y~~i ns-i THE BAMPTON LECTURES FOR THE YEAR MDCCCXLV. " Omnes qui ex Adam cum peccato peccatores; omnes qui per Christum justificati et justi, non in se sed in illo. Nam in se, si interroges, Adam sunt: in illo, si interroges, Christi sunt." August, in Joan. Tract. 3. §. 12. JUSTIFICATION. EIGHT SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, IN THE YEAR MDCCCXLV, AT THE LECTURE FOUNDED BY THE LATE CANON BAMPTON. BY CHARLES A. HEURTLEY, B.D. RECTOR OF FENNY COMPTON, WARWICKSHIRE; AND LATE FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. ' I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins." Nicene Creed. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER; F. AND J. BIVINGTON, LONDON. 1846. TO THE HEADS OF COLLEGES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, THE FOLLOWING SERMONS, PREACHED BY THEIR APPOINTMENT, ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, CANON OF SALISBUEY. " 1 give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to " the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University " of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular " the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents " and purposes hereinafter mentioned: that is to say, " I will and appoint, that the Vice- Chancellor of the " University of Oxford, for the time being, shall take and " receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and " (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions " made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment " of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for " ever in the said University, and to be performed in the " manner following : " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday " in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the " Heads of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room " adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours of " ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach " eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at viii EXTBACT FROM CANON BAMPTON's WILL. " St. Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of " the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the third " week in Act Term. " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity " Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of " the following Subjects: — to confirm and establish the " Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schis- " matics — upon the divine authority of the holy Scrip- " tures — upon the authority of the writings of the primitive " Fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primitive " Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour " Jesus Christ— upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — " upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre- " hended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity " Lecture Sermons shall be always printed, within two " months after they are preached, and one copy shall be " given to the Chancellor of the University, and one copy " to the Head of every College, and one copy to the " Mayor of the City of Oxford, and one copy to be put " into the Bodleian Library; and the expense of printing " them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or " Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture " Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor be " entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be " qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless " he hath taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in " one of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; " and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity " Lecture Sermons twice." PREFACE. The present Volume may be regarded as a sequel to a series of Sermons, preached before the University of Oxford, and published a few years ago, on the Union between Christ and His people ; being an application of the principles laid down in those Sermons, to the subject of Justification, which is a branch of the subject of which they treat. Whatever blessings we either have or hope for, pertaining to life and godliness, are given us in Christ, and become ours, through our union with Him. Justification is one of these : and to be viewed rightly, it must be viewed in connection both with the root from which it springs, and also with the kindred blessings, which spring with it from the same root. PREFACE. The present work then is an attempt to treat the subject of Justification professedly as a branch of a wider and more comprehensive subject, the Christian's union with his Lord. The connection of the one subject with the other is indeed the basis of whatsoever has been written to good purpose respecting Justification : only that which, in many instances, has been tacitly implied, is here professedly the central principle of the whole work. Hooker has pursued this course in treating of the Sacraments ; and the Author believed that it was the surest method to be pursued in treating of Justification. If he has failed of his object, the fault is to be ascribed not to the principle which he has adopted, but to his unskilfulness in the application of it, The design of the Founder of the Lecture, at which these Sermons were preached, was to provide for the counteraction of such errors, as, from time to time, might be most imminent. It is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact, that the danger of late chiefly to be apprehended, at least in certain quarters, lies on the side of Rome. This circumstance, as it contributed to determine the Author in the choice of his subject, so it influenced him especially in the direction in which he has suffered himself to be led PREFACE. xi by his subject. But yet his main aim has been to set forth those great, broad, and immutable principles of truth, which may serve to counteract error, from whatsoever quarter it may arise. Such as his work is, the Author commends it to Him, whose glory and whose approbation he desires to seek, with the earnest prayer, that He will mercifully forgive whatever has been amiss in the execution of it, and that He will graciously bless it to the furtherance of the end which the Founder of the Lecture had in view — the setting forth of truth, the counteraction of error, and the advancement of God's glory. CONTENTS. SERMON I. Pagel. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. Rom. v. 19. By one man's disobedience many were made sinners. SERMON II. Page 47. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. Rom. V. 15. If through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one Man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. SERMON III. Page 81. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 2 Cor. v. 21. He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. CONTENTS. SERMON IV. Page 123. INHERENT RIGHTEOUSNESS. 2 Cor. v. 17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. SERMON V. Page 161. FAITH. Hebrews xi. 1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. SERMON VI. Page 195. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND JUSTIFICATION. Rom. iv. 16. It is of faith, that it might be by grace. SERMON VII. Page 243. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BAPTISM AND JUSTIFICATION. Acts xxii. 16. Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. CONTENTS. xv SERMON VIII. Page 291. JUSTIFICATION IN CONTINUANCE. Rev. iii. 1 1 . Behold, 1 come quickly ; hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. SERMON I. