as to spiritual matters; and no wonder their teachers should be industrious in pointing out to them the advantages, the effects, and the obligation of this change. Now it appears to have been a doctrine of Christianity taught both by St Paul and the other preachers of the religion, asserted, or rather assumed, in their writings, and frequently referred to therein, that, amongst other effects and advantages of their becoming Christians, this was one; namely, that the sins of which they had been guilty before their conversion were thereupon forgiven; and which sins being so forgiven, they, by their conversion, and at the time of their conversion, stood in the sight of God, whatever their former lives had been, as just persons, no less so, than if they had led lives of righteousness from their birth; that is, in one word, they were justified.

But the forgiveness here spoken of, namely, the forgiveness of prior sins upon this faith and conversion, and the justification implied in that forgiveness, was undoubtedly an advantage annexed by the mercy of God to their faith and conversion, and not the effect of any pretensions they had, or might suppose themselves to have, from either their situation or behaviour prior to their conversion. Therefore, supposing this to be the sense of the word justification, viz. the remission of all the sins they had committed before their conversion to Christianity, it was literally and strictly true what St Paul tells these Christians, in his epistle to the Romans, that they were justified by faith without the works of the law, even supposing the works of the law' to comprise all the duties of the moral law; and I think it very probable, that this is what St Paul meant by justification in that remarkable text, and which is one of the strongest on that side of the question. And I think so for two rea

sons.

In the fifth chapter of the epistle, and the first verse, which connects itself with the text under consideration, the intermediate chapter being employed in a digressive illustration of the subject, drawn from the history of Abraham; I say, in the beginning of the fifth chapter, St Paul evidently speaks of their being justified, as of a thing that was past. Whatever it was, it had already taken place; they were already justified; for he speaks thus of it; "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' If then their justification had already taken place, when did it take place? What time can be assigned to it but the time of their conversion, according to the sense we contend for?

A second fair ground for believing that this was the apostle's meaning is, that it best suited with his argument. His argu

ment was to prove, that the Gentiles were as properly admissible into the christian dispensation as the Jews; a question at that time hotly contested, though now laid asleep. To make out this point, he shows that the justification, i. e. the pardon of prior sins, which conversion to Christianity brought with it, was neither in Jew nor Gentile attributable to their former behaviour, or to any thing which that behaviour could merit; but was, in both the one and the other, the pure and free effect and gift of God's mercy, was grace, was favor; and being so, that one sort of men, as well as the other, was capable of receiving it, and of participating in all the fruits and privileges which belonged to it. It was a thing which, upon the ground of prior merit, the Jew could not claim; which, upon the ground of pure favor, the Gentile might expect as well as he. Therefore, the purpose of the apostle's argument is satisfied, and the argument itself made most clear, by limiting his sense of justification to what passed upon the act of conversion; and it is by this interpretation alone that we can fairly avoid, in this passage, the sense which those put upon it, who contend against the proper necessity of good works; for we cannot, I think, in this passage, understand by faith that operative, productive faith which includes good works. Nor can we understand by the works of the law the rites only, and peculiar ordinances of the Jewish law. We cannot understand by faith that which includes and necessarily supposes works, because then the apostle could not have talked of faith without works; whereas he says, that we are justified by faith without the works of the law.' We cannot restrain the expression, the works of the law,' to the positive precepts of the Jewish law, because we must suppose that St Paul's conclusion was coextensive with his reasoning; and his reasoning evidently applies and relates to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, to those who had no proper concern in the Jewish law, as well as those who had. We have before proved,' says he, both of Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.' This was the common situation of both; and to this, their common situation, must be applied what he afterwards says concerning justification. It hath likewise been truly I think observed, that the laws must here mean the moral law; because only three verses afterwards, and continuing, as must be presumed, the same idea, he adds, Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.' But in no sense, to be sure, could it be said that the ritual or ceremonial law of the Jews, as a distinct and separate thing from the moral law, was established by the preachers of faith, or by this their reasoning upon it.

There is another strong text in St Paul's epistles, which allows of nearly the same exposition. The apostle tells the Ephesians, chap. ii. verse 8, 'By grace ye are saved through faith.' Being 'saved' means being put into the way and course of being saved, which was done for them at their conversion, when they became believers in Christ; and therefore it was through faith. The expression, being saved, when applied to those who are yet living, can only mean being put into a way or course of being saved; final salvation itself, or, in other words, being received into heaven, only taking place after death. Now the being saved in this sense, namely, the being put into a way or course of salvation, by no means dispenses with the necessity of a good life; because the final salvation, the aim and end of the whole, will still of necessity depend upon their keeping in that way, and pursuing that course. By a bad life they go out of the way into which they had been brought, desert the course upon which they had entered, and therefore lose heaven at last; and all this consistently with St. Paul's words to the Ephesians, as thus interpreted.

