the works of the law And by the tenor of the whole Discourse it is plain That by the works of the law are meant the Mosaical Precepts and not the Works of Moral Vertue For St. Paul had divided Mankind into those who were in or under the law and those who were without law that is into Iew and Gentile The design of the Epistle was not to give us Metaphysical Abstractions and Distinctions between Faith as it is a special Grace and Works or Obedience to the Laws of God but by Faith he means the entire receiving of the whole Gospel in its Commands as well as Promises for so he reckons Abraham's readiness to offer up his Son Isaac as an Act of his faith so that faith stands for the complex of all the Duties of Christianity and therefore his Assertion of our being justified by faith without the works of the law signifies no more than that those who received the Gospel who believed it and lived according to it were put in the favour of God by it without being brought under the obligation of the Mosaical Precepts The same Argument is handled by him upon the same grounds in his Epistle to the Galatians only there he gives a more explicite notion of that faith which justified that it was a faith that wrought by love So that in all St. Paul's Epistles he understands by faith the compleat receiving the Gospel in all its parts But whether these Expressions were any of those that St. Peter says the unstable wrested to their own perdition or not we see plainly by St. Iames's Epistle that some began to set up the Notion of a bare believing the Gospel as that which justified as if the meer profession of Christianity or the persuasion of its truth without a suitable Conversation justified For St. Iames speaks not of the works of law but of works simply and as he had just reason to condemn a Doctrine that tended to the total corruption of our Faith so he plainly shews that he did not differ from St. Paul since he takes his chief Instance from Abraham's Faith which made him offer up his Son Isaac upon the Altar by which he was justified so that faith wrought in his works and by works faith was made perfect And he concludes all That as the body without the spirit was dead so faith without works was dead also From whence it is plain that faith in St. Iames stands strictly for a believing the Truth of the Christian Religion and not for an entire receiving the Gospel which was the faith that St. Paul had treated of These things will appear so clear to any one who will attentively read and consider the scope of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and the Discourse in St. Iames's Epistle that I am confident no scruple can remain in men that are not possessed with prejudices or over-run with a nice sort of Metaphysicks that some have brought into these matters by which they have instead of clearing them rendred them very intricate and unintelligible Their stating the instrumentality of faith in Justification their distinguishing it from Obedience in this but joining it with it in Sanctification are niceties not only without any ground in Scripture but really very hurtful by the disquiet they may give good minds For if the Christian Doctrine is plain in any one thing it must be in this which is the foundation of our quiet and of our hope It would make a long Article to reckon up all the different Subtilties with which this matter has been perplexed As whether Justification is an immanent or transient Act whether it is a Sentence pronounced in Heaven or in the Conscience or whether it is only a Relation and what constitutes it what is the efficient the instrument and the condition of it these with much more of the like nature filled many Books some years ago The strict sense of Iustification as it is a legal term and opposite to Condemnation is the absolution of a Sinner which is not to be solemnly done till the final Sentence is pronounced after death or at the day of Judgment But as men come to be in the state to which those Sentences do belong they in a freer form of speech are said to be justified or condemned And as they who do not believe are under condemnation and said to be condemned already that is they are liable to that Sentence and under those Characters that belong to it blindness obduration of heart and the Wrath and Judgments of God So such Believers to whom the Promises of the Gospel belong and on whom the final Sentence shall be pronounced justifying them are said now to be justified since they are now in the state to which that belongs They have the Characters of it upon them Faith Repentance and Renovation of heart and life by which they come to be in the favour and under the protection of God The Gospel is of the nature of a publick Amnesty in which a Pardon is offered to all Rebels who return to their duty and live peaceably in obedience to the Law and a day is prefixed to examine who has come in upon it and who has stood out upon which final Acts of Grace or Severity are to pass It is then plain that though every man is pardoned in the strictness of Law only by the final Sentence yet he is really in the construction of Law pardoned upon his coming within the Terms on which it is offered and thus men are justified who do truly repent of and forsake their sins who do sincerely believe not only the truth of the Gospel in general but do so firmly believe every part of it that acts proportioned to that belief arise out of it when they depend so much on the Promises that they venture all things in hope of them and do so receive the Rules and Laws given in it that they set themselves on obeying them in the course of their whole life and in a most particular manner when they lay claim to the Death of Christ as their Sacrifice and the means of their Reconciliation with such a Repentance as changes their inward Natures and Principles and such a Faith as purifies their hearts and makes them become new Creatures These are the Conditions of this Covenant and they are such Conditions that upon lower than these it became not the Infinite Purity and Holiness of God to offer us pardon or to receive us into his favour For without these the Mercies and Favours of the Gospel had been but the opening a Sanctuary to Criminals and the giving encouragement to Sin if a few howlings to God for mercy and the earnest imploring it for the sake of Christ and on the account of his Death would serve turn This every man under the least agony of thought will be apt to do especially when death seems to be near him and yet be still in all
