then wrote And St. John tells us positively That he that Doth righteousness is only truely righteous And not he that reckons himself so without righteous Doing upon the score of believing And St. James expresly sets himself to confute this dangerous Errour and to prove these two things First That Christianity Believed and Professed will profit no man unless the Ends of it be pursued and prosecuted And secondly That that Faith that the Scripture calls a Justifying faith is an operative working faith a Faith that includes in its nature a suitable acting and obedience Speaking of Abrahams faith and his Justification which the Scripture makes to be the pattern of Gospel-faith and Justification and the one to run parallel with the other And which St. Paul had made so much use of to prove Justification by faith against the Jews Seest thou sayes he how faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness Where 't is as plainly expressed as by words it can be That that faith that was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was such a faith as contained in the bowels of it a suitable obedience and subjection to all Gods revealed will and pleasure By works saith the Apostle faith was made perfect That is faith was in order to action and a suitable acting and obedience in pursuance of it was included in it and was that which when performed did compleat and perfect it and without which faith is altogether imperfect and is not such a faith as in the Scripture is said to be accounted for righteousness And therefore it was upon Abrahams suitable obedience in prosecution of his faith by which the Scripture was fulfilled when it sayes Araham believed God and that belief was accounted for righteousness By which it is plain that Abrahams faith was counted for righteousness with reference to that obedience that was virtually compriz'd in it and not otherwise And that his faith and his works wrought joyntly together to obtain the same end And this is no way contradicted by St. Paul who tells us that Abraham was not justified by works For the works that St. Paul means are plainly such as the Law required such perfect sinless works as would in strict rules of Justice make the reward to be Debt And therefore when he opposeth faith to works 't is but in other words to oppose the Gospel to the Law St. Pauls business is to prove Justification in the way of the Gospel against the Jews by faith in opposition to Justification by the works of the Law St. James his province is to prove that the faith that does justifie us under the Gospel is not a bare naked Assent but such a faith as Abrahams was that contains in it a suitable obedience The one Apostle asserts in opposition to the Jews Evangelical Justification against Legal under the general term faith The other Apostle for the confutation of Heretical Christians explains that term and tells us it imports not only believing of God but an obedient Acting in prosecution thereof That the Apostles do very well agree with each in their Doctrine that Abraham was justified by such a faith as was accompanied with works and not by faith only according to St. James And yet that Abraham was justified by faith and not by works according to St. Paul may be this made to appear First That Abrahams faith that was counted for righteousness included his suitable obedience according to St. James and that his works did compleat and perfect his faith And that the Scripture was thereby fulfilled that tells us the Act of his Believing was counted for righteousness is plain from the story it self in Genesis which St. James quotes Had not his Believing compriz d a suitable obedience instead of being counted for Righteousness it would no doubt have been esteemed of God as it had indeed been a great piece of hypocrisy For Abrahams upright walking was the terms upon which God at first proposed to enter into a Covenant with him Secondly That Abraham was not justified by works according to St. Paul though his faith that was counted for Righteousness included his obedience is thus evident St. Pauls business is to prove against the Jews that Abraham who came first under the Law of Circumcision and from whom they derived themselves for it appears by their discourses with our Saviour when they cryed out We have Abraham to our Father that they went no higher was justified before he came under the Law of Circumcision before he was obliged to the oeconomie of the Law upon Gospel-principles and so those had the precedence of legal even in Abraham their Father upon the terms of another Covenant the Condition of which was Faith upon such terms as both Jews and Gentiles were to be justified then under the Gospel Upon which account the Scripture stiles him the common Father of all the faithful Abrahant before that faith of his that was accounted to him for Righteousness had lived for some time in Heathen Idolatry and was a great sinner and so could not pretend to be justified by a sinless perfection which the Law required and the Jews insisted on and so not by works in that sense He was one of the ungodly St. Paul speaks of in 4th to the Rom. who had not Legal perfection had not such works to plead as would make the reward in strict rules Justice to be of debt His Justification was upon the very same terms that the Gentiles then might be justified upon though they had lived in the grossest Idolatry and that was by believing the revelation of God in Christ charging their course of life and becoming obedient to what God should require of them In short Abrahams faith and obedience was not such Righteousness as in its own nature and by its own intrinsick worth would justifle any man from the guilt of all his