contributes thereunto; and in what sense it is said, that we are to be justified by the one, and by the other. And first, if by righteousness be understood the justice of the works themselves, there is no man that can be saved; for there is none that hath not transgressed the law of God. And therefore when we are said to be justified by works, it is to be understood of the will, which God doth always accept for the work itself, as well in good as in evil men. And in this sense only it is that a man is called “just” or “unjust”; and that his justice justifies him, that is, gives him the title, in God’s acceptation, of “just”; and renders him capable of “living by his faith,” which before he was not. So that justice justifies in that sense in which to “justify” is the same as that to “denominate a man just”; and not in the signification of discharging the law; whereby the punishment of his sins should be unjust.
But a man is then also said to be justified when his plea, though in itself insufficient, is accepted; as when we plead our will, our endeavour to fulfil the law, and repent us of our failings, and God accepteth it for the performance itself. And because God accepteth not the will for the deed, but only in the faithful; it is therefore faith that makes good our plea; and in this sense it is that faith only justifies. So that “faith” and “obedience” are both necessary to salvation; yet in several senses each of them is said to justify.
Having thus shown what is necessary to salvation, it is not hard to reconcile our obedience to God with our obedience to the civil sovereign; who is either Christian or infidel. If he be a Christian, he alloweth the belief of this article, that “Jesus is the Christ”; and of all the articles that are contained in, or are by evident consequence deduced from it: which is all the faith necessary to salvation. And because he is a sovereign, he requireth obedience to all his own, that is, to all the civil laws; in which also are contained all the laws of Nature, that is, all the laws of God: for besides the laws of Nature, and the laws of the Church, which are part of the civil law (for the Church that can make laws is the commonwealth),