the gift of that righteousness, by and for which we are juftified, Rom. v 17. Faith itfelf therefore cannot be this righteousness. I might obferve the fame concerning the great gofpel grace and duty of repentance. Not that the righteousness of Chrift can never be applied to us without that repentance which always accompanies faith, or that whilft we continue in a ftate of impenitency, we can have any pleadable intereft in it; but ftill we muft remember that tears pays no debts; and were our heads waters, and our eyes a fountain of tears, yet would not this wash away the ftain, or expiate the guilt of one fin. Befides, as there is fo much in our moft perfect repentance that wants pardon, how can our repentance be fuppofed to be our title to it? I might farther add, that if our faith, repentance and fincere obedience, do not come up to the demands of the gospel any more than they do to the commands of the law, then they can never be, either in whole or in part, our justify. ing righteoufnefs,. And do we any of us either love or ferve God, as the gofpel requires us to love and ferve him? Do we mourn over our fins with that measure of godly forrow that we ought? or believe in Chrift with that steadiness and fixedness of foul, with which the gospel requires us to believe in him? Or does the gospel require us to love God lefs, or fear and ferve him lefs, or truft in him lefs, than the law obliges us to? Is any degree of holiness abated in the gofpel? If fo, fome fin is countenanced, for every abatement of holiness, either in the prin ciple ciple or practice of it, is a finful imperfection *. It is true, the gospel hath provided a covering for thefe imperfections; but what can that be, but only the spotlefs, and perfect robe of Chrift's righteousness? In fhort, either this new law, according to which we are fuppofed by fome to be justified by our faith, repentance, and fincere obedience, does call for perfect obedience, or it does not. If it does call for perfect obedience, how can we be juftified by an imperfect obedience paid to it? And wherein does it differ in its commands from the moral law, which likewife calls for perfect obedience? If it does not call for perfect obedience, Then (1.) There is no law fubfifting fince the fall, which does call for perfect obedience, the moral law being supposed to be abrogated to make way for this. Then (2.) God hath given his creature a law that allows of fin, in fome degree or other; or else we muft fay, (3.) That the imperfections of believers are no fins. Sins they cannot be against the moral law, for that is fuppofed not to exift, and where there is no law, there is no tranfgreffon. Sins they are not against this new law, for that calls for no more than fincere obedience, and that is fuppofed to be performed. And if the imperfections of believers are no fins then need they not confefs them, nor be humbled for them; mourn over them, nor watch and pray against them: And what a wide door would this open to the most licentious practices. But perhaps E 2 See Owen of juftificat. pag. 336. and Clarkson's fermons, pag. 227. haps it will be faid, that though this law calls for perfect obedience, yet it accepts of imperfect: Accepts it, for what? for juftification? Then it accepts of that as a righteoufnefs for juftification, which, according to its own requirements, is not a righteoufnefs; in other words declares a perfon righteous, that, according to what itself commands, is not righteous. But then as a justifying righteousnets is not to be had in our felves, fo neither, Secondly, Can any mere creature provide us with it. The fea faith it is not in me; the depth faith it is not in me; and if we were to traverse the whole creation in fearch of it, we fhould return miferably disappointed. Neither angels, nor arch-angels can furnish us with it: They have nothing to fpare from that spotlefs righteousness, with which themselves appear before the throne of God; we know little of the laws of that world by which they are governed; nor is there any alliance between angels and us, that fhould give us any claim or intereft in any righteousness of theirs. The poor blinded Jews in their day, and the poor Heathens under their greater darkness then and fince, how were they deceived and mifled, whilft they trufted in this and the other facrifice, as though they were fufficient of themfelves for the expiation of fin? The Apoftle tells us, that it is not poffible for the blood of bulls, and of goats to take away fins, Heb. x. 4. The most numerous and expenfive facrifices under the law, God would them not, nor had they any efficacy of themselves for this purpose "The butchery of fo poor a creature cannot be "any compenfation, for that, which is a difpa66 ragement "ragement of the Creator of the world. What "alliance was there between the nature of a "beast, and that of a man? An inferior nature can never atone the fin of a nature fuperior "to it. There is, indeed, in the groans of those "dying creatures fome demonstration of God's "wrath, but no bringing in an everlasting righ"teousness, nor any vindication of the honour "of the law." * And if there was no efficacy for the expiation of fin in any, or in all, of those facrifices which were of God's own appointing, what efficacy can we fuppofe for this purpose in thofe facrifices, which obtained in the Gentile world, all of which were of human invention, and many of them accompanied with circumftances of horrid cruelty, and endless fupperstition? And in what language does the Apoftle thunder against thofe, who would add the rites and obfervances of the ceremonial law to faith in Chrift, as the ground and reafon of juftification? It is making Chrift die in vain. Such Chrift fhall profit them nothing, He is become of none effect to them, whofoever they are that are juftified by the law; They are fallen from grace: gone off from the truth of the gospel in its most effential article, and whilft they are feeking juftification in this way, it is impoffible they fhould be in a juftified state. Or, perhaps, the poor deluded Papist will fend you to look for fomething like a justifying righteoufness in the merit and righteoufnefs of faints: And thus they, who load the doctrine of justification by Chrift's imputed righteoufnefs with fo many reproaches, take refuge in the imputed righ E. 3 * Charnock, Vol. II. page 858. righteousness of we know not whom. Being juftified by the righteoufnefs of Chrift is treated with the utmoft contempt, as though it were being juftified by a putative, an imaginary righteousness; when at the fame time they fhall place all their confidence in the merit and righteoufuefs of the faints, and votaries of their own church, many of whom we know not who, nor whence, they are. This is their miferable notion, whereby they, who have the conduct of their confciences in that church, pick the pockets, and cheat the fouls of those, who are unhappily betrayed into their delufions. If a man, fay they, has been a great finner, and has no works of his own to justify him, the church is intrusted with a bank of merit, from whence he may be furnished with a pardon at fuch and fuch a rate, as the nature of his offences is, or as the wifdom of the church fhall direct. But you will fay. How came the church by fuch a ftock of merit? - They go on to tell you; that as there are fome who fall fhort, and are notoriously defective in their duty, fo there are others, who on the other hand exceed ; they perform works of fupererrogation, as they call them, that is, they do more than the law of God requires, or obliges them to do: for inftance, if a man gives his eftate to have fo many thousand maffes faid for the dead, or to build an hofpital, or if he performs fuch penances, or goes fuch pilgrimages; the law of God, fay they did not require this man to do these things, he does therefore more that what the law obliges him to, and therefore from what he does must arise a merit. Now As that |