is Davids blessedness of pardon Now 't were absurd to imagine that the Apostle should tell us that the Blessedness of Justification which must needs relate to the whole of it does consist in imputing righteousness without works which he makes to be all one with the pardon of sin and not imputing iniquity unless Justification were fully compriz'd therein and if it were so the form of it that it did as we say dare esse to it For nothing else can properly contain the Blessedness of it If it be meant by those that thus Object That by Pardon of sin the Scripture does not express the whole Effects that accrue by Justification That will be readily granted for our Pardon and Justification is but our Title in Law to the Grace and Glory of the Gospel is not the very things themselves though they are all virtually contain'd therein and inseparably conjoyned to it by the institution of God For Whom he justifies them he sanctifies and whom he sanctifies he glorifies And the Apostle in the 26 of the Acts conjoynes as inseparable forgiveness of sin and having an inheritance amongst them that are sanctified But if the meaning be That the whole form of a sinners Justification properly taken and as we find it spoken of in Scripture be not compriz'd in the Forgiveness of sin 't will appear to be a Mistake Those that thus Object tell us our Justification consists of two distinct parts First Remission of sin Secondly Adjudging to be Righteous Each standing upon a distinct bottom the first upon Christs passive obedience and the other upon his Active though in the Scripture we read not one Syllable of any such thing These two I have proved before are in the Scripture-method conjoyned Whoever is by God upon the belief of the Gospel for the sake of Christ judicially pardoned is thereby Justified and accounted as Righteous and the satisfaction of Christ is reckoned and imputed by God to all Believers in those effects and for those ends and purposes nor can it be rationally supposed to be otherwise imputed For no other persons Righteousness performed or Satisfaction made on my behalf can come to be any other way justly accounted mine then in the effects and advantages of it It can never be a Just Judgment to adjudge me to have Personally performed my self what was actually done by another though it was done on my behalf and be reckoned to my account There is no other possible way by which any man can come to be accounted Righteous in Judgment but either by a righteousness inherent in our selves which does constitute us innocent or by the Righteousness of Christ made ours in a way of personal imputation which must make us also to be justified as innocents and not as offenders The first is affirmed by the Papists and the later by many Learned Protestants The Overthrow of both which opinions I shall hereafter endeavour in this Discourse and thereby fully return Answer to this and all other Objections of this nature That Text Rom. 4. v. 25. is much pressed and insisted on But upon great Mistake as will easily be made to appear The words are Who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our Justification Which words are not to be taken as if there were two distinct ends in Christs Death and Resurrection the one to obtain pardon of sin and the other to justifie And so to divide between them two whereas in truth the Apostle makes them one and the same thing But the natural meaning and intendment of the Holy Ghost in that text is this That All that Christ did and suffered was upon our account He was delivered to death upon the account of our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our greatest sins and utmost Apostacy for that sense is included in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and rose again upon the same account to justify us from the condemning power of them By being delivered for our offences and rising again for our Justification the Apostle intends the same thing which is to justifie and save us from our sins And the latter expression is exegetical of the former 'T is to instruct us that Christs Death and Resurrection the whole that he transacted had one tendency and was all in order to one and the same end For in some Texts we are said to be justified by his Death and by his Blood so that he Dyed for our justification as well as rose again for it The Scripture no where affords us the least warrant to assign one distinct end to Christs death and another to his resurrection Nay the Apostle himself upon another occasion Rom. 14. ver 9. positively conjoyns them as inseparable in their ends For this end says he Christ both dyed and rose again Whatever Christ dyed for he rose again for His Rising again did not induce any farther or other ends then were his Death but only compleat and perfect the whole Design and Intendment thereof For although Christ dyed for our sins yet if he had not Risen again we could not have reap't the Fruit and Effect of his Death His own Justification as Mediator and so ours depending upon his Resurrection as the supream and Glorious Effect of his Deity and that whereby he was declared to be the Son of God mightily from heaven Secondly 'T is Objected That Remission of sin doth only take away the guilt or ordination to punishment but doth not remove the Sin it self and therefore Justification cannot consist in it Although pardon