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LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 OIF'T 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, 1894. 
 Accessions No. &*fi$- Cla^s No. 
 
No. 3. 
 
 HOW SHALL MAI BE JUST WITH 
 GOD? 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 DEPOSITORIES: 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: PUBLICATION HOUSE, 386 CHESTNUT STREET 
 NEW YORK: IVISON & PHINNEY, 178 PULTON ST. 
 
Entered according to del of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
 
 WILLIAM PURGES, Treasurer, 
 
 in trust for the Presbyterian Publication Committee, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
 Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON AND CO. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 PRINTED BY I. ASHMEAD. 
 
No. 3. 
 
 H0 SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 
 
 I. The importance and difficulty of the inquiry, How 
 man can be justified. 
 
 THE question "How shall man be justified with God," 
 (Job xxv. 4.) proposed by an Eastern Sage, may be regard- 
 ed as an inquiry by man l>y human nature. It expresses 
 the deep workings of the human soul in all ages, on one of 
 the most important and difficult of all subjects. The ques- 
 tion means, How shall man be regarded and treated as righte- 
 ous by his Maker ? What methods shall he take to secure 
 such treatment ? What can he do, if any thing, to commend 
 himself to the favourable regards of a holy God ? What can 
 he do, if any thing, tomake amends for the past ? What can 
 he do, if any thing, to turn away future wrath ? Can he vin- 
 dicate himself before the Eternal Throne, for what he has 
 done ? If not, can he see how it is consistent for God to 
 treat him as righteous ? These questions meet us every- 
 where, and enter into and mould all the forms of religion on 
 earth. The inquiry, as illustrating and expressing the feel- 
 ings of human nature, may be considered with reference to 
 two points : its importance, and its difficulty. 
 
 I. The importance of the inquiry. 
 
 (1.) Its importance will be seen by this consideration 
 No one can be saved unless he is just, or righteous, in the sight 
 of God. Unless there is some way, by which God can con- 
 sistently regard and treat us as just or righteous, it is im- 
 possible to believe that we can enter heaven when we die. 
 
4 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WjTTH GOD? 
 
 Unless man is personally so holy that he cannot be charged 
 with guilt; or can justify himself by denying or disproving 
 the charge of guilt ] or can vindicate himself by showing that 
 his conduct is right ; or can appropriate to himself the merit 
 of another as if it were his own, no one can believe, no one 
 does believe that he can enter heaven. Probably there is no 
 conviction of the human mind more deep and universal than 
 this, and every man, whether conscious to himself of acting 
 en it or not, makes it elementary in his practical belief. If 
 any one is disposed to call this proposition in question, or if 
 he is not conscious of acting on it, he will see that it must 
 be true, by looking at it for a single moment. The proposi- 
 tion is, that no man can be saved unless he is just, or right- 
 eous, in the sight of God. Can God save a wicked man as 
 such and on account of his wickedness ? Can he hold him 
 up to the universe as one who ought to be saved ? Can he 
 take the profane man, the scoffer, the adulterer and the mur- 
 derer, to heaven, and proclaim himself as their patron and 
 friend ? Can he connect a life of open wickedness with the 
 rewards of eternal glory ? Nothing can be more clear than 
 that if a man is made happy forever "in heaven, there will be 
 some good reason for it, and that reason cannot be that he 
 was regarded as an unrighteous person. There will be a 
 fitness and propriety in his being saved ; there will be some 
 reason why it will be proper for God to regard and treat him 
 as righteous. 
 
 This view, which is perhaps sufficiently obvious, may be 
 illustrated by a reference to a human government. No just 
 government could become the patron and friend of the pirate 
 and the murderer, or bestow its rewards on one who, in all 
 respects, deserved to meet the penalty of the laws. On this 
 belief also, everj man acts in reference to his own salvation. 
 Each one has a firm conviction that no man can be saved 
 unless he is just in the sight of God. A man when he thinks 
 of being saved, always either thinks that he has kept the law 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 5 
 
 of God ; or that he has a good excuse for not complying with 
 it; or that he can make reparation by penances, pilgrimages, 
 sacrifices, or fastings; or that he can appropriate to himself 
 the merit of another. He never thinks of finding favour 
 with God as a transgressor, or on account of his crimes ; he 
 never supposes that his iniquity can be the foundation of his 
 salvation. God made the human soul, and he so made it, 
 that it never could believe that he would save a man because 
 he was wicked, or unless there was some way in which he 
 could be regarded and treated as righteous. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, the importance of the inquiry is seen from 
 the testimony of man everywhere. Man is apparently great- 
 ly indifferent to religion, and it often seems impossible to 
 arouse his attention to the great and momentous questions 
 connected with it. But, taking the race together, he is not so 
 indifferent to the subject as he appears, and could we know 
 all the secret thoughts and feelings of each individual, we 
 should find that his indifference is often in appearance only. 
 There are workings of the soul which are carefully excluded 
 from public view. There are thoughts, which every man has, 
 of which he would not wish others to know. There are 
 deep, agitating, protracted questionings resulting in settled 
 conviction, or tossing the soul upon a restless sea, which men 
 would wish to hide from their best friends. There is often 
 a deep interest in a man's mind on the subject of religion, 
 when his whole soul seems to the world torpid and inactive, 
 or when he would repel your inquiries, or when he would 
 seem as "calm as a summer's morning." 
 
 A very slight acquaintance with the human mind, or with 
 the history of opinions, is all that is needful to see the im- 
 portance which the inquiry, on the subject of justification, 
 has assumed in the view of man. 
 
 (a) It was seen in the investigations of ancient philoso- 
 phers "How shall man be just with God ?" was the ques- 
 tion which pressed itself on the minds and hearts of the 
 
6 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST wllH GOD? 
 
 speakers in the book of Job, and it was a question which was 
 echoed and re-echoed in the whole heathen philosophic world. 
 Many who are profound and patient students on other sub- 
 jects, often regard investigations on the subject of religion 
 as unworthy their attention. They think them appropriate 
 themes for contending theologians; for disputatious and 
 subtle schoolmen ; for the feeble in intellect, or for the dying; 
 but they regard them as having slight claims on a philo- 
 sophic mind. But would they go and take lessons of the 
 masters of science and of profound thought, they would think 
 differently. Will such men tell us what points of inquiry 
 have most occupied the attention of the intellects of other 
 times ? Will they refer to the volumes which contain the 
 results of their investigations of past ages ? Will they let 
 Socrates once more speak, and Plato give utterance to his 
 views, and Cicero and Seneca declare what most engrossed 
 their attention ? One thing they will find in all the past 
 one grand absorbing question they will meet with everywhere 
 one query to which all physical science was made sub- 
 servient. It was the subject of religion ; the question of 
 man's acceptance with God; the grounds of his hope of fu- 
 ture blessedness. The real inquiry among thinking men of 
 all ages and lands has been, "How shall man be just with 
 God?" 
 
 (b) The same earnest searching we find still in the 
 heathen world. From the recorded views, and the religion 
 of the heathen, we may learn much about man when he 
 utters his sentiments without disguise ; and what we find 
 universally among them, we may regard as the language of 
 human nature. Now there is no one thing expressed with 
 more uniformity or more earnestness all over the Pagan world 
 than this question, " How may we be just with God ?" It 
 was the foundation of all sacrifices, penances, pilgrimages, 
 self-inflicted mortifications. All these things were intended 
 so to make expiation for sin, or so to appease the anger of 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 7 
 
 the gods, that they who thus performed the rights of religion, 
 might be regarded and treated as righteous. Take this in- 
 quiry away, and their sacrifices and penances would be un- 
 meaning. Take this away, and the earnestness of their reli- 
 gion would soon cease, and, degenerating into an empty form, 
 would of itself soon expire. 
 
 (c) There is another method by which we may learn the 
 views of the human soul about the importance of this in- 
 quiry. It is by contemplating the soul when under convic- 
 tions of sin, and reflecting on its prospects about the future 
 world. Then there is no thought so momentous in the view 
 of the mind as this, "How shall a man be just with God ?" 
 There are many more persons in this state than is commonly 
 imagined. There is probably no one who reaches the years 
 of mature reflection, before whose mind this inquiry has not 
 at some period assumed an engrossing importance. With 
 almost no danger of error, you may assume of every man that 
 you meet, that his mind either has been, or is now deeply in- 
 terested on the subject of his salvation, and that in his life 
 there are periods when no subject appears so momentous as 
 this. In his moments of solitary musing, or in a time of 
 bereavement, or under the preaching of the gospel, or when 
 remembered truth seems to come with new-armed power to 
 his soul, or when the recollection of guilt seems recalled to 
 him by some invisible agency, or when lying on a bed of 
 languishing, this great inquiry has come before him, " How 
 may he be justified before his Maker ?" How may the guilt 
 of his sins be washed away? How may he be regarded 
 and treated as a righteous man ? To those who have been 
 in this state and who has not been ? it need not be said, 
 that then no question seems more momentous than this. In 
 time of revival of religion, the student in a college loses his 
 relish for his ordinary studies, and almost the capacity to 
 pursue them, absorbed in the more important study respect- 
 ing salvation ; the merchant loses his relish for his gains, 
 
8 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WlifH GOD? 
 
 engrossed in the greater inquiry how he may obtain everlast- 
 ing life ; the farmer, the mechanic, and the mariner feel that 
 they can hardly pursue their wonted employments, for a more 
 momentous subject has engrossed the soul. The eye may 
 be on a passage in Horace or Livy, but the thought shall be 
 elsewhere ; and the hands may be employed in labour, but it 
 shall be performed with a heavy heart, and when toil is pur- 
 sued almost unconscious of what is done. The calm, fixed, 
 steady, contemplative eye of the student, and the readiness 
 of the man of business to leave his counting room and place 
 himself under religious instruction, show with what intensity 
 this inquiry has seized on the soul. The busy, the studious 
 and the gay often become entirely absorbed in it, and 
 then no honour of scholarship, no amplitude of gain, no bril- 
 liancy of pleasure or amusement, seem comparable in value 
 to the solution of the question, " How shall man be just with 
 God ?" We need not pause here to consider whether this 
 is a just estimate which the soul thus puts on the magnitude 
 of this subject. We are concerned only in getting at the 
 language of man himself when in his sober moments. It 
 will at least be conceded that in those moments of profound 
 absorbing thought; those moments when men of all classes are 
 willing to turn aside from their usual pursuits , those times 
 when the great inquiry can make the pleasures of the ball- 
 room and the scenes of the splendid amusement, tasteless, and 
 can loosen the hold of the votaries of gold on their gains, 
 and cause the ardent student to turn aside from his books, 
 that then the human mind is as likely as ever to judge cor- 
 rectly of the importance of what has come before it. Yet 
 there is but one sentiment then that this question absorbs 
 and annihilates all others. 
 
 (3.) There is another consideration which shows the im- 
 portance of this inquiry. It is, that the views that are en- 
 tertained of justification, modify and shape all the other doc- 
 trines of religion. It is the central doctrine in the whole 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 9 
 
 system, and spreads its influence over every other opinion 
 which man holds, on the subject of salvation. The views 
 entertained on this subject, distinguish respectively the Prot- 
 estant and the Papal communities ; divide Protestants them- 
 selves into two great parties, evangelical and non-evangelical ; 
 separate heathens from Christians ; give form to all the sys- 
 tems of infidelity and Deism, and constitute the peculiarity 
 of every man's individual faith. When it is known definite- 
 ly what a man thinks on this one point, it may be known 
 whether he is a Papist, or a Protestant ; a Christian or an 
 infidel ; a heathen or a friend of the Saviour ; a formalist or 
 a devoted servant of God. Luther did not say too much 
 when he said of this doctrine of justification, that it was the 
 article on which depended the permanency or ruin of the 
 church, and with a sagacity equal to that of Talleyrand, when 
 from a very slight matter he predicted that the throne of 
 France would be overturned, Luther saw that the doctrine 
 of justification would meet every corruption of the Papacy 
 and eventually overturn the system. The fabric of the 
 Papacy is an ingenious attempt, originated and arranged 
 under the auspices of a higher than a human intellect, though 
 fallen, to delude man with the belief, that there is some 
 other way by which he may be justified with God, than by 
 faith in the Saviour. The whole system of heathenism is an 
 attempt to answer the question, "How man maybe justified 
 with God ?" The systems of infidels, and of men who are de- 
 pending on their own morality, or relying on penances and pil- 
 grimages, are another answer which is given to the question. 
 If the observations now made are correct, it will be 
 conceded that this doctrine has an importance which cannot 
 be over-estimated. If it be so, that no man can be saved who 
 is not justified in the sight of God ; that the race every- 
 where, in the anxious inquiry of sages, in the systems and 
 sacrifices of the heathen, and in the deep working of the 
 soul rendering every other pursuit tasteless and valueless, 
 
10 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST jWITH GOD f 
 
 has shown its sense of its importance, and that it spreads its 
 influence over every form of belief, the importance of the 
 inquiry will be admitted. 
 
 II. The second point proposed to be noticed as prepara- 
 tory to a consideration of the subject of justification is, 
 The difficulty of the inquiry. 
 
 What is the difficulty ? Why has the human mind been 
 so much perplexed in relation to it ? Why may not God 
 admit man to heaven, and regard and treat him as if he were 
 righteous ? These questions can be answered in a single re- 
 mark, and the whole difficulty may then be seen at a glance. 
 It is, that man is in fact not righteous. The difficulty is to 
 see how God can regard and treat him as if he were. It is 
 easy to see how {/"he were righteous, God could treat him 
 so, or how he could treat him as a sinner, that is, according 
 to his real character. But how shall he treat him different- 
 ly from what he deserves, or as if he had a character which 
 it is known he has not ? Whatever theories may be em- 
 braced by men, or whatever opinions may be entertained on 
 the subject of religion, it is true as a matter of fact that 
 these perplexities have been felt by men, that they have 
 given rise to grave and agitating questions, and that man 
 has not felt that he could give a solution that was wholly 
 satisfactory. There is no inquiry which has taken hold on 
 man everywhere, under all forms of government and opinion, 
 and in every climate and amidst every degree of progress, 
 which has not had some real foundation in the nature of 
 things. The race, in its soberest moments, does not busy 
 itself with trifles, and especially will not allow itself to be 
 troubled and tortured by questions that are of no importance. 
 The difficulty which has been felt on this subject is therefore 
 not imaginary, but from the fact that the inquiry has been 
 so universal, and so beyond the human powers satisfactorily 
 to explain, it is clear that God meant that it should be re- 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 11 
 
 garded by man as a point to be solved only by divine reve- 
 lations. The real difficulties in the case, and the state of the 
 human mind in regard to them, may be illustrated by the 
 following observations : 
 
 (1.) There was the impossibility of man's vindicating 
 himself from the charges of guilt brought against him. If 
 he could do this, all would be clear, for God will not con- 
 demn the innocent. But it could not be done. These 
 charges were brought in such a way, and enforced in such a 
 manner that man could not so meet them as to escape the 
 conviction of their truth. They are brought, where there is 
 a revelation by God himself in his word ; and where there 
 is not, as well as where there is, by conscience. Man is told 
 in the word of God that he is a sinner ; his recollection of 
 what he has done, assures him that it is so; the dealings 
 of God with him, convince him that there must be some 
 cause of alienation between himself and his Maker; and 
 every sick bed, and every grave, and every apprehension of 
 future wrath, confirms the conviction. If man were to un- 
 dertake to convince himself that he is not held to be guilty, 
 the argument could not be derived from the dealings of God 
 with him in this world. It is not easy for a man to satisfy 
 himself that he is not a sinner, when the earth is strewed 
 with the dying and the dead ; when his best friends are cut 
 down all around him; when he himself is to die, and when 
 he is so made that he cannot but tremble at the apprehen- 
 sion of the judgment. If one wished to construct an argu- 
 ment to prove that he is not a sinful man, and that man can 
 be just with God, he would desire to be removed to some 
 world where he would not see so many things that seem to 
 be mementoes of human depravity, and so many evidences 
 that his Creator regards him and his fellow-men as guilty. 
 Men have everywhere felt this difficulty. There is no one 
 sentiment in which men more uniformly agree than in this. 
 Every man regards every other man as a sinner, and puts 
 
12 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST ^ITH GOD? 
 
 himself on his defence against him, for his locks, and bolts, 
 and notes, and bonds, and securities all demonstrate this; 
 and every man knows that he himself also is a sinner. 
 There is nothing of which he is better apprised, nothing he 
 believes more firmly than this. There is not a living man 
 that could bear the revelation of his thoughts to others for a 
 single day, and that not merely because others have no right 
 to know what is passing in his mind, but because he feels 
 that they are wrong. Confusion, blushes, shame, and 
 shrinking would diffuse themselves over every assembly, and 
 through every crowded thoroughfare in the streets of a great 
 city, and in every lonely path where strangers should meet 
 strangers, if each one knew that another was surveying 
 closely the thoughts of his heart, and saw what was passing 
 there. If every man felt that his bosom were so trans- 
 parent that all the workings of his soul could be observed 
 by others, no one would venture out of his chamber; no one 
 would move along the pathways where he might encounter 
 a fellow man; the thronged places of business would be 
 deserted, and our great and crowded cities would become 
 like the cities of the dead. No man would venture, at mid- 
 night on the mountain top, or on the lonely prairie, to stretch 
 out his hands to Heaven, and say, " I am pure as the stars 
 that shine upon me, or as the God that made them/' So 
 universal is the consciousness of guilt, and so certain does 
 every man feel, in his sober moments, that he cannot vindi- 
 cate himself before God. How then shall man be just with 
 God? 
 
 (2.) There is the difficulty which must have been early 
 apparent to men, and which any one can see now, if the 
 guilty were saved, or if they were regarded and treated as 
 righteous. How could this be done ? Man does not do it 
 
 O 
 
 himself, in reference to those who are guilty, and how could 
 God? No father feels that it would be proper to regard 
 and treat an offending child as if he were obedient; no 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 13 
 
 friend acts thus toward one who professes friendship ; and 
 no government acts thus toward its subjects. All order 
 and happiness in a family would cease at once if this were 
 to occur; and government on earth would be unknown. 
 There is a great principle of eternal justice which seems 
 engraved in the convictions of the soul, that every one ought 
 to be treated according to character, and that there ought 
 to be a difference in the divine dealings toward the good and 
 the evil. But what if God treats all alike? What if he 
 makes no distinction in regard to character? What if he 
 admits all to favour; punishes no one, and rewards piety 
 and impiety, fraud and honesty, vice and virtue, reverence 
 and blasphemy, alike with the same immortal crown? 
 What if the murder of the innocent, and the highest deed 
 of benevolence were equally a passport to his favour ? 
 What if he met the licentious, and those of virgin purity 
 of soul, when they came before him, with the same smile 
 of approbation ? Would not the universe feel that he was 
 regardless of character? Would it be possible to correct 
 the impression? 
 
 But it will be said, perhaps, might he not pardon the 
 guilty, and the fact of pardon constitute a ground of dis- 
 tinction which the universe would understand? True, if it 
 would be proper to pardon in this state of things. But are 
 there no difficulties attending the subject of pardon ? Can 
 it always be done ? Can it be done to an unlimited extent ? 
 Does a father feel that it is safe and best to adopt it as a 
 universal rule, that he will forgive all his children as often 
 as they may choose to offend him, and to do it without any 
 condition ? Any one may easily see the difficulty on this 
 subject. There are thousands of men confined in peni- 
 tentiaries ; many of them are desperate men, regardless of 
 all the laws of heaven and earth. Would it be felt to be 
 safe or proper at once to open their prison doors? Who 
 would wish to be in the neighbourhood when they should 
 
14 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST ]WITH GOD? 
 
 be turned impenitent and unreformed upon the world? If 
 the community is scarcely safe now with all the precautions 
 and guards of justice, what would it be if they were all 
 withdrawn? These difficulties must occur to anyone when 
 he asks the question, How can the guilty be justified? 
 
 (3.) It is a matter of simple fact that men have felt this 
 difficulty, and the methods to which they have resorted to 
 devise some way of justification, show how perplexing the 
 subject has been to the human mind. We may learn some- 
 thing of the embarrassments which men feel, by the devices 
 to which they resort to overcome them. Look then for a 
 moment at some of the methods to which men have been 
 driven in order to answer the question satisfactorily, How 
 can man be just with God? 
 
 (a) One class have denied the charge of guilt, and 
 have endeavoured to convince themselves that they are 
 righteous and that they may safely trust to their own works 
 for salvation. If this could be done, all would be well. 
 But the mass of men have felt that there are insuperable 
 difficulties in the way of doing this. We shall hereafter 
 inquire whether it is practicable. 
 
 (b) Many have endeavoured to excuse themselves for 
 their conduct, and thus to be justified before God. They 
 are sensible that all is not right, but if they can find a 
 satisfactory excuse, that is, if they can show that they had 
 a right to do what they have done, or could not help it, 
 they feel that they would not be condemned. And they 
 are right in this. To do it they lay the blame on Adam, or 
 on ungovernable passions, or on a fallen nature, or on the 
 power of temptation, or on the government of God. They 
 attempt to show that they could do no otherwise than they 
 have done ; that is, they have a right to do it in the circum- 
 stances, and of course are not to blame. We shall inquire 
 hereafter whether this position can be made out. 
 
 (c) Many have endeavoured to make expiation by blood, 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 15 
 
 and have sought to be justified in this way. Hence the 
 sacrifices of the heathen the flowing blood and burning 
 bodies of lambs, and goats, and bullocks, and prisoners of 
 war, and slaves, and of children offered to appease the 
 anger of the gods. Thousands of altars smoke in this 
 attempt, and the whole heathen world pants and struggles 
 under the difficulty of the inquiry, How may a guilty con- 
 science be justified with God ? 
 
 (d) Many have sought the same thing by pilgrimages 
 and penances; by maceration and scourging; by unnatural 
 and painful postures of the body ; and by wounds which 
 their own hands have inflicted on themselves. The victim 
 of superstition in India lies down beneath the car of his idol, 
 or fastens hooks in his flesh, or holds his arm in one posture 
 till it is rigid. Simeon in Syria, on an elevated column, 
 spent his years in misery. Antony in Egypt went and lived 
 in a cave, and Benedict originated the monastic system in 
 Italy. Mecca is crowded by pilgrims seeking for righteous- 
 ness by a visit to the tomb of the prophet; and the shrines 
 inclosing the bones of the saints are encompassed by throngs 
 in Italy for a similar purpose ; the garment of hair frets and 
 tortures the body, and the sound of the lash is heard in the 
 cells of the convent, and the whole system of penance 
 and self-inflicted torture all over the world is just a com- 
 mentary on the question, How shall man be justified with 
 God? 
 
 (e) To crown all this, another device has been resorted to. 
 It has been held that there were extraordinary merits of 
 saints who lived in former times; that they performed 
 services beyond what were required, that these merits were 
 garnered up as a sacred treasure, and are placed at the 
 disposal of the head of the papal community, to be distributed 
 at his pleasure to those who are conscious of guilt ; and this 
 is one of the answers given to the question, How shall man 
 be justified with God ? 
 
16 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 
 
 From these remarks it will be seen what men have thought 
 of the difficulty of this question. In these various ways, 
 human nature speaks out and reveals what is passing in the 
 bosom. They are the methods to which men have resorted 
 as the best answer which they can give to this inquiry. 
 To see the real difficulty, however, we should be able to go 
 down into the depths of the soul, to guage all the agonies 
 of guilty consciences; to look at the woes and sorrows which 
 men are willing to endure that they may be justified, and 
 then to see how one and all of these plans utterly fail ; how 
 they leave the conscience just as defiled as it was before, the 
 propensities to evil unchecked, the grave as terrific as ever, 
 and the judgment-bar as full of horrors. When we stand 
 and survey these things, we ask with deep concern whether 
 any one of these is the way by which man can be justified 
 with God ? If not, is there any other way, or is there none ? 
 
 2. Man cannot justify himself by denying or disproving 
 the charge of guilt. 
 
 The term justify is a legal term, but it is also in common 
 "use, and is intelligible to all. An illustration or two will 
 make it plain, and will lay the foundation for the train of 
 thought which will be pursued in this section. A man is 
 charged with murder. He may put his defence on one 
 of two grounds. He may either deny the fact of killing; 
 or admitting that, he may show that he had a right to 
 do it, or is excusable for it. If the fact of killing is not 
 made out against him, of course he is just in the sight of 
 the law, and is acquitted. Or, if the fact be made out or 
 admitted, he may take the ground either that he did it in 
 self-defence, or that it was done under such a state of mental 
 derangement as to destroy responsibility and he is acquitted. 
 He had no "malice prepense." He intended no murder; 
 he committed none; and the law does not hold him guilty 
 of the charge. A man is charged with trespass. He takes 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 17 
 
 a similar ground of defence. He denies the fact, or main- 
 tains that he had a right to do what he has done. He sets 
 up a claim to a "right of way" over a field which his neigh- 
 bour owns, and having established that, he is acquitted, or 
 is held to have done no more than he had a right to do in 
 the case. He is a just man in the eye of the law, and may 
 pursue his own business, enjoy the immunities of a good 
 citizen, the honours of an unsullied name, and protection in 
 his rights unmolested. It may be added here, that there 
 is no other way by which a man can justify himself in the 
 sight of the law. He could not do it by admitting the fact 
 of the trespass, and by paying the fine, or making compen- 
 sation for the injury done; for, though he might be discharged, 
 yet this would be no justification of what was done, and 
 would do nothing toward showing that he was right in doing 
 it. It does not make a wrong right, either, to intend before- 
 hand to pay for the mischief, or to make amends for it after' 
 the deed is done. This remark will be used hereafter in 
 examining the attempts which men have made to justify 
 themselves. 
 
 Now if man attempt to justify himself before his Maker, 
 he must take one of the grounds referred to. He must 
 either deny the charge brought against him; or, admitting 
 the facts in the case, he must show that he had a right to 
 do what he has done. If he can do either of these, he will 
 be justified, for God does not condemn the innocent. We 
 will suppose then the case of a man arraigned at the bar of 
 his Maker, as we all soon shall be, on trial with reference to 
 eternity. There are two things that occur to us at once. 
 What is the charge against him? What is the defence 
 which he sets up? If there is no charge, he is justified of 
 course. If his defence is valid, he will be acquitted. 
 
 It is necessary then, first to look at the charge which is 
 brought against man. 
 
