and ignominy of that death which was the debt of suffering. And the covenant between him and his Father, was, That all that should be done by him, as our head and surety; and so he was "to taste death for every man." So there is a commutation m allowed, that he should be in our stead, as it were, 'Avriluxos, his soul a sacrifice, and his life a price, and his death a conquest of ours, and therefore is called 'Avríuтроν ÚπÈρ wάνTшv"; "a price or ransom" for all those, in whose place he was made sin and a curse. Though he had not any demerit or proper guilt of sin upon him, which is a deserving of punishment (for that ever grows out of sin, either personally inherent, or at least naturally imputed, by reason that he to whom it is accounted, was seminally and naturally contained in the loins of him, from whom it is on him derived); yet he had the guilt of sin, so far as it notes an obligation and subjection unto punishment, as he was our surety, and so' in sensu forensi,' in the sight of God's court of justice, one with us, who had deserved punishment, imputed unto him.

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The fruit which redounds to us hereby, is the expiation or remission of our sins, by the imputing of our righteousness unto us. "This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many, for the remission of sins P." In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his glory ." And this must needs be a wonderful mercy, to have so many thousand talents forgiven us, such an infinite weight taken off from our consciences, the penalty and curse of so many sins removed from us. Our natural condition is to be an heir of everlasting vengeance, the object of God's hatred and fiery indignation, exiles from the presence of his glory, vessels fit and full of misery, written within and without with curses, to be miserable, to be all over miserable, to be without strength in ourselves, to be without pity from other, to be without hope from God, to be without end of cursedness :-this is the condition of a sinner; and from all this doth the mercy of God deliver us.

Heb. xii. 2. Heb. ii. 9. Rom. v. 8. m Notant qui de legum relaxatione scripserunt, eas esse optimas relaxationes, quibus annexa est commutatio sive compensatio. Grot. de Satisfact. Christi, cap. 5. n1 Tim. ii. 6. • 2 Cor. v. 21. Gal. iii. 13. P Matth. xxvi. 28.

Ephes. i. 7. Heb. xii.

The manner whereby the satisfaction of Christ becomes profitable unto us, unto the remission of sin and righteousness, is by 'imputation. No man is able to stand before God's justice, for he is a consuming fire. No flesh can be righteous, if he enter into judgement. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity'; for his eyes are not eyes of flesh ". Now all the world is guilty before God, and cometh short of his glory wompy xeitaι, "it lieth in mischief;" and therefore must be justified by a foreign righteousness, and that equal to the justice offended, which is the righteousness of God unto us graciously imputed. "We are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christy."

To open this point of justification by imputed righteousness, we must note, That two things are pre-required to denominate a man, a righteous man. First, There must be extant a righteousness, which is apt and able to justify. Secondly, There must be a right and propriety to it, whereby it cometh to pass, that it doth actually justify. We must then, first, enquire what the righteousness is, whereby a man may be justified. Righteousness consisteth in a relation of rectitude and conformity. "God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions," and turned into many crooked diverticles of their own. A wicked man loveth "crooked ways," to wander up and down in his own course; whereas a righteous man loveth "straight ways"," because righteousness consisteth in rectitude; and this presupposeth some rule, unto which this conformity must refer. The primitive and original prototype, or rule of Holiness, is the righteousness of God himself, so far forth as his image is communicable to the creature, or at least so far forth as it was at the first implanted in man: "Be ye perfect, as your Father which is Heaven, is perfect." It is not meant of his infinite perfection (for it was the sin of Adam, to aim at being as God, in absoluteness and independent excellency); but of that perfection of his, which is in the Word set forth unto us for an image and pattern, whereunto to conform our

r Rom. iv. 3, 5, 2. v. 19. • Heb. xii. 29. = 1 John v. 19. J Rom. iii. 12, 24.

a Jer. xxxi. 22. Hos. iv. 16.

Hab. i. 13.

u Job x. 4. Eccles. vii. 29. Deut. xxxii. 5. • Matth. v. 48.

b Heb. xii. 13. Psal. v. 8.

selves. Therefore the secondary rule of righteousness, or rather the same rule unto us revealed, is the law of God written in his Word; in the which, God's holiness, so far as it is our example, exhibiteth itself to the soul, as the sun doth communicate its light through the beam which conveys it. Now in the law there are two things; one principal, obedience; the other secondary, malediction, upon supposition of disobedience: "Cursed is every one, that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them d" So then, upon supposition of the sin of man, two things are required unto justification; The expiation of sin, by suffering the curse; and the fulfilling of righteousness 'de novo,' again. Man, created, might have been justified by obedience only; but man, lapsed, cannot otherwise appear righteous in God's sight, but by a double obedience the one passive, for the satisfaction of his vindicative justice, as we are his prisoners; the other active, in proportion to his remunerative justice, as we are his crea

tures.

