Chapter
Six
Those
that endeavour to perform sincere obedience to all the commands of Christ, as
the condition by which they are to procure for themselves a right and title to
salvation, and a good ground to trust on Him for the same, do seek their
salvation by the works of the law, and not by the faith of Christ, as He is
revealed in the gospel and they shall never be able to perform sincere and
true holy obedience by all such endeavours.
For the
understanding the terms of this direction, note here that I take salvation as
comprehending justification, as well as other saving benefits, and sincere
obedience as comprehending holy resolutions, as well as the fulfilling of
them. The most of men that have any sense of religion are prone to imagine
that the sure way to establish the practice of holiness and righteousness is
to make it the procuring condition of the favour of God and all happiness.
This may appear by the various false religions that have prevailed most in the
world. In this way the heathens were brought to their best devotion and
morality by the knowledge of the judgement of God, that those that violate
several of the great duties to God and their neighbour are worthy of death,
and by their consciences accusing or excusing them, according to the practice
of them (Rom. 1:32; 2:14, 15). Our consciences are informed by the common
light of natural reason that it is just with God to require us to perform
these duties, that we may avoid His wrath and enjoy His favour. And we cannot
find any better way than this to obtain happiness, or to stir up ourselves to
duty, without divine revelation. Yet, because our own consciences testify that
we often fail in the performance of those duties, we are inclined by self-love
to persuade ourselves that our sincere endeavours to do the best we can shall
be sufficient to procure the favour of God, and pardon for all our failings.
Thus we see that our
persuasion of salvation by the condition of sincere obedience has its original
from our corrupt natural reason, and is part of the wisdom of this world. It
is none of 'the wisdom of God in a mystery, that hidden wisdom which God
ordained before the world to our glory'; it is none of those things of the
Spirit of God which 'have not entered the heart of man,' and which the
'natural man cannot receive; for they are foolishness to him; neither can he
know them, for they are spiritually discerned' (1 Cor. 2:6, 7, 9, 14). It is
none of 'the foolishness of preaching,' by which it pleased God 'to save them
that believe' (1 Cor. 1:21
). And though we have a better way revealed to us in the gospel, for the
enjoyment of the favour of God, and holiness itself, and all salvation,
without any procuring condition of works, by the free gift of God's grace
through faith in Christ, yet it is very difficult to persuade men out of a way
they are naturally addicted to, and that has forestalled and captivated their
judgements, and is bred in their bone, and therefore cannot easily be got out
of the flesh. Most of those that live under the hearing and profession of the
gospel are not brought to hate sin as sin, and to love godliness for itself,
though they are convinced of the necessity of it to salvation, and therefore
they cannot love it heartily. The only means they can take to bring themselves
to it is to stir up themselves to a hypocritical practice in their old natural
way, that they may avoid hell, and get heaven, by their works. And their own
consciences witness that the zeal and love that they have for God and
godliness, their self-denial, sorrow for sin, strictness of life, are in a
manner forced and extorted from them by slavish fear and mercenary hope, so
that they are afraid that, if they should trust on Christ for salvation by
free grace without works, the fire of their zeal and devotion would be quickly
extinguished, and they should grow careless in religion, and let loose the
reins to their lusts, and bring certain damnation on themselves. This moves
them to account them the only Boanerges and powerful preachers that preach
little or none of the doctrine of free grace, but rather spend their pains in
rebuking sin and urging people to get Christ and His salvation by their works,
and thundering hell and damnation against sinners.
It has been further
observed that some that have contended much for salvation by free grace,
without any condition of works, have fallen into Antinomian opinions and
licentious practices. The experience of these things has much prevailed with
some learned and zealous men of late among ourselves to recede from the
doctrine of justification by faith without works, formerly professed
unanimously, and strongly defended by the Protestants against the Papists as a
principal article of true religion. They have persuaded themselves that such a
way of justification is ineffectual, yea, destructive to sanctification, and
that the practice of sincere obedience cannot be established against
Antinomian dotages and prevailing lusts, except it is made the necessary
condition of our justification, and so of our eternal salvation. Therefore
they conclude that God has certainly made sincere obedience to be the
condition of our salvation. And they have endeavoured to new-model the
Protestant doctrine, and to interpret the Holy Scriptures in a way agreeable
and subservient to this their only sure foundation of holiness.
But I hope to show
that this their imagined sure foundation of holiness was never laid by the
holy God, but that it is rather an error in the foundation, pernicious to the
true faith, and to holiness of life. I account it an error especially to be
abhorred and detested, because we are so prone to be seduced by it, and
because it is an error by which Satan, transforming himself into an angel of
light, and a patron of holiness, has greatly withstood the gospel in the
apostles' times, and stirred up men to persecute it out of zeal for the law,
and has since prevailed to set and maintain Popery, by which the mystery of
iniquity works apace in these days to corrupt the purity of the gospel among
Protestants, and to heal the deadly wound that was given to Popery by
preaching the doctrine of justification by faith without works.
One thing asserted
in the direction against this fundamental error is that it is a way of
salvation by the works of the law, and not by the faith of Christ, as revealed
in the gospel; though the maintainers of it would have us believe that it is
the only way of the gospel, that so we may not doubt its power and efficacy
for our justification, sanctification and our whole salvation. Their reasons
are because the law, as a covenant of works, requires us to do all its
commandments perfectly that we may live; whereas they plead only for a milder
condition of sincere doing, that we may live. And they plead not for doing
duties, as obliged to it by the authority of the law given of God by Moses,
but only in obedience to the commands of Christ in the gospel. Neither do they
plead for salvation by sincere obedience without Christ, but only by Christ,
and through His merit and righteousness. And they acknowledge that both
salvation itself and sincere obedience are given to them freely by the grace
of Christ: so that all is of grace. They acknowledge also that their salvation
is by faith, because sincere obedience is wrought in them by believing the
gospel, and is included in the nature of that faith, which is the entire
condition of our salvation, and some call it the resignation act. of faith.