sin and denominate him perfectly a Righteous person for had it so been in it self it needed not any favour to have been accounted for Righteousness But God was pleased out of grace so to reckon and account it Abraham having blelieved God about the promises of the Messiah that was to spring out of his family by whom himself and all the world were to be saved for the sum of all Gods converse with Abraham was to shew him Christs day and reveal to him the Salvation that was to come by him God was pleased to give the world an instance in his imputing that faith of Abraham to him for Righteousness how and upon what terms men should be saved by the Messiah when he did come in a word what should be the condition he would require of us to perform by the Gospel that is By believing the revelation of Christ and acting suitably thereunto by a sincere though imperfect obedience This God would impute and account for Righteousness This
of our case and a thing easie to be understood By the other we are made to be justified as Innocents which is not the truth of our case unless we will suppose God to account us to have done all that Christ did that is to have performed all righteousness without sin which in fact was not so This Objection therefore is wholly grounded upon a Mistake We obtain not Heaven as the reward of the Law but upon the promises of the Gospel Our concern is not upon what Terms the Law does justifie but how the Gospel does justifie Our own sins have rendred impracticable the justifying power of the Law and Christs righteousness and satisfaction has superseded the condemning power of it SECT III I Come in the second place to consider What is the material procuring Cause of Justification before God And the Answer to it in general is this 't is a Satisfaction made suitable to his Justice for the breach of his Law And this satisfaction consists in the whole Active and Passive obedience of our Saviour intirely taken together and the infinite merit thereof with which God declares himself so abundantly satisfied and well pleased that he Relaxeth the Law of Works thereupon dispenseth with the rigour of it and superinduceth another Covenant upon the terms of which we are justified and saved God does not upon satisfaction made for the breach of the Covenant of Works thereupon immediately pardon and save us by that But he relieves and releaseth us from the obligation we lay under to it and proclaims a new Law and enters into another Covenant And 't is upon the terms of that we are actually pardoned and justified The Righteousness and Satisfaction of Christ fully answers for us in respect of the Law We stand no more obliged to it a 't is a Law of Works and 't is the procuring Cause and formal Reason of the new Law of the saving Covenant upon the terms of which we are pardoned and justified and which is in its nature but a method of forgiveness and that place the Righteousness of Christ bears in point of Justification So that the whole is Originated in our Redeemers Satisfaction and purchased thereby the inestimable value and merit whereof results from these four things the dignity of his Person the freeness and spontaniety of his undertaking the undertaking it self and the ordination of God in the case had there not been a concurrence of all these the satisfaction had been defective and ineffectual the Gospel had never been published Death and Condemnation had still reigned and the Law had continued still in its full force and vertue First What a stupendious dignity was there in Christs Person in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily 'T is no wonder we should be redeem'd by his blood when it was the blood of God and that the righteousness of this one should redound to All for the Justification of life as 't is expressed Rom. 5 18. when in him dwelt all fulness The Actions and Sufferings of such a person must needs be of unspeakable value because of his own transcendent Eminency above all creatures yea even Angels for he is Gods Fellow and was in the form of God Whatever was done and suffered by a person so qualified in whom concentred all the perfection both of the Humane and Divine nature must needs be of infinite value and of desert and merit beyond all bounds of imagination 'T is no wonder we should be bought with such a price and yet nothing less then this can we suppose without impeaching the wisdom of God who saw to bring it about this way could have answer'd for mans disobedience have stopt the current of Divine Justice and made a satisfaction for that Eternity of punishment that became due to us Secondly How free and voluntary what a meer act of Choice was Christs sufeeption of his Mediatory work How far was he exalted beyond the reach of all obligation or possibility of any Addition No Creature could oblige him that was God nor could the Divine nature lay a Constraint upon it self 't is an essential property of the Godhead to act freely 'T is true when he was man he was obliged as a man but he was under no engagement to become man A Servants work and a Creatures homage was due from him indeed when a Creature and a Servant but 't was his own free choice that brought him into the state of either Nothing but the workings of his own infinite bowells of Compassion over the fallen posterity of Apostate Adam could bring him to Tabernaclo in flesh and take up his abode with the children of Men. In a word he freely and out of choice became man and lived a life Natural And as freely resign'd up his life unto death and became a free-will-offering to God So himself declares Joh. 10. ver 17. I lay down my life no man taketh it from me And Mark 10.25 he tells us He came to Give his life a ransom for many