good works in or through Christ Jesus When God made man at first and gave him a Law it was that he should live Holy When righteousness then was the end of his Creation and the Law thereof how is this said to be the end of his Redemption I answer Righteousness or holiness as they are one we must know does lye in a conformity to the Law which God gives us There is nothing else and nothing less then this the full performance of a Law given that is Righteousness Upon this account as soon as man once fell and broke the Law of his creation it was impossible he should be righteous any more unless there were a new Law brought in in the performance whereof he might attain to that again which he had lost Now to this end was it that Christ came and died this was the very main business I count of his Redemption even the procuring this new Law or another Law with lower termes which some men performing they do thereby become righteous and so have righteousness according to that Law imputed to them for remission and life eternal Here you see what that righteousness indeed is which Christ is said to bring in and in what sense he hath brought it in or how such Texts as those before do attribute our Holiness to him The obedience of Christs life and death we know was fulfilled on earth and of this he himself hath once said It is finished But the righteousness he is said to bring in is called an Everlasting righteousness And what then can that be but the righteousness of the Gospel which upon the same account also is called the Everlasting Gospel That is because it is by this righteousness in opposition to that of the Law or the righteousness of works that all men from the beginning of the world to the end of it and so is it to be accounted ever of force do obtain everlasting Salvation I know the great difficulty of this Doctrin will lye on the point of remission Our Divines do generally place justification in the remission of Sin so do the Papists with something else and so have I my self after others Nevertheless as I remember St. Augustine in one place does find fault with this in Pelagius so hath the perplexity of it of late lead me into the like thoughts The truth is Pardon of Sin is a benefit unto which the justified person is adjudged as eternal life is but remission of Sin must not be made the formal reason of justification Our Divines may define justification to be an Act of Grace whereby God gives us Eternal Life or a right to it as well as an act of grace whereby he pardons our sins That act that very only act wherein the form of justification does lye is Gods accounting or pronouncing a man righteous and this is a forensical act according to Law the Law or Covenant of grace Which covenant promising Forgivencss and Life upon the performance of its Conditions when a man hath performed them he hath a right to those benefits and when God does declare or account that a man hath performed them which is all one as to judge him righteous these benefits flow to him from that judgment or are confer'd on him by that act as Effects of that cause and consequently cannot be the very act it self which is the cause of them To forgive a mans sin and declare him righteous are two things inconsistent one with another in the same respect and therefore when God pronounces a man just it is according to the Law of Faith and when he pardons his Sin it is in respect to the Law of works And how then can two acts incompatable but in divers respects cùm omne ens sit unum be made to enter one and the same definition It is true as all agree that there are no works that man does or can doe able to make God any amends for our offences so that remission of sin must be attributed altogether to the merits of Christ in regard to the attonement made But we must distinguish of Remission Remission is either Conditional and Universal as it lyes in the Covenant and is the purchase of Christ or Actual as it lyes in the application thereof to particular persons upon performance of the condition When Divines do say we can doe nothing our selves for procuring reconciliation and remission it is to be understood of Conditional universal remission No mortal could do any thing toward the obtaining of that God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their trespasses But as for remission Actual that man must be blind who sees not that God does every where require us to repent beleeve confess our faults forsake them do good works forgive others that we may have pardon and be saved Conditional pardon now is antecedent to a mans justification and contained in our redemption In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of Sins Actual remission is subsequent to justification for we must be supposed first to have performed the condition and be pronounced righteous and then pardoned When there is no remission then but what does either goe before or follow justification it cannot be made the very act it self of our justification There is one Text may be opposed Even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without works Saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven It seems that the Righteousness which Paul speaks of without works in the one verse is described by pardon in the other This I my self have alleadged but upon farther consideration I answer The man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works or the blessedness of that man is described but we may suppose not the Righteousness without works The scope of the Apostle is plainly to shew us only that it is not by works of the Law or such works as would make the reward of debt and not of grace as appeares in the immediate verses before which are perfect works that a man is justified And he proves it by this argument because the man is blessed whose sins are forgiven that is as much as to say not he who is without sin but he who hath sin and it is forgiven The man who is blessed is justified But the man who is blessed hath sin to be forgiven Therefore the righteousness which a man hath or is imputed to him is not a righteousness according to the Law of works but according to the Covenant of Grace This I say is the scope of the place Gods imputing Righteousness to a person is indeed a phrase signifying Gods accounting him righteous or justifying him and the Apostle Proves a man is justified without works that is perfect works because he hath sin to be covered I will yet repcate The man to whom righteousness is imputed without works is pardoned but it followes not that this Righteousness without works
