And that it is so, that God in the act of final justification which he passes at the sinner’s conversion, has respect to perseverance in faith, and future acts of faith, as being virtually implied in the first act, is further manifest by this, viz. That in a sinner’s justification, at his conversion there is virtually contained a forgiveness as to eternal and deserved punishment, not only of all past sins, but also of all future infirmities and acts of sin that they shall be guilty of; because that first justification is decisive and final. And yet pardon, in the order of nature, properly follows the crime, and also follows those acts of repentance and faith that respect the crime pardoned, as is manifest both from reason and Scripture. David, in the beginning of Psalm xxxii. speaks of the forgiveness of sins which were doubtless committed long after he was first godly, as being consequent on those sins, and on his repentance and faith with respect to them; and yet this forgiveness is spoken of by the apostle in the 4th of Romans, as an instance of justification by faith. Probably the sin David there speaks of is the same that he committed in the matter of Uriah, and so the pardon the same with that release from death, or eternal punishment, which the prophet Nathan speaks of , 2 Sam. xii. 13. “The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.” Not only does the manifestation of this pardon follow the sin in the order of time, but the pardon itself, in the order of nature, follows David’s repentance and faith with respect to this sin; for it is spoken of in the Psalm xxxii., as depending on it.

But inasmuch as a sinner, in his first justification, is for ever justified and freed from all obligations to eternal punishment; it hence of necessity follows, that future faith and repentance are beheld, in that justification, as virtually contained in that first faith and repentance; because repentance of those future sins, and faith in a Redeemer, with respect to them, or, at least, the continuance of that habit and principle in the heart that has such an actual repentance and faith in its nature and tendency, is now made sure by God’s promise.—If remission of sins, committed after conversion, in the order of nature, follows that faith and repentance that is after them, then it follows that future sins are respected in the first justification, no otherwise than as future faith and repentance are respected in it. And future repentance and faith are looked upon by him that justifies, as virtually implied in the first repentance and faith, in the same manner as justification from future sins is virtually implied in the first justification; which is the thing that was to be proved.

And besides, if no other act of faith could be concerned in justification but the first act, it will then follow, that Christians ought never to seek justification by any other act of faith. For if justification is not to be obtained by after acts of faith, then surely it is not a duty to seek it by such acts: and so it can never be a duty for persons after they are once converted, by faith to seek to God, or believingly to look to him, for the remission of sin, or deliverance from the guilt of it, because deliverance from the guilt of sin is part of what belongs to justification. And if it be not proper for converts by faith to look to God through Christ for it, then it will follow, that it is not proper for them to pray for it; for christian prayer to God for a blessing, is but an expression of faith in God for that blessing; prayer is only the voice of faith. But if these things are so, it will follow that the petition of the Lord’s prayer, forgive us our debts, is not proper to be put up by disciples of Christ, or to be used in christian assemblies; and that Christ improperly directed his disciples to use that petition, when they were all of them, except Judas, converted before. The debt that Christ directs his disciples to pray for the forgiveness of, can mean nothing else but the punishment that sin deserves, or the debt that we owe to divine justice, the ten thousand talents we owe our Lord. To pray that God would forgive our debts, is undoubtedly the same thing as to pray that God would release us from obligation to due punishment; but releasing from obligation to the punishment due to sin, and forgiving the debt that we owe to divine justice, is what appertains to justification.

And then to suppose that no after acts of faith are concerned in the business of justification, and so that it is not proper for any ever to seek justification by such acts, would be for ever to cut off those Christians that are doubtful concerning their first act of faith, from the joy and peace of believing. As the business of a justifying faith is to obtain pardon and peace with God, by looking to God, and trusting in him for these blessings; so the joy and peace of that faith is in the apprehension of pardon and peace obtained by such a trust. This a Christian that is doubtful of his first act of faith cannot have from that act, because, by the supposition, he is doubtful whether it be an act of faith, and so whether he did obtain pardon and peace by that act. The proper remedy, in such a case, is now by faith to look to God in Christ for these blessings; but he is cut off from this remedy, because he is uncertain whether he has warranted so to do; for he does not know but that he has believed already; and if so, then he has no warrant to look to God by faith for these blessings now, because, by the supposition, no new act of faith is a proper means of obtaining these blessings. And so he can never properly obtain the joy of faith; for there are acts of true faith that are very weak, and the first act may be so as well as others: it may be like the first motion of the infant in the womb; it may be so weak an act, that the Christian, by examining it, may never be able to determine whether it was a true act of faith or no; and it is evident from fact, and abundant experience, that many Christians are for ever at a loss to determine which was their first act of faith. And those saints who have had a good degree of satisfaction concerning their faith, may be subject to great declensions and falls, in which case they are liable to great fears of eternal punishment; and the proper way of deliverance, is to forsake their sin by repentance, and by faith now to come to Christ for deliverance from the deserved eternal punishment; but this it would not be, if deliverance from that punishment was not this way to be obtained.

But what is a still more plain and direct evidence of what I am now arguing for, is, that the act of faith which Abraham exercised in the great promise of the covenant of grace that God made to him, of which it is expressly said, Gal. iii. 6. “It was accounted to him for righteousness”—the grand instance and proof that the apostle so much insists upon throughout the 4th chapter of Romans, and 3d chapter of Galatians, to confirm his doctrine of justification by faith alone—was not Abraham’s first act of faith, but was exerted long after he had by faith forsaken his own country, Heb. xi. 8. and had been treated as an eminent friend of God.

Moreover, the apostle Paul, in the 3d chapter of Philip. tells us how earnestly he sought justification by faith, or to win Christ and obtain that righteousness which was by the faith of him, in what he did after his conversion. Verse 8, 9. “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.” And in the two next verses he expresses the same thing in other words, and tells us how he went through sufferings, and became conformable to Christ’s death, that he might be a partaker with Christ in the benefit of his resurrection; which the same apostle elsewhere teaches us, is especially justification. Christ’s resurrection was his justification; in this, he that was put to death in the flesh, was justified by the Spirit; and he that was delivered for our offences, rose again for our justification. And the apostle tells us in the verses that follow in that 3d chapter of Philippians, that he thus sought to attain the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ, and so to partake of the benefit of his resurrection, still as though he had not already attained, but that he continued to follow after it.

On the whole, it appears, that the perseverance of faith is necessary, even to the congruity of justification; and that not the less, because the sinner is justified, and perseverance promised, on the first act of faith, but God, in that justification, has respect, not only to the past act of faith, but to his own promise of future acts, and to the fitness of a qualification beheld as yet only in his own promise. And that perseverance in faith is thus necessary to salvation, not merely as a sine qua non, nor as an universal concomitant of it, but by reason of such an influence and dependence, seems manifest by many scriptures: I would mention two or three; Heb. iii. 6. “Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Verse 14. “For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.” Chap. vi. 12. “Be ye followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Rom. xi. 20. “Well, because of unbelief they were broken off; but thou standest by faith. Be not high minded, but fear.”

And, as the congruity to a final justification depends on perseverance in faith, as well as the first act, so oftentimes the manifestation of justification in the conscience, arises as great deal more from after acts, than the first act. And all the difference whereby the first act of faith has a concern in this affair that is peculiar, seems to be, as it were, only an accidental difference, arising from the circumstance of time, or its being first in order of time; and not from any peculiar respect that God has to it, or any influence it has of a peculiar nature, in the affair of our salvation.

And thus it is that a truly christian walk, and the acts of an evangelical, child-like, believing obedience, are concerned in the affair of our justification, and seem to be sometimes so spoken of in Scripture, viz. as an expression of a persevering faith in the Son of God, the only Saviour. Faith unites to Christ, and so gives a congruity to justification, not merely as remaining a dormant principle in the heart, but as being and appearing in its active expressions. The obedience of a Christian, so far as it is truly evangelical, and performed with the Spirit of the Son sent forth into the heart, has all relation to Christ, the Mediator, and is but an expression of the soul’s believing unition to Christ. All evangelical works are works of that faith that worketh by love; and every such act of obedience, wherein it is inward, and the act of the soul, is only a new effective act of reception of Christ, and adherence to the glorious Saviour. Hence that of the apostle, Gal. ii.20. “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh, is by the faith of the Son of God.” And hence we are directed, in whatever we do, whether in word or deed, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Col. iii.17.

And that God in justification has respect, not only to the first act of faith, but also to future persevering acts, as expressed in life, seems manifest by Rom. i. 17. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” And Heb. x.38, 39. “Now the just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe, to the saving of the soul.”

So that as was before said of faith, so may it be said of a child-like believing obedience, it has no concern in justification by any virtue or excellency in it; but only as there is a reception of Christ in it. And this is no more contrary to the apostle’s frequent assertion of our being justified without the works of the law, than to say that we are justified by faith; for faith is as much a work, or act of christian obedience, as the expressions of faith, in spiritual life and walk. And therefore, as we say that faith does not justify as a work, so we say of all these effective expressions of faith.

This is the reverse of the scheme of our modern divines, who hold, that faith justifies only as an act or expression of obedience; whereas, in truth, obedience has no concern in justification, any otherwise than as an expression of faith.

I now proceed to the

IV. Thing proposed, viz. To answer objections.

Object. 1. We frequently find promises of eternal life and salvation, and sometimes of justification itself, made our own virtue and obedience. Eternal life is promised to obedience, in Rom. ii.7. “To them, who by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, honour, and immortality; eternal life:” and the like in innumerable other places. And justification itself is promised to that virtue of a forgiving spirit or temper in us, Matt. vi.14. “For, if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” All allow that justification in great part consists in the forgiveness of sins.

To this I answer,

1. These things being promised to our virtue and obedience, argues no more, that that there is a connexion between them and evangelical obedience; which, I have already observed, is not the thing in dispute. All that can be proved by obedience and salvation being connected in the promise, is, that obedience and salvation are connected in fact; which nobody denies; and whether it be owned or denied, is, as has been shown, nothing to the purpose. There is no need that an admission to a title to salvation, should be given on the account of our obedience, in order to the promises being true. If we find such a promise, that he that obeys shall be saved, or he that is holy shall be justified; all that is needful, in order to such promises being true, is, that it be really so, that he that obeys shall be saved, and that holiness and justification shall indeed go together. That proposition may be a truth, that he that obeys shall be saved; because obedience and salvation are connected together in fact; and yet an acceptance to a title to salvation not be granted upon the account of any of our own virtue or obedience. What is a promise, but only a declaration of future truth, for the comfort and encouragement of the person to whom it is declared? Promises are conditional propositions; and, as has been already observed, it is not the thing in dispute, whether other things besides faith may not have the place of the condition in such propositions wherein pardon and salvation are the consequent.

2. Promises may rationally be made to signs and evidences of faith, and yet the thing promised not be upon the account of the sign, but the thing signified. Thus, for instance, human government may rationally make promises of such and such privileges to those that can show such evidences of their being free of such a city, or members of such a corporation, or descended of such a family; when it is not at all for the sake of that which is the evidence or sign, in itself considered, that they are admitted to such a privilege, but only and purely for the sake of that which it is an evidence of. And though God does not stand in need of signs to know whether we have true faith or not, yet our own consciences do; so that it is much for our comfort that promises are made to signs of faith. Finding in ourselves a forgiving temper and disposition, may be a most proper and natural evidence to our consciences, that our hearts have, in a sense of our own utter unworthiness, truly closed and fallen in with the way of free and infinitely gracious forgiveness of our sins by Jesus Christ; whence we may be enabled, with the greater comfort, to apply to ourselves the promises of forgiveness by Christ.

3. It has been just now shown, how that acts of evangelical obedience are indeed concerned in our justification itself, and are not excluded from that condition that justification depends upon, without the least prejudice to that doctrine of justification by faith, without any goodness of our own, that has been maintained; and therefore it can be no objection against this doctrine, that we have sometimes in Scripture promises of pardon and acceptance made to such acts of obedience.

4. Promises of particular benefits implied in justification and salvation, may especially be fitly made to such expressions and evidences of faith as they have a peculiar natural likeness and suitableness to. As forgiveness is promised to a forgiving spirit in us; obtaining mercy is fitly promised to mercifulness in us, and the like; and that upon several accounts, they are the most natural evidences of our heart’s closing with those benefits by faith; for they do especially show the sweet accord and consent that there is between the heart and these benefits; and by reason of the natural likeness that there is between the virtue and the benefit, the one has the greater tendency to bring the other to mind; the practice of the virtue tends the more to renew the sense, and refresh the hope, of the blessing promised; and also to convince the conscience of the justice of being denied the benefit, if the duty be neglected. Besides the sense and manifestation of divine forgiveness in our own consciences—yea, and may exercises of God’s forgiving mercy, (as it respects God’s fatherly displeasure,) granted after justification, through the course of a Christian’s life—may be given as the proper rewards of a forgiving spirit, and yet this not be at all to the prejudice of the doctrine we have maintained; as will more fully appear, when we come to answer another objection hereafter to be mentioned.

Object. 2. Our own obedience, and inherent holiness, is necessary to prepare men for heaven; and therefore is doubtless what recommends persons to God’s acceptance, as the heirs of heaven.

To this I answer,

1. Our own obedience being necessary in order to a preparation for an actual bestowment of glory, is no argument that it is the thing upon the account of which we are accepted to a right to it. God may, and does do many things to prepare the saints for glory, after he has accepted them as the heirs of glory. A parent may do much to prepare a child for an inheritance in its education, after the child is an heir; yea, there are many things necessary to fit a child for the actual possession of the inheritance, yet not necessary in order to its having a right to the inheritance.