And had not this been so God who is infinitely just could not have punished him in whom there was found no guilt Nor had it been Equal with God to accept him on our behalf unless he had freely espoused our interest Thirdly How admirable is the undertaking of Christ in it self First to assume humane nature from the very first moment of which assumption began the state of his humiliation and in that nature to yield a perfect obedience to all the Laws of God to which mankind were obliged and in the same to undergo the penalty due upon their breach submit himself to become a Curse for us What an amazing consideration is it that the Lord of all should become man in the form of a servant and subject himself to an obedience to all his own Laws yea even of those that were but the shadow as were the Ceremonial of which he as man incarnate was the substance And that he that was without all sin should submit to those Institutions that were grounded upon the supposition of sin and whose End and Tendency had a direct relation to it such was Baptism and Circumcision And yet so he was pleased to fulfill all righteousness to do all the Law required and yet to suffer what it threatned Now considering that he lay under no obligation with respect to himself for the doing of any of this what a vast stock of Merit must needs be treasur'd up for those to whom He and the Father shall please to impute it 'T is this undertaking of Christ that could alone face divine Justice and at the dreadful Tribunal of the great and eternal Jehovah be admitted as a sufficient Plea and Satisfaction for an open Rebellion from dust and ashes against Him His obedience to the Law qualified with such infinite perfections and representing us in our nature being both the Son of God and the Son of man redintigrated the honour of the Law to as great a degree as
if it had never been broken And his voluntary subjecting himself to the Curse and penalty of it made as great and honourable a satisfaction to it as if being broken the utmost penalty had been insticted upon every particular Offender Fourthly That which compleated perfected and crowned this satisfaction was Gods ordination A Statute made in Heaven that so Christ being himself freely willing should do and that should be accepted in so doing obtain his End and see the travel of his soul and be satisfied In the 10th of the Heb. we find this fully expressed by a Quotation out of the Psalms where David speaks in the person of Christ Then said I lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do they will O God And in the 10th ver the Apostle tells us By that Will we are sanctified by the offering up of the body of Christ In the 3d. of St. Mat. upon Christs being baptized a voice came from Heaven and declared This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Not only with his Person but his Office with his mediatory work and imployment as being of mine own ordination and appointment Upon Christs voluntary undertaking to assume our nature and in that nature to represent us and to subject himself to a Law of Mediatorship such a Law as the performance whereof would contain a compleate satisfaction to Divine Justice God was pleased to ordain it so to be and that all that he Did and Suffered in that Nature should be accepted on our behalf and reckoned and accounted to our advantage and that Mankind should obtain salvation thereby This Ordination of God was the Broad Seal of Heaven affixed to all Christ did This ratified on high was done here below and made all the transaction of Christ on Earth to pass currant in Heaven Had not this been coincident nothing could have prevailed Had not God determin'd above that what Christ did and suffer'd on earth should be that satisfaction to his Justice for the sins of the world in which he would acquiesee and be well pleased and upon which he would ordain the Blessing even Life for evermore No pardon had been proclaimed we had been yet in our sins and the state of all mankind had been no better then that of the fallen Angels and final Impenitents even a fearful looking for of Judgment Two great Mistakes have arisen in the minds of many and of many Worthy and Good men about this matter the rectifying of which is of great and necessary importance First Some have supposed that The whole of Christs satisfaction for our sins consists in his Passive obedience And that his Active obedience is imputed to us to constitute us Personally righteous in God account And so Disjoyn the Active and Passive righteousness of Christ and apply them to Distinct ends and purposes This will appear in it self no way Reasonable and without the least warrant from Scripture First Each of these have their proper Interest in and do respectively contribute to the repairing the honour of Gods injured and violated Law and do joyntly compleat Christs satisfaction The honour of the Law is in a twofold respect to be required in the preceptive part and in the threatning part To what a degree is the Law honoured in the first respect by the perfect obedience of God-man How is the Justice Holiness and Goodness of it proclaimed and solemnized thereby when he disdained not to become obedient to it And to no less a degree is it honoured in the other respect for by his dying and suffering 't is eminently declared what sin deserved And the Justice of the Law is highly evidenced in its threatning and penalty So that these two are by no means to be severed for they contribute inseparably by their Effects to the great work of making one intire satisfaction for the sins of the world and procuring our Pardon Secondly They are in their own nature conjoyn'd and mutually participate of the qualities each of