God in the same sense in which the Christian life is called the life of God Ephes 4.18 not the life which he himself lives but the life which he commands and the life which by his Grace he enables men to live As the Sacrament is called the Supper of the Lord because it is of his institution so is this inherent Righteousness and Justification by it said to be the Righteousness of God for the same reason To restore fallen man to this Righteousness and to acceptation with God and Justification thereby and to render him capable of the happiness designed him in another World was the reason of sending Christ into the World and of his suffering for us and of all the rest of his Mediatory undertaking For that I take to be the plain meaning of 2 Cor. 5.21 * When I compare the foregoing verses therewith noting God's design of reconciling us to himself by Christ which is done by an inward change of mind and will He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him that is by means of him Parallel to which is 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God This inherent Righteousness is called the Righteousness which is of God by Faith because it proceeds from God by the means of Faith and not without it Rom. 3.22 Phil. 3.9 by believing that God will justifie and save men by Jesus Christ in this way and upon these terms of becoming inherently righteous and not otherwise men come to be so that they may be justified and saved I have the rather given this brief Gloss upon these Scriptures because I find Mr. Polhill still as others have done before him will needs understand that this Righteousuess is meant of the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and that it is called the Righteousness of God because it is the Righteousness of Christ which is God But methinks he and they should consider that because the Righteousness of Christ is the Righteousness of him that is God as well as Man that therefore it is nowise likely it should ever be imputed to us any otherwise than in its blessed effects and consequently that which they surmise cannot be the sense of the Scriptures aforementioned For as such it is a mediatorial righteousness a Righteousness resulting from his conformity to the Law of his Mediation which was a Law peculiar to himself alone And it seems very rational to think this righteousness no more communicable to us otherwise than in its happy effects than the acts and office of his Mediation are And although upon the account of its being so transcendent and glorious a righteousness it is a very great ground of consolation and of confidence to us that for the sake of it our Evangelical righteousness will be accepted with God and all our defects so far as consistent with sincerity freely pardoned yet it is a great question whether it will agree with Christian modesty to presume our selves invested therewith any otherwise than in the beneficial effects of it unless there were more ground for it than we can find in Scripture We may well bethink our selves whether it be not a Garment too rich and glorious for us to wear and proper only for the person of the Mediatour the Son of God himself If it shall yet be demanded that if this be true that we are justified upon account of all other inherent Grace as well as that of Faith then how comes it to pass that in Scripture Faith is still said to be imputed for righteousness and not love or humility or the like If there should be no other reason but this yet this might well satisfie us in this enquiry viz. in that this Grace of Faith above any other is in the nature of it adopted and fitted to subserve God's design in recovering us from the state of sin and misery into which we were sunk unto a state of holiness and happiness from which we were fallen God's design was to restore us to happiness by holiness and to make his own Grace glorious in the eyes of his Creatures in doing of it And when you have well considered it I think you will find that there is no one Grace or Vertue that could be so serviceable to God in this design as Faith Nay which is more that those Divine Vertues themselves which constitute the New Creature or Divine Nature without which we are not capable of being made happy could not have been introduced and brought again into the nature of fallen man but by Faith I will suppose that you cannot imagine how God should restore us to happiness without reconciling us to himself and being reconciled to us Nor how he should reconcile us to himself without making some Overtures of Grace to us Nor how he should be reconciled to us without our submitting to his terms of Grace And if not I can easily shew you that we cannot be affected and wrought upon by God's overture and offer of Grace so as to answer his end in making it nor submit to or comply with his terms of Grace without believing and consequently that the execution of God's design in restoring us to happiness and of glorifying the riches of his Grace therein depends very much upon Faith and more on that than on any other Grace or Vertue whatsoever First We cannot be affected and wrought upon with God's offer of Grace so as to give him the glory of it in thankful acceptance due acknowledgments and sutable returns in loving him that shewed such love to us without this Grace of Faith For the sense of God's Grace in offering to sinners through Christ pardon restauration to his favour and salvation at last upon condition of repentance cannot enter into the heart of man but by Faith And the reason hereof is because the offer of Grace and the things offered by Grace are matter of supernatural revelation which do not further affect than they are believed as I shall farther shew in the next particular But by believing that God of mere Grace in and by Christ hath promised pardon acceptance into favour the assistance of his Spirit and eternal life unto Sinners otherwise under condemnation upon condition of repentance and a sincere returning unto God I say by this belief we come to trust in and rely upon that Grace and on Christ as an All-sufficient Saviour for those promised benefits even in the performance of that Condition and that in opposition to all opinion of meriting them by that performance or by any thing we can do And it is by this belief and affiance that God receives from us the glory of his Grace and Christ the honour of his performance for us which answers one of the great ends designed by our recovery for which cause it may very well be one reason why this Faith rather than
