they denominate them "filthy rags*." Rags they are, if we consider their great imperfections; filthy rags, if we advert to their manifold defilements. And since the nature of God is so irreconcileably averse to all contamination, since the law of God requires such unspotted perfection, O! "who can stand before this holy Lord God," 1 Sam. vi. 20, in any accomplishments of their own?

When I farther reflect that I have only a very obscure glimpse of the divine purity, and am a mere novice in the knowledge of my own heart, how am I amazed at the lofty apprehensions which I once formed concerning the dignity of my nature and the integrity of my conduct! All owing to ignorance, the grossest ignorance, of myself and the Scriptures. How do I shudder to think, that, in expecting justification from the law, I was resting the welfare of my immortal soul, not on the foundation of a rock, but on the point of a dagger. I was going to the decisive tribunal, flushed with the falsest hopes, and charged with a set of glittering sins; going, like poor deluded Uriah, 2 Sam. xi. 14, 15, not with any valid credentials, but with "the ministration of death," 2 Cor. iii. 9, in my hand.

Though I cannot but acknowledge the arrogance of these pretensions, yet loath, very loath, is my pride to renounce the pleasing absurdity. Self-love has searched, and searched again, for something excellent. It would fain make a better appearance, and can hardly brook the humiliation of imploring all sub forma pauperis t. With what reluctance is a sinner brought to confess himself sinful in every capacity? Strange perverseness! But the charge is undeniable. However unwilling, I must plead guilty. "Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting," Dan. v. 27, is evidently written on all I am, all I have, all I do. And if I am thus defective, even in my own estimation; if I am utterly condemned at the bar of my own conscience, "what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?" Job xxxi. 14.

I now see the necessity of an imputed righteousness. Without some such object for my trust, I am undone. I long, therefore, to hear your arguments in its behalf. And I must declare to you, if it can be satisfactorily proved from the Scriptures, it is the most comfortable doctrine in the world, and worthy of all acceptation.

A letter upon this subject would be a singular favour, and I hope an equal blessing to your obliged and affectionate THERON.

Isa. lxiv. 6. Does not Theron misapply this text? Can it be intended to discredit the qualifications of the upright? Is it not rather a brand set upon the works of the wicked, whose very sacrifices are an abomination to the Lord? Or, a rebuke given to the specious performances of the hypocrite, who is precise in the form, but destitute of the power of godliness? Or, may it not refer to ritual observances, in contradistinction to moral duties and spiritual accomplishments?

The disparaging character must not, I think, be confined to ritual observances; because t is expressly said, all our righteousness, including every kind of religious duty: neither can it be appropriated to the formal hypocrite, much less to the notoriously wicked; because those very persons who are the subject of this assertion declare, in the context, "Lord, we are thy people; thou art our Father; we shall be saved." So that it seems intended to stain the pride of all human glory.

That is, under the character of a poor destitute, or as a beggar sues for his alms.

LETTER III.-ASPASIO TO THERON.

DEAR THERON,-Though all your letters give me pleasure, none was ever so highly pleasing as your last. I look upon it with the same secret joy as a compassionate physician observes some very favourable symptoms in the crisis of a beloved patient's distemper.

What you ask, I shall, without any farther preface, attempt to execute. If my attempt proves satisfactory to your judgment, I am sure it will be the most likely means of healing your conscience, and calming your fears. When we perceive the odious depravity of our nature; when we discern the horrible iniquity of our lives, and are sensible of that tremendous wrath and everlasting vengeance which are due to such guilty creatures; then nothing can be found that will speak effectual peace, nothing that will administer solid comfort, but only the vicarious sufferings and the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

To this purpose speaks one of the wisest and best of spiritual guides : "Has sin abounded?" as undoubtedly it has, in our heart and our life; "grace has much more abounded," in the obedience and the merits of our Redeemer, Nay, "has sin reigned?" exerted its malignant power in the most extensive and most destructive manner, rendering us subject unto death, both temporal and eternal? "Even so has grace reigned;" exerted its benign efficacy, and in a manner yet more triumphant ; not only rescuing us from guilt and ruin, but restoring us to everlasting life and glory; and all this through the righteousness, the complete meritorious righteousness, brought in "by Jesus Christ our Lord," Rom. v. 21.

You inquire after the proofs of this imputed righteousness. From a multitude I shall select a few; sufficient, I hope, to make it appear, that this is the declared doctrine of our church, and the avowed belief of her most eminent divines; that it is copiously revealed through the whole Scriptures, revealed in many express passages, and deducible from a variety of instructive

similitudes.