other For Christs active righteousness was all passive His coming from Heaven in the form of a Servant and yielding obedience to the Law here upon Earth had all vast humiliation and suffering in it And he himself was active also in all he suffered to the highest degree for 't was an act of his own free choice without the least constraint so to do No man could have taken his life had not himself made choice of death Thirdly To disjoyn these two and ascribe to them Distinct and Different ends to say that Christs passive obedience is imputed to us to procure pardon of all sin and his active obedience is imputed to us to constitute us righteous seems dangerous in its consequence and tends to make one of them appear altogether useless For if all sin original and actual of omission and commission were fully answered for and pardoned what need we more We must needs be brought into a righteous condition thereby Because the least defect of righteousness is some degree of sin and where there is no degree of sin there must needs be perfect righteousness So if all the active righteousness of Christ were personally by God in judgement reckoned to be ours we could not at the same time be accounted as sinners but in the utmost perfection of innocents And if so What need were there of Christs suffering or of any expiation for sin The Law did not require suffering and obedience both but obliged us either to obey or else to undergo the penalty How much better is the plain Scripture-account of this matter where these two are by God and Christ himself in their end every where conjoyn'd By which we are told that the whole of what Christ did and suffered in all its circumstances unitedly considered is as one intire price of inestimable value by way of satisfaction and valuable consideration paved unto God and by him so accepted for the redemption and Salvation of all such who submit to the terms and perform the condition of the Gospel A second Mistake about this matter is this Some have conceived that both the Active and Passive righteousness of Christ are so made ours by a personal imputation that we our selves are accounted by God in judgment to have done and suffered those very things that Christ himself in his own person did and suffered This conception is so Gross that it is not only to be reckoned amongst such things as are hard to be understood but amongst such things as are impossible to be accounted for to any common understanding The notion of imputation in general is no way to be opposed though we are no where told in Scripture in terminis that Christs righteousness is imputed to us that is 't is impossible for us to partake of the benefits and advantages of what was done by another as done in our stead and upon our account without some sort of imputation God is pleased that the whole of what
Christ did and suffered in the effects and advantages of it should accrue to us and our account because he accepted him on our behalf and in our stead and that we should reap all the fruit and benefit of his Mediatorship And in this sense God is pleased to impute his whole Mediatory transaction unto us but no otherwise The whole of Christs satisfaction is imputed to us as made For us and so he is the Lord our righteousness but not as made By us but actually made by him And what can be more desired then to reap all the benefits of Christs whole undertaking and upon the account of it and its being accepted of God on our behalf to be pardoned justified sanctified and saved and as the Apostle expresseth it to have Christ made to us of God that is as the Fundamental cause procurer and spring of them a common head from whence they are all derived to us as his body wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption Those that will press the point farther and insist upon personal imputation to every believer what Christ did ought well to consider these things First If every believer be personally righteous before God in the very individual Acts of Christs righteousness one of these two things will thence ensue Either that Christ in his own person did perform all the particular acts of righteousness required as due from each saved person or else that every is saved persons righteousness before God is identically and numerically the same with Christs in his publick capacity as Mediator and so every saved person is personally righteous with a righteousness that has a stock of merit in it sufficient to save the world unless you will say Christ had some righteousness that belong'd to him as Mediator and some that did not which is absurd to affirm for 't is plain all he did he did as Mediator nor had he any any concern in the world but as Mediator and none of his actions can be seperated from his Office being all pursuant of it The first will be granted was not nor had a possibility to be and yet no man can be personally righteous with respect to the Law but by an exact performance of every tittle and iota the Law required from him And the other has two very gross absurdities in it First That we should be accounted to have done that which was done long before we were in a capacity to do any thing And secondly That we should be reckoned personally righteous with the righteousness of God-man When first There is not a possibility that Man or Angel could perform any one Action with the Circumstances or in the Manner as he did Secondly Much of what he did was in its nature unlawfull for any else to undertake And thirdly The Whole of what he did was peculiarly appropriated and appurtenant to his Office as he was Mediator and cannot be suited to any other person nor is any part of it transferrable or imputable to any creature otherwise then