 The charge is, that he has violated the law of his Maker^ 
 
18 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 
 
 or is a transgressor. It is that of apostacy or revolt from 
 God ; the entire failure to keep his laws ; living constantly 
 in the neglect of acknowledged duty; and the habitual com- 
 mission of known sins. It may be assumed here that every 
 reader of this Tract is sufficiently familiar with the Bible to 
 know the nature of these charges, without their being specified 
 in detail. No one trained in a Christian community can be 
 ignorant of the account of our race which the Bible gives. 
 These charges of guilt do not make the impression which 
 they ought, for these reasons : because we are so familiar with 
 them ; because others are implicated with us ; because we 
 do not cordially believe them. Many a man reads the account 
 of human nature in the Bible without supposing there is 
 any thing serious in the matter, or much fitted to trouble 
 him. There is many a one who would pass a sleepless night, 
 if he knew there was a charge of petty larceny against him, 
 which would bring him into court to-morrow, who has no 
 trouble at the charge of total apostacy and utter revolt brought 
 against him by God. There is many a one who would be in 
 the deepest consternation if he knew that his name was'be- 
 fore a grand jury in some such connection as his conscience 
 could easily suggest, who has no alarm at the thought of the 
 "Grand Assize;" and no dread of the formidable catalogue 
 of crimes drawn up against him in the secrecy of the divine 
 Councils. A few remarks will demonstrate that these charges 
 against man in the Bible ought to make an impression and 
 that men ought to be willing to look at them. A case or 
 two may be supposed which will show how men ought 
 to be affected in view of such charges brought by the 
 Creator. The case of an officer in a bank may be referred 
 to. He has been long there, or in other stations in public 
 life, and has gained a character compared with which all the 
 gold that the vaults of the bank could contain would be 
 worthless as the sand. Suddenly, charges are brought against 
 him of unfaithfulness to his trust. They come from quarters 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 19 
 
 worthy of his attention; are of such a source as inevitably 
 to gain the ear of the community; are such that his family 
 must know of them; are sustained by such circumstances 
 of actual losses in the bank as to render the charge credible, 
 and are of such a character as to make it necessary for him 
 to leave his post, disgraced perhaps forever. Now it is not 
 necessary to suppose that these accusations are true. All 
 that is designed is to show the effect which charges of guilt 
 from a respectable quarter usually have on a man's mind. 
 But suppose he secretly knew they were all true, how could 
 his conduct be explained, if he was utterly indifferent and 
 unconcerned ? 
 
 In regard to the charges which are brought against man 
 a few remarks may be made here, showing that they should 
 be allowed to make an impression on the mind. 
 
 (1.) One respects the source from whence they come. They 
 are professedly the charges of our Maker and final Judge. 
 They are those on which we are to be tried at his bar, and in 
 reference to which our destiny is to be determined. 
 
 (2.) They are the most fearful of all accusations which can 
 be brought against a creature. No crime can be equal to that 
 of being an enemy of God; and no offence against human 
 society can equal in enormity and ill desert, the crimes of 
 which man is charged against his Maker. 
 
 (3.) The charge extends to every human being. No excep- 
 tion is made in favour of youth, beauty, rank, or blood ; none 
 in favour of the amiable, the honest, or the moral ; none in fa- 
 vour of those who have endeavoured to wipe away the accusa- 
 tion by their own good living. It is not indeed charged that 
 one is as bad as another, or that any one is as bad as he can be, 
 but it is that every one is guilty of violating the law of God, 
 and is held to be such a sinner that he cannot save himself. 
 
 (4.) It is charged that each and every one is of such a cha- 
 racter that the eternal pains of hell would be an adequate re- 
 compense for his crime. He is held to be under condemnation 
 
20 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST T^ITH GOD ? 
 
 and to be justly exposed to punishment that shall be severe in 
 the extremes! degree, unmitigated and everlasting. Each one 
 is held to be such an evil-doer that it would be wrong for 
 God to admit him to heaven as he is, but not wrong to con- 
 sign him to unending wo. It is important not to disguise 
 any thing about this, or to seek to hide it by soft names. 
 The robber is deemed worthy of the penitentiary ; the mur- 
 derer is regarded as deserving death on the gibbet ; and in 
 like manner it is held in the charges brought against man, 
 and the threatenings appended to them, that every man de- 
 serves the pains of everlasting death, and that if he should 
 receive what is properly due to him, he would be cast off 
 from God, and punished forever. Such is the nature of the 
 charges against man. On these he is held guilty ; on these 
 he will be arraigned. The Bible has two aspects. It reveals 
 a way of pardon ; but it is also the grand instrument of in- 
 dictment against man. It is designed to reveal his character ; 
 to record his crimes; to overwhelm him with the conviction 
 of guilt; and be the rule of judgment on the final day. The 
 question then arises, now to be considered, whether if these 
 are the charges against man, he can vindicate or justify him- 
 self. It has been already remarked that there are but two 
 grounds to be taken in such a vindication. One is, to deny 
 the facts charged on man; the other is, if the facts be ad- 
 mitted, for him to show that he had a right to do as he has 
 done. There is nothing else that can be conceived of in 
 the case, to be done by him, unless it were to attempt to make 
 expiation or reparation by extraordinary merit; by penance 
 or by sacrifice; though this would not justify him for what 
 he had done, any more than a man's paying a fine made it 
 right for him to put out his neighbour's eye, or burn his 
 house. If neither of these things can be done, it will follow 
 that man cannot be justified by his own righteousness. These 
 points will now be considered in their order. The first is 
 that man cannot deny the truth of the charges brought against 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 21 
 
 him. In support of this the following considerations may 
 be urged : 
 
 (1.) The source whence these charges come. They are 
 made by God himself. It is assumed here that the Bible is 
 true, and the argument will be conducted on that assumption. 
 In another part of this Tract it will be shown that it is equally 
 impossible to deny the main facts, whether the Bible be true 
 or false. The position now is that the sinner cannot take 
 the ground that God has mistaken the facts about man, or 
 that he has designedly brought a false accusation. It surely 
 cannot be necessary to go into an argument to prove this, 
 but an illustration or two may be allowed. 
 
 (a) One is that it is impossible for God to mistake on this 
 subject. Men often do mistake in reference to character 
 and conduct. Charges are often falsely brought and men 
 are often condemned as guilty, on false accusations. This 
 may be intentionally done; or judges and jurors may be 
 mistaken; or witnesses may be suborned to sustain the ac- 
 cusation, or those needful for the defence may be absent, or 
 a combination of circumstances which no human sagacity 
 can control may seem to confirm the charge of guilt against 
 the innocent. But obviously no such mistake can occur in 
 relation to the charges brought in the Bible against man, nor 
 can man set up a vindication of himself on the ground that 
 his Maker has erred in reference to the facts alleged. 
 
 (5) As little can he urge that the accusation has been 
 overdrawn ; that a degree of guilt has been charged such as 
 the facts would not justify ; or that there has been an inter- 
 mingling of prejudice or passion that has given a colouring to 
 the charge, and that a calmer view may modify these accusa- 
 tions. We can easily admit that such things may occur 
 among men. Judges and jurors are liable to the same pas- 
 sions as other men, and in a time of popular excitement it 
 may happen that the contagion may reach the bench and the 
 jury-room, and hence the laws are careful that the adminis- 
 
22 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST VfrTU. GOD? 
 
 tration of justice shall proceed with as much calmness and 
 coolness as possible. It may happen also that false charges 
 are brought against men because they are obnoxious to those 
 in power. Many a one who has stood in the way of the pur- 
 poses of a tyrant, has been removed under the form of law 
 to gratify the passions of such a man, and many a pure name 
 has been covered with infamy by the malignity of those in 
 authority. But it is not needful to show that none of these 
 things can be alleged by man in regard to the charges 
 brought against him by his Maker. It cannot be pretended 
 that God has been hurried into these charges under the in- 
 fluence of passion, or that man is obnoxious to his purposes 
 and that he would have him removed. The charges are 
 made with the utmost deliberation. They are made by the 
 most benevolent Being in the universe ; by one who can have 
 no pleasure in finding out proofs of guilt ; by one who, from 
 his nature, is disposed to make every possible allowance for 
 weakness and infirmity; by one who sees better than man 
 can state it, every thing that can be said in his defence \ 
 by one more disposed than any human being ever was to do 
 justice to all that is amiable and pure. If man wishes to 
 find a friend who will be kind to his infirmities, and do 
 justice to him when the world does him wrong, he can find 
 no such friend as God. 
 
 (c) It may be added here that the charge is one that no 
 denial affects. It has been deliberately made, and is that 
 on which we are to be tried. We may deny it, or disregard 
 it, but it is not affected. Whatever we may choose to think 
 of it, it does not change the estimate which our Maker affixes 
 to our character any more than the private views of a prisoner 
 at the bar modify the estimate of the judge and jury. God 
 will pronounce sentence on us according to his own estimate 
 of our character, and the only security which we can have 
 that we shall not meet with condemnation, will be in the fact 
 that our character will be such that he will regard it as not 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 23 
 
 proper to condemn us. But that cannot be by attempting 
 to deny the truth of the charge which he brings against us, 
 or by holding him either to be malignant or mistaken. 
 
 (2.) To show that man cannot deny the truth of that 
 which is alleged against him as a violator of the law, it may be 
 observed, secondly, that so far from obeying the perfect law 
 of God, he has failed of yielding perfect obedience to the 
 very lowest rules of morality. The standard at which man 
 aims is in general low enough, and one which it might be 
 supposed was sufficiently accommodating to satisfy one who 
 wished to save himself by his own righteousness. That 
 standard is, at any rate, at an immeasurable distance from the 
 holy law of Grod. Yet let a man take any standard of con- 
 duct which he pleased, and he would fail in all attempts to 
 show that he had always been conformed to it. Who would 
 undertake to prove, before any tribunal that could take any 
 cognizance of the motives, the thoughts, the words as well 
 as the outward conduct, that he had always been honest, true, 
 kind, chaste, or courteous ? Who would attempt to prove, 
 that he had on no occasion failed in his duty in the 
 tenderest relations of life ? What child is there that 
 would undertake to prove, that he has never failed in 
 his duty to his father or his mother; that he has always 
 been as respectful, obedient and grateful as he ought to 
 have been ? Is there no compunction when he sees a fa- 
 ther die ? Is there nothing which he would wish to re- 
 call when he stands by a mother's grave ? What brother 
 would undertake to vindicate all his conduct toward a sister? 
 or what friend is there that has never had a feeling toward 
 his friend which he ought not to have ? Who is there that 
 would undertake to say that he has never failed in the duty 
 of perfect honesty and truth in the transactions of busi- 
 ness ? Nay, to come down to a lower standard, who, pro- 
 fessing to be governed by the laws of honour, would ven- 
 ture, when he comes to die, to stake his eternal welfare on 
 
24 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST \fITH GOD? 
 
 the fact that he has never failed of perfect conformity to 
 that arbitrary code? Who that professes to be governed 
 by the rules of etiquette would attempt to maintain that 
 those laws have always been perfectly observed? Let a 
 man choose his own standard of action; let him refer to 
 any code by which he professes to regulate his conduct 
 would he be willing that every thought, and word, and feel- 
 ing and action of his life should be brought out to noonday, 
 and that his eternal welfare should be determined by the 
 issue of the question whether he had or had not been per- 
 fectly conformed to that code ? If not, how shall he vin- 
 dicate himself from the charge of sin ? And if he cannot 
 vindicate himself in reference to these low and imperfect 
 standards, how shall he stand acquitted of the charge of a 
 violation of the high and holy law of God that he has 
 never made a standard or rule of life that he has never 
 attempted to obey ? The love to his Maker which that re- 
 quires he has never once attempted to exercise. The holy 
 duties which that enjoins he has never endeavoured to per- 
 form; its sacred injunctions he has never thought of bear- 
 ing with him to the relations of life, to the counting-room, 
 to the circles of his friendship, or to the scenes of his 
 amusement. How, then, will he proceed in attempting to 
 show that the charges of guilt brought against him are not 
 true? 
 
 (3.) The charges which are brought against man by his 
 Maker are sustained by all the facts of history. What 
 ground would that man take who should attempt to show 
 that the accusations in the Bible against the race that it 
 is sinful and prone to evil are unfounded and false ? On 
 what would he base his argument ? To what part of the 
 world to what historic monument to what recorded opi- 
 nions would he turn ? Men often feel that the account in 
 the Bible of the character of man of the human heart 
 of the tendency of our nature is harsh and gloomy. They 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 25 
 
 are inclined to think better of the race, and to suppose that 
 the views in the Bible must have been derived from the 
 observation of man in a peculiarly dark age of the world, or 
 were the result of feelings bordering on misanthropy. They 
 think that man is better than he is there represented, or at 
 least that, by certain modifications in society, he reaches a 
 state where that description does not apply to him. On 
 this account it is felt that the charge is one that cannot be 
 sustained, and that it is not true now that all hope of salva- 
 tion, on the ground of an upright life, is cut off. But let a 
 few indisputable facts be submitted to candid men. 
 
 (a) One is, that the historic account of human conduct 
 in the Bible is no worse than in other records. The narra- 
 tion of crimes, of wars, of ambition, of carnage, of blood, 
 of sensuality, of venality, of political profligacy or corrup- 
 tion of manners there, is no worse than is to be found in 
 Livy or Suetonius ; in Gibbon or Hume. Every crime 
 recorded in the sacred narrative has more than one parallel 
 in the records of profane history, and every sentiment there 
 expressed about man can be confirmed by any number of 
 testimonies that the most sceptical could demand. The 
 world has been many a time in a state like that described 
 by Moses as the cause of the deluge ; and the earth now 
 bears up many a city, where all the crimes on account of 
 which Sodom was overthrown still have an existence. Her- 
 culaneum and Pompeii have been revealed, by the monu- 
 ments exposed to human view from beneath the ashes that 
 covered them, to have been as corrupt, and corrupt in the 
 same sense, as the cities of the plain ; and a single one of 
 the capitals of Europe embosoms probably now more revolt- 
 ing sins than they all. There is not an instance of fraud, 
 corruption, or villany, attributed to man in the Bible, which 
 has not its parallel in the present age of the world. The 
 instances of depravity, whose deeds are recorded in the 
 Bible, find abundant parallels in profane history, and not 
 
 3 
 
26 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST yiTH GOD? 
 
 one of the names of guilt there referred to surpasses in 
 wickedness those of Nero, or Tiberius; of Alexander VI. 
 or his wretched son ; of Henry VIII. or Charles II. ] or of 
 the leaders of the French Revolution. 
 
 (6) The account contained in the Bible, of human depra- 
 vity, is sustained by the opinion of the sober and reflecting 
 in all ages. Those who have given themselves to the con- 
 templation of the condition of the world, have seen it, (the 
 sad tendency to depravity in human nature,) lamented it, 
 and sought to correct it; and yel the current of iniquity 
 has swept over every barrier which man could erect against 
 it, and sweeps on unchecked from age to age. 
 
 (c) The same view of the human character has been 
 taken by wicked men themselves. Byron had no confidence 
 in human virtue ; Walpole said that every man had his 
 price ; Chesterfield regarded all virtue as false and hollow ; 
 Robespierre and Danton acted under the belief that every 
 man deserved the guillotine. And 
 
 (e7) Every man acts on the presumption that every 
 other man is a sinner, and that no confidence can be placed 
 in him without securities, and expects that every other one 
 will regard him in the same light. This security is not in 
 human virtue, but in vaults, and bars, and locks and bonds, 
 and he himself expects to be treated by every other man 
 as if he had the same character. His head neither hangs 
 down with shame, nor do his eyes flash with indignation 
 when he is asked for security that he will pay an honest 
 debt, or when he is told in a bank, or on exchange, that no 
 individual or corporation will trust him, without having some 
 other security besides himself that he is a safe and honest 
 man. In these circumstances, how can man go before God 
 and attempt to justify himself on the ground that the 
 charges against him are not true ? Can he take the ground 
 that his Maker is mistaken, N or that he has maliciously 
 brought a false accusation ? 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 27 
 
 (4) There is but one other observation which it is neces- 
 sary to make on this part of the subject. It is that con- 
 science sustains the truth of all the charges which are 
 brought. Man exhibits this very strange and remarkable 
 characteristic, that he often frames an argument to show 
 that the race is not as guilty as is alleged, and, perhaps, 
 succeeds in convincing others ; but still his argument does 
 nothing to affect the proof as it lies in his own soul. 
 There is that within himself which is to him overpower- 
 ing demonstration that his arguments are all false, and 
 that the charges against him are true. God has so formed 
 the soul that he has there at all times what may be sum- 
 moned forth at his pleasure, as a living witness that all 
 that he has charged on man is true, and that shall render 
 nugatory in a moment all the reasonings of men about the 
 uprightness of their own hearts. This proof is found in a 
 man's own conscience. This is a device by which man 
 himself is made to coincide with and confirm the views of 
 the Almighty to approve where He approves to condemn 
 where He condemns. It stands apart from the deductions 
 of reason ; is little affected by the arguments which men 
 may employ; is susceptible of being called up to give judg- 
 ment at any time ; often pronounces sentence against the 
 favourite opinions of the man himself; uniformly declares 
 judgment in favour of right, and condemns what is wrong, 
 and is always on the side of God and his claims. This mys- 
 terious and wonderful power is wholly under the divine con- 
 trol. No matter what may be the cherished opinions of 
 man ; no matter how he may call in question the correct- 
 ness of the divine testimony against human conduct, and 
 no matter how reluctant he may be to admit the impossi- 
 bility of being saved by his own works ; yet God has power, 
 at any moment, to summon the mind itself to sustain His 
 own account of the state of the heart, and to put it into 
 such a condition as to leave not a shadow of doubt that all 
 
28 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST JVITH GOD? 
 
 that He has said respecting its depravity is true. It re- 
 quires all the art of a sinner to keep the voice of conscience 
 silent, and to save himself from its rebukes. Well he 
 knows that, if suffered to speak out, it will be in tones of 
 deep condemnation. It often does speak out. In solitude; 
 in the silence of the night; under the preaching of the 
 gospel, when the mind in its lonely musings runs back by 
 some mysterious law of association to the past; in a revival 
 of religion; on a bed of sickness; or in the prospect of 
 death, conscience often utters its voice in tones that are so 
 distinct that they can neither be misunderstood nor sup- 
 pressed. These are circumstances when man is most likely 
 to judge according to truth, and in such circumstances he 
 is so made as to feel, without a doubt, that the judgment 
 pronounced by conscience is in accordance with that of the 
 Most High, and that the views pressed upon his conscience 
 then, about his own character, are those which will be con- 
 firmed by the sentence of the final Judge. " In thoughts 
 from the visions of the night/' said an ancient sage, " when 
 deep sleep falleth on man, fear came upon me, and trem- 
 bling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit 
 passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up : It 
 stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image 
 was before mine eyes; there was silence, and I heard a voice, 
 saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God ? shall a 
 man be more pure than his Maker? Behold, he put no 
 trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly : 
 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose 
 foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the 
 moth!" Jobiv. 1319. 
 
 The point that has been now considered is, that man can- 
 not justify himself before God by taking the ground that 
 the facts are not as charged upon him, or that he has not 
 in fact violated the law of God. This has been shown by 
 these considerations : that it ia impossible to believe that 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 29 
 
 God would bring a false charge against man ; that, as a 
 matter of fact, man fails of perfect conformity to the very 
 lowest standard of morals ; that the account in the Bible 
 of the human character is confirmed by all the records else- 
 where existing of the character of man ; and that, when 
 man has denied the charge against him, conscience comes 
 in to confirm the accusations and the decisions of the 
 Almighty. 
 
 III. Man cannot justify himself by showing tlmt his con- 
 duct is right. 
 
 In the previous section, it has been shown that man can- 
 not justify himself before God by denying the truth of the 
 charges brought against him. In other words, he cannot 
 take the position that the facts, in regard to his character 
 and conduct, are not such as they are stated to be, or that 
 his conduct has been, in all respects and all times, perfectly 
 conformable to the law of God. He cannot take the ground 
 which could be taken with propriety by sinless angels, that, 
 as they have never departed in fact or in form from the 
 strict requirements of a holy law, therefore they can claim 
 it as a right to be treated as holy beings. Man cannot take 
 the position before his Maker which a good citizen can be- 
 fore his country, that he has violated none of its laws, and 
 therefore is entitled to its favour and protection. 
 
 The only other ground of defence, or of justification, 
 which man can set up, is, that it was right or proper for 
 him to do as he has done : that, admitting the facts in the 
 case to be as they are charged ; that he does not love his 
 Maker with a perfect heart ; that he violates his laws ; that 
 he is under the influence of unholy passions, and that he 
 neglects many things which are required of him, yet that 
 such are the circumstances in which he is placed, that it is 
 not wrong for him to do as he has done, or that he has 
 
 a valid excuse, and ought not to be condemned. His condi- 
 
 3* 
 
30 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST \JTITH GOD? 
 
 tion, he might be ready to admit, is one that is to be pitied ; 
 but his conduct is not such as to deserve blame or punish- 
 ment. If a man can make this out, he will not be con- 
 demned ; for God will not condemn the innocent. If man 
 has a good and sufficient excuse for what he has done, there 
 is no being in the universe who will look more benignantly 
 on it than the Almighty; for. there is no one so ready to 
 do justice to the innocent, or to allow its proper weight 
 to all that ought to exculpate. It is necessary, therefore, 
 to examine this ground of defence, or to inquire whether 
 man can set up the plea that he has a right to do as he 
 has done to live as he is in fact living. 
 
 Man is soon to stand before his Maker on a high charge 
 of guilt. If he cannot deny the facts charged on him, he 
 must take the ground that he has a right to do as he has 
 done ; that he has a valid reason which excuses him ; that 
 he ought to be acquitted, and that his deliverance should 
 be hailed everywhere with songs and rejoicing, and that he 
 ought to be received to heaven in triumph. What is this 
 ground of defence ? What is its value ? Will it avail on 
 the final trial ? 
 
 Here it may be observed that man will not set up the 
 plea of insanity, though more insane on the subject charged 
 on him than many who have been acquitted on that ground 
 by human tribunals. Man has too much pride and too much 
 confidence that he is right, and that God is wrong, to urge 
 this plea. Nor would he maintain that God has no jurisdic- 
 tion over the case ; for nothing is plainer than that he owes 
 allegiance to the laws of his Maker, and that he cannot go 
 beyond the limits of his empire. The points on which the 
 accused sinner must rely, if he would undertake to show that 
 he is not to blame for what he has done, and to justify him- 
 self, must be such as the following : Either that the consti- 
 tution of things under which he is placed, is such as to make 
 it inevitable that he should do as he does ; or that he is but 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 81 
 
 acting out the nature which God has given him, and that 
 therefore it must be right ; or that the law of God is 'un- 
 reasonably severe and stern, and he is excusable for not 
 obeying it; or that the time of preparation for eternity is 
 too short, and that too great interests are made to depend 
 on this brief period of existence ; or that the penalty is too 
 severe, and that if a man acts as well as he knows how, 
 though he does not conform to the holy law of God, he 
 ought not to be recompensed with eternal torments. If 
 these points can be made out, man ought to be acquitted. 
 If they cannot, has he any other ground of defence on 
 which he can rely ? 
 
 1. The first of these grounds of defence is derived from 
 the constitution of things under which we are placed. Our 
 minds, when we set up this defence, go back to the arrange- 
 ment with Adam, and the effect of his sin on his posterity. 
 The form of this defence is, that his fall, by the divine arrange- 
 ment, placed us in far more unfavourable circumstances for 
 salvation than we would otherwise have been; that his 
 apostacy made it certain that all his descendants would sin ; 
 that it made it certain that the first act of each moral agent 
 on earth would be wrong ; that there was a strong proba- 
 bility thus created that all his posterity would be lost, and that 
 all our strong propensities to evil, and our exposure to ruin, 
 are to be traced to this arrangement. If they who rely on 
 this ground of defence were disposed to take shelter under 
 the declarations of Scripture, the defence would be found 
 in the following statements of the apostle Paul : " Through 
 the offence of one, many are dead." "The judgment was 
 by one to condemnation." " By one man's offence, death 
 reigned by one." "By the offence of one, judgment came 
 upon all men to condemnation." " By one man's disobe- 
 dience, many were made sinners." The law entered that 
 the offence might abound." Rom. v. If these things are 
 
32 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WlTH GOD? 
 
 so, how can man be held to be guilty for conduct thus ren- 
 dered certain and inevitable ? 
 
 The question now is, whether this can be regarded as a 
 vindication of the undisputed facts in the conduct of man. 
 Will it be admitted as a sufficient reason for what we have 
 done in violation of the holy law of God, when we stand at his 
 bar ? The fact is undeniable that man thus early goes astray, 
 and that he continues to wander farther and farther, unless 
 he is restrained or reclaimed. Is it a sufficient excuse for 
 this that Adam fell, and that we live under such a consti- 
 tution that his sinning made it certain that we would sin 
 also? 
 
 Now, in examining this question, we may admit two 
 things. One is, that our circumstances, in consequence of 
 his fall, are in many respects less favourable than they 
 would otherwise have been ; or that incalculable evils have 
 cdme upon us in consequence of his apostacy ; and the 
 other is, that there is much about it which neither Revelation 
 nor human philosophy explains. But these are different 
 points from the one before us, whether that act of our first 
 father is a sufficient excuse or apology for our crimes j or 
 whether we can take shelter under that constitution as a 
 vindication from the charge of guilt. In reply to this, two 
 or three remarks may be made. 
 
 The first is, that we are responsible not for his sin, but 
 for our own. The sin which is charged upon us is not his, 
 but ours. The question is, not whether his acting as he 
 did will free us from accountability, or ill-desert, on account 
 of his act, which is plain enough ; but whether it will free 
 us from ill-desert, on account of our own sins. We could not 
 be held guilty, i. e. blameworthy, for his sin ; and if this 
 were the charge, the defence set up must be conclusive. 
 No reasoning has yet shown that man either is or can be 
 regarded as blameworthy on account of the crime of his 
 first father. 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 33 
 
 Again, the fall of Adam, and the constitution under 
 which we live, compel no one to sin. Whatever may be 
 their theories about native depravity, yet clear thinkers uni- 
 versally hold that all which is properly sin, is voluntary, 
 and there is nothing in which man more consults his 
 own pleasure than in the course of life which he pursues. 
 Every profane man means to be profane; every dis- 
 honest man prefers to be dishonest ; every sensual man has 
 pleasure in moral corruption. It is a great law of our 
 being, that where freedom ends, responsibility ends, and 
 there is nothing more universally true than that a wicked 
 man does only what he prefers to do. Nay, the sins which 
 are charged on him are very often the fruit of long and 
 deliberate plan; and so attached is he to a course of iniquity, 
 that no argument or entreaty is sufficient to induce him to 
 attempt to change his method of life. So voluntary are men 
 in their sins, that there is no argument or topic of persua- 
 sion which will induce those living in sin, of themselves to 
 break off their transgressions and turn to God. A man must 
 take the ground that he is compelled by the act of Adam 
 to do what he would otherwise not do, before the apostacy 
 of our first father can be a vindication from the charges al- 
 leged against him. Further, this plea would neither be urged 
 nor admitted by man himself in any other case. In all the 
 numerous charges brought against men before human tribu- 
 nals in different lands and ages, it is probable that this has 
 never once been alleged as a vindication. To no murderer, 
 thief, pirate, or traitor, has it ever occurred to urge this in 
 his own defence. The state of the world has never been 
 such that it would be tolerated for a moment ; nor has the 
 consideration that Adam fell, and that we are under a con- 
 stitution where all men sin, ever, probably, in a single instance, 
 even modified the verdict of a jury. There have been men 
 on the bench and in the jury-box who have held this as a 
 theological dogma, or as an excuse for their own sins before 
 
34 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST yiTH GOD? 
 
 God ; but in a court-room nature speaks out, and no man 
 \vould venture to apply such a dogma of theology to a deci- 
 sion of the bench. What would it avail on a charge of 
 murder before any court in the world ? 
 