the Article of our Church the arguing from any one passage in them is not to be allowed yet if Subjects standing on their own defence in the case of a total Subversion is to be esteemed Rebellion then we bind up with our Bibles and recommend to our People two Books that set out a History with great pomp and with an Air of much Piety which was no other than a down right Rebellion To this the only answer that I have ever yet seen made is That the Iewish Dispensation being founded on Temporal Promises whereas the Christian Religion is a Doctrine of the Cross things of this kind might have been Lawful among them tho they are not so to us and that the rather because by a Practice that was authorised from the Example of Phinehas and the praise given him for it private Men might among the Jews when the Magistrate was remiss fall upon Offenders and punish them especially in the case of Idolatry This is all that seems to be offered with any colour of Reason to take off the Argument from the practice of the Maccabees and therefore the considering and stating it aright will determine the whole matter First then The true Arguments against Resistance being drawn from the Magistrates having the Sword from God together with all the Topicks that belong to that head they are equally obligatory to all Nations and all Religions it being no part of any special Doctrine delivered in the New Testament but arising from the Attributes of God and the Peace and Order of the World which did bind Jews as well as Christians tho there are indeed Specialties in the Christian Religion that do enforce this the more and aggravate the transgression of it more apparently So that if Subjects defending themselves in the case of a Total Subversion it must ever be remembred that I am now only arguing upon this Supposition is the sin of Rebellion it was a sin to the Jews to the Maccabees in particular as well as it is a sin to Christians As for that of the Zealots tho at first appearance it seems to be of some force yet when examined it will be found to have very little in it If we consider the first Authorities for Zealots we shall find that the Jews stretched this matter beyond all bounds so that to their mistakes about it they owed a great part of their last fatal Miseries which ended in their ruin This matter has been also too implicitly taken by many Christian Writers from them The first beginning of Zealotism was in the Instance of Phinehas his killing Zimri and Cosbi but before this was done Moses who was the chief Ruler did command all the Judges of Israel that every one should slay his men that were joined to Baal-Peor Phinehas was one of these Judges for as Eleazar had been set over the Tribe of Levi when his Father was High-Priest so Aaron being dead at this time and Eleazar made High-Priest in his stead Phinehas was now over the Tribe of Levi and thus Moses Command was in particular directed to him therefore though the Zeal with which he executed it was highly acceptable to God yet it was exactly Regular since Moses had given a general Order for it After this followed some Instances of Men eminently authorized by God by the Gifts of Prophecy and Miracles who did in some Cases punish Idolaters such was Samuel's hewing Agag in pieces in execution of the Divine Command and Elijah's ordering all the Priests of Baal to be killed after he had by an astonishing Miracle proved that Jehovah was the true God and that he was his Prophet This was suitable to their Dispensation which being a Theocracy an authorized Prophet might well have entred upon the Functions of the Magistrate when the King himself was in fault and the Law was openly profaned Upon the same grounds our Saviour after his Miracles had openly declared that he was sent of God did whip the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple when they had profaned the Court of the Gentiles and had made that House of Prayer a Den of Thieves Thus it is plain That none of the Presidents from the Zealots of the Old Testament could justify private Men such as Mattathias and his Children to do any thing that was of it felf irregular and unlawful Phinehas his practice was a Precedent for acting in the matters of their Law with much spirit and courage but it could not justify any man who should presume to do that which was not otherwise lawful for him to do and though the Spirit of the Christian Religion is very different from the Spirit by which Elijah and other Prophets under the Old Testament were acted as our Saviour told his Disciples particularly in this that whereas in the one Prophets did immediately by Miracles or otherwise punish some Offenders in the other all was to be managed with a Spirit of Gentleness and Charity yet after all the lasting Rules of Morality and Human Society were the same then that they are now This Instance I think does fully justify those who seeing a total Subversion of our Religion so far advanced that the Pope's Authority was publickly owned and that all the Laws that secured it were declared to be under a Dispensing Power which was in it self a total Subversion of our Constitution did think it lawful to accept of a Deliverance to concur in it and to assist towards it The other Instance is taken from the first beginnings of Christianity's being the Legal and Authorized Religion of the Roman Empire and from the first Council that is esteemed General where a Precedent is laid down that is no less full for justifying those who tho they did not concur in procuring our Deliverance yet have since closed in it with all humble Gratitude and Obedience to those whom God made the Instruments in so great a Work After Constantine and Licinius had given out those Edicts at Milan by which the Christians had full liberty both for their Belief and Worship and had all the Rights and Immunities of other Corporations granted them Licinius being still in his heart an Enemy to that Religion began in the Year 319 to persecute the Christians He durst not for fear of Constantine fall upon them openly but his Intentions being well understood by his Ministers the Governours of the Provinces committed in many places great Cruelties He likewise turned the Christians first out of his Houshoud and next out of all his Armies He made a Law against relieving such as were in Prison by which those who relieved them were to be punished as Complices of their Crimes He apprehending that most of the Bishops wisht well to Constantine and that in their hearts they were set against himself went on by degrees in his design against them he by one Edict forbade the Bishops to meet together or to meddle with the Concerns of one another's
