abasement and self-renunciation, where this doctrine finds him, without a struggle with his own pride. To come down there, and to lie thus low before God, is the result of mighty power on a proud man's soul, and is no neutral or unmeaning thing. It is not the work of ease, and of effeminacy, and the business of a holiday, for a man to renounce all his own righteousness, and to be willing to acknowledge before heaven, and earth, and hell, that he is so great a sinner that he ought to be excluded from heaven, and banished from the earth, and be doomed to unspeakable torments for ever in the world of woe. And it is not an unmeaning thing, when in this state a voice from heaven bids him rise from the dust, and go forth a pardoned man, a renovated being, a child of God, an heir of heaven.

Accordingly, this is the doctrine which arouses the world. It was this which produced the commotions in the apostolic times, when it was said, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." It was this which produced so much excitement at Jerusalem, at Antioch, at Philippi. It was this which aroused Europe in the Reformation. It is this whose power is seen in every revival of religion. It is this whose energy is felt in the efforts made to carry religion around the globe.

To illustrate what has been now said, reference may be made to the case of two individuals, who have stated the effect of this doctrine on their own minds. The first is that of the apostle Paul. It is found in the Epistle to the Philippians :-" If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church ; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord," ch. iii. 4-8. The other is Luther's record of his own feelings when he was first made to understand this doctrine. 66 Though as a monk," says he, "I was holy and irreproachable, my conscience was still filled with trouble and torment. I could not endure the expression—“The righteous justice of God.' I did not love that just and holy Being who punishes sinners. I felt a secret anger against him; I hated him, because, not satisfied with terrifying by his law and by the miseries of life poor creatures already ruined by original sin, he aggravated our sufferings by the gospel. But when by the Spirit of God I understood these words-when

I learned how the justification of the sinner proceeds from God's mere mercy by the way of faith-then I felt myself born. again as a new man, and I entered by an open door into the very paradise of God. From that hour I saw the precious and holy. Scriptures with new eyes. I went through the whole Bible. I collected a multitude of passages which taught me what the work of God was. And as I had before heartily hated the expression, 'the righteousness of God,' I began from that time to value and to love it as the sweetest and most consolatory truth. Truly this text of St. Paul was to me as the very gate of heaven." 99 *

To a soul thus lost and ruined this doctrine always has this power. To others it has neither power nor beauty; nor can we hope that it will make its way among men except where the soul is deeply aroused on the subject of religion. Then it is what it is so often said to be in the Scriptures, "the power of God:" it is His mighty energy quickening the soul that was dead in sin to newness of life.

(2.) The second remark illustrating its bearing and importance will be drawn from the contrast of this doctrine with the opposite. It has already been observed, that there are in fact but two kinds of religion on the earth-that of self-righteousness, and that of dependence on another for salvation; that in which man attempts to justify himself, and that in which he relies for justification on the merits of the Son of God. These systems divide the world; for, however numerous may be the methods by which men attempt to save themselves, they all have this essential characteristic, that they are systems of self-righteousness. What are the characteristics of these two systems? What would be the tendency of each of them? Let them be put in contrast, and what must be their respective effects? The effect of the one-of the plan of justification by faith-we have already in part seen. Its obvious tendency must be to produce humility, penitence, gratitude, a simple reliance on the Saviour, a disposition to make him all in all in religion. What are the effects of the opposite system? They must be such as these:

66

(a) Pride. God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are," is its language all over the world.

Reli

(b) A multiplication of forms, and a reliance on them. gion becomes an outward thing, not a work of the heart. So it was with the Pharisees, the Greeks, the Romans; so it is now in the Pagan world, among Mussulmans, and in all the perverted forms of Christianity. It matters little what the outward system

* D'Aubigné.

is; where the doctrine of justification is obscured or unknown, religion must degenerate into heartless forms. It makes up for its want of vital power by the multiplication of rites and cere. monies. It adds a new ceremony for every step of departure from the doctrine of justification by faith; it attaches an additional sacredness to externals as this doctrine is obscured; and where this is wholly lost out of view, religion becomes merely a punctilious performance of imposing rites, a careful observance of forms. A man, when he thinks of death and the judgment, must have some righteousness on which to rely. If it be not that of the Saviour, and if there be the pretence of religion at all, it must be that consisting of a sacred reverence for forms.

(c) The denial of the doctrine of justification by faith will be always attended with superstition. There will be an attempt to merit heaven by reverencing dead men's bones, by pilgrimages, by bodily tortures, by seclusion from the world, by garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous, and by imploring the intercession of departed saints. The world must make up its mind to have the doctrine of justification by faith held in its purity, or to have a religion of superstition substituted in its place. One or the other has prevailed always; one has always excluded the other; the suppression of the one has been the occasion of the introduction of the other; and one or the other will live to the end of time. The question is now before this country, whether we shall hold on to the great doctrine of justification by faith, or whether we shall go abroad and import all the superstitions of heathenism, either original or baptized at Rome; whether we shall adhere to the grand truth which was the element in the Reformation, or take Christianity, so called, as it was in the days of Alexander VI. and Leo X.

