must be perfect, and continued from the beginning of his life to the end. An incomplete obedience will not suit the language here used by the Spirit. 2. He treats concerning an obedience, which imports universal conformity to the law, not only with respect to the penal sanction, but also, and indeed chiefly, with respect to observing its precepts. 3. He treats of what is called, v. 17. the "gift of righteousness," which cannot be applied to the sufferings of Christ. 4. He speaks of an obedience which is opposed to the disobedience of Adam; and as the disobedience of Adam was a violation of the whole law, so the obedience of Christ must be a fulfilment of the whole law. 5. Of an obedience which was due from us both as to precept, and penalty. It will be of no avail to object, “that the obedience is nothing else than the one righteousness mentioned verse 18, and which is said to be to justification of life, and that the condemnation of sin under which we have fallen arose from one sinful act of Adam." The righteousness spoken of here does not intend one act of righteousness; it denotes a righteousness effected by a complete and perfect obedience, -a fulfilment of all righteousness. Nor, though the offence came upon all from one sin, can the righteousness be derived to all from one act; because the least failure in performing the demands of the law is sin: whereas goodness requires a perfect course, righteousness requires the fulfilment of the whole law. The obedience of Christ is said to have been even to death, in which not only its intensity as to degree is expressed an intensity the greatest which can be rendered by any one; but also its extension and duration, from the beginning of his life to its end. This appears from his obe. dience being referred to the whole of his humiliation, which appeared not in his death only, but in his whole life. In other portions of scripture, the obedience of Christ is described by the writing of the law in his heart,† and his active observance of it. Again it is spoken of as a race which Christ had to run,* and as a work which he had to perform. These were not to be performed by one act, but by a constant tenor of obedience through his whole life. It behoved Christ to be made in the likeness of sinful flesh, that he might supply what the law could not do, in that it was weak, and fulfil the claims of the law in us. This weakness of the law is not to be understood subjectively, as if it were in the law, but objectively, as in the sinner, in relation to the law; on account of his inability to perform any of the duties which it commands. This law is said to be weak, not in relation to the infliction of punishment, but as to the observation of its precepts. Christ, therefore, by supplying what the law could not do in us, must fulfil all the law demanded of us, and work out what the apostle calls "righteousness," or the rights of the law, without doubt a right to life, obtained by doing what the law commands. This required not only a passive, but also an active obedience. For seeing the law and commands of God are the same, punishments cannot be said to fulfil the law, or, which is the same thing, its commands. They satisfy it as to its denunciations only. Who would say that a malefactor, who had been capitally punished for his crimes, had obeyed the king or the law? To act agreeably to law is a good and praiseworthy thing, which cannot be asserted respecting the suffering of punishment, per se, unless it will be asserted, that he is to be applauded who suffers the punishments of hell. We argue, in favour of extending the atonement to the active obedience of Christ, from his being bound to all that the law required of us, in order to acquire a title to life; to which obedience of life was no less requisite than the suffering of death; because the sinful creature is bound to both these, and both were necessary to the obtaining of pardon, and a right to life. In the law, life is not promised to him who suffers its penalties, but to him who performs * Heb. xii. 1. † John xvii. 4. the duties which it enjoins. "Do this and thou shalt live." Hence, to undergo the penalty by dying, was not sufficient, without the obeying of the precepts. Let it not here be objected, "that there is a difference between evangelical and legal justification,-that in the latter a perfect obedience to the law is requisite, but not in the former." The difference of our justification now, under the gospel, from that under the covenant of works, is not placed in the thing itself, but in the manner in which we obtain it. Justification, whether legal, or evangelical, must be founded on a righteousness, perfect, absolutely perfect, in all its parts,-a righteousness which shall comply with all the conditions that the law imposes for the purpose of obtaining eternal life-a righteousness, which shall answer to the eternal and immutable claims of God upon the creature. These were conditions, these were qualities in that righteousness, by which we were to be justified, that could not be dispensed with even in Christ; "for he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it."