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. " Aid ydg tovto xa) Timog Icriv e'io-a^6evTog' ovtco xa) o Xpiarof TO~ig e% avTOV, xahoi ye ov Sixai- otsgayrpaGi, yeyove 7rgd£evog %ixaio(Tvirt\g, yv lid tov cnavpov 7rdj xaTexplSijf' Chry- sost. in Rom. v. 14. Horn. x. §. I. Romans v. 19. By one man's disobedience many were made sinners. How shall sinful man be justified before God ? is the grand practical question, which serious and earnest persons, in proportion as they have had light sufficient to discern the misery of their natural condition, have anxiously asked in every generation since the fall — a question, to which it was reserved for the Gospel, as its peculiar glory, to give the true answer. And of that answer it so nearly concerns us to have a right understanding that we cannot mis apprehend it, but we so far incur the risk of missing the way to heaven. And yet it has too often been the lot of this, as of kindred subjects, to be handled as though it were a cold theory, or to be made matter of rude and un hallowed strife. And men have embraced a shadow, when they thought they held the substance, or they have lost their tempers and the truth together. Whereas, in reality, it is a subject to be studied almost upon our knees, and with a constant aim to bring it to bear upon our daily practice. In this spirit I desire to bring before you and you to receive such considerations connected with the subject I have referred to, the subject of Justifica tion, as God shall enable me. Certainly if ever there were a time when we had more than ordinary need to pursue our enquiries into divine truth with B 2 4 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. humility and devout reverence, with perpetual appli cation to the throne of grace for spiritual guidance, and unceasing aspirations and endeavours after a holy life, it is the present. The way of truth indeed is the same now that it ever was — not hard to be found by those who love the truth, and seek it with single hearts, and earnest minds, and in the fear of God. But there is danger, if not of our being jostled out of it in the throng, at least of our losing the simplicity of aim and calmness of spirit, which are necessary to discern and keep it, and thereby mistaking other ways for it, which seem to be the ways of truth, but are not. I said that the question, How shall sinful man be justified before God ? has been asked with an anxiety proportioned to the sense which men have had of the misery of their natural condition. For the disease must be felt in order to our enquiring in good earnest for the remedy. We may study the subject as an interesting speculation, or engage in it as a matter of discussion, but we shall never enter into it with real, heartfelt earnestness, unless we are deeply sensible of the misery of being without justification. There is therefore a previous question, practically at any rate, of great importance to the right under standing of the subject I have referred to: — What is the condition of man in his natural state ? What is the condition of man, as he is, and has been since MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 5 the fall and prior to the grace of Christ ? In other words, What is the condition of man as he is apart from Christ? Nothing can be more plain on the very surface of Scripture than that that condition is a most miserable one. Christ is the only ark in which we can be borne in safety above the waters, which overwhelm the world. And they who are without Christ, who have no part nor lot in His salvation, by whatever name they may be called, are lost hopelessly. " He that hath the Son, hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life a." One thing might reasonably have been concluded even if we had had no light from Revelation, that the condition of man was not originally what it is now. It is contrary to all our notions of the wisdom and goodness and power of God to believe that any of His works, much less the greatest which this lower world affords, should have been sent forth from His hands imperfect. It is contrary to all our notions to believe that God should have created, and not have endued the creature which He had made with ability to fulfil the laws of the nature with which He had framed him\ However it came to pass that the laws of that nature were transgressed, the trans gression of them must have been contrary to the " 1 John v. 12. b " The ancients speak of deviating from nature as vice ; and of following nature so much as a distinction, that according to them the perfection of virtue consists therein." Bp. Butler, Serm. ii. on Human Nature, p. 28. 6 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. purpose which God had in view in creation. He must have designed the keeping of those laws, and have endued the creature with power to keep them, though, as the event has proved, He must have left it to him to use that power or not as he would. God could not have made man with a heart such as naturally we find all men's hearts now, averse from Himself, and prone to sin, with lusts and passions ever ready to rise in rebellion against that higher power which He has set over them to control and regulate them. Reason therefore, if we had no other guide'to follow, would lead us to the conclusion, that man's original condition was very different from what it is now. We have, however, a surer guide than reason. We are told in Scripture that " God made man upright V framed him, i. e. in accordance with the rule which He had given him for his governance, and in every way capable of observing that rule. He endued him with reason and conscience ; caused these to revolve round Himself, the chief good, as their centre, and made them in turn a centre to the lower faculties. We are told further, that our first father was made " in the image of God," " after His likeness." The other animals were created severally " after then- kinds," — with the properties and characteristics be longing to their respective classes, and man had a body framed of the dust of the earth, and an animal life in common with them. But man has a nobler * Ecclcs. vii. 29. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 7 part, spoken of in the New Testament as his spirit d, and it was in having this, which the lower animals have not, and in having it made the habitation of the Holy Spirit, and by the Holy Spirit so dwell ing in it conformed to God, as the Apostle's words imply, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, that his likeness to his Maker consisted \ He d This threefold division is referred to by the Apostle, 1 Thess. v. 23. SKoxKripov i>p.a>v To irvevjia, Kal rj ¦^n>xV' Ka^ T0 o-apa. " Tria sunt quibus homo constat, spiritus, anima, et corpus: quae rursus duo dicuntur, quia saepe auima simul cum spiritu nominatur ; pars enim qiiEedam ejusdem rationalis, qua carent bestiae, spiritus dicitur : principale nostrum spiritus est; deinde vita qua conjungimur corpori, anima dicitur; postremo ipsum corpus, quoniam visibile est, ultimum nostrum est. . . .Hie spiritus etiam vocatur mens, de quo dicit Apostolus, ' mente servio legi Dei :' qui item alio loco dicit, * Testis est mihi Deus, cui servio in spiritu rneo.' Anima vero cum carnalia bona adhuc appetit, caro nominatur. Pars enim ejus quaedam resistit spiritui non natura sed consuetudine peccatorum. Unde dicitur ' mente servio legi Dei, carne autem legi peccati.' Quae consuetudo in naturam versa est secundum generationem mortalem peccato primi hominis. Ideoque scriptum est, ' Et nos aliquando fuimus naturaliter filii irae' id est vindictae per quam factum est ut serviamus legi peccati." August. Liber de Fide et Symbolo. § x. e Ephes. iv. 24. ColoSS. iii. 10. Teyove ptv (rvvhicwrov apxqdev to tlvevfia t% i^rvxfl, to Se TLvevpa ravrrp) eireo-Bai. p.fj [iovkoptvrjv avra Kara- \i\omev. Tatian. c. 13. p. 255. quoted by Bp. Bull, On the State of Man before the Fall, Works, vol. ii. p. 86. Restituitur homo Deo ad