But admitting one of these three mediums poffible for the payment of an infinite debt; yet, pray obferve the moft unworthy and ridiculous confequences, that will unavoidably attend the impoffibility of God's pardoning finners without a fatisfaction.

Confequences irreligious and irrational.

1. That it is unlawful and impoffible for God Almighty to be gracious and merciful, or to pardon tranfgreffors; than which, what is more unworthy of God?

2. That God was inevitably compelled to this way of faving men; the highest affront to his incontroulable nature,

3. That it was unworthy of God to pardon, but not to inflict punishment on the innocent, or require a fatisfaction where there was nothing due.

4. It doth not only dif-acknowledge the true virtue and real intent of Chrift's life and death, but entirely deprives God of that praise which is owing to his greatest love and goodness.

5. It represents the Son more kind and compassionate than the Father; whereas if both be the fame God, then either the Father is as loving as the Son, or the Son as angry as the Father.

6. It robs God of the gift of his Son for our redemption (which the fcriptures attribute to the unmerited love he had for the world) in affirming the Son purchased that redemption from the Father, by the gift of himself to God, as our complete fatisfaction.

7. Since Chrift could not pay what was not his own, it follows, that in the payment of his own, the cafe ftill remains equally grievous; fince the debt is not hereby abfolved or forgiven, but transferred only and by confequence we are no better provided for falvation than before, owing that now to the Son, which was once owing to the Father.

8. It no way renders man beholding, or in the leaft obliged to God; fince by their doctrine he would not N 4

have

have abated us, nor did he Christ the last farthing; fo that the acknowledgments are peculiarly the Son's; which destroys the whole current of fcripture-teftimony, for his good-will towards men.-O the infamous portraiture this doctrine draws of the infinite goodness! Is this your retribution, O injurious fatiffactionists?

9. That God's juftice is fatisfied for fins paft, prefent, and to come; whereby God and Chrift have loft both their power of enjoining godlinefs, and prerogative of punishing difobedience; for what is once paid is not revokeable; and if punishment fhould arreft any for their debts, it either argues a breach on God's or Chrift's part, or else that it has not been fufficiently folved, and the penalty completely sustained by another; forgetting, "that every one muft appear before the judgment-feat of Chrift, to receive ac"cording to the things done in the body: yea, every

one must give an account of himself to God."" But many more are the grofs abfurdities and blafphemies that are the genuine fruits of this fo-confidently-believed doctrine of fatisfaction.

A CAUTION.

Let me advise, nay warn thee, reader, by no means to admit an entertainment of this principle, by whomfoever recommended; fince it does not only divest the glorious God of his fovereign power, both to pardon and punish, but as certainly infinuates a licentiousness, at least a liberty, that unbecomes the nature of that ancient gofpel once preached amongst the primitive faints, and that from an apprehension of a fatisfaction once paid for all. Whereas I must tell thee, that unlefs thou feriously repent, and no more grieve God's holy Spirit, placed in thy inmoft parts, but art thereby taught to deny all ungodliness, and led into all rightcoufnefs; at the tribunal of the great Judge, thy plea

Rom. xiv. 12. 2 Cor. xv. 10.

fhall

fhall prove invalid, and thou receive thy reward without refpect to any other thing than the deeds done in the body: "Be not deceived, God will not be mock"ed; fuch as thou foweft, fuch fhalt thou reap: which leads me to the confideration of my third head, viz. Juftification by an imputative righteoufnefs.'

The juftification of impure perfons, by an imputative righteousness, refuted from fcripture.

TH

HAT there is no other way for finners to be juftified in the fight of God, than by the imputation of that righteoufnefs of Chrift, long fince performed perfonally; and that fanctification is confequential, not antecedent.'

I.

1. "Keep thee far from a falfe matter; and the innocent and righteous flay thou not; for I will not justify the wicked." [Whereon I ground this argument, that fince God has prescribed an inoffenfive life, as that which can only give acceptance with him, and on the contrary hath determined never to justify the wicked, then will it neceffarily follow, that unless this fo-much-believed imputative righteousness had that effectual influence, as to regenerate and redeem the foul from fin, on which the malediction lies, he is as far to feek for juftification as before; for whilft a perfon is really guilty of a falfe matter, I pofitively affert, from the authority and force of this fcripture, he cannot be in a state of juftification; and as God will not justify the wicked, fo, by the acknowledged reason of contraries, the juft he will never condemn, but they, and they only, are the juftified of God.]

