Page images
PDF
EPUB

there is no harm in 'criminal passión,'-God is not displeased with it, provided only we avoid its indulgence. The next clause indeed is more strict, the forfeiture being supposed to be incurred

[ocr errors]

by the neglect of any practicable duty.' But then, what can be the tendency of this statement, but either to lower the standard of practicable duty, or to make a person despair of keeping his justified state for any one day, one hour, one minute of his life? In short, it amounts to this,

that we are no longer in a justified state, than we are in a state of sinless perfection. Let the reader judge whether such a notion does not lead rather to gloomy scepticism, than to filial and chearful piety.

§ 19. But I would observe, in the third place, that his Lordship seems to have overlooked the great difference there is between the requirements of the moral law under the notion of a covenant, and those of the same law under the notion of a rule. In the former capacity it can admit of nothing less than perfection of character. This Adam had before the fall, and this he lost by the very first deviation from rectitude. This also the second Adam preserved entire as a substitute; otherwise he would not have been a Saviour. A failure of obedience, would have been a failure of a federal righteousness. If any of the posterity of Adam be justified before God,

it must be by a gracious imputation of what Jesus Christ has done and suffered in our stead.

[ocr errors]

Hence he who knew no sin, was made a sin

offering for us, that we might be constituted righteous in him,” according to a plan of mercy. This was the very design of his incarnation and humiliation unto death: by becoming perfect through suffering, or obtaining a perfection of righteousness in this way, he is become the author of eternal redemption and salvation. But how are we to be made partakers of this federal righteousness? It is, as the scripture testifies, by our being in Christ. "There is no condemnation (i. e. there is justification) to them who are in Christ Jesus," and the evidence of this privilege is, that we "walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." This union is the basis both of justification before God, and of life, or a spiritual principle, from Christ. "For the law of the spirit of life (the quickening power) in Christ Jesus, makes them free from the law of sin and death."

20. Now the enquiry returns, what constitutes that oneness on account of which the imputation is made? To imagine that no special oneness at all is necessary, is extremely unreasonable; for then it would follow that every man, in whose nature Christ appeared as a p fect character, had an equal claim to his federa righ

teousness, and justification by it. The scripture expressly says "That the righteousness," thus prepared, "is upon all them that believe ;" and that to us also "it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."* From these passages, in their connection, among many others, it is plain that faith, (a living, not a dead and unproductive faith), constitutes a justifying union. A dead faith forms no union in the sight of God, though it may in the charitable view of the church, whose province it is to judge from explicit profession, while this is not belied by overt acts incompatible with sincerity. But “God looketh not as man looketh; man looketh at the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh at the heart." This faith by which we are justified, though our own, is not of ourselves, it is "the gift of God," from whom every good gift and every perfect gift proceedeth. While the act and deed is our own, being the exercise of our own mind, will, and heart, we are constrained by every consideration of the case, from scripture testimony, from pious gratitude, and from rational analogy, to ascribe our possession of the living principle of faith, as of every other internal grace, to the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, as the

*Rom. iii. 22. iv. 24, 25.

Gift of the Mediator to the members of his mystical body. It is, therefore, of the Spirit of Christ that we are primarily united to him, and from this union the principle of faith is derived. The obligation to believe is one thing; the ability to believe, is another. The obligation arises from our possessing natural powers and aplain divine testimony; but the spiritual dispo sition and actual willingness from the Holy Spirit. A cordial reception of Christ as our righteousness answers the requirements of the law under the notion of a covenant.

§ 21. But God's holy law has other requirements under the notion of a rule. To have obtained that righteousness which meets the charge of a breach of original perfection, does not excuse the possessor of it from future obedience; otherwise the divine law would be nothing more than a covenant, and Adam could have been guilty of only one sin: for how could he, or any of his posterity, be a subsequent transgressor, if the law did not continue a rule to man after his breach of covenant? A deviation from the rectitude required by the law, which requirement of rectitude the very notion of a law implies, is sinful in every condition of man, whether at the fall, under the fall, or after a restoration from a condemned and depraved state. With respect to the first transgression,

K

compared with all subsequent ones, there is necessarily this difference, that he could not transgress the law as a rule without at the same time transgressing it as a covenant; but all his subsequent transgressions were a deviation only from the rectitude of a rule. If he was to enjoy a favour only on condition of remaining a perfect character, it is evident that the favour was completely forfeited by the first deviation from that perfection. He failed in performing that very condition on which a continuance of the favour was suspended. To insist, therefore, that any such condition now exists respecting any of the fallen race, is chargeable with as much absurdity as to require personal perfection. on a condition which is already forfeited, and which, without a plan of mercy in the substitution of a perfect character, is as impossible as to recall the perfection of Adam. As Adam, consequently, could not transgress the law as a covenant of life without at the same time transgressing it as a rule of right; so neither could he, after the first transgression, violate it as a covenant, which, for the same reason, is the case with his posterity, who can transgress it only as a rule.

§ 22. But now, by a Mediator, there is a new covenant of life. What was required of him, as a substitute, was sinless obedience

« PreviousContinue »