similitudinem ejus, qui retro ad imaginem Dei conditus fuerat, &c. Recipit enim ilium Dei Spiritum, quern tunc de afflatu ejus acce- perat, sed post amiserat per delictum. Tertull. de Baptismo, c. 5. ibid. p. 89. St. Basil compares the divine insufflation upon Adam, spoken of Gen. ii. 7. with our Lord's upon his Apostles, John xx. 22. and tells us that it was the same Son of God by whom God MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. knew God, whom to know is life eternal. He loved God, and love is the spring and safeguard of obedi ence. He had the idem velle, idem nolle— the entire conformity of his will to God's will, which was fitted to be the basis of a lasting union between himself and God, and of his own true happiness. And God beheld him when He surveyed the works which He had made, and pronounced him, in common with the rest, very good. How could he be otherwise than good when fresh from his Creator's hands ? God could not have been the Author of evil under any form or in any measure. And yet evil has found its way into the world. Man is no longer such as our first parents were at their creation. Adam fell, and in him his whole race. With regard to the change produced by the fall upon Adam personally, he passed from a state of life to a state of death, of which transition his exclu sion from the tree of life was a significant token; more indeed, it may be, that a token, if at least that tree, as it has been conjectured, was not only a pledge of immortality, but also, whether physically or sacra- mentally, a means of ensuring itf. But death, in its gave the insufflation ; Tore pev, i. e. at the creation, pera ^rvxris, vvu fie (i. e. at the time referred to by St. John,) tit ^vxhv- Many of the Fathers understand what is said in Gen. ii. 7, as Tertullian and St. Basil in the above passages, to refer not merely to the gift of natural life, but also to the grace of the Holy Spirit infused together with it, as the principle of spiritual life. See Bp. Bull as above quoted, p. 90, &c, ' " Habebat enim, quantum exislimo, et de lignoruin fruclibus Man fallen in adaM. 9 literal sense, was but a faint emblem of other and infinitely worse results. When it is said that our refectionem contra defectionem, et de ligno vitae stabilitatem contra vetustatem." August, de Peccat. mer. et rem. 1. 1. §. iii. see also De Genes, ad lit. 1. 9. §. iii. and vi. St. Austin's belief, and, it may be added, that of the Fathers generally, was that Adam was created mortal, insomuch that his body, if left to the operation of natural causes, would, in the course of years, have decayed and died. And there was good reason for this belief. The whole analogy of the world around us points to the same conclusion. Perishableness and decay are written in plain characters on every thing earthly. It seems to be a law of the existence of all material beings which have life, in any sort, that when they have fulfilled severally the purposes for which they were created they should depart hence, and make room for another generation. And though it is not safe to reason from what man is now, to what he was before the fall, yet certainly the teaching of Scripture, as far as Scripture touches upon the subject, points in the same direc tion. When the way to the tree of life was barred against our first father, the reason assigned, " lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever,'- would seem to imply, chat if left to the tendency of his natural constitution, he would not have been exempt from death. And in like manner when sentence of death was passed upon him for his sin, it was coupled with a declaration which seemed to signify, that God was now leaving him to the operation of those laws, to which his material frame was by its constitution subject. " Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." And St. Paul accordingly dis tinguishes between the natural or physical body which Adam re ceived at his creation, and the spiritual body which Christ has in heaven. And he adds presently, " Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption," and if flesh and blood cannot, then neither could Adam's body. Habits of vice had not enfeebled that body, as our own vices and those of our forefathers have 10 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. first parents after the commission of their sin, knew that they were naked, that they were afraid of God, enfeebled ours: but it was made of the same material as ours, it was flesh and blood, it was of the earth, earthy, and therefore it contained within itself the seeds of death : it could not, such as it was, inherit the kingdom of God. While, however, it would seem that man was created mortal at the first, it is a certain truth that when death did enter the world, it was sin that brought it. But for sin man would not have died. The Pelagians denied this truth : and they supported their denial of it by interpreting those passages of Scripture which speak of death as the penalty of sin, exclusively of spiritual death. (See August, de Peccat. Mer. et Rem. 1. i. §. ii. &c.) But those passages cannot be so restricted. It was of death, in its most literal sense, and as the punishment of sin, that God spoke when He pronounced sentence upon Adam, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken ; for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." Gen. iii. 19. And it was of the same death, and that like wise as the punishment of sin, that the Apostle wrote, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Rom. v. 12. And this is his meaning, when he says elsewhere, (1 Cor. xv. 56.) that " the sting of death is sin ;" i. e. it is sin which arms death with its sting, and gives it the power to kill. " Aculeus quippe mortis peccatum, id est aculeus cujus punctione fit mors, non aculeus quo pungit mors." August, contra duasEpist. Pelag. lib. iv. §. iv. And thus, mortal though the human body would seem to have been even in its original structure, still, if man had not sinned, death would not have had dominion over it; but that, as St. Augustine conjectures, would probably, without the intervention of death, have eventually taken place in all, which we know will take place in those of God's saints who shall be found alive at the last day : this corruptible would have put on incorruption, and this mortal would have put on immortality, and thus death would have MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. II and hid themselves, as they vainly thought, from His sight; what does this but imply that the light of God's countenance was withdrawn from them, and that they had passed from a state of favour and acceptance, to a state of condemnation and wrath ? They saw themselves stripped of the robe of innocence in which their Creator had arrayed them, and they were conscious that some fearful and merited judg ment awaited them. By the same tokens it is plain that a change had passed upon their nature, that the image of God, in which they had been created, was effaced, and that the Spirit of God, by whose operation that image was at first formed within them, and by whose indwelling its integrity was preserved, was withdrawn. They had moreover by hearkening to the voice of the Tempter in opposition to the com mand of God, transferred their allegiance from their rightful Lord to Satan, who thenceforward became the prince, the god of this world. But Adam stood as the representative of his whole been swallowed up in victory, and mortality would have been swallowed up of life. 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54. 