then wrote And St. John tells us positively That he that Doth righteousness is only truely righteous And not he that reckons himself so without righteous Doing upon the score of believing And St. James expresly sets himself to confute this dangerous Errour and to prove these two things First That Christianity Believed and Professed will profit no man unless the Ends of it be pursued and prosecuted And secondly That that Faith that the Scripture calls a Justifying faith is an operative working faith a Faith that includes in its nature a suitable acting and obedience Speaking of Abrahams faith and his Justification which the Scripture makes to be the pattern of Gospel-faith and Justification and the one to run parallel with the other And which St. Paul had made so much use of to prove Justification by faith against the Jews Seest thou sayes he how faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness Where 't is as plainly expressed as by words it can be That that faith that was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was such a faith as contained in the bowels of it a suitable obedience and subjection to all Gods revealed will and pleasure By works saith the Apostle faith was made perfect That is faith was in order to action and a suitable acting and obedience in pursuance of it was included in it and was that which when performed did compleat and perfect it and without which faith is altogether imperfect and is not such a faith as in the Scripture is said to be accounted for righteousness And therefore it was upon Abrahams suitable obedience in prosecution of his faith by which the Scripture was fulfilled when it sayes Araham believed God and that belief was accounted for righteousness By which it is plain that Abrahams faith was counted for righteousness with reference to that obedience that was virtually compriz'd in it and not otherwise And that his faith and his works wrought joyntly together to obtain the same end And this is no way contradicted by St. Paul who tells us that Abraham was not justified by works For the works that St. Paul means are plainly such as the Law required such perfect sinless works as would in strict rules of Justice make the reward to be Debt And therefore when he opposeth faith to works 't is but in other words to oppose the Gospel to the Law St. Pauls business is to prove Justification in the way of the Gospel against the Jews by faith in opposition to Justification by the works of the Law St. James his province is to prove that the faith that does justifie us under the Gospel is not a bare naked Assent but such a faith as Abrahams was that contains in it a suitable obedience The one Apostle asserts in opposition to the Jews Evangelical Justification against Legal under the general term faith The other Apostle for the confutation of Heretical Christians explains that term and tells us it imports not only believing of God but an obedient Acting in prosecution thereof That the Apostles do very well agree with each in their Doctrine that Abraham was justified by such a faith as was accompanied with works and not by faith only according to St. James And yet that Abraham was justified by faith and not by works according to St. Paul may be this made to appear First That Abrahams faith that was counted for righteousness included his suitable obedience according to St. James and that his works did compleat and perfect his faith And that the Scripture was thereby fulfilled that tells us the Act of his Believing was counted for righteousness is plain from the story it self in Genesis which St. James quotes Had not his Believing compriz d a suitable obedience instead of being counted for Righteousness it would no doubt have been esteemed of God as it had indeed been a great piece of hypocrisy For Abrahams upright walking was the terms upon which God at first proposed to enter into a Covenant with him Secondly That Abraham was not justified by works according to St. Paul though his faith that was counted for Righteousness included his obedience is thus evident St. Pauls business is to prove against the Jews that Abraham who came first under the Law of Circumcision and from whom they derived themselves for it appears by their discourses with our Saviour when they cryed out We have Abraham to our Father that they went no higher was justified before he came under the Law of Circumcision before he was obliged to the oeconomie of the Law upon Gospel-principles and so those had the precedence of legal even in Abraham their Father upon the terms of another Covenant the Condition of which was Faith upon such terms as both Jews and Gentiles were to be justified then under the Gospel Upon which account the Scripture stiles him the common Father of all the faithful Abrahant before that faith of his that was accounted to him for Righteousness had lived for some time in Heathen Idolatry and was a great sinner and so could not pretend to be justified by a sinless perfection which the Law required and the Jews insisted on and so not by works in that sense He was one of the ungodly St. Paul speaks of in 4th to the Rom. who had not Legal perfection had not such works to plead as would make the reward in strict rules Justice to be of debt His Justification was upon the very same terms that the Gentiles then might be justified upon though they had lived in the grossest Idolatry and that was by believing the revelation of God in Christ charging their course of life and becoming obedient to what God should require of them In short Abrahams faith and obedience was not such Righteousness as in its own nature and by its own intrinsick worth would justifle any man from the guilt of all his sin and denominate him perfectly a Righteous person for had it so been in it self it needed not any favour to have been accounted for Righteousness But God was pleased out of grace so to reckon and account it Abraham having blelieved God about the promises of the Messiah that was to spring out of his family by whom himself and all the world were to be saved for the sum of all Gods converse with Abraham was to shew him Christs day and reveal to him the Salvation that was to come by him God was pleased to give the world an instance in his imputing that faith of Abraham to him for Righteousness how and upon what terms men should be saved by the Messiah when he did come in a word what should be the condition he would require of us to perform by the Gospel that is By believing the revelation of Christ and acting suitably thereunto by a sincere though imperfect obedience This God would impute and account for Righteousness This
