act and exercise of his Supream Justice according to that passage Rom. 3. v. 26. That God might be just and the iustifier of him that believeth in Jesus Secondly Gods justifying men stands in opposition to Accusation and Condemnation which we have plainly expressed in the forementioned 8th to the Rom. where the Apostle opposeth Gods justifying to Charging and Condemning Who shall lay any thing to the Charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth So that if you know what it is to Charge and Condemn you will know what it is to justifie it being naturally evidenced by its Contraries And as Condemnation is the result of a Law so is Justification We stand Condemned by the Law of works and are justified by the Law of faith Now what is it that Mankind is publickly accused of and charged with in Scripture 'T is Sin What is it that men stand condemned for at Gods Bar 'T is Sin And therefore their Justification must needs be a Clearing and Discharging some way or other from it And that which the Scripture every where intends by Justification is the Remission of Sin and Gods acquitting us in Judgment from the Charge Guilt Condemnaâ—ion and Punishment of it This is judiciously observed by Grotius Justificatio ut notum est passim in sacris literis sed maxime in Paulinis Epistolis Absolutionem significat quae presupposito peccatâ— consistit in peccatorum remissione ipso Paul semet clare explicante pr sâ—rtim Rom. 4. Pe Satis Chris chap. 1. pa 38. And this I shall endeavour to prove these several wayes First by producing divers Texts wherein the Foly Ghost speaks expresly of Justification and Forgiveness of sin in the Gospel way as one and the same thing Secondly by shewing that the whole Advantage of that satisfaction upon which as the Ground of it we are justified is generally issued in Scripture into the Forgiveness of sin Thirdly by shewing that whatever other expressions the Scripture at any time makes use of to signifie and Explain Justification to us by they all tend to give us this sense and signification of it and to express it to us as consisting in the forgiveness of sin And fourthly by shewing that the Grand Blessing that God still promised the world should partake of by the Covenant to his Grace and the sending of his Son from whence our Justification has its rise was the Pardon and forgiveness of sin And when I have done this there will be no need I hope to say more for the satisfaction of any under this Consideration For the first In the 4. chap. to the Rom. where St Paul treats more fully and more Critically of Justification then he does in any other place he there describes it in a Quotation out of the Psalms by the forgiveness of sin and the non imputation of iniquity But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness Even as David describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sin is covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also Where 't is not to be fairly denyed but that he describes the blessedness of a Justified person by the blessedness of a Pardoned person as being one and the same In the 9 ver Cometh this blessedness sayes the Apostle upon the Circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also What blessedness Why the Blessedness he is treating of the Blessedness of being justified before God which he proves descends both upon Jew and Gentile in the Gospel way of faith and believing And what is that blessedness of being justified before God Wherein lyes it Why 't is the Blessedness he tells us that David describes of having our iniquities forgiven and our sins covered the Blessedness of having God not to impute sin to us 'T is plain the Apostles whole scope and drift is to prove that Abrahams justification was his pardon upon which acccount the Gentiles though great sinners might be justified as well as he and that Justification before God is not by works and so not from the merit of any inherent righteousness of our own but by Gods gracious Imputing righteousness without works which he makes to consist in the Pardon of sin and Not imputing of iniquity and to be the same thing with it In the 13th of the Acts the 38 and 39 verses we find the Apostle again expressing himself to the same purpose Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Where he speaks of remission of sins and Justification Equivolently as terms importing the same thing In the 18th of Luke where the Publican is said to smite upon his breast and seek for pardon and forgiveness in that expression God be merciful to me a sinner our Saviour says He went home to his house Justified that is Pardoned rather then the proud Pharisee The one justified himself and asked no forgiveness the other condemned himself and sought for the pardon of his sins And by our Saviours own determination took the right method of attaining Justification thereby In the 5th of the Rom. v. 16. The Apostle treating of the difference between Adams sin and the condemnation introduced thereby and the Salvation we have by that tells us And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgement was by one to condemnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the free gift is of many offences unto justification By the free gift of many offences is meant the pardon of them and the pardon of them is unto Justification that is pardon of sin amounts to Justification and upon pardon we are actually justified We are often said in Scripture to have pardon and remission of sins by Christs blood And in the 5th of the Rom. and the 9 vers we are there said to be justified by his blood Much more now being justified by his blood shall we be saved from wrath through him By all which we are told that the scripture generally intends by justification and pardon one and the same thing Secondly The whole advantage and benefit of that satisfaction upon which we come to be justified before God is often issued into the pardon of sin and by the Scripture comprized therein If we look to the Types and Prefigurations of that satisfaction under the Law the grand end and signification of them was the removing and purging of sin This the Apostle tells us Heb. 9.22 Without shedding of blood is no remission And in the 26 ver he sayes Christ had once appeared in the end of the world
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