2 Cor. v. 4. Quamvis enim secundum corpus terra esset, et corpus in quo creatus est animale gestaret; tamen si non peccasset, in corpus fuerat spirituale mutandus, et in illam incorruplionem quse fidelihus et Sanctis promittitur, sine mortis periculo transiturus. . . Proinde si non peccasset Adam, non erat exspoliandus corpore, sed superves- tiendus immortalitate et incorruptione, ut absorberetur mortale a vita, id est, ab animali in spirituale transiret." August, de Peccat. Mer. et Rem. 1. i. §. ii. On this whole subject see Bp. Bull on the Condition of Man before the Fall. 12 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. race. We see, in every respect in which the com parison can be made, that our condition is such as his was after the fall. The world in which we dwell is no longer like the Paradise in which he was at first placed. Pain, sickness, sorrow, death, which are now the common lot of all, were unknown in Eden; and sin, which never found entrance into that happy laud till the day our first parents were driven out, now abounds on all sides. These facts alone point very significantly to the conclusion that Adam stood as our representative. We have followed his fortunes most entirely; and the sentence pronounced upon him and Eve in the day they were driven forth from Paradise, is fulfilled in every individual of their descendants. But Scripture does not leave us to gather this truth from remote inferences. Adam is there spoken of expressly as our Head — the Head of the old creation, as Christ is of the new. As such he is called the first man in opposition to Christ, who is called the second mang. And we are told that in Adam we all die, as in Christ we shall all be made alive h; that as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy, in like manner as, as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly'; and that we now bear the image of the earthy, as hereafter we shall bear the image of the heavenly \ And else where the like contrast is instituted between Adam and Christ, who are declared to be type and antitype B 1 Cor. xv. 47. h 1 Cor. xv. 22. ! 1 Cor. xv. 48. k 1 Cor. xv. 49. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 13 in this very respect, that each is to be regarded as the federal head of those descended from him '. From all which it is plain that Adam stood as the repre sentative of our race; that his fortunes were, and were designed to be, our fortunes. Nor is it to be thought, that the arrangement by which the fortunes of the whole human race were thus bound up with those of their first father, is inconsistent with the Divine justice and goodness. That indeed which is undeniably of God's appoint ment cannot but be just and good. And it is a sufficient answer to abstract objections which might be raised against the assertion that it is of God's appointment, to shew, as might easily be done, in the present instance, that there are analogous cases in God's ordinary way of dealing with his creatures. The world indeed is full of such analogies, and nothing is more common than for a father's conduct in the more important steps of life to affect, either for good or evil, the fortunes and even the characters of his children and his children's children to remote generations. It is true no instance can be produced except that of the second Adam where the conse quences are at all comparable either in extent or importance, but yet the case referred to of a father's conduct affecting his children and his children's children, seems plainly to belong to the same great law, and to point therefore to the same lawgiver : 1 Rom. v. 12—19. 14 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. and no objection can be urged against the one which does not lie equally against the other. Scripture draws a fearful picture of the condition which we have inherited from our first father. Observe e. g. in the following passage, how many dark circumstances are crowded together within the compass of a few verses. " You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience ;" and, lest any should think that his description belonged to the Gentiles only, the Apostle adds, " Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others"1." Here is death — spiritual death — " Ye were dead in trespasses and sins;" — subjection under the power of Satan — " Ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience;" — the uncontrolled supremacy of the carnal part of our nature — " We had our conversa tion in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; " exposure to condemn ation, and that from our very birth — " We were by nature the children of wrath." m Ephes. ii. 1 — 3. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 15 To the like purpose is the Baptist's declaration, " He that believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him11." It abidetk on him unremoved. He was " by nature a child of wrath," and he continues such. To the same effect is the whole tenour of our Lord's discourse with Nicodemus. " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit0." No words can express more unequivocally our utteily lost and ruined state by nature. As we come into the world, we are not, and cannot be, the subjects of God's kingdom. We need a second birth, a new creation. Again, " He that believeth on the Son is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already p." Not, he shall be — but, he is — the sentence has been already pronounced. Nothing can be stronger than these passages: and it is observable, if any should be disposed to question9, whether St. Paul's strong expressions, " dead in trespasses and sins" and the like, in the passage just now quoted, could be meant to apply to our race generally, Jews as well as Gentiles, that our Lord was in this instance addressing himself to a Jew, and one too, of whom there is every reason to think that what St. Paul says of himself might be said with equal truth, " John iii. 36. ° John iii. 3, 6. p ^ KcKpirm, John iii. 18. i See Whitby on Ephes. ii. 3. 16 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. " touching the righteousness which is in the law" he was " blameless r." In St. John v. we find our Lord again using similar language ; " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life'." If he is passed from death unto life, then was he previously in a state of death. And to this agree St. Paul's reasoning, " If one died for all, then were all dead\" and St. John's declaration, " He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life11;" not " he shall not have," but he hath not, even now ; he is yet in a state of death. These passages afford a general view of the con dition in which all are prior to the grace of Christ, and this condition is to be ascribed to the sin of our first father, in whom all die, both physically and spiritually, both temporally and eternally, even as in Christ; all who believe in Christ shall be made alive. But a general view will not suffice in a matter of so great importance ; to speak therefore more definitely, our condition, such as it is on our entrance into the world may be described as twofold : ' Phil. iii. 6. ¦ John v. 24. ' 2 Cor. V. 14. 'Qf ¦navrav airo\opeva>v, <\>r)(riv Ov yap b\v, el prj itavres cnreBavov, imep iravrav aweBave. Chrysost. in loc. " 1 John v. 12. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 17 1 . We are bom under condemnation. 2. Our nature is corrupted and debased. 1. We are* born under condemnation. For when it is said that the wrath of God abideth on him that doth not believe on the Son, and that he that believeth not is condemned already", it is implied that the state in which every man enters the world, is a state of condemnation, so that we need have no hesitation in receiving the Apostle's expression, " by nature the children of wrath," in its literal and obvious meaning. We are not only " truly" the children of wrath, as some would render the word (f)vo-et,y, nor " altogether" such as the Pelagians did of oldz; but we are such naturally — we are children of wrath born. The condemnation which Adam drew down upon himself cleaves to us and to all his posterity from the moment we come into the world*. 