scripture, and the thing a judicial thing, or the act of a judge: So that if a person should be justified without a righteousness, the judgment would not be according to truth: The sentence of justification would be a false sentence, unless there be a righteousness performed that is by the judge properly looked upon as his. To say, that God does not justify the sinner without sincere, though an imperfect obedience, does not help the case; for an imperfect righteousness before a judge is no righteousness. To accept of something that falls short of the rule, instead of something else that answers the rule, is no judicial act, or act of a judge, but a pure act of sovereignty. An imperfect righteousness is no righteousness before a judge; for "righteousness (as one observes) is a relative thing, and has always relation to a law. The formal nature of righteousness, properly understood, lies in a conformity of actions to that which is the rule and measure of them.” Therefore that only is righteousness in the sight a judge that answers the law.* The law is the judge's rule: If he par

"For

* That it is perfect obedience, that is what is called righteousness in the New Testament, and that this righteousness, or perfect obedience, is bý God's fixed unalterable rule, the condition of justification, is from the plain evidence of truth, confessed by a certain great man, that no body will think to be a likely person to be blinded by a prejudice in favor of the doctrine we are maintaining, and one who did not receive this doctrine, viz. Mr. Locke, in his Reasonableness of Christianity, as delivered in the Scriptures, vol. 2 of his works, page 474. "To one that thus unbiassed reads the Scripture what Adam fell from is visible, was the state of perfect obedience, which is called justice in the New Testament, though the word, which in the original signifies justice, be translated righteousness." Ibid p. 476, 477. righteousness, or an exact obedience to the law seems by the Scripture to have a claim of right to eternal life; Rom. iv. 4. To him that worketh i. e, does the works of the law is the reward reckoned, not reckoned of grace, but of debt. On the other side, it seems the unalterable purpose of the divine justice, that no unrighteous person, no one that is guilty of any breach of the law, should be in paradise; but that the wages of sin should be to every man, as it was to Asam, an exclusion of him out of that happy state of immortality, and bring death upon him And this is so conformable to the eternal and established law of right and wrong, that it is spoke of too as it could not be otherwise. Here then we have the standing and fixed measures of life and death; immortality and bliss belonging to the righteous. Those who have lived in an exact conformity to the law of God are out of the

dons and hides what really is, and so does not pass sentence according to what things are in themselves, he either does not act the part of a judge, or else judges falsely. The very notion of judging is to determine what is, and what is not, in any one's case. The judge's work is twofold; it is to determine first what is fact, and then whether what is in fact be according to rule, or according to the law. If a judge has no rule or law established beforehand, by which he should proceed in judging, he has no foundation to go upon in judging, he has no opportunity to be a judge; nor is it possible that he should do the part of a judge. To judge without a law, or rule by which to judge, is impossible; for the very notion of judging, is to determine whether the object of judgment be according to rule; and therefore God has declared, that when he acts as a judge, he will not justify the wicked, and cannot clear the guilty; and, by parity of reason, cannot justify without righteousness.

And the scheme of the old law's being abrogated and a new law introduced, will not help at all in this difficulty; for reach of death; but an exclusion from paradise and loss of immortality, is the portion of sinners, of all those who have any way broke that law, and failed of a complete obedience to it, by the guilt of any one trangression. And thus mankind, by the law, are put upon the issues of life or death, as they are righteous or unrighteous, just or unjust, i. e, exact performers or trangressors of the law," Again, in p. 477. "The law of works then in short is, that law which requires perfect obedience, without any remission or abatement ; so that by that law a man cannot be just, or justified, without an exact performance of every tittle. Such a perfect obedience in the New Tes tament, is termed Amasoçum, which we translate righteousness." In which Jast passage it is also to be noted, that Mr. Locke, by the law of works does not understand the ceremonial law, but the covenant of works: As he more fully expresses himself in the next paragraph but one." Where this law of works was to be found, the New Testament tells us, viz. in the law delivered by Moses; John. 17. The law was given by Moses, but, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Chap. vii. 19. Did not Moses give you the law, says our Saviour, and yet none of you keep the law? And this is the law which he speaks of verse 28. This do and thou shalt live. This is that which St. Paul so often styles the law, without any other distinction; Rom ii. 13. Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law are justified. It is needless to quote any more places, his epistles are all full of it, especially this to the Romans.

