For redemption, that is to say, absolute and plenary deliverance from all the sad remains, effects, and consequences of sin, both upon soul and body ; this is made ours, (or, to keep to the terms) Christ is made redemption to us by glorification ; then, and not be- fore, are these miserable effects removed ; we put off these together with the body. So that look, as justification cures the guilt of sin, and sanctification, the dominion of sin, so glorification removes, to- gether with its existence and being, all those miseries which it let in (as at a flood-gate) upon our whole man, Eph. v. 26, 27.
And thus of God, Christ is made unto us *f* wisdom and righ-
* Non farmali intrinsica juslitia, ted relation ; non quoad quant itakm sed verikUem ,• fit enim Jinita ajnilicatio infinite JustUiee ; si a liter, acquejusd essemus ut Ckristus, at von : juxtitia Christi fa nostra, non quoad vnioersalem va/~»rm, sal particularcm necesiitatern ; et imputatur nobis, nonut causis salvationis, sed vt subjectis talvandu. Uradsli. de Ju^tilicat.
f But it is said he is made unto us, wisdom, righteousntss, sanctification, and redemption, therefore any worth or merit in us is excluded. Whence it likewise fol- lows, that we were foolish, unrighteous, unholv, ami slaves of the devil.
26 THE METHOD OF GRACE. SEEM, t.
teousness, sanctification and redemption; namely, by imputation, regeneration, and glorification.
I shall next improve the point in some useful inferences.
Inference 1. Learn from hence, what a naked, destitute, and empty thing, a poor sinner is, in his natural unregenerate state.
He is one that naturally and inherently hath neither wisdom, nor righteousness, sanctification nor redemption; all these must come from without himself, even from Christ, who is made all this to a sinner, or else he must eternally perish.
As no creature (in respect of external abilities) comes under more natural weakness into the world than man, naked, empty, and more shiftless and helpless than any other creature ; so it is with his soul, yea, much more than so : all our excellencies are borrowed ex- cellencies, no reason therefore to be proud of any of them, 1 Cor. iv. 7. " What hast thou that thou hast not received ? Now, if thou " didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not re- " ceived it ?" q. d. What intolerable insolence and vanity would it be for a man that wears the rich and costly robe of Christ's righ- teousness, in which there is not one thread of his own spinning, but all made by free-grace, and not by free-will, to jet proudly up and down the world in it, as if himself had made it, and he were beholden to none for it ? O man ! thine excellencies, whatever they are, are borrowed from Christ, they oblige thee to him, but he can be no more obliged to thee, who wearest them, than the sun is obliged to him that borrows its light, or the fountain to him that draws its water for his use and benefit.
And it hath ever been the care of holy men, when they have viewed their own gracious principles, or best performances, still to disclaim themselves, and own free-grace as the sole author of all. Thus holy Paul, viewing the principles of divine life in himself, (the richest gift bestowed upon man in this world by Jesus Christ) how doth he renounce himself, and deny the least part of the praise and glory as belonging to him, Gal. ii. 20. " Now I live, " yet not I ; but Christ liveth in me :*" and so for the best duties that ever he performed for God : (and what mere man ever did more for God ?) Yet when, in a just and necessary defence, he was constrained to mention them, 1 Cor. xv. 10. how carefully is the like [Yet not I] presently added? " I laboured more abundantly " than they all ; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with " me."
Well then, let the sense of your own emptiness by nature hum- ble and oblige you the more to Christ, from whom you receive all you have.
Infer. 2. Hence we are informed, that none can claim benefit by imputed righteousness, but those only that live in the power of in-
5ERM. I. THE METHOD OF Git ACE. 27
herent holiness ; to whomsoever Christ is made righteousness, to him lie also is made sanctification.
The gospel hath not the least favour for licentiousness. It is every way as careful to press men to their duties as to instruct them in their privileges, Tit. iii. 8. " This is a faithful saying; and these " tilings I will that ye affirm constantly ; that they which have be- " lieved in God, might be careful to maintain good works." It is a loose principle, divulged by libertines, to the reproach of Christ and his gospel, that sanctification is not the evidence of our justifi- cation. And Christ is as much wronged by them who separate ho- liness from righteousness (as if a sensual vile life were consistent with a justified state) as he is in the contrary extreme* by those who confound Christ's righteousness with man's holiness, in the point of justification ; or that own no other righteousness, but what is inherent in themselves. The former opinion makes him a cloak for sin, the latter a needless sacrifice for sin.
It is true, our sanctification cannot justify us before God ; but what then, can it not evidence our justification before men? Is there no necessity, or use for holiness, because it hath no hand in our justification? Is the preparation of the soul for heaven, by altering its frame and temper, nothing ? Is the glorifying of our Redeemer, by the exercises of grace in the world, nothing ? Doth the work of Christ render the work of the Spirit needless ? God forbid : " He came not by blood only, but by water also," 1 John v. 6. And when the apostle saith, in Rom. iv. 5. " But unto " him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the " ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness :" the scope of it is neither to characterize and describe the justified per- son, as one that is lazy and slothful, and hath no mind to work, nor the rebellious and refractory, refusing obedience to the commands of God ; but to represent him as an humbled sinner, who is con- vinced ol his inability to work out his own righteousness by the law, and sees all his endeavours to obey the law fall short of righ- teousness, and therefore is said, in a law-sense, not to work, because he doth not work so as to answer the purpose and end of the law, which accepts of nothing beneath perfect obedience.
And when (in the same text) the ungodly are said to be justified, that character describes not the temper and frame of their hearts and lives, after their justification, but what it was before; not as it leaves, but as it found them *.
Infer. 3. How unreasonable, and worse than brutish, is the sin of infidelity, by which the sinner rejects Christ, and with him all those mercies, and benefits, which alone can relieve and cure his misery !
» God justifies the ungodly antecedently not consequently. Par.
28 THE METHOD OF GRACE. SERM. I*