1 John iii. 36. 18. r See Whitby in loc. * " Prorsus." On which St. Augustine remarks, " Quod autem dicis ' Ubi ait Apostolus, natura filii irae, posse intelligi, prorsus filii irae,' nonne hinc admoneri debuisti, antiquam contra vos defendi catholicam fidem : quia non fere invenitur Latinus codex, si non a vobis nunc incipiat emendari, vel potius in mendum mutari, ubi non natura sit scriptum. Quod utique cavere debuit mterpretum antiquitas, nisi etiara fidei hsec esset antiquitas, cui vestra ccepit resistere novitas." Contra Julianum Pelag. 1. vi. §. x. * John iii. 36. " ' Ira Dei manet super eum :' non ait veniet sed manet; cum hac quippe omnis homo nascitur. Propter quod dicit Apostolus, ' Fuimus enim et nos natura filii irae sicut et c»teri.' " August. Enchirid. §. xxxiii. C 18 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. There is one passage bearing on this subject, which, as it has always been regarded as the principal seat of the doctrine, will require a fuller consideration. " By one man," says St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans b, " sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned : for until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law; never theless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." And presently afterwards, " And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift ; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free-gift is of many offences unto justification." And once more; " Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free-gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Now whatever other truths may be collected from this passage, this is plainly contained in it, that the sin of Adam in eating of the forbidden tree has made all men sinners, and therefore brought all men under condemnation. The Pelagians attempted to evade the force of the Apostle's words, by explaining them to mean that b Rom. v. 12. &c. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 19 Adam brought sin into the world in that he first transgressed the law of God, and that men are sinners through him in that they have followed his evil example c. But St. Paul plainly teaches that all have sinned in Adam; for this is the force of the words e(j)

Kai Karat rov evos e'xerai, ml o-vvex&s rovro els peaov (pepei, Xeya>V "Slo-irep hi evos avOpamov fj apapria els rov KScrpov elarjkBe k. r. X. . . . Ka\ ovk aipitrrarai rov evos, iv orav Xeyy o-oi 6 'lovSalos, Tims, evos KaropdaxravTos rov Xpio-rov, fj ohovpevij ecraidr] ; hvvrjOrjS avra Xeyeiv, Tlats evos irapaKovo-avros rov A8ap, 1) oikov- pevr\ KareKpidrt;" Chrysost. in Rom. Horn. x. §. 1. 28 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. the whole race of mankind, and in dealing with him, dealt with them. It is vain for any man to find fault with this arrangement. We are in no sort judges what would have been the working of any other arrangement. Will any one say, that had we been dealt with individually, he would have stood where Adam fell ? But indeed it is not a matter to admit of such reasoning. " Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" This is the proper answer to make to those who would object to the justice of the arrangement, and if any should question its good ness, we must adopt St. Paul's words again on another occasion, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" 2. There is, however, another circumstance to be considered which places the matter in a different light, and enables us to see, though we might not have doubted, even if we could not have seen, that God's dealings with us in this respect are just and true. The nature of man, in consequence of the fall, is corrupted and debased, He is " very far gone from original righteousness." He has lost the divine image in which his first father was created. He has become the subject and slave of Satan. And in this evil case he continues, without power to deliver himself, till Christ makes him free, renewing him by His Spirit, and creating him again, after His own likeness, in righteousness and true holiness. So that, MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 29 even though we should hesitate to take the view of an entailed condemnation, we are still brought virtually to the same point; for all are born with a sinful nature, and this, as our article declares, deserves God's wrath and damnation1. It is not denied indeed that the natural man may possess many estimable qualities. We read of sundry instances among the ancient heathens of generosity, disinterestedness, patriotism, self-control, temperance, courage, veracity, filial and parental affection, and the like. And St. Paul speaks of the Gentiles, who had no revealed law to guide or restrain them, as yet doing by nature the things contained in the law, and as shewing the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another"1. And he tells us of himself in his unconverted state, that, touching the righteous ness which is in the law, he was blameless11. And St. Mark says of the young ruler, who asked our Lord what good thing he should do that he might inherit eternal life, and who, when our Lord referred him to the commandments, answered, how ignorant soever of their full extent, that he had kept them all from his youth up, that our Lord beholding him loved him °; which certainly implies, that there was that in him which was amiable and good. Some traces then of what man once was are still left amid the ruins of his original nature — such as may serve 1 Art. ix. m Rom. ii. 14, 15. " Phil. iii. 6. ° Mark x. 17—21. 30 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. to shew, in some measure, the goodly design of the Almighty Architect". And yet with all these, even under the most favourable circumstances, there is not a greater and more real difference between a marble statue and a living man, than there is between man in his natural and in his renewed state. And the change which must pass upon him in his transition from one state to the other is so essential, that nothing short of such expressions as a passing from darkness to lights, from death to life', a new birth", a new creation, can sufficiently describe it : — expressions which would fill us with amazement, were it not that long use has familiarized us with them, and they pass from our lips, or fall upon our ears, without exciting any idea corresponding to their astounding import. The truth is, God is dethroned in the heart of the natural man. He is not supreme. Other lords beside him have the dominion. Man would be his own god, dependent on himself alone for happiness. Or he would make the world his god, or the flesh, or the devil, or all three. And so no place is found for the fear of God, and the love of God, which are the spring and centre of true religion, and in the ab sence of which, no amount of virtues, such as the world calls virtues, is in respect of religion of any account. p See August, de Spir. et Lit. §. xxvii. xxviii. q Ephes. v. 8. Acts xxvi. 18. ' 1 John iii. 14. ¦ John iii. 3. 1 Pet. i. 23. « Gal. vi. 15. 2 Cor. v. 17. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 31 St. Paul in the seventh and eighth chapters of his Epistle to the Romans draws a lamentable picture of man in his natural state ; for whatever view we take of the question, whether the Apostle speaks in the former of these chapters in the person of a regenerate or an unregenerate man, the bearing of the passages I refer to is still the same. " When we were in the flesh," he says, " the motions of sins which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." " We know that the law is spiritual, but I (so far as I am in my natural state) am carnal, sold under sin, (its very slave ;) for that which I do I allow not ; for what I would that do I not, but what I hate that do I — I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, (in my old nature) dwelleth no good thing ; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. ... I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me ; for I delight in the law of God after the inward man, (I heartily assent to and acquiesce in it,) but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" " They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh." " To be carnally minded is death." " The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be :" " they that are in the flesh, cannot please God." 32 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. Such is man in his natural state. Make all the allowance you will for the noble qualities which are to be found in this or the other individual, still this is the description given of him by the pen of inspiration. Carnal — sold under sin — its very slave — no good thing in him — enmity against God — not subject to the law of God, and incapable of being so — incapable of pleasing God. Is it possible to find stronger language in which to set forth the miserable corruption and debasement to which his nature has been subjected? Is this the being whom God made upright, whom He created in His own image, and after His own likeness ? We may notice before we leave this passage how the case stands with regard to the freedom of the will. God sets before us good and evil, life and death, and He leaves us free to choose as we list. In Paradise Adam had no corrupt bias inclining his will to evil. But it has been otherwise since the fall. Man is still as free to choose as before. But he has a bias now which he had not then. His will — free in itself — as free as Adam's was in Paradise — is become the slave of sin. And the corruption of his nature, even where he would have chosen good, draws him to evil in spite of his better choice. When he would do good, evil is present with him. The good that he would he does not, and the evil which he would not that he does ". But, in truth, in his natural state man is too u Rom. vii. 21, 19. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 33 ignorant, for the most part, to know good from evil in spiritual matters. One of the effects of the fall has been to blind his understanding, and to hide from him the things which belong unto his peace. Thus St. Paul tells his converts, that hi their heathen state they had had " their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that was in them, because of the blindness of their heart x;" and again, that they had been darkness, though now they were light in the Lordy ; and on another occasion, " that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned2. And it is in accordance with this view, and as the proper remedy for man's natural ignorance, that we find so much stress every where laid on knowledge in the New Testament, as, e. g. where our Lord says, " This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent3;" and where He calls Himself "the Truth"" and "the Light u;" and where St. Paul makes it one of the principal characteristics of the new man that he is " renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him4." * Ephes. iv. 18. r Ephes- v. 8. '1 Cor. ii. 14. " John xvii. 3. b John xiv. 6. c John ix. 5. d Col. iii. 10. Ov8e yap aoTjpa to. yeypappeva, a>s Oeos air apxrjs £v\ov fa>i)s ev pecrat napahelo-ov ecpvrevo-e, Sia yvao-ea>s£a>r)v emSeiKws' fi p.r) KaBapas xP1°~aH-ev01 °' <"r' "PXVS> 'Aovj tov o(pea>s yeyvpva>vrai' D 34 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. And thus though our will is free, and we may choose good or evil as we list, yet we know too little wherein our happiness consists to choose aright. We call evil good and good evil. " What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, thou Son of God ?" is the natural language of our hearts to Him, who is our peace and our life. And thus through very ignorance we make a wrong choice, and our will takes a wrong bias. But to say that man is naturally ignorant of the things which make for his peace, is but a partial account of his case. The corrupt bias which he has received, inclines him to prefer ignorance to knowledge. He loves darkness rather than light. The things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to him; he scorns and derides them. And St. Paul is describing the conduct and character not of any particular class, but of all who are not under the influence of Divine grace, when he speaks of the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. No man loves the truth who is not of the truth — whose heart has not been taught to love it by Him who is the Truth. It was a just judgment upon our first parents, that as they sinned through the desire of knowledge, which God had ovBe yap £a>r] avev yv&o-ems, oiiSe yva>o-is do-cpakrjs avev {\arr\s akr/Sovs' 816 ttXijo-iov eKarepov 7recf)vTevTai. Justin. M. Epist. ad Diogn. C ult. p. 240. quoted by Bp. Bull on the State of Man before the Fall. Works, vol. ii. p. 83. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 35 seen fit to withhold from them, so their punishment should be not merely ignorance, but the love of ignorance °. The natural freedom of the will on the one hand, and its actual subjection under the power of igno rance and sin on the other, afford the true solution to the apparent inconsistency between the invitations and exhortations, which ate addressed to us in Scripture, and the uniform declaration, in every part of the sacred volume, that the work of our conversion is a supernatural work, that we have no power of ourselves to turn to God. God addresses us in His Word as free agents ; He bids us repent and be- e " Non enim laborat intellectus humanus nuda carentia scientiee debitae ; sed propensus est ad veritatem sugillandum, odio ha- bendam, atque ad errores et stultas ac vanas opiniones avide amplexandas. Dixit ergo Apostolus, Hominem animalem non modo ' non percipere quae sunt Dei,' sed addidit • sunt enim ei stultitia ;' hoc est, deridet et exibilat veritatem divinam, tanquam rem ludicram et solis stultis dignam. Nee deridet solummodo homo animalis salutiferam veritatem, sed odit et illam et praedica- tores ejusdem : ' Ego dedi iis sermonem tuum, et mundus eos odio habuit;' ' Dilexerunt homines magis tenebras qnam lucem.' Jam quod attinet ad errores et vanam scientiam, cupide et utrisque (quod aiunt) ulnis intellectus humanus ea amplexatur. Notavit Apostolus hoc vitium in sapientissimis philosophorum ; 'Eparaia>- 6t]o-av iv rois SiaKoyio-pois avrav Omnibus enim hoc insitum est hominibus non-renatis, ut quemadmodum amorem veritatis non recipiunt, ita mendaciis facilem fidem adhibent. Atque haec omnia pullulant ex ilia originali coutagione, quae intellectum humanum occupavit." Bp. Davenant de Justitia habituali, c. xiv. See MilleT's Sermons, Serin, ii. p. 33 — 36. D 2 36 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. lieve the Gospel that we may be saved '¦ He invites us to come unto Him, as many as are weary and heavy laden, that we may have rest8. He warns us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling11; and yet, at the same time, he teaches us that both repentance1 and faith k are His gifts; that no man can come unto the Son except the Father, which hath sent Him, draw him1; and that it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure"1. But to return to the account which Scripture gives us of the corruption of our nature. The language of the Old Testament entirely harmonizes with that of the New. Thus God testifies of the antediluvian race, that " the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually"." And lest any should think that the waters of the flood had left no traces remaining of such extreme wickedness, we have the very same description repeated immediately after the flood, when as yet the whole human race was comprised in that favoured family which had been so signally distinguished. " The Lord said in His heart, I will not again any more curse the ground for man's sake, for (or, though) the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth0." As though God's desolating judgments ' Mark i. 15. « Matt. xi. 28. h Phil. ii. 12. 