But all these reasons are but a fallacious wizard on a legal way of salvation,
to make it look like pure gospel, as I shall evince by the following
particulars.
1. All that seek
salvation by the sincere performance of good works, as the procuring
condition, are condemned by the apostle Paul for seeking righteousness by the
works of the law, and not by faith (Rom. 9:32), and for seeking to be
justified by the law, and falling from the grace of Christ (Gal. 5:4). This
one assertion, if it can be proved, is enough to pluck off the fallacious
wizard from the condition of sincere obedience, and to make men abhor it, as a
damning legal doctrine, that bereaves its followers of all salvation by
Christ. And the proof of it is not difficult to persons that warily consider a
point of so great moment for their salvation.
The Jews and
judaizing Christians, against whom the apostle chiefly disputes in his whole
controversy, did not profess any hope of being justified by perfect obedience,
according to the rigour of the law, but only by such obedience as they
accounted to be sincere, and not hypocritical. And we have no cause to doubt,
but that the judaizing Galatians had learned by the gospel to distinguish
sincere obedience from hypocrisy. The Jewish religion bound all that professed
it to acknowledge themselves to be sinners, as appears by their anniversary
humiliation on the day of atonement, and several other rites of the law, and
many clear testimonies in the oracles of God that were committed to them (Ps.
143:2; Prov. 20:9; Eccles. 7:20). Yet they knew they were bound to turn to the
Lord with all their hearts, in sincerity and uprightness, and that God would
accept of sincere obedience; for which cause they might better put it for the
condition of the law, than we can of the gospel (Ps. 51:6, 10; Deut. 6:5;
30:10). So that if the apostle had disputed against those that held only
perfect obedience to be the condition of justification, he had contended with
his own shadow. And they might as readily judge sincere obedience to be the
condition of justification under the law, as we can judge it to be the
condition under the gospel.
Neither does the
apostle condemn them merely for accounting sincere obedience to the law, as
given by Moses, to be the condition of their justification, but more generally
for seeking salvation by their own works. And he alleges against them that
Abraham, who lived before the law of Moses, was not justified by any of his
works, though he did perform sincere obedience; and that David, who lived
under the law of Moses, was not justified by his works, though he performed
sincere obedience, and was as much given to obey the law given by Moses, as we
are to obey any commands of Christ in the gospel (Rom. 4:2, 3, 5, 6).
Neither does he
condemn them for seeking their salvation only by works, without respecting at
all the grace and salvation that is by Christ, for the judaizing Galatians
were yet professors of the grace and salvation of Christ, though they thought
obedience to the law a necessary condition for the partaking of it, as also
many other judaizing believers did. And, doubtless, they accounted themselves
obliged to it, not only by the authority of Moses, but of Christ also, whom
they owned as their Lord and Saviour. And we may be sure it was no damning
error to account Moses' law obliging at that time, for many thousands of the
Jews that were sound believers held the ceremonies of Moses to be in force at
that time, and Paul was tender towards them in it (Acts 21:20, 26; 15:5). And
other Jews sought justification, not only by their sincere works, but also by
trusting on the promise made to Abraham and on their priesthood and
sacrifices, which were types of Christ. And the most legal Pharisees would
thank God for their works, as proceeding from His grace (Luke
18:11). And they could as well acknowledge their salvation to be by faith as the
asserters of salvation by sincere obedience can in these last days, for they
accounted that their sincere obedience was wrought in them by believing the
Word of God, which contained gospel, as well as legal doctrine, in it and
therefore that it must be included in the nature of faith, if faith were taken
for the condition of their whole salvation.
Let them [not build
again] that Judaism which the apostle Paul destroyed, by which the Jews
stumbled at Christ (Rom.
9:32), and the Galatians were in danger of falling from Christ and grace (Gal.
5:2, 3). Let them beware of falling under the curse which He has denounced on
this very occasion against any man or angel that shall preach any other gospel
than that which he has preached (Gal. 1:8, 9).
2. The difference
between the law and gospel does not at all consist in this, that the one
requires perfect doing; the other, only sincere doing; but in this, that the
one requires doing; the other, not doing, but believing for life and
salvation. Their terms are different, not only in degree, but in their whole
nature.
The apostle Paul
opposes the believing required in the gospel to all doing for life, as the
condition proper to the law (Gal. 3:12). The law is not of faith, but the man that does them shall live in them
(Rom. 10:5). To him that does not work, but believes on Him that justifies the
ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness (Rom.
4:5). If we seek salvation by ever so easy and mild a condition of works, we
do in this way bring ourselves under the terms of the law, and become debtors
to fulfil the whole law in perfection, though we intended to engage ourselves
only to fulfil it in part (Gal. 5:3), for the law is a complete declaration of
the only terms by which God will judge all that are not brought to despair of
procuring salvation by any of their own works, and to receive it as a gift
freely given to them by the grace of God in Christ. So that all that seek
salvation, right or wrong, knowingly or ignorantly, by any works, less or
more, whether invented by their own superstition, or commanded by God in the
Old or New Testament, shall at last stand or fall according to these terms.
