The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

Wherefore of this Introduction of Christ and Grace in him, into our Relation unto God, there are no notions in the natural conceptions of our minds, nor are they discoverable by Reason in the best and utmost of its exercise, 1. Cor. 2.14. For before our understandings were darkened, and our Reason debased by the Fall, there were no such things revealed or proposed unto us; yea the supposition of them is inconsistent ⟨p. 55⟩with, and contradictory unto, that whole state and condition wherein we were to live to God; seeing they all suppose the Entrance of sin. And it is not likely that our Reason as now corrupted, should be willing to embrace that which it knew nothing of in its best condition, and which was inconsistent with that way of attaining happiness which was absolutely suited unto it. For it hath no Faculty or Power but what it hath derived from that state. And to suppose it is now of it self suited and ready to embrace such heavenly mysteries of Truth and Grace, as it had no notions of, nor could have in the state of Innocency, is to suppose that by the Fall our Eyes were opened to know Good and Evil, in the sense that the Serpent deceived our first Parents with an Expectation of. Whereas therefore our Reason was given us for our only Guide in the first constitution of our Natures, it is naturally unready to receive what is above it, and as corrupted hath an Enmity thereunto.

Hence in the first open proposal of this mystery, namely, of the Love and Grace of God in Christ, of the Introduction of a Mediator and his Righteousness into our Relation unto God, in that way which God in infinite Wisdom had designed; the whole of it was looked on as mere folly by the Generality of the wise and rational men of the World, as the Apostle declares at large, 1 Cor. ch. 1. Neither was the Faith of them ever really received in the World, without an Act of the Holy Ghost upon the mind in its Renovation. And those who judge that there is nothing more needful to enable the mind of man to receive the mysteries of the Gospel in a due manner, but the outward proposal of the Doctrine thereof, do not only deny the Depravation of our Nature by the Fall, but by just consequence, wholly renounce that Grace whereby we are to be recovered. Wherefore Reason (as hath been elsewhere proved) acting on and by its own innate Principles and Abilities, conveyed unto it from its