in judgment upon satisfaction made with reference to the Gospel upon performance of the condition And faith looks both wayes respects both the Law and the Gospel and comprizeth all that is requisite to our Justification with reference to both All the Charge of the Law it Answers ratione Objecti in respect of its Object which is Christ And all that is required by the Gospel ratione sui as being it self the performance of the Condition annexed thereunto To suppose that every Justified person as necessarily requisite to his Justification must be actually and personally possessed of all that unsinning obedience the strict rules of the Law required is a great mistake for none was ever so but Christ himself who became a Publick Satisfaction and Ransome for the whole Should any man now be Justified under the law of faith upon a strict performance of the law of works any way considered the Law would not then be relaxed but still strictly executed Now the truth is the Law is neither executed nor abrogated but relaxed and dispenced with Executed it is not for who then could be saved And the Apostle tells us Rom. 8. There is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus And abrogated it is not For 't is in full force a dreadful consideration to the wicked unbelieving part of the world with all its rigour against all those that do not believe and obey the Gospel and under the Gospel it self though we are freed from the curse of the Law yet we are still under the government of the Law in the sense before mentioned The condemning power is only taken off the commanding power is still continued And as some say though I think such ought well to consider what the Apostle sayes 1 Cor. ch 3. v. 22. not all the condemning power neither in matters temporal for the best men are still subjected to death natural and many sorrows And besides either a man must be possessed of such Legal Righteousness inherently or imputatively Inherently he cannot for the Scripture tells us that by the works of the Law no man living can be justified Nor can he be by way of imputation personally possessed of it For Christ himself did not nor could not in person perform all those individual acts the Law requires from every person that is Justified by it For when Christ is said to fulfill all righteousness 't is meant all made necessary by the law of his Mediatorship for himself to perform and not what every individual man was bound to perform And therefore no such imputation can ever be supposed unless we will suppose God to account me to have done that in Christ which Christ never did himself and in the Nature of the thing 't was impossible he should do Or else to account me to have done in mine own person all that Christ himself did in his person and so to be righteous in the very same spotless way and to the same transcendent degree that Christ was The only difference between those that assert the form of Justification to consist in the pardon of sin and those that say 't is requisite besides forgiveness of sin farther to take in the righteousness of Christ by imputation and that we should be pronounced righteous in judgment therein is this Whether Christs righteousness shall be reckoned and imputed to us in a way of Satisfaction made for our sins and disobedience upon a sincere belief of the Gospel and we reckoned righteous upon that account or whether it shall be so imputed as to be personally reckoned our own and to be adjudged righteous by God not for but in that very righteousness In both cases our Justification is bottom'd upon Christs alone righteousness and the imputation of it to us If the first be true then 't is undenyable contrary to what is objected that our Justification is our pardon and our pardon upon satisfaction made and accepted and the condition performed is that upon which we are constituted personally righteous For satisfaction made for an offender naturally and necessarily operates that way and cannot operate any other in judgment the vertue of it must needs be issued in pardon Now that the first is much likelier to be true and has much more of rational probability in it besides Scripture-testimony where we are said to be Ransom'd Redeem'd Purchased Bought with a price which all relate to satisfaction then the Later does from hence appear by that we are Justified as Sinners upon compensation made for our sins and are brought into a Righteous state by the pardon of them which is plainly the truth