(d) The system which denies this doctrine has been from some cause an exclusive and a persecuting system. To whatever this fact may be traced, of the fact itself there can be no doubt. The history of the world has confirmed it, and that history has taught us that if we would be free from the evils of an exclusive and a persecuting system, we must hold in its simplicity and its purity the great doctrine of justification by faith.

(3.) A third thing illustrating its bearing and importance is its connexion with freedom of thought and the advancement of society. The fact here is more apparent than the reason of it. No one acquainted with history will dispute the position, that the doctrine of justification by faith has been held with the most simplicity and purity in the times when freedom of thought has most prevailed, and in the lands most charac

terized for it. And no one can doubt that the denial of the doctrine, and the denial of the right of free inquiry, have gone together. It was the same system that by all its arrangements denied the doctrine of justification by faith, which imprisoned Galileo. The Inquisition grew up in lands where this doctrine was rejected, and has flourished there only, and could live nowhere else. The proclamation of this doctrine in Europe by Luther and his fellow-labourers unfettered the human mind, and abolished the Inquisition; and nothing can be clearer than that no circumstances could ever arise in any land in which the doctrine of justification by simple faith in Christ is held, under which the Inquisition could be established; and we may be certain that, as long as we can assert this doctrine in its purity throughout all our borders, we shall be free from thumb-screws, and racks, and auto-da-fés, and dark dungeons made to incarcerate the advocates of any religious belief. Whatever else we may be subjected to, this doctrine will be a palladium to us of far more value than the image of Minerva was to Troy, to secure for us the protection of Heaven.

The reasons of the fact which is now adverted to would be found in such considerations as these:-that in this doctrine there is nothing which we wish to conceal; that it depends for its support on nothing which may not be fully examined; that it recognises everywhere the equality of men; that it asks no patronage from the State; that it relies for its advancement on its own simple power as truth-as commending itself to the conscience and the reason of mankind, and as finding a response in the soul of every man who feels that he is a sinner. The support of the other system is to be found in just the opposite of these things. It cloaks itself in mystery. It seeks to establish the claims of a priesthood composed of a superior order of menand this must be based on arguments that will not bear the light. It is, and must be, sustained by the power of the State. It loves a teaching rather than a reasoning religion. It is identified with all that human ingenuity can devise to substitute a righteousness in the place of that by faith in the Saviour. It is identified with interest-where the procuring of absolution becomes a matter of bargain and sale. And it is conscious that the free examination of its claims would show how baseless is the fabric on which it stands, and how worthless are all the devices which have been originated to enable man to work out a righteousness of his own. Without pursuing these thoughts further, one other remark may be added :

(4.) It is the fourth in order, and is this, that the doctrine of

justification by faith is connected with liberality in religion. We have seen what is the character, in this respect, of the opposite system. It is essential to every other system that it be illiberal and exclusive. The reason is this:-According to every such system, grace is conveyed only through a certain channel. There are certain men who alone are appointed to dispense it; it is to be obtained only in union with a certain ecclesiastical connexion, and in the performance of certain specified rites and ceremonies. But none of these things are essential to the doctrine of justification by faith. It is a direct concern between the soul and its Saviour. It practically removes every human being from any participation in obtaining for the sinner the favour of God. However the ministers of religion may have been instrumental in arousing the attention of the soul to its guilt and danger, or in pointing the way to the Cross, yet the transaction is one where all foreign agency and all human holiness of office are excluded. It matters not whether the minister officiates with or without a surplice; whether in a plain "meeting-house" or a magnificent cathedral; whether he can trace his commission through the apostolic succession or not; whether his doctrines can or cannot be sustained by synods and councils; nay, whether there be any minister of religion at all;— the soul may be justified by simple faith in the Lord Jesus. The worshipper may be a Cameronian on the hills of Scotland under the open heaven; or a man who has strayed somehow into a conventicle; or a wandering savage who is made to listen, to attend, to be enraptured, till his eyes pour forth tears under the preaching of some humble missionary on whose head the hands of a mitred prelate have never been laid,—and there shall be all the elements of the doctrine of justification. What has occurred to him on the hills, or in the woods, or in a schoolhouse, or in a church, he feels may occur anywhere else in the same way. It will not then become essential, in his view, that the doctrines of religion should be preached on a hill, or in a valley; that the minister stand in front of a tent, or that he serve at a particular altar; that he wear a certain vestment, or be able to trace his spiritual genealogy back to far-distant times. That which he wishes to know is, whether a man has experienced in his own soul what he has in his-the power of the doctrine of justification by faith in the blood of Jesus. If so, that is enough. It is to him a question of comparatively no moment whether such an one thinks that baptism by immersion is the only method; or whether he regards John Wesley as the greatest and the best of men; or whether he