12th ver of that Chapter to the end of it is evidently to prove these two things First That as sin came first into the world by Adam's disobedience and death by sin and did not only seize on him but descended upon all his Posterity even upon them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression that is against a Law promulgated as he did he begetting them in his image after his Fall in his apostate state and not in his innocncy So from Christs obedience and satisfaction for sin came righteousness life and salvation In three things the Apostle makes the Feadship of Adam and that of Christ to run parallel First As Adam had a publick Station and stood so related to others that he had power to involve them in his own condition So had Christ Secondly the Effect of Adams sin was Vniversal came upon all The Effect of Christs obedience is so comes upon all that is both upon Jews and Gentiles without distinction which is the grand point the Apostle is all along making good Thirdly the first Adam by his disobedience was the general Author of death Christ the second Adam by obedience is the Great Introducer of life And secondly That there is not and exact equality and even proportion between the Headship of Christ and the Headship of Adam So the Apostle tells us in the 15 and 16 ver But not as the offence so also is the free gift For if through the offence of One Many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift I or the judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offences unto Justification The Advantage lyes much on Christs side in the comparison and that in three respects First Christs spiritual seed Believers are not so like him in degrees of holiness as Adams natural posterity are like him in degrees of sin And yet Life reignes as triumphantly amongst them as Death did over the posterity of Adam Secondly it was one sin of Adam that introduced Death But Christs obedience and the gift brought in by him was not upon the occasion of that or any other one sin but of many is the abundance of grace and procures forgiveness not only for that sin but for all other sins whatsoever that have ensued thereupon And thirdly there is a disparity between Adam and Christ in this and the advantage lyes much on Christs side That one sin one act of disobedience was enough to condemn But more the one act of obedience was requisite to procure our pardon And so although Christ do not save by his obedience so many as Adam condemned by his disobedience yet the second Adam is much more potent then the first because there is much more efficacy required in the Saving of One then there was in the Condemning of Many As the restoring of One dead to life is much harder then the destroying of the lives of many Now How by one mans disobedience were many made sinners Why Adam who had all mankind vertually in himself turning a Rebel and an Apostate his natural state was thereby changed his nature was attainted and became sinful and so fell under the sentence of death and that was included in the penalty threatned In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye Thy Natural state shall be changed and subjected to death And this falling out before he had propagated any of his kind he begat all his posterity in the same sinful Mortal state with himself So the Apostle tells us that in Adam all dye That is he becoming Mortal all were so propagated and Death reigned upon that account So on the contrary by one mans â—â—â—obedience many are made righteous As all meer men sinned in Adam being all in him and undergo the Effects of that sin So all Believers have virtually satisfied for sin in Christ By Christs obedience and satisfaction we come to be pardoned accounted of as righteous and saved But still 't is as an effect of Christs obedience that we come to be made righteous for the Apostle does not say In one mans obedience many shall be made righteous but By one mans obedience as a consequent and Effect of it many shall be made righteous As the effect of one mans disobedience many come to be shapen in iniquity and brought forth in a sinful condemned nature so as by the Effect of one mans obedience many come to be new born and brought forth in a righteous and a saving sfate A third Text insisted on is that in the 3d. chap. to the Philip. ver 9. And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith To this Text a short Answer will suffice No more is requisite then to read from the 4. v. where the Apostle is discoursing of his Attainments under the Law Though I might sayes he have confidence also in the flesh if any other man thinketh he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more circumcised the eighth day c. and so he goes on And in the 7th ver But what things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ yea doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith By which it is as plain as words can make it That the righteousness he desires Not to be found in was his own as he was a Jew and a Pharisee And to be found in Christ was no more then to be found ingraffed by Faith into the Christian Church to be found in that righteousness which is of God by faith which is the Gospel-righteousness No sober minded man can imagine the Apostle did not desire to be found in Gospel-righteousness or that by his own righteousness he meant that For 't is that alone can intitle us to the benefits of Christs righteousness And he himself every where so earnestly presseth men to strive for it as indispensably necessary to salvation and rejoyeeth in it telling us what comfort he had took to conling sider that he had fought a good fight had finished his course had kept the faith and that as a reward of so doing a crown of life was laid up for him in Heaven Nor is there any one passage of St. Pauls Epistles against works but 't is very plain from the context he intends the works of the Law and no other For as he opposeth faith to works so he also opposeth faith with Gospel-obedience
