and capacity as he pleases; he makes whom he pleases the foot, and whom he pleases the hand, and whom he pleases the lungs, &c. 1 Cor. xii. 18. "God hath set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him." And God efficaciously determines the place and capacity of every member, by the different degrees of grace and assistance in the improvement of it here in this world: Those that he intends for the highest place in the body, he gives them most of his Spirit, the greatest share of the divine nature, the Spirit and nature of Christ Jesus the head, and that assistance whereby they perform the most excellent works, and do most abound in them.

Object. 4. It may be objected against what has been supposed, viz. That rewards are given to our good works, only in consequence of an interest in Christ, or in testimony of God's respect to the excellency or value of them in his sight, as built on an interest in Christ's righteousness already obtained: That the Scripture speaks of an interest in Christ itself, as being given out of respect to our moral fitness. Matth. x. 37.....39. "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me: He that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me: He that taketh not up his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it," &c. Worthiness here, at least signifies a moral fitness, or an excellency or virtue that recommends : And this place seems to intimate as though it were from res pect to a moral fitness that men are admitted even to an union with Christ, and interest in him; and therefore this worthiness cannot be consequent on being in Christ, and by the imputation of his worthiness, or from any value that is in us, or in our actions in God's sight, as beheld in Christ.

To this I answer, That though persons when they are accepted, are not accepted as worthy, yet when they are rejected they are rejected as unworthy. He that does not love Christ above other things, that treats him with such indignity, as to set him below earthly things, shall be treated as unworthy of Christ; his unworthiness of Christ, especially in that particular, shall be marked against him, and

Imputed to him: And though he be a professing Christian, and live in the enjoyment of the gospel, and has been visibly ingrafted into Christ, and admitted as one of his disciples, as Judas was; yet he shall be thrust out in wrath, as a punishment of his vile treatment of Christ. The forementioned words do not imply, that if a man does love Christ above father and mother, &c. That he should be worthy; the most they imply is, that such a visible Christian shall be treated and thrust out as unworthy. He that believes is not received for the worthiness or moral fitness of faith; but yet the visible Christian is cast out by God, for the unworthiness and moral unfitness of unbelief. A being accepted as one of Christ's, is not the reward of believing; but being thrust out from being one of Christ's disciples, after a visible admission as such, is properly a punishment of unbelief. John iii. 18, 19. He that believeth on him, is not condemned; but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Salvation is promised to faith as a free gift, but damnation is threatened to unbelief as a debt, or punishment due to unbelief./ They that believed in the wilderness did not enter into Canaan, because of the worthiness of their faith; but God sware in his wrath, that they that believed not should not enter in, because of the unworthiness of their unbelief. The admitting a soul to an union with Christ is an act of free and sovereign. grace; but an excluding at death, and at the day of judgment, those professors of Christianity that have had the offers of a Saviour and enjoyed great privileges as God's people, is a judicial proceeding, and a just punishment of their unworthy treatment of Christ. The design of this saying of Christ is to make men sensible of the unworthiness of their treatment of Christ, that professed him to be their Lord and Saviour, and set him below father and mother, &c. and not to persuade of the worthiness of loving him above father and mother. If a beggar should be offered any great and precious gift, but as soon as offered, should trample it under his feet, it might be

taken from him, as unworthy to have it: Or if a malefactor should have his pardon offered him, that he might be freed from execution, and should only scoff at it, his pardon might be refused him, as unworthy of it; though if he had received it, he would not have had it for his worthiness, or as being recommended to it by his virtue; for his being a male factor supposes him unworthy, and its being offered him to have it only on accepting, supposes that the king looks for no worthiness, nothing in him for which he should bestow pardon as a reward. This may teach us how to understand Acts xiii. 46. "It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken unto you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo we turn to the Gentiles. "

Object. 5. It is objected against the doctrine of justification by faith alone, That repentance is evidently spoken of in Scripture as that which is in a special manner the condition of remission of sins: But remission of sins is by all allowed to be that wherein justification does (at least) in great part consist.

