for our believing saith he not by way of Merit not of Debt yet in way of reward Another who speaks clearly and less covertly saith expresly that God justifies and saves none but for their believing And another who searched and saw as far as either of them and speaks out saith plainly that we are Pardon'd Justified and Adopted to Eternal Life as a reward to Believers for their Faith and Obedience And withal tells us in the same Book that Reward and Merit are Relatives so as that wherever there is Reward following there Merit went before and that there is no Reward but it is a Reward of Merit 'T is true indeed he will have the Merit of our repenting and believing but a subordinate Merit and Christ's the principal But what is this better than the old Popish Notion that Christ Merited that we might Merit and we Merit in the virtue of his Blood and by Gods Grace And indeed he expresly owns this Tenet of theirs But surely this is another Gospel that we are pardoned justified adopted and vested in the Priviledges of the New Covenant Estate as a reward of or for our believing repenting or new obedience and a Doctrine grosser than many Learned Papists hold as great Merit-mongers as they are For they insist upon it as one condition requisite unto Merit that the Person Meriting the Reward must first be in a State of Grace and Favour with God and therefore Justification and Adoption cannot be Merited by us nor are conferred upon us as a reward of any thing that we do Yea methinks it is a very pernicious and Soul-destroying Error if there be or ever have been any such in the World For if a Mans Heart be influenced by it and moulded according to it in all his treating with God and applications to him for pardon of Sin and Justification and adoption he is wholly led aside quite off from the way of the Gospel and it is utterly impossible he should ever truely believe For Faith receives and looks for Union to Christ interest in this righteousness of his pardon of Sin Justification and Adoption not as a reward for or of any thing that we do but meerly of Free Grace and wholly for the sake of Christ and his righteousness I conclude therefore that though this Word Condition may be used and is so by some in a sound sense and with a good meaning concerning Faith and its reference to the righteousness of Christ being upon us yet it is neither convenient nor safe For it may occasion an unhappy stumbling and a Soul-ruining mistake And therefore I cannot but joyn with that great Divine Dr. Tho. Goodwin on Eph. 2. Serm. 22. p. 301. who wisheth it were laid aside and wholly disused because there is danger in it or at least if men be impotently fond of the word that it were both more soundly meant and better explained than it is by our present Contenders for it 3. The generality of all those that own the righteousness of Christ being upon us as that wherein we stand justified have used to express the influence of Faith thereunto by that word Instrument So the Westminster Assembly do both in their Confession and in their Catechism Nor have I seen any thing alledged against expressing it by that word that amounts to any more but that the word is not strictly and precisely proper in the same sense wherein it is used in other cases which for my part I will easily grant But what then Ars posterior prioris utitur operâ Artes in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concrescunt We must of necessity and are warranted by the practise of the Holy Ghost to use Figures and Tropes in speaking of and declaring the Truths of God It is al 's readily granted that the word instrument is not found in Scripture used matter But yet for all that it may be a word of the Holy Ghosts Teaching for it is suited and apt to declare and let in into our Minds the true Notion and conception of what the Scripture declares to be the reference of Faith unto our Justification The Scripture saith it is by and through and of Faith yea it saith that God justifies us by Faith and through Faith I know no word that doth so well express the work and use of Faith in this matter which the Holy Ghost sets forth by receiving Joh. 1.11 12. Rom. 5.11 17. where we are said to receive Christ and to receive his Righteousness and the Atonement made thereby An expression that speaks both our having it or being possessed of it and the means or way on our part wherein it is effected or brought about viz. that it is by and in such a like acting of our Hearts towards Christ and his Righteousness as answers the work of the Hand in taking and receiving a corporeal thing offer'd to us and by our taking it made ours For my part as on the one hand I would not be needlesly tenacious of a word where we can as well retain and express the Truth without it so on the other hand I cannot but observe that all those even to a Man not one as far as I remember to be excepted who quarrel with that word instrument and wrangle to bring in the word condition in this business of our Justification and Christs Righteousness being upon us do labour under that Covert to bring in withal a very weighty and momentous alteration in the substance of the Doctrine of the Gospel For they would also bring