 One other remark : It remains yet to be shown that the 
 facilities for obtaining the divine favour, by men in their 
 fallen state, are less than they would have been had they 
 entered the world in the condition of their first parents. 
 Are any sent to hell for Adam's sin alone ? That remains yet 
 to be proved. Are any infants lost ? Not a particle of evi- 
 dence has ever yet been furnished of this. Is it beyond 
 the capacity of children to please God ? Let the remarks 
 of .the Saviour about the hosannahs in the temple answer. 
 Is it less easy for us to obtain the divine approbation and 
 to be saved, than it would have been if Adam had not 
 fallen ? That remains to be proved. If a choice were to 
 be made, it would seem to be easier for a fallen being to 
 believe on Christ and to trust to him for salvation, than for 
 even a holy being, who was liable to change, to keep a holy 
 law unbroken forever. And, in fact, both our first parents, 
 who were holy, and a portion of the holy angels, failed to 
 retain their uprightness, while God vouchsafes his power- 
 ful grace to enable us to believe. If these things are so, 
 then man cannot put his defence on the ground that he is 
 brought into the world under a constitution which made it 
 certain that he would be a sinner. 
 
 11. A second ground of defence to which man resorts in 
 self-vindication, akin to this, but more common and plausi- 
 ble, is, that he is but acting out the propensities of his na- 
 ture. He did not make himself. He is as God made him. 
 He is but indulging inclinations which his Creator has im- 
 planted in his bosom, and the indulgence of which, there- 
 fore, cannot be attended with blame, or followed by His dis- 
 pleasure. Can it be wrong for him to look upon the light 
 of the sun ? Can it be wrong for him to be charmed with 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 35 
 
 the beauty of a sweet landscape, or the pleasant music of a 
 waterfall ? Can it be wrong for him to allay the demands 
 of hunger and thirst, to protect himself from cold, and to 
 provide a shelter from the storm ? The innocence of these 
 things being admitted, as it must be, he applies the con- 
 cession to all the propensities and inclinations within him ; 
 to all that has led him to do what is charged upon him as 
 wrong, and says, I am as God made me, and for that I can- 
 not be held to be guilty. I ought, therefore, to be acquitted 
 of the charge of guilt. Let us inquire whether this will 
 answer as a ground of defence before God. 
 
 The most obvious remark in regard to it is, that, if it is 
 a valid excuse in reference to religion, it is in reference to 
 human conduct generally. For why may not any man ac- 
 cused of crime urge the same thing in self-defence ? Has he 
 done any thing more than act out certain propensities which 
 he found in his nature ? When Caesar crossed the Rubi- 
 con, Hannibal the Alps, Alexander the Granicus, and Na- 
 poleon poured his armies on Italy, Egypt, Austria or Rus- 
 sia, did either do any thing more than follow out the incli- 
 nations of his nature ? Did they not find stirring within 
 them a spirit of ambition which urged them on to trample 
 down the liberties of mankind ? Did Robespierre or Dide- 
 rot, Alexander VI. or Coesar Borgia, do any thing more than 
 act out certain propensities in their souls ? Did Torque- 
 mada in the inquisition, or Cortes in the butcheries of Mexico, 
 do any thing but act out what they found within theirs ? 
 And the assassin, the duellist, the murderer, what does he 
 do more ? Is he not as God made him, as much as the 
 sinner who urges this plea ? And would not this plea be as 
 good for the one as the other ? 
 
 But, further, this plea is contrary to the convictions of 
 common sense and the universal judgment of right among 
 men. If it were well founded, then the true course for 
 man, if he would please God, would be to give unrestrained 
 
36 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST TflTH GOD? 
 
 indulgence to every inclination in his bosom. Nay, then 
 it would be wrong for him to check any of his passions, and 
 his duty would be to give them the rankest growth and the 
 broadest indulgence possible ; for should not man cultivate 
 all that God has implanted in his bosom ? Then all the 
 restraints on the passions of children must be displeasing to 
 God ; all the lessons of order, morality, and religion, are a 
 contravening of his wishes ; all colleges, schools, and 
 churches are a nuisance ; all court-houses and prisons are a 
 violation of human liberty. ' Then the great benefactors of 
 the race, and those who have been especially the friends of 
 God, and have obtained the highest seat in heaven, have 
 been those who have proclaimed the innocence of universal 
 licentiousness, or who have furnished the greatest facilities 
 for the indulgence of passion. From the preachers of reli- 
 gion ; from pious princes ; from the dispensers of justice ; 
 from the patrons of order and of law ; from Paul, Aurelius, 
 and Hale, the crown is to be transferred to such moralists 
 as Paine, such princes as Charles II., and such judges as 
 Jeffries. But who is prepared to take this ground ? This 
 view goes against the common sense and the common judg- 
 ment of men. There are things in man to be restrained, in 
 order that he may be virtuous. It is not sufficient to secure 
 the meed of virtue to say, I am as God made me, and am 
 but acting out the propensities of my nature. What, then, 
 is the mistake which is made in this plea ? What fallacy 
 is there in it, for it seems to have plausibility and truth ? 
 An answer may be readily given to these questions by mak- 
 ing a distinction, which the young man may apply through 
 life to the noblest purposes of self-improvement. In the 
 pleas set up, two things are confounded which are wholly 
 distinct, and to be dealt with on different principles our 
 constitutional propensities as God made them, and our cor- 
 rupt propensities which have another origin. The former 
 are to be cultivated and carried to the highest pitch of per- 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 37 
 
 fection possible; the latter are to be checked, restrained, 
 subdued. The former are innocent, noble, and ennobling ; 
 the latter are debasing and degrading " earthly, sensual, 
 devilish. " There are propensities of our nature, and laws 
 of our being, which God has implanted, and which, if kept 
 within proper limits, are harmless, or which may contribute 
 to our highest elevation in the scale of existence. To eat, 
 to drink, to sleep, are laws of our animal being harmless 
 if restrained, debasing if indulged in contrary to the just 
 rules of temperance ; to aspire after knowledge, to seek a 
 "good name," to rise to the fellowship of higher intelli- 
 gences, to bring out and cultivate the benevolent affections, 
 is to follow nature as God has made us, and never betrays 
 or debases us. But to follow out the inclinations of ambi- 
 tion, and pride, and vanity, and lust and revenge, is a dif- 
 ferent'thing. These debase and sink to a lower level than 
 that of brutes ; for, in proportion as we may rise, so may we 
 descend. The star that culminates highest may sink the 
 lowest, and as woman, if vile, sinks lower than man can, 
 so man, if debased, sinks beneath the brute. 
 
 Men mistake, then, in this. When they indulge in these 
 things, they are not, in any proper sense, acting out their 
 nature. They are not as God made them. They are sunken, 
 debased, fallen. Let men act according to the great laws 
 which He has impressed upon their being, and they will be 
 noble, holy, godlike. Thus acting, man would have met 
 the approbation of his Maker, and might have pleaded in- 
 nocent to the charges of guilt. But let him not give indul- 
 gence to corruption, and then seek shelter in the plea, " I 
 am as God made me." 
 
 III. A third ground of defence would be, that the law of 
 God is stern and severe, and that his requirements are of 
 such a nature, that man has no power to comply with them. 
 The position which would be taken is, that there is no obli- 
 gation where there is no ability, and that, as man now 
 
38 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST .WITH GOD? 
 
 has no power to yield obedience, he cannot be held to be 
 chargeable with guilt. The principle here stated seems to 
 be one that is based on common sense, and that must ever 
 command the assent of all men who are not blinded by 
 theory or by prejudice. It is impossible for man to feel 
 himself guilty or blameworthy for not doing what he had 
 no power to do. He may count it a misfortune, or he may ex- 
 perience calamities and suffer losses, because he has no greater 
 power ; but it is not possible for him to feel on this account 
 the compunctions of remorse. With the limited powers of 
 man, it is impossible for him ever to feel himself guilty for 
 not creating a world, or not guiding the stars, or not raising 
 the dead, and he cannot conceive that, by any revelation 
 whatever, or- any course of reasoning, or any requirement 
 laid on him, he should ever feel himself blameworthy for 
 not doing those things. If, then, it were so that &od has 
 required of man more than he is in any sense able to per- 
 form, the nature which he has given us (and which, in that 
 case, would be a very strange and unaccountable endow- 
 ment) would teach us two things : one, that his government 
 was a tyranny, and the other, that man could not be to 
 blame. Such a creature, under such a government, might 
 be made to suffer, but could not be punished ; he might 
 experience pain of body, but he never would know the 
 pangs of remorse. But is this so ? The law itself is the 
 best exponent of the views of God on this subject, and that 
 law is clear and explicit. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
 thy mind." This is the first and great commandment. 
 And the second is like unto it : " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang 
 all the law and the prophets." Matt. xxii. 3740. Could 
 any thing be more reasonable than this ? God asks nothing 
 which we have not; nothing which we have no power to 
 render. He asks " all" the heart, the mind, the strength, 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 39 
 
 and he asks no more. He does cot require for himself the 
 service claimed of angelic powers, but that adapted to our 
 own ; he asks no love for our neighbour which we do not 
 feel that we are abundantly able to show to ourselves. To 
 take shelter from the charges against us, under the plea 
 that our Maker has required services beyond our power to 
 render, is therefore directly in the face of his own require- 
 ments ; is to charge him with tyranny where his require- 
 ments are as clear as noonday, and as equal as they can be, 
 and where he has expressly told us that the plea cannot and 
 will not be sustained : " house of Israel, are not my 
 ways equal ? Are not your ways unequal ? Therefore 
 will I judge you, house of Israel, according to your ways, 
 saith the Lord God. Repent and turn yourselves from 
 all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin." 
 Ezek. xviii. 29, 30. 
 
 IV. A fourth ground of defence, on which man charged 
 with guilt is secretly relying in self-justification, is, that the 
 penalty of the law of God is unreasonably severe, and that 
 no consideration can make it right to recompense the errors 
 and crimes of this short life with eternal punishment. The 
 ground here taken is, that it would be wrong for God to 
 punish man in this manner, and therefore that man has a 
 claim to eternal life. The inference drawn by the sin- 
 ner charged with guilt is, that if the penalty is unreason- 
 ably severe, he cannot be held to be guilty, and has a 
 right to disregard the law of his Maker. Now it is not 
 designed here to attempt a defence of the doctrine of eter- 
 nal puishnient, or to show that the impenitent sinner will 
 suiFer for ever. It must be admitted that there are myste- 
 ries on that subject which the human powers at present can- 
 not explain. All that the subject demands is to examine 
 this reasoning which the sinner sets up in his defence. Is 
 the severity of a penalty then, even supposing it to be 
 wholly unreasonable, a valid excuse for violating law or lor 
 
40 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 
 
 doing wrong ? It is possible to conceive, for such things 
 have been, that the penalty for the crime of treason may be 
 entirely too severe ; that its execution may be attended with 
 barbarous cruelty ; and that it may be followed by a taint 
 of blood, and by inflictions on the family of the traitor 
 wholly unjustifiable by any principles of equity ; but would 
 this be any justification of the act of treason ? Does it 
 make the betrayal of the state a matter of duty or of inno- 
 cence ? Is it such a meritorious act that he who performs 
 it has a claim on the offices and emoluments which a sove- 
 reign has to bestow on deserving subjects ? So in the mat- 
 ter before us. If there are things which we cannot explain 
 about future punishment; if it has a degree of severity 
 which we have no means of vindicating ; is it fair to infer 
 that it is right to violate the law of heaven, and has he who 
 does it a claim on the crown of glory ? Yet this seems 
 to be what is involved in this ground of defence which 
 a man charged with sin sets up. Would it be reasonable or 
 proper for him to suppose that God would admit a plea, 
 drawn from his own alleged injustice and cruelty, as a rea- 
 son for the habitual violation of his law? But the plea 
 has no force in another respect. Our relations to the 
 administration of justice are not only concerned with the 
 question what the penalty is, but with the question whe- 
 ther it is practicable to avoid it ? There may be reasons 
 operating in the appointment of a penalty which we do not 
 understand. It is only necessary for us to know what 
 the penalty zs, and to have such freedom that we can avoid 
 it by a correct life. They who live in England now, or 
 they who lived under the administration of the laws in 
 times of greater severity, can have no reason to complain, 
 so far as appears, of the punishment affixed there to treason. 
 It can be readily seen, indeed, that there would be much 
 that would be painful and disgraceful in being drawn on a 
 hurdle to the place of execution ; in being quartered and 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 41 
 
 publicly exposed ; in the confiscation of property ; the degra- 
 dation of a family, and the taint of blood. Why should a 
 good citizen, who did not design to commit treason, com- 
 plain of it? It would be easy to avoid it, and his knowing 
 the severity of the punishment should only make him the 
 more cautious to do his duty to his country. Least of all, 
 knowing what the penalty was, could he set up a plea of 
 innocence when he had betrayed his country, on the ground 
 that the penalty was severe. Without pursuing this rea- 
 soning any farther, may it not be asked whether it is not 
 just as applicable to the government of God as to a human 
 administration ? 
 
 Y. There is but one other ground of defence or self-jus- 
 tification which the accused sinner can be supposed to set 
 up. It is that too great results are made to depend on the 
 present life ; that life is too short, that our days are too few 
 and fleeting, that our continuance here is too uncertain, that 
 we are liable to be too suddenly called away, to make it 
 proper to suspend so great interests on any thing that we 
 can do here. The accused sinner would take the ground 
 that eternal consequences demand a longer probation, and 
 that the longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs was a pe- 
 riod quite circumscribed enough to make it proper to suspend 
 so great interests upon life. Much might be said in reply 
 to this ; but the subject may be made, perhaps, sufficiently 
 plain by a few remarks. Reference might be made to the 
 instances which occur in the life of an individual, or in a 
 state, where the most momentous and far-reaching results 
 are made to depend on the action of a moment; but, with- 
 out dwelling on the numerous illustrations which occur on 
 that point, two remarks may be made in reply to this ground 
 of defence : One is, that, as experience has, in millions of 
 cases, shown, the time allotted to man is ample for a prepa- 
 ration for eternity. Countless hosts before the throne have 
 found it so, and millions are on their way to join them who 
 
42 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WlfTH GOD? 
 
 find the period of probation abundant to enable {hem to pre- 
 pare for heaven. That all others are not with them in the same 
 blissful path, is not because life is too short to enter it, but 
 is to be traced to other causes. Men require length of days 
 to amass wealth, or to perfect their schemes of earthly ag- 
 grandizement; but the purposes of salvation do not need it. 
 The giving of the heart to God in sincerity through Jesus 
 Christ an act which may be performed in the briefest pe- 
 riod which a moral agent lives is enough to secure salva- 
 tion. Wealth or honour could not be secured in that way 
 in so brief a period ; but the salvation of the soul may be. 
 The other remark is, that this vindication is set up in cir- 
 cumstances which painfully demonstrate that it cannot be 
 sincere. Not time enough to secure salvation ! Too great 
 interests suspended on this brief period of existence ! Un- 
 reasonable to make eternal results depend on the fleeting 
 hours of this short life. And from whom do these objec- 
 tions come ? From those on whom the hours of life hang 
 heavily, and " who are often wishing its different periods at 
 an end ;" from those who are impatient for some season of 
 festivity or enjoyment to arrive, and who elude the slow- 
 revolving wheels of time ; from those whose days are wea- 
 riness and sadness, for they have nothing to interest them, 
 nothing to do ; from those whose principal study is the art 
 of killing time, and all whose plans have no other end ; from 
 those who waste the hours that might be consecrated to 
 prayer in needless slumber, and from whose lips each morn- 
 ing, while they are now locked in repose, there might pro- 
 ceed the earnest breathing of a penitent heart that would 
 insure salvation ; from those who, over worthless, or corrupt- 
 ing verse, or in the perusal of romances, or in day-dreams, 
 or at the toilet, waste, each day, time enough to secure the 
 redemption of the soul. From such lips and hearts ; from 
 those who live thus, and to whom life puts on these forms, 
 assuredly the objection should not be heard, that too great 
 
\ 
 
 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 43 
 
 results are made to depend on this short life, and that there- 
 fore they are blameless in neglecting God. 
 
 If these aie correct views, then the sinner cannot justify 
 himself. It has been shown that he cannot deny the reality 
 of the facts charged on him, and the grounds of defence 
 which the human heart is disposed to set up in self-vindica- 
 tion have been considered. It is not improper, at this stage 
 of the argument, to make a personal appeal to the reader, 
 and to ask him to consider the views which have been sug- 
 gested as a personal matter. The conclusion which we 
 have reached is, that the unpardoned sinner is a lost and 
 ruined being ; that he is under condemnation ; that he is 
 held to be guilty in the sight of God ; that he is soon to be 
 arraigned on charges involving the question of his eternal 
 welfare, and that, unless he is in some way acquitted of 
 those charges, they will sink him to ruin. The views 
 which have been thus expressed, lie at the foundation of the 
 system of salvation by grace. They are such as, when felt, 
 lead to the conviction of sin, and to that sense of helpless- 
 ness which is preparatory to the reception of pardon and 
 salvation by the grace of the gospel. If these views pro- 
 duced their fitting effect, they would leave the impression 
 of guilt, helplessness, and danger on the mind of every one 
 who is not converted and pardoned. Sooner or later every 
 one will feel this. The sinner may be unwilling to admit 
 the force of these arguments now ; for no one, if he can 
 help it, will be overwhelmed with the conviction of guilt, or 
 have his mind unsettled and harassed by apprehensions of 
 danger. But not always can he put this subject far from 
 him. He will lie down and die, and those are sad feelings 
 which the dying sinner has, when he reflects that his life 
 has been spent in sin, and that he is dying under condemna- 
 tion. He will, from the bed of death, look out tremblingly 
 on the eternal world on that shoreless and bottomless 
 ocean on which he is about to be launched, and it will be 
 
44 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 
 
 sad to feel that he is about to enter that vast and fearful 
 world, an unpardoned sinner. He will tread his way up to 
 the bar of a holy God ; and, little as he may be concerned 
 about that now, it will be sad to tread that gloomy way 
 alone, and to feel, as he goes, that he is under condemnation. 
 He will stand and look on the burning throne of Deity, and 
 on his final Judge ; he will await, and with what an agony 
 of emotion ! the sentence that shall fall from his lips sealing 
 his eternal doom. Oh, how can he then be just with God ? 
 How vindicate his ways before him ? How stand then 
 and justify his neglect of his commands, his neglect of 
 prayer, his neglect of the offers of mercy, his neglect of 
 his own soul ? How. then, can he show his Maker that it 
 was right not to love him, not to pray to him, not to thank 
 him, not to embrace his offer of mercy ? How can he sho\ 
 that it was right for him to live without hope and without 
 God in the world ? How can he be saved ? 
 
 IV. Man cannot merit salvation. 
 
 In the previous section it has been shown that man can- 
 not justify himself either by denying the facts charged on 
 him, or by showing that he had a right to do as he has 
 done. The inquiry at once presents itself, How then can he 
 be saved ? There are but two ways conceivable : one by hia 
 own merits that is, that he somehow deserves to be saved ; 
 the other, by the merits of another, or of others. If it ba 
 in the latter way, it must either be by the merits of Christ, 
 or it must be because certain eminent saints have done more 
 than was demanded of them, and that their merits, gar- 
 nered up and deposited in certain hands, can be made ovei 
 to others. It is not proposed to inquire now whether this 
 latter method be in accordance with truth, but whether men 
 can merit salvation for themselves. They can do it if their 
 lives are such that they deserve to go to heaven, or if it 
 would be wrong for God to punish them forever, for " God 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 45 
 
 will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert 
 judgment." Job xxxv. 12. The importance of this in- 
 quiry will be at once perceived, for the great mass of man- 
 kind are depending on their own righteousness for salva- 
 tion, and the grand issue between Christianity and the 
 world lies just in this point. There are two subjects of 
 inquiry, which, if they can be made clear, will conduct to 
 the truth in the case. 
 
 I. What is meant by merit ? 
 
 II. Can man merit heaven ? 
 
 I. What is meant by merit ? The word is in common 
 use, and the common use is the correct one. We speak of 
 merit when a man deserves a reward for something which 
 he has done, or when it would be wrong to withhold it. 
 He renders to him who employs him an equivalent, or what 
 is of as much value as is paid him for his services. Two or 
 three simple illustrations will make the common use of the 
 word plain, and show its bearing on the question before us. 
 
 You hire a day-labourer. You make a bargain with him 
 at the outset ; he complies with the terms on his part, and 
 at night you pay him. He has earned, deserved, or merited 
 that which you pay him ; he has been faithful to his part 
 of the agreement, and the service which he has rendered is 
 worth as much to you as the wages which you pay him. 
 You could have done the work, perhaps, yourself; but you 
 preferred to hire him, for you might yourself be more profit- 
 ably or pleasantly employed. At all events, what he has 
 done is worth to you all which you pay him, and it would 
 be wrong, on every consideration, for you to withhold it. If 
 you choose to give him, any thing more than was specified 
 in the agreement, it would be a gratuity ; but that which 
 you agreed to give him he has a right to demand, and you 
 are not at liberty to withhold it. He has deserved or earned 
 it, for he has rendered you a full equivalent, according to 
 the terms of the contract. 
 
46 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST TfETH GOD? 
 
 A man enlists to defend his country as a soldier. It 
 is supposed, in the contract which is. made with him, 
 that his service will be of equal value to his country 
 with the pay which he receives. By fighting its battles; 
 by guarding its seacoasts, villages, towns, and hamlets ; 
 by keeping its fields from being trod down by an enemy ; 
 by protecting the lives of aged men, helpless women and 
 children ; and by defending the flag of the nation from 
 insult, it is supposed that his services are worth full as 
 much to the country as he receives in his pay. The pay 
 is graduated, in part, by the best estimate which can be 
 made of the value of the service which a man can render 
 in this calling, and the nation would be no gainer by dis- 
 missing him from its service. He complies with the con- 
 tract, and when he comes and shows his scars, and tells of 
 his perils and privations, his weary marches and his risk of 
 life, and his separation from home and friends in the cause 
 of his country, his country will not grudge him the pittance 
 that he receives ; for he has earned it and merited it, and 
 it would not be right to withhold it from him. 
 
 You employ a physician. The service which he renders 
 you is regarded as a full equivalent for what you pay him. 
 What you receive from him in his care, attention, skill, and 
 sympathy, you consider to be fully equal in value to the 
 compensation which you give him. Your relief from pain, 
 your recovery of the use of your bodily powers, or the res- 
 toration to your affectionate embrace, in sound health, of a 
 wife or child, you consider as an ample equivalent for all 
 which he asks you for his services, and, were an election to 
 be made, you would much prefer to pay the amount of the 
 physician's fees, to going through those sorrows again. 
 What he receives, you feel that on every account he de- 
 serves or has earned, and it would be wrong for you to 
 withhold it. 
 
 In each of these cases, that is true which the apostle 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 47 
 
 Paul affirms : " To him that worketh, the reward is not 
 reckoned of grace, but of debt." These illustrations will 
 explain the proper sense of the word "merit." In each 
 instance, there is an equivalent for what is paid; in each 
 instance, what is demanded could be enforced as a claim of 
 right. There is no other sense in which the words merit 
 or desert can be used. All besides this is favour or grace. 
 If you choose to give the day-labourer, the soldier, or the 
 professional man, more than you agreed, or more than his 
 services are worth to you, you have an undoubted right to 
 do so ; but you would not put it on the ground of his merit 
 or desert. You would feel that it was a gratuity which 
 could not be enforced by justice, and where no blame would 
 be attached to you if it were withheld. If his perils, or 
 services, or self-denials and sacrifices, were greater than you 
 anticipated when the contract was made, or if the service 
 rendered was really of more value to you than the amount 
 which you are pledged to give him, you may consider your- 
 self bound by equity to give him more ; for you feel that 
 he has earned or merited it. Thus you would be glad to 
 compensate, if you could, the wounded soldier who has 
 perilled all in your defence ; and on the same principle, if 
 you could do it, you would wish to recompense the man 
 who, at the risk of his life, should save your child from the 
 devouring flame, or from a watery grave. 
 
 II. We come now to apply these principles to the case 
 before us. Keeping this explanation of the nature of merit 
 in view, we approach the inquiry, whether man can merit 
 heaven. Can he be saved because he deserves it ? Can 
 he be so profitable to God that he can advance a just claim 
 to an admission to the world of glory ? If he can, he will 
 be saved ; if he cannot, he should lose no time in endea- 
 vouring to ascertain whether there is any other way by 
 which he may be saved ? In reference to this inquiry, the 
 following considerations may be submitted : 
 
48 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST JVITH GOD? 
 
 (1.) Man can render no service to his Maker for which 
 the reward of heaven would be a proper equivalent. Or, 
 in other words, the amount of service which he can render 
 is not such as can be properly measured by the reward of 
 everlasting life. His service to his Maker and to the uni- 
 verse is not of so much value that he can claim eternal life 
 as an equivalent. We have seen that this does exist in the 
 case of the day-labourer, the soldier, and the physician. 
 We can see a correspondence between the service rendered 
 and the compensation, in these cases, which makes us feel 
 that there is a propriety and equity in the reward. But, in 
 reference to any connection or correspondence between the 
 service which man can render his Maker and the rewards 
 of heaven, we can see no such propriety and equity. The 
 one does not measure the other. The universe is not so 
 much benefitted by the service of man, that everlasting life 
 and infinite happiness would be only a fair equivalent, 
 or that wrong would be done if that reward should be 
 withheld. Yet is it not a fair principle that this must be 
 the case if man deserves or merits salvation ? Must there 
 not have been such an amount or value of service rendered 
 that it would be injustice to withhold the reward injustice 
 such as would occur in the case of the faithful day-labourer, 
 the soldier, the physician, if their pay was withheld? 
 That must be extraordinary service rendered to the universe, 
 or to God, which deserves the glories of an eternal heaven 
 as its reward. That is extraordinary service rendered to 
 you, if a stranger rescues a child from impending death and 
 restores him to your transported bosom, and you feel that no 
 compensation which you can make would be more than an 
 equivalent. That was extraordinary service which was ren- 
 dered to their country by the heroes of the American Revo- 
 lution; and, as the results of their patriotism and perils are 
 seen in the unexampled prosperity of the land which they 
 rescued, we feel that the pension of the old soldier is a very 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 49 
 
 inadequate recompense. That was extraordinary virtue 
 which, led the father of his country through the trials, per- 
 plexities, and perils of that time, and which he evinced 
 when, having laid the foundation of our liberty, he volunta- 
 rily retired to private life, leaving the people in the enjoy- 
 ment of freedom, and we feel that no wealth which the 
 nation had to offer, no monument of marble or of brass 
 which art could rear, would equal the measure of his praise. 
 But has man any such extraordinary service to render to 
 his Maker and to the universe ? Has he done any thing, 
 can he do any thing for God and for the empire which He 
 rules, which would make the wealth of heaven and its ever- 
 lasting glories only an equitable recompense ? Obviously, 
 there is no congruity, no fitness, no correspondence between 
 the one and the other, and when men talk about meriting 
 heaven, or when they feel that they deserve to be saved, 
 they have not well considered the import of language. 
 They use it correctly in common life. Is it not right to 
 ask that it may be used with the same exactness in religion ? 
 
 (2.) This general principle, which appears so obvious, 
 may be illustrated with particular reference to the religious 
 service which men render to their Maker. If man merits 
 heaven and is to be saved on account of his own deservings, 
 it will be conceded that the service must be in some way 
 connected with religion, or of such a nature that it can be 
 regarded as the service of God. You would not feel your- 
 self bound to pay a day-labourer if, instead of working for 
 you, he worked all day for your neighbour, or was idle; 
 you would not think of recompensing a soldier if he slept 
 on his post, or fought under the standard of the enemy. 
 