2. If every thing that is necessary to prepare men for glory must be the proper condition of justification, then perfect holiness is the condition of justification. Men must be made perfectly holy, before they are admitted to the enjoyment of the blessedness of heaven; for there must in no wise enter in there any spiritual defilement. And therefore, when a saint dies, he leaves all his sin and corruption when he leaves the body.

Object. 3. Our obedience is not only indissolubly connected with salvation, and preparatory to it, but the Scripture expressly speaks of bestowing eternal blessings as rewards for the good deeds of the saints. Matt. x. 42. “Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” 1 Cor. iii. 8. “Every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour.” And in many other places. This seems to militate against the doctrine that has been maintained, two ways: (1.) The bestowing a reward, carries in it a respect to a moral fitness in the thing rewarded to the reward; the very notion of a reward being a benefit bestowed in testimony of acceptance of, and respect to, the goodness or amiableness of some qualification or work in the person rewarded. Besides, the Scripture seems to explain itself in this matter, in Rev. iii. 4. “Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy.” This is here given as the reason why they should have such a reward, “because they were worthy;” which, though we suppose it to imply no proper merit, yet it at least implies a moral fitness, or that the excellency of their virtue in God’s sight recommends them to such a reward; which seems directly repugnant to what has been supposed, viz. that we are accepted, and approved of God, as the heirs of salvation, not out of regard to the excellency of our own virtue or goodness, or any moral fitness therein to such a reward, but only on account of the dignity and moral fitness of Christ’s righteousness. (2.) Our being eternally rewarded for our own holiness and good works, necessarily supposes that our future happiness will be greater or smaller, in some proportion as our own holiness and obedience is more or less; and that there are different degrees of glory, according to different degrees of virtue and good works, is a doctrine very expressly and frequently taught us in Scripture. But this seems quite inconsistent with the saints all having their future blessedness as a reward of Christ’s righteousness: for if Christ’s righteousness be imputed to all, and this be what entitles each one to glory, then it is the same righteousness that entitles one to glory which entitles another. But if all have glory as the reward of the same righteousness, why have not all the same glory? Does not the same righteousness merit as much glory when imputed to one as when imputed to another?

In answer to the first part of this objection, I would observe, that it does not argue that we are justified by our good deeds, that we shall have eternal blessings in reward for them; for it is in consequence of our justification, that our good deeds become rewardable with spiritual and eternal rewards. The acceptableness, and so the rewardableness, of our virtue, is not antecedent to justification, but follows it, and is built entirely upon it; which is the reverse of what those in the adverse scheme of justification suppose, viz. that justification is built on the acceptableness and reward of our virtue. They suppose that a saving interest in Christ is given as a reward of our virtue, or, (which is the same thing,) as a testimony of God’s acceptance of our excellency in our virtue. But the contrary is true; that God’s respect to our virtue as our amiableness in his sight, and his acceptance of it as rewardable, is entirely built on our interest in Christ already established. So that the relation to Christ, whereby believers in scripture language are said to be in Christ, is the very foundation of our virtues and good deeds being accepted of God, and so of their being rewarded; for a reward is a testimony of acceptance. For we, and all that we do, are accepted only in the beloved, Eph. i.6. Our sacrifices are acceptable, only through our interest in him, and through his worthiness and preciousness being, as it were, made ours. 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5. “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious. Ye also as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” Here being actually built on this stone, precious to God, is mentioned as all the ground of the acceptableness of our good works to God, and their becoming also precious in his eyes. So, Heb. xiii. 21. “Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ.” And hence we are directed, whatever we offer to God, to offer it in Christ’s name, as expecting to have it accepted no other way, than from the value that God has to that name. Col. iii. 17. “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” To act in Christ’s name, is to act under him as our head, and as having him to stand for us, and represent us to God-ward.

The reason of this may be seen from what has been already said, to show it is not meet that any thing in us should be accepted of God as any excellency of our persons, until we are actually in Christ, and justified through him. The loveliness of the virtue of fallen creatures is nothing in the sight of God, till he beholds them in Christ, and clothed with his righteousness. 1. Because till then we stand condemned before God, by his own holy law, to his utter rejection and abhorrence. And, 2. Because we are infinitely guilty before him; and the loveliness of our virtue bears no proportion to our guilt, and must therefore pass for nothing before a strict judge. And, 3. Because our good deeds and virtuous acts themselves are in a sense corrupt; and the hatefulness of the corruption of them, if we are beheld as we are in ourselves, or separate from Christ, infinitely outweighs the loveliness of the good that is in them. So that if no other sin was considered but only that which attends the act of virtue itself, the loveliness vanishes into nothing in comparison of it; and therefore the virtue must pass for nothing, out of Christ. Not only are our best duties defiled, in being attended with the exercises of sin and corruption which precede, follow, and are intermingled with them; but even the holy acts themselves, and the gracious exercises of the godly, are defective. Though the act most simply considered is good, yet take the acts in their measure and dimensions, and the manner in which they are exerted, and they are sinfully defective; there is that defect in them that may well be called the corruption of them. That defect is properly sin, an expression of a vile sinfulness of heart, and what tends to provoke the just anger of God: not because the exercise of love and other grace is not equal to God’s loveliness; for it is impossible the love of creatures (men or angels) should be so; but because the act is so very disproportionate to the occasion given for love or other grace, considering God’s loveliness, the manifestation that is made of it, the exercises of kindness, the capacity of human nature, and our advantages (and the like) together.—A negative expression of corruption may be as truly sin, and as just cause of provocation, as a positive. Thus if a worthy and excellent person should, from mere generosity and goodness, exceedingly lay out himself, and with great expense and suffering save another’s life, or redeem him from some extreme calamity; and if that other person should never thank him for it, or express the least gratitude any way; this would be a negative expression of his ingratitude and baseness; but is equivalent to an act of ingratitude, or positive exercise of a base unworthy spirit; and is truly an expression of it, and brings as much blame as if he by some positive act had much injured another person. And so it would be (only in a lesser degree) if the gratitude was but very small, bearing no proportion to the benefit and obligation: as if, for so great and extraordinary a kindness, he should express no more gratitude than would have been becoming towards a person who had only given him a cup of water when thirsty, or shown him the way in a journey when at a loss, or had done him some such small kindness. If he should come to his benefactor to express his gratitude, and should do after this manner, he might truly be said to act unworthily and odiously; he would show a most ungrateful spirit. His doing after such a manner might justly be abhorred by all; and yet the gratitude, that little there is of it, most simply considered, and so far as it goes, is good. And so it is with respect to our exercise of love, and gratitude, and other graces, towards God; they are defectively corrupt and sinful, and, take them as they are, in their manner and measure, might justly be odious and provoking to God, and would necessarily be so, were we beheld out of Christ. For in that this defect is sin, it is infinitely hateful; and so the hatefulness of the very act infinitely outweighs the loveliness of it; because all sin has infinite hatefulness and heinousness; but our holiness has but little value and loveliness, as has been elsewhere demonstrated.

Hence, though it be true that the saints are rewarded for their good works, yet it is for Christ’s sake only, and not for the excellency of their works in themselves considered, or beheld separately from Christ; for so they have no excellency in God’s sight, or acceptableness to him, as has now been shown. It is acknowledged that God, in rewarding the holiness and good works of believers, does in some respect give them happiness as a testimony of his respect to the loveliness of their holiness and good works in his sight; for that is the very notion of a reward. But it is in a very different sense from what would have been if man had not fallen; which would have been to bestow eternal life on man, as a testimony of God’s respect to the loveliness of what man did, considered as in itself, and as in man separately by himself, and not beheld as a member of Christ. In which sense also, the scheme of justification we are opposing necessarily supposes the excellency of our virtue to be respected and rewarded; for it supposes a saving interest in Christ itself to be given as a reward of it.

Two things come to pass, relating to the saints’ reward for their inherent righteousness, by virtue of their relation to Christ. 1. The guilt of their persons is all done away, and the pollution and hatefulness that attends and is in their good works, is hid. 2. Their relation to Christ adds a positive value and dignity to their good works in God’s sight. That little holiness, and those faint and feeble acts of love, and other grace, receive an exceeding value in the sight of God, by virtue of God’s beholding them as in Christ, and as it were members of one so infinitely worthy in his eyes; and that because God looks upon the persons as of greater dignity on this account. Isa. xliii .4. “Since thou was precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable.” God, for Christ’s sake, and because they are members of his own righteousness and dear Son, sets an exceeding value upon their persons; and hence it follows, that he also sets a great value upon their good acts and offering. The same love and obedience in a person of greater dignity and value in God’s sight, is more valuable in his eyes than in one of less dignity. Love is valuable in proportion to the dignity of the person whose love it is; because, so far as any one gives his love to another, he gives himself, in that he gives his heart. But this is a more excellent offering, in proportion as the person whose self is offered is more worth. Believers are become immensely more honourable in God’s esteem by virtue of their relation to Christ, than man would have been considered as by himself, though he had been free from sin; as a mean person becomes more honourable when married to a king. Hence God will probably reward the little weak love, and poor and exceeding imperfect obedience of believers in Christ, with more glorious reward than he would have done Adam’s perfect obedience. According to the tenor of the first covenant, the person was to be accepted and rewarded, only for the work’s sake; but by the covenant of grace, the work is accepted and rewarded, only for the person’s sake; the person being beheld antecedently as a member of Christ, and clothed with his righteousness. So that though the saints’ inherent holiness is rewarded, yet this very reward is indeed not the less founded on the worthiness and righteousness of Christ. None of the value that their works have in his sight, nor any of the acceptance they have with him, is out of Christ, and out of his righteousness; but his worthiness as mediator is the prime and only foundation on which all is built, and the universal source whence all arises. God indeed doth great things out of regard to the saints’ loveliness, but it is only as a secondary and derivative loveliness. When I speak of a derivative loveliness, I do not mean only, that the qualifications themselves accepted as lovely, are derived from Christ, from his power and purchase; but that the acceptance of them as a loveliness, and all the value that is set upon them, and all their connexion with the reward, is founded in, and derived from, Christ’s righteousness and worthiness.

If we suppose that not only higher degrees of glory in heaven, but heaven itself, is in some respect given in reward for the holiness and good works of the saints, in this secondary an derivative sense, it will not prejudice the doctrine we have maintained. It is no way impossible that God may bestow heaven’s glory wholly out of respect to Christ’s righteousness, and yet in reward for man’s inherent holiness, in different respects, and different ways. It may be only Christ’s righteousness that God has respect to, for its own sake, the independent acceptableness and dignity of it being sufficient of itself to recommend all that believe in Christ to a title to this glory; and so it may be only by this that persons enter into a title to heaven, or have their prime right to it: and yet God may also have respect to the saints’ own holiness, for Christ’s sake, and as deriving a value from Christ’s merit, which he may testify in bestowing heaven upon them. The saints being beheld as members of Christ, their obedience is looked upon by God as something of Christ’s, it being the obedience of the members of Christ; as the sufferings of the members of Christ are looked upon, in some respect, as the sufferings of Christ. Hence the apostle, speaking of his sufferings, says, Col. i.24. “Who now rejoice in my suffering for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh.” To the same purpose is Matt. xxv. 35, &c. I was an hungred, naked, sick, and in prison, &c. And so that in Rev. xi. 8. “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”

By the merit and righteousness of Christ, such favour of God towards the believer may be obtained, as that God may hereby be already, as it were, disposed to make them perfectly and eternally happy. But yet this does not hinder, but that God in his wisdom may choose to bestow this perfect and eternal happiness in this way, viz. in some respect as a reward of their holiness and obedience. It is not impossible but that the blessedness may be bestowed as a reward for that which is done after that an interest is already obtained in that favour, which (to speak of God after the manner of men) disposes God to bestow the blessedness. Our heavenly Father may already have that favour for a child, whereby he may be thoroughly ready to give the child an inheritance, because he is his child; which he is by the purchase of Christ’s righteousness: and yet that the Father may choose to bestow the inheritance on the child in a way of reward for his dutifulness, and behaving in a manner becoming a child. And so great a reward may not be judged more than a meet reward for his dutifulness; but that so great a reward is judged meet, does not arise from the excellency of the obedience absolutely considered, but from his standing in so near and honourable a relation to God, as that of a child, which is obtained only by the righteousness of Christ. And thus the reward, and the greatness of it, arises properly from the righteousness of Christ; though it be indeed in some sort the reward of their obedience. As a father might justly esteem the inheritance no more than a meet reward for the obedience of his child, and yet esteem it more than a meet reward for the obedience of a servant. The favour whence a believer’s heavenly Father bestows the eternal inheritance, and his title as an heir, is founded in that relation he stands in to him as a child, purchased by Christ’s righteousness; though he in wisdom chooses to bestow it in such a way, and therein to testify his acceptance of the amiableness of his obedience in Christ.

Believers having a title to heaven by faith antecedent to their obedience, or its being absolutely promised to them before, does not hinder but that the actual bestowment of heaven may also be a testimony of God’s regard to their obedience, though performed afterwards. Thus it was with Abraham, the father and pattern of all believers: God bestowed upon him that blessing of multiplying his seed as the stars of heaven, and causing that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed, in reward for his obedience in offering up his son Isaac, Gen. xxii. 16, 17, 18. “And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” And yet the very same blessings had been from time to time promised to Abraham, in the most positive terms, and the promise, with great solemnity, confirmed and sealed to him; as chap. xii. 2, 3. chap. xiii. 16. chap. xv. 1, 4-7, &c. chap. xvii. throughout; chap. xviii. 10, 18.

From what has been said we may easily solve the difficulty arising from that text in Rev. iii. 4. “They shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy;” which is parallel with that text in Luke xx. 35. “But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead.” I allow (as in the objection) that this worthiness does doubtless denote a moral fitness to the reward, or that God looks on these glorious benefits as a meet testimony of his regard to the value which their persons and performances have in his sight.