3. Sincere obedience
cannot be performed to all the commands of Christ in the gospel, except it is
also performed to the moral law, as given by Moses, and as obliging us by that
authority. Some asserters of the condition of salvation by sincere obedience
to the commands of Christ would fain be free from the authority of the law of
Moses, because that justifies none, but thunders out a curse against all those
that seek salvation by the works of it (Gal. 3:10, 11). But, if they were at
all justified by sincere works, their respect to Moses' authority would not
hinder their success; for many that were good Christians accounted themselves
bound to obey, not only the moral, but the ceremonial law; and if they had
sought justification by any works, they would have sought it by those (Acts
21:20, 21). They did not know of any justification by sincere works, as
commanded only in the gospel; yet, if they had erred in anything absolutely
necessary to salvation, the apostles would not have tolerated their weakness.
And, whether they will or no, they must seek their salvation by the works of
the moral law, as given by Moses, or else they can never get it by sincere
obedience to the commands of Christ. Christ never loved their new condition so
well as to abolish the Mosaical authority of the moral law, for the
establishment of it. He came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to
fulfil them, in the practice required by them, and has declared that 'Whoever
then shall break one of these commandments, even the least, and shall teach
men so, that one shall be called the least in the
kingdom
of
Heaven
. But whoever shall practice and teach them, that one shall be called great in
the
kingdom
of
Heaven
' (Matt.
5:19
). He commands us to 'do to men whatever we would they should do to us,
because this is the law and the prophets' which is sufficient to prove that He
would have us to account the law authoritative to oblige us in this matter. He
requires His disciples to observe and do whatever the scribes and Pharisees
bid them, because they sat in Moses' seat (Matt. 23:2, 3).
And, to come to the
point in hand, when Christ had occasion to answer the questions of those that
were guilty of the same error that I am now dealing with, in seeking salvation
by their own works, He showed them that they must obey the commands as they
were already established by the Mosaical authority, in the Scriptures of the
Old Testament: 'What is written in the law? How do you read it? This do, and
you shall live' (Luke
10:26
, 28). If you will enter into life, keep the commandments, which are, 'You
shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery,' etc.
In like manner the
apostles of Christ urged the performance of moral duties on believers by the
authority of the law given by Moses. The apostle Paul exhorts to love one
another, because he that loves another has fulfilled the law (Rom. 13:8), and to honour our father and mother, which is the first command with
promise (Eph. 6:2). The apostle John exhorts to love others, as no new, but an
old commandment. The apostle James exhorts to fulfil the royal law, according
to the Scriptures. You shall love your neighbour as yourself; and to keep all
the commandments of the law, one as well as another, because he that said, 'Do
not commit adultery', said also, 'Do not kill' (James 2:8, 10, 11). Sound
Protestants have accounted the denial of the authority of the moral law of
Moses to be an Antinomian error. And though our late prevaricators against
Antinomianism do not maintain this error, yet they establish a worse error,
justification by their sincere gospel works. I think the denomination of the
Antinomians arose from this error. The law of Moses had its authority at first
from Christ, for Christ was the Lord God of Israel, that ordained the law by
angels on mount Sinai in the hand of Moses, a mediator for the Israelites, who
were then His only church, and with whom we believing Gentiles are now joined,
as fellow members of one and the same body (Eph. 3:6). And though Christ has
since abrogated some of the commandments, then given by Moses, concerning
figurative ceremonies and judicial proceedings, yet He has not annulled the
obligative authority of the moral law, but has left it in its full force, to
oblige in moral duties that still are to be practiced, as, when some acts of
any parliament are repealed, the authority of the same parliament remains
inviolable in other acts that are not repealed.
I know they object
that the Ten Commands of the moral law, the ministration of death, written and
engraven on stones, are also done away by Christ (2 Cor. 3:7). But this makes
altogether against their conditional covenant, for they are the ministration
of death, and done away, not as they commanded perfect obedience, for even
Christ Himself commands us to be perfect (Matt. 5:48), but as they were
conditions for procuring life and avoiding death, established by a promise of
life to the doers, and a curse to the breakers of them (Gal. 3:10, 12). The
covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai is abolished by Christ, the Mediator
of the new covenant (Heb. 8:8, 9, 13). And the Ten Commandments do not bind us
as they were words of that covenant (Exod. 34:28). I mean, they do not bind us
as conditions of that covenant, except we seek to be justified by works. For
the law, as a covenant, still stands in force enough to curse those that seek
salvation by their own works (Gal. 3: 10) and, if abolished, it is only to
those that are in Christ by faith (Gal. 2:16, 20; Acts 3:22-25; 15:10, 11).
But the Ten Commandments bind us still, as they were then given to a people
that were at that time under the covenant of grace made with Abraham, to show
them what duties are holy, just and good, well-pleasing to God, and to be a
rule for their conversation. The result of all is that we must still practice
moral duties as commanded by Moses, but we must not seek to be justified by
our practice. If we use them as a rule of life, not as conditions of
justification, they can be no ministration of death, or killing letter to us.
Their perfection indeed makes them to be harder terms to procure life by, but
a better rule to discover all imperfections, and to guide us to that
perfection which we should aim at. And it will be our wisdom not to part with
the authority of the decalogue of Moses, until our new divines can furnish us
with another system of morality as complete as that and as excellently
composed, and ordered by the wisdom of God, and more authentic than that is.
