12 ON JUSTIFICATION.
ance unto the revelation made hereof in the Scripture, and an exami- nation of our own experience thereby, is the sum of what is required of us for the right understanding of the truth herein. And eveiy true behever, who is taught of God, knows how to put his whole trust in Christ alone, and the grace of God by him, for mercy, righteous- ness, and glory, and not at all concern himself with those loads of thorns and briers, which, under the names of definitions, distmctions, accurate notions, in a number of exotic pedagogical and philosophical terms, some pretend to accommodate them withal.
10. The Holy Ghost, in expressing the most eminent acts in our justification, especially as unto our believing, or the acting of that faith whereby we are justified, is pleased to make use of many meta- phorical expressions. For any to use them now in the same way, and to the same purpose, is esteemed rude, undisciplinary, and even ridiculous ; but on what grounds ? He that shall deny that there is more spiritual sense and experience conveyed by them into the hearts and minds of believers (which is the life and soul of teaching things practical), than in the most accurate philosophical expressions, is him- self really ignorant of the whole truth in this matter. The propriety of such expressions belongs and is confined unto natural science ; but spiritual truths are to be taught, "not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." God is wiser than man; and the Holy Ghost knows better what are the most expedient ways for the illumination of our minds with that knowledo-e of evangelical truths which it is our duty to have and attain, than the wisest of us all. And other knowledge of or skill in these things, than what is required of us in a way of duty, is not to be valued.
It is, therefore, to no purpose to handle the mysteries of the gospel as if Hilcot and Bricot, Thomas and Gabriel, with all the Senten- tiarists,^ Summists, and Quodlibetarians of the old Roman peripatetical school, were to be raked out of their graves to be our guides. Espe- cially will they be of no use unto us in this doctrine of justification. For whereas they pertinaciously adhered unto the philosophy of Aristotle, who knew nothing of any righteousness but what is a habit inherent in ourselves, and the acts of it, they wrested the whole doctrine of justification unto a compliance therewithal. So Pighius^ himself complained of them, Controv. 2, " Dissimulare non possumus, banc vel primam doctrinse Christianse partem (de justificatione) ob-
' Sententiarii were scholastic theologians, who commented on the sentences of Lombard. See vol. i. p. 224. Sumnui Theologiai, was the scholastic terra for a system of divinity.
2 There were two writers, uncle and nephew, of the same name, Pighi, and botli born at Campen, in the Dutch province of Overyssel. The uncle (1490-1542) wrote in defence of the Romish hierarchy. — Ed.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 13
scuratam magis quam illustratam a scholasticis, spinosis plerisque qusestionibus, et definitionibus, secundum quas nonnulli magno super- cilio priinam in omnibus autoritatem arrogantes," etc.
Secondly, A due consideration of him with ivhom in this matter we have to do, and that immediately, is necessary unto a right stating of our thoughts about it. The Scripture expresseth it emphatically, that it is " God that justifieth," Rom. viii. 33 ; and he assumes it unto himself as his prerogative to do what belongs thereunto. " I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins," Isa. xliii. 25. And it is hard, in my ap- prehension, to suggest unto him any other reason or consideration of the pardon of our sins, seeing he hath taken it on him to do it for his own sake; that is, " for the Lord's sake," Dan. ix. 17, in whom " all the seed of Israel are justified," Isa. xlv. 25. In his sight, before his tribunal, it is that men are justified or condemned. Ps. cxliii. 2, " Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." And the whole work of justification, with all that belongeth thereunto, is represented after the manner of a juridical proceeding before God's tribunal; as we shall see. afterward. " Therefore," saith the apostle, " by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight," Rom. iii. 20. However any man be justi- fied in the sight of men or angels by his own obedience, or deeds of the law, yet in his sight none can be so.
Necessary it is unto any man who is to come unto a trial, in the sentence whereof he is greatly concerned, duly to consider the judge before whom he is to appear, and by whom his cause is finally to be determined. And if we manage our disputes about justification without a continual regard unto him by whom we must be cast or acquitted, we shall not rightly ajjprehend what our plea ought to be. Wherefore the greatness, the majesty, the holiness, and sovereign authority of God, are always to be present with us in a due sense of them, when we inquire how we may be justified before him. Yet is it hard to discern how the minds of some men are influenced by the consideration of these tilings, in their fierce contests for the interest of their own works in their justification: "Precibus aut pretio ut in aliqua parte hsereant." But the Scripture doth represent unto us what thoughts of him and of themselves, not only sinners, but saints also, have had, and cannot but have, upon near discoveries and effec- tual conceptions of God and his greatness. Thoughts hereof ensuing on a sense of the guilt of sin, filled our first parents with fear and shame, and put them on that foolish attempt of hiding themselves from him. Nor is the wisdom of their posterity one jot better under their convictions, without a disco veiy of the promise. That alone makes sinners wise which tenders them relief. At present, the