1. God looks on these glorious benefits as a meet testimony of his regard to the value which their persons have in his sight. But he sets this value upon their persons purely for Christ’s sake. They are such jewels, and have such preciousness in his eyes, only because they are beheld in Christ, and by reason of the worthiness of the head they are the members of, and the stock they are grafted into. And the value that God sets upon them on this account is so great, that God thinks meet, from regard to it, to admit them to such exceeding glory. The saints, on account of their relation to Christ, are such precious jewels in God’s sight, that they are thought worthy of a place in his own crown. Mal. iii. 17. Zech. ix. 16. So far as the saints are said to be valuable in God’s sight, on whatever account, so far may they properly be said to be worthy, or meet for that honour which is answerable to the value or price which God sets upon them. A child or wife of a prince is worthy to be treated with great honour; and therefore if a mean person should be adopted to be a child of a prince, or should be espoused to a prince, it would be proper to say, that she was worthy of such and such honour and respect, and there would be no force upon the words in saying, that she ought to have such respect paid her, for she is worthy, though it be only on account of her relation to the prince that she is so.

2. From the value God sets upon their persons, for the sake of Christ’s worthiness, he also sets a high value on their virtue and performances. Their meek and quiet spirit is of great price in his sight. Their fruits are pleasant fruits, their offerings are an odour of sweet smell to him; and that because of the value he sets on their persons, as has been already observed and explained. This preciousness or high valuableness of believers is a moral fitness to a reward; and yet this valuableness is all in the righteousness of Christ, that is the foundation of it. The thing respected is not excellency in them separately by themselves, or in their virtue by itself, but the value in God’s account arises from other considerations; which is the natural import of Luke xx. 35. “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world,” &c. and Luke xxi. 36. “That ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” 2 Thess. i.5. “That ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer.”

There is a vast difference between this scheme, and what is supposed in the scheme of those that oppose the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This lays the foundation of first acceptance with God, and all actual salvation consequent upon it, wholly in Christ and his righteousness. On the contrary, in their scheme, a regard to man’s own excellency or virtue is supposed to be first, and to have the place of the first foundation in actual salvation, though not in that ineffectual redemption, which they suppose common to all. They lay the foundation of all discriminating salvation in man’s own virtue and moral excellency. This is the very bottom stone in this affair; for they suppose that it is from regard to our virtue, that even a special interest in Christ itself is given. The foundation being thus contrary, the whole scheme becomes exceeding diverse and contrary; the one is utterly inconsistent with our being justified by Christ’s righteousness, the other not at all.

From what has been said, we may understand, not only how the forgiveness of sin granted in justification is indissolubly connected with a forgiving spirit in us, but how there may be many exercises of forgiving mercy granted in reward for our forgiving those who trespass against us. For none will deny but that there are many acts of divine forgiveness towards the saints, that do not presuppose an unjustified state immediately preceding that forgiveness. None will deny, that saints who never fell from a justified state, yet commit many sins which God forgives afterwards, by laying aside his fatherly displeasure. This forgiveness may be in reward for our forgiveness, without any prejudice to the doctrine that has been maintained, as well as other mercies and blessings consequent on justification.

With respect to the second part of the objection, that relates to the different degrees of glory, and the seeming inconsistence there is in it, that the degrees of glory in different saints should be greater or lesser according to their inherent holiness and good works, and yet, that every one’s glory should be purchased with the price of the very same imputed righteousness,—I answer, That Christ, by his righteousness, purchased for every one complete and perfect happiness, according to his capacity. But this does not hinder but that the saints, being of various capacities, may have various degrees of happiness, and yet all their happiness be the fruit of Christ’s purchase. Indeed it cannot be properly said, that Christ purchased any particular degree of happiness, so that the value of Christ’s righteousness in the sight of God, is sufficient to raise a believer so high in happiness, and no higher, and so that if the believer were made happier, it would exceed the value of Christ’s righteousness; but in general, Christ purchased eternal life, or perfect happiness for all, according to their several capacities. The saints are as so many vessels of different sizes, cast into the sea of happiness, where every vessel is full; this Christ purchased for all. But after all, it is left to God’s sovereign pleasure to determine the largeness of the vessel; Christ’s righteousness meddles not with this matter. Eph. iv. 4, 5, 6, 7. “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” &c.—“But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” God may dispense in this matter according to what rule he pleases, not the less for what Christ has done: he may dispense either without condition, or upon what condition he pleases to fix. It is evident that Christ’s righteousness meddles not with this matter; for what Christ did was to fulfill the covenant of works; but the covenant of works did not meddle at all with this. If Adam had persevered in perfect obedience, he and his posterity would have had perfect and full happiness; every one’s happiness would have so answered his capacity, that he would have been completely blessed; but God would have been at liberty to have made some of one capacity, and others of another, as he pleased.—The angels have obtained eternal life, or a state of confirmed glory, by a covenant of works, whose condition was perfect obedience; but yet some are higher in glory than others, according to the several capacities that God, according to his sovereign pleasure, hath given them. So that it being still left with God, notwithstanding the perfect obedience of the second Adam, to fix the degree of each one’s capacity by what rule he pleases, he hath been pleased to fix the degree of capacity, and so of glory, by the proportion of the saints’ grace and fruitfulness here. He gives higher degrees of glory, in reward for higher degrees of holiness and good works, because it pleases him; and yet all the happiness of each saint is indeed the fruit of the purchase of Christ’s obedience. If it had been but one man that Christ had obeyed and died for, and it had please God to make him of a very large capacity, Christ’s perfect obedience would have purchased that his capacity should be filled, and then all his happiness might properly be said to be the fruit of Christ’s perfect obedience; though, if he had been of a less capacity, he would not have had so much happiness by the same obedience; and yet would have had as much as Christ merited for him. Christ’s righteousness meddles not with the degree of happiness, any otherwise than as he merits that it should be full and perfect, according to the capacity; and so it may be said to be concerned in the degree of happiness, as perfect is a degree with respect to imperfect; but it meddles not with the degrees of perfect happiness.

This matter may be yet better understood, if we consider that Christ and the whole church of saints are, as it were, one body, of which he is the Head, and they members of different place and capacity: now the whole body, head, and members, have communion in Christ’s righteousness; they are all partakers of the benefit of it; Christ himself the Head is rewarded for it, and every member is partaker of the benefit and reward. But it does by no means follow, that every part should equally partake of the benefit, but every part in proportion to its place and capacity; the Head partakes of far more than other parts, and the more noble members partake of more than the inferior. As it is in a natural body that enjoys perfect health, the head, and the heart, and lungs, have a greater share of this health, they have it more seated in them, than the hands and feet, because they are parts of greater capacity; though the hands and feet are as much in perfect health as those nobler parts of the body. So it is in the mystical body of Christ, all the members are partakers of the benefit of the Head; but it is according to the different capacity and place they have in the body; and God determines that place and capacity as he pleases; he makes whom he pleases the foot, and whom he pleases the hand, and whom he pleases the lungs, &c. 1 Cor. xii. 18. “God hath set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.” God efficaciously determines the place and capacity of every member, by the different degrees of grace and assistance in the improvement of it in this world. Those that he intends for the highest place in the body, he gives them most of his Spirit, the greatest share of the divine nature, the Spirit and nature of Christ Jesus the Head, and that assistance whereby they perform the most excellent works, and do most abound in them.

Object. 4. It may be objected against what has been supposed, (viz. That rewards are given to our good works, only in consequence of an interest in Christ, or in testimony of God’s respect to the excellency or value of them in his sight, as built on an interest in Christ’s righteousness already obtained,) That the Scripture speaks of an interest in Christ itself, as being given out of respect to our moral fitness. Matt. x.37, 38, 39. “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me: he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me: he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me: he that findeth his life, shall lose it,” &c. Worthiness here at least signifies a moral fitness, or an excellency that recommends. And this place seems to intimate as though it were from respect to a moral fitness that men are admitted even to an union with Christ, and interest in him; and therefore this worthiness cannot be consequent on being in Christ, and by the imputation of his worthiness, or from any value that is in us, or in our actions in God’s sight, as beheld in Christ.

To this I answer, That though persons when they are accepted, are not accepted as worthy, yet when they are rejected, they are rejected as unworthy. He that does not love Christ above other things, but treats him with such indignity, as to set him below earthly things, shall be treated as unworthy of Christ; his unworthiness of Christ, especially in that particular, shall be marked against him, and imputed to him. And though he be a professing Christian, and live in the enjoyment of the gospel, and has been visibly ingrafted into Christ, and admitted as one of his disciples, as Judas was; yet he shall be thrust out in wrath, as a punishment of his vile treatment of Christ. The forementioned words do not imply, that if a man does love Christ above father and mother, &c. that he would be worthy; the most they imply is, that such a visible Christian shall be treated and thrust out as unworthy. He that believes is not received for the worthiness or moral fitness of faith; but yet the visible Christian is cast out by God, for the unworthiness and moral unfitness of unbelief. A being accepted as one of Christ’s, is not the reward of believing; but being thrust out from being one of Christ’s disciples, after a visible admission as such, is properly a punishment of unbelief. John iii. 18, 19. “He that believeth on him, is not condemned; but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Salvation is promised to faith as a free gift, but damnation is threatened to unbelief as a debt, or punishment due to unbelief. They who believed while in the wilderness, did not enter into Canaan, because of the worthiness of their faith; but God sware in his wrath, that they that believed not should not enter in, because of the unworthiness of their unbelief. Admitting a soul to an union with Christ is an act of free and sovereign grace; but excluding at death, and at the day of judgment, those professors of Christianity who have had the offers of a Saviour, and enjoyed great privileges as God’s people, is a judicial proceeding, and a just punishment of their unworthy treatment of Christ. The design of this saying of Christ is to make them sensible of the unworthiness of their treatment of Christ, who professed him to be their Lord and Saviour, and set him below father and mother, &c. and not to show the worthiness of loving him above father and mother. If a beggar should be offered any great and precious gift, but as soon as offered, should trample it under his feet, it might be taken from him, as unworthy to have it. Or if a malefactor should have his pardon offered him, that he might be freed from execution, and should only scoff at it, his pardon might be refused him, as unworthy of it; though if he had received it, he would not have had it for his worthiness, or as being recommended to it by his virtue; for his being a malefactor supposes him unworthy, and its being offered him to have it only on accepting, supposes that the king looks for no worthiness, nothing in him for which he should bestow pardon as a reward. This may teach us how to understand Acts xiii. 46. “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken unto you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.”

Object. 5. It is objected against the doctrine of justification by faith alone, That repentance is evidently spoken of in Scripture as that which is in a special manner the condition of remission of sins; but remission of sins is by all allowed to be that wherein justification does (at least) in great part consist.

But it must certainly arise from a misunderstanding of what the Scripture says about repentance, to suppose that faith and repentance are two distinct things, that in like manner are the conditions of justification. For it is most plain from the Scripture, that the condition of justification, or that in us by which we are justified, is but one, and that is faith. Faith and repentance are not two distinct conditions of justification, nor are they two distinct things that together make one condition of justification; but faith comprehends the whole of that by which we are justified, or by which we come to have an interest in Christ, and there is nothing else has a parallel concern with it in the affair of our salvation. And this the divines on the other side themselves are sensible of, and therefore they suppose that the faith the apostle Paul speaks of, which he says we are justified by alone, comprehends in it repentance.

And therefore, in answer to the objection, I would say, That when repentance is spoken of in Scripture as the condition of pardon, thereby is not intended any particular grace, or act, properly distinct from faith, that has a parallel influence with it in the affair of our pardon or justification; but by repentance is intended nothing distinct from active conversion, (or conversion actively considered,) as it respects the term from which. Active conversion is a motion or exercise of the mind that respects two terms, viz. sin and God; and by repentance is meant this conversion, or active change of the mind, so far as it is conversant about the term from which, or about sin. This is what the word repentance properly signifies; which, in the original of the New Testament, is ⟨Greek/Hebrew text missing in source⟩, and signifies a change of the mind, or, which is the same thing, the turning or the conversion of the mind. Repentance is this turning, as it respects what is turned from. Acts xxvi. 20. “Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I showed unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, and turn to God.” Both these are the same turning, but only with respect to opposite terms: in the former, is expressed the exercise of mind about sin in this turning; in the other, the exercise of mind turning towards God.

If we look over the scriptures that speak of evangelical repentance, we shall presently see that repentance is to be understood in this sense; as Matt. ix. 13. “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Luke xiii. 3. “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” And chap. xv. 7, 10. “There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,” i.e. over one sinner that is converted. Acts xi. 18. “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” This is said by the Christians of the circumcision at Jerusalem, upon Peter’s giving an account of the conversion of Cornelius and his family, and their embracing the gospel, though Peter had said nothing expressly about their sorrow for sin. And again, Acts xvii. 30. “But now commandeth all men every where to repent.” And Luke xvi. 30. “Nay, father Abraham, but if one went to them from the dead, they would repent.” 2 Pet. iii. 9. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” It is plain that in these and other places, by repentance is meant conversion.

Now it is true, that conversion is the condition of pardon and justification: but if it be so, how absurd is it to say, that conversion is one condition of justification, and faith another, as though they were two distributively distinct and parallel conditions! Conversion is the condition of justification, because it is that great change by which we are brought from sin to Christ, and by which we become believers in him: agreeable to Matt. xxi. 32. “And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.” When we are directed to repent, that our sins may be blotted out, it is as much as to say, Let your minds and hearts be changed, that your sins may be blotted out. But if it be said, Let your hearts be changed, that you may be justified; and believe, that you may be justified; does it therefore follow, that the heart being changed is one condition of justification, and believing another? But our minds must be changed, that we may believe, and so may be justified.