any other Grace is said to be imputed to us for Righteousness For we are told expresly that it is of Faith that it might be by Grace Rom. 4.16 That is to cut off all pretence of merit the same saving benefits are promised and on the same Condition to wit that of Faith to Heathen Idolaters Sinners of the Gentiles as was to the strictest observers of the Law of Moses The reason in the close of the verse gives that to be the meaning And accordingly Faith whether it be in one that hath been a great sinner or in one of a more inoffensive life hath God's Grace not Man's merit for its object on which it doth depend for all and accordingly attributes and ascribes all to it Gal. 2.15 16. Which is one reason we see of God's electing of it to be the Condition on which his great and precious promises are made and may well be a reason also of his imputing it to men for Righteousness when they do believe For by the account we have why Abraham's Faith was imputed to him for Righteousness we have reason to believe that our giving to God the glory of his Grace and Goodness Truth and Power by this belief and affiance and to Christ the honour of his undertaking is of such high acceptation with God as that he of his goodness is pleased to honour and reward it by imputing it to us for Righteousness For we see when Abraham's Faith in God's promise touching a numerous Issue had nothing to lean upon but the Goodness Veracity and Power of God and that these carried it with Abraham against all doubts and objections that might arise from the utmost humane and natural improbabilities of ever coming to pass so that he gave glory to God in being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform that St. Paul hath told us that therefore or for this very cause his Faith was imputed to him for righteousness Rom. 4.21 22. But the glorifying the riches of his Grace was not all that God had in design in our recovery but also the Renovation of our nature and the restoring us to happiness thereby And Faith is as necessary and useful for the accomplishing this part of God's design as it was to effect the other and therefore secondly this may be another Reason why Faith is imputed for Righteousness and why it 's said to be so rather than any other Grace Without believing we cannot comply with the terms and condition on which Pardon and Salvation are promised and without which they are not to be had and that is in being renewed in our nature For without believing those Motives that tend to perswade us to comply with and submit to the terms or condition on which God for Christ's sake hath promised to pardon us to receive us into favour and finally to save us we can never actually comply with those terms or that condition and consequently without that can never be capable of receiving the benefits promised on that condition For it is Faith as it takes in those Motives in their strength and perswasive efficacy that becomes a vigorous and operative principle of all other Graces Repentance Love Obedience and the like by which our nature becomes renewed All which depend upon our believing And therefore well may our Faith be named and put for all the rest as comprehending them in it when it rather than any other Grace is said to be imputed for Righteousness To make this evident I shall suggest two things to you 1. That they are the great Motives of the Gospel the Grace of God and Love of Christ to lost man the good hoped for and the evil feared the good promised to those that are good and the evil threatned to those that are evil that operate upon the mind and will in men to the producing that change in them by which they become new men sincerely good men If we love God it is because he loved us first 1 John 4.19 If we live to Christ that died for us it is because the love of Christ constrains us 2 Cor. 5.14 If we are made partakers of a Divine Nature it is by the great and pretious promises that we are so 2 Pet. 1.4 And 2. the operation of these Motives of the Gospel upon the mind depends upon our believing and so consequently do all those happy effects in heart and life which are produced by the operation of those Motives For until the reality of those Motives are believed they have no existence or being in the Soul and where they have no being they have no operation The Word preached did not profit them not being mixed with Faith in them that heard it Heb. 4.2 The Love Grace and Favour of God to Sinners in giving Christ for us and of his Love in giving himself for us and intending and promising us the benefit of pardon and salvation thereby only upon condition of our Repentance and Conversion unto God being all of them things invisible and not objects of sense do not affect us or perswade us to repent and in good earnest turn to God that we may be pardoned and saved until we really believe these things It is our Faith or the credit we give to the Revelation which God hath made of these things that gives them an existence or being in the Soul and upon that depends the efficacy and power of their prevailing with us to become new men Faith is the substance or subsistence of things hoped for and the evidence or conviction of things not seen Heb. 11.1 Unless men first believe that God is so good merciful and gracious to men notwithstanding they have sinned against him as to pardon and save them if they repent and become sincerely obedient for the future and not otherwise they will never deny ungodliness and worldly lusts when they are sollicited thereby to gratifie the flesh Men must first believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him indeed before they will seek his Grace and Favour by becoming such and doing that upon which and not without which he hath more or less declared his Grace and Favour is to be obtained and found Without this Faith it is impossible to please God it is impossible to leave off those things by which they have displeased him and to betake themselves to do those things that are pleasing in his sight Heb. 11.6 It was the belief that all good men had before the Law and under the Law that God would keep Covenant and mercy with those that love him and keep his Commandments and not otherwise that brought them so to love him and to keep his Commandments It was their belief that there is forgiveness with him that he might be feared as an encouragement to men to fear him that prevailed with them to fear him indeed Psal 130.4 It was the hope which even the Heathen Ninevites had from the natural
