Sixthly, We can never state our thoughts aright in this matter, unless we have a clear apprehension of, and satisfaction in, the intro- duction of grace hy Jesus Christ into the whole of our relation unto God, with its respect unto all par^ts of our obedience. There was no such thing, nothing of that nature or kind, in the first constitution of that relation and obedience by the law of our creation. We were made in a state of immediate relation unto God in our own persons, as our creator, jareserver, and re warder. There was no mystery of grace in the covenant of works. No more was required unto the consummation of that state but what was given us in our creation, enabling us unto rewardable obedience. " Do this, and live," was the sole rule of our relation unto God. There was nothing in religion
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 45
originally of that which the gospel celebrates under the name of the gi'ace, kindness, and love of God, whence all our favourable relation unto God doth now proceed, and whereinto it is resolved ; nothing of the interposition of a mediator with respect unto our righteousness before God, and acceptance with hiin; — which is at present the life and soul of religion, the substance of the gospel, and the centre of all the truths revealed in it. The introduction of these things is that which makes our religion a mystery, yea, a " great mystery," if the apostle may be believed, 1 Tim. iii. 16. All religion at first was suited and commensurable unto reason; but being now become a mystery, men for the most part are very unwilling to receive it. But so it must be ; and unless we are restored unto our primitive rectitude, a religion suited unto the principles of our reason (of which it hath none but what answer that first state) will not serve our turns.
Wherefore, of this introduction of Christ and grace in him into our relation unto God, there are no notions in the natural concep- tions of our minds; nor are they discoverable by reason in the best and utmost of its exercise, 1 Cor. ii. 14 For before our understand- ings were darkened, and our reason debased by the fall, there were no such things revealed or proposed unto us; yea, the supposition of them is inconsistent with, and contradictory unto, that whole state and condition Avherein we were to live to God, — seeing they all sup- pose the entrance of sin. And it is not likely that our reason, as now corrupted, should be willing to embrace that which it knew nothing of in its best condition, and wdiich was inconsistent with that Avay of attaining happiness Avhich was absolutely suited unto it : for it hath no faculty or power but what it hath derived from that state; and to suppose it is now of itself suited and ready to embrace such heavenly mysteries of truth and grace as it had no notions of, nor could have, in the state of innocency, is to suppose that by the fall our eyes were opened to know good and evil, in the sense that the serpent deceived our first parents with an expectation of. Whereas, therefore, our reason was given us for our only guide in the first con- stitution of our natures, it is naturally unready to receive what is above it ; and, as corrupted, hath an enmity thereunto.
Hence, in the first open proposal of this mystery, — namely, of the love and grace of God in Christ, of the introduction of a mediator and his righteousness into our relation unto God, in that way which God in infinite wisdom had designed, — the whole of it was looked on as mere folly by the generality of the wise and rational men of the world, as the apostle declares at large, 1 Cor. i. ; neither was the faith of them ever really received in the world without an act of the Holy Ghost upon the mind in its renovation. And those who judge that there is nothing more needful to enable the mind of man to
46 ON JUSTIFICATION.
receive the mysteries of the gospel in a due manner but the outward proposal of the doctrine thereof, do not only deny the depravation of our nature by the fall, but, by just consequence, wholly renounce that grace whereby we are to be recovered. Wherefore, reason (as hath been elsewhere proved), acting on and by its own innate principles and abilities, conveyed unto it from its original state, and as now corrupted, is repugnant unto the whole introduction of grace by Christ into our relation unto God, Rom. viii. 7. An endeavour, therefore, to reduce the doctrine of the gospel, or what is declared therein concerning the hidden mystery of the grace of God in Cln'ist, unto the principles and inclinations of the minds of men, or reason as it remains in us after the entrance of sin, — under the power, at least, of those notions and conceptions of things religious which it retains from its first state and condition, — is to debase and corrupt them (as we shall see in sundry instances), and so make way for their rejec- tion.
Hence, very difficult it is to keep up doctrinally and 'practically the minds of men unto the reality and sjairitual height of this mys- tery; for men naturally do neither understand it nor like it: and therefore, every attempt to accommodate it unto the principles and inbred notions of corrupt reason is very acceptable unto many, yea, unto the most; for the things which such men speak and declare, are, without more ado, — without any exercise oi faith ox prayer, with- out any supernatural illumination, — easily intelligible, and exposed to the common sense of mankind. But whereas a declaration of the mysteries of the gospel can obtain no admission into the minds of men but by the effectual working of the Spirit of God, Eph. i. 17-19, it is generally looked on as difficult, perplexed, unintelligible; and even the minds of many, who find they cannot contradict it, are yet not at all delighted with it. And here lieth the advantage of all them who, in these days, do attempt to corrupt the doctrine of the gospel, in the whole or any part of it; for the accommodation of it unto the common notions of corrupted reason is the whole of what they design. And in the confidence of the suffrage hereof, they not only oppose the things themselves, but despise the declaration of them as enthusiastical cantinrj. And by nothing do they more pre- vail themselves than by a pretence of reducing all things to reason, and contempt of Avhat they oppose, as xmmie\\\g^h\e fanaticism. But I am not more satisfied in any thing of the most uncontrollable evi- dence, than that the understandings of these men are no just measure or standard of spiritual truth. Wherefore, notwithstanding all this fierceness of scorn, with the pretended advantages which some think they have made by traducing expressions in the writings of some men, it may be improper, it may be only not suited unto their own genius