income scarce equal to the annual acquisi- not but call to mind those better times, those tions of half the tradesmen in it. By canons days of plenty and prosperity, which she and statutes he is restrained from improving once knew in her father's house, ere she had his revenue by any secular occupation, but given her hand to the object of her esteem yet by the laws subject to a share of the secu- and affections; who yet standeth chargeable lar burthens. His dues, trifling as they are, with no crime but this, that, being separated will be detained, if he doth not sometimes to the service of God, he was of a profession prosecute for them; and if he doth, he will which never put it into his power to provide be vilified and abused; he will be in danger for her support. O come that blessed day of losing his influence, perhaps of being ruin- when those widows' tears shall be wiped for ed by the suit. In these circumstances he is ever from their eyes, and the reproach of the to bring up a family to support the dignity married clergy be effectually taken off; when of his character, and it will ever be expected the land shall be cleared of these pernicious of him, that he should set an example to his remnants of popery (for such they are,) and parishioners of hospitality and charity. Who- the reformation be carried to its full perfecever shall consider what multitudes of those tion! Meanwhile the wretched orphan asks who enter into holy orders have nothing bet- only to be preserved alive, and made an useter, if anything so good as this to expect, will ful member of society; and daily bread is the esteem it a singular providence that the daily humble request of the desolate widow, whose sacrifice hath not ceased from amongst us, for husband hath so often reached forth the bread want of the officiating ministers. A desire of eternal life to the hungry soul and since of doing good seemeth to be the only motive yours, my brethren of the laity, since yours left to induce numbers, destitute of views hath been the harvest of the reformation, at and interests, to commence preachers of the least" let her glean among the sheaves, and Gospel; since the man would scarcely stand reproach her not; and let fall also some of clear of an absurdity who should now make the handfuls on purpose for her, and leave that wretched request, which it was prophe- them that she may glean them, and rebuke sied that the posterity of Eli should make as a her not :"* remembering that which is writpunishment for the sins of their ancestors: ten in the law of Moses "When thou cutPut me, I pray thee, into one of the priest's test down thine harvest in thy field, and hast offices, that I may eat a piece of bread." * forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the fatherless and for the widow, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works of thine hands." ."+ Here then we are at the source of those miseries, which it is the pious design of this day's assembly to alleviate. They who preach the Gospel are not suffered to live of the Gospel; and, by the alienation of the tithes from the livings, the case of the parochial clergy in England, is in reality, harder than that of the ministers of any church in the world not under persecution. Therefore is a voice so often heard in Ramah, lamenting, and weeping, and great mourning; the voice of some one or other of "the wives of the sons of the prophets, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen." + The good man, worn out with study and labor for the benefit of others, is hardly gone to repose in the dust, but his widow is driven from her home, endeared with all its inconveniences by custom, and much more so by the sad consideration, that she hath not now where to lay her head, or wherewithal to satisfy her orphans; while "the tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst; the young children ask for bread, and no man breaketh it unto them." In this situation, she can 1 Sam. ii. 36. 2 Kings, iv. 1. Lam. iv. 4. And all the blessings of eternity rest on the heads of those who have successively contributed to the support of this corporation, which was erected by king Charles II. and hath since been honored by repeated instances of royal munificence: to which if we add the bounty of the excellent Queen Anne, whose piety towards the clergy will be had in everlasting remembrance, and their children's children call her blessed for her endeavors, by giving the tenth and first fruits for the augmentation of poor livings yearly, to cut off, in part, the source of their distress, it may indeed be affirmed, and we may and do tell it out with joy and gratitude, that "kings have been our nursing fathers, and queens our nursing mothers." Nor hath this voluntary engagement, entered into by the sons of the clergy for the relief of their poor brothers and sisters, wanted the assistance either of persons of quality and fortune among the laity, or of many illustrious and venerable prelates, who by charity, preferable in the judgment of the apostle to the power of work trust in me." 1 ing miracles, have prevented the poor widow's | prophet in the name of a prophet," and "who barrel of meal from wasting and her cruise giveth to these little ones but a cup of cold of oil from failing. By these blessed instru- water, because they belong to Christ, shall in ments of his providence and love doth the no wise lose his reward" in that day, when Almighty address the foreboding and despond- the " merciful shall obtain mercy;" when ing soul of every dying servant of his, in he who hath not turned away his face from the words of that gracious and comfortable the poor shall not behold the face of the Lord promise: "Leave thy fatherless children, I turned away from him; when the widow will preserve them alive, and let thy widow and the fatherless shall be the