1 Acts v. 31. " Eph. ii. 8. Phil. i. 29. l John vi. 44. ra Phil. ii. 13. " Gen. vi. 5. ° Gen. viii. 21. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 37 must never cease, if he should always deal with man as he had dealt with him, seeing that man's nature remained the same. This is a dark picture indeed, — the imagination of man's heart, every imagination — evil — only evil — continually — even from his youth. And yet how remarkably in keeping with the Apostle's language, " I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing p." " They that are in the flesh cannot please God q." How remarkably in keeping with the Prophet's declaration, " The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked : who can know itr ?" And to this passage from the book of Genesis may be added what David says in the fifty-first Psalm, " Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me :" a truth which the ceremonial law not obscurely intimated in the ordinances for the purification of women after child birth3. To the like purpose is Job's question, with his despairing answer, " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? not one V And Eliphaz's exclamation in the following chapter, " What is man that he should be clean ? and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous u ?" Passages, which imply that we are corrupt from our very birth — that it is not imitation and the following of evil example, which has made us what we are, but that p Rom. vii. 18. q Rom. viii. 8. r Jerem. xvii. 9. " Lev. xii. ' Job xiv. 4. u Job xv. 14. 38 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. the evil is innate — inbred — in our very grain ; that apart from the condemnation which rests on us inherited from our first father, we are each of us guilty in our own persons, — sinners in habit even before we have committed a single sin in act. The tree is corrupt, and it only lacks time and opportunity to bear fruit of the same description. The fountain is polluted, and the waters which issue from it cannot but be polluted too. And this corruption of nature is to be traced to the sin of our first father. Adam was not created thus. Very remarkable is the change of language, in the summary account given of our earliest ancestors in the book of Genesis, from the descrip tion of Adam's original to that of Seth's. Of Adam it is said, " In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he hims." Of Seth, " Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his imaged." We hear no more of God's likeness, which Adam had lost. Seth is the sinful child of a sinful father. How indeed should it be otherwise ? " That which is born of the flesh is flesh." " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ?" But there is another circumstance to be taken into the account, if we would fully understand the extent of the corruption of our nature and of our alienation from God, to which the sin of our first father has subjected us. We are born the subjects of Satan's lung dom. * Gen. \. 1. r Gen. v. 3. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 39 It is wonderful how little, practically, this fact is recognised among us: how little, in spite of what is implied by our solemn renunciation of Satan in our baptism, the power of the evil one is realized, and his sway over the unregenerate believed. Yet Scripture speaks of his agency, in the most express terms, describing him as the prince of this world2, the god of this world , the ruler of the darkness of this world", the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh or energizeth in the children of disobedience', possessing and actuating them and moulding them according to his will. His subjects and servants we are all till Christ sets us free, and turns us from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto Godd. And even after we have been set free, he is ever striving to win us back again under his yoke". * John xiv. 30. * 2 Cor. iv. 4. b Ephes. vi. 12. c Ephes. ii. 2. d Acts xxvi. 18. ' " Pervicacissimus hostis ille nunquam malitiae suae otium facit. Atquin tunc maxime saevit, cum hominem plene sentit libe- ratum: tunc plurimum accenditur, dum extinguitur. Doleat et ingemiscat necesse est, venia peccatorum pennissa, tot in homine mortis opera diruta, tot titulos damnationis retro suae erasos. Dolet quod ipsum et angelos ejus Christi servus ille jjeccator judicaturus est. Itaque observat, oppugnat, obsidet: si qua possit aut oculos concupiscentia carnali ferire, aut animum ille- cebris saecularibus irretire, aut fidem terrenas potestatis formidine evertere, aut a via certa perversis traditionibus detorquere: non scandalis, non tentationibus deficit." Tertull. de Poenitent. §. vii. 40 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. It is mainly through his agency that the ignorance which has been already referred to, as one of the principal features in our fallen nature, is fostered. And by this ignorance he retains his sway. Thus he is said to " blind the eyes of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto themf." He is described as catching away the seed of God's word sown in men's hearts, lest they should believe and be saved g. He is represented as deceiving the nations". And the coming of the man of sin is spoken of as being after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish". And it was by his instrumentality that the whole system of idolatry was framed, by which the heathen world were held in bondage. He was the god whom they ignorantly worshipped. He furnished their oracles with responses; he taught them the impure and cruel rites of their idolatrous service; he ministered the power of bewitching them with sor ceries, and lying miracles, and other deceitful arts. And though his dominion in these respects has been in part broken in Christian lands, yet he still exer cises his ancient sway in full force in heathen countries. Little do we think how much it is owing to his influence that the course of the Gospel has been hindered, and the kingdoms of this world still ' 2 Cor. iv. 4. * Luke viii. 12. h Rev. xx. 3. ' 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10. MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 41 withheld from their allegiance to their rightful sovereign. We have now seen what man's nature is in itself — how fallen and debased — how perverted from its high original! The image of God lost; God no longer supreme ; reason and conscience dethroned ; the will, however free in itself, enslaved by sinful lusts ; Satan ruling and bearing sway in the soul as though he were its rightful lord. And the actual working of this evil nature is no other than was to have been looked for. The fruit corresponds to the stock on which it grows. In his Epistle to the Eomans, St. Paul sets forth, at considerable length, the actual condition of both Jews and Gentiles in their natural state. He begins with the latter, and shews into what gross ignorance and extreme depravity they had fallen through their wilful perverseness. Some knowledge of the true God they might have had from tradition, and