 There are religious men upon the earth, men who are 
 honestly engaged in the service of God, and who, in con- 
 nection with their religious services, are looking for the 
 rewards of heaven. Our subject, in its progress, demands 
 that we inquire just here, whether the service which they 
 
50 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST 1WITH GOD? 
 
 render is of such a nature that they merit eternal life ? Is 
 it because they are so profitable to God and his cause that 
 the rewards of heaven would be only an equivalent fo/ the 
 service which they render ? Let us look a moment at this 
 matter. 
 
 A man who is truly religious renders a real and valuable 
 service to the cause of virtue and of God. His existence 
 is a blessing and not a curse. The universe is made better 
 and happier because he lives. It would be a loss to society 
 and to the universe, if his example, his conversation, his 
 plans of wisdom, his experience, and his generous deeds, 
 were annihilated, or had not been. When the "rewards" 
 of heaven are bestowed upon him, it will not be without 
 some reference to a fitness or propriety that they should be 
 so bestowed. There will be a sense in which every man 
 will be " rewarded according to his works." But, in refer- 
 ence to the bearing of this indisputable fact on the case 
 before us, there are two or three things that deserve to be 
 considered. 
 
 (a) One is, that your individual existence is not neces- 
 sary to secure the service which is now actually rendered. 
 God is not so dependent on you that he could not accom- 
 plish his purposes without you, or that, if you should be 
 removed, service of equal value might not be secured in 
 some other way. By the great law of his kingdom, the 
 agency of man is to be employed in the accomplishment of 
 his purposes; but your individual agency is not indispensa- 
 ble. The services of a minister of the Gospel who is emi- 
 nently useful, and who is at a time of life, and has a mea- 
 sure of experience and learning, that seems to fit him for an 
 important station, can be supplied by some one that God can 
 place in his stead. When he is taken away, a mighty 
 chasm, indeed, seems to be made ; but his withdrawal soon 
 ceases to be felt, for others rush in to fill his place ; as the 
 surface of the ocean soon becomes smooth, and it seems to be 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 51 
 
 as full as it was before, though the waterspout has lifted up 
 and carried away a portion of the mighty deep, or the sun 
 causes it to ascend in vapours; for streams and rivers all the 
 while pour into that ocean and it is always kept full. The 
 man that was so learned and wise that it seemed that no one 
 else could supply his place at the head of a college, or so 
 sagacious and prudent that it seemed that some vast plan 
 of benevolence depended on him, is removed 1 but the chasm 
 is soon filled up ; just as in storming a city, when the leader 
 falls, some subaltern steps into his place, and leads on the 
 conquest with the freshness of youth, and with wisdom and 
 valour that had been in training for just this breach which 
 God foresaw would occur. Let us not then suppose that our 
 services are indispensable to God. Let us not imagine, that 
 he is dependent on us or is under obligation to us. In the 
 bosom of society there are undeveloped powers which will 
 more than fill our places ; in the church there is piety ma- 
 turing which can do more than we can do and the very 
 purposes of human advancement cherished in the divine 
 mind, may demand our removal. 
 
 (ft) The religious man will reflect further that his best 
 services do not deserve heaven. A man who is truly pious, 
 and who has any proper sense of his own imperfections, and 
 of the glory to which he is looking forward, never feels that 
 there is any proportion between the services which he ren- 
 ders to God here, and the immortal blessedness to which he 
 hopes to be elevated hereafter. He renders no service to 
 the cause of truth and virtue, which, in his own estimation, 
 is an equivalent for the rewards which he trusts are in re- 
 serve for him, and after all his toils he feels that those rewards 
 will be not of " debt" but of grace, and that he is an " un- 
 profitable servant." God has taken effectual care of this in 
 his plan of salvation ; and whoever he may be that expects 
 heaven on the ground of his own merit, it will not be he 
 
52 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST ]WTTH GOD? 
 
 who gives evidence that he is truly a devoted and faithful 
 servant of God. 
 
 (c) If ; however, at any time this feeling of merit or claim 
 should arise in the mind of a truly pious man, it is effec- 
 tually checked by a moment's reflection on the way in which 
 he has been disposed to engage in the service of God at all. 
 It is not by any native inclination or tendency of mind ; it 
 has been solely by grace. Whatever service he may render, 
 the origin of it is to be traced back to that distinguishing 
 mercy which led him to seek after God, when he was dis- 
 posed to pursue his own ways ; which recalled him when he 
 was a wretched wanderer from the paths of truth and salva- 
 tion. The case is like this. You go into a " market place" 
 and find a man " idle/' and inclined to be idle. You reason 
 and remonstrate with him, and by persevering entreaty and 
 the offer of reward, arouse him from his indolence and in- 
 duce him to spend his time in your service. Now, however 
 faithful he may be, or however valuable may be the services 
 which he may render you, he will never feel that any merit 
 is to be attributed to himself. He owes to you his indus- 
 trious habits, and all which he can ever secure by his labour. 
 Or to take a case more in point. You go into a miserable 
 hovel, and find a wretch in the lowest stages of vice and 
 misery. He was once a man in heart as well as in form, 
 but now he has wholly lost the manhood of the one and 
 almost of the other. He is loathsome by vice and disease, 
 and is a wretched outcast. He has no wish to be a man 
 again ; he has no energy to arouse him from his condition ; 
 he has no friend to take him by the hand, or even to pity 
 him in his vices and woes. You take compassion on him. 
 You clothe him in decent apparel. You remonstrate with 
 him on his evil course. You remind him of what he was, 
 and tell him of what he may be still. You rekindle the 
 dying spark of self-respect ; show him that he may yet for- 
 sake the paths of vice and be respectable again ; gradually 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 53 
 
 breathe into him the wish to be virtuous and pure and happy; 
 give him a comfortable home to dwell in, and a piece of 
 land to cultivate as his own ; speak kindly to him when he 
 is discouraged ; shield him when he is tempted by his old 
 companions; offer him ample reward for any services which 
 he may render you ; and he returns to the ways of industry, 
 and rises to a condition of competency and respectability. 
 Perchance in doing this, you have lighted on a " gem of 
 purest *ray serene" in that rubbish, and the unhappy wretch 
 whom you have rescued, had a genius which takes its place 
 among the brightest constellations of talent, and its light 
 beams afar on the nations. Yet how will he feel in these 
 circumstances ? Will he feel that this is to be traced to his 
 own merit, or that the wealth or honour which may gather 
 around him are the measure of his desert ? But for you he 
 will feel that he would even now have been occupying that 
 wretched hovel, or more likely would have been in the 
 drunkard's grave. Whatever he has of moral worth, in- 
 fluence, or reputation is to be traced to you. Thus it is 
 with the Christian ; and feeling this, he cannot regard him- 
 self as so profitable to God as to merit the rewards of heaven. 
 (3.) If it were conceded that the rewards of heaven were 
 a proper recompense for the religious services which man 
 can render to God, yet they would not be the suitable re- 
 ward of those who are commonly expecting heaven on the 
 ground of their own merits. The truly religious man, as we 
 have seen, expects heaven, not on the ground of his own 
 deserts, but through the grace of God. We may, therefore, 
 lay the case of such out of the question in the inquiry whe- 
 ther men can deserve salvation by their own merits. The 
 other class, embracing the mass of mankind, expect to be 
 saved because they deserve to be saved; or, which amounts 
 to the same thing, because they do not deserve to be damned. 
 The ground of their claim is not that they are religious, 
 
 for they do not profess to be, and not that they render such 
 
 5* 
 
54 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD 7 
 
 service to the cause of God that the rewards of heaven would 
 be an equivalent for their services for they do not profess 
 to be engaged in his service at all. What then is it ? It 
 is that they are honest, true, faithful to their contracts, 
 honourable in their dealings, disposed to aid others in their 
 distress, and courteous in their treatment of their fellow- 
 men. One who leads such a life they suppose does not 
 deserve to be cast off and made miserable forever ; or, what is 
 the same thing, they suppose that in all justice and*equity, 
 he ought to be made happy in a future state ; that is, that he 
 may be saved on the ground of his own merits. What is 
 now the value of this claim ? With the principles before us 
 which have been laid down, let us endeavour to answer this 
 question. This is the inquiry, Is heaven the appropriate re- 
 ward of such a life ? An illustration or two will make this 
 plainer than abstract reasoning would do. You hire a man 
 as a day-labourer. He comes to you at night for his pay. 
 If he has been industrious according to the contract, and 
 faithful to your interests, the case is a plain one, and you do 
 not hesitate. But you put the interrogatory to him, " Bid 
 you go into my vineyard, and spend the day in cultivating 
 it for me, and in a careful regard to my interests ?" " No/' 
 is the honest reply, "but I have spent the day diligently; I 
 have not been an idle man. I have attended to the cultiva- 
 tion of my own vineyard, and been faithful to my family, 
 and I may appeal to all my neighbours for my general 
 courtesy and honesty of life." If you now say that this is 
 a case which is so palpably absurd that it never could occur, 
 it may be replied that it has been made absurd on purpose. 
 Such a man would be only speaking out, in the honesty of 
 his heart, what is the secret claim of every one who is not 
 enga,ged in the service of God, and who yet feels that he 
 ought to be saved. He does not even profess to be attend- 
 ing to the interests of his Creator or engaged in his service. 
 You send a clerk into the Western States to collect your 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 55 
 
 debts. He returns. " Have you been diligent and success- 
 ful in the duty assigned you ?" " I was diligent. I tra- 
 velled much. In all my journey I injured no one ; I treated 
 no one roughly ; I addressed no one in any other manner 
 than in the language required in refined life. I also entered 
 valuable lands for myself, and have a prospect of rising to 
 affluence and respectability." " But what has this to do 
 with the reward which would be appropriate for one em- 
 ployed in my service ?" (e Nothing," a child would reply. 
 But has it not just as much to do with it as the claim of a 
 man who does not profess to serve his Maker, and who lives 
 only to regard his own interests, has to the rewards of hea- 
 ven ? You have a servant or an apprentice whom you have 
 a right to punish if he does wrong. You enjoin on him a 
 specific duty, a duty of much importance to yourself, and 
 one that is clearly reasonable in its nature. At the proper 
 time you call him to an account. The duty is not dis- 
 charged; the service is not rendered. He pleads, however, 
 that he does not deserve punishment. He has- been steadily 
 engaged all the while ; he has been entirely honest and up- 
 right in his dealings with his fellow-servants ; he has treated 
 them with perfect courtesy, and has even acquired an envia- 
 ble reputation for amiableness of manners ; nay, he has more 
 than once relieved a fellow-servant that was poor, and sick, 
 and dying. All this is very well, it would be said in reply ; 
 but how can this constitute a claim for the specific reward 
 which was offered? How can it show that he who has 
 wholly omitted a known and specific duty does not deserve 
 the punishment which was threatened? With what face 
 could such a servant claim the reward due to faithful service 
 in the cause of his master ? These plain and obvious prin- 
 ciples are as applicable to religion as they are to the common 
 transactions of life. God requires of us a specific service 
 It is not general and indefinite, or left to our choice as to 
 what it shall be. It is that we shall serve him; that we 
 
56 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST TyiTH GOD? 
 
 shall obey his commands; that we shall seek his glory; that 
 we shall love him, honour him, and treat him as our God ; 
 that we shall be penitent for our past sins, and be willing 
 to accept his favour on his own terms; that we shall be 
 serious, religious, prayerful, believing, holy. If this is 
 done, he promises heaven. But it is not done. Those now 
 referred to do not even lay claim to any of these things. 
 One of the last things that they would claim, or that their 
 friends would think of claiming for them, is that they are 
 religious, or that they act habitually from reference to the 
 will of their Creator. They claim to be moral, honest, true, 
 urbane, kind, but how can this lay the foundation of a claim 
 to the appropriate reward of piety ? How, in these things, 
 can they render any service to God, when they do not even 
 intend it, which would be the proper basis of his rewarding 
 them in heaven? No more than the day labourer, the 
 clerk, and the servant carefully attentive to their own 
 interests, but wholly regardless of the interests of their em- 
 ployers, can expect a reward. 
 
 Having thus stated these arguments, to show that man 
 cannot by any services which he can render, make himself 
 so profitable to God as to merit salvation, or be of so much 
 advantage to his cause as to be an equivalent for the reward 
 of heaven, it remains only to remark, 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, that, if he cannot do this by a life of obe- 
 dient holiness, he cannot by any offering which he has it in 
 his power to make. The reasons for this are so obvious as 
 to make it needless to dwell on them. One is, that no 
 offering which man can make, can be of any advantage or 
 profit to God. He is made no richer by any oblation of 
 silver and gold which we can bring him ; he has no unsat- 
 isfied wants which can be supplied by our ministrations. 
 " If I were hungry/' says he, " I would not tell thee ; for the 
 world is mine and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh 
 of bulls or drink the blood of goats ?" Ps. iv. 12, 13. An- 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 57 
 
 other reason is, that all that we possess is- his, and we can 
 give to him nothing to which he has not already a prior and 
 supreme right. " Every beast of the forest/' says he, " is 
 mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the 
 fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the forest are 
 mine." Ps. 1. 10, 11. Another reason is, that nothing that 
 we could offer would be a compensation for our past offences, 
 or repair the evils which we have done by our neglect of 
 duty and by our open sins. " Wherewith shall I come be- 
 fore the Lord, and bow myself before the High God ? Shall 
 I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a 
 year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of 
 rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give 
 my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for 
 the sin of my soul?" Micah vi. 6, 7. And how shall a 
 man profit God ; how lay him under obligation to save him ; 
 how render such service as to be an equivalent for heaven ? 
 Shall he flagellate his own body ? Yet how will that profit 
 God? Shall he gird sackcloth on his loins, or wear an 
 irritating haircloth garment to torment himself? Yet how 
 will that benefit his Maker ? Will he go on a pilgrimage 
 to some distant shrine ? How will his Maker be advantaged 
 by that ? Will he shut himself up in a gloomy cell, and 
 withdraw from the light of the sun, and the moon, and the 
 stars, and from the society of living men, and doom himself 
 to wretchedness and wo ? But will his God be made more 
 rich, or happy by such austerities ? Will he seize upon the 
 objects dearest to his heart, and destroy before bloody altars 
 the lives which his Creator has given ? But will it profit 
 God if we kill his own creatures, and pour out their blood 
 before him ? If none of these things will do, with what 
 plea of merit can we come before him ? How can we render 
 such service as to have a claim on heaven ? 
 
 In view of this train of thought, two additional observa- 
 tions may be made. 
 
58 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST ]WITH GOD ? 
 
 1. First, we see the falsehood of that system of religion 
 which speaks of human merit; of the treasured and garnered 
 merits of the saints of former times. If the principles now 
 suggested are correct, how can there have been any such ex- 
 traordinary and superabounding merit in past times that it 
 may be available now for men ? If there were such trea- 
 sured merit left by the saints of other days, it might still be 
 a question what claim of right any man has now to distri- 
 bute it to others; but any such claim of superabounding 
 merit is alike at variance with the Bible, and with every 
 just principle of reason. Yet this doctrine is one of the 
 principal supports of the papacy, and is one of the dogmas 
 that come to our shores and demand credence in our land, 
 and of this generation. It will be shown hereafter, that 
 there is ample merit in him who died to atone for our sins, 
 to supply all our deficiencies, and the results of which may 
 be ours. The claim that superabounding merit has been 
 wrought out by the saints, derogates and almost annihilates 
 this ; and the claim that his merits and theirs are lodged in 
 human hands to be dispensed or withheld at pleasure by a 
 priesthood, is one of the principal supports of the most ap- 
 palling and terrific system of spiritual despotism that has 
 ever tyrannized over man. Thanks to him who has bought 
 us our portion, the disposal of the merits of his sacrifice is 
 committed to no human hands, and can be interrupted by 
 no human power ! 
 
 2. This subject is one of direct practical interest to all. 
 If we are, ever saved, there will be a good reason for it for 
 nothing is merely arbitrary in the matter of salvation. 
 There are but two ways possible of being saved the one by 
 our own merits, the other by the merits of another. If in 
 regard to the latter there are no merits of the " saints" on 
 which we can rely ; no merits of parents or pious friends 
 of which we can avail ourselves, then the merits of the Lord 
 Jesus constitute the only foreign dependence which we can 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 59 
 
 have. The whole question is then just this. Do we rely 
 on our own merits for salvation, or the merits of Jesus ? 
 Here the world is divided the Christian on the one side ; 
 the pagan, the Mohammedan, the infidel, the moralist on the 
 other. This single question separates the inhabitants of the 
 globe into two great parties never to be united. But if the 
 principles above suggested are correct, it may be put to 
 every man to his reason, his conscience, his heart, whether 
 he has any merit on which he can rely as a ground of salva- 
 tion ? Has he done any thing for which the equivalent is 
 to be found in the rewards of an eternal heaven ? Has he 
 so deserved the rewards of life, has he rendered such services 
 to his Maker that he can stand at the final bar, where we 
 all must soon stand, and claim an admission to heaven? 
 Can he demand it as a right that heaven's portal should be 
 thrown open to him, and he be welcomed there ? If so, on 
 what ground ? What is the basis of the claim ? Religion ? 
 The unconverted sinner makes no pretension to it. Re- 
 pentance ? He has never shed a tear over his sins. The 
 love of God? He has no spark of love to that glorious 
 Being in his heart. Sacrifices in his service ? He has 
 made none. An honest endeavour to do his will ? He has 
 never made this the rule of life. What is the service which 
 he has rendered ? What has been the life which he has 
 led ? What is the state of his account with God ? What 
 is the condition of his heart ? 0, let him look at the broken 
 law of God, his violated Sabbaths, his rejected gospel, his 
 grieved Spirit, his neglected word; let him look at his own 
 life of thoughtlessness, selfishness, and vanity; his neglect 
 of prayer, his pride and opposition to God ; let him look at 
 the sins of childhood and the worldliness and wickedness of 
 riper years; let him look at the times when God has called 
 and he has refused, when the Saviour has stretched out his 
 hands and he would not regard it ; let him look at his broken 
 vows and promises, the times when he promised that he 
 
60 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST JWITH GOD ? 
 
 would be a Christian if he reached a certain period of life, 
 the solemn covenant which he made when he was sick, that 
 if God would spare him he would be his ; let him look at 
 these things and then see whether he has a claim to an ad- 
 mission to heaven, and whether he can be received there 
 because he has been profitable to God. 
 
 Y. What is meant by the merits of Christ ? 
 
 There are few phrases in more common use than the 
 merits of Christ ; few declarations that are repeated more 
 frequently by ministers of the gospel and others, than that 
 man can be saved only by His merits ; and few things that 
 are more frequently uttered in prayer than that we plead 
 His merits only for our salvation. The frequency with 
 which this expression occurs, and the bearing which it has 
 on the general subject now under consideration, make it 
 proper that we should attempt an explanation of it. Com- 
 mon as the use of it is, a formal attempt to explain it is not 
 often made, and it is to be feared that it is often used with- 
 out an intelligent apprehension of its meaning. 
 
 The phrase does not occur in the Bible ; but the idea 
 which is intended to be conveyed by it exists there as a 
 vital and central thought in the whole plan of justification 
 by faith. In the prosecution of this subject it will be 
 proper, 
 
 1. To explain what is meant when we speak of the merits 
 of Christ; and 
 
 2. To show in what his merits consisted. 
 
 1. What is meant by the merits of Christ ? 
 
 The general idea is expressed in the passage John i. 16 : 
 " and of his fulness have we all received, and grace for 
 for grace." There was an "abundance" or "fulness" in 
 him of which we might partake ; that is, there was a com- 
 pleteness 7drjpa>jj.a which, in our conscious want or defi- 
 ciency, could meet all our necessities, so that we could re- 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 61 
 
 ceive " grace" corresponding with that which was in him. 
 When we speak of the merits of Christ in connection with 
 our salvation, it is meant that there was an amount of merit 
 in his services which he did not need for any personal ad- 
 vantage or for himself; which had been secured with a 
 special purpose to supply the great and undisputed defi- 
 ciency of man, and which can be made available to us on 
 certain conditions, and in the way which God has revealed 
 as the ground of our acceptance. The main object is not 
 now to prove that there are such merits treasured up in 
 Christ, but to. explain the language. Whether the doctrine 
 be true, and if there be such merit in him, how it may be 
 available to us, will be the subject of future inquiry. In 
 the explanation of the subject we may then advert to, 
 
 (1.) The doctrine respecting merit laid down in the 
 last section. A man merits a reward when he has earned 
 or deserved it; when he has fully complied with the 
 terms of the bargain ; when his services are worth as much 
 to you as you pay him. We may recall the illustrations 
 from the day-labourer, the soldier, the physician, in each of 
 which cases it was said that the service rendered was fully 
 equal in value to the pay which was given. The service 
 measures the pay ; the one is equal, or is supposed to be, to 
 the other. To withhold the compensation is injustice, or 
 is palpably wrong. This is the ordinary and proper sense 
 in which the word merit is used among men, and it was in 
 this sense that we endeavoured to show that man cannot 
 merit salvation. We observe, 
 
 (2.) That cases may arise where much more may be done 
 for you than one who is in your employ is strictly bound to 
 perform. A reference to some of these cases will enable us 
 to explain the subject before us. 
 
 (a) You have a man in your employ engaged under the 
 ordinary condition of service as a labourer or clerk. With- 
 out any special agreement with him, or without any thing 
 
62 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUS* WITH GOD? 
 
 being said about it in your contract, he is to do what is 
 commonly understood to be required in that condition of 
 life ; what is usually done by those in the same employ- 
 ment. He is to be at his post at a certain hour in the 
 morning, and to remain until a certain hour in the evening, 
 and is to be faithful to his employer's interest, and diligent 
 in the prosecution of the business entrusted to him. On 
 these conditions, without any thing more specific, the con- 
 tract is usually made with clerks, and book-keepers, and 
 day-labourers, and journeymen-mechanics, and lawyers and 
 ministers of the gospel. It is not deemed necessary to be 
 any more specific than that they shall be faithful to the 
 interests of their employers, and render the amount of ser- 
 vice which is usually expected in that occupation. But it 
 is very possible to conceive that one may go much beyond 
 that. He may be engaged at a much earlier hour than is 
 usual, and may prolong his toils far into the shades of night. 
 He may evince uncommon tact and sagacity in the manage- 
 ment of affairs entrusted to him, and such may be his skill 
 and success that his services may have a value far beyond 
 any thing which you had anticipated in the contract. You 
 would not feel yourself at liberty to turn him off, or to com- 
 plain if he had not done this ; will not feel that he has a legal 
 claim on you for any thing more than you promised to pay 
 him, for you did not contract with him for this special ser- 
 vice ; but you will be likely to feel that he has a claim of 
 honour on you; and if, when he leaves your service, you 
 know of any situation of special advantage that can be ob- 
 tained, you would feel yourself under a sort of moral obli- 
 gation to endeavour to secure it for him. Here is some- 
 thing merited beyond what he was bound to do. 
 
 (6) A second case. A man in your employ may be 
 placed in circumstances where he may havje an opportunity 
 of doing something for your special advantage, though of a 
 nature which was not distinctly specified in your contract 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 63 
 
 with him. He may have great sagacity, and may watch 
 the changes and chances in the market, and enable you to 
 make important and advantageous purchases; he may be in 
 possession of intelligence respecting coming changes in the 
 markets which may be of great service to you ; or he may, 
 by uncommon tact in business, be enabled to save you from 
 inextricable bankruptcy. Now, if he is a mere book-keeper, 
 or salesman, you could hardly claim, as a matter of right, 
 that he should bring his sagacity in these things into your 
 service; perhaps you would hardly blame him if he took 
 advantage of it to advance his own interests, provided he 
 did not injure you. His specific business is to keep your 
 books correctly, or to sell your goods in the manner in which 
 you shall direct him, and his sagacity and tact in these de- 
 partments you have a right to require to be employed in 
 your service. But your contract and your claim extend no 
 farther. Yet, if he chooses to go beyond this, and actually, 
 while he incurs no possible risks, is the means of great ad- 
 vantage to you, an honourable man would feel that he de- 
 served an appropriate acknowledgment. Many instances of 
 this kind might be referred to ; but these will illustrate the 
 point under consideration. 
 
 (3.) It is necessary to make but one other remark, in 
 order to see the bearing of these illustrations on the case 
 before us. Reference has been made to abounding merit; 
 to cases in which service is rendered beyond what was in the 
 contract ; to that which was wholly voluntary, and yet where 
 there would be a claim in honour, at least, for a suitable 
 acknowledgment, or where an honourable man would feel 
 himself under obligation to bestow a reward. The remark 
 which is now to be made, is that he who has this extra 
 claim on you may do what he pleases with the reward which 
 you may feel willing to give. It may not be needful for 
 him, or he may not choose to make use of it for himself, 
 but he may be disposed to make another use of it, which 
 
64 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST j WITH GOD? 
 
 will develop some trait of mind that will by no means di- 
 minish your respect for his character. Suppose some such 
 cases as the following in the application of the instances re- 
 ferred to : that he should ask you to aid a younger brother 
 of his that was just beginning business, and who was 
 greatly in need of credit ; or that, on the supposition that he 
 should die, you would show kindness to an aged father or 
 mother ; or that you should appropriate the gratuity which 
 you designed for him to some young man who was strug- 
 gling to obtain an education. Or, suppose that the faithful 
 servant should ask you to release from bondage his wife or 
 child, in consideration of the extra and quite equivalent 
 services which he had rendered to you. Or, to take another 
 case, suppose a friend of his had, in an unhappy moment, 
 defrauded you, might he not ask you to " set that to his 
 account ?" In either case, would you not feel that what he 
 asked he had a right to ask ? And would you not be the 
 more deeply affected with respect for his character by this 
 request ? He did not perform the extra service for reward. 
 He did not expect it. He did not mention it to you. He 
 did not claim any reward. But when you felt that he had 
 a claim to it, and pressed it upon him, and would not be 
 refused, he looked not for gorgeous or gay apparel for him- 
 self, or for a purse of gold, or a splendid house ; nor did he 
 ask you to trumpet his fame ; but he looked round on those 
 struggling with poverty, crushed and enfeebled by age, 
 bound in. affliction and iron, or burdened with debts, which 
 they could never discharge, and asked you to forget him 
 and to remember them. The developments of such a cha- 
 racter would fill your mind with new conceptions of its 
 beauty, and your heart would be insensibly knit with his. 
 
 It will be perceived that these illustrations bear on the 
 explanation of what is meant by the merits of Christ. His 
 merit was of this extraordinary or superabundant kind. It 
 was beyond what could have been demanded of him, and 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 65 
 
 was such that if he chose to ask it, or so designed it, it 
 could be made available to others. This leads us to 
 
 2. The inquiry, in what his merits consisted. . Keep- 
 ing the remarks already made in view, it will be neces- 
 sary to show that all that he did when on earth was of 
 this extraordinary character ; that he rendered real service 
 to the universe- for which the rewards given him will be no 
 more than equivalent ; and that his merits were of such a 
 nature that they may be made available to others. 
 
