But you tell us, 'That you scarcely admired at any thing more in all your life, than that any worthy men especially, should be so difficultly persuaded to embrace this account of justifying faith, and should perplex and make intricate so very plain a doctrine' (p. 222).
Ans. And doubtless they far more[28] groundedly stand amazed at such as you, who while you pretend to shew the design of the gospel, make the very essential of it, a thing in itself indifferent, and absolutely considered neither good nor evil (p. 7), that makes obedience to the moral laws (p. 8), more essential to salvation, than that of going to God by Christ (p. 9), that maketh it the great design of Christ, to put us into a possession of that promiseless, natural, old covenant holiness which we had lost long since in Adam, that maketh as if Christ, rejecting all other righteousness, or holiness, hath established only this (p. 10-16). Yea, that maketh the very principle of this holiness to consist in 'a sound complexion of soul, the purity of human nature in us, a habit of soul, truly generous motives and principles, divine moral laws which were first written in men's hearts, and originally dictates of human nature.' All this villainy against the Son of God, with much more as bad, is comprized within less than the first sixteen pages of your book.
But say you, 'what pretence can there be for thinking, that faith is the condition, or instrument of justification, as it complieth with only the precept of relying upon Christ's merits for the obtaining of it: especially when it is no less manifest than the sun at noon-day, that obedience to the other precepts must go before obedience to this; and that a man may not rely upon the merits of Christ for the forgiveness of his sins, and he is most presumptuous in so doing, and puts an affront upon his Saviour too, till he be sincerely willing to be reformed from them' (p. 223).
Ans. That the merits of Christ, for justification, are made over to that faith that receiveth them, while the person that believeth it, stands in his own account, by the law a sinner; hath already been shewed. And that they are not by God appointed for another purpose, is manifest through all the bible.
1. In the type, when the bloody sacrifices were to be offered, and an atonement made for the soul, the people were only to confess their sins over the head of the bullock, or goat, or lamb, by laying their hands thereon, and so the sacrifice was to be slain. they were only to acknowledge their sins. And observe it, in the day that these offerings were made, they were 'not to work at all; for he that did any work therein, was to be cut off from his people' (Lev 4, 16, 23).
2. In the antitype thus it runs; 'Christ died for our sins; Christ gave himself for our sins; he was made to be sin for us; Christ was made a curse for us.'
'Yea, but [say you] What pretence can there be, that faith is the condition, or instrument of justification, as it complieth with only the precepts of relying upon Christ's merits'; that is, first, or before the soul doth other things.
Ans. I say, avoiding your own ambiguous terms, that it is the duty, the indispensable duty of all that would be saved, First, Immediately, now to close in by faith with that work of redemption, which Christ by his blood hath purchased for them, as they are sinners.
1. Because God doth hold it forth, yea, hath set it forth to be received by us, as such (Rom 3:23-27).
2. Because God hath commanded us by faith to receive it as such (Acts 16).