tification be acquittal, then was it indeed a difficulty worthy of divine intervention, to discover a method whereby God could, without prejudice to his justice, acquit those who had rebelled against him.

5. While, however, we thus distinguish between pardon and justification, we must be careful not to consider them as separable acts; so as to admit that a man may be pardoned who is not justified, or justified who is not pardoned. Justification includes or supposes pardon, for he to whom God's favour and eternal happiness are awarded by the act of justification, having been actually a sinner, must be pardoned, or he can never enjoy the reward. In other words, no man can enter heaven who is not delivered from hell. And since there is no negative state of eternal existence, which would necessarily be the case if any were pardoned without being at the same time justified, we conclude, that the act of pardon is always accompanied and completed by the act of justification. The conditions are also the same for both. Repentance and faith are requisite for the very first admission into the gospel covenant; and the fruits of repentance, and the exercise of faith, are all that are required for admission into heaven.

6. Taylor is very inconsistent in the laboured account which he gives of the term dixaloσuvn. First,

derstand rightly the Epistle to the Romans, it is farther necessary to observe; that the Apostle considers mankind as obnoxious to the divine wrath, and as standing before God the judge of all. Hence it is, that he uses forensic or law-terms, usual in Jewish courts, such as law, righteousness, or justification, being justified, &c. These I take to be forensic, or court-terms; and the Apostle using them, naturally leads our thoughts to suppose a court held, a judgment-seat to be erected by the most high God, in the several cases whence he draws his argu

ments.'

7. But in the next ch. (p. 115.), where he proceeds to examine the meaning of dizaioovn, he entirely throws aside this forensic sense for which he has been pleading, and renders it goodness, mercy, or the salvation and deliverance which the goodness and mercy of God vouchsafe to us. But goodness, mercy, or deliverance, are surely not forensic words, nor are the ideas which they convey, forensic ideas. Again, in proceeding to shew (p. 130.) its use in the Epistles, he says it signifies deliverance, or salvation, and it is opposed to condemnation, or death. But in a forensic sense, the opposite to condemnation, is not deliverance simply, but deliverance by an

8. We may farther remark on this term justification, that it implies a moral approbation on the part of God towards the man who is justified; and in this moral approbation rests in some degree the justice of the acquittal. We may perhaps conceive the possibility of God's pardoning a sinner, while the character of the sinner continued to be the object of his just and holy abhorrence: but that he should justify or acquit a man under such circumstances, is in the very nature of things impossible.

9. Lastly, we may observe, that there are two justifications, the one takes place in time, and is a secret act of the divine mind, acquitting and approving. The other will be an open declaration of this acquittal, and its irreversible ratification at the last day. And here it may be useful to mention, that the double justification just alluded to, is not by any means that held by many Romanists, by Whitby and by Taylor, and refuted by Bull. (Bull H. A. Diss. 11. ch. 3.) Taylor, who propounds his view of a double justification at considerable length, holds that the condition of the first is simply faith, the condition of the second simply obedience. (Key, pp. 97, 98.) The first justification consists in admission to the church; the second in admission to eternal life. He quotes (p. 100.) the case of Simon the

God, though he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity,' yet believed and was baptized.' He was so, but it is not said that he was justified. Taylor next maintains, that in this sense (the sense of a general faith belonging equally to all professing Christians whether good or bad); the Apostle says, (Gal. iii. 26.) Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.' But the Apostle says in the next verse, For as many of you as have been baptized have put on Christ.' The expression, to put on Christ,' occurs also in Rom xiii. 14, where it clearly means, not merely to profess Christianity, but to imitate the virtues which Christ practised upon earth. St. Paul therefore believed that the Galatians were acting up to their baptismal vow, and might therefore be justly considered as children of God: whereas Simon, who, though baptized, had not put on Christ, had neither part nor lot in the privileges of God's people.

10. But the double justification, of which the first consists in an act of the divine mind, acquitting the sinner; and the second in a public declaration of this act, is one in cause and condition. And in examining the causes and conditions of the first justification, which all agree to be that treated of in the Romans, it cannot but be most important to examine the causes and conditions of the latter

is evident that the reasons given by a just judge for a decision, must have been the reasons upon which that decision was formed.

Before we enter upon this inquiry however, it will be requisite to lay down the exact meaning of the terms faith, and works of the law, the former of which is affirmed, and the latter is denied by St. Paul to be the condition of justification.

11. TIOTI, faith. It seems evident that this very common word had acquired no technical theological sense, before it was used by our Saviour and his Apostles and as they used this common term without any restrictive definition, except as to its object, they must have intended it to be understood in its familiar acceptation; namely, as a conviction of the mind, that the gospel is true, combined with a knowledge of what the gospel really is. For, since the gospel is a series of propositions, closely connected with and depending upon each other, to believe the gospel, must mean to believe each and all of the propositions which it contains. But though πιστις means simply belief, yet when spoken of as the instrumental cause of justification, it implies much more, namely, feeling and acting in accordance with that belief. A strict attention to this distinction between the essential nature and the proper acts of faith; between the universal meaning and the im