ablest advocates, and plead with irresistible eloquence in beHappy, therefore, are all they who have it half of their kind benefactors, whose liberathis day in their power to imitate the loving lity saved them from want and destruction. kindness of their heavenly Father, and to For, lo! an awful silence, and all the attencopy after the example of the holy Jesus, tion of heaven and earth engaged, while from while they show their gratitude for the bene- the throne of judgment proceed these gracious fits received from him at the hands of his words addressed to the merciful-"I was an ministers, by contributing to relieve the dis- hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, tresses of their impoverished families. Riches and ye gave me drink; I was naked and ye thus expended are returned with increase clothed me-for, inasmuch as ye did it unto into the bosoms of the generous; for "the the least of these my brethren, ye did unto liberal soul shall be made fat, and he who me. Come therefore, ye blessed of my Fawatereth shall be watered also himself."*ther, inherit the kingdom prepared for you Alms given through faith procure "deliver- from the foundation of the world."§ Ye are ance in the time of trouble;" + they "fight they which have continued with me in my for us against our enemies, better than a temptation; || be ye numbered with my mighty shield and strong spear;" they ascend saints in glory everlasting." Which God up for "a memorial before God," § and bring grant that we all may be, through the merits down the benedictions of heaven upon us; and meditation of Christ Jesus our Lord, to they sanctify to us the whole creation|| in whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the days of health; they comfort us, when three persons and one God, be ascribed, as is we most need comfort, on the bed of sick-most due, all blessing, and honor, and glory, ness; and they follow us whither estates and and power, now and for evermore. T possessions cannot.** "He who receiveth a Amen. Tobit, iv. 7. DISCOURSE LXII. WORKS WROUGHT THROUGH FAITH A CONDITION OF OUR JUSTIFICATION. JAMES, II. 24. You see, then, how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. WAS a disciple of the holy Jesus permitted | the love, and setting forth the praises, of his to carve his own lot, and to choose his em- divine Lord and Master. But this is a felicity ployment in the world, he would doubtless reserved for us in a better world, and shall wish to pass his days, without strife and con- be given to them for whom it is prepared, tention, in the pleasing task of contemplating when the church shall pass out of her mili tant into her triumphant state. At present she is in an enemy's country; there is a noise of war continually in the camp; and every man must have his "sword upon his thigh, because of fear in the night;" every minister of the Gospel must be armed with "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God," to combat every error, and put every heresy to flight, that may otherwise take the advantage of those seasons when the church is least upon her guard, to assault and hurt the faith. It has indeed been a maxim sometime laid down, that false opinions, if let alone, will die of themselves. But surely the Gospel and experience teach us another lesson. If men sleep while the tares are sown, it will cost them many waking hours to root them up when they are grown, besides the great danger there is of rooting up the wheat complicated and entangled with them at the same time. And if the master of the house should think it needless to extinguish a fire already kindled, and insinuating itself among the beams that compose and support the edifice, he may soon be seen bewailing his unpardonable negligence over its ruins. Should it be asked, who are the proper persons to defend the faith, when it is attacked from time to time, and to state the Christian doctrines aright, as often as they are in divers manners misunderstood and perverted; the answer is obvious They who, by the liberality of founders and benefactors, are separated from the cares and concerns of the world, that they may attend without distraction upon this very thing, and see, ne quid detrimenti ecclesia capiat. The solifidian, or antinomian heresy, which asserts, "that man is justified by faith without works," and which took its rise from a misunderstanding and perversion of some passages in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, was one of the first that disturbed the Christian church; insomuch that St. Augustin says, that not only the Epistle of St. James, but likewise those of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude, were written to guard the faithful against its pernicious influences. His words are "Contra eam maxime dirigunt intentionem, ut vehementer astruant, fidem sine operibus nihil prodesse." Many have been the heresies since, in the composition of which this opinion has been a prime ingredient. But it was all in its glory in the last century, and had taken possession of the theological chair in this university, when the incomparably learned Bishop Bull entered the lists against it, and, encountering its ablest champions, gave it a total defeat in that pal And mary work the Harmonica Apostolica, with its defences, styled, by Dr. Grabe, the triumph of the church of England.