94 THE FORM OF THE GOSPEL. serve to distinguish the character of saints and sinners, and to make it appear there is a-difference in their practice, as well as in their recompences, as the process of that awful day is repre- sented ; Mat. xxv. 31 -46. And it is in this sense that our Savi- our saith concerning the 'day of judgment ; Mat. xii. 37. By thy words thou shalt bejustified, and by thy words thou shalt be con. donned ; that is, your words as well as your actions shall have a share in determining your character before men and angels in that day. And that text also in the Rev. chap. xxii. 12, 14, refers evidently to the last judgment, where it is said, Behold I come' quickly, and my reward is with me, togive to every man accordingas his work shall be ; blessedare they that do his com- mandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. The sense of it is, that those who persevere to the end, in a sincere obedience to the commands of Christ, in all the duties of holiness, shall have a public, adjudged and declared right to the immediatepossession of heaven ;; which is a very different thing from the justification of a sinner in the sight of God, by his believing or trusting in Christ, which gives him the first right ; and which is the precise subject of Si. Paul's discourse, Romans, chapters ii. iii. iv. and v. and Galatians, chapters ii. andiii. It is on this matter that our divines arewont to make a dis- tinction between the " jus hæreditarium," Or the right of heirship which a son has to his Father's estate, as soon as he is born, supposing his father to be dead, and the "jus aptitudinarium," which is a right of fitness, and a right to the immediate posses- sion, and this he has not till the age of manhood. Nor is this distinction ill. framed, nor unaptly applied to the present case ; for scripture gives a plain foundation for it, viz. that we have the right of heirship at our first believing, and the right of actual fitness, when we have fulfilled all the services God hath appoint- ed us in this life. The scriptures that naturally lead to this dis- tinction are these : The right of heirship by faith is very plain ; Rom. iv. 11, 13, 16. Gal. iii. 26, 29. " For ye are all the children of God ,by . faith in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Nov doth the apostle make much distiction between our right to heaven, by justification, and that by adoption or inheritance, for both justification and adoption come by faith ; and he intermin- gles both, as they most fitly answer his present design ; which is evident by comparing the process of his discourse from Rom. iv. 1 -16. and Rom: v. 17, I'S, 21. And then-there is the right of fitness for immediate possession ; Heb. x. 36. "For ye have need of patience, that after ye have clone the will of God, ye might.receive the promise ;" and this is the right intended ; Rev. xxii. 14. Nowwe may suppose botti theright of heirship
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