of sin do make as if sin had never been in respect of the guilt of it yet not in respect of the denomination of the Subject Although David was pardoned yet his pardon did not make him a Just man in those acts of his Murder and Adultery He was truely a Murderer and an Adulterer notwithstanding Justification doth not denominate a man to be Just and a righteousness is requisite unto it A man is not Justified and therefore Just but must be Just and therefore Justified in the order of Justification To this I Answer in these three things First by Gods forgiving of sin in a Judicial way as much is done to obliterate and extinguish it in its proper denomination as is possible and nothing but Gods forgiveness could have done so much For he forgiveth as the Supream Soveraign and Lord of all And his forgiveness is not only the effect of his mercy but the result of all his infinite Attributes He is pleased with a redundancy of Grace to express himself in Scripture to us about this matter that we might have a strong consolation therein As first That he will turn his face from our sins Psal 51. Secondly That he will remember them no more Isa 42. Thirdly That he will not impute them Psal 32. Fourthly That he will cast them into the depths of the sea Mica 7. And fifthly that he will cast them behind his back Isa 38. Now I say
or in Judgement Not by infusing a habit for it is evident that both the Hebrew and the Greek Verbs from whence we must fetch the true sense of the Latin and English are Judicial and Forinsical words and arc scarce ever taken throughout the Bible to Juslify by making inherently Just or Just by Infusion The natural and primitive signification of them both is to justifie Legally and Judicially to make just by Plea and in Judgement And in that original sense or in a sense relative to it and derivative from it are the words generally taken in Scripture When either God is said to Justifie man or man is said to justifie God or one man is said to justifie another or one and the same man to justifie himself for all these wayes we read of Justification in Scripture 't is still without any signification of infusing righteousness or making just that way But that which is intended by the word is to make just defensatively declaratively judicially and not qualitively To give some instance of many Rom. 2. v. 13. Not the hearers of the Law but the doers of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be justified That is pronounced and declared Just in judgment In the 11 Chap. of Job v. 2. Should a man full of talk be justified that is should he be defended and acquitted upon that account because he is full of words Shall that be a sufficient Plea for him So when we are told Pro. 17. v. 15. that To justifie the wicked is an abomination to the Lord 't is meant to justifie them by pleading for them and defending them or to justifie them in judgment while wicked For to justifie them in the other sense to make them inherently just and righteous is no abomination to the Lord but a thing he has every where declared himself to be well pleased with In the 8 of the Rom. St. Paul puts this question Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is God that justifieth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who shall condemn where by Gods justifying is meant his acquitting and clearing in judgment 'T is evident to be such a justifying as stands in opposition to charging and condemning Of the same import are the words most generally wheresoever we find them used by the Holy Ghost either in the Old or New Testament And this we have acknowledged by many of the Papists on the one hand and some of the Socinians on the other though both of them endeavour to prove that Gods justifying men is not his pronouncing them just and his declaring them so in a judicial way but his infusing of habits and making them in themselves actually and habitually righteous Justification in general may be considered as it may relate to two sorts of men First to righteous and innocent men and Secondly to Offenders Justification in both cases supposeth Charge and Accusation and stands in opposition to Condemnation A Righteous person when he is accused and found faultless that is inherently Righteous and Just he is by his righteousness made evident thereby justified that is declared and approved to be just acquitted and cleared both from accusation and condemnation David hath an expression to this purpose of God Psal the 51. That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest That is be justified by being manifested to be really righteous and just So Good men are sometimes said to be justified by their works that is defended and vindicated against false accusation and charge approved and declared to be just thereby A person so qualified is justified because he appears to be in himself righteous and just not righteous and just because justified Secondly an Offender when he is accused he can be no other way justified that is defended against accusation and acquitted in judgment but by pleading ample and proportionable satisfaction made for an offence and an acceptance of that satisfaction as such and procuring a remission of the offence thereupon 'T is not possible to contrive any other way of Justification in that Case For free and absolute remission of an offence cannot well be called