For if so, all that he does is to deliver us from hell; he does not purchase heaven for us. The adverse scheme supposes that he purchases heaven for us, in the sense, that he satisfies for the imperfections of our obedience, and so purchase that our sincere imperfect obedience might be accepted as the condition of eternal life; and so purchases an opportunity for us to obtain heaven by our own obedience. But to purchase heaven for us only in this sense, is to purchase it in no sense at all; for all of it comes to no more than a satisfaction for our sins, or removing the penalty by suffering in our stead: For all the purchasing they speak of, that our imperfect obedience should be accepted, is only his satisfying for the sinful imperfections of our obedience; or (which is the same thing) making atonement for the sin that our obedience is attended with. But that is not purchasing heaven, merely to set us at liberty again, that we may go and get heaven by what we do ourselves; all that Christ does is only to pay a debt for us; there is no positive purchase of any good. We are taught in scripture that heaven is purchased for us; it is called the purchased possession, Eph. i. 14. The gospel proposes the eternal inheritance, not to be acquired, as the first covenant did, but as already acquired and purchased. But he that pays a man's debt for him, and so delivers him from slavery, cannot be said to purchase an estate for him, merely because he sets him at liberty, so that henceforward he has an opportunity to get an estate by his own hand labor. So that according to this scheme, the saints in heaven have no reas on to thank Christ for purchasing heaven for them, or redeeming them to God, and making them kings and priests, as we have an that account that they do, in Rev. v. 9.

3. Justification by the righteousness and obedience of Christ, is a doctrine that the scripture teaches in very full terms; Rom. v. 18, 19. "By the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners: So by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous." Here in one verse we are told, that we have justification by Christ's righteousness; and, that there might be no room to

understand the righteousness spoken of, merely of Christ's atonement by his suffering the penalty, in the next verse it is put in other terms, and asserted, that it is by Christ's obedience that we are made righteous. It is scarce possible any thing should be more full and determined: The terms, taken singly, are such as do fix their own meaning, and taken together, they fix the meaning of each other: The words shew that we are justified by that righteousness of Christ that consists in his obedience, and that we are made righteous or justified by that obedience of his, that is, his righteousness, or moral goodness before God.

Here possibly it may be objected, that this text means only, that we are justified by Christ's passive obedience.

To this I answer, whether we call it active or passive, it alters not the case as to the present argument, as long as it is evident by the words, that it is not merely under the notion of an atonement for disobedience, or a satisfaction for unrighteousness, but under the notion of a positive obedience, and a righteousness or moral goodness, that it justifies us or makes us righteous; because both the words righteousness and obedience are used, and used too as the opposites of sin and disobedience, and an offence. "Therefore as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation : Even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners: So by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous." Now, what can be meant by righteousness, when spoken of as the opposite to sin, or moral evil, but only moral goodness? What is the righteosness that is the opposite of an offence, but only the behavior that is well pleasing? And what can be meant by obedience, when spoken of as the opposite of disobedience, or going contrary to a command, but a positive obeying, and an actual complying with the command? So that there is no room for any invented distinction of active and passive, to hurt the argument from this scripture, as long as it is evident by it as any thing can be, that believers are justified by the righteousness and obedience of Christ, under the notion of his moral

goodness, and his positive obeying, and actual complying with the commands of God, and that behavior of his, that, because of its conformity to his commands, was well pleasing in his sight. This is all that ever any need to desire to have granted in this dispute.

By this it appears that if Christ's dying be here included in the words righteousness and obedience, it is not merely as a propitiation, or bearing a penalty of a broken law in our stead, but as his voluntary submitting and yeilding himself to those sufferings, was an act of obedience to the Father's commands, and so was a part of his positive righteousness, or moral goodness.