to works As Galat. 5.6 I or in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but saith that worketh by love or that is wrought and perfected by love For so it is best rendered and sometimes opposeth evangelical obedience alone to the works of the Law as Galat. 6.15 Circumcision is nothing nor Vncircumcision but a new Creature And in the 1st of Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing sayes he and Vncircumcision is nothing but the keeping the commands of God where by the commands of God is meant the Law of the Gospel And Circumcision as 't is often in other places is put for the whole Law For whosoever was circumcised the Apostle declares he was obliged to the whole Law By which it plainly appears that whenever St. Paul speaketh against Works in the matter of Justification 't is the works of the Law and not of the Gospel that he intends and so he is to be understood For by the works of the Gospel we come to have a right and title to Justification and Salvation as appears Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life That Gospel Works are never excluded but are equally interested with faith in the matter of Justification will appear true beyond any good denyal by these two considerations First That faith that is said to justifie and does only so is a faith that worketh by love which is in other words to say 't is a faith that worketh by a sincere obedience and keeping all the Commands of God Secondly the promises of the Gospel are as well made and the rewards thereof equally annexed to our Gospel obedience as they are to our faith which plainly shews that faith and obedience are inseparably conjoyn'd in this matter and that faith is alwayes so to be understood as comprehensive thereof without it 't is dead is but a Karkass of faith and not such a living faith as the Gospel intends when it speaks of a justifying faith SECT IV. I Proceed to the third and last inquiry which is this How do we come to partake of the benefits of Justification before God and arrive at a justified estate To this the Scripture gives us a plain and ready Answer By peforming the Gospel-Condition For all the advantages that accrue to the world from Christs satisfaction are proposed conditionally to us and no man is actually justified till the condition be performed For whom he called them he justified And upon that account it is that we read in the New Testament of being justified by our faith of being justified by our words and works Gospel-faith and obedience being the condition required on our part to be performed and upon the performance of which we are justified and come to give up our account with joy at the great Judgement day men will be justified and condemned upon their performing or not performing the Gospel condition as we find by our Saviours own words Mat. 25. v. 35. That the Covenant of Grace is in the proposal of it conditional and that Christ with all his saving benefits is by the Gospel offered to us upon terms that we stand obliged personally to perform there needs no other proof then our Saviours own summary words about that matter He that believes shall be saved he that believes not shall be damned And we find Gen. 17. v. 1. When God first proposed the Covenant of Grace to Abraham he annexed sincere obedience to it as the condition of it Walk before me and be thou upright and I will make a Covenant with thee Nor do we find our Saviour ever encouraging any to come to him but upon the termes of taking his yoke and bearing his burden And indeed the Gospel is every where so express in this point and so very many Texts do affirm it that no man but one extreamly intoxicated with the phrenzy of Antinomianism can deny it and it were labour lost to prove it Now in regard the whole Conditionality of the Gospel is comprised in believing and in that one word Faith upon which account we are so often said to be justified by faith 'T is of great concern to arrive at the Scripture sense of this word and its intendment by it And to me it appears very evident That to be justified by faith in Scripture is generally taken to be Justified upon the terms of Christianity and the principles of the Gospel in opposition to Legal and Jewish Justification And by faith is comprehended whatever the Gospel requires of us in order to Justification The Gospel is stiled the Law of faith and whatever is required of us by it is called the obedience of faith Two Extreams are with great caution to be avoided in our conceptions of Gospel-faith First We must not on the one hand imagine that by faith and believing is meant only in the Gospel a bare Crediting of God and giving our assent to the Revelation of Jesus Christ and acquieseng therein For to be a Believer and to be a sincere practical Christian is all one in Scripture sense and When we are told that He that believeth shall be saved and are told in many other places by our Saviour and the Apostles that 't is those only that Obey him also and keep his commandments subduing their corrupt lusts and affections and working out their own salvation with fear and trembling that shall be saved and are generally told by the Gospel that without holiness no man shall see God 'T is a natural and necessary Inference that all that and whatever else is made conditionally necessary to a justified saving state and our continuance therein must be compriz'd in Faith and Believing Or else we shall make the Gospel not to be Correspondent with it self And indeed Faith is never spoke of in Scripture as bare believing and assenting in opposition to acting but as the grand principle of Action and so it is in it self The power of Belief is such that often it works physically and with great efficacy does it operate morally In the 11th to the Heb. the Apostle tells us All the great Actions of those noble Worthyes he mentions done before by faith God being not an object of sense since the world began Since Abels time the spring of all Religious and Godly actions has been faith But the world were never under the Law of faith till the Gospel was published That faith was nothing else and contained nothing farther then a bare Assent to the Revelation of the Gospel as true was that gross Delusion that led so many aside in the first publication of the Gospel Especiallly of St. Pauls Epistles For the Gnosticks and others unlearned and unstable as we find by Hegesyppus in Eusebius wrested the Scriptures and held That barely believing the truth of Christianity and professing it was enough without any thing farther done to save a man Against this it is That both St. John and St. James so fully
