(3) God has wifely determined to fave proud man in a way that excludes [pharifaic] boafting. God is juft, and the juftifier of him that believes in Jefus. Where is boafting then? fays the apoftle; It is excluded, anfwers he: By what covenant, does he afk? Is [pharifaic] boafting excluded by the covenant of works ? No, but by the law of faith, by the covenant of grace, whofe condition is [penitential, felf-abafing, obedicnt] faith in Jefus Chrift. Therefore we conclude, fays he, that a man is juftified by faith, without the works of the law. Rom. iii. 27, 28. If our good works [properly speaking] deferve the leaft part of our falvation, we may justly boaft that our own arm has got us that part of the victory; and we have reafon [pharifaically] to glory in ourselves, contrary to the fcriptures, which fay, that every mouth mast be stopped, that boasting is excluded, and that he who glories, must glory in the Lord. t

[If St. Paul glories in his fufferings and labours, it is not then without Chrift before God, but with Chrift before the Corinthians, and under peculiar circumstances. He never imagined that his works were meritorious according to the first covenant; much less did he fancy that they had one fingle grain of proper merit. He perfectly knew, that if they were rewardable, it was not from any felf-excellence, which he had put into them; but merely from God's gratuitous promife in the fecond covenant; from Christ's grace, by which they were wrought; from his atoning blood, in which they were washed; and from his proper merits, with which they were perfumed.]

[To fuppofe that Adam himfelf, if he had conti nued upright, would have gloried in his righteoufnefs as a pharifee, is to fuppofe him deeply fallen. In paradife God was all in all; and as he is also all in all in heaven, we may eafily conceive, that, with refpect to felf-exaltation, the mouth of Gabriel is not lefs

See a note in the Scriptural Effay, 2d Part, upon the glorying to which St. Paul excites believing workers, Gal. vi. 4.

Thut before the throne, than that of Mary Magdalen. Therefore, if any out of hell pharifaically glory in themselves, it is only thofe felf-righteous fons of Lucifer and Pride, to whom our Lord fays ftill, You are of your father the Devil, whose works ye do, when ye feek to kill me, and glory in yourselves.]

(4) Our evil works [in general] far overbalance our good works, both in quantity and quality: Let us firft then pay a righteous God the debt, [the immenfe debt of ten thoufand talents that] we owe him, by dying the fecond death, which is the wages of our bad works; and then we may talk of buying heaven with our good works.

(5) Our best works have fuch a mixture of imperfection, that they must be atoned for, and made acceptable by Christ's blood; fo far are they from atoning for the leaft fin, † [and properly meriting our acceptance] before God [even according to the fecond covenant.]

(6) If ever we did one truly good work, the ‡ merit + is not ours, but God's, who by his free grace 66 prevented, accompanied, and followed us in the performance. For it is God, who of his good pleasure worketh in us both to will and to do. Phil. ii. 12. Not I, fays the apoftle after mentioning his good works, but the grace of God in me, 1 Cor. xv, 10, compared with James i. 17.

(7) We

(34) Eleven years ago I said [and making us accepted] I now reject the expreffion as unguarded; for it clashes with this propofition of St. Peter: In every nation he that WORKETH righteoufness is ACCEPTED of him. We fhould take care fo to fecure the foundation, as not to throw down the building.

(35) ↑ This is the very doctrine of evangelical rewardableness, or improper, derived merit, fo honourable to Chrift, fo humbling to man, which I have maintained in the Vindication, p. 72, &c. Therefore, if I am a merit-monger and an heretic now, it is evident that I was fo eleven years ago, when I wrote a fermon, which, as my late opponent is pleafed to fay, [Fin. Stroke, p. 44 ]" does me much credit, and plainly fhews, that I was once zealously attached to the doctrines of the church of England.”

(7) We perpetually fay at Church: Glory be to the Father, as Creator; and to the Son, as Redeemer; and to the Holy Ghoft, as fanctifier. Christ is then to have

all the glory of our redemption: But if our good works come in for any fhare in the purchase of heaven, we must come in alfo for fome fhare of the glory of our [redemption. + ] Thus Chrift will no longer be the only Redeemer we fhall be + co-redeemers with him, and confequently we fhall have a fhare in the doxology; which is a blafphemous fuppofition.

(8) Our Lord himself decides the question in thofe remarkable words, When you have done all that is commanded you; and where is the man that [according to the law of innocence] has done [without interruption] I fhall not say all, but the one half of it? Say, We are unprofitable fervants. Now it is plain, that unprofitable fervants do not [properly] merit in whole or in part, to fit down at their mafter's table, and be admitted as children to a share of his eftate. There fore, if God gives heaven to believers, it is entirely owing to his free mercy, [according to his diftributive justice, and the tenour of the law of faith] thro' the merits of Jefus Chrift, [derived by faith] and not at all thro' the [proper] merits of our own works.