 (1.) All that he did was of an extraordinary character, 
 or was service which could not have been demanded of him. 
 This remark is based on the fact that he was divine, and has 
 no pertinency except on that supposition. When it is said 
 that his service, or work, was such as could not be demanded, 
 it is meant that there was no law or obligation which could 
 bind the Divinity to become incarnate, to be an humble 
 teacher of mankind, to minister to their wants with his own 
 hands, or to make an atonement for their transgressions. 
 The entire transaction was of a kind which could be enforced 
 by no law. If He be equal to the Father and one with him, 
 he was under no law but the infinite and eternal law of his 
 own divine nature. There was no obligation on him to be- 
 come a man, a priest, a sacrifice ; to toil, to weep, to die. 
 
 Another illustration may be introduced here. There is 
 an heir apparent to a crown. Every consideration of pro- 
 priety, and perhaps a statute law of the realm, require him 
 to perform the duties of a son in the palace, and to appear 
 and act on all occasions as becomes the first man in the 
 realm next to the throne. But there is no law which re- 
 quires him to become a day-labourer, or a menial, or that 
 makes it his duty to go into some peasant's cottage and watch 
 the long night by the cradle of a dying child. There may be, 
 perhaps, no law against it if he chooses to do it ; but it cannot 
 be demanded of him. The Son of God in heaven would 
 
 appear there always in a manner appropriate to his une- 
 
 6* 
 
66 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 
 
 quailed relation to the Father; but what law was there 
 requiring him to come down to earth, to be a man of sor- 
 rows, to take part in our sadnesses and woes and to die ? 
 If he did this, the service was altogether of an extraordi- 
 nary character, and was entirely a work of merit. This 
 remark is obvious. Its bearings, if conceded to be true, 
 are of great importance. The force and pertinence of this 
 illustration, as has been already remarked, proceeds on the 
 supposition that he is divine. If he is not, however ex- 
 alted as a created being he may be, it does not appear how 
 he could have any extra merit, and consequently how the 
 doctrine of justification by his righteousness could be held. 
 If he is a mere man, or an angel, or an archangel, or crea- 
 ture of any rank, no such extraordinary service could be 
 rendered none could be made available to us. 
 
 We have seen that man may acquire extra merit from his 
 fellow-man, merit which may be made available to others. 
 The question is, why a creature may not do this in reference 
 to the service of God ; and why, if the Saviour were less 
 than divine, he might not do the same thing for us ? The 
 answer to this question is obvious. When you employ a 
 man, you contract for a certain amount of service or of 
 time. You do not contract for all that he has. You con- 
 tract for what is usual, or what you specify. All beyond 
 the limits of that contract remains his. But there is no 
 such contract, understanding or stipulation, express or un- 
 derstood, between a creature and God. All his powers, his 
 time, his talents, his service, his skill, his learning, his in- 
 fluence, belong to his Maker. Of every creature, he de- 
 mands " all the heart, the mind, the might, the strength/' 
 There is not a moment of time in which a creature can feel 
 that he is released from the claim of his Maker ; there is not a 
 power or faculty of mind or body which he possesses, that is 
 beyond the range of the demand of His law; there is not a 
 service of prayer, or praise, or sacrifice, which he could render 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 67 
 
 which is beyond the limits of his duty ; there is not an act 
 of benevolence to the poor, the needy, the sinful, or the 
 dying, he can perform, which he can feel is beyond the 
 all-comprehensive grasp of the divine command to do 
 good. Can a creature of the Almighty put himself into 
 the midst of a service acceptable to God which he will feel 
 was not required of him ? Can he love with an ardour 
 beyond what God requires ? Can he maintain a degree of 
 fidelity in temptation beyond what is demanded ? Can he 
 stoop to some scene of wo, and do good to a sufferer in a 
 way which the law which binds him to God did not make 
 his duty? Can he evince compassion for the sinful and 
 the sad beyond what the law of his nature and the com- 
 mandment of his Maker demands ? If he cannot, how can 
 there be such extra merit that it can be made available to 
 others ? And if the Lord Jesus were a mere man, as one 
 class of Socinians tells us ; or an angel of exalted rank, as 
 another class assures us ; or the highest created intelli- 
 gence, as the Arian affirms, how could he have wrought out 
 any merit which could be available to us ? How could he 
 have done any thing beyond what he was bound as a crea- 
 ture to do ? How could he so step beyond the limits of 
 the divine law, as by abounding merit, to save a world. It 
 is difficult to see, therefore, how he who denies the divinity 
 of the Lord Jesus can hold to the doctrine of a meritorious 
 sacrifice on his part, or to the doctrine of justification 
 through his merits at all ; and there is a melancholy con- 
 sistency in the philosophy and practical faith of those who 
 deny his divinity, in yielding up the doctrine of the atone- 
 ment, and then the whole doctrine of justification by faith. 
 But admit that he is God, equal with the Father, and all is 
 clear. Then, being under no obligations to become incar- 
 nate, being bound by no law to leave the throne of heaven 
 and seek a home in a manger, a lodging place without a 
 pillow, a death on a cross, and a burial in the grave des- 
 
68 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST fVTTH GOD? 
 
 tined for another, all this is the work of extra merit, and 
 may all be available for others. We see him in our world, 
 not as a mere man, and thus bound by law to render every 
 service to the cause of God, but as Immanuel God with 
 us the voluntary messenger from heaven the equal with 
 God, performing a service to which no law bound him, and 
 to which no other powers were adequate, and which there- 
 fore may constitute a fulness of merit which may be avail- 
 able for those who have none. 
 
 (2.) The second remark is, that he rendered real service 
 to the universe by his work. His coming, his teaching, his 
 death, his resurrection, were an advantage to the cause of 
 God and of virtue, to the full extent of the reward which he 
 will receive. The universe has been so much profited by 
 his voluntary and wonderful service in the cause of virtue 
 and salvation, that there is a propriety that he should be 
 rewarded for it, and the reward which he will receive is no 
 more than an equivalent for the value of the service ren- 
 dered. It will be asked, What has been the advantage of 
 his work to the universe ? In what way is it to be mea- 
 sured or estimated? It may be replied, We do not know 
 fully yet, nor are our minds in a condition now, if they will 
 ever be, to estimate what is appropriate to " satisfy" him for 
 the " travail of his soul." But the general answer, whoever 
 can appreciate its meaning, will be that the value or worth 
 of his voluntary services is to be estimated by all the evils 
 which his coming has arrested or prevented, and l>y all 
 the happiness in this world and in heaven of which it has 
 been the cause. If we could ascertain this, we could esti- 
 mate the extent of his services to the universe, and of 
 course the reward which is due him, or the amount of 
 his merit. No attempt can be made by us to gauge the 
 amount of this merit. All that can be done is to submit a 
 few hints to illustrate the real nature of the service which 
 he rendered. 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 69 
 
 (a) He did voluntary good through his life. He healed 
 the sick ; gave sight to the blind ; hearing to the deaf, and 
 vigour to the lame; he restored the maniac to his right 
 mind, and brought back the poor outcast who " dwelt among 
 the tombs" to the comforts of home. All this was doing 
 good to the world, which if he had not come would not have 
 been done. 
 
 (6) He set a most holy example of virtue to mankind. 
 He showed what true virtue is ; how man should live, and 
 how he should meet the temptations of the great enemy of 
 the soul. All this is so much gained to the cause of virtue, 
 above what would have been if he had not come and the 
 value of having one perfect example in a world where there 
 had been no such standard, and amidst the conflicting 
 opinions of men on the subject of morals, cannot be esti- 
 mated. 
 
 (c) He taught man by his example how to bear trials. 
 He himself went through all the usual forms of wo and 
 grief, and showed in each one of them, how man ought to 
 endure calamities, and how in them consolation might be 
 found. But who in a suffering and dying world can esti- 
 mate the value of such an example ? 
 
 (d) He taught man the true character of God ; the nature 
 of his law ; the kind of worship that would be acceptable to 
 him, and the way in which the throne of mercy may be ap- 
 proached. But who can estimate the value to a sinful 
 world of the knowledge of the way of pardon ? 
 
 (e) He introduced a religion which has contributed every- 
 where to the promotion of industry, purity, chastity, truth, 
 honesty, intelligence, and liberty ; which has raised one sex 
 from the deepest degradation, and softened the asperities, 
 and removed the tyranny of the other ; which has led to the 
 founding of hospitals and asylums, and which will ultimately 
 put an end to all the forms of evil and vice which tyrannize 
 
70 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST jWTTH GOD? 
 
 over man ; and who can gauge the amount of service which 
 he has thus rendered to man and to the universe ? 
 
 (/) He made an atonement for sin his greatest, noblest 
 work. He vindicated by his death the honour and the law 
 of God ; and solved the question which has everywhere con- 
 founded the human intellect, how justice and mercy can 
 meet together, and how righteousness can be maintained and 
 yet the sinner go free. He secured to the universe by his 
 death, all the advantages which could have been secured by 
 the everlasting punishment of the sinner himself, and all 
 the advantages which now result from admitting to heaven 
 countless millions, who, but for his sacrifice, would have 
 been eternally wretched : and what finite mind can estimate 
 the value of this service rendered to the universe ? 
 
 (<7) He checks evil by his gospel and his grace, and turns 
 the disobedient to the paths of virtue. Take one single ex- 
 ample as an illustration of the amount of service which he 
 rendered the case of Saul of Tarsus. Think of what he 
 would have been with his extraordinary talents, his uncom- 
 mon learning, his vast energy of character, his restless 
 ambition, and his proud and self-confident heart, if there 
 had been no atonement, and then of what he was after he 
 was converted to the cause of virtue and of truth. Think 
 of his influence while he lived, in meeting the evils and cor- 
 ruptions of idolatry, in closing temples of polluted worship, 
 in purifying the fountains of morals, and in diffusing abroad 
 the principles of pure religion. Think of the good which 
 has been done since his time, by his incomparable writings 
 in maintaining the truth, and imparting consolation in a 
 world of sorrow, and see in the conversion of that man an 
 instance of the kind of service which the Lord Jesus ren- 
 dered to the universe. Then reflect that the case of Saul 
 of Tarsus is but one of many hundreds of millions indi- 
 vidually less bright, but in the aggregate outshining his, as 
 the mingled light of the galaxy is of greater glory than the 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 71 
 
 twinkling of a single star : and then ask who can estimate 
 the amount of service which the Son of God has rendered 
 to the universe ? All that has been done by his holy life 
 and example ; all that has been accomplished on earth by 
 the influence of his religion; all that his death did to 
 honour the divine law ; all that has been or will be done by 
 arresting evil and staying the desolations of sin; all the 
 additions which have been or will be made by redemption, 
 to the numbers of the heavenly host, and all the immortal 
 songs and joys of the redeemed in heaven; all these things 
 are to be taken into this estimate, and will be the measure 
 of the voluntary service rendered to the universe- by the Son 
 of God. It remains only, in order to a complete explanation 
 of the subject, to add, 
 
 (3.) That all the merit of his work all the reward 
 which he deserved, is available to others. It is that 
 superabounding service which has been before referred to, 
 which can be appropriated in any way that he shall ask. 
 Not needing it for himself, for he dwells in "the glory 
 which he had with the Father before the world was/ 7 it 
 can be appropriated to those who are poor and needy, and 
 destitute of any claim of merit. The reward for all his ex- 
 traordinary service may be such as he shall wish, and his 
 heart will not ask augmented glory for himself in heaven as 
 divine, but will seek it in the elevation and immortal felicity 
 of the poor and lost upon the earth for whom he died. By 
 such a reward the universe will lose nothing, but will on 
 every account be a gainer, and the benevolent heart which 
 rendered these extraordinary services, may be abundantly 
 satisfied by asking that the "lost may be saved." It was 
 on grounds like these that it was said in the promise, "Ask 
 of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inherit- 
 ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy posses- 
 sion." Ps. ii. 8. Thus too the promise was, "he shall see 
 of the travail of his soul ;" the fruit of his wearisome sor- 
 
72 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST} WITH GOD ? 
 
 row, "and shall be satisfied." Isa. liii. 11. Thus too, in 
 asking in his parting prayer, that his work on earth might 
 be remembered, he could use with propriety the strong lan- 
 guage when he said, " Father, I will that they also whom 
 thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may 
 behold my glory which thou hast given me." John xvii. 24. 
 To secure their salvation and the universal spread of his 
 gospel, he can urge the extraordinary claim of the service 
 which he has rendered by his life of spotless virtue, his pure 
 example, his relief of human woes, and the sorrows which 
 he voluntarily endured, in order that the law of God might 
 be maintained, and eternal justice asserted even when salva- 
 tion was offered to men. 
 
 If these views are correct, then it follows 
 
 1. That we are to look nowhere else than to Christ as the 
 meritorious cause of salvation. Had it been possible for 
 any mere created being to have wrought out sufficient merit 
 to save the soul, the incarnation of the Son of God, and his 
 death on Calvary would never have occurred. The moment 
 it is maintained that man may merit salvation for himself or 
 for others, the doctrine of the atonement is denied, and the 
 work of Christ dishonoured ; and the doctrine that there are 
 anywhere or in any hands garnered up the merits of holy 
 men, of which we can avail ourselves, derogates to just the 
 extent in which it is held, from the great sacrifice, and is 
 an attack on the fundamental doctrines of the gospel. In 
 our hopes of salvation we have but One place to which to 
 look. It is not what our own hands have done, or what has 
 been done by holy men of other times, it is the infinite 
 merit of the Son of God. 
 
 2. The merits of the Saviour are sufficient for the salva- 
 tion of all mankind. If the view which has been taken is 
 correct, it is clear that the benefit which he has rendered to 
 the universe by his holy obedience and death, are commen- 
 surate with any rewards which he may receive in connection 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 73 
 
 with the salvation of men. "It pleased the Father that in 
 him" in every respect, "should all fulness dwell/' and 
 alike in his power, his benevolence, his willingness to save, 
 and the merits of his work, there is an ample sufficiency for 
 the wants of all mankind. Needing none of the results of 
 his great work on earth, for the promotion of his own hap- 
 piness, all that he did may be made available to others, and 
 all men may come with equal freeness and confidence. He 
 had the promise of an ample and satisfactory reward when 
 it was said that he " should see of the travail of his soul and 
 should be satisfied/' and on the basis of that promise he 
 himself uses such language as this, " If any man thirst, let 
 him come unto me and drink ;" " Come unto me all ye that 
 are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest /' and 
 " whosoever will, let him come and take the waters of life 
 freely." There was no original deficiency in the merits of 
 the Saviour for human salvation, nor has his merit been ex- 
 hausted by the numbers that have already been saved. 
 Salvation in him is like a copious fountain breaking out in 
 a desert. Such a fountain is free for all who may come. 
 It stands in the pathway where the multitude move where 
 the caravans pass along, and no one has a right to appro- 
 priate it to himself. No tribe of men may inclose it or may 
 obstruct its waters. One company of weary travellers has 
 as much right there as another, and to no one particularly 
 appertains the office of dispensing it to the fainting pilgrim. 
 Any one who will come and kneel down there may drink 
 freely. And it will never be exhausted. The fountain will 
 pour out its waters from age to age. The present company 
 of thirsty travellers will soon pass on. They will pursue 
 their journey and go off to die, but then the stream will 
 flow on unexhausted and inexhaustible to the end of time. 
 So it is with the fountain of salvation. As many of the 
 present generation as choose may come and partake, and 
 then as many of the next, and the next, and still the foun- 
 
74 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST? WITH GOD ? 
 
 tain will flow on unexhausted and inexhaustible. It will 
 flow just as fresh and just as full in the last generation that 
 lives, as it did in the days of the Saviour's personal resi- 
 dence on earth ; as it does now ; and the last sinner that is to 
 be saved, will find it as pure and as life-giving to his soul 
 as it is to ours. 
 
 VI. In what sense we are justified by the merits of Christ. 
 
 In the previous sections, it has been shown that man can- 
 not justify himself, and that he has no claim of merit before 
 God, but that there is in the Lord Jesus infinite merit of 
 such a nature, that it may be made available to us. In the 
 prosecution of this general subject, it is proposed now to 
 illustrate two points : 
 
 1. What is meant by justification in the gospel ; and 
 
 -2. In what way we are justified by the merits of Christ. 
 
 1. What is meant by justification in the gospel ? 
 
 The object here is to state what is the exact condition of 
 a man who is justified. In what respect does he differ from 
 what he was before ? What change has taken place in refer- 
 ence to him ? How is he regarded by his Maker differently 
 from what he was before ? What new relation does he sustain 
 to God, to his law, and to his plan of providential dealings ? 
 These, it will be seen, are important questions which proba- 
 bly every one is disposed to ask who attentively considers 
 this subject. They are questions, also, on which serious 
 mistakes are sometimes made as well by those who attempt 
 to explain the subject, as by individual Christians in reflect- 
 ing on this new relation. A few remarks, showing what is 
 ftotf meant, and what is, will make the subject clear. 
 
 (1.) It is not meant that a man who is justified on the 
 gospel plan, is justified in a legal sense. What it is to be 
 so justified has been before explained. It is when a man is 
 accused of a crime, and is able to vindicate himself either 
 Oy showing that he did not do the act charged on him, or 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 75 
 
 that he has a right to do it. If he can do either of these 
 things, or, which is the same thing, if the charge is not 
 proved against him, he is acquitted by the law, or is held to 
 be righteous in regard to the offence charged. In the pre- 
 vious sections it has been shown that, in this sense, man 
 cannot be justified before God, and whatever may be thought 
 of the argument in the case, it is certain that this is not 
 the kind of justification described in the gospel. It is need- 
 ful here to remark, only, that Christ did not come to aid man 
 in justifying himself in this sense. He did not come to take 
 the part of the sinner against God, and to enable him to 
 make out his cause. He did not come to be his advocate in 
 the sense of assisting him in rebutting the charges made 
 against him ; in showing that the charges had been falsely 
 laid ; in explaining his conduct so that it might not appear 
 to be wrong ; or in offering palliations for admitted crimi- 
 nality. "Whatever be the nature of the work which the 
 Lord Jesus came to perform, and however he may aid us in 
 our salvation, it is all done with the concession on his part, 
 that we are guilty to the full extent which the law charges 
 on us. 
 
 (2.) It is not, in any proper sense, a legal transaction. 
 Justification by the law is known only in one way by per- 
 fect and uniform obedience. The law of God, in conform- 
 ity with the general principles of law, knows no other mode. 
 It makes no provision for the pardon or justification of those 
 who violate it, any more than a human law does. The 
 plan of justification in the gospel is a departure from the 
 regular process of law ; and whatever inferences may follow 
 from this, either against the system or in favour of it, the 
 fact .is not to be denied. " But now," says the apostle 
 Paul, " the righteousness of God without the law is mani- 
 fested '" that is, the method of justification in a way dif- 
 ferent from that known in the law. Rom. iii. 21. All at- 
 tempts to show that the plan of justification in the gospel 
 
76 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST fWITH GOD? 
 
 is a legal transaction, or is in accordance with legal princi- 
 ples, have been signal failures, and if there can be no other 
 justification than that which is properly legal, the whole 
 effort to be saved must be given up in despair. Nor does it 
 mean, 
 
 (3.) That the man who is justified ceases to be ill-de- 
 serving or guilty in the proper sense of the word. When 
 a man is justified by law, he is declared to be not guilty 
 or ill-deserving. But it is not so when a man is jus- 
 tified by the gospel. It is expressly said, respecting this 
 plan, that God "justifies the ungodly," (Kom. iv. 5,) mean- 
 ing that it is admitted they are ungodly at the time, or that 
 they are personally guilty. The act of justification does 
 not change the nature of the offence, or prove that to be 
 right which is in itself wrong. Crime is what it is in its own 
 nature, and is not modified by the manner in which he who 
 commits it is treated. To pardon a man out of the penitentiary 
 does not prove that the act of burglary or theft for which 
 he was committed was innocent ; to forgive a man under the 
 gallows does not prove that he is not ill-deserving for the act 
 of murder. To be led from any consideration to treat a 
 man who has injured us as if he had not done it, does not 
 prove that the act was not wrong ; or that he should not 
 regard himself as blameworthy for having done it. Our 
 kind treatment of him will not be likely, in any degree, to 
 diminish his sense of his criminality, and the act of pardon 
 with which an offender against God is met when penitent, 
 will not lessen his sense of his own guilt. God never comes 
 in the act of justification to convince him that he has not 
 done wrong, but to save him, though it is admitted that he 
 is a great sinner, and the consciousness that he is a sinner 
 will attend him and humble him through life. He will lift 
 up his eyes and his heart with thankfulness that he is a par- 
 doned man ; not with pride and self-complacency, that he 
 is an innocent man. He will have the spirit of the publi- 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 77 
 
 can, not of the Pharisee. The publican that went down 
 to his house justified would not go feeling that he was in- 
 nocent ; he would be filled with gratitude that so great 
 a sinner might be forgiven. 
 
 (4.) Justification in the gospel does not mean mere par- 
 don. It has been supposed by many that this is all that is 
 denoted by it. But there are insuperable objections to this 
 opinion. One is, that it is a departure from the common use 
 of language. When a man who has been sentenced to the 
 penitentiary is pardoned before the term of his sentence is 
 expired, we never think of saying that he is justified. The 
 offence is forgiven, and the penalty is remitted ; but the use 
 of the word justify in his case would convey a very differ- 
 ent idea from the word pardon. Another objection is, that 
 the sacred writers have so carefully and so constantly used 
 the word justify. If mere pardon or forgiveness were all 
 that is intended, it is difficult to see why another word has 
 been constantly employed, and a word so different in its sig- 
 nification. And another objection is, that mere forgiveness 
 is not all which the case seems to demand. There was re- 
 quired a reinstating in the favour of God ; a restoration to 
 forfeited immunities and privileges, and a purpose in regard 
 to future treatment which is not necessarily involved in the 
 word pardon. It may be conceived that, in cases of pardon 
 for high offences, there would be required, in order to meet 
 all the circumstances of the case, not only a remission of 
 the penalty, but a distinct act restoring to the offender or 
 his family his title, his hereditary honours, and his place in 
 civil relations. The pardon of Lord Bacon would not have 
 restored him at once to the bench, nor the forgiveness of 
 Raleigh to his station in the court of Elizabeth. In the 
 case of a sinner against God, pardon respects mainly the 
 past; justification the purpose of God in reference to the 
 future. Forgiveness remits past crimes; justification re- 
 spects the purpose of God to treat the offender as if he ha4 
 
78 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST JWITH GOD ! 
 
 not sinned, and though these may be simultaneous, yet 
 they may he separated in conception as distinct things. The 
 one forgives the past ; the other reinstates the offender in 
 the lost favour of God. 
 
 (5.) It is not meant that, in the act of justification, the 
 merits of the Lord Jesus become so transferred to us that 
 they can be regarded as literally ours, or that his righteous- 
 ness is in any proper sense our own. This is not true, and 
 cannot be made to be true. Moral character is not capable 
 of being transferred from one individual to another; and 
 however the benefits of what one does may be conveyed to 
 another, it will always be true that the character of an indi- 
 vidual is what it is in itself. It will always be. true that 
 Christ, and not we, obeyed perfectly the law of God ; that 
 Christ, and not his people, died on the cross ; and that the 
 merit of his life and death is strictly his, and not theirs. 
 It will always be true, also, that they violated the law of 
 God; that their characters were sinful, and that they 
 deserved not the mercy of God. No man can really be- 
 lieve that the moral character of one individual can be 
 transferred to another, and no one should charge the Bible 
 with inculcating any such doctrine either with respect to the 
 effect of Adam's transgression on his posterity, or the right- 
 eousness of the Redeemer in the salvation of his people. 
 We are prepared now to remark positively, 
 
 (6.) That justification on the gospel plan denotes a pur- 
 pose on the part of God to treat a sinner as if he were right- 
 eous. ,It implies an intention not to punish him for his 
 sins; not to regard him as any longer under condemnation; 
 not to treat him as an alien, an apostate, and an outcast ; but 
 to regard and treat him in the future, in all his important 
 relations, as if he had never sinned. It involves the pur- 
 pose to shield him from the condemning sentence of the 
 law and the wrath that shall come upon the guilty ; to ad- 
 mit him to the fellowship of unfallen beings; to regard 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 79 
 
 him as entitled to all the privileges of a child of God, as 
 if he had not fallen ; to throw around him the aegis of the 
 divine protection and favour to the end of the present life, 
 and then to admit him to^imniortal life in heaven. These 
 things would have been his if he had not fallen ; and these 
 things are now made his in virtue of the merits of the Re- 
 deemer. In all his great relations, in all the most perma- 
 nent and important things that affect him, he is, and is to 
 be, as if he had not sinned. The main evils of the apos- 
 tacy in his care are arrested, and it is the purpose to regard 
 and to treat him as a child of God. 
 
 It is important to remark that, in these statements, it is 
 not designed to affirm that, in all respects, the act of justi- 
 fication places a man in precisely the same situation in which 
 he would have been if he had not sinned. It is, indeed, 
 designed to teach that, in the direct divine dealings with 
 him, he will be regarded and treated as if he were person- 
 ally righteous. But why, then, it will be asked, does he 
 suffer and die ? Why is he not removed to heaven, as 
 Enoch and Elijah were, without seeing death ? Why does 
 the justified man ever pass through severe bodily trials, like 
 Job or Hezekiah ; or experience the evils of poverty and 
 want, like Lazarus ; or why is he called to part with be- 
 loved children ; or to be thrown into prison, or to lie down 
 in the sorrow of the most painful form of death, as thou- 
 sands have already done, and as the children of God now 
 often do ? 
 
 It is necessary to make such exceptions or qualifications as 
 these in explaining the nature of justification. Though 
 justified, man is not, in fact, treated in this world, in all 
 respects, as he would have been if he had not sinned. In 
 the life to come he will be. But nothing is plainer than 
 that, in the present life, things occur, in reference to the 
 treatment of those who are justified, which would not have 
 occurred if man had not sinned, and which will not occur 
 
80 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST JiVTTH GOD ? 
 
 in heaven. Poverty, sickness, bereavement, death, and kin- 
 dred evils, come upon the righteous and the wicked, the 
 saint and the sinner, the man who is justfied and the man 
 who is not. These evils are, indeed, softened and miti- 
 gated by religion, and may be among the means by which 
 the justified man is better prepared for heaven, but still 
 they exist as evils ; and are to be regarded as among the 
 fruits of sin not removed by the act of justification, and as 
 furnishing the exceptions or qualifications alluded to when 
 it is said that, in this life, the justified man is not treated 
 in all respects as if he had not sinned. The reasons why 
 the evils of sin are not entirely arrested by the act of justi- 
 fication, and why the believer is not treated in this life, in 
 all respects, as if he had not sinned, seem to be principally 
 two : 
 
 (a) One is, that it is not the nature of religion to arrest or 
 change the operation of physical laws. It will have an 
 indirect and gradual effect in checking some of those laws ; 
 but to have made that effect direct and immediate, would 
 have required a constant miracle. It is not the design of 
 religion to restore health or property which have been wasted 
 by dissipation ; to check the results of vice in those who 
 have been led astray by evil example, or to stay the effects 
 of a life of guilt on our physical frame. A life of virtue 
 will ultimately do much to accomplish this; but to do it at 
 once would require the physical power of a miracle. For 
 the same reason, to be justified does not save from tempo- 
 ral death, and death in accordance with the laws of our 
 physical being. No one can doubt that God could have 
 saved us from this, but it would be easy to suggest reasons 
 why it has not been done. 
 