Indeed all obedience, considered under the notion of obedi ence or righteousness, is something active, something that is done in active and voluntary compliance with a command; whether that which we do in obedience is something easy, and something that may be done without suffering, or whether it be something hard and difficult; yet as it is obedience, or righteousness, or moral goodness, it must be considered as something voluntary and active. If any one is commanded to go through difficulties and sufferings, and he, in compliance with this command, voluntarily does it, he properly obeys in so doing; and as he voluntarily does it in compliance with a command, his obedience is as active as any whatsoever. It is the same sort of obedience, a thing of the very same nature, as when a man, in compliance with a command, does a piece of hard service, or goes through hard labor; and there is no room to distinguish between such obedience and other that is more easy, to make a different sort of obedience of it, as if it were a thing of quite a different nature, by such opposite terms as active and passive: All the distinction that can be pretended, is that which is between obeying an easy command and a difficult one. But is not the obedience itself of the same nature, because the commands to be obeyed are some of them more difficult than others? Is there from hence any foundation to make two species of obedience, one active and the other passive? There is no appearance of any such distinction ever entering into the hearts: of any of the penmen of scripture.

It is true, that of late, when a man refuses to obey the precept of an human law, but patiently yields himself up to suffer the penalty of the law, it is called passive obedience: But this I suppose is only a modern use of the word obedience; surely it is a sense of the word that the scripture is a perfect stranger to; and it is improperly called obedience, unless there be such a precept in the law, that he shall yield himself patiently to suffer, to which his so doing shall be an active, voluntary conformity. There may in some sense be said to be a conformity to the law in a person's suffering the penalty of the law; but no other conformity to the law is properly called obedience to it but an active, voluntary conformity to the precepts of it: The word obey is often found in scripture with respect to the law of God to man, but never in any other sense.

ence.

It is true that Christ's willingly undergoing those sufferings which he endured, is a great part of that obedience or righteousness by which we are justified. The sufferings of Christ are respected in scripture under a twofold consideration, either merely as his being substituted for us, or put into our stead in suffering the penalty of the law; and so his sufferings are considered as a satisfaction and propitiation for sin Or as he, in obedience to a law or command of the Father, voluntarily submitted himself to those sufferings, and actively yielded himself up to bear them; and so they are considered as his righteousness, and a part of his active obediChrist underwent death in obedience to the command of the Father, Psalm xl. 6, 7, 8. "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened: Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required, Then said I, Lo, I come: In the volume of the book is written of me : I delight to do thy will; O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." John, x. 17, 18. "I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." John xviii. 11. "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" And this is part, and

indeed the principal part of that active obedience that we are justified by.

It can be no just objection against this, that that command of the Father to Christ, that he should lay down his life, was no part of the law that we had broken; and therefore, that his obeying this command could be no part of that obedience that he performed for us, because we needed that he should obey no other law for us, but only that which we had broken or failed of obeying. For although it must be the same legisla tive authority, whose honor is repaired by Christ's obedience, that we have injured by our disobedience; yet there is no need that the law that Christ obeys should be precisely the same that Adam was to have obeyed, in that sense, that there should be no positive precepts wanting, nor any added: There was wanting the precept about the forbidden fruit, and there was added the ceremonial law. The thing required was perfect obedience: It is no matter whether the positive precepts were the same, if they were equivalent. The positive precepts that Christ was to obey, were much more than equivalent to what was wanting, because infinitely more difficult, particularly the command that he had received to lay down his life, which was his principal act of obedience, and which above all others is concerned in our justification. As that act of disobedience by which we fell, was disobedience to a positive precept that Christ never was under, viz. that of abstaining from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; so that act of obedience by which principally we are redeemed, is obedience to a positive precept that Adam never was under, viz. the precept of laying down his life. It was suitable that it should be a positive precept, that should try both Adam's and Christ's obedience: Such precepts are the greatest and most proper trial of obedience; because in them, the mere authority and will of the legislator is the sole ground of the obligation, (and nothing in the nature of the things themselves ;) and therefore they are the greatest trial of any person's respect to that authority and will.

The law that Christ was subject to, and obeyed, was in some sense the same that was given to Adam. There are