The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

This description of The Righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel, which the Apostle asserts as the only means and cause of our Justification before God, with the only way of its participation and communication unto us by the Faith of Christ Jesus, fully confirms the truth we plead for. For if the Righteousness wherewith we must be justified before God be not our own, but the Righteousness of God, as these things are directly opposed, Phil. 3.9. And the only way whereby it comes upon us, or we are made partakers of it, is by the Faith of Jesus Christ, then our own personal inherent Righteousness or Obedience, hath no interest in our Justification before God; which Argument is insoluble, nor is the force of it to be waved by any distinctions whatever, if we keep our hearts unto a due reverence of the Authority of God in his Word.

Having fully proved, That no Men living have any Righteousness of their own, whereby they may be justified, but are all shut up under the guilt of sin; and having declared, That there is a Righteousness of God now fully revealed in the Gospel, whereby alone we may be so; leaving all Men in themselves unto their own lot, In as much as all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, he proceeds to declare the nature of our Justification before God in all the causes of it. Ver. 24, 25, 26. Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through Faith in his Blood, to declare his ⟨p. 447⟩Righteousness for the Remission of sins, that are past, through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time, his Righteousness, that he might be just, and the Justifier of them that believe in Jesus.

Here it is, that we may, and ought if any where, to expect the interest of our personal obedience under some qualification or other, in our Justification to be declared. For if it should be supposed (which yet it cannot with any pretence of Reason) that in the foregoing discourse, the Apostle had excluded only the Works of the Law, as absolutely perfect, or as wrought in our own strength without the aid of Grace, or as meritorious; yet having generally excluded all Works from our Justification, Ver. 20. Without distinction or limitation, it might well be expected, and ought to have been so; that upon the full Declaration which he gives us of the nature and way of our Justification in all the causes of it, he should have assigned the place, and consideration which our own personal Righteousness had in our Justification before God; the first or second, or continuation of it, somewhat or other, or at least, made some mention of it, under the qualification of gracious, sincere, or Evangelical, that it might not seem to be absolutely excluded. It is plain the Apostle thought of no such thing, nor was at all solicitous about any reflection that might be made on his Doctrine, as though it overthrew the necessity of our own obedience. Take in the consideration of the Apostles design, with the circumstances of the context, and the Argument from his utter silence, about our own personal Righteousness in our Justification before God, is unanswerable. But this is not all; we shall find in our progress, that it is expressly and directly excluded by him.