284 ON JUSTIFICATION.
nance unto boasting, Rom. iv. 2, iii. 27; Eph. ii. 9; 1 Cor. i. 29-31. But this is done more by the good works of regenerate persons than by any works of unbelievers. (5.) The law required faith and love in all our works ; and therefore if all the works of the law be excluded, the best works of believers are so. (6.) All works are excluded which are opposed unto grace working freely in our justification; but this all works whatever are, Rom. xi. 6. (7.) In the Epistle unto the Gala- tians, the apostle doth exclude from our justification all those works which the false teachers pressed as necessary thereunto: but they urged the necessity of the works of believers, and those which were by grace already converted unto God; for those upon whom they pressed them unto this end were already actually so. (8.) They are good works that the apostle excludeth from our justification; for there can be no pretence of justification by those works that are not good, or which have not all things essentially requisite to make them so : but such are all the works of unbelievers performed without the aids of grace, — they are not good, nor as such accepted with God, but want what is essentially requisite unto the constitution of good works; and it is ridiculous to think that the apostle disputes about the ex- clusion of such works from our justification as no man in his wits would think to have any place therein. (9.) The reason why no man can be justified by the law, is because no man can yield perfect obe- dience thereunto ; for by perfect obedience the law will justify, Rom. ii. 13, X. 5. Wherefore, all works are excluded that are not absolutely perfect; but this the best works of believers are not, as we have proved before. (10.) If there be a reserve for the works of believers, performed by the aid of grace, in our justification, it is, that either they may be concauses thereof, or be indispensably subservient unto those things that are so. That they are concauses of our justification is not absolutely affirmed ; neither can it be said that they are neces- sarily subservient unto them that are so. They are not so unto the efficient cause thereof, which is the grace and favour of God alone, Rom. iii. 24, 25, iv. 16; Eph. ii. 8, 9; Rev. i. 5; — nor are they so unto the meritorious cause of it, which is Christ alone, Acts xiii. 38, xxvi, 18; 1 Cor. i. 30; 2 Cor. v. 18-21 ; — nor unto the material cause of it, which is the righteousness of Christ alone, Rom. x. 3, 4 ; — nor are they so unto faith, in what place soever it be stated ; for not only is faith only mentioned, wherever we are taught the way how the righteousness of Christ is derived and communicated unto us, without any intimation of the conjunction of works with it, but also, as unto our justification, they are placed in opposition and contradiction one to the other, Rom. iii. 28. And sundry other things are pleadable unto the same purpose.
7. Some affirm that the apostle excludes all works from our
WORKS EXCLUDED IN JUSTIFICATION. 285
first justification, but not from the second; or, as some speak, tlie continuation of our justification. Bat we have before examined these distinctions, and found them groundless.
Evident it is, therefore, that men put themselves into an uncertain, slippery station, where they know not what to fix upon, nor wherein to find any such appearance of truth as to give them countenance in denying the plain and frequently -repeated assertion of the apostle.
Wherefore, in the confirmation of the present argument, I shall more particularly inquire into what it is that the apostle intends by the law and works whereof he treats. For as unto our justification, whatever they are, they are absolutely and universally opposed unto jrrace, faith, the righteousness of God, and the blood of Christ, as those which are altogether inconsistent with them. Neither can this be denied or questioned by any, seeing it is the plain design of the apostle to evince that inconsistency.
1. Wherefore, in general, it is evident that the apostle, by the law and the works thereof, intended ivhat the Jeius tvith whom he had to do did understand by the law, and their oiun whole obedience there- unto. I suppose this cannot be denied; for without a concession of it there is nothing proved against them, nor are they in any thing instructed by him. Suppose those terms equivocal, and to be taken in one sense by him, and by them in another, and nothing can be rightly concluded from what is spoken of them. Wherefore, the meaning of these terms, " the law," and " works," the apostle takes for granted as very well known, and agreed on between himself and those with whom he had to do.
2. The Jews by " the law" intended what the Scriptures of the Old Testament meant by that expression ; for they are nowhere blamed for any false notion concerning the law, or that they esteemed any thing to be so but what was so indeed, and what was so called in the Scripture. Their present oral law was not yet hatched, though the Pharisees were brooding of it.