The third chapter of the Galatians is another scripture which has been much relied upon on the other side of the question. To the apparent difficulties arising out of this chapter, I should be inclined to apply a somewhat different solution from that which we last gave. I think that in this chapter the term faith means a productive faith; and I think also, that the works of the law mean circumcision and the other rites of the Jewish law. As to the first point, St Paul, in the ninth verse of this chapter, says, They which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." Now common sense obliges us to suppose, that the faith of those concerning whom he says, 'they that be of faith,' was of like kind with the faith of Abraham, so that they might partake of the blessing along with him; but St James, you know, hath asserted, and shown indeed, that the faith of Abraham was faith efficacious to the production of good works. Then, as to the second point, the works of the law, of which St Paul appears in this epistle to lower the value, are explained by him in the ninth and tenth verses of the fourth chapter, and so explained, as to show that they were ritual works which he was thinking of; 'But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days and months, and times and years.' The truth was, that in St Paul's absence, his Galatian converts had been going fast into Judaism, which he con

sidered as an undoing of every thing which he had done amongst them; and which conduct of theirs drew from him some very strong expressions; yet none, I think, but what may be fairly understood without supposing him to dispense with the necessity of a virtuous conduct.

Justification is properly distinguished from sanctification. Justification, in the scripture sense of it, is the pardon of sins, prior to a certain period; sanctification is holiness of life subsequent to that period; or more strictly speaking, these words express what God does for us in these different stages of our christian life. Justification is altogether his, because pardon is by its very nature the subject of favor. Sanctification, to say

the least of it, is indebted to the support and assistance of his spirit. There is, therefore, an intelligible difference between justification and sanctification, and this is included in the term; for, as it respects us, it would be called sanctity; as it respects God's assistance, it is called sanctification. But, as hath been said before, they are both necessary. A man may be justified, that is, may have his sins forgiven up to a certain period; yet if he be not also sanctified, if, after that period, he relapse into and go on in unrepented wickedness, he will perish notwithstanding his justification. On the other hand, sanctification itself would not avail, without having a preceding justification to rest upon. Good behaviour, from a certain period, has not in itself any proper virtue or quality such as to atone for bad behaviour before that period. By the grace of God it hath this effect, but not by its proper nature, any more than the regular paying off of our debts, after a certain period, will discharge or cancel those which were contracted before that period. Wherefore there must be a remission of prior sins, or in other words, justification, in order that a subsequent good life, or sanctity, or sanctification, may avail us at the last.

It may be true, that, according to this representation, the terms justification, faith, and works of the law are not every where used in scripture in exactly the same sense. Thus, although justification be generally used to express the pardon of sins that are passed, with a reference to some certain period, commonly that of their becoming believers in Christ, yet one or two passages are found, in which the word denotes our final destiny at the day of judgment. This, I think, is the sense of the word in that text of St Paul, wherein he declares that not the hearers of the law, but the doers of the law, are justified; and most unquestionably it bears this sense in that discourse of our Saviour, in which he tells his hearers, 'by thy words thou shalt

be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned;' for this declaration is equivalent to another, which our Saviour delivers at the same time, namely, that for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment. So again, although in the texts which have been quoted from the epistle to the Galatians, it appears highly probable that, under the word faith, St Paul had in contemplation an efficacious faith; and that by the works of the law he meant particularly the rites and ordinances of the Jewish law, the view with which he wrote that epistle naturally and necessarily suggesting these ideas to his thoughts; yet in the epistle to the Romans, penned with a somewhat different aspect, and under a different impression, especially in that famous text, 'Therefore we conclude that man is justified by faith without the works of the law,' I think he meant by faith, the simple act of believing, and by the works of the law, the practice of those duties which are enjoined by its precepts, moral as well as ritual; and that the true interpretation of the text turns upon the word justification, which does not here signify finding acceptance, but the pardon of all sins committed before conversion. Therefore, there is some latitude to be allowed in the exposition of these terms as they occur in different places.

It may be also further true, that some passages of St Paul's epistles are not according to the interpretation which we have put upon them, so applicable to us, or as some may think, so useful, or instructive, or affecting, as they are under a different exposition. Is it to be wondered at, that portions of ancient writings are not in all points, and in all their expressions, so applicable to us at this day, as they were to the persons to whom they were immediately addressed? Is it not true rather, that this is no more than the necessary consequence of those changes which have taken place in the circumstances of christian life? But we are not to put a different sense upon words from that which was intended, in order to make them more closely applicable to our own case; or to make them, as we may suppose, more edifying; for there is no real edification separate from truth. That great revolution which had taken place in the lives of the Christians of St Paul's time, upon their becoming Christians at a ripe age, together with the almost entire change both of opinions and of conduct, which accompanied that event, does not take place in the ordinary life of a Christian at this day; whereby it comes to pass, that such of St Paul's expressions as refer particularly to that change, will not admit of the same proper application to us as it did to them.