4. Those that
endeavour to procure Christ's salvation by their sincere obedience to all the
commands of Christ do act contrary to that way of salvation by Christ, free
grace and faith, discovered in the gospel, though they own it in profession
ever so highly.
1. They act contrary
to the way of salvation by Christ, for they would heal themselves, and save
themselves from the power and pollution of sin, and procure God's favour, by
performing sincere obedience, before they are come to Christ, the only
Physician and Saviour. They lay their own obedience lowest in the foundation
of their salvation, and build the enjoyment of Christ on it, who ought to be
the only foundation. They would sanctify themselves, before they have a sure
interest in Christ and, going about to establish their own righteousness, they
do not submit themselves to the righteousness of God in Christ (Rom.
10:3, 4). Sometimes they will call the righteousness of Christ their legal
righteousness, that they may make room for an evangelical righteousness of
their own works, to be the immediate procuring cause of their justification by
Christ, whereas the apostle Paul knew no evangelical righteousness but that of
Christ, which he called the righteousness of faith without the law (Rom. 3:21,
22) and not of the law (Phil. 3:9). Thus they make void Christ's salvation,
while they pretend to own it, and Christ profits them nothing. Christ is
become of none effect to them, while they would be justified by the law (Gal.
5:2, 4). If we would be saved by Christ, we must own ourselves dead, lost
sinners, that can have no righteousness for justification but His, no life or
ability to do good, until God bring us into union and fellowship with Him.
2. They do act also
contrary to salvation by grace, according to the true meaning of the gospel.
For we are not saved by grace, as the supreme cause of salvation, by the
intervention of works, given and accepted by grace, as the procuring cause; in
which sense we might be saved by grace, though by a covenant of works; as a
servant, that has monies given him by his master to purchase an annuity of his
master at a low rate may profess that he had an annuity given him freely, and
yet he has purchased it and may claim it as a due debt. But we are saved by
grace, as the immediate and complete cause of our whole salvation, excluding
procurement of our salvation by the condition of works and claiming it by any
law as a due debt.
The Scripture
teaches us that there is a perfect opposition and utter irreconcilableness
between salvation by grace and works: 'If by grace, then it is no more of
works; otherwise grace is no more grace: but, if it is of works, then it is no
more grace; otherwise work is no more work' (Rom. 11:6). So also, there is an
opposition between a reward reckoned of grace and of debt (Rom. 4:4); between a promise of happiness by the law, and by grace (Rom.
4:13, 16). God is so jealous of the glory of His free grace that He will not save
us by any works, though of His own working in us, lest any man should boast
(Eph. 2:9). He knows when He heals men by physic, or maintains them by the
labour of their hands, they are prone to attribute the glory rather to the
means they use than to His sole bounty and goodness.
3. They do also act
contrary to the way of salvation by faith, for, as I have shown already, the
faith which is required for our salvation in the gospel is to be understood in
a sense contrary to doing good works as a condition to procure our salvation,
and so the true difference between the terms of the law and the gospel may be
maintained. Believing is opposed to all working for salvation, and the law of
works to the law of faith (Rom. 4:5; 3:27; Eph. 2:8, 9). Therefore, we must not here consider faith as a work of
righteousness, as comprehending any works of righteousness performed or done,
as a condition to procure a right and title to Christ, as the hand by which we
work, to earn Him as our bread and drink, as our wages; but only as the hand
by which we receive Christ, as freely given to us, or as the mouth by which we
eat and drink Him, as has been proved. God gives a sufficient right to receive
Christ and His salvation by the free gospel offer and invitation, so that He
leaves nothing for our faith to do, but to lay hold of Him as a free gift,
that the glory of our salvation may not be ascribed at all to our faith or
works, but only to this free grace of God in Christ: 'It is of faith, that it
may be by grace' (Rom. 4:16).
6. Christ or His
apostles never taught a gospel that requires such a condition of works for
salvation as they plead for. The texts of Scripture which they usually allege
for this purpose are either contrary to it, or widely distant from it - as
they might learn from many Protestant interpreters, if their affection to a
popish tenet had not blinded them. I shall instance briefly only in a few of
those texts by which you may have some light to judge of the true meaning of
the rest. That obedience of faith, mentioned by the apostle Paul, as the great
design of gospel preaching (Rom. 1:5), is as contrary to their condition of
sincere obedience for salvation, as the law of faith is to the law of works
(Rom. 3:27). It is an obedience that consists in believing the report of the
gospel, as the apostle explains himself: 'They have not all obeyed the gospel;
for Esaias says, Lord, who has believed our report?' (Rom. 10:16.) Faith is to be imputed for righteousness, not because it is a work of
righteousness itself, but because we do by it renounce all confidence in any
righteous works whatever, and trust on Him that justifies the ungodly, as is
clear by that very text which they usually pervert for their purpose (Rom.
4:5). They grossly pervert those words of Paul: 'Who will render to every man
according to his deeds; to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing,
seek for glory, and honour, and immortality eternal life' (Rom. 2:6, 7), where
they will have Paul to be declaring the terms of the gospel, when he is
evidently declaring the terms of the law to prove that both Jews and Gentiles
are all under sin, and that no flesh can be justified by the works of the law,
as appears by the tenor of his following discourse (Rom. 3:9, 10). They join
evidently with the Papists against the concurrent judgement of the best
Protestant divines in the interpretation of the text: 'You see then, how that
by works a man is justified, and not by faith only' (James 2:24), where they
will have James deliver the doctrine of justification in more proper
expressions than the apostle Paul, who teaches justification by faith without
works; though Paul treats on this doctrine as his principal subject, and James
only speaks of it occasionally, as a motive to the practice of good works, by
which we may easily judge which of their expressions are to be taken for the
most proper.
