works cannot save us,* why should we trouble ourselves about them?" [In doing the former, I shall attempt to give Pharisaism a finishing stroke; and in doing the latter, I shall endeavour to guard the scriptural doctrine of grace against Antinomianism, which prevails almost as much among professed believers, as Pharisaism does among professed moralists.]

And first, that good works cannot [strictly speaking] merit salvation in part, much less altogether, I prove by the following arguments :

1. We must be wholly saved by the covenant of works, or by the covenant of grace; my text shewing most clearly, that a third covenant made up of [Christless] merits [according to the first,] and divine mercy [according to the second,] is as imaginary a thing in divinity, as a fifth element made up of fire and water would be in natural philosophy.‡

2. There is less proportion between heavenly glory, and our works, than between the sun and a mote that flies in the air: Therefore to pretend, that they will avail towards [purchasing, or properly meriting] heaven, [see the 5th note,] argues want of common sense, as well as want of humility.

3. God has wisely determined to save proud man in a way that excludes boasting. 'God is just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then?' says the apostle: It is excluded,' answers he: By what covenant,' does he ask? Is boasting excluded by the covenant of works? No, but by the law of faith,' by the covenant of grace, whose condition

(33.) This is strictly true; nevertheless we must grant, that as cold water, when it is put over the fire in a proper vessel, imbibes the fiery heat, and boils without damping the fire: So our works of faith, when they are laid with proper humility on the golden altar of Christ's merits, are so impregnated with his diffusive worth, as to acquire "a rewardable condecency unto eternal life:" And this they do without mixing in the least with the primary, or properly meritorious cause of our salvation; and consequently without obscuring the Redeemer's glory.

That the works of faith save us by the covenant of grace [next to Christ and Faith] will be proved in the Scriptural Essay.

is [penitential, self-abasing, obedient] faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore we conclude,' says he,' that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law.' (Rom. iii. 27, 28.) If our good works [properly speaking] deserve the least part of our salvation, we may justly boast that our own arm has got us that part of the victory; and we have reason to glory in ourselves, contrary to the scriptures, which say, that 'every mouth must be stopped,' that 'boasting is excluded,' and that he who glories must glory in the Lord."

[If St. Paul glories in his sufferings and labours, it is not then without Christ before God, but with Christ before the Corinthians, and under peculiar circumstances. He never imagined that his works were meritorious according to the first covenant; much less did he imagine that they had one single grain of proper merit. He perfectly knew, that if they were rewardable, it was not from any self-excellence, which he had put into them; but merely from God's gratuitous promise in the second 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 suppose that Adam himself, if he had continued upright, would have gloried in his righteousness as a Pharisee, is to suppose him deeply fallen. In Paradise God was all in all; and as he is also all in all in heaven, we may easily conceive, that, with respect to self-exaltation, the mouth of Gabriel is not less shut before the throne, than that of Mary Magdalen. Therefore, if any out of hell pharisaically glory in themselves, it is only those self-righteous sons of Lucifer and Pride, to whom our Lord says still, 'You are of your father the devil, whose works ye do,' when ye seek to kill me,' and 'glory in yourselves.'

4. Our evil works far overbalance our good works, both in quantity and quality. Let us first then pay a righteous God the debt, [the immense debt of ten thousand talents that] we owe him, by dying the second 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 such a mixture of imperfection, that they must be atoned for, and made acceptable by Christ's blood; so far are they from atoning for the least sin,† [and properly meriting our acceptance] before God [even according to the second covenant.]

6. If ever we did one truly good work, the merit§ is not ours, but God's, who, by his free grace, “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,' says the apostle, after mentioning his good works, but the grace of God in me.' (1 Cor. xv. 10, compared with James i. 17.)

