XLIV. Unrighteousness or sin has a double power over the sinner. 1. A power of condemnation. 2. A power of dominion. The law defends both these powers the former, by declaring him who sins, to be guilty of death; the other, by giving up the conquered, by a just sentence, to the conqueror.t Wherefore it is said, that the law is the strength of sin. Because sin has its power from the law, which pronounces the sinner accursed, and the servant of corruption. Nay, the most holy law of God itself is called by Paul the law of sin and of death.§ Not as if it allowed of any sin, much less commanded it; but because, by its righteous sentence, it gives up the sinner and his children to sin, that it may tyrannise over them as unworthy of the life of God both in holiness and glory, Now, sin does this, both by pushing the sinner on to farther degrees of wickedness, and by hastening and aggravating his condemnation. Who can doubt but all these things are justly determined by God against the sinner? What too should hinder this sentence, which is founded on the law of the covenant of works, from being called a law? And seeing sin, according to this law, exercises a dominion over the sinner, and condemns him to death, very appositely and emphatically has Paul called it the law of sin and death. Sin therefore, in the judgment of God, insists upon two things against the sinner, that may condemn him, and for ever have dominion over him; and alledges for itself the righteous law of God. And indeed the law, as long as satisfaction is not made to it, cannot, in this action, or process, condemn sin, that is, silence, or extenuate its accusation, lay aside its claim, and pronounce it partial or unjust.

it

XLV. But now the satisfaction of Christ being sup. posed, and apprehended by faith, by which the whole

Rom. i. 32. 2 Pet. ii. 19. 1 Car, xv. 56. Rom. viii. 2.

righteousness of the law is fulfilled, the man is then justified, and sin condemned, both its claims being rejected. God declares, 1. That there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, that all their sins are pardoned, and that none of them shall avail to condemnation; because the Surety has in the fullest manner undergone the punishment due to them. And in that respect, forgiveness of sin is called justification.* 2. That sin shall no longer reign in their mortal body; because, since Christ did also, of his own accord, subject himself to those laws, which were the hand-writing of sin, they are no longer under the law of sin, but under grace. This justifying sentence of man, and condemning sentence of sin, are founded on the same law of God, which, if the satisfaction of Christ be set aside, is the law of sin and death; but if that satisfaction be supposed, it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, delivering man with a liberal hand. For after Christ has once obeyed in the likeness of sinful flesh for the elect, God declares, that every thing was done, which sin could possibly demand, according to the law, and pronounces a sentence of liberty from sin to those who by faith receive this grace of the Lord Christ, both with respect to its condemning and domineering power, as the apostle divinely illustrates.

XLVI. This deliverance from the guilt and dominion of sin has indeed an indissoluble connection with happiness; therefore they whose iniquities are forgiven, are declared blessed.§ Nevertheless this alone is not sufficient to happiness. For he who now is set free from `sin, has not immediately a right to life. This is manifest in Adam while innocent, who, as long as he continued such, had no condemnation to fear, nevertheless. + Rom. vi. 14. Rom. viii. 1, 2, 3. § Rom. iv. 7.

Rom. iv. 6, 7.

fore

had not yet acquired a right to eternal life. It is therenecessary, that that right be also adjudged to man in justification. Which God does on account of a perfect obedience, agreeably to that promise of the law, The man that doth those things, shall live in them.* But what Christ has done for his people, that they are accounted, as we have already often said, to have done in their own person. And in this manner grace reigneth through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.†

XLVII. The mean by which we receive the righteousness of Christ, and justification depending thereon, is faith, and that only. For if there was any thing besides faith, it ought to be our own works, proceeding from the other Christian virtues. But Paul will have them entirely excluded: Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Je-sus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.‡ Therefore we conclude, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.§ All the Christian virtues or graces are contained in these two, faith and love, which comprehend every affection of a pious soul. It is the property of love to give up and offer one's self and all he has to God; of faith, to receive and accept of God freely giving himself to us. And therefore faith alone is adapted to receive, and make ours the righteousness of Christ, on account of which we are justified. And this is a truth so certain and clear, that not a few of the doctors of the school of Rome, and they the principal and of greatest reputation among them, have acknowledged it, from the very same passages of scripture which we have advanced.

* Lev. xviii. 5. ↑ Rom. v. 21. Gal. ii. 16. Rom. iii. 28.

"We

Titelmannus, in his paraphrase on Gal. ii. says, then firmly believe, that none can be justified before God by the works of the law, but only by faith in Christ." Estius in like manner : "It is evident, that the particle but is in scripture often taken adversatively, to denote but only;" adding, that all the interpreters, both Greek and Latin, agree in this interpretation, and that it is gathered from what follows, and from Rom. iii. 28. Sasbout is also express to the same purpose, who maintains, that Paul's expression is an Hebraism, and that, according to the Hebrew custom, the negative particle not is to be repeated from what went before. "A man is not justified by works, not but by faith." And he adds: "If you ask, whether it may be rightly concluded from that proposition, A man is not justified but by faith, therefore we are justified by faith alone? we are to say, it may." A little after he adds: "In this our day the Catholic writers can, on no account, bear that proposition, imagining that there is poison concealed in that particle only, and therefore to be disused. Yet the ancients had no such aversion to that particle, nor Thomas Aquinas. If any, says he, were righteous under the old law, they were not righteous by the works of the law, but only by the faith of Jesus Christ. Paul's true meaning is, not unless by faith, that is, by no merits of our own."

bout on Gal. ii. 16.

Thus Sas

XLVIII. But we are farther to inquire, how faith justifies. Not certainly in that sense, as if God graciously accepts the act of faith, and new gospel-obedience flowing therefrom, in the room of the perfect obedience, which, from the rigour of the law, we are bound to perform in order to justification: as the Socinians, and Curcellæus, who imitates them in this respect, explain it ; understanding by faith the observance of the

precepts of the gospel, which God has prescribed by Christ. For this is to make void the whole gospel. The gospel has not substituted our faith, but Christ's obedience, by which the righteousness of the law is fulfilled, in the room of that perfect obedience, which the law required in order to justification. It is also false, that faith and new obedience are one and the same thing. I own, that faith is a virtue or grace, commanded by the law of God, and that a believer, by his very believing, obeys God. I likewise confess, that we are to look upon no. thing as a true and living faith, which is not fruitful in good works. But yet faith is one thing, and the obe dience flowing from it quite another, especially in the matter of justification, of which we now speak, where Paul always contradistinguishes the obedience of all manner of works to faith. For it is a rash attempt to confine to a certain species of works, what the apostle says concerning works in general. The force of truth extorted from Schlichtingius this assertion: "Faith, in ' its strict and proper signification, bears the same relation to obedience, as the cause to the effect, as the tree to the fruit, as the mother to the daughter." In short, neither the truth nor the justice of God allow our faith and obedience, which are imperfect, to be admitted as perfect. For it is the will of God, that the righteousness of the law be fulfilled in our justification, and not that any thing be derogated from it, as we proved § 42.

XLIX. Others think proper to say, that faith is here considered as a condition, which the covenant of grace requires of us, in order to our justification. A certain learned divine of ours, in a volume of disputations lately published, speaks thus: "Nothing can be said with * Contra Meisnerum, p. 325. R'

VOL. II.