And besides, evangelical repentance, being active conversion, is not to be treated of as a particular grace, properly and entirely distinct from faith, as by some it seems to have been. What is conversion, but the sinful, alienated soul’s closing with Christ, or the sinner’s being brought to believe in Christ? That exercise of soul in conversion that respects sin, cannot be excluded out of the nature of faith in Christ: there is something in faith, or closing with Christ, that respects sin, and that is evangelical repentance. That repentance which in Scripture is called, repentance for the remission of sins, is that very principle or operation of the mind itself that is called faith, so far as it is conversant about sin. Justifying faith in a Mediator is conversant about two things: it is conversant about sin or evil to be rejected and to be delivered from, and about positive good to be accepted and obtained by the Mediator; as conversant about the former of these, it is evangelical repentance, or repentance for remission of sins. Surely they must be very ignorant, or at least very inconsiderate, of the whole tenor of the gospel, who think that the repentance by which remission of sins is obtained, can be completed, as to all that is essential to it, without any respect to Christ, or application of the mind to the Mediator, who alone has made atonement for sin. Surely so great a part of salvation as remission of sins, is not to be obtained without looking or coming to the great and only Saviour. It is true, repentance, in its more general abstracted nature, is only a sorrow for sin, and forsaking of it, which is a duty of natural religion; but evangelical repentance, or repentance for remission of sins, hath more than this essential to it; a dependence of soul on the Mediator for deliverance from sin, is of the essence of it.

That justifying repentance has the nature of faith, seems evident by Acts xix. 4. “Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” The latter words, “saying unto the people, that they should believe on him,” &c. are evidently exegetical of the former, and explain how he preached repentance for the remission of sins. When it is said, that he preached repentance for the remission of sin, saying, that they should believe on Christ, it cannot be supposed but that his saying, that they should believe on Christ, was intended as directing them what to do that they might obtain the remission of sins. So, 2 Tim. ii .25. “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” That acknowledging of the truth which there is in believing, is here spoken of as what is retained in repentance. And on the other hand, that faith includes repentance in its nature, is evident by the apostle’s speaking of sin as destroyed in faith, Gal. ii. 18.—In the preceding verses the apostle mentions an objection against the doctrine of justification by faith alone, viz. that it tends to encourage men in sin, and so to make Christ the minister of sin. This objection he rejects and refutes with this, “If I build again the things that I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” If sin be destroyed by faith, it must be by repentance of sin included in it; for we know that it is our repentance of sin, or the ⟨Greek/Hebrew text missing in source⟩ , or turning of the mind from sin, that is our destroying our sin.

That in justifying faith which directly respects sin, or the evil to be delivered from by the Mediator, is as follows: a sense of our own sinfulness, and the hatefulness of it, and a hearty acknowledgement of its desert of the threatened punishment, looking to the free mercy of God in a Redeemer, for deliverance from it and its punishment.

Concerning this, here described, three things may be noted: 1. That it is the very same with that evangelical repentance to which remission of sins is promised in Scripture. 2. That it is of the essence of justifying faith, and is the same with that faith, so far as it is conversant about evil to be delivered from by the Mediator. 3. That this is indeed the proper and peculiar condition of remission of sins.

1. All of it is essential to evangelical repentance, and is indeed the very thing meant by that repentance, to which remission of sins is promised in the gospel. As to the former part of the description, viz. a sense of our own sinfulness, and hatefulness of it, and a hearty acknowledgement of its desert of wrath, none will deny it to be included in repentance: but this does not comprehend the whole essence of evangelical repentance; but what follows does also properly and essentially belong to its nature, looking to the free mercy of God in a Redeemer, for deliverance from it, and the punishment of it. That repentance to which remission is promised, not only always has this with it, but it is contained in it, as what is of the proper nature and essence of it: and respect is ever had to this in the nature of repentance, whenever remission is promised to it; and it is especially from respect to this in the nature of repentance, that it has that promise made to it. If this latter part be missing, it fails of the nature of that evangelical repentance to which remission of sins is promised. If repentance remains in sorrow for sin, and does not reach to a looking to the free mercy of God in Christ for pardon, it is not that which is the condition of pardon, neither shall pardon be obtained by it. Evangelical repentance is an humiliation for sin before God; but the sinner never comes and humbles himself before God in any other repentance, but that which includes hoping in his mercy for remission: if sorrow be not accompanied with that, there will be no coming to God in it, but a flying further from him. There is some worship of God in justifying repentance; but that is not in any other repentance which has not a sense of and faith in the divine mercy to forgive sin; Psalm cxxx .4. “There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.” The promise of mercy to a true penitent, in Prov. xxviii. 13. is expressed in these terms, “Whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins, shall have mercy.” But there is faith in God’s mercy in that confessing. The psalmist, (Psalm xxxii.) speaketh of the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven—and whose sin is covered, to whom the Lord imputes not sin—says, that while he kept silence his bones waxed old: but he acknowledged his sin unto God, his iniquity he did not hide; he said, he would confess his transgression to the Lord, and then God forgave the iniquity of his sin. The manner of expression plainly holds forth, that then he began to encourage himself in the mercy of God, but his bones waxed old while he kept silence; and therefore the apostle Paul, in the 4th of Romans, brings this instance, to confirm the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that he had been insisting on. When sin is aright confessed to God, there is always faith in that act. That confessing of sin which is joined with despair, as in Judas, is not the confession to which the promise is made. In Acts ii. 38. the direction given to those who were pricked in their heart with a sense of the guilt of sin, was to repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins. Being baptized in the name of Christ for the remission of sins, implied faith in Christ for the remission of sins. Repentance for the remission of sins was typified of old by the priest’s confessing the sins of the people over the scape-goat, laying his hands on him, Lev. xvi. 21. denoting it is that repentance and confession of sin only that obtains remission, which is made over Christ the great sacrifice, and with dependence on him. Many other things might be produced from the Scripture, that in like manner confirm this point; but these may be sufficient.

2. All the forementioned description is of the essence of justifying faith, and not different from it, so far as it is conversant about sin, or the evil to be delivered from by the Mediator. For it is doubtless of the essence of justifying faith, to embrace Christ as a Saviour from sin and its punishment; and all that is contained in that act is contained in the nature of faith itself. But in the act of embracing Christ as a Saviour from our sin and its punishment, is implied a sense of our sinfulness, and a hatred of our sins, or a rejecting them with abhorrence, and a sense of our desert of punishment. Embracing Christ as a Saviour from sin, implies the contrary act, viz. a rejecting sin. If we fly to the light to be delivered from darkness, the same act is contrary to darkness, viz. a rejecting of it. In proportion to the earnestness with which we embrace Christ as a Saviour from sin, in the same proportion is the abhorrence with which we reject sin, in the same act. Yea, suppose there be in the nature of faith, as conversant about sin, no more than the hearty embracing of Christ as a Saviour from the punishment of sin, this act will imply in it the whole of the above-mentioned description. It implies a sense of our own sinfulness. Certainly in the hearty embracing of a Saviour from the punishment of our sinfulness, there is the exercise of a sense that we are sinful. We cannot heartily embrace Christ as a Saviour from the punishment of that which we are not sensible we are guilty of. There is also in the same act, a sense of our desert of the threatened punishment. We cannot heartily embrace Christ as a Saviour from that which we are not sensible that we have deserved. For if we are not sensible that we have deserved the punishment, we shall not be sensible that we have any need of a Saviour from it, or, at least, shall not be convinced but that God who offers the Saviour, unjustly makes him needful; and we cannot heartily embrace such an offer. And further, there is implied in a hearty embracing Christ as a Saviour from punishment, not only a conviction of conscience, that we have deserved the punishment, such as the devils and damned have; but there is a hearty acknowledgment of it, with the submission of the soul, so as, with the accord of the heart, to own that God might be just in the punishment. If the heart rises against the act or judgment of God, in holding us obliged to the punishment, when he offers us his Son as a Saviour from the punishment, we cannot with the consent of the heart receive him in that character: but if persons thus submit to the righteousness of so dreadful a punishment of sin, this carries in it a hatred of sin.

That such a sense of our sinfulness, and utter unworthiness, and desert of punishment, belongs to the nature of saving faith, is what the Scripture from time to time holds forth; as particularly in Matt. xv. 26-28. “But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table. Then Jesus answered, and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith.”—And Luke vii. 6-9. “The centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof. Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee; but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed: for I also am a man set under authority,” &c.—“When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” And also ver. 37, 38. “And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster-box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.” Together with ver. 50. “He said unto the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”

These things do not necessarily suppose that repentance and faith are words of just the same signification; for it is only so much in justifying faith as respects the evil to be delivered from by the Saviour, that is called repentance. Besides, both repentance and faith, take them only in their general nature, are entirely distinct; repentance is a sorrow for sin, and forsaking of it; and faith is a trusting in God’s sufficiency and truth. But faith and repentance, as evangelical duties, or justifying faith, and repentance for remission of sins, contain more in them, and imply a respect to a mediator, and involve each other’s nature; ⁹ though they still bear the name of faith and repentance, from those general moral virtues—that repentance, which is a duty of natural religion, and that faith, which was a duty required under the first covenant—that are contained in this evangelical act; which severally appear, when this act is considered with respect to its different terms and objects.

It may be objected here, that the Scripture sometimes mentions faith and repentance together, as if they were entirely distinct things; as in Mark i. 15. “Repent ye, and believe the gospel.” But there is no need of understanding these as two distinct conditions of salvation, but the words are exegetical one of another. It is to teach us after what manner we must repent, viz. as believing the gospel, and after what manner we must believe the gospel, viz. as repenting. These words no more prove faith and repentance to be entirely distinct, than those fore-mentioned, Matt. xxi. 32. “And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterwards, that ye might believe him.” Or those, 2 Tim. ii. 25. “If peradventure God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” The apostle, in Acts xix. 4. seems to have reference to these words of John the Baptist, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe,” &c. where the latter words, as we have already observed, are to explain how he preached repentance.

Another Scripture where faith and repentance are mentioned together, is Acts xx. 21. “Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ.” It may be objected, that in this place, faith and repentance are not only spoken of as distinct things, but having distinct objects.

To this I answer, That faith and repentance, in their general nature, are distinct things; and repentance for the remission of sins, or that in justifying faith that respects the evil to be delivered from, so far as it regards that term, which is what especially denominates it repentance, has respect to God as the object, because he is the Being offended by sin, and to be reconciled, but that in this justifying act, whence it is denominated faith, does more especially respect Christ. But let us interpret it how we will, the objection of faith being here so distinguished from repentance, is as much of an objection against the scheme of those that oppose justification by faith alone, as against this scheme; for they hold that the justifying faith the apostle Paul speaks of, includes repentance, as has been already observed.

3. This repentance that has been described, is indeed the special condition of remission of sins. This seems very evident by the Scripture, as particularly, Mark i. 4. “John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” So, Luke iii. 3. “And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins.” Luke xxiv. 47. “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations.” Acts v. 31. “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance unto Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” Chap. ii. 38. “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins.” And, chap. iii. 19. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.” The like is evident by Lev. xxvi. 40-42. Job xxxiii. 27, 28. Psal. xxxii. 5. Prov. xxviii. 13. Jer. iii. 13. And 1 John i.9. and other places.

And the reason may be plain from what has been said. We need not wonder that what in faith especially respects sin, should be especially the condition of remission of sins; or that this motion or exercise of the soul, as it rejects and flies from evil, and embraces Christ as a Saviour from it, should especially be the condition of being free from that evil; and in like manner, as the same principle or motion, as it seeks good, and cleaves to Christ as the procurer of that good, should be the condition of obtaining that good. Faith with respect to good is accepting, and with respect to evil it is rejecting. Yea this rejecting evil is itself an act of acceptance; it is accepting freedom or separation from that evil; and this freedom or separation is the benefit bestowed in remission. No wonder that what in faith immediately respects this benefit, and is our acceptance of it, should be the special condition of our having it. It is so with respect to all the benefits that Christ has purchased. Trusting in God through Christ for such a particular benefit that we need, is the special condition of obtaining that benefit. When we need protection from enemies, the exercise of faith with respect to such a benefit, or trusting in Christ for protection from enemies, is especially the way to obtain that particular benefit, rather than trusting in Christ for something else; and so of any other benefit that might be mentioned. So prayer (which is the expression of faith) for a particular mercy needed, is especially the way to obtain that mercy. ¹⁰ So that no argument can be drawn from hence against the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And there is that in the nature of repentance, which peculiarly tends to establish the contrary of justification by works: for nothing so much renounces our own worthiness and excellency, as repentance; the very nature of it is to acknowledge our own utter sinfulness and unworthiness, and to renounce our own goodness, and all confidence in self; and so to trust in the propitiation of the Mediator, and ascribe all the glory of forgiveness to him.

Object. 6. The last objection I shall mention, is that paragraph in the 3d chapter of James, where persons are said expressly to be justified by works: Ver. 21. “Was not Abraham our father justified by works?” Ver. 24. “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” Ver. 25. “Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works?”

