than when employed of the first "act of being justified;" in a word, sanctification, though distinct from our original justification, and to be regarded either as its effect, or as, together with it, one of the blessed effects of our union with our LORD, becomes blended with it, so as to be co-existent with it, and separable in idea only. GOD's mercy in first justifying us when ungodly, is enlarged, not diminished, by His continuing to justify us, being by Him made, and by making us, godly. Christians are on the way from being accounted what they were not, holy, to being what they were accounted. This shall be realized in heaven, when, "GOD" being "all in all," there shall no more remain in any what is alien from, or contrary to, or without, GOD. We shall then, so to say, be wholly justified, because wholly sanctified. We shall be just and saints entirely. But, meanwhile, as God's true servants allow His Spirit to burn out what is impure within them, though they have still need of daily forgiveness, and feel that need the more, there is, actually, less to be forgiven. GOD makes them acceptable to Himself, more by creating in them what is intrinsically acceptable to Him, less by effacing what is displeasing. And thus justification becomes more and more identified with sanctification, although, since the best to the end remain imperfect, there is still need of His grace, justifying them as in part unholy, as well as making them day by day more holy. And so, in the sad reverse, when persons are gradually

falling out of a justified state, their justification, so long as they continue in it, consists more in the remission of sin, through the long-suffering of GOD; less, in sanctification by His SPIRIT.

Either view, then, whether that which separates too broadly sanctification from justification, or that which too much identifies them, would seem to be defective; that which identifies them, seems not to come up to St. Paul's strong statements, that we were justified, being ungodly, nor again to the actual fact, that justification is complete at first, sanctification gradual and increasing; the theory which separates them, falls as much short of the declaration of St. James, as also of St. Paul's or St. John's descriptions of the new life of the Christian in his LORD. In our Articles, on the other hand, while the merits of our LORD are set forth in contrast to our own works or deservings as the sole meritorious cause of our justification, and are declared to be received" by faith," our state of justification is spoken of1 as identical with the infusion "of the grace of CHRIST, and the inspiration [or in-breathing] of His SPIRIT." In like way also is the truth inculcated practically by the Ancient Church, everywhere asserting the irrespective mercy of GoD in CHRIST, first electing, ingraffing us, remitting sins, re-creating us in CHRIST, justifying us freely; everywhere insisting also on the righteousness of GOD, through the preventing, assisting, perfecting grace of

1 Art. 13.

CHRIST, realized in us. These two, modern systems have separated; that of Rome, in fact, substituting sanctification for justification; that of ordinary Protestantism detaching sanctification, and assigning to it a subordinate place. These, as has been pointed out, are re-united by the great Divines of our Church, asserting against the Church of Rome, that sanctification has no part in our primary justification, but inculcating that it is by being made righteous that we remain justified:

"Such is the contrast," says Mr. Newman, "existing between "the practical and exact senses of the word justification; and it "is remarkable that both the one and the other have been "adopted by our standard-writers, as has been already instanced "from the Homilies. As controversialists they are Protestants, "as pastoral teachers they are disciples of the Ancient Church. "Who, for instance, is more clear than Bishop Bull in laying "down that justification means counting righteous? yet who

more strenuous in maintaining that it consists in being righteous? "What he is, such are Hammond, Taylor, Wilson, and a multi"tude of others; who in this day are called inconsistent, as if 'holding two views, whereas those two views are rather proved "to be one, because the same divines hold them."-Lectures on Justification, p. 111. Ed. 1.

These views, it is, again, the tendency of a low selfindulgent age to disunite; and since error lies near at hand to all truth, so a prevailing error among many of the recent preachers of justification by faith, has been, that they have so strongly insisted on the corruption remaining in the regenerate, and so coldly on the strength bestowed upon them to overcome it, so strongly upon the necessity of imputed, and so

a

slightly and lifelessly upon imparted righteousness, as much to discourage the very attempt after high and devoted, entire and self-sacrificing obedience.

To re-unite these views has been (as far as another may with humility speak of so thoughtful and comprehensive a work) one of the leading objects in the "Lectures on Justification;" and a careful study of these would, it is conceived, remove the suspicions which, both before and since its appearance, have been cast on the views of justification held in connection with baptismal regeneration. A main object in those Lectures has been, after the pattern of our great divines, to insist on the reality, however imperfect, of the righteousness of the Christian; that righteousness is not imputed only, but imparted, first imputed, then imparted; that GOD, in justifying us, does indeed make us what we were not, but what He therein declares us, righteous; that over and above the change of the Divine Mind1" towards us, there is something "really applied and communicated" to us. There is then, throughout these Lectures, a marked contrast with views now popular; but it relates not to the Divine dealings, but to the condition of man under, in, and through them; not to the source of justification, nor its meritorious cause, nor the means whereby it is received, but to its character when received, in the soul of the believer; it is, whether justification issue in real, though imper

Lect. vi. p. 158. comp. p. 155.

fect, holiness, a holiness which, although imperfect, is acceptable to GOD, or whether, even in a justified state, man “cannot please GOD," but, remaining unholy, is accounted only holy for CHRIST's sake. It relates to the state of the soul of the individual, what it is which in it GOD looks upon as acceptable.

"In asking, what is our righteousness, I do not mean what "is its original source, for this is God's mercy; nor what is "its meritorious cause, for this is the life, and above all the "death of CHRIST; nor what is the instrument of it, for this (I "would maintain) is Holy Baptism; nor what is the entrance "into it, for this is regeneration; nor what the first privilege "of it, for this is pardon; nor what is the ultimate fruit, for "this is everlasting life. I am not inquiring about any thing past, or any thing future, or any thing on GoD's part, but "of something present and inward. We should not say that "animal life consisted in being born, or in having parents, or "in breathing, or in sensation, or in strength, or in a certain

period of years, or in God's will, or in God's attributes, or in "God's knowledge of us. We should feel that nothing past, or "to come, or external, could be a fit account of that which we "call animal life, and that all answers so framed were beside the "mark. It would be intelligible, for instance, to say that life "consisted in the presence of the soul; but whether we said "this or any thing else, in any case we should fix on something "in us, not out of us. And in like manner, when I ask what is "that, called righteousness, which God first clothes us with as with a robe, then looks upon and accepts, I do not ask why God so "looks upon it, but what it is He looks upon."-Lect. vi. 146-7.

Before this question was proposed, the doctrine of our Church, that justification, on GOD's part, is "declaring us righteous, when we were not such," had