ANSW. Although Christ, by his obedience and death, did make a
proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice, in the behalf
of them that are justified; yet, inasmuch as God accepteth the
satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them,
did provide this surety, his own only Son, imputing his
righteousness to them, and requiring nothing of them for their
justification, but faith; which also is his gift; their
justification is, to them, of free grace.
Hitherto we have been led to consider that change of heart and life
which is begun in effectual calling; whereby a dead sinner is made
alive, and one that was wholly indisposed for, and averse to the
performance of good works, is enabled to perform them by the power of
divine grace: and now we are to speak concerning that change of state
which accompanies it; whereby one, who being guilty before God, was
liable to the condemning sentence of the law, and expected no other than
an eternal banishment from his presence, is pardoned, received into
favour, and has a right to all the blessings which Christ has, by his
obedience and sufferings, purchased for him. This is what we call
justification; and it is placed immediately after the head of effectual
calling, as being agreeable to the method in which it is insisted on in
that golden chain of salvation, as the apostle says, _Whom he called,
them he also justified_, Rom. viii. 30.
This is certainly a doctrine of the highest importance, inasmuch as it
contains in it the way of peace, the foundation of all our hope, of the
acceptance both of our persons and services, and beholding the face of
God, at last, with joy. Some have styled it the very _basis_ of
Christianity; and our forefathers thought it so necessary to be insisted
on and maintained, according to the scripture-account thereof, that they
reckoned it one of the principal doctrines of the reformation. And,
indeed, the apostle Paul speaks of it as so necessary to be believed,
that he concluded that the denying or perverting of it was the ground
and reason of the Jews being rejected; _who being ignorant of God’s
righteousness, and going about to establish a righteousness of their
own, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God_: and
when they shall be called, if their call be intended, in that account
which we have, of _the marriage of the Lamb, and his wife having made
herself ready_, Rev. xix. 7. as many suppose, it is worth observing,
that she is described as _arrayed in fine linen, which is the
righteousness of saints_, or Christ’s righteousness, by which they are
justified: this is that in which they glory; and therefore are
represented as being convinced of the importance of that doctrine which,
before, they were ignorant of. This we have an account of in these two
answers, which we are now to explain, and shall endeavour to do it in
the following method.