But besides this, that there must be a righteousness extant, there is required, in the person to be justified or denominated thereby, a propriety thereunto, that it may be "his righteousness." Now there may be a twofold propriety to righteousness, according to a twofold manner of unity; "Unitas enim præstantis est fundamentum proprietatis ad officium præstitum." First, There is a personal and individual unity, whereby a man is 'unus in se,' one in and by himself; and so hath propriety to a duty performed, because it is performed in his own person, and by himself alone. Secondly, There is a common unity, whereby a man is ‘unus cum alio,' one with another; or whereby many are 'unum in aliquo primo,' one in and with some other thing, which is the fountain and original of them all. And this is the ground of righteousness imputed: for, in the law, a man is justified by performing entire obedience in his own person. For the law requireth righteousness to be performed by a created and implanted strength, and doth not put, suppose, or indulge, any common principle thereof, out of a man's self. Therefore legal righteousness is most properly called 'Our own

righteousness,' and is set in opposition to the righteousness of God, or that which is by grace imputed. We see then, that, in this matter of imputation, either of sin or righteousness, for the clearing of God from any injustice or partiality in his proceedings, there must ever be some unity or other between the parties; he, whose fact is imputed,-and the other, to whom it is imputed. It would be prodigious, and against reason, to conceive, that the fall of angels should be imputed unto men, because men had no unity in condition, either of nature or covenant with the angels, as we have in both with Adam.

This common unity is twofold; either natural, as between us and Adam, in whom we were seminally contained, and originally represented; for otherwise than in and with Adam, there could, at the beginning, be no covenant made with mankind, which should, ex æquo,' reach unto all particular persons in all ages and places of the world :—or voluntary, as between a man and his surety, who, in conspectu fori,' are but as one person. And this must be mutual, the one party undertaking to do for the other, and the other yielding and consenting thereunto; as between us and Christ: for Christ voluntarily undertook for us; and we, by the Spirit of Christ, are persuaded and made willing to consent, and, by faith, to cast our sins upon Christ, and to lay hold on him. And besides the will of the parties, who are, the one by default, the other by compassion and suretyship, engaged in the debt, there is required the will and consent of the judge, to whom the debt is due, and to whom it belongeth in the right of his jurisdiction, to appoint such a form of proceeding for the recovery of his right, as may stand best with the honour of his person, and the satisfaction of his justice; who if he would, might, in rigour, have refused any surety, and have exacted the whole debt of those very persons, by whose only default it grew. And thus it comes to pass, that, by grace, we have fellowship with the second Adam, as, by nature, with the first. So then, between Christ and us, there must be a unity, or else there can be no imputation. And therefore it is, that we are said to be ⚫ justified by faith," and that "faith is imputed for righteous

b

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ness ";" not the rò credere,' the act of believing, as if that were, 'in se,' accounted righteousness as it is a work, proceeding from us by grace; because it is vinculum' and 'instrumentum unionis,' the bond of union between us and Christ; and, by that means, makes way to the imputation of Christ's righteousness unto us. Therefore we are said to be "buried," and "crucified" in and with Christ, by the virtue of faith, concorporating Christ and a Christian together, and communicating the fellowship of his sufferings and resurrection. "If I be lifted up," saith our Saviour, “I will draw all men after me." 'Crucem conscendit, et me illuc adduxit;' when Christ hanged on the cross, we, in a sort, were there too. As, in Adam, we were all in Paradise, by a natural and seminal virtue; so, in Christ, by a spiritual virtue, whereby, in due time, faith was to be begotten in us, and so we to have an actual being of grace from him, as after our real existence we have an actual being of nature from Adam. Thus we see, that Christ did for us fulfil all righteousness, by his passive meriting and making satisfaction unto the remission of sins: by his active, covering our inabilities, and doing that in perfection for us, which we could not do for ourselves. First, he suffered our punishment: "he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed *." If it be here objected, that an innocent person ought not to suffer for a nocent, for guilt is inseparable from sin; "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the soul that sinneth, the same shall die ';"-for the clearing of this objection, we must note, that there is a twofold manner of guilt (as I have before touched); either such as grows out of sin inherent, which is the deserving of punishment, as it is in us; or such as grows out of sin imputed, and that not by reason of union natural, as the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed unto us (which manner of imputation is likewise fundamentum demeriti,' and cause thus to deserve punishment), but voluntary, by way of vadimony and susception. And so guilt is only a

h Rom. iv. 5. Isai. liii. 5.

i Rom. vi. 6. Gal. vi. 14. Ephes. iii. 17. Phil. iii. 10. Ezek. xviii. 20.