* But as heresies make their periodical revolutions in the church, like comets, in the heavens, to shed a baleful influence on all about them, the time seems to be coming when antinomianism is to be again rampant among us. what wonder that this or any other heresy should be introduced and propagated, if men, instead of having recourse to the catholic doctors of the ancient church, and to such of our divines as have trodden in their steps, will extract their theology from the latest and lowest of the modern sectaries, thus beginning where they should end? if, instead of drawing living water for the use of the sanctuary from the fresh springs of primitive antiquity, they take up with such as comes to them at second or third hand from the lake of Geneva? if the spirit of a Cyprian exerted in the maintenance of the vigor Episcopatus and the constitution of the church be accounted for bigotry and narrowness, and Clement and Ignatius pass for but very moderate divines, when compared with the new lights of the Tabernacle and Foundery? Should this method of studying divinity prevail, to the exclusion of the other, there will soon be neither order left in the church nor certainty in the faith. It is by no means my design in the following discourse, to endeavor to conduct you through all the windings and foldings of the polemical labyrinth of justification. A matter of so much importance as man's acceptance with his Maker does not, blessed be God, depend upon nice scholastic subtleties, nor fond enthusiastic fancies. It may be settled in a short and easy way, by such plain declarations of Scripture as holy men of old were wont to direct themselves by, in those happy times when no one was accounted a believer who was not virtuous, and when faith and a good life were synonymous terms. "Alas!" saith Bishop Taylor, "the niceties of a spruce understanding and the curious nothings of useless speculation, and all the opinions of men that make the divisions of heart, and do nothing else, cannot bring us one drop of comfort in the day of tribulation, and therefore are no parts of the strength of faith: nay, when a man begins truly to fear God, and is in the agonies of mortification, all these new nothings and curiosities will lie neglected by, as baubles do by children when they are deadly sick. But that only is faith, which makes us to love God, to do * Nelson's Life of Bishop Bull, p. 235: his will, to suffer his impositions, to trust his promises, to see through a cloud, to overcome the world, to resist the devil, to stand in the day of trial, and to be comforted in all our sorrows. 99* The proposition therefore which I shall undertake to prove, or rather to collect and set before you in one point of view the arguments by which learned men, and particularly the author of the Harmonia, have irrefragably proved it, is that evidently contained in the words of St. James now read to you, viz. that works wrought through faith are a necessary condition of our justification: "You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." I call works a necessary condition of our justification, because most certain it is, that the only meritorious cause thereof is the satisfaction of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who alone by his most precious blood upon the cross hath obtained for us remission of sins and eternal life. But in the Gospel convenant, to which we are now admitted by baptism, faith and works are the conditons, to the performance of which through the power of his grace God has annexed the promises of redemption, and without the performance of which a right to those promises can neither be acquired nor preserved. That faith is such a necessary condition, all Christians are agreed. That works are so likewise I shall prove-from Scripture testimonies; from Scripture examples; from the nature of faith; from the nature of justification; and from the process at the day of judgment: after which I shall show from St. Paul's own words, that he preaches the very same doctrine with St. James; and close the whole with the state of the doctrine given by Bishop Bull in the noble confession of his faith in this particular made by him when on his death bed. And, first, that works are a necessary condition of our justification may be proved from plain and express testimonies of holy Scripture. For thus God by the prophet Isaiah enjoins his rebellious people to "cease to do evil, and learn to do well," and then promises that though "their past sins were as scarlet, they should be white as snow." Here," remission of sins" through the Redeemer is the gift on God's part: " ceasing to do evil," and "learning to do well," are the conditions on man's part. In the same manner the prophet Ezekiel informs the sinner, to his great and endless Bp. Taylor's Sermon styled Fides Formata, printed in the folio edition of his Sermons, p. 43. † Isa. i. 16. comfort, that if he will "turn from his evil ways, and make restitution, and walk in the statutes of life," then "all his sins that he hath sinned shall not be once mentioned."* Our Lord in the Gospel calls all sinners to him, that they may "find rest to their souls" in the arms of his mercy forgiving them their trespasses; but then it is upon condition that they "take his yoke," that is, his law "upon them, and learn of him, and follow him," as his disciples, in word and and deed. "Ye are my friends," says he in another place, "if ye do whatsoever I command you." Agreeably hereto it is declared by St. Peter, "that in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him." And St. John in like manner instructs us, that "if we walk in light, as God is in the light, then have we communion with him, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."§ And again-"Let no man deceive you ;" there is therefore some danger of our being deceived in this point; "he that doeth righteousness is righteous."|| And these testimonies may suffice for the necessity of works in general as a condition of our justification. But we must not, upon this occasion, forget those Scriptures which insist upon the necessity of the great work of repentance in particular for that purpose. To call men from time to time to repentance was a part of the employment of the prophets until John, who thus began his preaching-" Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" "bring forth fruits meet for repentance;" ;** that is, in the language of St. Paul," do works meet for repentance." When Jesus himself began to preach, it was in these words: " Repent, and believe the Gospel." With him accordeth the apostle St. Peter, in his first sermon to the Jews on the day of Pentecost-" Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins."§§ And again, in another sermon afterwards-" Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out ;"|||| that is, that you may be justified. Nor is repentance a single work, but a complication of many, comprehending under it, if it be genuine and sincere, the following particulars; viz. a true sorrow and deep compunction of heart for sins past; a humiliation under the righteous hand of God; a 1 And, hatred and detestation of sin; an unre- own guilt and his Saviour's innocenceserved confession of it; an earnest and im- "We receive the full reward of our deeds, portunate solicitation for the divine grace but this man has done nothing amiss." and mercy; the fear and love of God; a 2ndly, He made an open profession of his ceasing from evil, and the occasions that faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the king of may lead to it; a firm purpose of new obe- Israel, when he hung naked on the cross, dience; restitution of what hath been un- mocked and derided by the Jews, and forjustly gotten; forgiveness of all them who saken by all, as an outcast of heaven and may have trespassed against us; and lastly, earth. 3dly, He prayed to him in that works of benificence and charity. These character-"Lord, remember me, when are the plain and easy diagnostics of a true thou comest into thy kingdom." repentance, as that is the best evidence of lastly, his charity reproved and endeavored a man's being an object of the divine to effect the conversion of his fellow-suffermercy, and in the right way to justification. er-"Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou A second argument to prove that works art in the same condemnation ? And we are a necessary condition of our justifica- indeed justly," &c. There is a passage tion may be deduced from the examples of upon the subject in one of the fathers so holy men of old who were so justified. Of extremely beautiful and apposite to the these illustrious worthies we have a long present purpose, that I cannot help translist in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to lating it-"The penitent thief performs the Hebrews. Here let us learn what jus- many offices of religion at the same time. tifying faith is, by seeing what it was, and He believes, he fears, he feels compunction, what it did, in those heroes of the ancient and repents; he confesses, and preaches; church proposed to us by the apostle for he loves, he trusts, and he prays. He is our imitation. By faith Abel offered a enlightened by faith, subdued by fear, softsacrifice in obedience to the institution of ened by compunction, shaken by repentGod; Noah built an ark; Abraham left his ance, purged by confession; he is zealous country and kindred, and offered up all that in his preaching, and enlarged in his charity; was near and dear to him; Moses rejected he hopes through confidence, and obtains all the pleasures and honors of the court of by prayer." Egypt, and chose to have his part and portion with the oppressed and afflicted church; and so of the rest. By faith they overcame the world, vanquished all the affections of the flesh when they stood in the way of duty, manfully resisted the devil, and lived and died in the love of God and their neighbor. They "fought a good fight," they "finished their course," they "kept the faith," by making it a constant principle of action, and maintaining good works, without which they had assuredly fallen short of the inheritance. In a word, "through faith," as saith the apostle," they wrought righteousness," and therefore "obtained his promises."* And if it be true, as most true it is, that without faith they had never "wrought righteousness," it is equally true, that without working righteousness through faith they had never "obtained the promises." The example that bids the fairest for justification by faith without works is that of the thief upon the cross. But a nearer inspection will soon convince us, that even in that instance, singular as it was, faith came attended by her handmaids, repentance, piety, and charity. For first, without compulsion he made a full confession of his • Heb. xi. 33. Never surely did man per form so much in so short a time. And if he was not justified by faith alone, where shall we find an example of one who was? But, Thirdly, if we consider the nature of faith, it will appear to be impossible that any man should be justified by that alone. For if faith can of itself avail to justification, it must be either as it is an assent to the Gospel truths, or a reliance on the Gospel promises; for I know of no other notion of faith besides these two. Now that faith as an assent to the truths of the Gospel cannot justify, is agreed on all hands; else were the devils justified, whose faith, or belief of the truths relating to him who is to be their judge, makes them tremble, which is more than it does to many who profess to have it. And then, as to faith as a reliance on the Gospel promises, those promises being conditional, every reliance must be a delusion which is not founded upon a conscience witnessing the performance of the conditions; and a reliance that * Multa simul pietatis officia complectitur. Credit, timet, compungitur, et pœnitet; confitetur et prædicat; amat, confidit, et orat. Fide illuminatur, timore subditur, compunctione mollitur, pœnitentia concutitur, confessione purgatur, predicatione zelatur, dilectione dilatatur, confidentià sperat, oratione impetrat. Arnold. de ultimis septem verbis Domini. |