 (6) Another reason why the act of justification does not 
 secure the same treatment in all respects here as if man had 
 never sinned, is that he who is justified, and who is at heart 
 a true believer, is often in circumstances where he needs 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOB? 81 
 
 the discipline of the hand of God. He is not at once made 
 perfect ; and his imperfections, his wanderings, his neglect 
 of duty, his worldliness, often demand the interposition of 
 God for his own good in a way which would neither be ne- 
 cessary nor proper in the case of one who had never sinned. 
 Hence if the Christian sins, he may be recalled even by 
 stripes. Hence he comes under the regular physical laws 
 of the divine administration in the world. Hence he is 
 sick or bereaved. Hence, like other men, he may be cut 
 off by the pestilence, may be swallowed up in the promis- 
 cuous ruin of an earthquake, or lie down on a bed of long 
 and lingering disease, and die. Here, he is subject to the 
 physical laws of our being, and to the administration of a 
 wise discipline ; in the world to come he will be treated 
 altogether as if he had never sinned. No distinction 
 will be made between him and unfallen beings, nor will 
 there be any such remembrance of his own former guilt 
 that he will occupy a less elevated position, or have less 
 ready access to the throne than if he had never been a 
 transgressor. 
 
 It was proposed 
 
 2. To show how justification is accomplished through 
 the merits of Christ, or how his merits become available 
 to us for this purpose. It is not uncommon to say, in 
 explaining this, that his righteousness is imputed to us, 
 or that it becomes ours. But, as this language to many 
 minds does not convey a very definite conception, and as 
 on other minds it often conveys erroneous impressions, and 
 seems to be irreconcilable with the common notions of men 
 about moral character, it is necessary to explain in what 
 sense we become justified by the merits of Christ. Per- 
 haps in doing this, also, it may be shown that, so far from 
 being contrary to the common notions of men about what is 
 right and proper, it is, in fact, but carrying out, on the most 
 elevated scale possible, what is practically occurring every 
 
82 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 
 
 day in the common relations and transactions of life. It is 
 to be observed then, 
 
 (1.) That we are often benefitted by what others have 
 done. The meaning is, that what they have done is of the 
 same advantage to us, for certain ends, as if we had done it 
 ourselves. A case or two, taken from familiar transactions, 
 will illustrate what is meant, and help to a proper explana- 
 tion of the subject. Take the case of a father and a son. 
 The reputation of the one is often a passport or recom- 
 mendation to the other of very great value as he enters on 
 life. The son has, as yet, no known character, no acquaint- 
 ance with the world, no credit. The father has all these. 
 He is widely known as a man of virtue ; he has an exten- 
 sive and honoured circle of acquaintance ; he has ample 
 credit in the business in which he is engaged. Now, while 
 it is true that this character and credit belong to the father 
 as his own, and cannot be literally transferred to the son, it 
 is also true that, for certain purposes, it may be made to 
 answer the same ends for him as if it were his own. Un- 
 less by his own misconduct he shall forfeit the advantage 
 which he might derive from it, it will be a passport to him 
 as he enters on life ; it will go before him preparing many 
 hearts to greet him with kindness ; it will obtain for him 
 the confidence of others ; it may be the means of securing 
 for him many a friend and helper when calamities come, 
 even when his father lies in the grave. While it will al- 
 ways be true that all the merit and the credit appertain to 
 his father, and while whatever may be his own subsequent 
 worth, he will cherish a deep and abiding impression of 
 that, it is also true that, for certain purposes, he could have 
 derived no higher advantages in the case, if the character 
 and the credit had been his own. It would not, indeed, 
 to all intents and purposes be the same ; but there are great 
 and valuable ends in his passage through the world, which 
 could be no better secured if all this had been his own. 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 83 
 
 The influence of his father's name and character, unless he 
 forfeits the advantage, will attend him far on, perhaps 
 entirely through, the journey of life. 
 
 Take another common case. A young man embarks in 
 business without capital. He has acquired already, it may 
 be, a character for industry, talent and honesty; but he has 
 no means by which he can commence the business of his 
 life. What he wants now is credit. If he had that he 
 would be sure of success. But he has none, as yet, of his 
 own. He has had no opportunity to make himself known 
 to secure the extensive confidence of his fellow-men. You 
 have had such an opportunity and have done it. To a cer- 
 tain extent and for certain purposes, you allow him to make 
 use of your name. You endorse his paper, and agree to 
 be responsible for him. Now this, to him, in the case re- 
 ferred to, is of just as much value as though the credit at- 
 tached to your name were his. It will be worth as much to 
 him in the particular matter referred to as though he him- 
 self earned all the influence attached to that name, and 
 secured, by a long and upright life, the credit which it con- 
 veys. There will be, indeed, in other respects, important 
 points of difference, but not in the immediate use which he 
 designs to make of the name. He will have a very lively 
 sense of the truth that he himself has not this credit ; that 
 he is unknown, and that he is under the deepest obligations 
 to you. He will never so far mistake the matter as to sup- 
 pose that your moral character and worth are transferred to 
 him, or that he can regard either as, in any proper sense, his 
 own; but he will consider that this is available for just the 
 purposes for which he wants it. It is all he needs to secure 
 the grand object of his life, and is as good to him as if it 
 were his own. 
 
 Further : if we would look over society, we should 
 find that this arrangement prevails everywhere, and that 
 we are indebted to it every day. It may be doubtful 
 
84 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST} WITH GOD? 
 
 whether we live a single hour, or execute a single plan 
 of life, without being more or less indebted to it. It is an 
 influence diffused around us like the air we breathe, or the 
 sun which shines on our way ; or it is like the tissues of 
 the human frame where each part derives benefits in its 
 functions from the numerous- other parts with which it is 
 more or less closely interwoven. It enters into the very 
 texture of society that we avail ourselves of the toils, the 
 sacrifices, the virtues, and the honoured names of those 
 with whom we are connected. No man acquires a name 
 for virtue who does not do much to benefit his children and 
 friends in this way, and one of the chief stimulants to effort 
 in parents is, that they may place their children on as high 
 vantage ground as possible when they embark on life. That 
 youth enters on life under great disadvantages who cannot 
 encircle himself with this influence, and who is constrained 
 to " cut his way" to respectability or to wealth alone. As 
 a matter of fact, however, there are few that do this. The 
 name and influence of a father or a friend ; a letter of com- 
 mendation from those who are known and loved, will be a 
 passport to us in distant climes, and among strangers ; will 
 meet us with its benign influence on the Rhine or the Gan- 
 ges ' y will help us where we should otherwise fall into the 
 hands of freebooters in a foreign land, or when we should 
 otherwise sink under poverty and want; or on a distant 
 shore will raise up for us a friend on the bed of death. He 
 enters life under the best auspices who can avail himself 
 most of this without sacrificing his independence or being a 
 sycophant or parasite ; and he is the most foolish and un- 
 grateful of mankind who would willingly renounce all this 
 advantage, and choose to weather the storms of life and 
 make his way through the world friendless and alone. 
 
 (2.) The second remark in explaining the way in which 
 we are justified by the merits of Christ, is, that there are 
 two methods by which we avail ourselves of the benefit of 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 85 
 
 the character and virtues of others. The one is, by natural 
 relationship. This occurs in the case of a child, who, as a 
 matter of course, derives advantage from the industry, the 
 character and the credit of a parent. The other is, by an 
 arrangement made for that end. Instances of this latter kind 
 occur everywhere. The case of an adopted child is one a 
 case where there is no natural relation, and no natural claim, 
 but where one chooses for any reasons, that the child of 
 another should be received into his family and treated as if 
 he were his own. It occurs not unfrequently in the case of 
 a matrimonial alliance, where the one party avails itself of 
 the name and influence and rank of the other, and on that 
 account has a degree of respect to which, otherwise, there 
 would be no claim. It occurs in the cases already referred 
 to, where the use of a name is conceded. The name of the 
 missionary Schwartz was thus the means of saving from 
 starvation the whole of a British garrison, and many a man 
 owes his subsequent elevation in life, to assistance furnished 
 him at the outset. Cases have arisen where the signet or 
 the ring of a prince has been placed in the hands of an- 
 other, conveying to him, if danger should befal him, all the 
 influence and security which they would to the owner him- 
 self; nor is it very uncommon to give a carte blanche to a 
 friend to be filled up at pleasure. It remains now only, in 
 view of these illustrations, 
 
 . (3.) To remark in explanation of the way in which we 
 are justified through the merits of Christ. It is, that we 
 are permitted to avail ourselves of his abounding merits, so 
 that we may be treated as if they were our own. It 
 is not that his merits are transferred to us, or that his moral 
 character or righteousness becomes properly ours, or that we 
 cease to deserve punishment, or that an apology is made for 
 our sins, or that Christ takes our part against justice; but 
 that his merits are so ample, his life and death have accom- 
 plished so much, and his work has been so meritorious, that 
 
86 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUSff WITH GOD? 
 
 we may, by a suitable connection with him, be regarded and 
 treated as if we were truly righteous before God ; so that 
 " God can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in 
 Jesus;" just and true while he "justifies the ungodly." 
 
 This connection between the Saviour and those- -who are 
 benefitted by his merits is not a natural connection, for no 
 such relation by nature subsists as would entitle any one to 
 be regarded and treated as righteous on his account, but it 
 is a relation which is constituted entirely by faith. The 
 influence of faith in forming it, and in making it proper 
 that they who are united to him should be treated as right- 
 eous, will be explained hereafter. It is sufficient now to 
 remark, that the relation which is sustained is one that is 
 formed, not one that exists by nature. 
 
 It is formed by a personal union of the soul to Christ, 
 and by the gracious concession on his part in accordance 
 with the divine arrangement, that we may avail ourselves 
 of his infinite and inexhaustible merits, so that we may be 
 treated as if they were our own. There are two additional 
 thoughts which may be suggested to illustrate this : 
 
 (a) The one is, that his merit is inexhaustible. There 
 is no diminution or exhaustion of the merit of his work, by 
 the numbers that avail themselves of it. This makes the 
 plan of redemption wholly different from any thing which 
 occurs among men. A man of the widest credit and highest 
 standing may be conceived to allow his name to be so often 
 used by those who have no claim to it, or who turn out to 
 be worthless, and abuse his claim, as to exhaust his credit, 
 and make his name good for nothing. Not so the Saviour. 
 No numbers that apply exhaust his credit, or diminish at 
 all the merit of that blood by which they are saved. That 
 blood is as efficacious now, and that holy name of our advo- 
 cate is as much honoured in heaven now, as when the first 
 pinner was justified, and when the gates of glory were first 
 thrown open to receive a ransomed soul. 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 87 
 
 (6) The other remark is, that the Lord Jesus becomes 
 the surety that the universe shall suffer no wrong by our 
 being admitted to heaven. So far as we are concerned, he 
 pledges himself to meet all the claims of the law and of 
 justice upon us. That is, he becomes the surety, that, 
 under this arrangement, as great good shall result to the 
 universe by our being saved, as would be by our punish- 
 ment forever. By such punishment, nothing would have 
 been gained in regard to the honour of the law, the truth 
 of God, and the interests of justice, which are not secured 
 under the present arrangement by the substituted sorrows 
 of the Son of God in making the atonement. Thus he be- 
 comes the " surety of a better covenant," (Heb. vii. 22 ;) 
 and stands before the universe as the public pledge that no 
 harm is done to any interest of truth and justice by the ad- 
 mission of one, who is an acknowledged sinner, into heaven. 
 Thus the publican was justified ; thus Paul, the persecutor 
 and blasphemer, won Christ and was found in him, not 
 having his own righteousness which was of the law, but 
 that which was through the faith of Christ/' (Phil. iii. 8, 9;) 
 and thus multitudes of the profane and the sensual by be- 
 lieving on Christ, have entered heaven and been blessed. 
 There stands the great Advocate, not for their sins but for 
 them; and there stands the security, that no injury shall be 
 done by treating even such sinners forever as if they were 
 righteous, and that all that law or justice could ask all that 
 could be secured either by their own personal perfect obe- 
 dience, or by their enduring the eternal penalty of the law, 
 has been secured by his holy life and meritorious death. 
 When, therefore, they enter heaven, it is not over prostrated 
 law ; over a humbled government ; over disregarded threat- 
 enings ; by a changeful policy, or by partiality in the ad- 
 ministration ', it is because their great Surety has himself 
 secured the honour of the law, and that in their conscious 
 destitution of merit he has enough for them all. His name 
 
88 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUS? WITH GOD? 
 
 is the guarantee to justice and to God; his inexhaustible 
 merits the reason why they may be treated as t/his right- 
 eousness were their own. 
 
 This is what is properly meant by imputation. The true 
 doctrine implies no transfer of moral character ; no infusion 
 of righteousness into the soul ; no physical identity between 
 the Redeemer and his people ; no charging of their sins to 
 him, so that he became in any proper sense a sinner or de- 
 served to be put to death, nothing but the purpose on the 
 part of God, in virtue of what he has done, to treat those 
 who are themselves guilty, as if they were righteous. " By 
 that righteousness being imputed to us," says President 
 Edwards, " is meant no other than this, that the righteous- 
 ness of Christ is accepted for us and admitted instead of 
 that perfect inherent righteousness which ought to be in 
 ourselves. Christ's perfect obedience shall be reckoned to 
 our account, so that we shall have the benefit of it, as though 
 we had performed it ourselves." Vol. v. 394. 
 
 These views have reference to the most important subject 
 of religion. They pertain to that great doctrine which 
 separates Christianity from every other system of religion ; 
 and to the answer which Christianity furnishes to the ques- 
 tion asked with so much solicitude in every age, " How shall 
 man be justified with God ?" The answer is, " That we are 
 justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is 
 in Christ Jesus." Romans iii. 24. It is this doctrine which 
 divides the religion of the gospel from all other systems ; which 
 makes it what it is ; which gives it whatever influence or 
 power it has in speaking peace to the troubled conscience, 
 and bidding the spirit that is captive under sin go free. It 
 is this which will enable man to appear before his final 
 Judge justified, not by any miserable attempt to deny the 
 fact that he is a sinner ; to apologise for his errors and fol- 
 lies, and found a claim to favour on such apology; to sub- 
 stitute an external morality for that holiness of heart which 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 89 
 
 the law of G-od requires, or to present as a ground of ac- 
 ceptance the vain oblation of outward forms. 
 
 But it should be observed also, that though this method 
 of justification is entirely peculiar to Christianity, and sepa- 
 rates it from all other religious systems, yet that it accords 
 with principles prevailing everywhere in society, and on 
 which men act every day and in every land. It is the em- 
 bodiment and concentration of these principles, and shows 
 their operation on the highest scale possible. Thus, as 
 already remarked, in matters pertaining to this life, we owe 
 to the name and standing and credit of others, an introduc- 
 tion to the world, facilities for doing business, valued friends 
 who may succour us in trouble : and on substantially the 
 same principles, though on an infinitely higher scale, we 
 owe to the merits of another the Son of God an intro- 
 duction to the divine favour ; a passport to heaven ; the 
 friendship of angelic beings } the peace of pardon ; the calm- 
 ness of the Christian's death; and the crown incorruptible 
 beyond the grave. Whatever we shall have in the long 
 ages of eternity, of joy or peace, of honour or favour, is to 
 be traced to the operation of this principle on the highest 
 scale possible ; that we may be benefitted by the sacrifices 
 and toils ; the name and merit ; the righteousness and suf- 
 ferings of another. 
 
 In common affairs we do not disregard or undervalue this. 
 Those who enter on life regard it as a felicitous circumstance 
 in their condition, if they may go forth with such passports 
 and commendations to the esteem of the world. That 
 young man would regard himself justly as destitute of every 
 manly and generous feeling, as well as every principle of 
 self-respect, who should discard and spurn this advantage, 
 and prefer to go forth to the world without the commenda- 
 tion or the patronage of a single friend. We are going to 
 a more important theatre of being than is this narrow 
 
 world. We shall soon pass beyond its outer bounds and 
 
 8* 
 
90 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST fWTTH GOD? 
 
 move through other regions. We are to go up and meet 
 our Maker ; to enter on a mode of existence that shall have 
 no end ; to be associated with now unknown orders of beings ; 
 and there are great interests at stake, compared with which 
 all the interests of earth are trifles. We go to a royal 
 court the court of heaven where we have no claim to a 
 right to appear. We go up to obtain, if we are happy there, 
 the favour of a Being whose law we have violated, and 
 whose displeasure we have incurred. We go where we can 
 take no wealth with us, and where if we could, it would 
 avail nothing ; where we shall be disrobed of all in a grace- 
 ful exterior, or in fascinating manners that may commend 
 us to others here, and where, if it should accompany us, it 
 would, be valueless ; where the name of a father, or the 
 powerful influence of a friend, that might commend us to 
 the favour of men, would be of no avail ; where nothing on 
 which we here rely as a passport to others, can be a com- 
 mendation. But there is one in human flesh that dwells 
 there. He once lived among men. He was most holy, 
 and lowly, and pure, but he died. He rose from the tomb, 
 and the everlasting gates were opened, and he entered his 
 native skies. To the very interior of the court of heaven ; 
 to the sacred seat of Deity; to the throne itself, he has been 
 admitted, and is seated there. With all that heaven he is 
 familiar, for he is there at home. With all its streets of 
 gold, with all its far distant mansions, with all its many de- 
 partments fitted up for the abodes of the blessed, he is fami- 
 liar. His powerful aid he proffers us in our sin and igno- 
 rance and helplessness, and assures us that he is willing that 
 we should plead his name, and make mention of his merits 
 as if they were our own, as a reason why we should be wel- 
 come there. In heaven his plea has never been denied ; 
 the claim of his merits has never been dishonoured. Shall 
 we refuse his offer ? Shall we spurn his name ? Shall we 
 turn away from that friend, and advocate, and patron, and 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 91 
 
 go there friendless and alone ? Shall we seek to commend 
 ourselves to a holy God by our own doings, and to stand 
 there in our own attempts to vindicate our ways ? Shall we 
 spurn the robes of salvation which he proffers so white, so 
 pure, so full and flowing, and gird ourselves with the rags 
 of our own righteousness ? 
 
 VTI. The influence of faith in justification. 
 
 In the last section, in showing how we are saved through 
 the merits of Christ, it was remarked that the means by 
 which we become interested in his merits, or by which they 
 are made availiable to us, is faith. It was then proposed to 
 go into a fuller explanation in the subsequent parts of this 
 tract. That duty it remains now to perform. 
 
 The substance of the Christian doctrine on this subject 
 is expressed in the following passages of Scripture : " For 
 I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; for it is the 
 power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth, 
 to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is 
 revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith ; as it 
 is written, " The just shall live by faith." Rom. i. 16, 17. 
 The doctrine of this passage is, that a man is considered 
 just before God, and treated as such, not in virtue of his 
 own works, but in virtue of his exercising faith in Christ. 
 " For therein/ 7 that is, in the gospel, " the righteousness 
 of God/ 7 or God's plan of regarding and treating men as 
 righteous, " is revealed from faith to faith ;" that is, by 
 faith unto those who have faith, or who believe, as it is 
 written, " The just shall live by faith," or those justified by 
 faith shall have everlasting life. It is needless to prove at 
 length that this is the settled doctrine of the New Testa- 
 ment. " Therefore we conclude," says the apostle in the 
 third chapter of this epistle, (ver. 28,) " that a man is jus- 
 tified by faith without the deeds of the law." Again, " By 
 the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his 
 
92 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST f WITH GOD? 
 
 sight. But now the righteousness of God without the law 
 is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets ; 
 even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus 
 Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe ; for there 
 is no difference." Rom. iii. 20-22. So the apostle Paul 
 says again, " A man is not justified by the works of the 
 law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ/ 7 Gal. ii. 16. In 
 accordance with this, is the great doctrine which the Sa- 
 viour taught his disciples to promulgate as comprising all 
 that he designed them to teach : " Go ye into all the world 
 and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth 
 and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not 
 shall be damned." Mark xvi. 15, 16. That is, there is no 
 other method of being saved but by believing, or by faith, 
 and if a man has not this, he must be lost. 
 
 Probably every one who has ever read these passages has 
 been disposed to ask, Why is so much stress laid on faith in 
 the plan of redemption ? Why is it made so central, and 
 so indispensable in the salvation of the soul ? What inhe- 
 rent virtue is there in this act that has given it such a pre- 
 eminence over all other virtues ? What is there in this 
 that should make it a substitute for all the good works that 
 men can perform ? Perhaps some will be disposed to add, 
 that the system of Christianity is thus removed from all 
 other systems, and is different from all the laws and princi- 
 ples on which men act in other things. Merit, in other 
 cases, is not in accordance with a man's belief, but accord- 
 ing to his virtues his moral worth and why should faith 
 have such special eminence in the eye of God ? The re- 
 wards of this life are not distributed according to a man's 
 faith or credulity, and why should the rewards of heaven 
 be ? We judge of the excellency of a man's character not 
 according to the readiness with which he embraces what is 
 proposed to him for his credence, but usually somewhat in 
 proportion to his caution and the slowness of his belief, and 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 93 
 
 why does religion require a man to hasten to believe that 
 which is proposed to him, as if this were the chiefest of the 
 virtues? When, also, a man is put on trial, he is acquit- 
 ted, not because he exhibits an example of trusting in his 
 judge or his advocate, but because he is able to vindicate 
 his conduct; and why shall we not look for something ana- 
 logous in religion ? Why are pardon and hope ; life and 
 joy; heaven and glory; peace here and bliss hereafter; all 
 made to depend on faith " the centre and the circumfe- 
 rence ; the beginning, the middle, and the end, according 
 to the gospel, of every virtue ? These are questions which 
 it is natural to ask ; they are questions which the friend of 
 Christianity should feel it to be a part of his vocation to 
 answer. The relation or connection which these questions 
 bear to the subject before us is this : Supposing that man 
 has no merit of his own, as has been shown, and that there 
 are infinite merits in the Redeemer through which we may 
 be saved, why is it proper that we should avail ourselves of 
 those merits only through faith ? Why should faith be the 
 instrument by which we may be treated as if those merits 
 were ours ? 
 
 The answer to these questions is, that, in the circum- 
 stances of the case, faith constitutes a union with the Re- 
 deemer, of such a nature as to make it proper to treat us 
 substantially as he himself is treated; that is, as righteous; 
 to make it proper that we should share his happiness, his 
 favour, his protection on earth, and his glory in heaven ; 
 that the union formed by faith between the soul and the 
 Redeemer is so tender, so close, and so strong as to imply 
 an identity of interest, and to make it certain and proper 
 that the blessings descending on him should, according to 
 their capacity and wants, descend on those who believe. It 
 is meant that the particular reason why faith has been se- 
 lected as the means of this is, that it constitutes a union 
 more close, firm, and enduring than any other virtue, and 
 
94 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST* WITH GOD? 
 
 that it meets and overcomes more evils in the world than any 
 other act of the mind would do. On this account, it is sin- 
 gled out from all other acts of the mind in the plan of jus- 
 tifying men. To many these remarks may appear abstract 
 and obscure now. It is proposed, therefore, in a series of 
 observations to show why faith is so important; why it is the 
 very cardo rerum the hinge of salvation. 
 
 One other preliminary remark should be made. It is 
 that there is a great and essential difference between faith 
 and credulity. We distinguish them accurately in common 
 life ; we fear that they are sometimes confounded when men 
 think of religion. 
 
 The inquiry proposed embraces essentially the two follow- 
 ing points : Why faith is of so much importance in a work 
 of salvation ; and why faith in Christ is made so prominent 
 and essential. The first point of inquiry is, why faith is 
 of so much importance in a work of salvation. In reply to 
 this inquiry let it be observed, 
 
 (1.) That faith acts an important part in the affairs of 
 the world. Using the word in the sense of confidence, 
 there is nothing else on which the welfare of society more 
 depends, or which is more indispensable to its prosperous 
 and harmonious relations. It enters into every thing, 
 and we are every day and every hour acting under its in- 
 fluence, and depending on it as essential to all that we 
 hold dear. It is the cement of families, of neighbourhoods, 
 of governments, of nations. The faith of treaties, of com- 
 pacts, of promises, of friendships, of affection, is that which 
 holds the world together, and without which society would 
 go to pieces. To loosen it at once, would be like loosening 
 every rope in a ship, or unscrewing every fastening and bolt 
 in a machine. It is by faith, or mutual confidence, that 
 the relations of domestic life are maintained ; that the har- 
 mony of a family is secured ; that business, in a mercantile 
 community, is carried on ; that a banking institution effects 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 95 
 
 the purpose for which it was chartered ; or that a govern- 
 ment can secure the ends for which it was instituted. It is 
 by faith only that we derive lessons of valuable instruction 
 from history, or act with reference to what is yet to come. 
 If we had no more confidence in any of the testimonies of 
 history than we have in the fabulous details of the dynas- 
 ties of India, the mythological periods of Grecian history, 
 or the legends of the saints, all past history would be ut- 
 terly useless, for it would convey no certain lessons ; if we 
 had no faith in the stability of the course of events the 
 rising of the sun, the moon and the stars ; the return of 
 the seasons; the continuance of the laws of magnetism, of 
 gravitation, or of vegetation, we should form no plan for 
 the future ; we should neither plant a field, nor build a ship, 
 nor venture out on the ocean where we might soon be with- 
 out sun, or star, or compass. We confide in our teachers, 
 in a physician, a counsellor, a clergyman, and it would be 
 impossible that the cause of education, jurisprudence or re- 
 ligion, could be maintained if there were no such confidence. 
 The farmer of the Eastern States believes in the vast fer- 
 tility of the West, of which he has heard, but which he 
 has never seen, and, with his wife and children, leaves the 
 graves of his fathers to seek that land on the strength of 
 his faith ; and the merchant believes that there is such a 
 place as Canton or Calcutta, though he has seen neither ; 
 and on the strength of that faith would embark all his pro- 
 perty in the same vessel, and stake the whole question about 
 making a fortune in this world on his strong confidence that 
 such places, of which he has heard, have an existence. In 
 like manner we are exercising confidence in every thing. 
 We believe the testimony of the historians, though we 
 never saw Xenophon, or Thucydides, or witnessed the events 
 of which they wrote; we vote for the man whom we have 
 never seen; we confide in the bankers across the waters 
 whom we never expect to behold. Were it not for this 
 
96 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUSfc WITH GOD? 
 
 unceasing confidence in the varied operations of faith, we 
 could not get along for a single day or hour. The affairs 
 of the world would at once stand still. The bands of so- 
 ciety would at once become loosened, and every thing would 
 fall into irretrievable confusion. 
 
 It is true, there may be much credulity in the world, and 
 multitudes in all professions and relations in life are im- 
 posed on. But so, also, there is much counterfeit money, 
 and many may be injured or ruined by it. But the exist- 
 ence of a circulating medium is indispensable, and there is 
 by far more genuine than false coin at any time in the 
 world, and any quantity of spurious coin does not render 
 that valueless which is genuine. So any amount of credu- 
 lity does not prove that it is improper that men should ever 
 repose confidence in one another, or that all faith is value- 
 less. 
 
