ple, that they are redeemed to God, and not from him, or from his justice. "Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood," is the tribute of praise offered to Jesus Christ. It is therefore proved that no price was ever paid to God for man's redemption, for him or in his stead. Could God purchase his people from himself? or would he pay himself for their redemption? Yet his people are bought with a price-the blood, or life, of Jesus Christ. For his life is as properly called the price of redemption as his blood. For the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister; and_to give his life a ransom for many. Thus the American colonies, now United States, were bought with a price from the British yoke; they were bought with the life and blood of the heroes of liberty whom Britain slew, while America was contending for her freedom. But who paid Britain any price, as a reward for our liberation? Or what did Congress, or rather God by them, pay to Britain for our redemption from the British yoke? DEATH-BLOOD and CONQUEST— destruction of the British power wherever the American principles of liberty prevail. This may serve to elucidate the doctrine of Christ's people being bought with a price, in the only sense in which it can be supported by revelation.

But finally here. The concluding argument with some, for the death of Christ as a satisfaction paid to the justice of God for our offences, the price of our redemption and the procuring cause of our justification, imputed to us, is, that had God forgiven the human race and restored them to favour, without an expiating sacrifice, other worlds, perhaps the inhabitants of the planetary system, would have been exposed to take license to rebel in like manner against the government of God. This, indeed, appears like the last effort of despair in support of a tottering cause. Who hath ever told us that the inhabitants of other globes know any thing of our conduct more than we do of theirs? And if any of them be exposed to avail themselves of an occasion or a pretext to rebel, who can tell from which source they would draw the most flattering encouragement, provided they were informed of both, from God's forgiving without an expiatory payment, or from his demanding it and providing it himself, clear of all expense to the rebels, and so paying himself? Can any man be prevailed upon to build the hope of eternal life on such unscriptural arguments; too conjectural to enter the heart of any one who views matters as they appear according to evidence?

In the process of this inquiry, however, it is found that there is no conclusive argument in favour of justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ. That doctrine also fails of proof from every quarter; because, without any forced construction, all the teachings of revelation are easily understood without implying it, and the burden of these teachings explicitly maintain the contrary; it is not found in the Scriptures. We are therefore at full liberty to return to the doctrine of justification by faith and obedience, and find it unfoiled. And it is truly the only plan of justification which can leave a reasonable mind free from embarrassment, and in union with the Father who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man's work. (1 Pet. i. 17.)

CHAPTER X.

OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE FOREGOING DOCTRINES STATED AND OBVIATED.

ALTHOUGH Some occasional objections may have been answered where they occurred, so many will be raised, and some of them so extensive, that it appears most advisable to include the most considerable of them in a chapter expressly for that purpose. Some of them

will likely appear more like discussing other doctrines than answering objections; but as they all come in opposition to the doctrine heretofore stated, as well as what will follow, I have concluded to treat them all in the line of objections. And,

1st. It is objected that the law must be magnified and made honourable that mankind have broken the law and are unable to restore it : this therefore must be the work of Christ in their stead. "The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. (Isa. xlii. 21.) These words are read with application to Christ as obeying the law, magnifying and making it honourable, in the room of men, as their surety, so that God the Father is well pleased with them for the sake of his obedience, or right

eousness.

of

But such a use of this text evidently indicates a previously constructed plan into which it is pressed. A man must be hardly beset for support to a favourite scheme, if he will consider this Scripture in its connection, and then employ it with confidence to defend the notion of justification by the righteousness of Christ imputed. For there is not one word, either in this text or its connection, to show that it relates to Christ in any part of the character peculiar to him as Mediator. The character described, in the immediately preceding part of the paragraph, is excessively wicked and disobedient, in no sense or respect applicable to Christ, who as a Son was obedient in all his Father's house. So far then are these words from speaking any mediatorial or surety righteousness, that they are applicable to God only, or JEHOVAH, in the most absolute sense, as resting satisfied with his own righteousness, or justice towards that rebellious people, and proposing to vindicate his own law, without any intimation of the order, or plan, in which salvation is to be obtained, only that God will show it. Let us take a view of these words in their connection. Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent ? [These are not the characteristics of Christ; he was neither blind nor deaf.] Who is blind as he that is perfect, [or according to Lowthe, perfectly instructed, or as the Hebrew, well compensated. At all events a perfect one is not blind,] and blind as the Lord's servant ? [Israel?] Seeing many things, [the mighty works of God,] but thou observest not; opening the ears, [as if to listen,] but he hear

eth not." [Heb. He will not hear.] These things do not bespeak the character of Christ, the obedient Son or servant of God. The prophet then breathes out this reflection concerning the faithfulness of God and the perfection of his work in the event. "The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; [JEHOVAH is satisfied and enjoys his own good pleasure with regard to the justice of his dealings towards his people; and in the event,] he will magnify the law, [which he hath promulgated] and make it honourable ;" [let this people ruin themselves as they may.] This construction is confirmed by the Greek translation of the seventy Jews, who, it must be expected, understood their own language.

But however true, that the law of God must be magnified and made honourable, and that Christ performed the same in the most perfect degree, the notion of his doing this in the room of others as their surety, is without foundation in the Scriptures. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake. With whom? No doubt with him who doeth righteousness. He shall magnify the law and make it honourable. But not a word of its being done by one in the room of another. Obedience is confessedly the greatest honour which the law could receive; and admitting that it received the first and most perfect obedience in the man Christ Jesus, and was more honoured and magnified, or set forth more gloriously, by the obedience of the Son of God, than it could possibly have been by the obedience of any inferior character, his obedience was not to release or prevent his people from yielding the same, or from honouring and magnifying the law in their place, as his true followers, but rather to lead them into a more perfect obligation, and more correct obedience, by his humiliating example. "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ." "Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that ye may become a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." "Forasmuch then as Christ hath once suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh, to the lusts of men but to the will of God." "Be ye, therefore, followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. (Phil. ii. 5; 1 Cor. v. 7; 1 Pet. iv. 1, 2; Eph. v. 1,

2.)

