workmanship, created in Chrift Jefus unto good works. Eph. ii. 10.

Know, therefore, that it is not by a righteouf

purchased the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. But faith and holiness are the appointed means whereby we enter upon the poffeffion of that inheritance. They respect the order wherein we go to poffefs it; imputed righteousness alone founds our right to it, as the price paid. The gospel-offer is not, Buy, and then your right is good: But take and have, receive that ye may poffefs. And therefore when it is called a buying, it is fuch a one as is without money, and without price, Ifa. lv. 1. Chrift bought, that we might have a right; by faith we receive him, and poffefs what is his.

This last is as necessary in it's place as the firft: for it is not fufficient that Chrift has purchased falvation: We must believe in him, otherwise his falvation fhall never be ours: We shall not fee life, John iii. 36. It is not enough, that fome presious commodity is bought for us by a friend. If we reject him and it, we must be as poor as ever. Christ purchased white raiment for us, but we with our own hands must put it on, that we may be clothed, Rev. iii. 18. His work does not fuperfede the neceffity of our act of faith. He purchased the crown of glory, hung up as the prize at the end of the goal, and we must run that we may receive, 1 Cor. ix. 24. Phil. iii. 14.

From all which, it is evident, that faith and holinefs are conditions of order or connexion in the covenant of grace. That God whofe covenant it peculiarly is, hath established a certain order or connexion wherein he will beftow his precious gifts: an order as irreversible as the covenant of the day and of the night. Not only are thefe gifts always conferred in one and the felf-fame order, without one inftance of variation; in number, one goes before two, two before three, and fo on; but fuch the economy of grace, that one gift is that whereby we receive another. So "faith is an inftrument, by which we "receive and apply Chrift, and his righteoufnefs," Larg

as

nefs wrought in you, or by works of righteoufnefs, which, through grace, we are enabled to do, that we can be faved? No: that righteousness which

Catechifm, Queft. 73. The God of all grace beftowing his gifts in this stated, this invariable order; may it not be faid without offence, that he will give none the fecond gift, but on condition, that they have the first? Nor the third, but on fuppofition that they have the fecond? His appointed order he will not break; nor fhall the rock he removed, no not for the elect's fake. He will enrich none with his tried gold, till firft he give them a hand to receive it. He will make them active in order to poffeffion or enjoyment.

Such only as receive Chrift, have a right to become the fons of God, John i. 12. Our title to that dignity, turns on our reception of the first-born among many brethren: our life, on Though the gofpel-offer gives is warrantable for us to receive

our coming to him, John v. 40. us a right to Chrift, fo that it him, yet till we actually receive him, we cannot have the power, right, or privilege of adoption. Here privilege is evidently fufpended on our act: and if fo, why may not the one be called the condition of the other? viz. a condition of order or connexion.

One part of the great falvation stands related to another, as the various links of a chain. The first link is connected with the fecond; it with the third, and fo on to the laft. We cannot reach the fecond without the firft; nor the third, till we have taken hold of the fecond. The God of grace, is also the God of order; and as from one golden link of grace, we must go to another, till we lay hold on that of eternal glory. Though every link of the chain be equally purchased by the Surety, this does not hinder but one part may be introductory to another faith to holinefs, and holiness to eternal glory, Rom. vi. 22. Gal, vi, 8.

It has been faid with more fhew than folidity of reason, that faith and holinefs being promised in the covenant, can have nothing conditional in them, inasmuch as they cannot be both conditions and promifes, and nothing can be the condition up

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the Surety fulfilled in the days of his flesh, and which he finifhed on the crofs and in the grave, that and that alone is the righteoufnefs whereupon

on which it itself is obtained. We must again obferve, that the Westminster Affembly, difcerned no impropriety in reckon ing faith both a condition of connexion, and the subject-matter of a promife, Larger Catechifin, Queft. 32. Confider faith as a duty, and it is required of us: confider it as a grace, and it is promised by God. The grace promised muft be given to us, before the duty required can be done by us. We must have eyes to fee, hands to receive, and feet to run.. Still, however, thefe fpiritual actions are as neceffary, as the new fpiritual powers from which they come. The precept and the promife are not contrary to each other. But as the two cherubims overshadowing the mercy-feat, they moft harmoniously agree, The promife does not weaken our obligation to the precept. The grace promifed is the Lord's, the duty is our act: He worketh in us to will and to do, Phil. ii. 13. And being thus wrought upon, We are willing, Pfal. cx. 3. Being created unto good works, we do them, Eph. ii. 10. But does this hinder God to fufpend fome of his other acts upon these of ours? c. g. His giving a pardon, upon our faith: and his receiving us into glory, after a course of holy obedience, Heb. xii, 14. And what though a thing cannot be the condition of itself, yet it may of another. So faith may be the condition to interest us in Chrift, and holiness may stand connected with a state of glory as the mean with the end, the feed with the harvest. And sure I am, none can reap, but upon condition that they fow.

