What respect, reader, wouldst thou have to that hand that should bring thee a pardon when on the ladder or block ? Why, such a pardon, which thou canst not read without tears of joy, is brought thee by the hand of faith. O inestimable grace ! This clothes the pure righteousness of Jesus upon our defiled souls, and so causes us to become the "righteousness of God in him," or as it is 1 John iii. 7. " Righteous as he is righteous :" Non formali 4* intrinsica justitia, sed relativa : Not with a formal inherent righte- ousness of our own, but with a relative imputed righteousness from another.
I know this most excellent and most comfortable doctrine of im- puted righteousness, is not only denied but derided by Papists. Stapleton calls it spectrum cerebri Lutherani : The monstrous birth of Luther's brain ! But, blessed be God, this comfortable truth is well secured against all attempts of its adversaries. Let their blas- phemous mouths call it in derision, as they do putative righteousness, i. e. a mere fancied or conceited righteousness : Yet we know as- suredly Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, and that in the way of faith. If Adam's sin became ours by imputation, then so doth Christ's righteousness also become ours by imputation, Rom. v. 17. If Christ were made a sinner by the imputation of our sins to him, who had no sin of his own, then we are made righteous by the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us, who have no righteousness of our own, according to 1 Cor. v. 21. This was the way in which Abraham, the father of them that be- lieve, was justified ; and therefore this is the way in which all be- lievers, the children of Abraham, must, in the like manner, be justified, Rom. iv. 22, 23, 24. Who can express the worth of faith in this one respect, were this all it did for our souls ?
But, Thirdly, It is the spring of our spiritual peace and joy : and that as it is the instrument of our justification. If it be an instru- ment of our justification, it cannot but be the spring of our conso- lation, Rom. v. 1. " Being justified by faith, we have peace with " God." In uniting us with Christ, and apprehending and apply- ing his righteousness to us, it becomes the seed or root of all the peace and joy of a Christian's life. Joy, the child of faith, there- fore bears its name, Phil. 1. 25. " The joy of faith." So 1 Pet. 1. 8, 9. " Believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable." We cannot forbear rejoicing when by faith we are brought to the sight and
118 THE METHOD OF GRACE. SERM. Vt,
knowledge of such a privileged state ; when faith hath first given and then cleared our title to Christ, joy is no more under the soul's command ; we cannot but rejoice, and that with joy un- speakable.
Fourthly, It is the means of our spiritual livelihood and subsist- ence : all other graces, like birds in the nest, depend upon what faith brings in to them ; take away faith, and all the graces lan- guish and die : joy, peace, hope, patience, and all the rest, depend upon faith, as the members of the natural body do upon the vessels by which blood and spirits are conveyed to them. " The life which " I now live (saith the apostle) is by the faith of the Son of God,1' Gal. ii. 20. It provides our ordinary food, and extraordinary cor- dials, Psal. xxvii. 13. " I had fainted, unless I had believed." And seeing it is all this to our souls,
Fifthly, In the last place, it is no wonder that it is the main scope and drift of the gospel, to press and bring souls to believing : it is the gospel's grand design to bring up the hearts of men and women to faith. The urgent commands of the gospel aim at this, 1 John iii. 23. Mark i. 14, 15. John xii. 36. Hither also look the great promises and encouragements of the gospel, John vi. 35, 37. So Mark xvi. 16. And the opposite sin of unbelief is every where fear- fully aggravated and threatened, John xvi. 8, 9. John iii. 18, 35. Ana1 this was the third thing promised, namely, a discovery of the transcendent worth and excellency of saving faith.
Fourthly, But lest we commit a mistake here, to the prejudice of Christ's honour and glory, which must not be given to another, no not to faith itself; I promised you in the fourth place, to shew you upon what account faith is thus dignified and honoured ; that so we may give xm\.o faith the things that are faith's, and to Christ the things that are Christ's.
And I find four opinions about the interest of faith in our justi- fication : some will have it to justify us formaVy, not relatively : i. e. upon the account of his own intrinsical value and worth ; and this is the popish sense of justification by faith. Some affirm, that though faith be not our perfect legal righteousness, considered as a work of ours, yet the act of believing is imputed to us for righte- ousness, i. e. God graciously accepts it instead of perfect legal righteousness, and so, in his esteem, it is our evangelical righte- ousness. And this is the Arminian sense of justification by faith.
Some there are also, even among our reformed divines, that contend that faith justifies and saves us, as it is the condition of the new covenant. And lastly, others will have it to justify us as an instrument apprehending or receiving the righteousness of Christ; with which opinion I must close. When I consider my text calls it a receiving of Christ Most certain it is,
SERM. VI. THE METHOD OF GRACE. 119
That, First, It doth not justify in the popish sense, upon the ac- count of its own proper worth and dignity : for then,
First, Justification should be of debt, not of grace ; contrary to Rom. iii. 23, 24.
Secondly, This would frustrate the very scope and end of the death of Christ ; for if righteousness come by the law, i. e. by the way of works and desert, then is Christ dead in vain, Gal. ii. 21.
Thirdly, Then the way of our justification by faith would be so far from excluding, that it would establish boasting, expressly con- trary to the apostle, Rom. iii. 26, 27.
Fourthly, Then there should be no defects or imperfections in faith, for a defective or imperfect thing can never be the matter of our justification before God: if it justify upon the account of its own worth and proper dignity, it can have no flaw or imperfection in it, contrary to the common sense of all believers. Nay,
Fifthly, Then it is the same thing to be justified by faith, and to be justified by works, which the apostle so carefully distinguisheth and opposeth, Phil. iii. 9. and Rom. iv. 6. So that we conclude it doth not justify in the Popish sense, for any worth or proper ex- cellency that is in itself.