Justification The more freely a man is pardoned without any sort of satisfaction the less he can be properly said to be justified Such a man now is not justified because he is found to be inherently just and without fault but he becomes Just is brought into the state of a just man because he arrives at a Legal Justification and upon satisfaction made obtains an acquitment in judgment Justification in scripture as 't is an act of God relating to Men is ever spoken of in this later way 'T is never meant to excuse or justifie a Sinner from being a sinner but to justifie a sinner supposing him a sinner to the utmost All Gospel-justification being founded upon Satisfaction as the grand fundamental of it But to come more nearly to the Scripture-sense and meaning of Justification by which we are generally told that all Sinners unpardoned are under Divine Wrath and stand Condemned at Gods Bar and that such whom God is pleased in the method of his Grace judicially to pardon and receive into favour he is thereby said to justifie To be justified therefore in Scripture sensee is to be Cleared and Discharged before the Tribunal of God from the Guilt of sin resulting from the breach of his Laws and Absolved from the Punishment due from Divine Justice thereunto This without any obscuring Speculation about the nature of Justification in general is that practical account we find the Scripture to give us of it suitable to its nature as it relates to sinful offending Man for it must still be remembred that Gods justifying in Scripture is his giving sentence with the Guilty party and so we can only be righteous because justified and justified by being pardoned and according to what it Operates and effects upon the subject by which also 't is best understood and becomes most accountable to every Capacity I include not herein the Cause of Justification nor the Condition of it but speak of it in its own proper form and simply in it self considered For had I so done I would after this manner have expressed my self Justification is an act of God whereby he does for the sake of Christs Satisfaction to his Justice upon mens sincere Beliefe of the Gospel account their faith for righteousness pardon their sins and Acquit them in Judgement That this Description I have given of Justification and our being justified is that which ought to be given and the direct account we have of it in Scripture will evidently appear from these four considerations Fist Sin being a transgression of Gods Law and so an Offence accountable for to Him nothing less can justify a sinner then the Supream judgement of God Himself as the Soveraign Lord and Judge of all the Earth The Apostle tells us that in few words It is God that justifies And He does it as an
righteousness or unrighteousness do necessarily inhere and to which by virtue of his Constitution and Relation they are inseparably appertaining Just as light and darkness necessarily relate to Aire health and sickness to our bodyes And they are contraryes that expel each other and from a necessity in their own Natures succeed each other in their Existance in such Subjects Air perfectly free from all darkness must of necessity be supposed to be light If a body be free from all sort of sickness it must needs be supposed in perfect health So if a Man be freed wholly from all sort of unrighteousness he ought not nor cannot be otherwise judged of then as a Just and a Righteous person there being no third state imaginable in such cases Fourthly If Gods Pardon of all a mans sin should not ipso facto instate him in a Righteous condition and render him perfectly a Righteous person one of these two things would unavoidably insue Either that there must be some third state of a man that is neither Righteous nor Unrighteous which is in the nature of the thing utterly Impossible to be or else that God might fully pardon an unrighteous man that is a man after his pardon Continuing still so to be and that a man might remain unrighteous and so obnoxious to Punishment miserable and unhappy contrary to what the Psalmist so often sayes That he is blessed that has his sins forgiven after all his sins are Pardoned and he has reaped the whole benefit of Gods Forgiveness To imagine either of which were either extreamly Impious or Foolish or Both. Fifthly The Apostle tells us that All unrighteousness is sin the Scripture carryes us no farther and all sin is some way or other a breach and transgression of some Law Now where all sort of sin is Forgiven both of Omission and Commission a man is in the same state as if he had never offended and if so capable of no charge of sin and so of no charge of unrighteousness and so cannot by strict rules of Justice be otherwise adjudged and accounted of then as a Righteous person Freedom from all unrighteousness which Pardon of all sin necessarily includes does ipso facto constitute a man Righteous and denominate him from the Reason of the thing so to be And the truth is a person whose Fault is remitted and he judicially acquitted upon plenary satisfaction made is in point of true and legal Justification and being accounted Righteous thereupon upon even termes with him that is Accused and Justifyed by being found innocent Because the Rule of Righteousness and Justification is the Law and the Judgement resulting from thence Most especially when we