in other things viz. Repentance and Love and new Obedience as Conditions of our Justification as well as Faith and as the Righteousness which is imputed to us and wherein we stand And they are generally for a conditional Redemption also and many of them for a conditional Election too 4. I shall therefore waving those dissatisfying words set before you what I conceive to be the Truth of God in this matter briefly in a few Propositions concerning the reference that Faith hath unto the Righteousness of Christ being upon us Onely premising two things First That I am speaking of possession or actual injoyment of this righteousness of Christ not of right or title to it Right and Possession are different things and therefore things of a different Nature and may be one without the other Rutherf of the Covenants p. 231 232. Faith hath no influence no not so much as in a way of instrumentality to confer upon us a right and title to Christs Righteousness all the influence that Faith hath in this matter is onely unto our actual Possession of it which the Holy Ghost calls our having it Phil. 3.9 and here in the Text its being upon us Secondly This Possession or having this Righteousness of Christ the reference of Faith whereunto I am speaking of is that having it which is unto Justification of Life and that as the next and immediate effect of this Righteousness being thus upon us It is having
of Jesus Christ is meant Faith upon him that Christ is the object not the subject of it Not that Christ is he that believes but he on whom we believe So is this manner of speaking used elsewhere Gal. 2.16 Knowing that a man is justified by the Faith of Jesus Christ we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the Faith of Jesus Christ And so ver 20. I live by the Faith of the Son of God So in Acts 3.16 By Faith in his Name It is the same case and construction in the Greek as it is here in the Text and in the Galatians and might as well be rendred Faith of his Name You have the like Mark 11.22 Have Faith in God or as your Margins tell you Have the Faith of God It might as well be rendred here Faith in Jesus Christ as it is their Faith in God The Grammer and the meaning is the same in both places It is genitivus objecti not efficient is or subjecti It being then Faith on Christ let us next consider what this Faith is And I shall briefly touch on three things concerning it 1. The subject of Faith is the heart of a convinced broken-hearted humbled sinner Faith is seated and acted in the heart Rom. 10.10 VVith the heart man believeth unto Righteousness And it is the heart of a convinced contrite humbled Sinner Where there is not any conviction of Sin there is no Conviction of Righteousness For as the whole and well do not need so they do not see and feel themselves sick and wounded unto Death will not seek to a Physician nor commit themselves into his hands He that doth not see himself in danger of Death by the Avenger of Blood will not flee to Christ for refuge to lay hold upon him which is the work of Faith or that which the Soul doth in believing as the Apostle sets it forth Heb. 6.18 The very nature of Faith and the Acting of the Soul in it is such as doth imply and include a sight and sense of Sin and Misery and an over-powering practical lively heart-influencing Conviction of utter helplesness in a mans self and unworthiness to be helped by God In believing the Soul looks on it self as in a perishing Condition Luke 15.14 16 17 19. as a poor and needy Friendless and Fatherless Creature Hos 14.3 and betakes it self to Soveraign Grace and Mercy It believes that it may be justified Gal. 2.16 which implyes that it sees it self lyable to condemnation Yea it knows as the Apostle there speaks that men are not justified by the works of the Law that is in its believing it is under a particular and lively Conviction that by the works of the Law neither any other nor it self shall ever be justified and it is thereby influenced to seek to be justified by Christ in this way of believing Not but that after Faith and Pardon and a sense of it too there are deep humblings and meltings of God according to that promise Ezek. 16.61 63. and we see was in her Luke 7.38 Nevertheless a truth it is that Unhumbledness and Pride are inconsistent with true Faith Joh. 5.44 and so also is impenitency and hardness of Heart the Seed of the word of the Gospel will never take root and grow up in such an heart Matth. 21.32 and 13.20 21. 2. The object of Faith is Jesus Christ that is the anointed Saviour or the Name of Christ as 1 Joh. 3.23 and Joh. 1.12 that is Christ as made known and set forth and declared in the Gospel And in the Gospel he is set forth as the Ordinance and Servant of God for saving Sinners of the Sons of Men. Christ is the next and immediate object of Faith God is the ultimate Object of it For by him we come to God Heb. 7.25 and by him we do believe in God 1 Pet. 1.21 3. The hearts acting towards this object in its believing is most properly in a way of trust and dependence and affiance The Holy Ghost who is the Author and worker of Faith and who best knows the Nature of it doth in Scripture set it forth by great variety of expressions some proper some metaphorical Trusting and believing in are among the proper expressions whereby the Holy Ghost declares the Nature of Faith and the acting of the Heart therein towards Christ and God by him The former is used by him Eph. 1.12 13. Isa 50.10 and 26.3 4. and often elsewhere The latter is used Gen. 15.6 Joh. 1.12 and 6.29 and 14. 