In answer to this objection, I would,

1. Take notice of the great unfairness of the divines that oppose us, in the improvement they make of this passage against us. All will allow, that in that proposition of St. James, “By works a man is justified, and not by faith only,” one of the terms, either the word faith, or else the word justify, is not to be understood precisely in the same sense as the same terms when used by St. Paul; because they suppose, as well as we, that it was not the intent of the apostle James to contradict St. Paul in that doctrine of justification by faith alone, in which he had instructed the churches. But if we understand both the terms, as used by each apostle, in precisely the same sense, then what one asserts is a precise, direct, and full contradiction of the other, the one affirming and the other denying the very same thing. So that all the controversy from this text comes to this, viz. which of these two terms shall be understood in a diversity from St. Paul. They say that it is the word faith; for they suppose, that when the apostle Paul uses the word, and makes faith that by which alone we are justified, that then by it is understood a compliance with and practice of Christianity in general; so as to include all saving christian virtue and obedience. But as the apostle James uses the word faith in this place, they suppose thereby is to be understood only an assent of the understanding to the truth of gospel doctrines, as distinguished from good works, and that may exist separate from them, and from all saving grace. We, on the other hand, suppose that the word justify is to be understood in a different sense from the apostle Paul. So that they are forced to go as far in their scheme, in altering the sense of terms from Paul’s use of them, as we. But yet at the same time that they freely vary the sense of the former of them, viz. faith, yet when we understand the latter, viz. justify, in a different sense from St. Paul, they exclaim against us. What necessity of framing this distinction, but only to serve an opinion? At this rate a man may maintain any thing, though never so contrary to Scripture, and elude the clearest text in the Bible! though they do not show us why we have not as good warrant to understand the word justify in a diversity from St. Paul, as they the word faith. If the sense of one of the words must be varied on either scheme, to make the apostle James’s doctrine consistent with the apostle Paul’s; and if varying the sense of one term or the other be all that stands in the way of their agreeing with either scheme; and if varying the sense of the latter be in itself as fair as of the former, then the text lies as fair for one scheme as the other, and can no more fairly be an objection against our scheme than theirs. And if so, what becomes of all this great objection from this passage in James?

2. If there be no more difficulty in varying the sense of one of these terms than another, from any thing in the text itself, so as to make the words suit with either scheme, then certainly that is to be chosen that is most agreeable to the current of Scripture, and other places where the same matter is more particularly and fully treated of; and therefore that we should understand the word justify in this passage of James, in a sense in some respects diverse from that in which St. Paul uses it. For by what has been already said, it may appear, that there is no doctrine in the whole Bible more fully asserted, explained, and urged, than the doctrine of justification by faith alone, without any of our own righteousness.

3. There is a very fair interpretation of this passage of St. James, no way inconsistent with this doctrine of justification, which I have shown that other scriptures abundantly teach, which the words themselves will as well allow of, as that which the objectors put upon them, and much better agrees with the context; and that is, that works are here spoken of as justifying as evidences. A man may be said to be justified by that which clears him, or vindicates him, or makes the goodness of his cause manifest. When a person has a cause tried in a civil court, and is justified or cleared, he may be said in different senses to be justified or cleared, by the goodness of his cause, and by the goodness of the evidences of it. He may be said to be cleared by what evidences his cause to be good; but not in the same sense as he is by that which makes his cause to be good. That which renders his cause good, is the proper ground of his justification; it is by that that he is himself a proper subject of it; but evidences justify, only as they manifest that his cause is good in fact, whether they are of such a nature as to have any influence to render it so or no. It is by works that our cause appears to be good; but by faith our cause not only appears to be good, but becomes good; because thereby we are united to Christ. That the word justify should be sometimes understood to signify the former of these, as well as the latter, is agreeable to the use of the word in common speech; as we say such an one stood up to justify another, i.e. he endeavoured to show or manifest his cause to be good.–And it is certain that the word is sometimes used in this sense in Scripture, when speaking of our being justified before God; as where it is said, we shall be justified by our words, Matt. xii. 37. “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” It cannot be meant that men are accepted before God on the account of their words; for God has told us nothing more plainly, than that it is the heart that he looks at; and that when he acts as judge towards men, in order to justifying or condemning, he tries the heart, Jer. xi. 20. “But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them; for unto thee have I revealed my cause.” Psalm vii. 8, 9. “The Lord shall judge the people: judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me. O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just; for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.” Ver. 11. “God judgeth the righteous.” And many other places to the like purpose. And therefore men can be justified by their words, no otherwise than as evidences or manifestations of what is in the heart. And it is thus that Christ speaks of the words in this very place, as is evident by the context, ver. 34, 35. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart,” &c. The words, or sounds themselves, are neither parts of godliness nor evidences of godliness, but as signs of what is inward.

God himself, when he acts towards men as judge, in order to a declarative judgment, makes use of evidences, and so judges men by their works. And therefore, at the day of judgment, God will judge men according to their works: for though God will stand in no need of evidence to inform him what is right, yet it is to be considered, that he will then sit in judgment, not as earthly judges do, to find out what is right in a cause, but to declare and manifest what is right: and therefore the day is called by the apostle, “the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” Rom. ii. 5.

To be justified, is to be approved of and accepted: but a man may be said to be approved and accepted in two respects; the one is to be approved really, and the other to be approved and accepted declaratively. Justification is twofold; it is either the acceptance and approbation of the judge itself, or the manifestation of that approbation, by a sentence or judgment declared by the judge, either to our own consciences, or to the world. If justification be understood in the former sense, for the approbation itself, that is only that by which we become fit to be approved: but if it be understood in the latter sense, for the manifestation of this approbation, it is by whatever is a proper evidence of that fitness. In the former, only faith is concerned; because it is by that only in us that we become fit to be accepted and approved: in the latter, whatever is an evidence of our fitness, is alike concerned. And therefore, take justification in this sense, and then faith, and all other graces and good works, have a common and equal concern in it: for any other grace, or holy act, is equally an evidence of a qualification for acceptance or approbation, as faith.

To justify has always, in common speech, signified indifferently, either simply approbation, or testifying that approbation; sometimes one, and sometimes the other; because they are both the same, only as one is outwardly what the other is inwardly. So we, and it may be all nations, are wont to give the same name to two things, when one is only declarative of the other. Thus sometimes judging, intends only judging in our thoughts; at other times, testifying and declaring judgment. So such words as justify, condemn, accept, reject, prize, slight, approve, renounce, are sometimes put for mental acts, at other times, for an outward treatment. So in the sense in which the apostle James seems to use the word justify for manifestative justification, a man is justified not only by faith, but also by works; as a tree is manifested to be good, not only by immediately examining the tree, but also by the fruit, ¹¹ Prov. xx. 11. “Even a child is known by his doing, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.”

The drift of the apostle does not require that he should be understood in any other sense; for all that he aims at, as appears by a view of the context, is to prove that good works are necessary. The error of those that he opposed was this, That good works were not necessary to salvation; that if they did but believe that there was but one God, and that Christ was the Son of God, and the like, and were baptized, they were safe, let them live how they would; which doctrine greatly tended to licentiousness. The evincing the contrary of this is evidently the apostle’s scope.

And that we should understand the apostle, of works justifying as an evidence, and in a declarative judgment, is what a due consideration of the context will naturally lead us to.–For it is plain, that the apostle is here insisting on works, in the quality of a necessary manifestation and evidence of faith, or as what the truth of faith is made to appear by: as ver. 18. “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.” And when he says, ver. 26. “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” It is much more rational and natural to understand him as speaking of works, as the proper signs and evidences of the reality, life, and goodness of faith. Not that the very works or actions done are properly the life of faith, as the spirit in the body; but it is the active, working nature of faith, of which the actions or works done are the signs, that is itself the life and spirit of faith. The sign of a thing is often in scripture language said to be that thing; as it is in that comparison by which the apostle illustrates it. Not the actions themselves of a body, are properly the life or spirit of the body; but the active nature, of which those actions or motions are the signs, is the life of the body. That which makes men pronounce any thing to be alive, is, that they observe it has an active operative nature; which they observe no otherwise than by the actions or motions which are the signs of it. It is plainly the apostle’s aim to prove, that if faith hath not works, it is a sign that it is not a good sort of faith; which would not have been to his purpose, if it was his design to show that it is not by faith alone, though of a right sort, that we have acceptance with God, but that we are accepted on the account of obedience as well as faith. It is evident, by the apostle’s reasoning, that the necessity of works, is not from their having a parallel concern in our salvation with faith; but he speaks of works only as related to faith, and expressive of it; which, after all, leaves faith the alone fundamental condition, without any thing else having a parallel concern with it in this affair; and other things conditions, only as several expressions and evidences of it.

That the apostle speaks of works justifying only as a sign, or evidence, and in God’s declarative judgment, is further confirmed by verse 21. “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered up Isaac his son upon the altar?” Here the apostle seems plainly to refer to that declarative judgment of God concerning Abraham’s sincerity, manifested to him, for the peace and assurance of his own conscience, after his offering up Isaac his son on the altar, Gen. xxii. 12. “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.” But here it is plain, and expressed in the very words of justification or approbation, that this work of Abraham offering up his son on the altar, justified him as an evidence. When the apostle James says, we are justified by works, he may and ought to be understood in a sense agreeable to the instance he brings for the proof of it: but justification in that instance appears by the words of justification themselves, to be by works as an evidence. And where this instance of Abraham’s obedience is elsewhere mentioned in the New Testament, it is mentioned as a fruit and evidence of his faith. Heb. xi. 17. “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises, offered up his only-begotten son.”

And in the other instance when the apostle mentions, ver. 25. “Likewise also we not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?” The apostle refers to a declarative judgment, in that particular testimony which was given of God’s approbation of her as a believer, in directing Joshua to save her when the rest of Jericho was destroyed, Josh. vi. 25. “And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father’s household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel even unto this day: because she hid the messengers which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.” This was accepted as an evidence and expression of her faith. Heb. xi. 31. “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.” The apostle in saying, “Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works?” by the manner of his speaking has reference to something in her history; but we have no account in her history of any other justification of her but this.

4. If, notwithstanding, any choose to take justification in St. James’s precisely as we do in Paul’s epistles, for God’s acceptance or approbation itself, and not any expression of that approbation; what has been already said concerning the manner in which acts of evangelical obedience are concerned in the affair of our justification, affords a very easy, clear, and full answer. For it we take works as acts or expressions of faith, they are not excluded; so a man is not justified by faith only, but also by works; i.e., he is not justified only by faith as a principle in the heart, or in its first and more immanent acts, but also by the effective acts of it in life, which are the expressions of the life of faith, as the operations and actions of the body are of the life of that; agreeable to verse 26.

What has been said in answer to these objections, may also, I hope, abundantly serve for an answer to another objection, often made against this doctrine, viz. that it encourages licentiousness in life. For, from what has been said, we may see that the Scripture doctrine of justification by faith alone, without any manner of goodness or excellency of ours, does in no wise diminish either the necessity or benefit of a sincere evangelical universal obedience. Man’s salvation is not only indissolubly connected with obedience, and damnation with the want of it, in those who have opportunity for it, but depends upon it in many respects. It is the way to salvation, and the necessary preparation for it; eternal blessings are bestowed in reward for it, and our justification in our own consciences and at the day of judgment, depends on it, as the proper evidence of our acceptable state; and that even in accepting of us as entitled to life in our justification, God has respect to this, as that on which the fitness of such an act of justification depends: so that our salvation does as truly depend upon it, as if we were justified for the moral excellency of it. And besides all this, the degree of our happiness to all eternity is suspended on, and determined by, the degree of this. So that this gospel-scheme of justification is as far from encouraging licentiousness, and contains as much to encourage and excite to strict and universal obedience, and the utmost possible eminency of holiness, as any scheme that can be devised, and indeed unspeakably more.

I come now to the

V. And last thing proposed, which is to consider the “importance of this doctrine.”

I know there are many who make as though this controversy was of no great importance; that it is chiefly a matter of nice speculation, depending on certain subtle distinctions, which many that make use of them do not understand themselves; and that the difference is not of such consequence as to be worth being zealous about; and that more hurt is done by raising disputes about it than good.

Indeed I am far from thinking that it is of absolute necessity persons should understand, and be agreed upon, all the distinctions needful particularly to explain and defend this doctrine against all cavils and objections. Yet all Christians should strive after an increase of knowledge; and none should content themselves without some clear and distinct understanding in this point. But we should believe in the general, according to the clear and abundant revelations of God’s word, that it is none of our own excellency, virtue, or righteousness, that is the ground of our being received from a state of condemnation into a state of acceptance in God’s sight, but only Jesus Christ, and his righteousness and worthiness, received by faith. This I think to be of great importance, at least in application to ourselves; and that for the following reasons.

1. The Scripture treats of this doctrine, as a doctrine of very great importance. That there is a certain doctrine of justification by faith, in opposition to justification by the works of the law, which the apostle Paul insists upon as of the greatest importance, none will deny; because there is nothing in the Bible more apparent. The apostle, under the infallible conduct of the Spirit of God, thought it worth his most strenuous and zealous disputing about and defending. He speaks of the contrary doctrine as fatal and ruinous to the souls of men, in the latter end of the 9th chapter of Romans, and beginning of the 10th. He speaks of it as subversive of the gospel of Christ, and calls it another gospel, and says concerning it, if any one, “though an angel from heaven, preach it, let him be accursed;” Gal. i. 6-9. compared with the following part of the epistle. Certainly we must allow the apostles to be good judges of the importance and tendency of doctrines; at least the Holy Ghost in them. And doubtless we are safe, and in no danger of harshness and censoriousness, if we only follow him, and keep close to his express teachings, in what we believe and say of the hurtful and pernicious tendency of any error. Why are we to blame, for saying what the Bible has taught us to say, or for believing what the Holy Ghost has taught us to that end that we might believe it?