are acquitted at the infallible Tribunal of God according to His righteous Laws The Apostles Question so pregnant Negative may very well be asked If God justify who shall either Charge or Condemn Secondly It appears by several Texts that whomsoever God pardons he reckons as Righteous and is in the Scripture-acceptation said to justify thereby In the 4th of the Rom. where the Apostle is proving that Righteousness and Justification is not by works and merit but by free forgiveness in the Gospel way of Believing he sayes in the 6. ver Even as David also describeth the blessdness of the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works Here the Apostle gives you Davids sense in his own words and then quotes Davids words saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity By which it is plain past all denyal that imputing righteousness without works and free forgiveness of sin and not imputing iniquity are the same if this be but admitted that St. Paul know how to interpret the words of David In the 2d Epist to the Corinth chap. 5th the Apostle there tells us that God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses God upon not imputing sin is reconciled Now it upon Not imputing sin He did not account of us as Righteous 't were impossible he should be so Reconciled God cannot be reconciled to any man continuing unrighteous and under the notion of a Sinner In truth Throughout the Scripture all the characters of a righteous person of a Happy and Blessed person are still given to a Pardoned person As all misery was introduced by sin to manifest Gods extream hatred of it So all happiness is attained by the forgiveness of it to tell us of what value Gods forgiveness is and what an inestimable price it cost In the sense of the Gospel which is a Law Enacted that peculiarly provides for the Justification of an Offender a righteous person is a pardoned person to Calvin observes Cum veniam peccatorum fuerimus consecuti Justi habemur coram Deo Instit lib. 3. ch 17. And a pardoned person is a justifyed person and a justifyed person is blessed person Pardon Justification Righteousness Blessedness are inseparably Conjoyn'd The 4th of the Rom. and other Texts are a sufficient Proof of it Thirdly From a due consideration of that Order and Method God is pleased to use in the Pardoning of Sinners ' This truth will be farther manifest and appear to be immoveably sixed upon these two foundations First Every sinner is pardoned upon the soore of such a Satisfaction made as honour and satisfies the Law as much as if it had never been broken or as if being broken the utmost penalty had been inflicted Now such satisfaction is in it self vertually Righteousness and when accepted in judgement is Actually so Secondly Every sinner is in fact pardoned and not before upon the performance of such a Condition as God is pleased by the Covenant of his Grace to account for righteousness and so to accept And that is Believing and being possessed of Gospel-faith Which Faith we are often told is imputed for righteousness Whoever believes is Righteous in the Judgement of the Gospel Law for it is performing the condition required by it on our part to be performed and is our Covenant-Keeping Now whosoever is so Circumstanced in a judicial pardon obtained from the Great and Infallible Judge of all the Earth upon such a satisfaction made and such a Condition performed is certainly well intituled to a Righteous state and condition A Fourth consideration to make good the Definition I have given shall be this Gods Justifying a sinner is as has been said his giving Sentence with the guilty party Now God whose Judgement is ever according to Truth cannot give Sentence with a Guilty person upon the score of Innocency His Justification therefore of such a one consider it which way you will must needs be included in his Forgiveness of him He must of necessity be restored to a righteous condition in a way of pardon and cannot be so upon any other account That which some say That Justifying and bare and absolute Forgiving are in themselves considered two distinct things
to works As Galat. 5.6 I or in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but saith that worketh by love or that is wrought and perfected by love For so it is best rendered and sometimes opposeth evangelical obedience alone to the works of the Law as Galat. 6.15 Circumcision is nothing nor Vncircumcision but a new Creature And in the 1st of Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing sayes he and Vncircumcision is nothing but the keeping the commands of God where by the commands of God is meant the Law of the Gospel And Circumcision as 't is often in other places is put for the whole Law For whosoever was circumcised the Apostle declares he was obliged to the whole Law By which it plainly appears that whenever St. Paul speaketh against Works in the matter of Justification 't is the works of the Law and not of the Gospel that he intends and so he is to be understood For by the works of the Gospel we come to have a right and title to Justification and Salvation as appears Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life That Gospel Works are never excluded but are equally interested with faith in the matter of Justification will appear true beyond any good denyal by these two considerations First That faith