never circumcised may now also be justified that is have their sins forgiven if they believe the Gospel and Reform their lives And that by Justifying and Imputing Righteousness is meant the pardon of sin and that Abraham was justified as an ungodly person by being Pardoned and not as an Innocent person the next words declare ver 6. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without works whcih was Abrahams case And how is that Why Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin The scope of the Apostle in this Chapter is to prove that Abraham was not Justified by any original Innocency or such a sinless perfection of life as would make the reward to be of Debt And so not upon the terms of the first Covenant but he was justified by having Righteousness without Works upon the terms of another Covenant He was justified as an ungodly person as a Sinner That is was Pardoned upon his sincere Faith and suit able obedience and so arrived at the Blessedness David describes who takes it for granted that Blessedness comes not by unsinning perfect obedience which is inconsistent with Pardon For then he would have said Blessed are the sinless perfect persons that never offended But he sayes Blessed are they to whom God will not impute sin and blessed are they whose sins are pardoned The plain intention of this great Apostle of the Gentiles is by the instance of Abraham to establish Evangelical Justification of which the Gentiles were as capable as the Jews in opposition to Legal By works he intends all along the Law and the first Covenant and what was required to justifie a man therein And by Faith he intends the Gospel and all that is conditionally required of us thereby which is a sincere belief accompanied with suitable obedience And Abraham who was justified by performing the Gospel condition and not the condition of the Covenant of Works had such a sincere Faith accompanied with such obedience as the Story it self and the Holy Ghost by St. James positively tells us His Works wrought with his Faith that is to obtain the same End with it and by his Works his Faith was perfected T is absurd to imagine St. Paul ever intended to exclude Gospel-works such a sincere obedience as is naturally appurtenant to Faith and is included in it and supposed by it and which is accepted out of meer Grace and cannot pretend to the least merit But he speaks only against such works as might claim Justification as a reward of Debt in opposition to Grace such as the Jews insisted on which would utterly exclude the Gentiles from all possibility of Justification and establish it upon a Legal bottom and thereby subvert the whole design of the Gospel By justifying therefore the ungodly upon believing he means no more then the justifying a person that has not sinless legal perfection which the first Covenant made necessary to Justification by his performing the condition of the second Covenant which condition performed is through Grace accepted for Righteousness and procures actual Pardon Quest 4. Has Christ satisfied for our Gospel-sins For the breach of his own Laws as Mediator or not Answ This Question is resolved by one Text of St. John who tells us that The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth from all sin Against whatever Law committed if we perform the Gospel Condition Ever since the Fall and sin of man Christ hath been extant in Promises and Types till his full Appearance And all Pardon and Forgiveness has some way or other come through Him He has been the great medium by and through which all Divine favour and Grace has been in all times dispensed Under the Gospel whoever perform the Condition and comes within the compass of that Latitude Christ by his New Law allows his sins of partial unbelief and all other sorts of Gospel-disobedience are Pardoned upon the terms thereof by the tenor of this New Covenant which Christ hath purchased by his blood whose blood is called the blood of the Covenant By this gracious Covenant a renewed pardon is still granted to all believers for every sin at any time committed upon sincere repentance and reformation And Christ proposeth himself to the world upon those gracious terms That if they cordially close with him and receive him as Lord and Christ as their King and Saviour all their past sins shall be forgiven And whenever they shall sin for the future and come short of that Duty they are to pay to him upon their Repentance they shall be renewed and God through and by Him and for His sake will exercise continual acts of Pardon towards them in all such cases And this day of Grace is for ought we know of the same duration with every mans life Every man while he lives has an Opportunity of embracing the Gospel And whoever falls by Temptation and the power of Corruption after he has so done has yet a continued possibility while God spares him in this world to be restored to a Pardoned Justified state by Repentance But whoever fails and comes short in performing the Gospel-condition Whoever closeth not with the Redeemer who hath all power put by the father into his hands upon his own Terms not one of that mans sins will he ever Remit or Account for to the Father But is he left to answer to that most dreadful Charge of the Law and besides by neglecting so great salvation falls under the utmost condemnation of the Gospel Is left to God as supream Judge of the World in the highest exercise of Justice having refused the terms of his mercy Is left to God without the interposition of a Mediator the terrour of which condition the Apostle thus expresseth 'T is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Where he means without a Mediator For 't is spoken in terrorem to the Converted Jews who were in great danger of Apostatizing from the Gospel and the faith of the Mediator and returning back to the old Cancelled dispensation of the Law the end of which was Christ To conclude this whole matter The making and redeeming of a man is originally founded in an eternal transaction of the blessed Trinity God saw it fit to Create man at the first with a mutable Will with an inherent freedom of choice though he perfectly knew and foresaw all the consequents and what use man would make of it The Reason of this is not to be inquired into For although God is pleased in Scripture to permit us to Treat with him about his Justice and to Discourse with us about the equity of his proceedings whether his wayes be not equal towards us and ours unequal towards Him Yet he never admits us to any conference with him about his Wisdom never suffers any humane inquiry to be made Whether he does Wisely
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
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
