The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

That we may treat of the doctrine of justification usefully unto its proper ends, which are the glory of God in Christ, with the peace and furtherance of the obedience of believers, some things are previously to be considered, which we must have respect unto in the whole process of our discourse. And, among others that might be insisted on to the same purpose, these that ensue are not to be omitted:—

1. The first inquiry in this matter, in a way of duty, is after the proper relief of the conscience of a sinner pressed and perplexed with a sense of the guilt of sin. For justification is the way and means whereby such a person does obtain acceptance before God, with a right and title unto a heavenly inheritance. And nothing is pleadable in this cause but what a man would speak unto his own conscience in that state, or unto the conscience of another, when he is anxious under that inquiry. Wherefore, the person under consideration (that is, who is to be justified) is one who, in himself, is ἀσεβής, Rom. iv. 5, — “ungodly;” and thereon ὑπόδικος τῷ Θεῷ, chap. iii. 19, — “guilty before God;” that is, obnoxious, subject, liable, τῷ δικαιώματι τοῦ Θεοῦ, chap. i. 32, — to the righteous sentential judgment of God, that “he who committeth sin,” who is any way guilty of it, is “worthy of death.” Hereupon such a person finds himself ὑπὸ κατάραν, Gal. iii. 10, — under “the curse,” and “the wrath of God” therein abiding on him,” John iii. 18, 36. In this condition he is ἀναπολόγητος, — without plea, without excuse, by any thing in and from himself, for his own relief; his “mouth is stopped,” Rom. iii. 19. For he is, in the judgment of God, declared in the Scripture, συγκεκλεισμένος ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίαν, Gal. iii. 22, — every way “shut up under sin” and all the consequents of it. Many evils in this condition are men subject unto, which may be reduced unto those two of our first parents, wherein they were represented. For, first, they thought foolishly to hide themselves from God; and then, more foolishly, would have charged him as the cause of their sin. And such, naturally, are the thoughts of men under their convictions. But whoever is the subject of the justification inquired after, is, by various means, brought into his apprehensions who cried, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”