This argument is acknowledged in its main position in a book of great authority among a large class of professors. The words are these; the moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard to the matter contained in it, but also in respect to the authority of God who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but strengthen this obligation." (See Presb. Conf. of Faith, Chap. xix. Sec. 5.) There is not therefore even a plausible pretext for justification by surety righteousness.

2d. Many have insisted that the idea of justification by obedience is agreeable to the carnal nature of men, and that their pride being opposed to salvation by grace, and justification by the righteousness of another, is the reason they reject that plan, counting it dishonourable and degrading to their own worth, to be justified without taking

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their own deeds and worthiness into the account. That men in nature are governed by a spirit of carnality, pride, and self-will, is not to be disputed. But it is also undeniable that the spirit of carnality and pride leads men a very different way from obedience-quite the reverse: So that when they knew God they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful;" "Who were dead in trespassess and sins, (these are the fruits of the carnal mind, not good works,) wherein in time past ye walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: (not in such as love to do good works:) among whom we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath even as others." "And you that were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled." (Eph. ii. 1-3; Col. i. 21.) This carnal mind, which is enmity against God, doth not lead men to obedience or good works, but to wicked works: and men are enemies to God by wicked works and not by good works or obedience.

It is unquestionable that men love carnal ease and the indulgence of their own natures, in the neglect of obedience to God, else why so little obedience, so few good works among those who hope for salvation? Whether they expect justification by their obedience or by Christ's righteousness imputed, (for both acknowledge the propriety of good works,) the name of God is blasphemed through them, for the want of the fruits of faith in good works. But true faith leads directly to obedience: it worketh by love, and by works it is made perfect.

And so far is the above objection carried by some, that the practical self-denial taught by Jesus Christ, for a man to deny himself and take up his cross and follow him, seems to be construed away into a denial of any capability to do what Christ proposed as the true method to partake with him; and for a man to deny that any of his most honest obedience or faithful services can be acceptable to God, so as to have any part in his own personal acceptance, or justification, is counted the true self-denial. A kind of self-denial this, unknown in the Scriptures and unsupported by its authority, as well as expressly contrary to its dictates; "For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned," (in the day of judgment.) "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." "Well done-Yea, this is it; Well done, thou good and faithful servant! thou hast been faithful over a few things, thou hast done thy duty-I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord-Be a partaker of the joy of the Lord in his final appearing." (Matt. xii. 37; Jas. ii. 24; Matt. xxv. 21, &c.)

Never was there a doctrine more soothing to the carnal mind, which loves its own ease and its own ways, than that of justification by faith without obedience, or by the righteousness of Christ imputednever a doctrine more congenial with the carnal heart, which hates obedience and duty to God, than that which is connected with that of imputation, the necessary inability of the unregenerate man to perform the duty which he owes to God; to believe, to obey, or to perform any thing acceptable, until God come and perform the saving work

in his heart. When the alarm is sounded-Escape for your lives— flee from the wrath to come-save yourselves from this untoward generation-work out your salvation. O, how agreeable the siren song: It is all in vain-ye cannot save yourselves—the best ye can do is but sin, until God give you faith-your works cannot be acceptable until you get a new disposition-ye need not toil and slave yourselves for nought-ye may as well be at ease until God's time come, and he give you a new heart. Hence the cold formality, the dull stupidity, the egregious insensibility towards spiritual things, which so abundantly prevail among the people of that faith. Hence also the painful labour of the apostle James, with those who had fallen into the notion of justification by faith, without works, to prove to them that they were wrong, and did not bear the marks of true Christians at all.

On the other hand, when the man is awake to a lively sense of his need of salvation, his soul engulfed in sin and enveloped in the above doctrine with its concomitants, this produces another state of things. No justification without the righteousness of Christ imputed and received by faith alone, no faith without regeneration, no regeneration without imputation, no imputation without faith, and so on. No praying and crying to God, no seeking after God, no confessions and repentance, no attempts for deliverance, but what are all sin, because in unbelief-to call on God is sin, to neglect, say they, is no less inevitable death and damnation without faith and repentance; and these cannot be had unless God, by his irrevocable decrees, may possibly have fixed matters so, in the foundation of his own plan which never had a beginning. Of this matter the man has no knowledge; God hath never revealed the particulars of his decrees, and he is at least as likely to be left out of the happy number as not. Then all is hopeless; and after all his sufferings, alarms and cries for mercy, he must be condemned to hell, to suffer the eternal vengeance of God due to him for his sins, because God would not impute to him the righteousness of Christ-" Because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God;" because he hath not received that gift or grace, which God from the origin of his own nature, which never had a beginning, hath decreed irreversibly not to give. Now the doctrines of justification by the righteousness of Christ imputed, of faith, as the direct and sovereignly free gift of God, and of absolute decrees, are all in one scale. But a gloom attends these doctrines of men, which so misrepresent the dealings of God, too distressing for the human mind to brook.

But tell me, ye who say mankind naturally love the plan of justification by their own obedience, and oppose the contrary because it hurts their pride; why do not they yield obedience? For, corrupt as men are, they are intelligent beings, and by far the greater part expect, more or less, to stand or fall on that ground. It is the most consistent with rationality. Why then are they not found in daily obedience? why not saving themselves from this untoward generation? But daily experience proves, in those who maintain the plan of justification by faith alone, as well as in those who look for it by works also, that the human heart is not so much opposed to any plan, as to real subjection to God in the obedience of faith.

3d. Another objection is, that many of the arguments employed to