2. The adverse scheme lays another foundation of man’s salvation than God hath laid. I do not now speak of that ineffectual redemption that they suppose to be universal, and what all mankind are equally subjects of; but, I say, it lays entirely another foundation of man’s actual, discriminating salvation, or that salvation wherein true Christians differ from wicked men. We suppose the foundations of this to be Christ’s worthiness and righteousness: on the contrary, that scheme supposes it to be men’s own virtue; even so, that this is the ground of a saving interest in Christ itself. It takes away Christ out of the place of the bottom stone, and puts in men’s own virtue in the room of him: so that Christ himself in the affair of distinguishing actual salvation, is laid upon this foundation. And the foundation being so different, I leave it to every out to judge whether the difference between the two schemes consists only in punctilios of small consequence. The foundation being contrary, makes the whole scheme exceeding diverse and opposite; the one is a gospel scheme, the other a legal one.

3. It is in this doctrine that the most essential difference lies between the covenant of grace and the first covenant. The adverse scheme of justification supposes that we are justified by our works, in the very same sense wherein man was to have been justified by his works under the first covenant. By that covenant our first parents were not to have had eternal life given them for any proper merit in their obedience; because their perfect obedience was a debt that they owed God. Nor was it to be bestowed for any proportion between the dignity of their obedience, and the value of the reward; but only it was to be bestowed from a regard to a moral fitness in the virtue of their obedience, to the reward of God’s favour; and a title to eternal life was to be given them, as a testimony of God’s pleasedness with their works, or his regard to the inherent beauty of their virtue. And so it is the very same way that those in the adverse scheme suppose that we are received into God’s special favour now, and to those saving benefits that are the testimonies of it. I am sensible the divines of that side entirely disclaim the popish doctrine of merit; and are free to speak of our utter unworthiness, and the great imperfections of all our services. But after all, it is our virtue, imperfect as it is, that recommends men to God, by which good men come to have a saving interest in Christ, and God’s favour, rather than others; and these things are bestowed in testimony of God’s respect to their goodness. So that whether they will allow the term merit or no, yet they hold, that we are accepted by our own merit, in the same sense, though not in the same degree, as under the first covenant.

But the great and most distinguishing difference between that covenant and the covenant of grace is, that by the covenant of grace we are not thus justified by our own works, but only by faith in Jesus Christ. It is on this account chiefly that the new covenant deserves the name of a covenant of grace, as is evident by Rom. iv. 16. “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace.” And chap. iii. 20, 24. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight;”–“Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.” And chap xi. 6. “And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace; but if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more work.” Gal. v.4. “Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.” And therefore the apostle, in the same epistle to the Galatians, speaking of the doctrine of justification by works as another gospel, adds, “which is not another,” chap. 1. verse 6, 7. It is no gospel at all; it is law. It is no covenant of grace, but of works; not an evangelical, but a legal doctrine. Certainly that doctrine wherein consists the greatest and most essential difference between the covenant of grace and the first covenant, must be a doctrine of great importance. That doctrine of the gospel by which all others it is worthy of the name of gospel, is doubtless a very important doctrine of the gospel.

4. This is the main thing for which fallen men stood in need of divine revelation, to teach us how we who have sinned may come to be again accepted of God; or, which is the same thing, how the sinner may be justified. Something beyond the light of nature is necessary to salvation chiefly on this account. Mere natural reason afforded no means by which we could come to the knowledge of this, it depending on the sovereign pleasure of the Being that we had offended by sin. This seems to be the great drift of that revelation which God has given, and of all those mysteries it reveals, all those great doctrines that are peculiarly doctrines of revelation, and above the light of nature. It seems to have been very much on this account, that it was requisite the doctrine of the Trinity itself should be revealed to us; that by a discovery of the concern of the several divine persons in the great affair of our salvation, we might the better understand and see how all our dependence in this affair is on God, and our sufficiency all in him, and not in ourselves; that he is all in all in this business, agreeable to 1 Cor. i. 29-31. “That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” What is the gospel, but only the glad tidings of a new way of acceptance with God unto life, a way wherein sinners may come to be free from the guilt of sin, and obtain a title to eternal life? And if, when this way is revealed, it is rejected, and another of man’s devising be put in the room of it, without doubt, it must be an error of great importance, and the apostle might well say it was another gospel.

5. The contrary scheme of justification derogates much from the honour of God and the Mediator. I have already shown how it diminishes the glory of the Mediator, in ascribing that to man’s virtue and goodness, which belongs alone to his worthiness and righteousness. By the apostle’s sense of the matter it renders Christ needless. Gal. v.4. “Christ is become of not effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law.” If that scheme of justification be followed in its consequences, it utterly overthrows the glory of all the great things that have been contrived, and done, and suffered in the work of redemption. Gal. ii. 21. “If righteousness come by the law, Christ is dead in vain.” It has also been already shown how it diminishes the glory of divine grace, (which is the attribute God hath especially set himself to glorify in the work of redemption,) and so that it greatly diminishes the obligation to gratitude in the sinner that is saved. Yea, in the sense of the apostle, it makes void the distinguishing grace of the gospel. Gal. v. 4. “Whosoever of you are justified by the law, are fallen from grace.” It diminishes the glory of the grace of God and the Redeemer, and proportionably magnifies man. It makes the goodness and excellency of fallen man to be something, which I have shown are nothing. I have also already shown, that it is contrary to the truth of God in the threatening of his holy law, to justify the sinner for his virtue. And whether it were contrary to God’s truth or no, it is a scheme of things very unworthy of God. It supposes that God, when about to lift up a poor forlorn malefactor condemned to eternal misery for sinning against his Majesty, and to make him unspeakably and eternally happy by bestowing his Son and himself upon him, as it were, sets all this to gale, for the price of his virtue and excellency. I know that those whom we oppose acknowledge, that the price is very disproportionate to the benefit bestowed; and say, that God’s grace is wonderfully manifested in accepting so little virtue, and bestowing so glorious a reward for such imperfect righteousness. But seeing we are such infinitely sinful and abominable creatures in God’s sight, and by our infinite guilt have brought ourselves into such wretched and deplorable circumstances–and all our righteousnesses are nothing, and ten thousand times worse than nothing, if God looks upon them as they are in themselves–is it not immensely more worthy of the infinite majesty and glory of God, to deliver and make happy such wretched vagabonds and captives, without any money or price of theirs, or any manner of expectation of excellency or virtue in them, in any wise to recommend them? Will it not betray a foolish exalting opinion of ourselves, were a mean one of God, to have thought of offering any thing of ours, to recommend us to the favour of being brought from wallowing, like filthy swine, in the mire of our sins, and from the enmity and misery of devils in the lowest hell, to the state of God’s dear children in the everlasting arms of his love in heavenly glory; or to imagine that it is the constitution of God, that we should bring our filthy rags, and offer them to him as the price of this?

6. The opposite scheme does most directly tend to lead men to trust in their own righteousness for justification, which is a thing fatal to the soul. This is what men are of themselves exceeding prone to do, (and that though they are never so much taught the contrary,) through the partial and high thoughts they have of themselves, and their exceeding dullness of apprehending any such mystery as our being accepted for the righteousness of another. But this scheme directly teaches men to trust in their own righteousness for justification; in that it teaches them that this is indeed what they must be justified by, being the way of justification which God himself has appointed. So that if a man had naturally no disposition to trust in his own righteousness, yet if he embraced this scheme, and acted consistently, it would lead him to it. But that trusting in our own righteousness, is a thing fatal to the soul, is what the Scripture plainly teaches us. It tells us, that it will cause that Christ shall profit us nothing, and be of no effect to us, Gal. v. 2-4. For though the apostle speaks there particularly of circumcision, yet it is not merely being circumcised, but trusting in circumcision as a righteousness, that the apostle has respect to. He could not mean, that merely being circumcised would render Christ of no profit or effect to a person; for we read that he himself, for certain reasons, took Timothy and circumcised him, Acts xvi. 3. And the same is evident by the context, and by the rest of the epistle. And the apostle speaks of trusting in their own righteousness as fatal to the Jews, Rom. ix. 31, 32. “But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law; for they stumbled at the stumbling-stone.” Together with chap. x. verse 3. “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” And this is spoken of as fatal to the Pharisees, in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, which Christ spake to them in order lo reprove them for trusting in themselves that they were righteous. The design of the parable is to show them, that the very publicans shall be justified, rather than they; as appears by the reflection Christ makes upon it, Luke xviii. 14. ”‘I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other;” that is, this and not the other. The fatal tendency of it might also be proved from its inconsistence with the nature of justifying faith, and with the nature of that humiliation that the Scripture often speaks of as absolutely necessary to salvation; but these scriptures are so express, that it is needless to bring any further arguments.

How far a wonderful and mysterious agency of God’s Spirit may so influence some men’s hearts, that their practice in this regard may be contrary to their own principles, so that they shall not trust in their own righteousness, though they profess that men are justified by their own righteousness—or how far they may believe the doctrine of justification by men’s own righteousness in general, and yet not believe it in a particular application of it to themselves—or how far that error which they may have been led into by education, or cunning sophistry of others, may yet be indeed contrary to the prevailing disposition of their hearts, and contrary to their practice—or how far some may seem to maintain a doctrine contrary to this gospel-doctrine of justification, that really do not, but only express themselves differently from others; or seem to oppose it through their misunderstanding of our expressions, or we of theirs, when indeed our real sentiments are the same in the main—or may seem to differ more than they do, by using terms that are without a precisely fixed and determinate meaning—or to be wide in their sentiments from this doctrine, for want of a distinct understanding of it; whose hearts, at the same time, entirely agree with it, and if once it was clearly explained to their understandings, would immediately close with it, and embrace it:—how far these things may be, I will not determine; but am fully persuaded that great allowances are to be made on these and such like accounts, in innumerable instances; though it is manifest, from what has been said, that the teaching and propagating contrary doctrines and schemes, is of a pernicious and fatal tendency.

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Footnotes

1. “Our Saviour compares his mystical body, that is his church, to a vine, which his Father, whom he compares to a husbandman, hath planted; John xv. 1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. To represent to us the union that is betwixt Christ and all true Christians, and the influence of grace and spiritual life, which all that are united to him do derive and receive from him, he sets it forth to us by the resemblance of a vine and branches. As there is a natural vital union between the vine and the branches, so there is a spiritual union between Christ and true Christians: and this union is the cause of our fruitfulness in the works of obedience and a good life. There are some indeed that seem to be grafted into Christ by an outward profession of Christianity, who yet derive no influence from him, so as to bring forth fruit, because they are not vitally united to him”—Dr. Tillotson in his 3rd vol. of Serm., p. 307 By this it appears that the vital union between Christ and true Christians, which is much more of a mystery than the relative union, and necessarily implies it, was not thought an unreasonable doctrine by one of the greatest divines on the other side of the question in hand. ↩