Protestants have
showed sufficiently that James speaks not of a true saving faith, but of such
a dead faith as devils have; not of justification in a proper sense, but of
the declaration and manifestation of it by its fruits. Besides, he speaks of
justification by works as commanded in the law given by Moses, as appears by
his citing the commandments of the law (James 2:8, 11), which our contrivers
of the new divinity would have nothing to do with in their model of the
doctrine of justification.
Another text alleged
by them is 'Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have a
right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city'
(Rev. 22:14). But the Greek word which is here translated 'right' is
translated 'power' or 'privilege' (John
1:12). It signifies here a rightful possession of the fruit of the tree of life,
and not a mere title to it. So this text proves no more than what the
Protestants generally acknowledge, that good works are the way in which we are
to walk to the enjoyment and possession of the glory of Christ, though a title
to Christ and His glorious salvation be freely given us without any procuring.
condition of works. They account also that when the happiness of heaven is
called a reward, it must needs imply a procuring condition of works, as
Revelation 22:12; Matthew 5:12. But though it is called a reward, because it
is given after the doing of good works, and because it recompenses good works
better than any wages on earth can recompense the labourer, yet it is a reward
of grace, not of debt (Rom. 4:4); it is no proper wages, but a free gift: 'For
the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus
Christ our Lord' (Rom. 6:23).
Another thing
asserted in the direction is that those that endeavour to perform this sincere
obedience as a condition to procure a right and title to Christ and His
salvation shall never be able to perform sincerely any true obedience by all
such endeavours. Though they labour earnestly, and pray fervently, fast
frequently, and oblige themselves to holiness by many vows, and press
themselves to the practice of it by the most forcible motives taken from the
infinite power, justice and knowledge of God, the equity and goodness of His
commands, the salvation of Christ, everlasting happiness and misery, or any
other motive improved by the most affectionate meditation - yet they shall
never attain to the end which they aim at in such an erroneous way. They may
restrain their corruptions, and bring themselves to many hypocritical slavish
performances, by which they may be esteemed among men as eminent saints, but
they shall not be able to mortify one corruption, or to perform one duty in
such a holy manner as God approves. Yet here I censure only an error, not the
life of the persons that maintain it. I have heard that some preach legally
and pray evangelically. I doubt not but the frame of their hearts and lives is
rather according to their prayers than their sermons. Though Peter complied
with Judaism in an outward act of profession, yet he lived himself like a
Christian (Gal. 2:11, 14). I affirm only that no godly person did or could attain to his godliness
in this erroneous way. And what a lamentable disappointment is this to those
that have attempted to alter the Protestant doctrine, and to pervert and
confound law and gospel, and have bred much contention in the church, that
they might secure the practice of sincere obedience against Antinomian errors,
by making it the procuring condition of their salvation, when, after all this
ado, the remedy is found to be as bad as the disease, equally unserviceable
and destructive to that great end for which they designed it, and that it has
an Antinomian effect and operation, contrary to the power of godliness!
Much more might be
said for the confutation of this novel doctrine, but, if this one thing be
well proved, it may be sufficient to make the zealous contrivers of it to be
ashamed of their craft, and angry with themselves, and sorry that they have
taken so much pains, and stretched their wits to maintain such an
unprofitable, unsanctifying opinion. It will be sufficient for the proof of
it, if I show that the practice of true holiness cannot possibly be attained
to by seeking to be saved by the works of the law; because I have already
proved that this doctrine of salvation by sincere obedience is according to
the terms of the law, and not of the gospel. And in this way those also may
see their error that ascribe justification only to the gospel, and
sanctification to the law. Yet, because those asserters of the condition of
sincere obedience will hardly be persuaded by what has been said, that it is
the way of the law of works, I shall, for their more full conviction,
sufficiently manifest that 'it is of no other nature and operation, than any
other doctrine that is proper to the law, and has no better fruit', as I
proceed to prove by the following arguments that holiness cannot be attained
by seeking it by the law of works, that so it may appear not worthy to be
called gospel doctrine.
1. The way of
salvation by the works of the law is contrary and destructive to those
necessary means of a holy practice that have been laid down in the foregoing
directions, and manifestly proved out of the Holy Scriptures. I have made it
appear that a hearty propensity to a holy practice cannot be attained without
some good persuasion of our reconciliation with God by justification, and of
our everlasting happiness, and of sufficient strength both to will and to
perform our duty; and that these, and all other endowments necessary to the
same end, are to be had only in Christ, by union and fellowship with Him; and
that Christ Himself, with all His fullness, is united to us by faith; which is
not a condition to procure a right and title to Christ, but an instrument by
which we receive Him actually into our hearts, by trusting on Him for all
salvation freely promised us in the gospel. All these means of a holy practice
are things in which our spiritual life and happiness consists, so that, if we
have them, everlasting life is begun in us already. Because they are the
necessary means of a holy practice, therefore the beginning of everlasting
life in us must not be placed after such a practice, as the fruit and
consequence of it; but must go before it, as the cause before the effect. Now,
the terms of the law are directly contrary to this method. They place the
practice of holiness before life and make it to be the means and procuring
cause of life, as Moses describes them: 'The man that does these things shall
live by them' (Rom. 10: 5). By these terms, you are first to do the holy
duties commanded, before you have any interest in the life promised, or any
right to lay hold of it as yours by faith. And you must practice holiness
without the forementioned means, or else you can never attain to them. Thus
the true means are turned out of their office and, instead of being causes,
they are made to be effects and fruits of a holy practice. And it will be in
vain ever to expect such effects and fruits, for holiness itself, with all its
effects, must needs be destroyed, when its necessary causes are taken away.