righteousness or unrighteousness do necessarily inhere and to which by virtue of his Constitution and Relation they are inseparably appertaining Just as light and darkness necessarily relate to Aire health and sickness to our bodyes And they are contraryes that expel each other and from a necessity in their own Natures succeed each other in their Existance in such Subjects Air perfectly free from all darkness must of necessity be supposed to be light If a body be free from all sort of sickness it must needs be supposed in perfect health So if a Man be freed wholly from all sort of unrighteousness he ought not nor cannot be otherwise judged of then as a Just and a Righteous person there being no third state imaginable in such cases Fourthly If Gods Pardon of all a mans sin should not ipso facto instate him in a Righteous condition and render him perfectly a Righteous person one of these two things would unavoidably insue Either that there must be some third state of a man that is neither Righteous nor Unrighteous which is in the nature of the thing utterly Impossible to be or else that God might fully pardon an unrighteous man that is a man after his pardon Continuing still so to be and that a man might remain unrighteous and so obnoxious to Punishment miserable and unhappy contrary to what the Psalmist so often sayes That he is blessed that has his sins forgiven after all his sins are Pardoned and he has reaped the whole benefit of Gods Forgiveness To imagine either of which were either extreamly Impious or Foolish or Both. Fifthly The Apostle tells us that All unrighteousness is sin the Scripture carryes us no farther and all sin is some way or other a breach and transgression of some Law Now where all sort of sin is Forgiven both of Omission and Commission a man is in the same state as if he had never offended and if so capable of no charge of sin and so of no charge of unrighteousness and so cannot by strict rules of Justice be otherwise adjudged and accounted of then as a Righteous person Freedom from all unrighteousness which Pardon of all sin necessarily includes does ipso facto constitute a man Righteous and denominate him from the Reason of the thing so to be And the truth is a person whose Fault is remitted and he judicially acquitted upon plenary satisfaction made is in point of true and legal Justification and being accounted Righteous thereupon upon even termes with him that is Accused and Justifyed by being found innocent Because the Rule of Righteousness and Justification is the Law and the Judgement resulting from thence Most especially when we are acquitted at the infallible Tribunal of God according to His righteous Laws The Apostles Question so pregnant Negative may very well be asked If God justify who shall either Charge or Condemn Secondly It appears by several Texts that whomsoever God pardons he reckons as Righteous and is in the Scripture-acceptation said to justify thereby In the 4th of the Rom. where the Apostle is proving that Righteousness and Justification is not by works and merit but by free forgiveness in the Gospel way of Believing he sayes in the 6. ver Even as David also describeth the blessdness of the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works Here the Apostle gives you Davids sense in his own words and then quotes Davids words saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity By which it is plain past all denyal that imputing righteousness without works and free forgiveness of sin and not imputing iniquity are the same if this be but admitted that St. Paul know how to interpret the words of David In the 2d Epist to the Corinth chap. 5th the Apostle there tells us that God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses God upon not imputing sin is reconciled Now it upon Not imputing sin He did not account of us as Righteous 't were impossible he should be so Reconciled God cannot be reconciled to any man continuing unrighteous and under the notion of a Sinner In truth Throughout the Scripture all the characters of a righteous person of a Happy and Blessed person are still given to a Pardoned person As all misery was introduced by sin to manifest Gods extream hatred of it So all happiness is attained by the forgiveness of it to tell us of what value Gods forgiveness is and what an inestimable price it cost In the sense of the Gospel which is a Law Enacted that peculiarly provides for the Justification of an Offender a righteous person is a pardoned person to Calvin observes Cum veniam peccatorum fuerimus consecuti Justi habemur coram Deo Instit lib. 3. ch 17. And a pardoned person is a justifyed person and a justifyed person is blessed person Pardon Justification Righteousness Blessedness are inseparably Conjoyn'd The 4th of the Rom. and other Texts are a sufficient Proof of it Thirdly From a due consideration of that Order and Method God is pleased to use in the Pardoning of Sinners ' This truth will be farther manifest and appear to be immoveably sixed upon these two foundations First Every sinner is pardoned upon the soore of such a Satisfaction made as honour and satisfies the Law as much as if it had never been broken or as if being broken the utmost penalty had been inflicted Now such satisfaction is in it self vertually Righteousness and when accepted in judgement is Actually so Secondly Every sinner is in fact pardoned and not before upon the performance of such a Condition as God is pleased by the Covenant of his Grace to account for righteousness and so to accept And that is Believing and being possessed of Gospel-faith Which Faith we are often told is imputed for righteousness Whoever believes is Righteous in the Judgement of the Gospel Law for it is performing the condition required by it on our part to be performed and is our Covenant-Keeping Now whosoever is so Circumstanced in a judicial pardon obtained from the Great and Infallible Judge of all the Earth upon such a satisfaction made and such a Condition performed is certainly well intituled to a Righteous state and condition A Fourth consideration to make good the Definition I have given shall be this Gods Justifying a sinner is as has been said his giving Sentence with the guilty party Now God whose Judgement is ever according to Truth cannot give Sentence with a Guilty person upon the score of Innocency His Justification therefore of such a one consider it which way you will must needs be included in his Forgiveness of him He must of necessity be restored to a righteous condition in a way of pardon and cannot be so upon any other account That which some say That Justifying and bare and absolute Forgiving are in themselves considered two distinct things