The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

3. A clear apprehension and due sense of the Greatness of our Apostasy from God, of the Depravation of our Natures thereby, of the Power and Guilt of Sin, of the Holiness and Severity of the Law, are necessary unto a right apprehension of the Doctrine of Justification. Therefore unto the Declaration of it doth the Apostle premise a large Discourse throughly to convince the minds of all that seek to be justified, with a sense of these things, Rom. 1.2, 3. The Rules which he hath given ⟨p. 19⟩us, the Method which he prescribeth, and the Ends which he designeth, are those which we shall choose to follow. And, He layeth it down in general, That the Righteousness of God is revealed from Faith to Faith and that the Just shall live by Faith; chap. 1.17. But he declares not in particular the causes, nature, and way of our Justification, until he hath fully evinced that all men are shut up under this state of sin, and manifested how deplorable their Condition is thereby. And in the Ignorance of these things, in the denying or palliating of them, lieth the foundation of all mis-belief about the Grace of God. Pelagianism in its first Root, and all its present Branches, is resolved thereinto. For not apprehending the dread of our Original Apostasy from God, nor the consequents of it in the universal Depravation of our Nature, they disown any necessity either of the Satisfaction of Christ, or the Efficacy of Divine Grace for our Recovery or Restoration. So upon the matter the principal Ends of the Mission both of the Son of God, and of the Holy Spirit, are renounced; which issues in the denial of the Deity of the one and the Personality of the other. The Fall which we had being not great, and the Disease contracted thereby being easily curable, and there being little or no evil in these things which are now unavoidable unto our nature, it is no great matter to be freed or justified from all, by a mere act of Favour on our own Endeavours; nor is the Efficacious Grace of God any way needful unto our Sanctification and Obedience, as these men suppose.

3. A clear apprehension and due sense of the Greatness of our Apostasie from God, of the Depravation of our Natures thereby, of the Power and Guilt of Sin, of the Holiness and Severity of the Law, are necessary unto a right apprehension of the Doctrine of Justification. Therefore unto the Declaration of it doth the Apostle premise a large Discourse throughly to convince the minds of all that seek to be justified, with a sense of these things,