But that it may farther appear, that our justification by faith, is opposed to justification by works, either those that accompany or flow from it, we may apply what has been before suggested, in considering the matter of our justification to this argument. If we consider the demands of justice, or what it may in honour reckon a sufficient compensation for the dishonour that has been brought to the divine name by sin, or what may be deemed a satisfactory payment of the outstanding debt of perfect obedience, which was due from us, or punishment, which we were liable to, according to the sanction of the divine law; we may easily infer, that no obedience, performed by us, though including in it the utmost perfection, that a fallen creature is capable of attaining, is a sufficient satisfaction; and if there can be no justification without satisfaction, then we cannot be justified thereby. Therefore it is a vain thing for persons to distinguish in this case, between works done before and after faith, as though the former only were excluded from being the matter of our justification; or to say, as some do, that we are not indeed justified by obedience to the moral law, but by our obeying the precepts which our Saviour has laid down in the gospel, such as faith, and repentance, _&c._ which they call obedience to the gospel as a new law: but let it be considered, that these evangelical duties are supposed to be performed as the result of a divine command, which has the formal nature of a law, whether they be contained in the moral law or no; therefore, when we are justified by faith in opposition to the works of the law, this must be opposed to obedience of any kind performed by us. And this also appears from the nature of faith, to which justification, by the works of the law, is opposed; for faith is a soul-humbling grace, and includes in it a renouncing of all merit, or inducement taken from ourselves, as a reason why God should bestow on us the blessings we stand in need of; it trusts in Christ for righteousness, and in him alone, and therefore turns itself from any thing that may have the least tendency to eclipse his glory, as the only foundation of our justification: therefore, when we are said to be justified by faith, and not by the works of the law, the meaning is, we are justified in such a way as tends to set the crown upon Christ’s head, acknowledging him to be the only fountain from whence this privilege is derived.