CHAPTER H. 341 perfect repentance and a complete return to universal obedience to all the commands of God. But this cannot be done or ex- pected under our present degenerate state : And therefore, wheresoever men do truly repent of all sin, and return unto God with a honest heart, and sincerely, though not perfectly obey his commands, and comply with the requirements of that dispensa.. tion under which they live, from a hope of the favour and mercy of God, and under a sense of their failings do trust in divine mercy, so far as it is revealed, they shall have this faith or trust in the grace of a forgiving God reckoned unto them, and accepted of him unto their obtaining a justifying righteous- ness, that is, unto their pardon and justification, or their having, a right to impunity and eternal life. This is righteousness ; and this is is the plain sense of Rom. iv. 3, 5. Faith is counted or im- putedfor righteousness. It may not be improper to dwell a little upon explaining this text. Observe here, first, that righteousness often in scrip- ture, does not signify acts of righteousness, but á right to life, and so it is to be construed in this place. Observe, secondly, it is not said that faith is imputed or counted insteadOf righteous- ness which wòuld have required the word vv p or ad; : But it is ^'ESE$ APYE(,ETaE EEÇ ie,ab?v,,V, that is, faith is imputed or reckoned to our account, as an important or necessary thing, in order to our 'having a justifying righteousness, or a right to impunity and life. Survey the whole verse; Rom. iv. 5. to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, hisfaith is im- putedfor righteousness; that is, it is not the works of obedience which any man performs, that are or can be counted or imputed to him, in order to his justifying righteousness 'or justification; for when he first commences a believer, he lias no good works, and when he has any, they are all imperfect, and answer not fully the demands of any law of God : But it is his faith or trust and dependence on forgiving grace, on the account whereof God accepteth and justfi'eth those who have been ungodly, even before they have actually wrought any such works of righteousness, whereby they might pretend to a justify- ing righteousness of their own, having had no time or oppor- tunity for it. Some interpreters makeaoEßn, the ungodly, in this place to signify the Gentiles, as in some other scriptures ; and so it stands as a parallel of Abraham's' beingjustified by fizith, in his unoir- cumcised estate, or before he obeyed God in beingcircumcised as it follows, verses 9, 10. But still it is faith, and not works which must justify such sinful creatures, as the best of mankind are in the sight of God ; because faith implies an acknowledgment of the imperfection and 'insufficiency of our best works, and a de- pendence on the forgiving grace of God. As I take this to be v3
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