confounded As the Law is taken strictly or precisely for the Old Covenant or the Law of Moses with Circumcision its appurtenance that is for all that apart that was added to the promise before-going and abstracted there-from as I have said so are they distinguished and their differences to be owned and maintained In the next place we may understand from this how the Jews were under both conditions of Believing and Doing Of doing this and live and of believing also that they might be saved To wit As the Covenant of Grace was delivered to their fore-Fathers and so on foot before it must needs hold forth life to them on their Faith as well as to Abraham their Progenitour who received Circumcision as a seal of Righteousness thereby or to come thereby and not by the Law which as yet was not given And as the Law was added as the Apostle speaks to this Covenant or Promise it did tye the Jews to a performance of it as a condition of living by it in some sense as neither the Patriarks before nor we since are under and in regard whereof that which is said by a reverend person that the Old Testament-Spirit was a fearing Spirit with the like expressions are not without a truth in them that desires more consideration then One of late does give them Especially when the Apostle is so express that the Jews were under a School-Master and we are not under that School-Master That the Covenant from Sinai engendered to Bondage but where the Spirit of the Lord is or the New Testament is there is Liberty From this yet in the third place we may enlarge our light further to judge of that abrogation of the Law or deliverance from it which Christians have under the Gospel A glorious thing the Apostle counts it that puts us directly into such an estate and condition as the Patriarks and those holy men before Abraham were in to live according to the light and liberty of their Consciences that is according to the Law of Nature which as it is in the hands of Christ and not of Moses to wit as delivered from the Yoke of his Ceremonies and the superstition of Idolaters and administred with Grace and the Spirit with Grace in God's acceptation of our sincerity instead of perfect obedience for the Redeemers sake and with the Spirit in his assistance of us for the performance is both the Universal Religion of Man-kind and the substance of that which is Christian unto this day I should quote Eusebius De praep Evan. See his Ecc. Hist l. 1. c. 5. From whence also we see in the way how the Covenant of Grace which Abraham and all those holy men which went before him or that ever were have had as well as we is yet called the New Covenant and that is it is called New as the lump is called a new lump by the Apostle to the Corinths That Church was leavened by the ill example of vicious Members particularly of the incestuous person they are therefore commanded to cast him out and that they should not mingle themselves or keep company with the seandalous and in so doing they should become as it were a new body or lump though they were still otherwise but the same Community Purge out therefore the old Leaven that you may be a new Lump So is it with the Covenant it was made by God with all man-kind in Christ ever since the beginning of the World and confirmed to the Patriarchs it being impossible else that any should have been saved and yet it is called a New Covenant in relation to us under the Gospel because I say that that which was added to it by Moses to wit all that which properly is the Old Covenant is removed or purged away as the Leaven in the Jews Feast by Christ our Pass-over who hath been Sacrificed and made for us that expurgation And if that which is done away was glorious how much more that which remains That which is done away was the Ministration of death engraven in stone and of the Letter that killeth That which remaineth is the Ministration of the New Testament of the Spirit which giveth Life and of Righteousness That which remaineth I pray note it That cannot be said to remain which was not before extant The Covenant of Grace with the Patriarchs and the New Covenant with us being the very same as I have said but ours only called New or renewed upon the abolishing of that which was super-added as upon this remaining too it self never to wax old and vanish For the latter what kind of Covenant I take this to be I am now in order to tell you The Old Covenant as to me it seemeth was a kind of Political Covenant made with the Nation of the Jews as Princes compacts are with their people when they first set up Government God promises them his Protection that he would lead them to a fruitful Land overcome all their Enemies with the like blessings and they promise him they will be ruled by him To this purpose did God in sundry ways appear to them to Moses to their Elders to them all in the Clouds and Fire and then causes a Tabernacle to be made for him which was a Keeping house among them where the Sacrifices and Offerings was his Provision and the Priests his Servants that lived on him and unto that Tabernacle and Ark might they repair for Counsel and Judgment This People then being peculiarly under a Theocracy which Samuel in two places does expresly signify at least until the time of Saul so that the Church and Common-wealth of the Jews were but one according to the Apostle it is no wonder if Religion be made their Laws and so required of them together with other political Ordinances and Statutes for their happiness or publick peace as a Nation From hence is it that though their Law is not to be judged the Covenant of Works or the Covenant of Grace either of the two themselves yet may we expect that it should represent both the one and the other to them because in the knowledge of both does the business of Religion and the whole of it virtually consist In the delivery of the Moral Law and that with Thunder and Lightning and such Terrour as we read of it they had a representation of the Covenant of Nature which quafaedus is doubtless in our falne Estate a Ministration only of Wrath or Law of sin and death In their Ceremonial Offerings and Priestly appointments though there was a remembrance still of sin and so matter of bondage and sear yet had they types of Christ of remedying Mercy and the Glory to come These Sacrifices were brought directly as Mulcts to their King to deliver them from the danger of present punishment being Redemptions of their lives which else they should have forfeited by his Laws and served I have said to the maintenance of his house the Tabernacle and Temple which he was