* Our justification is indeed an evangelical justification, and comes to us in a different manner. What the law demanded of us as a perfect righteousness to be wrought out in our own persons, has been wrought by another, even by Christ, in our stead. We infer, that the active obedience of Christ is comprehended in that atonement which he made for sin, from the atonement's being founded in his righteousness, as appears from various passages of scripture. Whence justification is said to be effected by the imputation of righteousness. And the righteousness of Christ does not consist in his suffering, but in his doing. This righteousness of the law is not obtained by suffering, but by doing, even as the sentence of condemnation is pronounced for sinning. Christ testifies, that it "became him to fulfil all righteousness,"§ by doing in every thing the will of his Father; and Paul says, Matt. v. 17. and Rom. iii. 31. † Rom. i. 17. and iii. 21. and viii. 18. Phil. iii. 2. Dan. ii. 24. "that Christ was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."* By which it is to be understood, that, as those sins which violated the law, were imputed to Christ, so his righteous actions, by which he fulfilled the law, are imputed to us for a justifying righteous ness. The same doctrine is established from 1 Cor. i. 13.; where it is said, that "Christ is not divided." Hence, we infer that his righteousness is not to be divided, but as a whole, and unique inheritance, it is to be bestowed on us. The paschal lamb was to be eaten whole; and, in like manner, Christ, who was typically represented by that lamb, is to be received by us in all his mediatorial fulness, both as to what he did and suffered. This view of the subject attributes greater glory to Christ, and presents richer fountains of consolation. This consolation is greatly diminished by those who take away from the price of our redemption a part of his perfect righteousness, and most holy obedience, and thus rend his seamless coat, We shall now proceed to the removal of objections. If our redemption and salvation are attributed to the death and blood of Christ, this is not done to the exclusion of the obedience of his life; for such a restriction is no where mentioned in scripture. On the contrary, the work of man's salvation, is, in many places, as shewn above, attributed to the obedience and righteousness of Christ. When the death or blood of Christ is mentioned alone, and our redemption ascribed to it, this is done by a synechdoche, a figure, which puts a part for the whole. The reason is, that his death was the lowest degree of his humiliation, and the completion of his obedience, that which supposes all the other parts, and without which they would have been of no avail. No righteousness merits any thing unless it is persevered in to the last breath; a payment is never perfectly made, until the last farthing is paid, and the bond cancelled. Though the apostle Paul attributes the glorification of * 2 Cor. v. 21. † Rom. xvi. 7. the saints to the remission of sin which flows from the blood of Christ, yet it does not follow from this, that all our righteousness, and the whole of the satisfaction made by Christ, are founded in his passion. Because the apostle does not argue from the pardon of sin's being precisely equivalent to glorification, and its proceeding precisely from the same thing in the atonement, but from the indissoluble connection among the blessings of the new covenant, a connection so intimate, that every one who obtains pardon of sin, necessarily and immediately obtains a right to life, and becomes an heir of the kingdom of heaven. In the same way Paul treats of love to our neighbour, and the fulfilling of the whole law, as the same thing;* because when love to our neighbour exists, all the other duties of the law will necessarily be performed. Though each obedience of Christ, as well that of his life as of his death, was perfect in its kind, yet neither of them alone was a sufficient satisfaction, which required the observance of precepts as well as the suffering of punishments, that liberation from death, and a right to life might be procured. One does not exclude the other, nay, they mutually embrace each other. What one person owes for himself, he cannot pay for another, if he be a private person. But nothing prevents such a payment, when the person is a public character, who may act both in his own name, and in the name of those whom he represents. He who pays what he owes for himself, cannot by the same thing make a payment for others, unless he has voluntarily made himself a debtor for them, in which case he can. For, although he may be a debtor, yet this character arises from his own voluntary act, the debt which he has to pay for himself, is a debt, which, were it not for his own voluntary deed, he is not bound to pay, and hence, while he is paying for himself, he may, by the same act, pay for another. So Christ, who became man, not for his own sake, but for our sakes, was under no obligation to * Gal. v. 14. |