9. “We are accounted righteous before God ONLY for the merit of Christ,” says our church: and so saith the scripture. “There is _none other_ name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved,” Acts, iv. 12. “I will make mention of thy righteousness,” says David, “even of thine ONLY.” Psal. lxxi. 17. To suppose, that any thing but the righteousness of Christ can justify us before God, is a supposition big with pride, blasphemy, and absurdity:—with _pride_; because it inclines a man to esteem himself a sort of coadjutor in the work of salvation with Christ:—with _blasphemy_; because, by implying an insufficiency in the Redeemer’s righteousness _fully_ to justify, without the co-operation of human merit, it detracts from his personal and mediatorial honor, and gives a share of glory where none is due:—with _absurdity_; because it implies, that Christ came only to be a _half_ Saviour; and attempts to establish a coalition between human _works_ and divine _grace_, by making eternal salvation depend partly upon the one, and partly upon the other; a heterogeneous mixture this, which the scriptures disavow in most explicit terms. “If by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more of grace: otherwise work is no more work.” Rom. xi. 6. 10. The righteousness, by which we are justified, is made over to us by an act of gracious and sovereign _imputation_. Thus “David describeth the blessedness of the man, to whom God _imputeth_ righteousness without works, saying, blessed are they, &c.” Rom. iv. 7. And, because _faith_ is the instrument in receiving and cleaving to this righteousness; therefore this grace is said in a secondary and subordinate sense, to operate in our justification. So “Abraham _believed_ God, and it was accounted ελογισθη _imputed_ to him for righteousness. But, that faith itself cannot constitute a justifying righteousness, properly so called, is evident, because it is opposed to _working_, to him that _worketh not_ but _believeth_,” &c. Rom. iv. 5; and because, if it justified in the proper sense of the word, as an act, our justification being in that case by _works_, we should then claim heaven as a reward due to personal merit. For, “to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of _grace_ but of _debt_.” Rom. iv. 4. But, that faith cannot found any such claim, is abundantly demonstrable, from the distinction which the scriptures observe between faith and its object; making use so frequently of the terms, “the righteousness which is _by_ and _through_ faith,” Phil. iii. 9, and “faith _in_ the righteousness of Christ.” 2 Pet. i. 1. So that, when our church says “we are justified by _faith_ only” in opposition to works, it means that we are justified _instrumentally_ by faith, but that the object which it apprehends, viz. the righteousness of Christ, is the primary and meritorious cause of our justification.