Deductions as these as That God sees no sin in his Children That a believer need not pray for the Pardon of fin but only for the Manifestation of it That God loved Noah when Drunk and David when acting Murder and Adultery And many more such consequences that worthy person mentions Those passages of Scripture that seem most to countenance this opinion and are chiefly insisted on for the proof of it are these three 2 Cor. 5.25 He hath made him to be sin for us that knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him From whence it is thus urged How did Christ become sin for us Not by inherency but by imputation So do we become the Righteousness of God in him In answer to which I say Christ became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for us that is a sacrifice for sin For so it signifies as well as barely Sin as also the Latin piaculum which is often taken for a sacrifice of expiation as well as Sin And in the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is frequently used to signifie a sacrifice for sin And this is an expression relating to the sacrifices under the Old Testament And the proper rendering of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a sin offering So that the plain meaning of the Text seems to be this Christ that was without all sin was made that is ordained of God to be a sacrifice for sin that we might be made thereby righteous with the Gospel-righteousness For that is the general meaning every where of the Righteousness of God 'T is opposed to mans righteousness and the righteousness of works which is by the Law If it be pressed farther and affirmed That sin it self was so imputed to Christ as that God in judgment did reckon him guilty and a sinner which the Scripture no where tells us and 't is great impiety to assert He is then excluded from all possibility of merit for the suffered but what was his due and so the whole of Christs satisfaction is subverted But he freely suffered the punishment of sin that was infinitely removed from the guilt and desert of it and thereby redeemed us became sin in that sense that so we might be made the righteousness of God in him Now by the righteousness of God sometimes is meant in Scripture the Personal righteousness of the Mediator who was God-Man and sometimes the righteousness of Faith that righteousness that faith is accounted for and which in the Gospel is conditionally required of every saved person And this is so called because 't is a righteousness of Gods contriving of Gods working and of Gods accepting in and through Christ and for the sake of his satisfaction If you ask me for a Text to prove this latter there are many I will only instance in one For they being ignorant of Gods righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God Rom. 10.3 By the righteousness of God here is not meant the Personal righteousness of the Mediator but the Gospel-righteousness of faith and believing by which we are Justified in opposition to the Law which in the next ver the Apostle tells them Christ was the end of for righteousness by his satisfaction so the Apostle expressly calls it in the 6th ver But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise And if you read to the 9th ver he there fully describes this righteousness of God and tells you in other words what it is That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved And the whole Context puts it out of all doubt that by their own righteousness is meant the righteousness of the Law which Moses the Apostle sayes in the 5th ver describes in those words That the man that doth those things shall live by them And by the righteousness of God is meant the Gospel righteousness on our part to be performed which the Apostle sayes in the 6th ver Moses does otherwise describe But the righteousness which is of faith sayes he speaketh on this wise Say not in thine heart who shall ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down from above c. The word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the word of saith which we preach If we take it in the first sense then the meaning of this Scripture is this Christ became a sin-offering for us and freely underwent the suffering and punishment due to sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him that is that the Righteousness of Christ as Mediator in a way of satisfaction might be appropriated unto us And as he underwent the consequences of our sin so we might reap the effects of his righteousness that we might be interested in his righteousness just as he was in our sins He suffered the penalty of our sins and we reap the fruit of his righteousness and so there is a mutual transferring of our sins and Christs righteousness in the effects and consequences of both but no otherwise If we take it in the other sense which is I believe the sense intended by the Apostle then the meaning is That Christ became a sin-offering for us that we might in pursuance thereof and as an effect of it be made Righteousness in the Gospel-righteousness that is that we by believing in him might be accounted for righteous and so accepted of God The Apostle does not say that we might be made His righteousness or that his righteousness might be made personally ours but that we might be made the righteousness of God in him And the phrase In him is not to be taken personally and literally For when we are said to abide in him 't is to continue stedfast in the doctrine of the Gospel to walk in him is to walk according to the rule of the Gospel to Sleep in him is to die in the saith and hope of the Gospel to marry in the Lord is to marry according to the rules he has prescribed So to be Righteous in him is to be righteous according to the rule of the Gospel to be righteous in the righteousness of his procuring and appointing When we read of Christ in the Gospel we are not alwayes barely to understand his natural Person but to consider him mystically and politically to consider him circumstanced as Head King and Law-giver to his Church and upon that account his Name is often taken in a large and comprehensive sense Another Text of Scripture much insisted on for the proof of Personal imputation is Rom. 5.19 For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous This text upon due consideration will be found to make nothing at all for any such Imputation and Transferring of righteousness as is pretended The Apostles scope from the