Hear the language of our Common Prayer, in a very affecting and solemn address to the Almighty: "We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness." If we may not, if we dare not, rely on our own righteousness when we approach the eucharistic table, much less may we depend upon it when we are summoned to the decisive tribunal. Should you ask, on what we are to depend? The exhortation to the communion furnishes an answer: "On the meritorious death and passion of Christ, whereby alone we obtain remission of sins, and are made partakers of the kingdom of heaven."

The Collect appointed for the festival of circumcision has this remarkable introduction: " Almighty God, whose blessed Son was obedient to the law for man." In what sense, or with what propriety, can this be affirmed, unless Christ's perfect obedience be referable to us, and accepted instead of ? On any other interpretation, I should think he was obedient, not for man, but for himself.

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Should the artful critic give some other turn to these passages, it will avail him but little; because the church, her own best expositor, has explained the meaning of such phrases, and put the matter beyond all doubt. In her

eleventh article she says, "We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." The doctrine relating to pardon of sin had been stated in a preceding article. This displays the method whereby sinners may appear righteous in the eye of God and in the court of heaven, so as to recover the divine favour and obtain a title to eternal bliss. This is done, not by any native righteousness, not by any acquired righteousness, but by an imputed righteousness. Were we justified by either of the former methods, it would not have been said, we are accounted, but we are righteous. They are so far from constituting our reconciling and justifying righteousness, that they have no share in it, contribute nothing towards it, are totally excluded from it. We are accounted righteous, and accepted as such, only, (mark the expression) only through the meritorious obedience, and propitiating blood of our great Mediator.

:

The Homilies are, if it be possible, still more explicit and more cogent. In the Homily concerning the salvation of mankind, we read the following words: "The apostle toucheth three things, which must go together in our justification on God's part, his great mercy and grace: on Christ's part, the satisfaction of God's justice, or the price of our redemption, by the offering of his body, and the shedding of his blood, with fulfilling of the law perfectly; on our part, true and lively faith in the merits of Jesus Christ, which yet is not ours, but by God's working in us." You see, according to the judgment of our venerable reformers, not only the offering of Christ's body, and shedding of Christ's blood, but also his perfect fulfilling of the law, are the adequate price of our redemption. All these act conjointly; they sweetly harmonise in the great and glorious work. To suppose their disunion, is a doctrinal mistake, somewhat like that practical error of the Papists, in severing the sacramental wine from the sacramental bread; administering to the laity the symbols of the slaughtered body, but withholding the symbols of the streaming blood.

There are other clauses in the same Homily, which set the scal of the church to our sentiments. I shall content myself with transcribing one from the conclusion. "Christ," says that form of sound words, "is the righteousness of all them that do truly believe. He, for them, paid their ransom by his death. He, for them, fulfilled the law in his life. So that now, in him, and by him, every true Christian man may be called a fulfiller of the law; forasmuch as that which their infirmity lacked, Christ's righteousness hath supplied." This authority is as clear, as the doctrine authorised is comfortable. May the former sway our judgment ! may the latter cheer our hearts!

The Homily on Christ's nativity informs the reader, that the design of our Lord's incarnation was-" to give light unto the world, and call sinners to repentance; to fulfil the law for us, and become the propitiation for our sins; to cast out the prince of this world, and destroy the works of the devil." We have all broke the law; we are all unable to keep the law; therefore the blessed Jesus fulfilled the law; fulfilled it in each and every of its demands; fulfilled it in the highest degree of perfection; and what is of all considerations most delightful, fulfilled it for us. His obedience took the place of what we were obliged to perform under the covenant of works; and is not only the meritorious, but also the constituent cause of our justification.

So that, if there be any worthiness in our Lord's most holy nature, any merit in his exercise of the sublimest virtues, completed by his submission to

the most ignominious sufferings and tormenting death; then, according to this standard system of orthodox divinity, these are the ground, these are the substance of a sinner's justification. And, according to the dictates of the most unbiassed reason, they are the best, the surest ground that can either be wished or imagined.

Does it not from the preceding quotations appear, that the doctrine of justification, through the imputed righteousness of our Redeemer, is far from being disclaimed by the established church? I am sorry, but constrained to own, that we rarely find any considerable strictures of this great evangelical peculiarity in our modern theological discourses. Yet there have been preachers of the highest repute for learning, for judgment, and for piety, who professedly maintained this grand truth of the gospel.

The devout Bishop Beveridge, in his "Private Thoughts," has left upon record the following very remarkable acknowledgment, which, if it suited his state of eminent holiness, cannot be too humbling, my dear Theron, for your lips and for mine. "I do not remember, neither do I believe, that I ever prayed, in all my lifetime, with that reverence, or heard with that attention, or received the sacrament with that faith, or did any work with that pure heart and single eye, as I ought to have done. Insomuch, that I look upon all my righteousness but as filthy rags; and it is in the robes only of the righteousness of the Son of God, that I dare appear before the Majesty of heaven."