an imperfect righteousness cannot answer the law of God that we are under, whether that be an old one or a new one ; for every law requires perfect obedience to itself. Every rule whatsoever requires perfect conformity to itself; it is a contradiction to suppose otherwise. For to say, that there is a law that does not require perfect obedience to itself, is to say that there is a law that does not require all that it requires. That law that now forbids sin, is certainly the law that we are now under, (let that be an old one or new one ;) or else it is not sin. That which is not forbidden, and is the breach of no law, is not sin. But if we are now forbidden to commit sin, then it is by a law that we are now under; for surely we are neither under the forbiddings nor commanding of a law that we are not under. Therefore, if all sin is now forbidden, then we are now under a law that requires perfect obedience; and there fore nothing can be accepted as a righteousness in the sight of our Judge, but perfect righteousness. So that our judge cannot justify us, unless he sees a perfect righteousness, some way belonging to us, either performed by ourselves, or by another, and justly and duly reckoned to our account,

God doth, in the sentence of justification pronounce a man perfectly righteous, or else he would need a further justification after he is justified. His sins being removed by Christ's atonement, is not sufficient for his justification; for justifying a man, as has been already shewn, in not merely pronouncing him innocent, or without guilt, but standing right with regard to the rule that he is under, and righteous unto life: But this, according to the established rule of nature, reason, and divine appointment, is a positive, perfect right

eousness.

As there is the same need that Christ's obedience should be reckoned to our account, as that his atonement should; so there is the same reason why it should. As if Adam had persevered, and finished his course of obedience, we should have received the benefit of his obedience, as much as now we have the mischief of his disobedience ; so in like manner, there is reason that we should receive the benefit of the second Adam's obedience, as of his atonement of our disobedi

ence.

Believers are represented in scripture as being so in Christ, as that they are legally one, or accepted as one, by the Supreme Judge: Christ has assumed our nature, and has so assumed all, in that nature that belong to him, into such an union with himself, that he is become their Head, and has taken them to be his members. And therefore, what Christ has done in our nature, whereby he did honor to the law and authority of God by his acts, as well as the reparation to the honor of the law by his sufferings, is reckoned to the believ-er's account; so as that the believer should be made happy, because it was so well and worthily done by his Head, as well as freed from being miserable, because he has suffered for our ill and unworthy doing.

When Christ had once undertaken with God to stand for us, and put himself under our law, by that law he was obliged to suffer, and by the same law he was obliged to obey: By the same law, after he had taken man's guilt upon him, he himself being our surety, could not be acquitted until he had suffered, nor rewarded until he had obeyed: But he was not acquitted as a private person, but as our head, and believers are acquitted in his acquittance; nor was he accepted to a reward for his obedience, as a private person, but as our Head, and we are accepted to a reward in his acceptance. The scripture teaches us that when Christ was raised from the dead, he was justified; which justification, as I have already shewn, implies, both his acquittance from our guilt, and his acceptance to the exaltation and glory that was the reward of his obedience: But believers, as soon as they believe, are admitted to partake with Christ in this his justification: Hence we are told, that he was " raised again for our justification,” Rom. iv. 25, which is true, not only of that part of his justification that consists in his acquittance, but also his acceptance to his reward. The Scripture teaches us that he is exalted, and gone to heaven to take possession of glory in our name, as our forerunner, Heb. vi. 20. We are as it were, both raised up together with Christ, and also made to sit together with Christ, in heavenly places, and in him, Eph. ii. 6. I

VOL. VII.

If it be objected here, that there is this reason, why what Christ suffered should be accepted on our account, rather than the obedience he performed, that he was obliged to obedience for himself, but was not obliged to suffer but only on our account; to this I answer, that Christ was not obliged, on his own account, to undertake to obey. Christ, in his original circumstances, was in no subjection to the Father, being altogether equal with him: He was under no obligation to put himself in man's stead, and under man's law; or to put himself into any state of subjection to God whatsoever. There was a transaction between the Father and the Son, that was antecedent to Christ's becoming man, and being made under the law, wherein he undertook to put himself under the law, and both to obey and to suffer; in which transaction these things were already virtually done in the sight of God; as is evident by this, that God acted on the ground of that transaction, justifying and saving sinners, as if the things undertaken had been actually performed long before they were performed indeed. And therefore, without doubt, in order to the estimating the value and validity of what Christ did and suffered, we must look back to that transaction, wherein these things were first undertaken, and virtually done in the sight of God, and see what capacity and circumstances Christ acted in then, and then we shall find that Christ was under no manner of obligation, either to obey the law, or suffer the penalty of it. After this he was equally under obligation to both; for henceforward he stood as our surety or representative: And therefore this consequent obligation may be as much of an objection against the validity of his suffering the penalty, as against his obediBut if we look to that original transaction between the Father and the Son, wherein both these were undertaken and accepted as virtually done in the sight of the Father, we shall find Christ acting with regard to both, as one perfectly in his own right, and under no manner of previous obligation to hinder the validity of either.

ence.

2. To suppose that all that Christ does is only to make atonement for us by suffering, is to make him our Saviour bart in part. It is to rob him of half his glory as a Saviour.