in its operations and effects For he neither did nor suffered the very idem that we are obliged to for then he must have particularly done all the Law required from us and have suffered to eternity But he mad such a satisfaction to God for our Non-performance and on our behalf as became him as Mediator and such as that God is pleased thereupon to suspend the strict and rigorous execution of the Law and to bring us under a better Covenant Our case is not strictly that of a Debtor but of Rebellious Subjects nor stand we in our sins related to God as a Creditor but as a Supream Soveraign and Judge Nor did Christ sustain properly the place of a Surety to pay individually and identically our Debt but of a Mediator tomake reparation to divine Justice by another way then putting the Law in execution against us Secondly If every justified person be justified in judgment by the very acts of Christs personal righteousness accounted to him as his own it will then follow beyond any good answer that every man is justified by the works of the Law For Christs personal righteousness with respect to which he was justified as Mediator and approved of God to become a sufficient Saviour was a Legal righteousness and not an Evangelical This if sincere though imperfect will be accepted from us for Christs sake but would not so have been accepted from Christ for our Justification nor can it be well affirmed that Christ believed and obey'd his own Gospel That lyes on our part to perform Now that we should be justified by the works of the law is confuted by many Texts Rom. 3.28 the Apostle sayes Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law And Galat. 3.11 But that no nun is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by Faith and so in many other Texts And the whole scope of St. Paul in his discourses of Justification is to establish this point That no man is justified by an unsinning obedience perform'd to the Law and so Not by works but by believing and in the way of Gospel-faith which God is pleased out of Grace to accept and account for righteousness Nor will it be to any purpose to say it is one thing to be justified by our own obedience to the Law and another thing to be justified by Christs obedience imputed For if his obedience be so imputed as that we are accounted by God in judgment personally to have done what Christ did it is all one as to this matter and we are as much justified by the Law and do as much live in the works thereof as if we had in our own proper persons performed an unsinning obedience to it Thirdly if the rigid notion of imputation should be admitted as true then every particular person that is saved did merit his own salvation For if the very Acts of Christ be reckoned as ours and so imputed as if done by us the effects must needs be imputed so too If I am reckoned by God in my own person to have performed that righteousness that does merit my Justification I must of necessity be accounted to have merited my Justification And besides all this many the most dangerous and unsound principles of Antinomianism have their rise from this Doctrine I chuse to express it in the words of Reverend Mr. Gibbons in his Discourse of Justification I inferr says he that they are dangerously mistaken who think that a believer is righteous in the sight of God with the self-same Active and Passive righteousness wherewith Christ was righteous m though believers suffered in Christ and obeyed in Christ and were as righteous in Gods esteem as Christ himself having his personal righteousness made personally theirs by imputation This is their fundamental mistake and from hence tanquam ex equo Trojano issues out a throng of such false and corrupt
is all that he would require on our part conditionally to perform This should constitute us righteous upon the terms of the New Covenant This should legally intitle us by the Gospel to all the Advantages of Christ and to a righteous end justified state and this is so far from such a Justification by works as the Jews rested in and St. Paul disputes against that 't is a Justification that results wholly from grace and favour is the Effect of Christs purchase and of the terms of another Covenant And all merit and all reward that can be claimed out of debt is utterly excluded thereby And thus the two Apostles appear perfectly agreed in their doctrine Abraham was not justified upon terms of the Law and sinless perfection but he was justified as an ungodly person one that had sins and failings about him that needed forgiveness was justified by faith in way of the Gospel And that faith that justified Abraham then and justifies every person under the Gospel now and is by the tenour thereof accounted for righteousness is not a naked assent to the truth what God reveals but such a faith as implyes in its nature and comprizeth a suitable obedience to all he requires of us There is a wide difference as much as there is between the nature and terms of the two Covenants between such works as by an inherent vertue in themselves constitute just and so justifie from an innate perfection as to make the reward to be of debt and such works are in their own nature altogether imperfect and faulty and are accepted only thorough grace and favour and made but conditionally necessary to our Justification another way Works 't is true there are in the case both wayes but of very different natures upon very different Accounts and to very different Ends. Secondly On the other hand we must carefully avoid so to apprehend faith supposing it to comprehend all that the Gospel requires of us to believe and practice as if it had in it self any justifying vertue or were of any innate worth to acquit