that is said to justifie and does only so is a faith that worketh by love which is in other words to say 't is a faith that worketh by a sincere obedience and keeping all the Commands of God Secondly the promises of the Gospel are as well made and the rewards thereof equally annexed to our Gospel obedience as they are to our faith which plainly shews that faith and obedience are inseparably conjoyn'd in this matter and that faith is alwayes so to be understood as comprehensive thereof without it 't is dead is but a Karkass of faith and not such a living faith as the Gospel intends when it speaks of a justifying faith SECT IV. I Proceed to the third and last inquiry which is this How do we come to partake of the benefits of Justification before God and arrive at a justified estate To this the Scripture gives us a plain and ready Answer By peforming the Gospel-Condition For all the advantages that accrue to the world from Christs satisfaction are proposed conditionally to us and no man is actually justified till the condition be performed For whom he called them he justified And upon that account it is that we read in the New Testament of being justified by our faith of being justified by our words and works Gospel-faith and obedience being the condition required on our part to be performed and upon the performance of which we are justified and come to give up our account with joy at the great Judgement day men will be justified and condemned upon their performing or not performing the Gospel condition as we find by our Saviours own words Mat. 25. v. 35. That the Covenant of Grace is in the proposal of it conditional and that Christ with all his saving benefits is by the Gospel offered to us upon terms that we stand obliged personally to perform there needs no other proof then our Saviours own summary words about that matter He that believes shall be saved he that believes not shall be damned And we find Gen. 17. v. 1. When God first proposed the Covenant of Grace to Abraham he annexed sincere obedience to it as the condition of it Walk before me and be thou upright and I will make a Covenant with thee Nor do we find our Saviour ever encouraging any to come to him but upon the termes of taking his yoke and bearing his burden And indeed the Gospel is every where so express in this point and so very many Texts do affirm it that no man but one extreamly intoxicated with the phrenzy of Antinomianism can deny it and it were labour lost to prove it Now in regard the whole Conditionality of the Gospel is comprised in believing and in that one word Faith upon which account we are so often said to be justified by faith 'T is of great concern to arrive at the Scripture sense of this word and its intendment by it And to me it appears very evident That to be justified by faith in Scripture is generally taken to be Justified upon the terms of Christianity and the principles of the Gospel in opposition to Legal and Jewish Justification And by faith is comprehended whatever the Gospel requires of us in order to Justification The Gospel is stiled the Law of faith and whatever is required of us by it is called the obedience of faith Two Extreams are with great caution to be avoided in our conceptions of Gospel-faith First We must not on the one hand imagine that by faith and believing is meant only in the Gospel a bare Crediting of God and giving our assent to the Revelation of Jesus Christ and acquieseng therein For to be a Believer and to be a sincere practical Christian is all one in Scripture sense and When we are told that He that believeth shall be saved and are told in many other places by our Saviour and the Apostles that 't is those only that Obey him also and keep his commandments subduing their corrupt lusts and affections and working out their own salvation with fear and trembling that shall be saved and are generally told by the Gospel that without holiness no man shall see God 'T is a natural and necessary Inference that all that and whatever else is made conditionally necessary to a justified saving state and our continuance therein must be compriz'd in Faith and Believing Or else we shall make the Gospel not to be Correspondent with it self And indeed Faith is never spoke of in Scripture as bare believing and assenting in opposition to acting but as the grand principle of Action and so it is in it self The power of Belief is such that often it works physically and with great efficacy does it operate morally In the 11th to the Heb. the Apostle tells us All the great Actions of those noble Worthyes he mentions done before by faith God being not an object of sense since the world began Since Abels time the spring of all Religious and Godly actions has been faith But the world were never under the Law of faith till the Gospel was published That faith was nothing else and contained nothing farther then a bare Assent to the Revelation of the Gospel as true was that gross Delusion that led so many aside in the first publication of the Gospel Especiallly of St. Pauls Epistles For the Gnosticks and others unlearned and unstable as we find by Hegesyppus in Eusebius wrested the Scriptures and held That barely believing the truth of Christianity and professing it was enough without any thing farther done to save a man Against this it is That both St. John and St. James so fully