1. Gal. 2.16 2 Tim. 1.12 and in many other places There are also some Metaphorical Expressions used by the Holy Ghost to the same purpose And as they are in their Nature apt and fit to let in a Light of Understanding into our Minds and to guide them in their conceivings concerning the Nature of this Faith through which the Righteousness of Christ comes to be unto all and upon all that believe So the Holy Ghosts using them warrants us to use them in speaking of and describing Faith To give some instances Believing is called looking unto Christ Isa 45.22 and it implyes a looking to him with earnest desire and expectation For that expression in the Prophet is taken from that Ordinance in Moses Numb 21.8 where you find the Israelites directed when stung by the Fiery Serpents to took to the Brazen Serpent that they might not dye but live and be healed Christ shows us that himself was shadowed and prefigured by that Brazen Serpent John 3.14 and his death by the lifting of it up John 12.32 33. and accordingly by their looking to it was believing taught as Christ plainly intimates John 3.15 And therefore as an Israetite who felt himself stung by the Fiery Serpents and dying looked with earnestness of expectation to the Brazen Serpent in like manner doth the Heart of a convinced Sinner work towards Christ in believing Again Believing is called coming to Christ Matth. 11.28 John 6.37 44 45. for in ver 35. he had explained coming to him by believing on him But what manner of coming is it Is it a dead cold careless coming No it is a coming with appetite and affection as an hungry man comes to his Meat and a thirsty man to drink which also is Christs comparison there And thence elsewhere the same Spirit who is the worker of Faith in us and under whose hand the Soul is conducted and doth act in its believing calls it a fleeing unto Christ for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us Heb. 6.18 All the expression sets forth earnestness in the Heart in its believing For they are taken from the practise of one who finding himself in danger of Death from the Avenger of Blood fled unto the City of Refuge the Ordinance for which you may see Numb 35.13 15. or from the practice of a self-convicted self-condemned Criminal among the Jewes who fled to the Tabernacle and caught hold on the Horns
lost and perishing and forlorne Condition And verily this is an heavy and an overwhelming guilt superadded unto all the rest You should take in Convictions of your condemned Condition and that the Wrath of God abideth on you and will do so as long as you continue in unbelief Do not flatter your selves and delude your own Consciences by saying I have mourned and I have wept bitterly for my sins and over my poor Soul and I have left them and amended and reformed my Life and I thank God I walk so and so blamelesly and exemplarily Be it so yet let me put these two Demands to thy Conscience 1. Are these things the Righteousness of Christ And 2. Are they Faith If they be not the Righteousness of Christ they can never justifie thee from any the least sin And if they be not Faith the Righteousness of Christ will never be upon thee by or thorow them The Scripture no where saith that the Righteousness of Christ is upon us through our repenting not yet through our amending and reforming no nor through any works of Righteousness and Obedience that we have done or can do No this is the Priviledge Prerogative and peculiar Office of Faith True it is these things are thy bounden Duties God will damn thee for neglecting them But yet as true and as certain it is that they neither are the Righteousness of Christ nor will they intitle thee to it and interest thee in it Know therefore that though thou couldst mourn Rivers of Tears or Seas of Bloody though thou couldst amend thy Life and reform thy way and thy heart too so as never more to sin and though for the time past of thy Life thou hadst and for all the time to come shouldst live like a Saint dropt down from Heaven and walk up and down in the World like an Angel in flesh shine and sparkle and glitter among the Sons of God yet as all this is not the Righteousness of Christ so neither would the Righteousness of Christ be upon thee through all these things for they are not Faith Thou art therefore in a state of Condemnation and the Wrath of God abides upon thee and will do so as long as thou continuest without Faith USE 3. This Doctrine speaks earnest exhortation to get Faith to believe And it speaks to you all one and other for you all stand in need of this Righteousness of Christ to be upon you the very least sinner among you all as well as the greatest As the Apostle Paul sometime said to Peter Gal. 2.15 16. We who are Jews by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the Faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law