After all, it were much to be wished, that in ufing or rejecting the word condition, men would explain in what fenfe they do either. This might often prevent that friving about words, from which the apoftle fo ftrongly diffuades, 2 Tim. ii. 14. And therefore, when I fay, that holiness is not a condition of falvation, I do not mean that it is not a condition of connexion, but that it is not a condition in the fenfe of those who juftle it as into the place of Chrift's imputed righteoufnefs, founding

turns your title to eternal life. By it alone ye can be justified; and therefore in it alone, as the price paid, do you ever glory. That gift of righteousness let your faith receive; and on it, as a rock, let it reft for juftification and eternal life. In this manner only, and in no other, can ye obtain both.For, as the prophet said, and after him the apostle, The juft by faith, fhall live, Hab. ii. 4. Rom. i. 17. Gal. iii. 11. Heb. x. 38.

They, and they only

who seek juftification by faith, fhall live; while all who seek it by works, fhall die. *

our title to glory upon it. I confider salvation in a large sense, including all that is wrought in us from the entrance of the Spirit into our dead fouls, till we fit down on a throne of glory. Salvation from fin, is a great part of Christ's salvation, Matth. i. 21. Tit. ii. 14. He faves us by the washing of regeneration, &c. Tit. iii. 5. The new nature is as much purchased by him, as the new Jerufalem is: our meetnefs for heaven, as well as our right to it.

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* Our verfion, in the paffages quoted, uniformly reads, The just fhall live by faith. But certain it is, that the original order is that which we have followed, The juft by faith fhall live. The prophet's words have a pronoun not mentioned by the apoftle,

וצידק באמונתו יהיה,and in the Hebrew they ftand thus

The affix at the fecond word, is commonly interpreted by the poffeffive pronoun, His. The juft by his faith, ex fide fua. Accordingly the generality of translators, as well as our own, read it, The juft fhall live by his faith; that is, by his own faith, not by the faith of another. But I am perfuaded that this, though true in itself, is not the meaning of the Holy Ghoft in this paffage. The affix feems better rendered by a perfonal pronoun, The juft by the faith of him: fide illius, as Witfius hath. Accordingly the whole fentence ftands thus, The juft by the faith of him fhall live; that is, by the faith of Chrift: compare Gal, ii. 16.

8. And lastly, lift up a cry to the Spirit of the Lord, that he would do as he has faid. Turn the text into a prayer, and fay, O thou Spirit of the "O

To vindicate this verfion I would obferve, with fome excellent critics, that our blessed Saviour is mentioned in the preceeding verse as about to come; though, as our version runs, it relates not to a perfon, but to a thing, viz. the vifion. The word is confidered by these critics as a noun, not a verb; and they tranflate it index, præco, or teftis. Hence the whole verfe is rendered thus, For the vifion is yet for an appointed time, but at the end the Publisher, or Preacher, who shall not lie: though he tarry wait for him, because he will surely come, he will not tarry. This reading, applying it to a Person, the great Publisher or Preacher, Ifa. lii. 7. who came to preach good tidings, to proclaim liberty to the captives, chap. lxi. 1. and to feal up the vifion, Dan. ix. 21.; who preached the righteousness and the falvation of God; his loving-kindness and his truth, Pfal. xl. 9, 10.; the glad tidings of his kingdom, Mark i. 14. Luke viii. 1.: this reading, I fay, is perfectly agreeable to the original, and not a little countenanced by the apoftolic accommodation of this paffage to our Lord's fecond coming, Heb. x. 37. Yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. For Chrift's firft coming being preparative to his fecond, what the prophet fpoke of the former, the apostle might juftly accommodate to the latter. Taking things thus, the him mentioned, Hab. ii. 4. is the fame with the him in the preceeding verfe, and whofe coming is there fo peremptorily promifed. Though he tarry, wait for him :-the juft by the faith of him fhall live. Therefore the him here is not the fubject of faith, or the man believing, but the object of his faith, who was to come, Matth. xi. 2. Compare Gal. ii. 20. I live by the faith of the Son of God, i. e. by the faith which hath him for it's author and it's object: I live by faith upon him. The prophet's three words,

The-juft by-the-faith-of-him shall-live,

are fufceptible of two fenfes, equally agreeable to the analogy of faith. For the middle word may be constructed either with