VOL. V. 20
306 ON JUSTIFICATION.
eousness of Christ unto us, which is the thing principally inquired after; but if nothing be required on our part unto justification but faith acted on Christ, as the ordinance of God for our recovery and salvation, it is the whole of what we plead for. A justification by the remission of sins alone, without a righteousness giving acceptance with God and a right unto the heavenly inheritance, is alien unto the Scripture and the common notion of justification amongst men. And what this righteousness must be, upon a supposition that faith only on our part is required unto a participation of it, is sufficiently declared in the words wherein Christ himself is so often asserted as the object of our faith unto that purpose.
Not to add more particular testimonies, which are multiplied unto the same purpose in this evangelist, the sum of the doctrine declared by him is, " That the Lord Jesus Christ was ' the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world;' that is, by the sacrifice of him- self, wherein he answered and fulfilled all the typical sacrifices of the law: that unto this end he sanctified himself, that those who believe might be sanctified, or perfected for ever, by his own offering of him- self: that in the gospel he is proposed as lifted up and crucified for us, as bearing all our sins in his body on the tree : that by faith in him we have adoption, justification, freedom from judgment and con- demnation, with a right and title unto eternal life : that those who believe not are condemned already, because they believe not on the Son of God ; and, as he elsewhere expresseth it, ' make God a liar,' in that they believe not his testimony, namely, that ' he hath given unto us eternal life, and that this life is in his Son.'" Nor doth he anywhere make mention of any other means, cause, or condition of justification on our part but faith only, though he aboundeth in pre- cepts unto believers for love, and keeping the commands of Christ. And this faith is the receiving of Christ in the sense newly declared ; and this is the substance of the Christian faith in this matter; which ofttimes we rather obscure than illustrate, by debating the considera- tion of any thing in our justification but the grace and love of God, the person and mediation of Christ, with faith in them.
CHAPTER XVIIL
The nature of justification as declared in the epistles of St Paul, in that unto the Romans esjaeclally. — Chap. iii. [iv. v. x. ; 1 Cor. i. 30 ; 2 Cor. v. 21 ; Gal. ii. IG; Eph. ii. S-IO; Phil. iii. 8, 9.]
That the way and manner of our justification before God, with all the causes and means of it, are designedly declared by the apostle
JUSTIFICATION AS DECLARED BY PAUL. 307
in the Epistle to the Romans, cliap. iii., iv., v., as also vindicated from objections, so as to render his discourse thereon the proper seat of this doctrine, and whence it is principally to be learned, cannot mo- destly be denied. The late exceptions of some, that this doctrine of justification by faith without works is found only in the writings of St Paul, and that his writings are obscure and intricate, are both false and scandalous to Christian religion, so as that, in this place, we shall not afford them the least consideration. He wrote i/to Yl\iihfj.arog ayiou pspo^scoe, — as he was " moved by the Holy Ghost." And as all the matter delivered by him was sacred truth, which im- mediately requires our faith and obedience, so the way and manner wherein he declared it was such as the Holy Ghost judged most ex- pedient for the edification of the church. And as he said himself with confidence, that if the gospel which he preached, and as it was preached by him, though accounted by them foolishness, was hid, so as that they could not understand nor comprehend the mystery of it, it was " hid unto them that are lost;" so we may say, that if what he delivereth in particular concemmg our justification before God seems obscure, difficult, or perplexed unto us, it is from our prejudices, corrupt affections, or weakness of understanding at best, not able to comprehend the glory of this mystery of the grace of God in Christ, and not from any defect in his way and manner of the revelation of it. Rejecting, therefore, all such perverse insinuations, in a due sense of our own weakness, and acknowledgment that at best we know but in part, we shall humbly inquire into the blessed revelation of this- great mystery of the justification of a sinner before God, as by him declared in those chapters of his glorious Epistle to the Romans; and I shall do it with all briefness possible, so as not, on this occa- sion, to repeat what hath been already spoken, or to anticipate what may be spoken in place more convenient.
The first thing he doth is to prove all men to be under sin, and to be guilty before God. This he giveth as the conclusion of his preceding discourse, from chap. i. 18, or what he had evidently evinced thereby, chap. iii. 19, 23. Hereon an inquiry doth arise, how any of them come to be justified before God? And whereas justification is a sentence upon the consideration of a righteousness, his grand in- quuy is, what that righteousness is, on the consideration whereof a man may be so justified? And concerning this, he afiirms expressly that it is not the righteousness of the law, nor of the works of it; Avhereby what he doth intend hath been in part before declared, and will be farther manifested in the process of our discourse. Where- fore, in general, he declares that the righteousness whereby we are justified is the righteousness of God, in opposition unto any righteous- ness of our own, chap. i. 1 7; in. 21, 22. And he describes this right-