2. The word “union,” in this connexion, is both more intelligible and more appropriate, than the word relation; since in this connexion the latter is the consequence of the former. As the doctrine of a vital union to Christ is fundamentally important in Christianity, and inseparable from the doctrine of justification; and as our author passes it over with so much brevity, a few observations upon it in this place may appear the more needful. 1. The Scriptures are not only full of the fact, but they abound with illustrations of it. The first part of John xv. is full and explicit to this purpose. 2. What the Scriptures assert, and illustrate, is abundantly corroborated by the reasonableness of the thing. To suppose the reality of vital religion without a corresponding vital union, is to suppose an important effect without as adequate cause, as shall be further shown 3. The question then is, What is the immediate cause of this vital union? Now as the union subsisting is between the Spirit of Christ, and man, the immediate cause must be in the one or the other of these, or in both at the same instant, or in neither. If the immediate cause be in man, he makes his approach to Christ either as a carnal or spiritual man, for these is no conceivable medium. But the idea of a carnal man uniting himself to Christ in order to form a vital union, is both unscriptural and unreasonable. It is unscriptural; for the scripture asserts that “The carnal mind is enmity against God;” how then can it be the cause of a vital union? “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus; ”—” and you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; ”—it is not therefore the carnal man that unites himself to Christ, or quickens himself in order to effect it. It is also unreasonable; for it supposes a glorious effect without an adequate cause. The effect is spiritual, while the cause is carnal, which are not only different but even directly opposite. What ideas can be more contradictory, or sentiment more unreasonable? 4. The supposition of two simultaneous causes, the one being the Spirit of Christ, and the other the carnal man, involves the same inconsistency. For how can the mere circumstance of time, irrespective of causal influence, make any difference? If the carnal mind be adequate to unite itself to Christ at one time, why not at another time as well, except some causal influence makes the difference? For surely no one can suppose that some individual moment of time, as distinguished from others preceding, constitutes the cause of difference. powerful, the quickening, and uniting presence, the vital and 5 To suppose a spiritual man whether by the exercise of his faith or by any other mental act, in the cause of a vital union, is no less inconsistent than the former supposition. For how can he be a spiritual man, without a spiritual casual influence? But if such influence be admitted as a predisposing cause of his vital acts, it is incumbent on the objector to show that such casual influence may take place without vital union. This I am persuaded no one can do. It is contrary to all analogy, and to every sound principle of true philosophy. It is contrary to christian experience and revealed statements. What effect in physical nature can be produced, which does not imply a casual union? Does not the divine energy pervade all second causes in the way of union with them, in order to the production of their effects? and what miraculous effects have ever been produced without a present uniting causal influence to produce the change? For instance, when Lazarus came forth from death to life, was there not a uniting causual interest to produce the change? and if we appeal to an experienced intelligent Christian, will he not own, will he not maintain, according to his views of revealed truth, that the transforming energy of the Spirit of God or of Christ in him, was the cause of his own vitality? Nay, would he not be shocked to hear any one maintain the contrary? 6. Perhaps it may be thought, that—though in the great laboratory of physical nature, in the bowels of the earth and in the surrounding atmosphere, a causal union be necessary to produce chemical effects; and that though in all works of mechanism a causal union is requisite to the existence of mechanical effects; and that, moreover, though the sun by his light and heat produces an effect upon objects by a causal union with them; yet, what shall we say of one body affecting a change of situation in another, at an immense distance? Does not the sun powerfully attract all the planets that surround him, however distant? and how can this be by causal union? This objection admits of two answers. 7. First, it has never been proved, that there is no causal union between these bodies adequate to the effect; while on the contrary several philosophers have at least attempted to show its existence. The solar system, for ought we know, may be perfectly mechanical, though we should never be able to perceive the intermediate parts. 8. Secondly, as to the universe in general depends on the causal presence of the first cause, so must every part of it; Scripture and reason assure us that in god we live, and move, and have our being. Therefore, whether there be any intermediate cause of gravitation or not, between the effect and the first cause, a causal union is still necessary to the effect. What difference there is, lies against the objector. For if there be no intermediate cause of gravitation, the presence, the energy, the causal union of the first cause is proportionally the more immediate. 9. Having shown that neither the carnal man nor the spiritual man is the immediate cause of the union subsisting between Christ and the Christian, it remains to be ascertained, what else is the cause? If it be not man it must be the divine spirit, either as the Spirit of the Father or of Christ. In one view this difference is not very material, but in another it is of considerable importance. Allow it to be from the Holy Spirit, in either sense, it secures the great point of salvation by grace, in opposition to our own merit. But, as it respects the nature of Christ’s mediation, and particularly his federal headship and suretiship, it is of moment to ascertain, whether he or the Father, economically, be the immediate cause of the vital union. 10. The Scripture fully declares that the influence of the Spirit on the minds of men is from Christ. The Lord from heaven is a quickening Spirit—he quickeneth whom he will—he sends the Holy Ghost—he gives repentance, or the spirit of repentance—in him was life (without whom nothing was created,) and this life is the true light of men—he shines into the heart—his grace and strength constitute our sufficiency - &c. These and other passages innumerable show, that quickening influence proceeds from his fullness of life and grace. 11. That other passages ascribe spiritual effects to the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God, is of no force, except with such as deny the divine nature of Christ, who are confuted on other grounds. But supposing his divine nature in union with humanity, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, and vice versa. And in the divine economy of grace, Christ is the head or source of influence to the church. It is he who gives gifts to the rebellious, who endows with the spirit of life, and who bestows the living water to which divine influence is compared. 12. And how beautifully consistent must this appear when we consider, that as a covenant head he is the surety of his chosen people! The office of a surety engages to perform what is requisite in behalf of a person or persons as required by another. Thus Jesus not only brought in an everlasting righteousness in behalf of his people as their federal perfection, in lieu of those who could never attain to it by any obedience of their own; but it also belonged to his office to secure for them a voluntary, penitential, believing obedience to the equitable requisitions of the divine Governor. This can be effected only by divine influence, and that influence must needs proceed from him as the immediate cause; otherwise we make the creditor and surety to be the very same. God, as governor, demands obedience from all the subjects of his government; and Christ, as the surety of those who were given him, enables them to comply with those demands, that is, to submit, to repent, to believe with the heart, to love God, and to walk with him. 13. From the premises it follows plainly, that the immediate cause of vital union is the spirit of christ, which he bestows in the exercise of his office as the federal head of influence, and in virtue of his suretiship for his church and people. He as the true vine communicates life to the branches, and as the head of his church brings dead souls to be his living members. Faith is a fruit of the Spirit, and not the cause of a spiritual existence. Yet, 14. We maintain that faith forms a consequent union. Man being a subject of moral government, and therefore a free agent, at liberty to choose his end and means of happiness for which he is accountable; and God in infinite mercy proposing Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life; the all-sufficient and only Saviour of sinners—in whom we are required to believe and to trust with confidence, and whom we are encouraged to receive into our hearts, that he may dwell there by faith—the regenerate soul, by believing, unites itself to this object. 15. The former union is the immediate effect of sovereign favour; the latter union is the immediate effect of exercised grace; in the performance of an incumbent duty, or the discharge of moral obligation. Now since men are exhorted, warned, directed, reasoned, and expostulated with, on the ground of what they ought to do or abstain from doing, the Scripture abounds with such addresses. But lest any false inferences should be drawn, derogatory from the honours of sovereign grace, we are assured that every good and perfect gift cometh from the Father of lights. When we have done all we are unprofitable servants. Work out your own salvation, says Paul, with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure. No one can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him, that is, without divine influence; and whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. Ye are saved by grace, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Among many other parts of Scripture where grace and obligation are strikingly intermixed, and illustrative of the preceding remarks, the reader is particularly referred to the sixth and fifteenth chapters of St. John’s Gospel. 16. Coroll. The old mode, adopted by many orthodox divines, of distinguishing the vital union between Christ and his people, first, on his part, and secondly, on their part, is founded on Scripture and the reason of the thing; and the former is the cause of the latter. And therefore, as the cause must ever precede the effect, the first union not only may be prior to the second, as in the case of happy infants, but also must be so in the case of adults.–W ↩

3. John i. 12. ↩

4. John v. 40. ↩

5. The term here used, “moral congruity,” is not happily chosen. Indeed our author, in the next sentence, professes himself to be at a loss what terms to use which may clearly convey the necessary distinction. By “moral” congruity or fitness he seems to mean personal perfection, or a perfection of state personally considered, without relation to a surety, or the righteousness which God has provided. But this is an acceptation of the term “moral” so unusual as to throw great perplexity into the argument. Beside, when contrasted with believing, it leaves the reader to suppose that to believe is not a moral act. But the supposition that “believing with the heart unto righteousness” is not a moral act, as contradistinguished from a natural one, leads to an endless confusion of ideas. Surely, to believe God’s testimony concerning the Son and his righteousness is, if any thing be, a moral act of obedience to divine authority. How then can it be called a natural fitness only, as contrasted with what is moral? Nor is the distinction at all necessary in order to avoid the apprehended consequence of assigning to faith any merit of congruity. A few observations on this intricate subject may probably assist the reader in seeking scriptural and consistent notions. 1. Justification implies a charge, a plea, and a virtual declaration of approval. 2. The charge against Adam and all his posterity is twofold, including a breach of covenant, or a failure in federal perfection; and also disobedience in transgressing a divine rule. These considerations are perfectly distinct in their nature. A rule may be momentarily transgressed for a long series of years, as it was by Adam, and constantly is by his rebellious descendants, but a federal failure was, from the nature of perfect righteousness, the very first act of delinquency. 3. No plea can be valid against a federal delinquency, as was the case in Adam, but a participation of a federal perfection. Nothing less can answer the charge, and nothing more is requisite. This averts condemnation, and entitles to a virtual approval in reference to that part of the charge. 4. No plea can be valid against disobedience to divine authority, or the rule of moral government, but a personal, voluntary, actual compliance with that authoritative rule of government; which we find by divine revelation to be, in reference to fallen man, submission to the righteousness of God; or, as differently expressed, believing on the Son of God, receiving him as the Lord our righteousness, &c. 5. No man has possessed a federal perfection, except by imputation, beside the first Adam while he obeyed without failure, and the second Adam when he completed his work of humiliation. For no eminence of grace in a mere descendant of Adam could possibly attain to federal perfection, from the very nature of such perfection. Nor indeed can the perfect obedience of glorified saints rise higher than a conformity to the divine law as a rule; their federal perfection is still derived from their union to Christ, and a consequent imputation, which implies a virtual approval. Hence, 6. The federal perfection of Messiah is the proper and sole ground of an actual interest in reconciliation and justification. In other words, the righteousness of Christ, his perfect obedience unto death as our substitute, is that alone on account of which we can stand before God with acceptance, in reference to the charge of a federal failure in Adam. 7. An actual interest in this federal perfection is obtained only by a vital or an effectual union to the Lord our righteousness. This is plain from Scripture, and is perfectly rational. It is compared to the union of a vine and its branches, the head and members of the human body, &c. That a participation of nature between Christ and us, or an effectual union, is requisite for a ground of imputation is evident, not only from scriptural comparisons, and the rational consistence of such an idea, but also from the fact of the Saviour’s incarnation. Without this union to us, our sin could not have been imputed to him; and without a vital union, his righteousness could not be imputed to us. This is fairly and fully implied in many parts of Scripture, as might be shown if necessary.—From whence it is plain, that union is the indispensable ground of imputation. 8. Whoever is the subject of a vital union to Christ, is in a justified state, as partaker of a federal perfection, prior to the performance of any moral duty whatever. But in order to explain and prove this it is requisite to attend to the following particulars. 9. Union to Christ is of two kinds, on his part by his spirit; and on our part by faith, as explained in a preceding note. In the former, we are passive; and in the latter, we are active. In the one he acts as a sovereign dispenser of benefits; in the other we act as accountable creatures. 10. By the order both of nature and of time, the union begins with him who is a quickening Spirit; and that of faith is consequent upon the other, and is the proper effect of it. 11. By his uniting act, which may be termed effectual calling, the enmity of sin is destroyed in the soul, and the Spirit of Christ is imparted, which as occasion offers, will manifest itself as the Spirit of faith, or love, &c. Hence, 12. To the soul thus in Christ, whether infant or adult, there is no condemnation arising from federal delinquency; for this charge is answered by the union on his part; and righteousness is imputed. 13. From the premises it follows, that the generally received theological maxim is perfectly just and plain, viz. that justification and regeneration are simultaneous.—Union is the immediate cause of both; and because the one is a relative and the other a vital effect, there is no interference as to the order of time. Thus an union of a tree and a branch by ingrafture, is attended with two simultaneous effects, the one relative and the other vital; it is related to the tree as a branch, and at the same time partakes of the vital sap. The union, however, must precede both, as to nature and time. 14. But where two effects are both real, as distinguished from relative, the one must precede the other, both as to nature and time. Thus union precedes vitality, and this of necessity must precede vital acts; and regeneration, as the act of the Spirit of Christ, must necessarily precede believing, which is one mode by which a vital principle operates. For to suppose that the operation produces, or is prior to the principle, either in nature or in time, is a direct contradiction. 15. If the preceding steps of these remarks be thoroughly weighed, it will be found, that justification, according to Scripture, and just reasoning upon it, has for its foundation the federal perfection of Messiah, and takes place as the immediate result of union to him. 16. But since this union is twofold, the one as the effect of the other, that is, union by faith is the effect of union by the Spirit of Christ, and these, cause and effect, cannot possibly be simultaneous, there must necessarily be a twofold justification as the result of the corresponding unions. Though in that union which is first in the order of nature and of time, the person, whether infant or adult, is passive; the result however is the imputation of righteousness, which is Messiah’s federal perfection, and which entitles to life eternal. And by that union which is the effect of the other, and consequently posterior in it in the order both of nature and of time, (and of which infants cannot be partakers,) this is, by the union effected by believing, the result is the imputation of the same righteousness in circumstances totally different. 17. These two different circumstances, clearly perceived, will developed the seeming difficulty. In the first, the person, whether infant or adult, is the passive possessor of decreed benefits, union righteousness, and life; in the second circumstance, the adult person, as a free and accountable agent, is required to determine for himself on what to found his plea of acceptance with God. If he found his plea on his own obedience past or intended, whether moral, ceremonial, or both; he shows at once both ignorance and rebellion. Ignorance, that he supposes it even possible for him, by his own obedience, to attain to that federal perfection which is justly required by the righteous Governor; and also in that he does not perceive the love and wisdom, the super abounding grace and wonderful mercy, of God as a sovereign Benefactor in providing the needful remedy. Rebellion, in that he rejects the counsel of God, and resists, by obstinate unbelief, the divine authority requiring submission to this righteousness as the way to favour and life. Hence, 18. As all reasonings, expostulations, threats, promises and encouragements; all testimonies, declarations, appeals, inducements, and sanctions, are addressed to men as moral agents, with whom, in the business of accountability, it rests, what mode they will adopt for obtaining acceptance with God—whether by doing the work themselves, or by believing his testimony and receiving his gift—it fully accounts for justification by faith being the great point argued in the apostolic writings. 19. And it further appears, that justification by faith alone should be strenuously urged by all gospel ministers, while they have to do continually with persons whose inquiry is, “What shall we do to be saved?” To such as thus inquire after the way of salvation, who seek acceptance with God, who are about to choose for themselves “the way they will take,” what answer can be given, in effect, but what is contained in the apostle’s words? Romans 4:5 “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” The above statement not only agrees with these words, but also, as I humbly conceive, explains their import; and the embarrassment respecting the office and influence of faith in justification is removed, without expunging faith, or the act of believing, from the class of moral duties. 20. It may be objected, if there by any justification before believing, then an unbeliever may be justified; whereas the Scripture saith, “He that believeth not is condemned already.” This objecting arises from a mistaken notion of the true meaning of such passages of Scripture. Condemnation, in the real import of Scripture, is leveled against the rejecters of Christ, or of the divine testimony, and these only, considered as free agents in seeking acceptance with God and final happiness. These, not believing in Christ, while prevailingly devoted to Moses or Mahomet, moral obedience or ceremonies, or indeed any other object whatever, reject in fact the testimony of God and his righteousness, and expose themselves to a double condemnation. They are condemned as being destitute of a perfect righteousness, and also for their actual disobedience to the divine authority. The sentence of the law is against them both as a covenant and as a rule; and the gospel which they reject will be a witness to prove the wickedness of their heart. But this can never take place in one who is vitally united to Christ. All allow that infants not believing are not to be ranked with unbelievers. To them no testimony is proposed, and therefore no testimony is rejected by them. Nor does any adult united to Christ reject the divine testimony, even before he believes. Let but the object of faith be presented to him, and his vital union secures the exercise of the living principle towards the proposed object in proportion as the terms are understood. A testimony not presented, or one presented in an unknown tongue, cannot be believed, notwithstanding the principle of faith. The existence of a principle does not necessarily imply its exercise, whether it be sense, reason, or faith. Men are not necessarily conversant with the objects of sense, because they possess the senses requisite for these purposes; nor are they always exercising the powers of the mind, however essential these powers are to human nature. In like manner, not exercising faith is a very different thing from not possessing the principle. A vital union and the spirit of faith are inseparably and essentially connected; but a vital union and believing are connected secundum quid, in certain circumstances. Without the circumstances of adult age, or a capacity of understanding, believing is impracticable. But how absurd would it be to say, that a sinner cannot be justified because he has not arrived at a certain advanced portion of understanding, or has not learned some language; as if a title to heaven depended on age, or knowing a language! And equally absurd is it to suppose that Christ cannot effect a vital union because the sinner’s voluntary consent to it is wanting; as if God’s high sovereignty were bound by the human will! That God requires the sinner’s consent, as a matter of obligation, is a solemn fact; but God has not laid himself under any obligation that he will never unite a soul to Christ for justification of life but by the sinner’s previous consent. He has declared, however, that the continued unbeliever, who is properly a willful rejecter of Christ and his righteousness, shall be condemned. Hence it is evident, that to make believing essential to a vital union, on the part of Christ; and to make the exercise of faith on a divine testimony essential to its existence, are erroneous conclusions, derogatory to gospel grace, and founded on wrong notions of moral government. 21. To make this, if possible, still more plain, the gospel finds men, as apostatized with Adam, in a state of condemnation; infants and adults alike are under the condemnatory sentence which is the result of a breach of covenant. This evil can be removed, and a restoration to favour be effected, only by an act of sovereign grace, whereby Christ becomes vitally united to the soul. Without this vital union there is, there can be, no faith. This being the case, a vital union is formed before faith can have any ground of existence; and consequently a justification which is a necessary result of this union takes place. For to him who is thus in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation; but he is passed from death unto life, as an object of mere grace and mercy. In this respect, an adult and in infant are perfectly on a par, while justified and regenerated for the kingdom of God. But God, in the character of a moral governor, has a further claim on every free agent; he exhibits to the view, and solicits, yea demands, a voluntary compliance with the plan of mercy through the blessed Redeemer, who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. The regenerate person that is capable of acting for him self, as the subject of commands and invitations, complies; he becomes an active recipient of the appointed righteousness, which he now pleads in opposition to all charges presented against him. By faith, or believing God’s testimony, he makes his appeal, and by faith alone he is justified. An investigation of the rationale of christian doctrines is not necessary for popular use, but may be peculiarly useful as a guard against inconsistencies, and a means of strengthening our attachment to those doctrines.—W. ↩