(9) I fhall clefe these obfervations by St. Paul's unanswerable argument. If righteousness comes by the law,

(36) I fubftitute the word redemption for the word falvation, that I formerly ufed; because English logic demands it. By the fame 'reafon I leave out in the end of the paragraph the words "Saviour," and "joint faviours" which I had illogically coupled with "Redeemer," and "co-redeemers." For, altho' it is ftrictly true that no man can redeem his brother's foul, or even ranfom his body from the power of the grave: yet, according to the doctrine of Secondary, inftrumental caufes, it is abfolutely falfe that no man can fave his neighbour; for In doing this, fays St. Paul, thou shalt both fave thyself, and them that bear thee. 1 Tim. iv. 16.

(37) I fay [the law of innocence] to defend the works of the law of FAITH, by the inftrumentality of which we fhall be justified or faved in the great day. For thefe works flowing from Chrift's grace, and never afpiring at any higher place, than that, which is alloted them, viz. the place of juflifying evidences, they can never detract from the Saviour's honour or his grace,

law, If falvation comes by [the covenant of] works, then Chrift died in vain, Gal. ii. 21. Whence it follows that if it comes in part by the works of the law [of innocence,] part of Chrift's fufferings were vain; a fuppofition which ends in the fame blafphe my [against the Mediator.]

[(10) That man might deferve any thing of God, upon the footing of proper worthinefs, or merit of equivalence, God fhould ftand in need of fome thing, which it is in man's power to beftow: But this is abfolutely impoffible: for God being self-sufficient in his infinite fulness, is far above any want; and man being a dependant creature, every moment fupported by his Maker and Preferver, has nothing, and can do nothing, to which God has not a far greater right than man himself. This is what the apostle afferts where he says, Who has given Him FIRST, and it fhall be recompenfed unto him again? But much more in this remarkable paffage: Who maketh thee to differ from another? If thou fayeft, The number of my talents and the proper ufe I have made of them: I ask again, Who gave thee thofe talents? And who fuperadded grace, wifdom, and an opportunity to improve them?

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Here we must all give glory to God, and fay with St. James, Every good gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.

Upon this confideration the apostle proceeds to check the chriftian pharifee thus: What haft thou, that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why doft thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? Whence it follows, that, tho' St. Paul himself glories in, and boats of his difinterested nefs, yea folemnly declares, No man shall stop me of this boasting, yet he did not glory in that virtue as if he had not received it: No he gave the original glory of it to Him of whom, thro' whom, and to whom are all things. The glory of bestowing original gifts upon us belongs then to God alone; and the original glory of the humility with which we receive, and of the faithfulness, with which we use those gifts, belongs alfo to him alone;

altho',

altho', in the very nature of things, we have fuch a derived thare of that glory, as gives room to the reafonableness of divine rewards. For why fhould one be rewarded more than another; yea, why fhould one be rewarded rather than punished, if derived faithfulness does not make him more rewardable ?

Obferve however, that, altho' by this derived faithfulness one man makes himself to differ enough from another, for God to reward him reasonably rather than another; yet no man can fay to his Maker without fatanic arrogance, "I have made myself to differ from "fuch an one, therefore I make a lawful demand upon thy justice: Thus much have I done for thee; "do as much for me again." For while God difpenfes punishments according to the rules of frict juftice; he bestows his rewards only according to the rules of moral aptitude and diftributive equity, in confequence of Christ's proper merits, and of his own gracious promife; all men on earth, and all angels in heaven being far lefs capable of properly deferving at God's hands, than all the mites and ants in England are, of properly meriting any thing at the hands of the king.]

[Laitly, what flaves earn is not their own, but the master's to whom they belong; and what your horfes get is your property, not theirs: Now as God has a thousand times more right to us, than masters to their flaves, and you to your horfes; it follows, that, fuppofing we were finlefs, and could properly earn any thing, our profit would be God's, not ours. So true it is, that, from the creature to the Creator, the idea of proper merit is as contrary to justice as it is to decency.]

As the preceding arguments [against the proper merit of works] will, I hope, abundantly fatisfy all thofe [modern pharifees,] who have not entirely caft away the chriftian revelation, I pafs to the old objection of [fome ignorant] papifts [and injudicious proteftants.] "If good works cannot [merit us heaven, (fee the 5th note) or properly] fave us, why fhould we trouble ourselves about them?" [And in answer