us before God from the guilt of sins The value of it is wholly from Gods gracious ordination as it is all the condition that is required on our part to be performed by the Law of grace And it is not of our selves neither but 't is the gift and bestowment of God We obtain the precious faith of the Gospel St. Peter tell us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Whenever we read of our Justification by faith 't is meant of our being justified in the Gospel way and that is by Christ alone meritoriously and by what he has done and suffered for the Apostle tells us that God for Christs sake hath freely forgiven us Nothing has the least meritorious interest in our forgiveness but Christ Grace and free forgiveness in Scripture is still opposed to our merit and by faith only with respect to its conditional relation to him and that Covenant which he hath purchased and proclaimed and in the method whereof we come to be actually pardoned and justified upon Believing To think otherwise is to subvert the grand design of the whole Gospel which we are often told is to declare Christs Righteousness for the remission of sins and to sot forth him as a propitiation through faith in his blood Faith is no part of the Propitiation but 't is he himself and his blood that is the Propitiation and faith but the conditional means by which we come to reap the fruit and benefit of it The whole Fabrick of the Gospel is bottom'd upon satisfaction made to the Justice of God on our behalf upon a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Savior sayes he came down to lay down his life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransome for many And St. Paul to Timothy calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a price of redemption We are every where in Scripture said to be ransom'd redeem'd purchas'd bought with a price And that must needs be by a valuable consideration pay'd and by satisfaction made And St. Peter tells us what that price of redemption is that was payed for us and by which we were purchased and ransomed 't was not corruptible things such as gold and silver or any thing we had to offer to God but 't was with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without spot No works nor performances of our own could ever have reached this purchase or so prevailed as to have been accepted for a satisfaction in this case For then a Justifying Righteousness might have subsequently resulted from the Law of Works which St. Paul denyes and tells us expressly Galat. 2.21 that it could not be that way it could not come by the Law For had there been a possibility of it he tells us it should so have been That is could men either pefectly have kept the Law or have sufficiently answered for the Breach of it ex post facto Righteousness would have been that way and Christ had not dyed for his death had been then in vain Two things still may be remembred about Faith by which we may receive some account of the use that is made by the Holy Ghost of this word in Scripture First By faith the Gospel is often denominated in opposition to the Law and the whole of it signified thereby And the Reason of this seems to be because the Gospel is in its nature a Revelation from God proposed to our belief and all that we are required by it to do flowes naturally from what we are first obliged to believe Belief is the spring of all Gospel obedience and does in its nature comprize all other Gospel-graces they being at first produced and ever after upheld and increased thereby Secondly by the tenour of the Gospel and Gods peculiar Ordination therein the whole condition required by it is at the first virtually performed by the bare act of believing as the representative of all other Graces and root of universal obedience 'T is all that at the first is made conditionally necessary to constitute a Justified state though to the after-continuance in it the exercise of every other grace is equally requisite He that sincerly believes in Christ as he is proposed is truely in a Justified state by such an Act of Faith and herein Faith hath the preference of all other Graces in point of Justification if we never live to perform any subsequent Act of Obedience And the Reasons of this may be these two First The grace of Faith has in its nature a Nearer relation to the satisfaction of Christ wherein the Essentials of our Justification consist then any other Grace whatsoever For all we can do with reference to that and the nearest approach we can make to it to receive the benefit and advantage of it is to believe it and to rely upon it Secondly A true and sincere faith and belief of the Gospel supposeth and includeth a firm resolution to
of Evangelical obedience the greatest work the Gospel requires at our hands and that which produceth all other and 't is plainly made as such every where in Scripture the Condition of the New Law and that which it requires on our part to be performed in order to our Justification and Salvation And so the Apostle declares when he sayes We have believed that we might be justified That is We have performed the Condition required by the Gospel in order to Justification that so we might be justified thereby upon the terms thereof And for that reason as 't is the Condition of the New Law 't is accounted for Righteousness And so when God justified Abraham upon the terms of the New Covenant his Faith is said to be accounted for Righteousness because it was the performance of the Condition thereof And God was pleased to give an Instance in him what was to be the Condition of it which was a sincere Faith including a suitable obedience So far different was Abrahams Faith in its Nature and so far is all true