The fervent and affectionate Bishop Hopkins* speaks in perfect consonance with his brother of St. Asaph. "The law was given us, not that we should seek justification by the observance of it, but finding it impossible to be justified by fulfilling it, we should thereby be driven to Christ's righteousness, who hath both fulfilled it in himself, and satisfied for our transgressing of it; and therefore saith the apostle, 'The law was a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.' To this end it was promulged, that seeing the strictness of its precepts, the rigour of its threatenings, and withal being convinced of our impotence to fulfil its commands, we might be urged by its terrors to fly to Christ, and find that righteousness in him which may answer all the demands of the law."

Bishop Reynolds, styled by his contemporaries, and not without reason, "a walking library," bears his testimony in the following words: "Christ as our surety paid our debt, underwent the curse due to our sins, and bare them all in his own body on the tree; became subject to the law for us, and representatively in our stead fulfilled all the righteousness the law required, active and passive. For sin being once committed, there must be a double act to justification; the suffering of the curse, and the fulfilling of righteousness anew. The one, a satisfaction for the injury we have done to God as our Judge; the other, the performance of a service which we owe unto him as our Maker."

To this illustrious triumvirate, let me join Bishop Davenant, who for his great abilities and unquestionable integrity, was appointed one of our religious plenipotentiaries at the renowned synod of Dort. In his very valuable exposition of the Epistle to the Colossians, he writes to this effect: "Ye are complete in Christ. Ye are furnished, in that all-sufficient Redeemer, with whatever is requisite to everlasting salvation. With wisdom; since it is the

See his Sermon on John vii. 19.

+ See his treatise entitled, The Life of Christ.

consummation of this noble endowment, to know Christ, and him crucified. With righteousness; because he has perfectly satisfied the law, and thoroughly expiated our guilt. With sanctification; because his Spirit, dwelling in our hearts, mortifies our corrupt affections, and renews the soul after the image of its Creator."

The

Let me bring up the rear with a testimony, which for clearness, solidity, and a full representation of the evangelical doctrine, might very justly have laimed a place in the van. It is taken from an author, whom the general consent of our nation has distinguished with the title of "judicious." judicious Hooker, in a treatise on justification, says—“It is a childish cavil our adversaries so greatly please themselves with, exclaiming, that we tread all Christian virtues under our feet, because we teach, That faith alone justifieth. Whereas, by this speech, we never meant to exclude either hope or charity from being always joined as inseparable mates with faith in the man that is justified; or works from being added, as necessary duties required of every justified man; but to shew, that faith is the only hand which putteth on Christ to justification; and Christ the only garment which, being so put on, covereth the shame of our defiled nature, hideth the imperfection of our works, and preserveth us blameless in the sight of God: before whom, otherwise, the weakness of our faith were cause sufficient to make us culpable, yea, to shut us out of the kingdom of heaven, where nothing that is not absolute can enter."

You will allow the sagacious Bishop Sanderson + to sum up the evidence ; or rather, to make an important remark on the whole of the controversy. That great light of the church, both in casuistical and practical divinity, observes-"The tidings of a Redeemer must be blessed and welcome news, to those that are sensible of their own poverty, and take it of grace." Our eagle-eyed divine penetrates into the true cause of the prevailing averseness to this evangelical doctrine. It is founded on the state of the heart, more than upon any force of argument. People are but little, if at all, sensible of their spiritual and moral indigence; of the defects which depreciate, and the defilements which sully, whatever they have, and whatever they do. Nay, strongly tinctured with pride, they would be themselves the Alpha, and suffer the blessed Jesus to be no more than the Omega, in procuring their eternal salvation. Therefore they can hardly be reconciled to the humbling character of an eleemosynary; one who lives wholly upon the alms of the gospel, and is dependent upon grace for his all.

Whereas, was this grand obstacle once removed; were men convinced of sin, of exceeding sinfulness in their worst estate, and of remaining sinfulness in their best; they would soon be "convinced of righteousness," John xvi. 8. of the absolute necessity and inestimable worth of a Redeemer's righteousness. They would no longer dispute against it, but cordially receive it; entirely rely on it; and adore the goodness, the transcendent and unutterable goodness of God, in providing it.

I think, in one of our conferences, I undertook to produce my vouchers from the ancient fathers. Let me now subjoin two or three attestations of this kind. From one of which you will perceive, that those early writers

In this respect principally are believers complete; because, though destitute of any righteousness that may properly be called their own, Christ has graciously enriched them with his. Vid. DAVENANT in epist. ad Coloss. cap. ii. com. 10.

+ See his Sermon on Isa. lii. 3.