Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal…

A Person is said to be justified when he is approved of God as free from the Guilt of Sin, and it's deserved Punishment, and as having that Righteousness belonging to him that entitles to the Reward of Life. That we should take the Word in such a Sense, and understand it as the Judges accepting a Person as having both a negative, and positive Righteousness belonging to him, and looking on him therefore, as not only quit, or free from any Obligation to Punishment but also •s just and righteous, and so entitled to a positive Reward, is not only most agreeable to the Etymology, and natural Import of the Word, which signifies to make righteous, or to pass One for righteous in Judgment, but also manifestly agreeable to the Force of the Word, as used in Scripture.

A Person is said to be justified when he is approved of God as free from the Guilt of Sin, and it's deserved Punishment, and as having that Righteousness belonging to him that entitles to the Reward of Life. That we should take the Word in such a Sense, and understand it as the Judges accepting a Person as having both a negative, and positive Righteousness belonging to him, and looking on him therefore, as not only quit, or free from any Obligation to Punishment but also •s just and righteous, and so entitled to a positive Reward, is not only most agreable to the Etimology, and natural Import of the Word, which signifies to make righteous, or to pass One for righteous in Judgment, but also manifestly agreable to the Force of the Word, as used in Scripture.

Some suppose that nothing more is intended in Scripture by Justification than barely the Remission of Sins: if it be so it is very strange, if we consider the Nature of the Case; for 'tis most evident, and none will deny, that it is with Respect to the Rule, or Law of God that we are under, that we are said in Scripture to be either justified or condemned: Now what is it to justify a Person, as the Subject of a Law or Rule, but to judge him, ⟨p. 6⟩or look upon him, and approve him as standing right with Respect to that Rule? To justify a Person in a particular Case, is to approve of him as standing right, as subject to the Law or Rule in that Case; and to justify in general, is to pass him in Judgment, as standing right, in a State correspondent to the Law or Rule in general. But certainly in order to a Person's being looked on as standing right with Respect to the Rule in general, […] or in a State corresponding with the Law of God, more is needful than what is negative, or a not having the Guilt of Sin; for whatever that Law is, whether a new one, or an old one, yet doubtless something positive is needed in order to its being answered. We are no more justified by the Voice of the Law, or of him that judges according to it, by a mere Pardon of Sin, than Adam our first Surety, was justified by the Law, at the first Point of his Existence, before he had done the Work, or fulfilled the Obedience of the Law, or had had so much as any Trial whether he would fulfil it or no. If Adam had finished his Course of perfect Obedience, he would have been justified; and certainly his Justification would have implied something more than what is merely negative; he would have been approved of, as having fulfilled the Righteousness of the Law, and accordingly would have been adjudged to the Reward of it: So Christ our second Surety, (in whose Justification all who believe in him, and whose Surety he is, are virtually justified,) was not justified 'till he had done the Work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father's Commandments, through' all Trials, and then in his Resurrection he was justified: When he that had been put to Death in the Flesh was quickened by the Spirit,