2. "He that juftifieth the wicked, and he that con"demneth the juft, even they both are an abomination to the Lord." [It would very opportunely be obferved, that if it is fo great an abomination in men to justify the wicked, and condemn the juft, how much greater would it be in God, which this doctrine

Gal, vi. 7. Exod. xxiii. 7 * Prov. xvii. 15.

of

of imputative righteoufnefs neceffarily does imply, that fo far difengages God from the perfon juftified, as that his guilt fhall not condemn him, nor his innocency juftify him? But will not the abomination appear greatest of all, when God fhall be found condemning of the juft, on purpose to juftify the wicked, and that he is thereto compelled, or elfe no falvation, which is the tendency of their doctrine, who imagine the righteous and merciful God, to condemn and punish his innocent Son, that he having fatiffied for our fins, we might be juftified (whilst unfanctified) by the imputation of his perfect right• eoufnefs. O! why fhould this horrible thing be contended for by Chriftians?]

сс

3. "The fon fhall not bear the iniquity of his fa"ther; the righteoufnefs of the righteous fhall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked fhall "be upon him. When a righteous man turneth away "from his righteoufnefs, for his iniquity that he hath "done fhall he die. Again, when the wicked man turn"eth away from his wickednefs, and doth that which " is lawful and right, he shall fave his foul alive; yet "faith the house of Ifrael, the ways of the Lord are "not equal: are not my ways equal?" [If this was once equal, it is fo ftill, for God is unchangeable; and therefore I fhall draw this argument, that the condemnation or justification of perfons is not from the imputation of another's righteoufnefs, but the actual performance and keeping of God's righteous ftatutes or commandments, otherwise God fhould forget to be equal: therefore how wickedly unequal are those, who, not from fcripture evidences, but their own dark conjectures and interpretations of obfcure paffages, would frame a doctrine fo manifeftly inconsistent with God's most pure and equal nature; making him to condemn the righteous to death, and juftify the wicked to life, from the imputation of another's righteousness :—a most unequal way indeed !]

y Ezek. xxviii. 20, 26, 27, 28.

4. " Not

4. "Not every one that faith unto me, Lord, Lord, "shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that "doth the will of my Father. Whofoever heareth "these sayings of mine, and doth them, I will liken "him unto a wife man, which built his house upon a "rock," &c. [How very fruitful are the fcriptures of truth, in teftimonies against this abfurd and dangerous doctrine! thefe words feem to import a twofold righteousness; the firft confifts in facrifice, the laft in obedience; the one makes a talking, the other a doing Christian. I in fhort argue thus: If none can enter into the kingdom of heaven, but they that do the Father's will, then none are justified, but they who do the Father's will, because none can enter into the kingdom but fuch as are juftified; fince therefore there can be no admittance had, without performing that righteous will, and doing those holy and perfect fayings; alas to what value will an imputative righteousness amount, when a poor foul fhall awake polluted in his fin, by the hafty calls of death, to make its appearance before the judgment-feat, where it is impoffible to juftify the wicked, or that any fhould escape uncondemned, but fuch as do the will of God?]

5. "If ye keep my commandments, ye fhall abide "in my love, even as I have kept my Father's com"mandments, and abide in his love." [From whence this argument doth naturally arise; If none are truly juftified that abide not in Christ's love, and that none abide in his love who keep not his commandments; then confequently none are justified, but fuch as keep his commandments. Befides, here is the most palpable oppofition to an imputative righteousness that may be; for Chrift is fo far from telling them of fuch a way of being juftified, as that he informs them the reason why he abode in his Father's love was, his obedience; and is fo far from telling them of their being juftified, whilst not abiding in his love, by vir

z Mat. vii, 21, 24, 25.

a

John xv. 10.

tue