just as full in the last generation that lives, as it did in the days of the Saviour's personal residence 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.

(3.) Finally, let no one then say that he is so great a sinner that he cannot be saved. I know how the troubled sinner feels. I know that his guilt often presses him down as a mighty burden, and that he feels he has no claim to salvation. We do not ask you to come depending on your own merits. We believe that you never will find eternal life, if you make your own deeds your plea. But the sinner sometimes has another feeling. He not only feels that he has no merit and no claim to salvation, but he feels that his sins are so great that not even the merit of the Lord Jesus will be sufficient to cancel his guilt. Here, fellow-sinner, you err. Here you do injustice to his holy life, to his benevolent heart, to his death. That infinite merit which he secured by his work on earth, he is willing should be available for your salvation. And that is like the illimitable ocean. It is always full; and no matter how many have sought and found salvation there, there will be countless millions more. Come, then, thou who art conscious that thou hast no merit of thine own, and be one of that blessed number who receive of his fulness, grace for grace. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price," Isa. lv. 1.

SERMON XXXIV.

IN WHAT SENSE WE ARE JUSTIFIED BY THE MERITS OF CHRIST.

ROM. iii. 24.-"Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

THERE are several things affirmed in this text. One is, that the persons referred to—that is, Christians-are justified, or that there is a sense in which they are regarded as righteous. A second is, that this is done freely-dwpeáv: that is, that it is not by purchase or merit on our part, but that it has on the part of God the freeness of a gift. A third is, that it is by the grace of God; that is, that it is regarded as a proof of his favour to be justified. A fourth is, that this is through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, or is in virtue of his merits.

In the previous discourses, I have endeavoured to show that man cannot 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 :-I. What is meant by justification in the gospel; and, II. In what way we are justified by the merits of Christ.

I. What is meant by justification in the gospel? My 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 reference 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 probably 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 reflecting on this new relation. A few remarks, showing what is not meant, and what is, will make the subject clear.

(1.) It is not meant that a man who is justified on the gospelplan 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 by showing that he did not do the act charged on him, or that he had 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. I have endeavoured, in the former discourses, to show that in a legal 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 needful 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 criminality. 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 perfect and uniform obedience. The law of God, in conformity with the general principle 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 manifested;" that is, the method of justification in a way different from that known in the law, Rom. iii. 21. All attempts to show that the plan of justification in the gospel is a legal transaction, or is in accordance with legal principles, 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.

(3.) Nor does it mean that the man who is justified ceases to be ill-deserving 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 justified by the gospel. It is expressly said respecting this plan that. God "justifies the ungodly," Rom. iv. 5: meaning 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 pardoned man; not with pride and self-complacency that he is an innocent man. He will have the spirit of the publican, not of the Pharisee. The publican that went down to his house justified would not go feeling that he was innocent; he would be filled with gratitude that so great a sinner might be forgiven.

(4.) Justification in the gospel does not mean mere pardon. 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 different 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 signification. And another objection is, that mere forgiveness is not all which the case seems to demand. There was required 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 respects the purpose of God to treat the offender as if he had not sinned: and though these may be simultaneous, yet they may be 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 righteousness 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 individual 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 believe 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 righteousness of the Redeemer in the salvation of his people.

(6.) We are prepared now to remark positively, that justification on the gospel-plan denotes a purpose on the part of God to treat a sinner as if he were righteous. 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 purpose to shield him from the condemning sentence of the law, and the wrath that shall come upon the guilty; to admit him to the fellowship of unfallen beings; to regard him as entitled to all the privileges of a child of God, as if he had not fallen; to throw around him the ægis of the Divine protection and favour to the end of the present life, and then to admit him to immortal life in heaven. These things would have been his if he had not fallen; and these things are now made his in virtue of