should be held to be sin or so much as damnable though it should be granted him through Christ's redemption actually to damn no body It may be the want of a plainer consideration what the immediate benefit of Christ's redemption to the world is made that excellent person think this so grievous It is not grievous I hope that God should give a Law to his Creature according to his nature and that therefore having made man righteous he should require of him to continue in that righteousness and walk up according to it It necessarily follows without any thing else that this Law being made in Innocency must condemne all man-kind in whom this righteousness and perfection is no longer to be found so that by nature or according to this Covenant of mans nature we are and must be all the Children of wrath as the Apostle speaks It would now be indeed a grievous thing if God should deal with any in that justice as he might according to this Covenant and therefore it hath pleased him according to a Righteousness of his declared in the Gospel in opposition to the righteousness of this Covenant of works to give us his Son who by the work of his Mediation for man-kind should prepare a remedying Law or universal conditional remission against that condemnation As for Children then if they are Baptized we are to account they do perform this Covenant or new Law by the Faith of their Parents bringing them to Baptisme This is my Covenant you shall keep every man-child shall be Circumcised If they be not Baptised we are yet to look on them as such who have not broken this new Law or never refused and rejected their remedy and so long as by the Redemption of Christ they are delivered over with all the world from the Covenant of works to the new Law to be judged I will not be the man that shall condemn one Infant to Hell or unto torments although if there be any that will make a difference of place or state in the future life for Children proportionable only to the difference there is between performing the condition and not being guilty of any breach at all of it I will not gain-say them nor determine any thing in a matter so lubricous and above what is written To return By the Law and the Gospel it may be thought perhaps by some that we are to understand the state of the Old and New Testament and so must this Authour mentioned be made to conceive that David and the like holy men had not the same spirit or power or not so much to enable them to observe God's precepts as we have now when he uses these expressions That the spirit was given under the Gospel as to his miraculous gists in another measure then under the Law I believe and that such Texts as the spirit was not yet given because Christ was not yet lorified and that they had not yet heard that there was a Holy Ghost with the like may be happily so understood I believe But to think that the Spirit as to sanctification of the heart and inclining it to a ready service of God was not given under the Old Testament as well as under the the New is a conceit I will not fasten on any To say it is given more to us now than to David Samuel Jeremy and such persons in respect to this end will yet require explanation and proof if that be intended wholly by these speeches Before I pass there is one passage of this apt Writer I cannot but note with much approbation It is Grace that accepts of our Repentance and Obedience after we have sinned This passage contains more in it then the most are like to be aware of The Scripture tells us in several Texts that by Grace we are saved freely justified and not by Works By Works we are to understand the works of the Law and that quâ faedas as before and no body is justified or saved by these works they being above the ability of any to perform By Grace I will understand with him this accepting our sincere though imperfect obedience for life through Christ as if it were perfect righteousness Not unto him that worketh that is unto him that hath not performed the works of the Law which if they were perfect he should live by them but unto him that believeth on him that justifies the ungodly that is but is ungodly in reference to these works or is one that his Conscience tells him hath sinned and does sin or is imperfect and falls short of these works yet believes that God is gracious and merciful for all that and will pardon these sins and failings if he repent and walk sincerely though imperfectly his Fath is imputed for Righteousness his Faith that is such a believing this as produces that repentance and sincere walking is imputed to him for Righteousness that is is made to stand him in that stead as a perfect righteousness would do so that through grace or this gracious acceptance he shall live by it There are works if I may still say over what hath been somwhere also said before that would make life to be of debt according to God's Covenant of Nature if any could perform them and so there are none justified or saved by works for all have sinned and fall short under this sence of the glory of God Or there are works that cannot be accepted or imputed unto life but through grace and so is it that by grace only or gratis that the Scripture teaches us we are justified and saved Nay the acceptance of our imperfect sincere obedience for righteousness or that we should live by it is that very grace it self that saves us So well am I pleased with this Note from that Authour If this seem to savour too much of inculcation you must pardon me I do apprehend that the Doctrin of grace and justification whereof I have been and therefore am still the longer hath been the occasion of several apprehensions in good men that instead of being conducive to have proved but hinderances of true sober practical Godliness There are two of these mentioned by the same understanding person ☞ The one is a conceit that a Christian may not avoyd sin and do good for fear of Hell and to obtain Heaven that is for the sake of Reward This the Mentioner hath confuted with plain text that it needs not a second hand Onely that it may not needlesly disquiet any I will advance this contrary truth that whatsoever person out of any principle fear or hope or love does or shall in the prevalent intentions of his Soul and endeavour as to the constant tenour of his life prefer his Eternal Salvation before his Flesh-pleasing in this world is surely in a good Estate the Converted man or the Godly man that shall be saved He that does Righteousness is born of God I will suppose him a Christian and one that acts according