Therefore, the apostle Paul testifies that the way of salvation by the works
of the law makes faith void, and the promises of no effect, and frustrates the
grace of God, as if Christ died in vain, and makes Christ to be of no profit,
and of none effect to us, as those that are fallen from grace (Rom. 4:14; Gal.
2:21; 5:2, 4).
Let us now examine
the modern doctrine of salvation by the condition of sincere obedience to all
the commands of Christ, and we shall quickly find it to be a chip of the same
block with the former legal way of salvation, in the same manner destructive
to the means of holiness and to holiness itself. It requires of us the
performance of sincere obedience, before we have the means necessary to
produce it, by making it antecedent to our justification, and persuasion of
eternal happiness, and our actual enjoyment of union and fellowship with
Christ, and of that new nature which is to be had only in Him by faith. It
destroys the nature of that saving faith by which we actually receive and
enjoy Christ and all His benefits, and knocks off our hands from laying hold
of Christ and His salvation by telling us still, as Christ told the legal
worker, after all his labour, that yet we lack something (Mark 10:21); that it
is presumption to take Him as our own, until we have performed the condition
for our right and title to Him, which is another kind of saving faith,
otherwise called sincere obedience. By this devised conditional faith, Satan
keeps many poor souls at bay, poring on their own hearts for many years
together, to find whether they have performed the condition, and whether they
have as yet any right to Christ for their salvation, not daring to venture to
take Him as their own. It is a strong partition wall, that will certainly
hinder the soul from coming to Christ, until it is thrown down by the
knowledge of salvation by grace without any procuring condition of works. And
though it is accounted but as the payment of a peppercorn for a great estate,
yet it is enough to break the ablest man in the world, because it debars him
from laying hold of the only effectual means of holiness, by which that
peppercorn may be obtained.
2. Those that seek
salvation by the works of the law do therein act according to their natural
state. They live and walk according to the flesh, or old man; not according to
the new state, by Christ living in them. I doubt not but several of them that
live under the light of the gospel are partakers of a new state in Christ, and
walk holily in it; but the best in this world have in them flesh as well as
spirit, and may act according to either state in some measure, and in this
matter they do act according to their carnal natural state. When the believing
Galatians were seduced to a legal way of salvation, the apostle Paul charges
it on them as their folly that, having begun in the Spirit, they would now be
'made perfect in the flesh' (Gal. 3:3). And he resembles those that desire to
be under the law to Abraham's son born of Hagar the bondwoman to show that
such do walk as those that are born after the flesh, not after the Spirit
(Gal. 4:22, 23, 29). The law was first given to Adam in his pure natural
state, to prescribe terms for his continuance in the happiness which he then
enjoyed. And ever since that time the flesh, or natural man, is married to the
law, and the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives, that is, until
he be dead to his fleshly state by the body of Christ, and married to Him that
is raised from the dead (Rom. 7:1, 4). We are not at all under the law as a
covenant of works, according to our new state in Christ, as the apostle
testifies: 'You are not under the law, but under grace' (Rom.
6:14
) and 'If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law' (Gal. 5:18). From this, we may firmly conclude that none can possibly attain to true
godliness by acting according to legal terms, because I have fully proved
already that it is impossible to be godly while we are in the flesh, or in a
natural state, and that, as far as we act according to it, we can do nothing
but sin. The law is so weak through the flesh, that it cannot bring us to
fulfil its own righteousness (
Rom.
8:3, 4). It is married to a cross piece of flesh, that is enmity to it, and
can never be subject to it (
Rom.
8:7). It sues the natural man for an old debt of obedience, that he is utterly
unable to pay since the Fall, and the success is accordingly: it gets nothing.
Neither do those
take a better course, that would bring themselves to holiness by making
sincere obedience to Christ's commands the condition of their salvation. Their
way is the same for substance with that of the Galatians beforementioned, who
would be made perfect in the flesh, not by perfect obedience, but sincere; as
has been shown before. Their endeavours to procure an interest in Christ by
their sincere obedience do testify against themselves, that they do not act as
people that are in Christ, but rather as people that judge themselves to be
without an interest in Christ, and to be yet to seek for it. And sincere
obedience is as impossible to be attained to as perfect obedience; if we act
according to our dead natural state.
3. As the law
bereaves of all strengthening means that are to be had by faith in Christ, and
finds us without strength in our natural state, so, of itself, it affords us
no strength to fulfil its own commands: 'If there had been a law given that
could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law' (Gal.
3:21). It does not so much as promise life until we have performed the
obedience required by it. The man that does these things shall live by them
(Rom. 10: 5). It is well called a voice of words (Heb. 12:19), because its high and big words are not accompanied with an enlivening
power. And the doctrine of life and salvation by sincere obedience is no
better-natured, or more bountiful to us, for it exacts of us the performance
of the condition, before it allows us any life or salvation by Christ. Can any
man rationally expect strength to obey sincerely by following a doctrine that
does not so much as promise it? The true gospel is of a more benign nature,
for it promises that God will pour out of His Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17),
and will put the laws into our minds, and write them in our hearts (Heb.
