A sermon of judgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Major and aldermen…A sermon of iudgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Maior and aldermen…

Concerning both which, Observe, 1. How it is that mans Obedience and self-denial is The Reason and Cause of his Justification. 2. Why it is that God will have the Reason or Cause thus Declared in the Sentence.

Concerning both which, Observe, 1. How it is that mans Obedience and self-denyal is The Reason and Cause of his Justification. 2. Why it is that God will have the Reason or Cause thus Declared in the Sentence.

For the first; observe, that Its one thing to give a Reason of the Sentence, and another thing to express the Cause of the Benefit, Given us by the promise, and Judged to us by the Sentence. Mans Obedience was no proper Cause why God did in this life Give pardon of sin to us, or a ⟨p. 184⟩Right to glory: much less, of his Giving Christ to dye for us. And therefore as to our Constitutive Justification at our Conversion, we must not say or think that God doth Justify us, For or Because of any works of our Obedience, Legal or Evangelical. But when God hath so Justified us, when he comes to give a Reason of his Sentence in Judgement, he may and will fetch that Reason, partly from our Obedience, or our performance of the Conditions of the New Covenant. For as in this life, we had a Righteousness consisting in free pardon of all sin through the blood of Christ, and a Righteousness consisting in our personal performance of the Conditions of the promise which giveth that pardon, and continueth it to us: so at Judgement we shall accordingly be justified And as our Evangelical personal Righteousness, ⟨p. 185⟩commonly called Inherent, was at first only in our Faith and Repentance, and Disposition to obey: but afterward in our Actual sincere Obedience, in which sense we are Constitutively Justified or made Righteous here by our works, in James his sense, Jam. 2.24. so accordingly a double Reason will be assigned of our sentential Justification; One from our pardon by Christs blood and merits; which will prove our Right to Impunity and to Glory. The other from our own Faith and holy Obedience, which will prove our Right to that pardon through Christ, and to the free Gift of a Right to glory: and so this last is to be pleaded in subordination to the former. For Christ is become the Author of Eternal salvation to all them that Obey him,