The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

Wherefore as Faith may be allowed to be the condition of our Justification, if no more be intended thereby, but that it is what God requires of us that we may be justified; so to confine the declaration of its Use in our Justification unto its being the condition of it, when so much as a determinate signification ⟨p. 159⟩of it cannot be agreed upon, is subservient only unto the Interest of unprofitable strife and contention.

Wherefore as Faith may be allowed to be the condition of our Justification, if no more be intended thereby, but that it is what God requires of us that we may be justified; so to confine the declaration of its Ʋse in our Justification unto its being the condition of it, when so much as a determinate signification ⟨p. 159⟩of it cannot be agreed upon, is subservient only unto the Interest of unprofitable strife and contention.

To close these Discourses concerning Faith and its Use in our Justification, some things must yet be added concerning its especial Object. For although what hath been spoken already thereon, in the description of its nature and object in general, be sufficient in general to state its especial Object also; yet there having been an Enquiry concerning it, and debate about it in a peculiar notion, and under some especial terms, that also must be considered. And this is whether Justifying Faith in our Justification or its Use therein, do respect Christ as a King and Prophet, as well as a Priest with the satisfaction that as such he made for us, and that in the same manner, and unto the same Ends and Purposes. And I shall be brief in this Enquiry, because it is but a late controversy, and it may be hath more of Curiosity in its Disquisition, than of Edification in its Determination. However being not, that I know of, under these terms stated in any public Confessions of the Reformed Churches, it is free for any to express their Apprehensions concerning it. And to this purpose I say;