 (2.) The second observation illustrating the importance 
 of faith with reference to the subject before us is, that faith 
 is the strongest conceivable bond of union between minds 
 and hearts. It is, in fact, the cement of all unions, and 
 without which all else is valueless. In friendships, in trea- 
 ties, in national compacts, in social intercourse, in the ten- 
 der domestic relations, it is the very bond of union, and 
 there is nothing else that can be a substitute for it. The 
 seal which is affixed to a letter that is sent to a friend does 
 not make it secure because no one has power to break it, but 
 because there is confidence in each postmaster through 
 whose hands it may pass, and in each stranger or friend 
 into whose hands it may happen to fall, that he will respect 
 the seal, and will not break it. The seal which is ap- 
 pended to a will does not render it secure because no 
 one has power to break it, but because the testator has con- 
 fidence that his friends and that the courts of his country 
 will respect his wishes when his mouth is forever closed 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 97 
 
 against the possibility of his declaring his desires, and his 
 hand powerless tp assert his rights. 
 
 Look into the relations of life. What is it that forms 
 and preserves those numerous unions on which the very 
 existence of society depends ? What is the basis of the 
 union of husband and wife, of parent and child, of brother 
 and sister, of friend and friend ? What is there but mu- 
 tual confidence ? And is it asked what is the strength of 
 that ? In answer to these questions an illustration may be 
 employed, taken from the most tender relation in life. This 
 illustration is used, because it is the very one more than 
 once referred to on this subject in the Bible, and because 
 it enters so vitally into the welfare of society. Here is a 
 young man just entering on life. His character is fair ; his 
 profession is honourable; his person and standing are liable 
 to no objection, and no suspicion but what he may be yet 
 no one earthly can tell, for no one can certainly predict 
 about what a man will be, till he is tried. Here is a youth- 
 ful female the joy of her mother and the pride of her fa- 
 ther's heart. She has been delicately trained; has a home 
 that has every attraction ; is secure there of unfailing friends 
 as long as her father and mother shall live, and has ample 
 means of support. She breaks all these ties; leaves the 
 home of her childhood ; bids adieu to father, mother, bro- 
 thers, and sisters, and commits herself into the hands of 
 this comparative stranger. A father's, and a mother's, and 
 a brother's love she exchanges for his. Her hand, her 
 heart, her property she gives to him. She pledges herself 
 to go where he goes ; to suffer what he suffers ; to make his 
 friends hers; to love him with an ardour with which she 
 loves no other human being ; to break away from every tie 
 of country and home if he shall will it; and in a sense 
 more absolute than exists in any other case, to commit her 
 happiness into his hands. Every day and every hour that 
 they will live, she is dependent on his prosperity, his virtue, 
 
98 HOW SHALL MAN BE JU&T WITH GOD? 
 
 and his smiles for her happiness, ami the moment his affec- 
 tions are withdrawn, or he ceases to be a virtuous m;m, h<-r 
 happiness is dead. If he is virtuous, faithful, and kind, she 
 regrets not the act of confidence with which she gave him 
 her heart and hand. But what if he trifles with her happi- 
 ness ? What if he always meets her with a frown ? What 
 if he proves false to his vows? What if he becomes a 
 wretched drunkard ? Now what is the foundation and the 
 source of its strength ? Confidence ; and when that is gone 
 domestic peace dies. She has made a sacrifice of her hap- 
 piness, and her earthly felicity is a wreck. 
 
 Let another thought be suggested here. It is, that this 
 union of confidence secures an identity in their destiny. 
 They are one one flesh, said the Saviour and the same 
 events will now aflect both. Before this union the storm 
 might have beat on one of them, and sunshine gladdened 
 the path of the other. Now the storm and the sunshine 
 come on both alike. The light that gladdens the eyes of 
 the one is also a pleasant thing to the other; the star that 
 rises propitiously on one, rises propitiously also on the path 
 of the other. The blessings of peace and joy that greet the 
 one, greet also the other. There is one heart, one pulsa- 
 tion, one breathing, one soul made up of the two. And so 
 if calamity comes; if, under the roof where they are to 
 abide, the pale destroyer shall come with stealthy foot-tread, 
 and change the rose on the cheek of a smiling babe to the 
 lily of death, it will be a scene in which both their hearts 
 will bleed alike, and they will weep together over the open 
 grave. If one is sad, both are sad; if one is poor, both are 
 poor. Their union, one pre-eminently of mutual faiih 
 plighted before the altar, constitutes an identity in all the 
 great events of life, and secures to both substantially the 
 same treatment from the Great Disposer of all things. 
 They share the same fortune; the same honour or dis- 
 grace; the same sorrows and the same joys; they are 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 99 
 
 wafted on to a port of bliss or are wrecked in the same 
 vessel ; they are greeted with the same welcome in life, 
 they are buried in the same grave. It is easy to apply this 
 illustration to the matter in hand. 
 
 (3.) The third illustration is, that faith is of such a nature 
 that it is adapted to meet all the evils of the world. The 
 idea is, that it has been made the hinge or turning point of 
 salvation, because the want of it has been the source of all 
 the calamities which man has suffered, and because, if this 
 is restored, the evil of the world would be at an end. 
 
 The grand evil on earth, and the source of all subordinate 
 evils, is a want of confidence in God. This was the evil at 
 the start, that man reposed more confidence in the teachings 
 of the tempter, than in the law of he Creator, and this has 
 been the source of all our woe. Man has no confidence in his 
 God. He does not believe that the Most High is qualified for 
 universal empire ; that he manages the affairs of the universe 
 well; that his law is equal and just; that his dispensations 
 are in accordance with equity ; that his plan of salvation is 
 wise. He does not show his confidence in him by yielding 
 implicit obedience to his laws, or by submitting to his dis- 
 pensations. He does not go to him and ask counsel of him 
 in the darknesses and perplexities of life ; he does not seek 
 support in his arms in times of calamity. He does not com- 
 mit his great interests to him, believing that he will be his 
 guide through life, and that he will yet make " all things 
 work together for good." He confides in other things. He 
 confides in his own strength, till his strength fails; in his 
 philosophy till it deludes and deceives him ; in his fellow- 
 men till they all betray him ; in friends and kindred, till 
 they drop into the grave; in his skill and sagacity, till he 
 comes to a place in life where " the right hand loses its 
 cunning." He confides in stocks and stones, in graven 
 images, and fourfooted beasts and creeping things, but by 
 nature he has no confidence in God. 
 
100 HOW SHALL MAN BE JU& WITH GOD? 
 
 This is the grand evil of the world ; this the source of 
 all our woes ; for a want of confidence here produces the 
 same kind of evils, though on a larger scale, as the 
 isame want everywhere. We have seen that the welfare of 
 society depends on mutual confidence. Now, to see how 
 wretched any society can possibly be, we have only to sup- 
 pose the existence there of the same want of confidence 
 which subsists between man and his Maker. If a perfectly 
 malignant being wished to diffuse as much misery as possi- 
 ble through the world, all that he could desire would be 
 to break up universal faith. He would go into a com- 
 munity, and with the touch of a magic wand would in a 
 moment destroy all confidence in each merchant, bank and 
 insurance office, and lawyer, and physician, and clergyman. 
 He would go into each school, and destroy all confidence in 
 the instructor. He would go into each family, and destroy 
 everywhere the mutual confidence of husband and wife, 
 and introduce universal distrust and jealousy. He would 
 unsettle the faith of every child in his father, of every 
 brother in his sister. What would be the result? He 
 would at once arrest the wheels of commerce ; put an end 
 to business ' } make every professional man useless and 
 wretched ; take away sleep from the pillow of every husband 
 and wife, and fill every family, and the whole community 
 with heart-burnings, jealousies, contentions, and strifes. No 
 man would know in whom to trust; no one could form a 
 plan dependent in any manner on the fidelity of others; no 
 one could be certain that any of his purposes of life could 
 be effected. The scene at Babel would be reacted again all 
 over the world, and worse disorder than that which followed 
 from confounding the language of the people there, would 
 pervade all classes and conditions of mankind. The remedy 
 for such a state of things would be the restoration of mutual 
 confidence. In such a condition of ill, nothing would have 
 so far-reaching an effect. It would in fact meet all those 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 101 
 
 ills and make society harmonious and happy. The wheels 
 of commerce, of government, of domestic peace, of public 
 improvement, of education, would again roll on harmoniously, 
 and happiness would again bless the world. The want of 
 faith or confidence in God has produced all the ills on earth, 
 of which those just supposed are but an emblem \ the re- 
 storation of confidence in God would strike at the root of all 
 those ills, and make this a happy world. It is this which 
 makes heaven happy, where every being has faith in God 
 and in all that dwell there ; and with all our wants 
 and sadnesses this too would be a happy world, if there 
 were universal confidence in God. In our sorrows we should 
 then have peace, for we should believe that all is well 
 ordered ; under our heavy burdens of life we should find 
 support, for we would go and roll all on his arm ; in all the 
 dark and perplexing questions that now agitate us about the 
 introduction of moral evil and the prevalence of iniquity, 
 our minds would be calm, for we should feel that there was 
 a reason for it all, and in the prospect of death that which 
 now makes us so sad our hearts would find more than 
 peace we should utter the language of joy and triumph, 
 for it would be only the coming of a messenger to bear us 
 to a much loved Father's arms. The grand thing that needs 
 to be done on earth to make this a happy world, is to restore 
 universal confidence in God, and this is the whole aim of 
 religion, this the object of the scheme of redemption. 
 Hence the necessity of faith is laid at the foundation of the 
 whole scheme ; it is the cardinal thing in the plan of salva- 
 tion. This restored, what a happy world, after all, would 
 this be ! For it is a beautiful world. It is full of the 
 proofs of God's goodness and love. There are a thousand 
 comforts that meet us everyday and every night; and a 
 thousand tender chords that should bind us to our Creator. 
 If we confided in him as qualified for universal empire ; if 
 
 we felt that he was fit to manage the affairs of his own 
 
 9* 
 
102 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUSt WITH GOD ? 
 
 world ; if we believed that he will yet bring order out of 
 confusion and light out of darkness ; if we trusted that his 
 law is good and his commandments holy, and if we would 
 go to him with the confiding spirit with which a little child 
 goes and tells all his troubles to his father, this would be 
 still a happy world. For that grand undertaking of the 
 almighty Father of us all, to restore unwavering confidence 
 in himself, manifested in the Gospel, the world should be 
 unfeignedly thankful, and one of the principal topics of 
 praise on earth should be, that he has required faith as the 
 very elementary principle of his religion. 
 
 (4.) A fourth remark, in explanation of the subject, is that 
 faith is required, or is made the condition of justification, for 
 this reason : There is an obvious propriety that, where sal- 
 vation is provided and offered, there should be some act on 
 our part signifying our acceptance of it. If we are to be 
 saved through the merits of Christ, there should be some 
 reason on our part why we should be. There should be 
 some act indicating our wish or our will ; some expression 
 of our desire in the case ; something that shall serve to dis- 
 tinguish us from those who are not saved. It evidently 
 would not be proper, it would not be consulting the nature 
 which God has given us, to receive the race indiscriminately 
 into heaven without any intimation of a wish to be saved, 
 or to save one part and leave the other, unless there were 
 something that would indicate in the one a desire to be 
 saved, which did not exist in the case of the other. What 
 would better show this than faith ? What would be a bet- 
 ter expression of a desire to be saved ? What act would 
 be more appropriate in accepting salvation ; in the intimat- 
 ing of a wish that the benefits of the death of Christ might 
 be ours? What would constitute a stronger bond between 
 the soul and him than this ; what would come nearer to- 
 ward constituting that identity on which it is proper that 
 those who are united should be treated alike ? You are a 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 103 
 
 father ; you have two sons. They both become disobedient. 
 They leave your house at their pleasure; go -where they 
 choose; are out at such hours as suit their convenience; 
 keep such company as they desire, and are wholly regard- 
 less of your laws. They heed neither your promises nor your 
 threats, and they have gone so far that they have now no 
 confidence in you. You have favours which you are willing 
 to bestow on them. You would be willing to receive them 
 to your house, and to treat them as sons, alike in your life- 
 time and in your will. But would you think it unreasona- 
 ble that, as a condition of their being received and treated 
 as sons, they should evince returning confidence in you? 
 And if one of them should return, and should ever onward 
 manifest the confidence due from a son to a father, and the 
 other should not, would you think it improper to make a 
 distinction between them in your lifetime and in your will ? 
 And would they and the world be at a loss for a reason why 
 it was done ? The remark here is, that faith in Christ is 
 the appropriate act by which we accept of the benefits of 
 his work, and that this constitutes a difference between him 
 who accepts of his salvation and him who does not ; and 
 that this is a reason why the one should be treated as if he 
 were interested in those benefits and the other not; that 
 is a reason why the one is justified and the other not. 
 
 Bearing in mind the remarks now made, that a restora- 
 tion to confidence would meet innumerable evils in a family, 
 in a commercial community, between neighbours and be- 
 tween nations, and that the restoration of confidence in 
 God would meet all the evils under which this world labours 
 now, I proceed to show why faith in Christ particularly 
 is made so important as a condition of salvation. With 
 reference to this, three remarks may be made : 
 
 (1.) The first is, that we are to repose faith or confidence 
 in Christ as authorized to negotiate the terms of reconcilia- 
 tion between God and man. The whole system of revealed 
 
104 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 
 
 religion proceeds on the fact a fact which is apparent with- 
 out any revelation that an alienation exists between God 
 and man, or that man is in a state of revolt. It was 
 with reference to this alienation that the Son of God came 
 into the world to accomplish the most difficult of all un- 
 dertakings, that of reconciling opposing minds, and of 
 bringing them into harmony. On the one hand, there was 
 the infinite mind of God, whose law had been violated, and 
 whose government had been rejected and outraged, and 
 whose threatenings had been disregarded ; and on the other, 
 there were countless millions of minds wholly alienated from 
 the Creator. To bring the holy Creator and the millions of 
 rebellious minds into harmony; to propose the terms on 
 which God was willing to forgive sin ; to make such ar- 
 rangements as that he could consistently pardon ; and to 
 bring the minds of revolted men to a willingness to be re- 
 conciled, was the work undertaken by this great peace- 
 maker. 
 
 But it is evident that this work could not be accom- 
 plished, unless confidence was reposed in him by both the 
 parties of the unhappy controversy. In infinitely smaller 
 matters, when nations are alienated, if a mediator proposes 
 arrangements of peace, or if ambassadors are appointed to 
 negotiate a peace, it is clear that the matter could not pro- 
 ceed a step unless there were confidence on both sides in 
 in the mediator or ambassadors. 
 
 Christ is a great mediator ; a peace-maker between God 
 and man. On the part of God, there was every reason to 
 repose entire confidence in him in so great an undertaking, 
 for he was his only begotten Son ; eternally in his bosom, 
 and loved, with an infinite love, before the foundation of 
 the world. John xvii. 24. By him the worlds had been 
 made; (John i. 3 ; Heb. i. 21;) and under him, with re- 
 ference to the work of redemption, their affairs had been 
 administered up to the time when he appeared in the flesh. 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 105 
 
 God the Father reposed unlimited confidence in him when 
 he appointed him to be the mediator, and intrusted to him 
 the execution of the great purpose of reconciling the world 
 again to the divine government. This confidence reposed 
 in Christ in the work of mediation, is often referred to iu 
 the New Testament, by the Saviour himself, and by the 
 sacred penmen : " This is my beloved Son/' was declared 
 from heaven at his baptism, "in whom I am well pleased/' 
 Matt. iii. 17. "Father," said the Saviour, just before his 
 death, " glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from 
 heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it 
 again." John xii. 28. "Thou hast given him power," 
 said he again, " over all flesh, that he should give eternal 
 life to as many as thou hast given him." John xvii. 2. 
 " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth ; go 
 ye therefore and teach all nations." Matt, xxviii. 18, 19. 
 "I am the way," said he, " and the truth, and the life; no 
 man cometh unto the Father but by me." John xiv. 6. So 
 we are told, that " there is one God, and one Mediator be- 
 tween God and man, the man Christ Jesus." 1 Tim. xi. 5. 
 
 These things show the degree of confidence which the 
 Father reposed in him in the work of mediation intrusting 
 to him the message of mercy ; appointing him to convey it 
 to men ; and endowing him as Mediator, with all the power 
 and authority which were requisite to accomplish so great a 
 work. 
 
 But confidence in him is not less required in regard to 
 the other party than by him who had appointed him. It is 
 clear that, unless we have confidence in him as the messen- 
 ger and ambassador of God ; unless we regard him as sent 
 from heaven, and as authorized to propose terms of recon- 
 ciliation ; unless we feel that he can make a definite arrange- 
 ment, and that what he proposes will be sanctioned by God; 
 unless we feel that he is authorized to propose terms of par- 
 don, and to declare our sins forgiven, and to pronounce us 
 
106 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST! WITH GOD ? 
 
 accepted and justified, it would be impossible for us to avail 
 ourselves of any arrangement for salvation through him. 
 We should feel that we were trifling with a great subject ; 
 and in our serious moments, when we thought of the great 
 interests at stake, we should be in no humour to trifle. 
 None of us would seriously think of embracing any terms 
 of reconciliation with God proposed by Mohammed, or Zo- 
 roaster, or Confucius ; by Lord Herbert or Mr. Hume ; for 
 we do not suppose that any of these men were authorized 
 to propose terms of salvation. We have no confidence in 
 them as ambassadors of God, whatever we may think of 
 them in other respects. The primary ground of faith, there- 
 fore, in Christ, is, that we have confidence in him as a me- 
 diator, an ambassador, a peace-maker ; as authorized to pro- 
 pose to us the terms on which peace may be obtained with 
 our offended Creator. " If ye b lieve not that I am he, ye 
 shall die in your sins." John viii. 24. 
 
 (2.) The second remark to which we referred, showing 
 specifically why faith in Christ is demanded, is, that it is by 
 his agency and merits only that we c;<n be received into the 
 favour of God. He came not only to bring the message of 
 reconciliation, and to propose the terms, but to do and to 
 suffer whatever was necessary to be done, in or.ler that we 
 might be accepted of the Father, or in order that we might 
 be saved consistently with the interests of justice. The 
 case somewhat resembles what it would be in the instance 
 of an ambassador coming to negotiate a peace who should 
 not only come to propose the terms, but should actually have 
 in his possession that which alone could be regarded as a 
 reparation for wrong done by one of the parties to the other, 
 and who should come not only to persuade the party which 
 had done the wrong to be willing to be reconciled, but also 
 to avail itself of what he was ready to furnish to repair all 
 the evil done, and to satisfy the other party. In such a 
 case, it would not be unreasonable to ask confidence in him- 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 107 
 
 self, or to make this one of the conditions by which the 
 favour might be available. In fact, it could not be con- 
 sistently made available in any other way, or on any other 
 conditions, and, unless there were faith in him, the nego- 
 tiation could proceed na further. 
 
 Thus we are required to exercise faith in the Lord Jesus. 
 We are destitute of merit. We have violated the law of 
 God, and can do nothing to repair the wrong. We are 
 debtors, to an incalculable amount, to justice ; and we have 
 nothing with which to pay the debt. We can do absolutely 
 nothing to vindicate our own conduct ; to undo the evils 
 that we have done ; to make up for the dishonour which we 
 have put on the law of God ; to atone for our thousands of 
 faults and follies. At this point the Son of God appears, 
 and he comes with the assurance that he has himself per- 
 fectly obeyed the law, and has honoured it as fully as it 
 can be honoured by obedience; that he has suffered a 
 most bitter death a death aggravated by every form of 
 cruelty as an expiation for our sins; that he will become 
 the guarantee or surety that the law shall suffer no disho- 
 nour if we are saved ; that no injury shall result from our 
 pardon, and that, in fact, all the good effects have been se- 
 cured by his death which could be by our being doomed to 
 bear the penalty of the law ourselves ; and that all that 
 is needful for us now is to become united to him by an in- 
 dissoluble bond to put ourselves under his protection ; and 
 to be so identified with him that it will be proper to treat 
 us as if we had personally obeyed the law, or borne its 
 penalty. That which will constitute the closest union in 
 the case, and which will do most to render this identity of 
 treatment proper, is confidence in him as our Saviour, and 
 reliance ou his merits, or faith. 
 
 (3.) The third remark necessary to explain the subject, 
 or to show why faith in Christ is made the turning point of 
 justification and salvation is ; that the act of believing ^n 
 
108 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUStf WITH GOD? 
 
 Christ is made in circumstances and in a manner indicating 
 confidence of the highest kind that ever exists in the human 
 bosom, constituting a union of the closest conceivable na- 
 ture. It is an act so identifying the soul and the Saviour 
 as to make it proper that the same treatment which the 
 Redeemer receives should in this measure be received by his 
 people, or that in the divine treatment they should be prac- 
 tically regarded as one. The circumstances are these : 
 
 (a) The sinner feels that he is lost and ruined. He is 
 made sensible that he is guilty before God, and that he has 
 no claim to his mercy. His heart is evil ; his life has been 
 evil; his whole soul is evil. If justice were done him, he 
 feels that he would be forever banished from God and hea- 
 ven. Yet he feels that he has a soul of infinite value. 
 It is to endure forever. It is capable, in the long eter- 
 nity before, it, of suffering more than the aggregate of all 
 the sorrows that have yet been endured on earth, and in 
 hell. It is capable, also, in that infinite duration, of enjoy- 
 ing more than the aggregate of bliss of all that has been 
 experienced on earth united with all that has been known in 
 heaven. A boundless eternity is before the trembling sin- 
 ner, and infinite interests are at stake. 
 
 (5) He despairs of salvation in himself. He feels now that 
 he has no power to rescue his soul from death. He cannot 
 confide in his own arm, or in the arm of any mortal. He 
 has tried every method of salvation ; every way of obtaining 
 peace of conscience ; every plan that proposed security to 
 his soul, but in vain. He stands now a lost and ruined 
 being trembling on the shores of eternity. The boundless 
 ocean spreads out before him. Clouds and darkness rest 
 upon it. He has deserved no mercy ; he has no claim on 
 God to be his guide and protector ; he can urge no reason 
 why he should be admitted to a world of peace. 
 
 (c) In these sad and perilous circumstances, he commits 
 bis soul with all its infinite and eternal interests, into the 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 109 
 
 hands of the Lord Jesus. By a simple act of faith he em- 
 braces him as his Saviour, his friend, his sacrifice, his advo- 
 cate. Renouncing all confidence in his own merit, he re- 
 solves to rely on the merit of Christ ; abandoning every 
 plea on the ground of what he has himself done, he resolves 
 to urge the merits of the Saviour as his plea, and forsaking 
 forever all reliance for salvation on birth or blood ; on moral 
 virtues or intellectual attainments ; on rank in life or the 
 commendation of friends ; on the goodness of his own heart 
 or on forms in religion, he stakes his own everlasting inte- 
 rest and the question of his final salvation on the belief that 
 there is a Saviour, and that Jesus is the Son of God, and 
 that he is able and willing to save him. He is willing to 
 risk the issue on this belief, and he who was a moment be- 
 fore trembling on the verge of hell as {/"'there were no hope, 
 now calmly turns the eye to heaven, and smiles through his 
 tears and says, "I know whom I have believed, and am 
 persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have com- 
 mitted unto him against that day." 
 
 (d) This is a wonderful act of confidence. That is great 
 confidence which is evinced when a drowning man seizes a 
 rope that is thrown to him, and suspends the question of 
 his safety on the belief that you can draw him to the shore. 
 That would be great confidence which the man who was 
 shipwrecked, and who had clambered up a projecting rock 
 above the reach of the waves, should evince if he would 
 fasten a rope let down from above around his body, and 
 swing off over the raging billows, trusting to the rope and 
 the strength of those above to draw him up. And that is 
 great confidence in a case already referred to where a deli- 
 cately framed youthful female leaves her mother and fa- 
 ther and commits herself, for weal or wo, into the hands of 
 a comparative stranger. But such acts are not equal to 
 that by which the dying soul commits itself to the Saviour 
 
 They will hardly do for an illustration. For what are the 
 
 10 
 
110 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUSTJ WITH GOD ? 
 
 raging waves of the ocean compared with the rolling fires 
 of the world of despair? What is the perilled death of 
 the body compared with the death of the soul ? What are 
 all the temporal interests which youth, or beauty, or vir- 
 tue can commit to another here, compared with those eter- 
 nal interests which are intrusted to the Son of God ? It 
 remains then only to add : 
 
 (e) That in virtue of such a union there should be iden- 
 tity of treatment. So we saw in the illustration of the 
 husband and wife, where the union between them led on 
 common sorrows and common joys ; common successes and 
 common reverses ; common sunshine and common shade. 
 Much more should it be so in the more tender and close 
 union of the soul to the Saviour by the act of faith. They 
 become one. He is the " vine," they are the " branches ;" 
 he the " head," they the " members ;" he lives in them 
 and dwells in them. He is " Christ in us the hope of 
 glory." " We are members of his body, his flesh, and his 
 bones." " I live," says the apostle, " yet not I, but Christ 
 liveth in me." " Because I live," said the Saviour, " ye 
 shall live also." Through all life's future scenes his people 
 will be treated as he was ; and the union with him is so 
 close that it introduces them to common joys and triumphs 
 with him forever. They will be made happy because the 
 same blessings that descend on the " head" will flow to all 
 the " members." 
 
 In view of these remarks, the following thoughts may be 
 suggested : 
 
 (1.) The simplicity and ease of the way of salvation in the 
 Gospel are remarkable. The leading thing required of him 
 who would be saved is faith or confidence in the Redeemer. 
 Thus Paul said to the trembling jailer at Philippi, " Be- 
 lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." 
 Acts xvi. 31. So again in the Epistle to the Romans, " If 
 thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? Ill 
 
 shalfc believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from 
 the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man 
 believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession 
 is made unto salvation/' Rom. x. 9, 10. Here, as every- 
 where in the New Testament, salvation is represented as 
 easy. The terms are as simple as possible. There is no 
 requisition of our attempting to obey the whole law of God 
 as a condition of salvation j no demand on us to offer costly 
 sacrifices, or to make pilgrimages to a distant shrine, or to 
 practise penances and fastings, or to lacerate the body, or 
 to attempt to work out a righteousness by conformity to 
 external forms, or by union to a particular church. The 
 simple, the single thing demanded is faith on the Son of 
 God. If man has this, he is safe. No matter what his 
 past life has been ; no matter what his complexion, rank, 
 or apparel j no matter where he lives or dies ; no matter 
 whether he worships in a splendid temple or under the open 
 vault of heaven, and no matter whether his body rests in 
 consecrated ground or amid the corals of the ocean, he is a 
 child of God and an heir of the kingdom. Whatever may 
 be said of this plan of salvation, it cannot be said that it is 
 not sufficiently simple, and that it does not breathe a spirit 
 of benignity toward the lost and ruined children of men. 
 The infidel cannot object that God has not adapted it to the 
 condition of human nature at it is made up, for the most 
 part, of the ignorant, the down-trodden, and of children; 
 nor that it has required more of any man than the human 
 powers can render. Yet, 
 
 (2 ) While thus simple and easy, it is on the great prin- 
 ciples which we see everywhere prevail. There is required 
 in salvation that which keeps the social world together, and 
 causes human things to move on in harmony that without 
 which all the interests of man would be a wreck. There is 
 required that which would arrest all human ills, and make 
 
112 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUSfl WITH GOD? 
 
 this still a happy world confidence in our God. Man 
 wants but this to make him a happy being here ; he wil 
 want but this to make him happy forever. As confidence is 
 the great principle which cements society, so it was indis- 
 pensable in religion that confidence in God should be re- 
 stored. We cannot conceive that a human being could be 
 saved without faith. Even if it had not been distinctly and 
 formally required in the plan, it is impossible to conceive 
 that there could have been salvation without it. The very 
 process of returning to God from our wanderings implies 
 returning confidence in him for how or why should the 
 sinner return to him if he has no confidence in him ? And 
 how could he be happy in heaven if he had no confidence 
 in God ? What would heaven be if there were the same 
 distrust of the Deity, and the same jarring opinions, and 
 the same alienation from him, and the same doubt of his 
 being, his justice, and his goodness there which exist on 
 earth ? The plan of salvation by faith is laid in the deep- 
 est philosophy and is based on the irreversible nature of 
 things. 
 