for by the wâ—rks of the law shall no flesh be justified So I say to you that are not such grievous and atrocious sinners as some others are you as well as the greatest Sinners must believe in Jesus Christ that you may be justified And much more you whose own Consciences neither do nor can make any other judgment of you but that you are among the very chief of Sinners Sinners before the Lord exceedingly O do you get Faith See that you believe For in this way it will come to pass that the Righteousness of Christ shall be upon you and in no way by no means unless you believe You may try other courses you may gad about to change your way from foul to clean from careless and loose and prophane to strict and serious and circumspect but though you wash you with Nitre and take you much Soap yet your Iniquities will stand marked before the Lord your guilt the guilt of all your sins wilt still be upon you You may take up the practise of Duties and abound therein you may attain much light in Spiritual things and become Eminent in Gifts You may walk blamelesly in the Eye of the World you may live in the fellowship of Saints and in the observance of the Ordinances of God in the purest way of their Administration upon earth and yet be without this Righteousness of Christ upon you For these are not Faith It is therefore a preposterous course to begin with taking up of Duties without looking after Faith nay it is an errour in the Foundation and a building on the Sand All your building of Duties and Profession and Hopes will fall down and the fall thereof will be great and fearful Yet I fear it is the oversight and errour of many Professors among us at this day but it is a fatal and Soul-ruining one My advice and Exhortation to you therefore is that whatever you do in the concernments of your Souls look to it that you believe Whatever you neglect neglect not getting Faith Yea look to it in the first place Thus your Teachers should instruct and lead you This is the Apostles direction unto Titus that he should teach them that have believed to be careful to maintain or to excel in good works Tit. 3.8 not to teach and press Sinners in their unbelief to fall to doing good works first and overlook believing wholly or to postpone it after them And thus you should practise else you labour in the fire and weary your selves in very vanity for all your pain and toil and doing will not bring it about that the Righteousness of Christ shall be upon you for they are not Faith But through Faith that Righteousness will be upon you and being upon you it will produce good works and both your Works and your Persons be accepted your Persons first and then your Works And if you believe this Righteousness shall certainly be upon you and you shall be accepted and made Righteous in it how many or how heinous soever your sins have been or how great soever and amazing to your Consciences your guilt be For it is through Faith and net through works of Obedience that it is unto all and upon all without difference who do believe Therefore look to it that you do indeed believe look to it that your Faith be the Faith of God's Elect. Vse 4. This Doctrine speaks to Believers and to you it shows how you should live and walk before God so as to please injoy and glorifie him I will instance in three things 1. You should walk holily in all new Obedience If you be redeemed and delivered from Condemnation and Death as verily you are if this Righteousness be upon you it is that you might serve the Lord without fear slavish legal fear in holiness and righteousness in all the Duties required both in the First and Second Table of the Law and that before him in sincerity and uprightness of Heart as in his sight and all this not in a fit only or for a while but all the days of your lives Luke 1.74 75. This
Love this Grace of Christ should constrain you and make you thus judge That if one dyed for all then those all have dyed namely unto sin and he dyed that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who dyed for them and rose again for their Justification and that they might rise unto newness of life 2 Cor. 5.14 15. Thus the Apostle Peter also argues pressing it upon Believers to be holy in all manner of conversation even as he who hath called you is holy And the ground upon which he inforceth it is this because they are redeemed with the precious Blood of Christ See 1 Pet. 1.14 15 16 18 19. 