8:10), and will cause us to walk in His statutes, that we shall keep His
judgements, and do them (Ezek. 36:27). This word of God's grace, that requires
not holiness of us as a condition, but promises it to us as a free gift, must
needs be the only doctrine that is able to build us up, and to give us an
inheritance among them that are sanctified (Acts 20: 32). Seeing it pleases
God to bring us to holiness by believing a doctrine, we may reasonably expect
that God should work on us suitably to the nature of the doctrine which we
believe, that He should give by a giving doctrine, and exact by an exacting
doctrine.
4. The way of
procuring life and happiness by the condition of perfect or sincere works is
not a rational method for the recovery of fallen man, though it were good for
the preserving of life before the Fall, for it prescribes the immediate
practice of holiness to recover a man dead in sin - as if one should say to
the sick of the palsy, 'Arise and walk, and then you shall be whole and able
to walk.' We sometimes say jestingly to a child that is fallen on the ground,
'Come here, and I will help you up', but if we should say so to one that is
cast on his bed by a dead palsy we should be guilty of mocking and cruelly
insulting the afflicted. Those that are humbled and made sensible of their
original sin and natural deadness know that they must first live by the
Spirit, before they can act holily (Gal. 5:25). They will enquire, 'How shall we have strength to perform the duty
required?' If you answer, that they must trust in God and Christ to help them,
they may readily reply, they have no sure ground to trust in God or Christ for
any saving grace according to this doctrine, before they have performed this
condition, at least in a sincere resolution of obedience, and that they are as
unable to bring their hearts to such a resolution as a dead man is to raise
himself out of the grave. Take another instance. The method of the doctrine of
works is 'You must love God first, and then, on that condition, He will love
you again', whereas, on the contrary, 'We love God, because He loved us first'
(1 John
4:19). And if God suspend His love to us upon any condition, our love to Him will
not be absolute, but suspended upon the same condition, and no way contrary to
an actual hating of Him.
3. The law is so far
from healing our sinful corruption that it proves rather an occasion of sinful
motions and actings in those that seek salvation by the works of it. This
comes to pass by reason of the power of our natural corruption, which is
stirred up and rages the more when the holy and just law of God is set in
opposition against it, so that the fault is not in the law, but in our own
hearts. Those that find not this by their own experience should believe the
apostle Paul, who teaches it plainly, and that from his own experience (Rom.
7:5, 14). He affirms that there are motions of sin by the law in a fleshly
state, and that sin, taking occasion by the commandment, 'You shall not
covet', wrought in him all manner of concupiscence, deceived him, slew him,
became exceeding sinful; and that without the law, he was alive, and sin dead
but, when the commandment came, sin revived, and he died. He shows the cause
of this irreconcilable enmity and contrariety between his sinful nature and
the law: 'The law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.' Take notice
here, from the reason given by the apostle, that the doctrine of salvation by
sincere obedience will have the same event. Corrupt nature is contrary to
sincere obedience, as well as perfect and, if we make it the condition of our
salvation, sin will take the same occasion by it to become exceeding sinful in
its motions and actings. The success of legal doctrine upon the natural man is
according to the proverb, 'Do not reprove a scorner, lest he hate you' (Prov.
9:8). Rebuking a madman is the way to enrage him, and such is the natural man
in spiritual things, since he fell out of his right mind by the sin of Adam.
We find by manifold
experience that, though man is generally addicted to the principle of
salvation by works, yet multitudes of them hate all strict preachers and
professors of true holiness, because they are a torment to their consciences.
They endeavour to shelter themselves in ignorance of the law, accounting that
the less they know, the less they shall answer for, and therefore they would
not have right things prophesied to them (Isa. 30:10). And they have prevailed
generally in the world to darken the natural knowledge of moral duties in such
a degree that there is a necessity of learning them by divine revelation out
of the Scriptures. We may find how prone legal writers are to corrupt the
sense of the law, that they may leave starting-holes for their corruptions, by
the corrupt glosses of the scribes and Pharisees, from which Christ did
vindicate it (Matt. 5). And, as far as I have observed, none more endeavour to
discover the purity and perfection of the law than those that seek holiness
and salvation without any legal condition, by the mere free grace of God in
Christ. The doctrine of salvation by sincere obedience is but a mincing the
perfection required in the law, and yet how is this doctrine minced again and
again, until it is become so small, that the substance of all true obedience
is lost? A willingness to be saved according to Christ's terms, or a consent
that Christ should be our Lord, or a resolution to obey His commandments
(which is little more than ignorant men trust on, when they say they hope God
will save them because they have a good meaning, though they live in the
neglect of all religion) without any further practice of holiness, shall pass
with many for enough of sincere obedience, both to enter them into a state of
salvation, and to continue them in it; so that they shall never be accounted
breakers of the gospel covenant, while so much can be pretended. The most that
is made necessary for salvation shall be only to endeavour to do what we can
to obey Christ's commands, though all that the most can do is nothing that is
truly good. Those that have a little more zeal for their salvation by works
are prone to spend it in superstitious observances, because they suit better
with their carnal nature than the spiritual commands of God and Christ. I
doubt not but this has been one occasion of the prevailing of heathenish,
Jewish and popish superstitions in the world. We find by experience how Popery
fell in several nations of late years, when the great pillar of it, the
doctrine of justification by works, was overthrown by the Protestant doctrine
of justification by faith alone.