Notion they had of God and from their observation of his general and common goodness to the World notwithstanding mens sins that if they did but repent and leave their sins forgiveness might possibly be obtained that caused them to turn from their evil way and from the violence that was in their hands Jona 3.8 10. Now then since so much as you see depends upon Faith as Repentance Conversion Regeneration and all inherent Righteousness and Holiness of living there is great reason why it should usually be mentioned as that which is imputed for Righteousness rather than any other inherent Grace and in the name and as the representative of all the rest as being the productive cause of them all By the way you may observe then that since it is as you see the Operation of the great Motives of the Gospel as believed that in conjunction with the operation of the Holy Spirit effects that great Change in men by which they become regularly capable of all the blessedness of pardon and salvation which the Gospel reveals it must needs be very necessary for such as you who are ministers of the Gospel to insist much upon those Motives in your discourses to the people and to inculcate and work them into their minds To set life and death heaven and hell before them and to convince them of the reality of such a future state and of the inseparable connexion that is between happiness and their duty and between a sinful and hypocritical life and their eternal misery And to convince them that every one shall have in the next World according as he chuseth in this he that chuseth the right way shall come to the right and best end as he that chuseth the wrong shall certainly come to the wrong and worst and that every he that shall perish hereafter is a self murderer And likewise to set in the peoples eye the preventing grace of God what he hath already done for us as a most affecting motive tending to reconcile us to him and to think well of him as of one that never sought our ruin but as pitying us and taking compassion on us when we had brought it upon our selves and not pursuing the advantage we have given him against us nor revenging himself on us But contrarily contriving a way of our recovery from sin and from the misery into which that hath brought us yea though it cost him very dear to do it in giving his Son to dye for us when he could not otherwise do it with satisfaction to himself in reference to the honour of his Government Besides he hath done this for us men and for our salvation when he hath past by the fallen Angels Christ the Son of God did not take hold of Angels the Apostate Spirits to rescue them out of that destruction and misery into which they plunged themselves and yet hath taken hold of the seed of Abraham of the humane nature to rescue and pluck mankind out of the horrible pit of destruction into which we were fallen Heb. 2.16 And now is not all this Grace of God and Love of Christ which thus far is unconditionate and absolutely free and unsought for on our part and altogether antecedent to any thing done by us to obtain it a wonderful motive thankfully and joyfully to accept of those most reasonable and gracious terms of our Recovery which God in the Gospel hath offered us When it shall be considered that God of his mere commiseration and compassion towards us hath now tried us once again when we were all but as dead men before him and hath put us in a way once again of being happy with what face can we slight despise and abuse such Love by rejecting those gracious terms of reconciliation that were procured for us on such costly terms as the sufferings of the Son of God amount unto But if we do and after all this will persist in our rebellion against Heaven how can we possibly expect that any other way or terms of pardon and salvation should ever be offered unto us again How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation and so mercifully and freely offered us and that on no harder conditions neither than to cease our wilful rebellion against God and to become dutiful and loyal under his easie yoke and gentle Government by the Evangelical Law Heb. 2.3 If then such mighty Motives as the Love of God and his Son Christ Jesus our Lord so wonderfully exprest and the hope of Heaven and the fear of Hell will not work upon us to repent to change our minds and amend our lives and to become new Creatures what greater Motives think we can God use to perswade men by Doubtless they are these Motives will do it if any thing will do it and for that reason they should as I said be insisted on by those whose special business appointed them by God is to win Souls And as these Motives should be much and often inculcated upon the minds of the people for the reason aforesaid so for the same reason they should be managed with all the advantage in respect of circumstance that can be thought on to reach their end in operating powerfully upon the people's Souls Such for one is plainess of speech as the phrase is 2 Cor. 3.12 and not as Moses who put a vail over his face By which plainness of speech if it be what I mean things are fitted and prepared for the understanding and capacity of the meanest whose salvation God hath designed as much as the salvation of the more learned and wise If Peter will express his love to his Master indeed he must as well seed his Lambs as his Sheep Joh. 21.15 And by how much the more matters so affecting in themselves as the Motives of the Gospel are are delivered with an inward sense seriousness and gravity by so much the more they will command attention and consideration from the people and the sooner sink down into their hearts and the more powerfully operate upon the mind and will And if the experience of many among whom I number my self be of any consideration in place of proof then the intermixing Scripture Texts in Divine Discourses aptly applyed and wisely managed is much more edifying to the people than such Discourses without that can be though otherwise for the matter of them they may be agreeable to the Scripture For besides that so doing greatly helps memory and retention of the matter without which the operation of the matter vanisheth with the matter it self And besides also the benefit of growing thereby into better acquaintance with the Scriptures the Mine of these Motives of which I speak and of becoming able by use to reduce scattered Texts of one and the same import to heads of Doctrine I say besides all this and more which might be said it tends greatly to bind the matter delivered the faster upon the Conscience when it shall come so visibly