God would overlook their failures and bestow upon them the reward of eternal life. It is to this precise fact that the Apostle directs our attention in the closing part of the ninth chapter of his epistle to the Romans, and in the beginning of the tenth: "What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after the law of righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law." Mark the expression: "they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law." He does not say by the works of the law simply, as if they were striving after a perfect legal righteousness. They knew as well as we do, that such a righteousness was unattainable. Still they made a righteousness of their own works, as thousands do at the present time, instead of looking solely to the righteousness of God's providing the righteousness of the Redeemer. "For they stumbled," says the Apostle, "at that stumbling stone, [meaning Christ,] as it is written: Behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offence, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." None could be more zealous and painstaking in religion than they, but their zeal, says the Apostle, is not according to knowledge; "For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." They did not submit themselves to God's righteousness by submitting to Christ, and receiving him in his mediatorial character, as the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. Their whole reliance was upon their own good endeavors. They knew no other righteousness and sought no other. Here they stumbled and fell; and here have fall

en thousands with the Word of Christ in their hands. From the self-righteous Pharisee to the man who is now doing as well as he can, trusting in God's mercy for the rest, the grand error has been to overlook the perfect righteousness of the Redeemer, as the only justifying righteousness of the sinner. But surely Paul did not overlook it, when speaking of God's justifying Abraham by faith, in opposition to works; surely he did not mean to teach that though Abraham was not justified by a perfect legal righteousness, he was nevertheless justified by an imperfect one, as the Jews sought to be; or, which is the same thing, that he was justified "as it were by the works of the law."

I must not longer trespass ou your patience, and therefore I reserve the remainder of this subject for a future opportunity. Let me not conclude, however, until I have lifted up a warning voice against a spirit of self-righteousness. Make a Christ of nothing but Christ himself. There is much danger of doing this. Your faith in him must be direct, and your dependence on him exclusive and entire.

LECTURE XVIII.

ON JUSTIFICATION.

WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION?

In answering this question on a former occasion, you will recollect that I proposed the five following inquiries: First. What is implied in our being justified before God?

Second. What is the righteousness on account of which God justifies us?

Third. What is intended by the imputation of this righteousness?

Fourth. What is the nature of that faith which is concerned in our justification, and how is it concerned? Fifth. And lastly, wherein does it appear that we are justified freely by the grace of God?

The first two of these inquiries have already been considered. In attending to the first, we remarked that to justify a man in common life, is to vindicate his innocence against any imagined or supposed impeachment; but that in judicial proceedings the term has another import, and signifies to acquit the accused of the crime alleged, and formally to pronounce him just in the eye of the law. In neither of these senses did we suppose that God justifies the sinner, when he forgives. Surely, he does not vindicate the sinner's innocence, nor declare him not guilty, when compared with the law. This

could not be done consistently with the truth of facts. The sinner is a transgressor, or he would not need forgiveness; and it will eternally remain true that he is a transgressor; his desert is as indelible as his being, and can no more be destroyed than you can destroy the fact of his transgression. It cannot be supposed, therefore, that God will declare the sinner righteous, or judge him to be so, since he will not declare or judge him to be what he is not. Hence, we inferred that Gospel justification is not, in all respects, the same as legal justification, though it bears a resemblance to it. It is not pronouncing the sinner just in view of the law; but treating him, in two important respects, as if he were-exempting him from punishment, and giving him a title to life. In legal justification, the law is made the rule of judgment, and according to this, sentence is pronounced in favor of the accused, and upon the ground of his personal inno

cence.

But in Gospel justification, the case is quite different. Here, it is not justifying the righteous whom the law approves, but the ungodly whom the law condemns. The law, of course, cannot be made the rule of judgment; nor is sentence pronounced according to this rule. It must not be forgotten, however, that though the sinner is not justified by the law, or according to the law, yet the law is not overlooked in this case, nor its honor disregarded. It did not become Jehovah, as the moral Governor of the universe, to pardon the sinner and restore him to favor, until the law had been magnified and made honorable, by the meritorious obedience and sufferings of Christ. But this once done, the way was open to grant two important benefits to the believing sinner-remission of sin, and life everlasting. Both of these are respected in the act of justification; an act, which having once passed upon the sinner, is past for

ever. God does not justify him conditionally, but absolutely and finally; for whom he calls them he justifies, and whom he justifies them also he glorifies.

Second. As to the righteousness on account of which God justifies us, we attempted to show that it could not be our own personal righteousness according to the law: first, because we have no such righteousness; and secondly, because this is not the righteousness supposed or demanded in the justification of a sinner, the law not being the rule of judgment in the case. Nor did we allow it to be the righteousness of faith considered as a moral virtue, as though faith and the fruits of it held under the Gospel the same place as a perfect legal righteousness under the law. Men are exceedingly apt to suppose this; and many a self-righteous heart is still seeking justification, like the Jews of old, not by a perfect and sinless obedience, but by the merit of its own good endeavors, or, as it were, by the works of the law. Against this erroneous conception we urged two important considerations: first, that the righteousness which God regards as the true and proper ground of our justification, is declared to be a righteousness without works; which could not be true if faith or its fruits were accepted as our righteousness, and became the formal cause of our justification, since in that case our working, though an imperfect working, would still constitute the righteousness by which we are justified. But a more important reason why faith, as a work, cannot be admitted to hold the place of a justifying righteousness, we stated to be, that the Scriptures speak distinctly of another righteousness as occupying this place, and it would be absurd to suppose that they speak of two. They declare that Christ's righteousness, is the meritorious ground of a sinner's acceptance with God. "Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of