superseded by One, in whom all offices merge, who has absorbed into Himself all principality, power, might, and dominion, and every name that is named; who has put His holy and fearful Name upon all, who is in and through all things, and without whom nothing is good. He is the sole self-existing principle in the Christian Church, and every thing else is but a portion or declaration of Him. Not that now, as then, we may not speak of prophets, and rulers, and priests, and sacrifices, and altars, and saints, and that in a far higher and more spiritual sense than before, but that they are not any of them such of themselves: it is not they, but the grace of God that is in them. There is under the Gospel but One proper Priest, Prophet, and King, Altar, Sacrifice, and House of God. Unity is its characteristic sacrament; all grace flows from the One Head, and all life circulates in the members of One Body. And what is true of priests and sacrifices, is true of righteous and holy men. It is their very privilege thus to be taken into Christ, to exist in Christ, as in their mortal life they already "have their being" in God. They had indeed before what was more their own than they have now; but to what did it tend, and how far did it aspire? It aspired to earthly blessings, and it tended to an earthly end. Better surely to be the mere stones of the Everlasting Pavement, than the head of the corner in the Jewish Temple. Better to be the least in the Kingdom of Heaven, even than the

greatest before it of all that were born of women. Far better surely than Solomon in all his glory, is that chosen generation, that royal priesthood, that holy nation, that peculiar people, whose life is hid with Christ in God, who live because He lives in them, who are blessed because He is blessed, who are the fragrance of His breath, the myrrh, aloes, and cassia from His garments; nay, are one spirit with Him, as His dove, "His undefiled one,” “His sister and spouse," "coming up from the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved.”

Now to apply these remarks to our immediate subject, unless this has been sufficiently done in the course of them. If in other things Christ changed the application of words, it is surely but fitting and natural that He should have in a similar way changed the application of the words righteousness and justification. Priests, I have said, offered sacrifices under the Law: Christian Ministers also offer sacrifices, but it is their privilege to know that those sacrifices are not independent of Christ, or complete in themselves, but continuations, as it were, of His Sacrifice, and shadows cast from His Cross; and that though distinct as visible and literal acts, yet as being instinct with that which they commemorate, they are absorbed and vivified in it. And so in like manner the inherent righteousness of a true Christian, viewed as distinct from Christ's inward presence, is something real, and doubtless far higher than that of a Jew; but why should we

so degrade ourselves, so disparage our own high privilege, as to view it separately, to disjoin it from Him through whom we do it, to linger in the thought of it instead of tracing it back, to that which is its immediate source; as if a man were to praise the daylight, yet forget the sun? No, whatever might be the righteousness of the Jews, we certainly know what is ours; and it is what they could not have had; it is "Christ," our propitiation, "within us;" on it we rely, not on ourselves. It is our boast thus to retreat from the extreme manifestations of life, which is our sanctification, upon that Glory within us, which is its fount, and our true justification. It is our blessedness to have our own glory swallowed up in Christ's glory, and to consider our works and our holiness, to avail merely as securities for the continuance of that glory; not as things to be dwelt upon and made much of for their own sake, but as a sort of sacramental rite addressed to Him, for the sake of which He may be pleased still to illuminate us, as tokens that His grace is not in vain. And after all, what we are, whatever it is, could not avail, were it tried in the balance for more than this, to prove our earnestness and diligence. Even what is acceptable in us, is still so imperfect that the blood of Christ is necessary to complete what His Spirit has begun; and as His regenerating grace has infused sweetness into what was bitter, so must His mercifulness overlook the remaining bitterness in what He has infused of sweetness.

232 RIGHTEOUSNESS A GIFT AND QUALITY. [LECT. VIII.

In this way, then, I would reply to what seems at first sight a specious argument, against what I consider to be the Catholic doctrine. It is a more simple theory, doubtless, to say that righteousness should be to the Christian what it was to the Jew; as it is a more simple theory that we should have real priests, sacrifices, and altars now. But those who believe that Christ has set up a new creation in unity, and that He Himself is the One principle in His Church of all grace and truth, will not be surprised to find that He has superseded the righteousness, as He has abolished the victims of the ancient time; and that as the grace of the Holy Eucharist is the Presence of Christ Crucified, so the justification of those who approach it is the Indwelling of Christ risen and glorified.

LECTURE IX.

CHRIST'S RESURRECTION THE SOURCE OF

JUSTIFICATION.

ROм. iv. 25.

"Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

THAT our justification, or our being accounted righteous by Almighty God, consists in our being grafted into the Body, or made members of Christ, in God dwelling in us and our dwelling in God, and that the Holy Ghost is the gracious Agent in this wonderful work, all this has been argued from Scripture in various ways; first, from righteousness being there spoken of as an inward gift; or, again, from the great gift of the Gospel (which righteousness confessedly is) being spoken of as inward; secondly, on the ground that if so high a privilege as God's indwelling be vouchsafed, it must necessarily involve justification as one of its benefits; thirdly, from righteousness being represented as an ornament of