If these legal
zealots be forced by strong conviction to endeavour the practice of spiritual
duties for the quieting of their guilty consciences, they may be brought to
strive and labour earnestly, and even to macerate their bodies with fasting,
that they may kill their lusts; but still their lusts are alive, and as strong
as ever they were, and do show forth their enmity against the law of God by
inward fretting, repining and grudging at it, as a grievous taskmaster, though
a slavish fear restrain their gross outward actings. And, if once these
zealots are enlightened with the knowledge of the spiritual nature of the law
to discern that God rejects all their slavish service, and will not own it for
sincere obedience, then they fall into despair of their salvation, because
they see they have failed in their highest attempts to perform the condition,
and they can easily discover themselves, that their hearts swell in anger and
manifest hatred against the law, yea, and against God and Christ, for
prescribing such hard conditions of salvation, which they cannot keep, and yet
must expect to be damned eternally for breaking them. This fills them with
blasphemous thoughts against God and Christ, and they can hardly refrain from
blaspheming with their tongues. And when they are brought to this horrible
condition, if God does not in mercy discover to them the way of salvation by
free grace, through faith alone, they will endeavour, if they can, to sear
their consciences past feeling of sin, and fully to abandon all religion,
which has proved such an insufferable torment to them, or, if they cannot sear
their consciences, some of them are easily prevailed with by Satan, rather to
murder themselves than to live longer in the hatred of God, the spirit of
blasphemy and continual horror of conscience.
This is the
pestilent effect of legal doctrine upon a carnal heart, that does but rouse up
and terribly enrage the sleeping lion, our sinful corruption, instead of
killing it - as is too evident by the sad experience of many that have
endeavoured with all their might to practice it, and by the Scripture, that
shows a sufficient cause why it cannot be otherwise. Therefore, the doctrine
of salvation by sincere obedience, that was invented against Antinomianism,
may well be ranked among the worst Antinomian errors. For my part, I hate it
with perfect hatred, and account it mine enemy, as I have found it to be. And
I have found by some good experience the truth of the lesson taught by the
apostle, that the way to be freed from the mastery and dominion of sin is not
to be under the law, but under grace (Rom. 6:14).
6. The way of
salvation by works was blasted by the curse denounced against the first Adam's
sin, so that now it cannot work life in us, or holiness, but only death, for
the law, which requires both sincere and perfect obedience to God in all
things, was made known to Adam at his first creation, as the means of
continuing the happy life that was then bestowed on him, and it would have
been effectual for this end, if he had not transgressed in eating the
forbidden fruit. But, when he had once brought himself and his posterity under
the terrible sentence, 'You shall surely die' (Gen. 2:17), all that knowledge
of God or His law that before wrought continuance of life was turned by that
cursing sentence the contrary way, to work for his death, even for the death
of the soul in sin, as well as for the death of his body; and therefore it
quickly moved him to hide himself from God as an enemy. It was as if God
should say, 'All the light and knowledge that you have shall not be able to
continue your life, or restore it; but it shall rather tend to your death.'
Therefore, while we continue in our natural state, under the first Adam's
guilt and curse, the knowledge of the law, yea, and all such knowledge of God
and His attributes as natural man may attain to, must needs be in like manner
accursed to us. And seeing man did not use his natural knowledge and wisdom
aright, God is resolved to revenge the abuse of it by giving us salvation in a
way contrary to it that seems foolishness to the natural man, and wholly to
abolish the way of living by any of our works, or by any wisdom or knowledge
that the natural man can attain unto. For it is written, 'I will destroy the
wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the
prudent. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For, after that,
in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the
foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe' (1. Cor. 1:19-21).
4. Hence we may
conclude that the end which God aimed at in giving the law to Moses was not
that any should ever attain to holiness or salvation by the condition of
perfect or sincere obedience to it, though, if there had been any such way of
salvation at that time, it must have consisted in the performance of that law,
which was then given to the church to be a rule of life, as well as a
covenant. There was another covenant made before that time with Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, a covenant of grace, promising all blessings freely through Christ,
the promised seed, by which only they were to be saved. And the covenant of
the law was added that they might see their sinfulness and subjection to death
and wrath, and the impossibility of attaining to life or holiness by their
works, and be forced to trust on the free promise only for all their
salvation, and that sin might be restrained by the spirit of bondage until the
coming of that promised seed Jesus Christ, and the more plentiful pouring out
of the sanctifying Spirit, by Him. This the apostle Paul shows largely (Gal. 3:15
-24; Rom. 5:20, 21; 10:3, 4). None of the Israelites under the Old Testament were ever saved
by the Sinai covenant; neither did any of them ever attain to holiness by the
terms of it. Some of them did indeed perform the commandments of it sincerely,
though imperfectly, but those were first justified, and made partakers of life
and holiness, by virtue of that better covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, which was the same in substance with the new covenant or testament
established by the blood of Christ. Had it not been for that better covenant,
the Sinai covenant would have proved to them an occasion of no happiness, but
only of sin, despair and destruction. Of itself it was only a killing letter,
the ministration of death and condemnation, and therefore it is now abolished
(2 Cor. 3:6, 8, 9, 11).
We have cause to
praise God for delivering His church, by the blood of Christ, from this yoke
of bondage; and we have cause to abhor the device of those that would lay upon
us a more grievous and terrible yoke, by turning our very new covenant into a
covenant of sincere works, and leaving us no such better covenant, as the
Israelites had under their yoke, to relieve us in our extremity.
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