But it must certainly arise from a misunderstanding of what the Scripture says about repentance, to suppose that faith and repentance are two distinct things, that in like manner are the conditions of justification. For it is most plain from the Scripture, that the condition of justification, or that in us by which we are justified, is but one, and that is faith. Faith and repentance are not two distinct conditions of justification, nor are they two distinct things that together make one condition of justification; but faith comprehends the whole of that by which we are justified, or by which we come to have an interest in Christ, and nothing else has a parallel concern with it in the affair of our salvation. And this the divines on the other side themselves are sensible of, and therefore they suppose that that faith that the Apostle Paul speaks of, which he says we are justified by alone, comprehends in it repentance.

And therefore, in answer to the objection, I would say, That when repentance is spoken of in scripture as the condition of pardon, thereby is not intended any particular grace, or

act properly distinct from faith, that has a parallel influence with it in the affair of our pardon or justification; but by repentance is intended nothing distinct from active conversion, (or conversion actively considered) as it respects the term from which. Active conversion is a motion or exercise of that mind that respects two terms, viz. sin and God: And by repentance is meant this conversion, or active change of the mind, so far as it is conversant about the term from which, or about sin. This is what the word repentance properly signifies; which, in the original of the New Testament, is μɛravata which signifies a change of the mind, or which is the same thing, the turning or the conversion of the mind. Repentance is this turning, as it respects what is turned from. Acts xxvi. 20. "Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I shewed unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, and turn to God." Both these are the same turning, but only with respect to opposite terms: In the former, is expressed the exercise of mind that there is about sin in this turning; in the other, the exercise of mind towards God.

If we look over the scriptures that speak of evangelical repentance, we shall presently see that repentance is to be understood in this sense; as Matth. ix. 13. "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Luke xiii. 3. "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." And chap. xv. 7, 10. “There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth," i. e. over one sinner that is converted. Acts xi. 18. "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." This is said by the Christians of the circumci sion at Jerusalem, upon Peter's giving an account of the conversion of Cornelius and his family, and their embracing the gospel, though Peter had said nothing expressly about their sorrow for sin. And again, Acts xvii. 30. "But now commandeth all men every where to repent."

*

And Luke

xvi. 30. "Nay, father Abraham, but if one went to them from the dead they would repent." 2 Pet. iii. 9. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to usward, not willing that any VOL. VII.

should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It is plain that in these and other places, by repentance is

meant conversion.

Now, it is true, that conversion is the condition of pardon and justification: But if it be so, how absurd is it to say, that conversion is one condition of justification, and faith_another, as though they were distributively distinct and parallel conditions! Conversion is the condition of justification, because it is that great change by which we are brought from sin to Christ, and by which we become believers in him : Agreeable to Matth. xxi. 32. "And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him." When we are directed to repent, that our sins may be blotted out, it is as much as to say, let your minds and hearts be changed, that your sins But if it be said, let your be blotted out. may hearts be changed, that you may be justified; and also said, believe that you may be justified; does it therefore follow; that the heart's being changed is one condition of justification, and believing another? But our minds must be changed, that we may believe, and so may be justified.

And besides, evangelical repentance, being active conversion, is not to be treated of as a particular grace, properly and entirely distinct from faith, as by some it seems to have been. What is conversion, but the sinful, alienated soul's closing with Christ, or the sinner's being brought to believe in Christ? That exercise of soul that there is in conversion, that respects sin, cannot be excluded out of the nature of faith in Christ: There is something in faith, or closing with Christ that respects sin, and that is evengelical repentance. That repentance which in scripture is called repentance for the remission of sins, is that very principle or operation of the mind itself that is called faith, so far as it is conversant about sin Justifying faith in a Mediator is conversant about two things: It is conversant about sin or evil to be rejected and to be delivered from by the Mediator, and about positive good to be accepted and obtained by the Mediator; as conversant about the former of these it is evangelical repentance, or repentance for remission of sins. Surely they must be very igne