A brief discourse of justification. Wherein this doctrine is plainly laid down according to…

1. The Righteousness it self which is requisite for our Justification, must be that which, fully and in all the parts of it answers the terms of the Covenant which was between God and man at the first. The Law of that Covenant was the rule of Justice and Righteousness between these two parties and he that will either do or suffer u••n the account of another, must come up to the whole of that which he was himself to have done or suffered: he that undertakes to pay a Debt for another, must either take care to pay the whole Debt, or else, by leaving any part of it unpaid, the man is still obnoxious to his Creditor: and if this be well considered, it will thence be apparent, that both Christs active and passive obedience were need […] case, and no more than what was […] requisite; and if he had not so […] he could not have perfectly merited for us: for Covenant merit is nothing else but the performing of the Articles of the Covenant: and therefore Paul resolves our Justification into the obedience or Christ as the procuring cause of it, and that both his active obedience ⟨p. 30⟩Rom.5.19. As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous: Now it was Adam's active disobedience which made men sinners; And his passive obedience, 2. Cor. 5.21. For he hath made him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. For though it be a truth, that God in his absolute Sovereignty might have dispensed with and given a pardon to sin freely, and without any satisfaction, upon man's submission and repentance, the punishing or pardoning sin belonging to his efficiency, and flowing therefore from his will or good pleasure; and though he might have given happiness without consideration of any active obedience, i• it had seemed best for him so to have done yet when God hath once entered upon th• with his creatures, and engaged himself in such a Covenant, as infinite wisdom had suited to his own purposes for the displays of his glorious Holiness, Justice, and Grace he now occupies the place of a righteous Judge, and cannot dispense with his own Law, because his Truth and Righteousness engage him to it: Christs Obedience therefore was perfect and full, it answered the Law in the whole substance of it, he both did all that was required, and suffered all