all derogate from or lessen our acknowledgments of the Love and Goodness of God Nor are those Objections of more value that are taken from the shortness of the continuance of Christ's Sufferings since besides what is commonly urg'd to this purpose from the infinite Dignity of the person we are to consider that in Sacrifices it is the Appointment and the Acceptation that makes the satisfaction for God's accepting a Sacrifice is an abatement of the Rigour of Justice and a declaring that he will pardon sins in such a Method and upon such a Consideration and there appear very good Reasons even to us for the method that God thought fit to take in this great Transaction He intended to call the World to Repentance and Reformation Now it had been a vain attempt to have persuaded men to repent without an offer of pardon for if men are made desperate there is no great hope of prevailing on them so an offer of pardon was necessarily to be made yet this was to be made in such a way as to have the greatest effect possible on men If the offer of pardon had been made upon too slight a consideration the World might have been tempted to have had slight thoughts of sin as a thing of no such black nature since it was so easily forgiven and therefore to heighten the sense of the odiousness of sin God would pardon it in such a manner as should show how much he hated it at the same time that he shew'd such Love and Compassion to sinners Since then the great Design of this whole Oeconomy was to reform the World we see in every step of it a tendency to that a pardon was offer'd to give men hopes but the consideration of it was so amazing as to encrease their Horrour at sin and their strict watchfulness against that which was so hard and stood so dear to expiate Further The rule of life that was proposed was so exactly pure and holy that it well became a God of Infinite Purity to impose it on us since it has in all its parts such a tendency to the making us perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect It begins at the cleansing our hearts and from thence it goes the whole round of our lives in all our Actions Circumstances and Relations It neither dispences with an idle word a lewd look nor a defiling thought but is a Law of life and love that will sanctify every individual Nature and settle every Society that comes under its conduct But that as the holiness of this Rule is no small honour to the Religion of which it is so main a part so that the strictness of it might not frighten men from embracing it tho there is no slackning of the obligation of the Law but that every offence against any part is a sin yet there is an abatement made as it is a Condition of Salvation And thus it is not an entire but a sincere obedience that is made the Condition upon which we are admitted to the Gospel-Covenant Every sin gives a wound and requires repentance to wash and heal it but every sin does not shut us out from a right to the blessings of this Covenant So that here is a main distinction never to be forgotten We are under the whole Gospel as it is a law and role of life and every time that we break any part of it we ought to be humbled for it before God but nothing that does not defile our hearts and make us go off from the sincerity of our Obedience breaks our Relation to Christ and dissolves our being in a state of Grace and Salvation It may seem a diminution of the Purity of our Religion that an entire holiness is not made the Indispensable Condition as well as the absolute Duty of Christians since God might have furnished us with such degrees of Grace as might have conquered every Corrupt Inclination Besides that this Doctrine of the Unattainableness of Perfection and Invincible Infirmity does furnish Bad men and cold Christians with many Pretences to hide or excuse their Faults and makes the greater part sit down contented with very low degrees in which they quiet themselves with this seeming Defectiveness of the New Covenant But it is certain that every man who deals honestly and impartially by himself does perceive that he might be much better than he truly is and that God's assistances are not wanting to him but that he is wanting to them Every man feels that it is by the vicious use of his own Liberty and not by reason of any Impotency that is in his Nature that he falls in sin And the eminent strictness and victory over Sin that some men arrive at who shine as Lights in the World serves to let the rest see what they might come to if it were not for their own fault So that God's accepting a sincere Obedience instead of an entire one is no encouragement to Sin but is a condescention to Humane Infirmity And it seems that God does while he continues us here on Earth suffer our Natures still to hang so heavy about us and sometimes to prevail so fatally over us that we may be thereby obliged to live in a more constant distrust of our selves and a more humble dependance on him to make us feel the necessity of applying our selves often to him for pardon and assistance and also to beget in us more tender Compassions for the Frailties of others which we can more easily bear with and forgive when we reflect on our selves and what we are capable of This gives a more melting Charity than could flow from a severer Vertue that had never felt the weight of Nature nor the strength of Temptations If this is abused by some who turn the Grace of God into Lasciviousness it is a very ungrateful return to God for his Mercy and a signal abuse of his Goodness But if this Gospel is bid it is bid to them that are lost There remains yet one Article to be well stated relating to this matter and that is to give the true notion of Iustification of which there seem to be two such different accounts given by St. Paul and St. Iames that this has led men into a great many Subtilties I shall first open this matter as it is spoke of by these two Apostles The Design of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans was to oppose that Conceit of the Iews who thought it impossible to be in the favour of God without observing the Mosaical Rites This he beats down by leading them up to their Father Abraham and shewing them how he came into a state of favour with God before he had received the Covenant of Circumcision and that his believing in God was accepted of God and reckoned to him or imputed to him for righteousness or in order to his being in the favour of God The Inference that he naturally drew from this was that he was justified without