2. You should walk humbly also as well as holily This God doth require Mic. 6.8 for you stand accepted not in your selves nor in any Works of Righteousness that you have done but wholly in the Righteousness of Christ that is upon you through Faith Therefore when you have done all and attained to the utmost you should still be humble and say you are unprofitable servants Luke 17.10 For all your obedience and conformity to the Law avails no more to justifie you than your worst sins do and you should look on your best performances and your worst sins even with the same eye in the business of Justification Believers do own that all their best Righteousness is as to their Justification but as filthy rags Isa 64.6 and true Converts have the like and can have no worse thoughts of their worst sins Isa 30.22 Labour you should and abound in the work of the Lord not to work out a Righteousness to stand justified in before God No God forbid such a thought should ever be entertained by any Believer I do not think the Saints in Heaven would be willing to exchange and put off the Robe of Christs Righteousness to stand before God for acceptance in that perfect and spotless Holiness to which they have there attained Much less should any Believer be willing to stand and continue in a justified estate by his own imperfect defective and stained Obedience Neither indeed can I see how such a frame of Heart can be consistent with true Faith But obey you should because you have a Righteousness upon you in comparison and in competition wherewith the Righteousness of Men and Angels is to be despised Obey therefore to the utmost but look away from it when you have so done Obey not to acquire or continue to your selves an interest in this Righteousness much less to be your Righteousness before God but that you may show forth the Praises of him who hath called you into Fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ 3. You should also walk comfortably and rejoysingly as well as holily and humbly For you are made accepted in the beloved Standing in this Righteousness having it upon you through Faith you may you should rejoyse and glory not in your selves on any performances of yours or Graces inhering in you but in the Lord in whom you have both Righteousness and Strength For the Lord hath sworn that in him should all the seed of Israel be justified and glory Isa 45.23 24 25. Having by Faith received the atonement you may glory even in his presence of whom you are in Christ Jesus who is of God made unto you Wisdom Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption and you made the Righteousness of God in him that he that gloryeth should glory in the Lord. POST-SCRIPT THere are two Passages in the foregoing Sermons which have been exclaimed against publickly and privately by one that heard them not And I do believe he was angered by more than two For he is one that makes union to Christ our having this Righteousness upon us and our being justified by it to be given us in way of reward of something done by us and he is the man that makes the state of Believers to be undecided and in suspense during this Life Both which Errors are damning the former in its Nature and direct tendency the latter in its Grounds and Principles And whether he do not in truth disown the imputation of our Sins unto Christ and of his Righteousness unto us it is like if he live the VVorld will see more fully for he hath given such pregnant indications thereof as do amount to at least just cause of jealousie But touching these things he thought it best to keep silence and to fix his nails where he thought he had better advantage The one Point is pag. 7. That the Incarnation of Christ is no part of his Humiliation As to the truth of it as there laid down I shall say little more knowing it cannot be overthrown The whole stress of the matter lyes in those two words Incarnation and Humiliation how they are taken If the former be taken largely as comprising Christs taking both our Nature and the common sinless Frailties of it together with his being in the form of a servant and made under the Law I know not why it should be denyed to be a part of his Humiliation But if it be taken strictly for his dwelling in Flesh or Humane Nature comprehending under it both the act of assumption and the relation or union arising and effected thereby between the Humane Nature so assumed and the Person of the Son of God who did assume it neither the one nor the other of these neither the act of assuming nor the Union of the two Natures effected by it may be allowed to be any part of Christ's Humiliation For Humiliation is not in this argument to be taken laxly and improperly for any thing which hath Goodness or Grace in it as God's beholding things in Heaven and in Earth is said to be an humbling of himself Psal 113.6 So Christ might have been said to humble himself though he had never been Incarnate But in this subject Humiliation ought to be taken precisely for that which is proper and peculiar to the second Person in the Trinity which the Apostle calls his being in the form of a Servant or rather his being made under the Law Between which there may be conceived some difference for Christ is now in his state of Exaltation Gods Servant but he is not now under the Law as he was in the days of his Flesh and Frailty And taking these words thus it is far from being a singular conceit of mine that the Incarnation of Christ is not a part of his humiliation Mr. Bradshaw not only saith expresly Christ's assuming the Humane Nature cannot properly be said to be a part of his Humiliation but gives his reason for it of Justif ch 17. Sect. 7. and makes the Title of that Chapter to be this Christ that he might taken on him the guilt of sin was made man Whence it is evident that in his Judgment which is also the current Judgment of all Christians Christ's becoming Man was not the effect of the guilt of sin being on him but the way of his