7. We perpetually say at church, "Glory be to the Father," as Creator; "and to the Son," as Redeemer; "and to the Holy Ghost," as Sanctifier. Christ is then to have all the glory of our redemption: But if our good works come in for any share in the purchase of heaven, we must come in also for some share of the glory of our [redemption.||] Thus Christ will no

longer be the only Redeemer: We shall be coredeemers with him, and consequently we shall have a share in the doxology; which is a blasphemous supposition.

(34.) Eleven years ago I said [and making us accepted.] I now reject the expression as unguarded; for it clashes with this proposition of St. Peter: In every nation he that worketh righteousness is accepted of him.' We should take care so to secure the foundation, as not to throw down the building.

(35.) This is the very doctrine of evangelical rewardableness, or improper, derived merit, so honourable to Christ, so humbling to man, which I have maintained in the Vindication. (Vol i. p. 282, &c.) Therefore, if I am a merit-monger and an heretic now, it is evident that I was so eleven years ago, when I wrote a sermon, which, as my late opponent is pleased to say, (Fin. Stroke, p. 44,) "does me much credit, and plainly shews, that I was once zealously attached to the doctrines of the Church of England."

(36.) I substitute the word "redemption" for the word "salvation," that I formerly used; because English logic de

8. Our Lord himself decides the question in those 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 I shall not say all, but the one half of it? Say, 'We are unprofitable servants.' Now it is plain, that unprofitable servants do not [properly] merit in whole or in part, to sit down at their master's table, and be admitted as children to a share of his estate. Therefore, if God gives heaven to believers, it is entirely owing to his free mercy, through the merits of Jesus Christ, and not at all through the [proper] merits of our own works.

9. I shall close these observations by St. Paul's unanswerable argument. If righteousness come by the law,' if salvation come by [the covenant of works,]

then Christ died in vain.' (Gal. ii. 21.) Whence it follows, that if it come in part by the works of the law, part of Christ's sufferings were vain, a supposition which ends in the same blasphemy against the Mediator.

[10. That man might deserve any thing of God, upon the footing of proper worthiness, or merit of equivalence, God should stand in need of some thing, which it is in man's power to bestow: But this is

mands it. By the same reason I leave out in the end of the paragraph the words, "Saviour," and "Joint-Saviours," which I had illogically coupled with "Redeemer," and "CoRedeemers." For although it is strictly true, that no man can redeem his brother's soul, or even ransom his body from the power of the grave; yet, according to the doctrine of secondary instrumental causes, it is absoluiely false that no man can save his neighbour; for in doing this,' says St. Paul,' thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. -(1 Tim. iv. 16.)

(37.) I say [the law of innocence] to defend the works of the law of faith, by the instrumentality of which we shall be justified or saved in the great day. For these works flowing from Christ's grace, and never aspiring at any higher place than that which is allotted them, viz., the place of justifying e vidences, they can never detract from the Saviour's honour or his grace.

absolutely impossible: For God being self-sufficient in his infiuite fulness, is far above any want: And man being a dependant creature, every moment supported by his Maker and Preserver, has nothing to which God has not a far greater right than man himself. This is what the apostle asserts where he says, Who has given him first, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?" But much more in this remarkable passage: Who maketh thee to differ from another?' If thou sayest, The number of my talents, and the proper use I have made of them: I ask again, Who gave thee those talents? And who superadded grace, wisdom, and an opportunity to improve them?-Here we must all give glory to God, and say with St. James, 'Every good gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.'

Upon this consideration the apostle proceeds to check the Christian Pharisee thus: 'What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?'-Whence it follows, that, though St. Paul himself glories in, and boasts of his disinterestedness, yea, solemnly 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, through 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 also to him alone; although, in the very nature of things, we have such a derived share of that glory, as gives room to the reasonableness of divine rewards. For why should one be rewarded more than another ; yea, why should one be rewarded rather than punished, if derived faithfulness does not make him more rewardable?

Observe however, that although by this derived faithfulness one man makes himself to differ enough from another, for God to reward him reasonably rather than