Gospel-Faith from that Idea some men frame of it who ascribe no more to it then a Bare naked notional instrumentality Nor is there one Text in all the New Testament that excludes Gospel Works Evangelical obedience from being Conditionally necessary to our Justification and Salvation but they are universally made so as has been proved before For Whatever is requisite to constitute a man a good Christian is conditionally necessary to his Justification and no man can be interested in the Salvation purchased by Christ that does not subject himself to an universal obedience to all his Laws To distinguish as some do between Justification and Salvation and say that Gospel-works are necessary to the Latter but not to the Former is to distinguish where the Scripture makes no difference For The Apostles speak of a Justified person and a saved person as the same and of Justification and Salvation as so and they are both promiscuously promised to Believing St. James when he is discoursing of Justification asks this question can faith without works save you Where he means the same thing as if he had said can it justifie you Nor does it any more derogate from free Grace to make Gospel-works necessary to Justification then it does to ake them necessary to Salvation For they are both inseparably included each in other No man can be saved that is not Justified for whosoever is not justified at Gods Bar is condemned and whoever is justified is also glorified That Text of St. Paul Rom. 4. v. 5. duly considered does no way counenance any such Doctrine for the right understanding of which it wil be necessary to consider the whole Context In the first ver What shall we say then sayes the Apostle that Abraham our father from whom we derive our selves and who first received the Law of Circumcision the father of our Persons and of our Religion as pertaining to the flesh hath found 'T is an Interrogation importing a Negation Abraham did find nothing as pertaining to the flesh By flesh in Scripture besides the Corrupt acceptation it sometimes is meant the strength of natural abilities So Ismael is said to be born after the flesh that is by the meer and sole efficacy of nature in opposition to Isaacs being born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the spirit and after the promise And sometimes by Flesh is meant the Legal external priviledges of the Jews So in the 3d. of the Philip. 't is taken St. Paul sayes there If any other man thinketh he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more Circumcised the eighty day c. But 't is plain what St. Paul means here by flesh For what he calls flesh in the first ver he calls works in the second For if Abraham were justified by works he hath whereof to glory but not before God If Abraham were justified by the worth and value of his own performances of any works wrought in his own Strength and by his own Ability he had whereof to Glory But not before God which last clause is a positive Negation and comes in as a Minor proposition And so the the Apostles Argument is thus framed If Abraham were justified by works he had whereof to glory before God For 't is faith only that excludes glorying before God his reward would have been a debt But he had not whereof to glory before God Therefore he was not justified by works And that this is his meaning in those words But not before God is plain Because in the next words he applies himself in the proof of it For what saith the Scripture sayes he It does not say that Abraham was justified before God by works but Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for Righteousness God out of favour and grace accepted his Faith for Righteousness which is implyed in the word Counted when he might justly have Refused so to do Abraham could not have claim'd it from any merit in strict rules of Justice Now to him that worketh in the 4th ver is the reward not reckoned of Grace but of Debt That is he that hath any thing due to his for what he has himself in his own strength done that Reward is a Debt and is not a reward of Grance And so if Abraham had been a man of such merits had done such works as would in their own nature have justified him and constituted him Righteous in the sight of God Gods justifying him and adjudging him righteous had been a debt due to him But Abraham was not so he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sinner and could claim nothing of Debt And God was pleased out of favour and grace to Reward Abrahams Faith and suitable obedience with an accounting it for Righteousness and to justifie him thereupon But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifyeth the ungodly his faith is accounted for Righteousness That is Dependeth not upon the strength of his own performances and such a sinless innocency as will in strict rules of Justice acquit him before God as Abraham did not but Believeth on God that justifies the ungodly That is a man that has not a Legal sinless perfection for that is meant by the ungodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness That is his Faith through Grace shall avail him as much to all intents and stand him in as much stead as a perfect sinless Righteousness would do Abrahm's Justification was not upon the terms of the Law or by perfection of Works which is inconsistent with Pardon for he was a great sinner and had lived for some time in Heathen Idolatry But he was justified upon the terms and conditions of another Covenant that is upon his believing God and reforming his Life was Pardoned and Accepted and his Faith and sincere reformation though the Grace of another Covenant was accounted to him for Righteousness Even so as the Idolatrous Gentiles though