 (3.) The subject suggests a remark on the nature and aims 
 of infidelity. Men often think that unbelief is a harmless 
 thing. They sometimes regard it as a special proof of 
 meritorious independence to be an infidel. They pride 
 themselves on their philosophy, and their freedom from 
 vulgar prejudices and priestcraft perhaps on their freedom 
 from the prejudices instilled by a pious parent, a pastor, or 
 a Sunday-school teacher. They consider the denunciations 
 of unbelief in the gospel as singularly harsh, and use no 
 measured terms in expressing their abhorrence of a system 
 which denounces the eternal pains of hell on a man because 
 he will not believe. The want of faith, say they, is a harm- 
 less or a meritorious thing. But are you connected with a 
 bank ? Would you think that a harmless effort in a daily 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 113 
 
 paper which should attempt to unsettle the confidence of 
 the community in your institution ? Have you a character 
 for virtue, which you have secured by years of toil, and of 
 upright deportment ? Is that a harmless report in the com- 
 munity which tends to destroy all confidence in that charac- 
 ter ? Are you a father ? Is it a harmless effort of your 
 neighbour when he attempts to unsettle the confidence of 
 your own children in your virtue ? Are you a husband ? 
 Is he a harmless man who shall aim to unsettle your faith 
 in the wife of your bosom, and produce between you and 
 her an utter want of confidence ? And is there no evil 
 in that state of mind where there is no confidence in God 
 that rules on high the God that made us, and that holds 
 our destiny in his hands? Is it nothing to unsettle the 
 faith of man in his God, and- to introduce universal distrust 
 in his government ? Is it nothing to inculcate or cherish 
 the thought that the governor of the world is a dark, ma- 
 lignant, harsh, and severe being, and to alienate the affec- 
 tions of creation from its God ? Let the history of the 
 earth answer. All our evils began in that unhappy mo- 
 ment when our first parents lost their confidence in their 
 God. " Loss of Eden," toil, sweat, despair, perplexity and 
 death, tell what the evil was. Calamities have rolled along 
 in black and angry surges, and the dark flood still swells 
 and heaves upon the earth. Peace will be restored and 
 paradise regained only when man is restored to confidence in 
 his God and this is the grand and glorious work of the 
 gospel. This done in any heart, and its " peace becomes as 
 a river and its righteousness as the waves of the sea." This 
 done all over the earth, and millennial joy will visit the 
 nations. This done, as successive individuals or generations 
 leave the world, death is disarmed of his sting, for the 
 departing soul leaves with full assurance of faith on the 
 Saviour. 
 
 10* 
 
114 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUSU WITH GOD ? 
 
 VIII. The bearing and importance of the doctrine of jus- 
 tification ly faith. 
 
 The points which have been illustrated in the previous 
 sections are the following : The importance of the inquiry 
 how man can be justified with God ; the fact that man cannot 
 justify or vindicate himself by denying the truth of the 
 charges against him ; the fact that he cannot do it by show- 
 ing that he had a right to do as he has done ; the fact that 
 he cannot merit salvation; what is to be understood by the 
 merits of Christ ; in what sense we are justified by the 
 merits of Christ ; and the agency of faith in our justifica- 
 tion. It is proposed now, in the conclusion of the subject, 
 to refer to some historical illustrations of the value and in- 
 fluence of the doctrine of justification by faith, and to show 
 why it has the place which history has assigned it. 
 
 In illustrating the value and influence of the doctrine as 
 shown by history, three periods of the world may be briefly 
 referred to. 
 
 (1.) The first is the age of the apostles, when, perhaps, 
 the effect of the doctrine of justification by faith was more 
 vividly seen than it has ever been since. That this was the 
 doctrine which Paul preached ; which he made prominent 
 in his writings; and which he everywhere defended, no 
 one acquainted with his history can for a moment doubt. 
 It would be needless here to transcribe the passages of his 
 writings which declare his views on this point ; or which 
 show how earnestly he expressed his convictions of its truth 
 and importance. Everywhere he maintained that a man is 
 not justified by the deeds of the law, but by the righteous- 
 ness of faith ; that we are saved not by works of righteous- 
 ness which we have done ; that they that are under the law 
 are under the curse ; and that they who are justified by 
 faith have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 In the most earnest and emphatic manner he abjured all 
 dependence on his own merits for salvation ; disclaimed all 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 115 
 
 reliance on the extraordinary zeal for religion which he had 
 manifested in early life, and on his own blameless outward 
 deportment, and declared it now to be the grand purpose of 
 his soul to " know Christ, and to be found in him, not hav- 
 ing his own righteousness which was of the law, but the 
 righteousness which is of God by faith." Phil. iii. 9. In 
 this he coincided with all the other apostles, who taught, as 
 he did, that no reliance was to be placed on outward forms 
 of religion, on good works, on an amiable character, or on 
 alms, as the ground of salvation. It was then that the doc- 
 trine of simple dependence on Christ for salvation went 
 forth with freshness and with power. It was unencum- 
 bered by any attending doctrine of a different character to 
 fetter its movements ; or to hinder its progress through the 
 world. There was no necessity proclaimed of depending on 
 rites or forms of religion ; no reverence for sacred places 
 inculcated as necessary to salvation ; no connection with a 
 particular church organized under a peculiar ministry, was 
 declared to be essential ; no saving efficacy was attributed 
 to sacraments and to alms ; no merits of the holy men of 
 other ages could be depended upon to make up the deficiency 
 of those who sought to be saved ; no promise was held out 
 that the dead might be saved through the extraordinary 
 sacrifices and benevolence of the living. The naked doc- 
 trine of justification by faith in Christ stood out before the 
 world ; fresh in its youthful vigour ; with no trappings or 
 ornaments to hide and obscure it ; a simple, solemn, sublime 
 truth that all might appreciate and that might be available 
 to all. This was then the sword of the spirit slaying hu- 
 man pride; cutting down the self-righteousness of men; 
 prostrating the great and the mean, the learned and the 
 unlearned, the patrician and the plebeian, the master and 
 the slave, the man in purple and the man in rags, alike 
 a sword whose keenness was not rendered useless then by 
 being hid in a gorgeous scabbard. 
 
116 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST * WITH GOD? 
 
 The doctrine thus promulgated by the apostle stood op- 
 posed to the prevailing views of all the world. It waa 
 opposed to all the aims of the Pharisees the essential tenet 
 of whose religion was expressed graphically and honestly 
 by one of their own number, " God, I thank thee that I 
 am not as other men are." It stood opposed to all the views 
 of the Sadducees, who held to the necessity of no kind of 
 religion, denying the whole doctrine of the future state. It 
 stood opposed to the Essenes, the remaining Jewish sect, 
 who sought to work out their salvation by extraordinary 
 fastings and privations, and by exclusion from contact with 
 the world. It stood opposed to the whole system of sacri- 
 fices among the heathen, seeking to propitiate the gods, and 
 to render themselves accepted by dependence on the forms 
 of religion ; and it was at variance" with all the views of 
 philosophy the pride of the Stoic, confident in his own 
 righteousness ; the licentiousness of the Epicurean, justify- 
 ing his own voluptuousness ; and the self-complacency of 
 the sage, who relied on his own wisdom. An apostle could 
 go nowhere where the doctrine would not come in conflict 
 with all the prevailing views in regard to the way in which 
 men might be saved. Yet no one now can be ignorant of 
 the effect of this doctrine as promulgated by the apostles. 
 It changed the religion of the world, for Christianity made 
 no other advances than as it taught men to renounce every 
 other ground of dependence and to rely for salvation solely 
 on the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. It had no martial 
 power by which to make its way ; it had no influence de- 
 rived from name and rank to enforce its claim ; it had no 
 authority derived from a venerable antiquity on which to 
 rely ; it had no gorgeous and imposing forms to enable it 
 to command the respect of those who had worshipped in 
 the Parthenon or the Pantheon ; it had no claims to any 
 new discoveries in philosophy. It had but one thing that 
 was new, great, improving, commanding, and that was the 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 117 
 
 announcement of Christ crucified, and the fact that men 
 everywhere might now be justified by the merits of his 
 atoning blood. Never has any truth on any subject stood 
 more by itself, to make its own way without adventitious 
 aid, than this did in the hands of the Christian apostles, 
 and never before had any single truth on any subject pro- 
 duced such changes in the world. 
 
 (2.) The second fact, to which reference will be made, is 
 the state of the world when the doctrine of justification by 
 faith was obscured and almost extinguished in the Church. 
 It soon began to be obscured. Very early the professed 
 friends of religion began to lose sight of it. So strong in 
 the human mind is the love of pomp and ceremony and 
 form ; so attached is man to splendour and show in religion 
 as in every thing else ; so prone is the heart to rely on its 
 own doings ; and so reluctant is the sinner everywhere to 
 depend for salvation on the righteousness of another, that 
 this doctrine gradually died away and almost ceased to be 
 remembered in the church. Then arose the system which 
 spread night all over the Christian world the night of 
 ignorance, error, superstition, and crime a night deepening 
 for ages till it terminated in the consummate depravity of 
 the Papacy under Alexander VI. Under this forgetful- 
 ness of the doctrine of justification by faith, or of salvation 
 by simple dependence on Christ crucified, arose the univer- 
 sal respect for sacred places and orders of men ; zeal for 
 splendid temples of worship and for gorgeous ceremonies ; 
 extraordinary veneration for the sepulchres of saints, and 
 for their holy remains ; pilgrimages to the holy land ; the 
 doctrine of baptismal regeneration and of absolution of sins 
 by the imposition of holy hands ; the belief that grace was 
 imparted by sacraments administered by a priesthood ; the 
 doctrine that the merits of the saints of other days were 
 garnered up for the benefit of future ages and placed at the 
 disposal of the Church; the multiplication of sacraments 
 
118 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUSf WITH GOD? 
 
 with saving efficacy attributed to them all, and the belief 
 of a peculiar sacredness attached to ground consecrated to 
 the burial of the dead. All these were features of one 
 great system. They had some relation to Christianity, and 
 had grown in part out of the abuse of its doctrines. But 
 though various, they were arranged evidently under the 
 auspices of one master mind and with the same end in 
 view. That was to render nugatory the doctrine of justifi- 
 cation by faith, and to substitute in its place the doctrine of 
 salvation by works. It was, indeed, salvation by works 
 connected with the religion of Christ, and was a different 
 system from that of the Pharisee who expected to be saved 
 by conformity to the law of Moses ; or the Grecian philoso- 
 pher who hoped to reach heaven by the purity of his doc- 
 trine and his morals; or the degraded pagan who relied on the 
 blood of his sacrifices ; or the man now" who relies on his 
 own honesty and fidelity in the various relations of life ; but 
 it was essentially the same system. It excluded the simple 
 dependence of the soul on the Lord Jesus for salvation, and 
 substituted in its stead a reliance on human merit. 
 
 The effect was seen in the darkness, sin, and corruption 
 of Europe before the Reformation. Every feature of the 
 state of things in the "dark ages" can be traced to an 
 obscuring of the great doctrine of justification by faith. 
 Every advance of society into that deep and deepening 
 gloom was connected with some loosening of its hold on 
 that doctrine, and the substitution of something else in ita 
 place, until the hold was entirely gone, and Europe wa? 
 plunged in total night. 
 
 (3.) The third historical fact, therefore, to be referred to, 
 is the effect which the recovery and restoration of this doc- 
 trine had on the Church and the world at the period of the 
 Reformation. To those who have studied the history of 
 that period, as all Protestants should do, it is unnecessary 
 to say that this was the elementary doctrine the central 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 119 
 
 view the starting point in the whole of that glorious 
 revolution. This was the great truth that dawned on the 
 mind of Luther, and which led to all that he attempted and 
 accomplished for the restoration of the Church to its primi- 
 tive purity, and it occupied an equally central position in 
 the view of all his fellow-labourers. Three times was the 
 doctrine of justification by faith brought before the mind 
 of Luther, with the same sort of power which it had when 
 promulgated by the apostles, and with such energy as to 
 rouse all that was great in his soul into life. The first was 
 when he was a monk in his cell. He had found a copy of 
 the Bible, and he began to study it and to lecture on it. 
 He commenced with the Psalms, but soon passed to the 
 Epistle to the Romans. One day having proceeded as far 
 as the seventeenth verse of the first chapter, the words 
 quoted from Habakkuk " The just shall live by faith" 
 arrested his attention. A new thought struck him. A 
 new way of salvation opened before his mind. A new 
 light shone upon his heart, and the words " the just shall 
 live by faith" seemed never to leave him. The second in- 
 stance was when he first visited Rome. These words fol- 
 lowed him and lingered on his ear. One of his first im- 
 pressions was that he was now in the very place to which 
 Paul had addressed these words in his epistle. Yet in that 
 city how were they obscured and unknown ! On every 
 hand were arrangements for being justified by works by 
 forms and ceremonies; by pomp and pageantry; by the 
 merits of the saints, and by penance. What a total ob- 
 scuration of the great doctrine which Paul had taught in 
 the letter to the Church there, and which he had himself 
 doubtless taught when he had dwelt in that city ! The 
 third instance in which these words were brought to the 
 heart of Luther was more impressive still. " One day 
 wishing to obtain an indulgence promised by the pope to 
 any one who should ascend on his knees what is called 
 
120 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST* WITH GOD ? 
 
 'Pilate's stair-case' the poor Saxon monk was slowly 
 climbing those steps which they told him had been miracu- 
 lously transported from Jerusalem to Rome. But while he 
 was going through this meritorious work he thought he 
 heard a voice, like thunder, speaking from the depths of his 
 heart, < The just shall live by faith' He started up in 
 terror on the steps up which he had been crawling ; he was 
 horrified at himself; and, struck with shame for the degra- 
 tion to which superstition had debased him, he fled from 
 the scene of his folly. This powerful text had a myste- 
 rious influence on the life of Luther. It was a creative 
 word for the Reformer and for the Reformation." D'Au- 
 bigne. It was this truth that wrought out the Reformation : 
 and whatever there was in that work that is valuable and 
 precious ; whatever there was to shed a benign influence on 
 literature, liberty and morals ; whatever there was to spread 
 pure religion over Switzerland, or G-ermany, or England, or 
 ultimately over our own land, and then by a reflex influence 
 on Asia Minor, on Palestine, on the palmy East, on dark 
 Africa, and on the islands of the sea, is to be traced to 
 those moments when this text broke with so much living 
 power on the soul of Luther: "The just shall live by 
 faith/' It became with him an elementary truth, that the 
 doctrine of justification by faith was the "article of the 
 standing or the falling church" the very joint or hinge 
 (articulus) on which the whole depended.* To that doc- 
 trine we owe, in its various developments, all that we value 
 in this Protestant land, and all that distinguishes us in reli- 
 gion from what Europe was in the days of Alexander VI. 
 and Leo X. ; and there is not an interest of religion, liberty, 
 or learning, which has not been moulded by it more than 
 by any other single cause. Our modes of worship; our 
 readiness to spread the Bible ; our freedom of discussion ; 
 
 * "Articulus etantis vel cadentis eccfesia." 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 121 
 
 our general diffusion of intelligence; our untrammelled 
 press ; our separation of religion from the state ; our socie- 
 ties for the spread of the gospel ; our blessed and glorious 
 revivals; our deliverance from superstition, and from the 
 tyranny of a priesthood, and from the corruptions and 
 abominations of the monastic system, and from the debase- 
 ment of penance and pilgrimages, are all to be traced to the 
 power of this single truth that blazed with such an intensity 
 on the soul of the poor Saxon monk. Such being some of 
 the facts in the case, let us, 
 
 I. Inquire why this doctrine has this importance and 
 power. This will be seen if we can trace its connection 
 with what it has been undeniably everywhere united with 
 a religion of deep spirituality ; of simplicity of worship ; 
 of deadness to the world ; of freedom of opinion ; of liberal 
 views, and of great and cheerful sacrifices for the good of 
 mankind. There are but two systems of religion on the 
 earth : the one is that of self-righteousness ; the other that 
 of salvation by the merits of Christ ; the one that of men 
 who attempt, in various ways, to justify themselves before 
 God ; the other, that of those who seek to be justified 
 through the righteousness of the Redeemer. The bearing 
 and importance of the latter, in contrast with the former, is 
 the point now before us. 
 
 (1.) This doctrine of justification by faith has a power of 
 reaching the soul and of calling forth every active energy 
 of our nature which the other system never can have. It 
 leaves the impresion that the soul is of vast value ; that 
 religion is of inestimable importance ; that the grand pur- 
 pose of living should be religion. The reason of this, which 
 may not at once be apparent, is, that it finds the soul in such 
 a state, wherever it is embraced, that it arouses all that is 
 thrilling, and vast, and momentous in the soul itself, and in 
 its hopes and relations. The language which the doctrine 
 of justification by faith addresses to each individual is this : 
 
122 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUS1J WITH GOD? 
 
 " You are a lost sinner. You have no righteousness of 
 your own. You never will have any. Your heart is by 
 nature depraved, and your whole past life has been evil. In 
 all that you have done, you have done nothing to merit the 
 favour of God, or even to commend yourself to his appro- 
 bation. All your righteousness is as filthy rags. All your 
 outward forms of religion ; your fastings, penance, and 
 vows; your amiableness of character, your honesty, your 
 integrity, your pride of birth and station, are all to pass for 
 nothing before God in the matter of justification. Nor can 
 you hope of yourself to do any thing more in the future 
 that will commend you to God than you have done in the 
 past. No form of religion ; no flood of tears ; no framing 
 of the life by an outward law } no acts of self-denial ; no 
 fastings, prayers, or almsgivings can wipe away the deep 
 stains of past guilt on the soul, or constitute an expiation 
 for what you have done. In this state you are near the 
 grave, and just over the world of wo. A moment might 
 cut you off from the land of the living, and from the pos- 
 sibility of being saved. In this state you are wholly de- 
 pendent on the sovereign mercy of God. You may be 
 saved, but not by works of righteousness of your own. 
 You may be saved, but it must be by renouncing all de- 
 pendence on your own righteousness forever. You may be 
 saved, but it must be wholly by the merits of another. 
 Kings, sages, philosophers, priests, poets, warriors, knights, 
 senators, judges ; the gay, the accomplished, the rich, the 
 poor, the vile, the bond, the free ; all lie on a level 
 before God. You may be saved ; but it will only be by 
 your making up the mind to a willingness to be saved in 
 the same way as the vilest of the species, and to stand be- 
 fore the throne clothed in the same robes of salvation that 
 shall adorn the most debased and down-trodden of the 
 human race. Now it is easy to conceive, even for those 
 who have not experienced this, that such a religion must 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 123 
 
 have the elements of great power of some kind. It can 
 make its way only by sufficient power to crush the pride of 
 man ; to bring down his lofty thoughts \ to humble him in 
 the dust, and then by imparting life where there was none. 
 There is nothing negative and tame about it. It has living 
 energy through all this process. No man reaches the posi- 
 tion of self-abasement and self-renunciation where this doc- 
 trine 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 re- 
 nounce all his own righteousness, and to be willing to ac- 
 knowledge, 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 unspeak- 
 able torments forever in hell. And it is not an unmean- 
 ing 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 An- 
 tioch, at Philippi. It was this which aroused Europe in the 
 Reformation. It is this whose power is seen in every re- 
 vival 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 
 
124 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST] WITH GOD? 
 
 the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Ben- 
 jamin, 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, I count all things but loss for the 
 excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Chap, 
 iii. 4-8. The other is a record of Luther's feelings by 
 himself when he was first made to understand this doctrine. 
 " Though as a monk," says he, "I was holy and irreproach- 
 able, my conscience was still filled with trouble and torment. 
 I could not endure the expression c 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 learnt 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 pas- 
 sages which taught me what the work of God was. And 
 as I had before heartily hated' the expression, i The right- 
 eousness 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." 
 D J Aubigne. 
 
 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, 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 125 
 
 "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 im- 
 portance, 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 at- 
 tempt 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 the effect of each of them ? 
 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 re- 
 liance 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 : 
 
 (a) Pride. " God, I thank thee that I am not as other 
 men are," is its language all over the world. 
 
 (6) A multiplication of forms, and a reliance on them. 
 Religion becomes an outward thing, not a work of the 
 heart. So it was with the Pharisees, the Greeks, the Ro- 
 mans ') so it is now in the pagan world, among Moham- 
 medans, and in all the perverted forms of Christianity. It 
 matters little what the outward form is ; but where the doc- 
 trine 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 ceremonies. 
 It adds a new ceremony for every step of departure from 
 
 11* 
 
126 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST jWITH GOD? 
 
 the doctrine of justification by faith ; it attaches an addi- 
 tional sacredness to them as this doctrine is obscured, and 
 where this is wholly lost out of view, religion becomes 
 merely a punctilious performance of imposing rites, a care- 
 ful 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 it 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 torture, 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 justi- 
 fication 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 intro- 
 duction 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 cling to the great doctrine of justification 
 by faith, or whether we shall go abroad and import all the 
 superstitions of heathenism, whether 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 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 127 
 
 must hold in its simplicity and its purity the great doctrine 
 of justification by faith. 
 
 (3.) A third thing illustrating its bearing and import- 
 ance, is the fact that it is connected 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 fact 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 characterized 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, which denied by all its arrangements the doc- 
 trine of justification by faith, which imprisoned Galileo. 
 The Inquisition grew up in lands where this doctrine was 
 denied, and has flourished there only, and could live no- 
 where 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 in which such an institution could be esta- 
 blished ; 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-fes, 
 and dark dungeons made to incarcerate the advocate of any 
 religious belief. Whatever else we may be subjected to, 
 this doctrine will be a palladium to us, not fabled as was 
 the image of Minerva, but a reality 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 j that it 
 depends for its support on nothing which may not be fully 
 
128 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST jWITH GOD? 
 
 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 men, 
 and this must be done on arguments that will not bear the 
 light. It is, and must be sustained by the power of the state. 
 It loves a religion of blind believing rather than of reasoning. 
 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 pro- 
 curing 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 the worthlessness of 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. It is 
 
 (4.) That the doctrine of justification by faith is con- 
 nected 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 chan- 
 nel. There are certain men who alone are appointed to 
 dispense it; it is to be obtained only in union with a 
 certain ecclesiastical connection, 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 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 129 
 
 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 is not essential 
 whether the minister officiates with or without a surplice ; 
 whether in a plain " meeting-house" or a magnificent cathe- 
 dral; 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, for the soul may be 
 justified by simple faith in the Lord Jesus. The worship- 
 per 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 justi- 
 fication. What has occurred to him on the hills, or in the 
 woods, or in a school-house, or in a church, he feels may 
 occur anywhere else in the same way. It will not become 
 then essential to his view that the doctrines of religion 
 should be preached on a hill, or in a valley ; that the minis- 
 ter stands in front of a tent, or that he ministers at a cer- 
 tain altar ; it will not be essential that he wear a certain 
 vestment, or be able to trace his spiritual genealogy back to 
 far distant times, what 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 he has, that is enough. It is to him a ques- 
 tion of comparatively no moment whether he thinks that 
 
130 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST! WITH GOD? 
 
 baptism by immersion is the only method ; or whether he 
 regards John Wesley as the greatest and the best of men ; or 
 whether he believes that all human wisdom was embodied in 
 the Westminster Assembly of divines ; or whether he thinks 
 that the ministry exists only in three orders. All these 
 will be comparative trifles. The grand matter is, that the 
 lost and guilty soul is justified by the blood of the "everlast- 
 ing covenant " and that settles every thing that is truly 
 valuable in his view in regard to the salvation of the soul. 
 Such a system, it is clear, must be essentially liberal. It 
 cannot be a system which will be primarily concerned in 
 " questions and strifes of words" about the externals of 
 religion. It will recognise in every man, who has ever felt 
 the efficacy of the blood of Christ, a Christian brother. It 
 will regard all men by nature as essentially on the same 
 level in reference to salvation. There will be, in the mat- 
 ter of religion, no favoured class, no holy order ; none, by 
 nature, nearer heaven than others, and none who shall have 
 a right to prescribe to others what they are to believe or to 
 do. One point one grand doctrine distinguishes them, no 
 matter of what sect, or country, or complexion, they may 
 be that they are redeemed by the blood of the same Sa- 
 viour. They are of the same family. They have the same 
 rights in the kingdom of grace. No one has a right, in 
 virtue of blood, or name, or connection with outward forms 
 of religion, to claim a superior nearness to heaven ; nor, if 
 the soul is justified by the blood of Jesus, has he the 
 right or the disposition to withhold the name of Christian, 
 or to say that a soul thus justified is left to " the uncove- 
 nanted mercies of God." 
 
 The doctrine which has been considered constitutes the 
 peculiarity of the Protestant religion. Protestantism began 
 in the restoration of the doctrine of justification by faith. 
 This, more than any thing else, distinguishes the system. 
 
HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 131 
 
 All there is of Protestantism that is of value is in this doc- 
 trine j and all that we have of liberality in religion, and 
 freedom from persecution, and purity of doctrine, is to be 
 traced to this. 
 
 The whole discussion on the doctrine of justification may 
 be closed by a personal appeal to those who may read this 
 tract. There are but two ways conceivable on which you 
 can be saved. One is, on the ground of your own right- 
 eousness ; the other is, on the ground of the righteousness 
 of the Lord Jesus. There is no middle way conceivable. 
 It is the grand question, then, and one in which every indi- 
 vidual has the deepest interest, What is the ground of 
 your reliance ? On which of these do you depend when 
 you think of being admitted to heaven ? If you rely on 
 the former on your own righteousness it must be either 
 because you can disprove the facts which are charged on 
 you as sin, or because, if the facts are undeniable, you will 
 be able to vindicate your conduct before the bar of the 
 Almighty. Here, then, it may be solemnly asked, whether 
 you are willing to rest your soul's interests*m such a founda- 
 tion ? Are you prepared to abide the issue of such a trial ? 
 Can you calmly look forward to such an investigation of 
 your life before God's bar, and feel secure when you think 
 of the tremendous interests of the soul that are at stake ? 
 Are you prepared to go up to meet your Maker with the 
 feeling that your only hope there is self-vindication ? It 
 may be permitted to the writer of this tract, in view of 
 these reasonings, and of the truths that have been suggested, 
 and in view also of the solemn fact that he, like those whom 
 he addresses, is soon to stand before the tribunal where all 
 will be judged, to say, " I AM NOT. I turn to the other 
 system which I have endeavoured to set before you. I look 
 away from all that I have done the miserable rags of my 
 own righteousness to the white robe of salvation wrought 
 
J.32 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST?! WITH GOD ? 
 
 out by my great Redeemer, and seek to wrap that robe around 
 my guilty soul, and I feel that if justified by faith in his 
 blood I shall be safe." 
 
 A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, 
 
 On thy kind arms I fall ; 
 Be thou my strength and righteousness, 
 
 My Saviour and my all. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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