6. This order, however, is a law to us, and compliance with it necessarily imports moral obedience; though the object received is the obedience of another. No one has room to expect success in his endeavors, but by complying with the divine requisition; and that requisition is, that we submit to the perfection of Messiah. And an act of submission to the righteousness of faith may well be an act of moral excellence, though that excellence has nothing meritorious on account of which a perfect righteousness should be imputed. A thing may have moral goodness without moral perfection. But in order to deny to faith the latter, it is not necessary to deprive it of the former. If we consistently maintain, that the moral excellence of faith constitutes no part of our justifying righteousness, it is all that the argument requires, in order to establish the conclusion intended.—W ↩

7. That perfect obedience, is what is called righteousness in the New Testament, and that this righteousness, or perfect obedience, is by God’s fixed unalterable rule the condition of justification, is, from the plain evidence of truth, confessed by a certain great man, whom nobody will think to be blinded by prejudice in favour of the doctrine we are maintaining, and one who did not receive this doctrine. M. Locke, in his Reasonableness of Christianity, as delivered in the Scriptures, vol. 2 of his works, p. 474, writes thus: “To one that thus unbiased reads the Scripture, what Adam fell from, is visible, was the state of perfect obedience, which is called justice in the New Testament, though the word, which in the original signifies justice, be translated righteousness.” Ibid. p. 476, 477. “For righteousness, or an exact obedience to the law, seems by the Scripture to have a claim of right to eternal life; Rom. iv. 4. To him that worketh, i.e., does the works of the law, is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. – On the other side, it seems the unalterable purpose of divine justice, that no unrighteous person, no one that is guilty of any breach of the law, should be in paradise; but that the wages of sin should be to every man, as it was to Adam, an exclusion of him out of that happy state of immortality, and bring death upon him. And this is so conformable to the eternal and established law of right and wrong, that it is spoke of too as it could not be otherwise. – Here then we have the standing and fixed measures of life and death; immortality and bliss belong to the righteous. Those who have lived in an exact conformity to the law of God are out of the reach of death; but an exclusion from paradise and loss of immortality, is the portion of sinners, of all those who have any way broke that law, and failed of a complete obedience to it, by the guilt of any one transgression. And thus mankind, by the law, are put upon the issues of life or death, as they are righteous or unrighteous, just or unjust, i.e. exact performers or transgressors of the law.” Again, in p. 477. “The way of works then in short is, that law which requires perfect obedience, without any remission or abatement; so that by that law a man cannot be just or justified, without an exact performance of every tittle. Such a perfect obedience in the New Testament, is termed δικαιοσυνη, which we translate righteousness.” In which last passage it is also to be noted, that Mr. Locke, by the law of works, does not understand the ceremonial law, but the covenant of works; as he more fully expresses himself in the next paragraph but one. “Where this law of works was to be found, the New Testament tells us, viz. in the law delivered by Moses; John i.17.The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Chap. vii. 19. Did not Moses give you the law, says our Saviour, and yet none of you keep the law? And this is the law which he speaks of– verse 28. This do, and thou shalt live. This is that which St. Paul so often styles the law, without any other distinction; Rom. ii. 13.. Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law are justified. It is needless to quote any more places, his epistles are all full of it, especially this to the Romans.” ↩

8. Thus Mr. Locke in his Reasonableness of Christianity, as delivered in the Scriptures, vol. 2d of his works, p. 478. “Nay, whatever God requires anywhere to be done, without making any allowance for faith, that is a part of the law of works. So that forbidding Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge, was part of the law of works. Only we must take notice here, that some of God’s positive commands being for peculiar ends, and suited to particular circumstances of times, places, and persons, have a limited and only temporary obligation, by virtue of God’s positive injunction: such was that part of Moses’s law which concerned the outward worship of political constitution of the Jews, and is called the ceremonial and judaical law. Again, p. 479. “Thus then, as in the law in short, the civil and ritual part of the law delivered by Moses obliges not Christians, though to the Jews it were a part of the law of works; it being a part of the law of nature, that men ought to obey every positive law of God, whenever he shall please to make any such addition to the law of his nature.” ↩

9. Agreeable to this is what Mr. Locke says in his second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity, &c. vol. ii. of his works. p. 630, 631. “The believing him therefore to be the Messiah is very often, with great reason, put both for faith and repentance too, which are sometimes set down singly, where on is put for both, as implying the other.” ↩

10. If repentance justifies, or be that by which we obtain pardon of sin any other way than this, it must be either as a virtue or righteousness, or something amiable in us; or else it must be, that our sorrow and condemning what is past, is accepted as some atonement for it; both which are equally contrary to the gospel-doctrine of justification by Christ. ↩

11. This distinction is just and scriptural as far as it goes, but it does not reach the bottom of the difficulty, since believing in order to justification is itself a part of obedience, and is expressly called “the obedience of faith.” Hence justification by faith, in comparison of what precedes it, is only manifestative. The tree must be good, that is, the person must be vitally united to Christ, as the adequate cause of believing, otherwise he would be still carnal. The faith of a man spiritually dead or carnal, must needs be a dead faith; but to suppose that such faith unites to Christ, has neither Scripture nor any plausible reason to support it. To him that is in Christ Jesus by a vital union, there is no condemnation; and as there is no medium between condemnation and justification, he who is in Christ is justified, or “accepted in the beloved” Saviour. That union which Christ effects by his quickening Spirit, makes the tree good, and believing with the heart, in order to receive the promised righteousness, is the fruit of a good tree. Therefore the justification which is received as the consequence of believing is only manifestative of union; even as justification by works, as asserted by St. James, is manifestative of a living faith. As without works there is no sufficient evidence of union to Christ on our part, so without faith in Christ as our complete righteousness, there is no sufficient evidence of union with him on his part. The true Christian’s works, are “works of faith and labours of love,” performed in obedience to God’s authority, directed to his glory, and inspired by gratitude for the blessings of his grace, and this is the first of all such works, called “the work of God,” even to believe on Jesus Christ in whom alone is righteousness and life. By believing we receive the divine testimony respecting a gratuitous righteousness, and renounce all hope of obtaining justification by any other way. The justifying righteousness is only one, but the appointed ways of becoming interested in it are divers. One way is by the will of God our Saviour, the other by the will of man the accountable agent, each in its own order. The will of God gives the fundamental interest, and the will of man the consequent and manifestative interest. In the first way, we are interested in Christ’s righteousness by one act continued, commencing with, and permanent as, the primary vital union; in the other way, it is by repeated acts, commencing with the first act of faith in Christ, and repeated with every succeeding reception of him. Among persons who have made any, even the smallest, progress in christian knowledge, there can be no dispute respecting the fundamental cause of justification. All such acknowledge, that the righteousness, or federal perfection of Jesus Christ, is that for the sake of which any of the fallen race of Adam can be justified. The difference of sentiment arises from the appointed method of obtaining an interest in this meritorious cause. For want of consideration, we too hastily infer, that if the Scripture states one appointed method, that it must be an exclusive appointment.—Hence one pleads from Scripture, and especially St. James’s epistle, that this appointed method is by works, that is, evangelical obedience, of which faith is a leading part. Another pleads from Scripture, that it is by faith, not as an act of moral obedience, but as a suitable bond of union, to the exclusion of all works. And a third, from the same Scripture, pleads, that we are justified by an eternal immanent act of God, and that faith only brings us to enjoy a privilege which belongs to the elect from eternity. Now each of these schemes overlooks the important truth, that the immediate ground of justification is the vital union between Christ and the soul. Justification from eternity precedes vital union; justification by works denies the fact of a vital union being an adequate ground of a justifying sentence; and justification by faith alone, or believing in Christ, to the exclusion of a prior vital union on the part of the Spirit, confounds the work of man and the work of God. This last being the most difficult part of the subject, I beg leave to make a few observations upon it. 1. The claims of God, in reference to justification, are twofold. In the first instance, he claims from a man a federal perfection; and in the second instance, he claims compliance with his method of bestowing an interest in it. The former claim may be answered by the surety, and in fact is answered by his act of a vital union on his part. For by this he gives an interest in himself to the soul he savingly adopts. Thus there is no condemnation to you that are in Christ Jesus. But the latter claim can be answered only by the believer himself, when he actually receives Christ as his righteousness, and so answers the divine requisition. Thus, he that believeth in Christ is justified from all things. In the first instance, Christ pleads his own righteousness in behalf of the adopted sinner; in the last instance, the believer pleads the same righteousness in his own behalf. 2. The obligations of man, in reference to justification, are also of two kinds. In the first place, he stands obliged to be conformed to the law as a covenant, which demands a sinless perfection; and, in the second place, he is obliged to conform to the law as a rule. Now whatever God enjoins as a duty, is a part of this rule; whether it be to hate sin, to love God, to believe in Christ, or to observe whatever Christ hath commanded. Our obligation to be conformed to the law as a covenant, is discharged by Christ only as our surety; and our ability to discharge our obligation of being conformed to the law as a rule is from him. We are obliged to believe on him as our justifying righteousness, under pain of God’s displeasure, but man will ever continue in unbelief until Christ slays his enmity, and enables him to believe. But to slay a sinner’s enmity, to change his nature, or to give him ability to believe, is the effect of a vital union; for as there is no such ability without gracious influence, so there is no gracious influence without union to the source of spiritual life. When thus enabled, man exercises repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Receiving him by faith alone, as our righteousness and life, the law is obeyed as the voice of God, requiring the obedience of faith. 3. The method of mercy, in reference to justification, includes the substitution of the Saviour, and our acceptance in him, without any works of righteousness on our part. In this respect, not by works of righteousness which we have done, whether faith, repentance, or any kind of obedience, but according to his mercy he saveth us—provides a Saviour and gives us a saving interest in him. Grace provides, and grace applies the remedy. Mercy imputes to Jesus our sins, and imputes to us his righteousness. He who knew no sin was by sovereign mercy made a sin-offering for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Mercy laid the foundation, and placed us on it, that we might become living stones on him; and in consequence find him to be precious. 4. The rule of moral government, in reference to justification, is, that we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as the end of the law for righteousness. For this end is the gospel proclaimed to all nations, even for “the obedience of faith.” This is the language of divine government, “He that believeth shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned.” The unbeliever is condemned already, because he rejects the counsel of God, and neglects so great salvation. Mercy hath provided an adequate and all-sufficient remedy, and government requires our closing with it as the only ground of hope left us. An endeavour to set up our own obedience instead of the righteousness of Christ, is rebellion against the authority of God, and undervaluing his wisdom and grace. None deserve condemnation more than those who reject the only remedy. And even they who believe have no ground of boasting. For we are saved by grace, and justified by faith, and that is not of ourselves, but is the gift of God.—The influence of works in justification our author has well explained.—W ↩