THE CONTINUANCE OF JUSTIFICATION. 151
gives unto us justifying grace, and thereby the remission of sin, in their sense; whence they allow it [to be] the meritorious cause of our justi- fication. But on a supposition thereof, or the reception of that grace, we are continued to be justified before God by the works we perform by virtue of that grace received. And though some of them rise so high as to afiirm that this grace and the works of it need no farther respect unto the rigliteousness of Christ, to deserve our second justi- fication and life eternal^ as doth Vasquez expressly, in 1, 2, q. 114, disp. 222, cap. 3; yet many of them affirm that it is still from the consideration of the merit of Christ that they are so meritorious. And the same, for the substance of it, is the judgment of some of them who afiirm the continuation of our justification to depend on our own works, setting aside that ambiguous term of merit; for it is on the account of the righteousness of Christ, they say, that our own works, or imperfect obedience, is so accepted with God, as that the continuation of our justification depends thereon. But the apostle gives us another account hereof, Rom. v. 1-3; for he distinguisheth three things: — 1. Our access into the grace of God. 2. Our standirig in that grace. 3. Our glorying in that station against all opposition. By the first he expresseth ovir absolute justification ; by the second, our continuation in the state whereinto we are admitted thereby ; and by the third, the assurance of that continuation, notwithstand- ing all the oppositions we meet withal. And all these he ascribeth equally unto faith, without the intermixture of any other cause or condition; and other places express to the same purpose might be pleaded.
odly. The examples of them that did believe, and were justified, which are recorded in the Scripture, do all bear witness unto the same truth. The continuation of the justification of Abraham before God is declared to have been by faith only, Rom. iv. 3; for the instance of his justification, given by the apostle from Gen. xv. 6, was long after he was justified absolutely. And if our first justification, and the contmuation of it, did not depend absolutely on the same cause, the instance of the one could not be produced for a proof of the way and means of the other, as here they are. And David, when a justified believer, not only placeth the blessedness of man in the free remission of sins, in opposition unto his own works in general, Rom. iv. 6, 7, but, in his own particular case, ascribeth the continua- tion of his justification and acceptation before God unto grace, mercy, diudi forgiveness alone; which are no otherwise received but by faith, Ps. cxxx. 3-5, cxliii. 2. All other works and duties of obe- dience do accompany faith in the continuation of our justified estate, as necessary effects and fruits of it, but not as causes, means, or condi- tions, whereon that effect is suspended. It is patient waiting hy
] 52 ON JUSTIFICATION.
faith that brings in the full accomplishment of the promises, Heb. vi. 12, 15. Wherefore, there is but one justification, and that of one kind only, wherein we are concerned in this disputation, — the Scripture makes mention of no more ; and that is the justification of an ungodly person by faith. Nor shall we admit of the considera- tion of any other. For if there be a second justification, it must be of the same kind with the first, or of another; — if it be of the same kind, then the same person is often justified with the same kind of justification, or at least more than once ; and so on just reason ought to be often baptized ; — if it be not of the same kind, then the same person is justified before God with two sorts of justification; of both which the Scripture is utterly silent. And [so] the continuation of our justification depends solely on the same causes with our justification itself.
CHAPTER VI.
Evangelical personal righteousness, the nature and use of it — Final judgment, and its respect unto justification.
The things which we have discoursed concerning the fii^st and second justification, and concerning the continuation of justification, have no other design but only to clear the principal subject whereof we treat from what doth not necessarily belong unto it. For until all things that are either really heterogeneous or otherwise superfluous are separated from it, we cannot understand aright the true state of the question about the nature and causes of our justification before God. For we intend one justification only, — namely, that whereby God at once freely by his grace justifieth a convinced sinner through faith in the blood of Christ. Whatever else any will be pleased to call justification, we are not concerned in it, nor are the consciences of them that believe. To the same purpose we must, therefore, briefly also consider what is usually disputed about our own personal right- eousness, with a justification thereon; as also what is called sentential justification at the day of judgment. And I shall treat no farther of them in this place, but only as it is necessary to free the principal subject under consideration from being intermixed with them, as really it is not concerned in them. For what influence our own 2)ersonal righteousness hath into our justification before God will be afterward particularly examined. Here we shall only consider such a notion of it as seems to interfere with it, and disturb the right un- derstanding of it. But yet I say concerning this also, that it rather