some they might have gained from His works in nature and the course of His providence; but they heeded neither the one nor the other. They glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incor ruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creep ing things. And then, in just judgment for their 42 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. sinful course, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. He took off the restraint which, in mercy, He had still held upon the corrupt principle, and suffered it to have its course unchecked, till they were borne along by it to the most extreme length of wickedness \ Such is the Apostle's account of the Gentile world. If among the Jews there was more profession of religion, there was in reality no less aversion from God and His laws. Insomuch that he does not scruple to apply to them the Psalmist's words, " There is none righteous, no not one : there is none that understandeth; there is none that seeketh after God ; they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one 1." It maybe asked, indeed, Were there no exceptions? Had all run to these extreme lengths of sin? Doubtless all are not equally far gone in actual wickedness. Natural temperament and various external circumstances have their influence in foster ing or restraining the innate principle of evil. But that principle lives and reigns in the heart of every unregenerate person, and manifests its presence and vindicates its sovereignty in his life and conversation wherever time and opportunity are given. And there is no one, who has attained to years of discre tion, who has not superadded to his original guilt the guilt of manifold actual transgressions. Accord ingly the Apostle, in the dark picture which he draws, k Rom. i. ' Rom. iii. 10—12. MAX FALLEN IN ADAM. 43 makes no exceptions: he speaks of all as guilty ; he shuts up all under sin. He himself indeed, if any, might have seemed worthy to be exempted from so sweeping a charge, for he says of himself in one place, referring to his manner of life before he became a Christian, that touching the righteousness which is in the law he was blameless m; and yet we find him on another occasion, when he had been describing the actual condition of the Gentiles, in the darkest colours, as dead in trespasses and sins, as walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the ah-, the spirit winch now worketh in the children of disobedience, seizing, as it were, the opportunity of acknowledging that his own case and that of the rest of his nation was in no wise more favourable : " Among whom," he says, " we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath even as others"." And here we may close the subject we have been considering. Whether we look at the condemnation entailed upon us as the descendants of an attainted ancestor, or at the corrupt nature derived from him by propagation, or at the actual transgressions, the fruit of that corrupt nature, which, wherever there have been time and opportunity, have been superadded to our original guilt, nothing can be more deplorably m Phil. iii. 6. ° Eph. ii. 1 — 3. 44 MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. miserable than our condition. We are all guilty before God. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. That one offence of our first father has made all men sinners, and has brought indignation and wrath upon the whole world. But blessed for ever be His Name who has not left us to perish in this our wretchedness. The coats of skins with which He clothed our first parents, as they were a token that in judgment He remem bered mercy, so were they also an earnest of a better covering, with which He should for ever hide the shame of His people. What that covering is, and how to be put on, and how to be preserved in its purity and integrity, are among the most deeply important subjects which it is possible for us to have brought under our consideration. To these I pur pose, if God permit and enable me, on some future occasions to draw your attention. In the mean time, may the consideration of the misery and wretchedness of our natural condition lead us, on the one hand, to walk humbly with our God, as remem bering the rock whence we were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence we were digged, on the other, stil us up to earnest and heart-searching enquiries as to whether we are indeed availing ourselves of that deliverance, which God, in His abundant mercy, hath provided for the sons of men. In spite of our Christian name and Christian profession, if we are not true and living members of Christ's body, quickened by His Spirit, renewed after His MAN FALLEN IN ADAM. 45 image, the curse entailed upon his race by our first father, rests on us in its full weight : and with this aggravation of our wretchedness, that we might have been blessed, and would not. SERMON II. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. " Illud unum peccatum, quod tarn magnum in loco et habitu tantse felicitatis admissum est, ut in uno homine originaliter, atque, ut ita dixerim, radicaliter, totum genus humanum damnaretur, non solvitur ac diluitur, nisi per unum Mediatorem Dei et hominum, hominem Christum Jesum, qui solus potuit ita nasci, ut ei opus non esset renasci." August. Enchirid. xlviii. Romans v. 15. If through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one Man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. In the preceding Sermon, I endeavoured to set forth the miserable condition in which we all are by nature. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin — death in both its senses, death temporal, and death spiritual — -the death of the body, and the death of the soul ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned in that one man, in Adam. We are born under con demnation ; we bring into the world with us a sinful nature ; and from the moment we are able to dis tinguish good from evil, we are daily adding to our condemnation by our own personal transgressions, and strengthening our sinful habit by acts of sin. Had we been left to ourselves — as we might have been most justly — we should have gone on increasing in wickedness, till the world, defiled with our iniquities, like Canaan of old, would have vomited out its guilty inhabitants \ But we have not been left to ourselves. It has pleased God, in His unsearchable wisdom and ¦ See Lev. xviii. 25. E 50 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. abounding love, to devise a plan for our recovery corresponding to our fall, that as we derive all our misery from one man, the first father of our race, so we should derive all our happiness from one man, our progenitor in respect of another and better existence ; that " as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one should many be made righteous b." To this end the eternal Son took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, purifying and en nobling that nature by its union with the divine. He came to be the counterpart of Adam, the second head of a second race, the fountain and source of life to as many as should be engrafted into Him. He came to reconcile God and man ; yea more, to knit together in one God and man, being Himself both God and man; that as the Father dwelleth in Him, and He in the Father, so He might dwell in His people, and His people in Him. In Him all must dwell, and He in all who would partake of the benefits which He hath procured for the sons of men. Into Him all must be engrafted, as living branches into a living stock, who would bring forth fruit answerable to those benefits. " As we are really partakers of the body of sin and death received from Adam, so except we be truly partakers of Christ, and as really possessed of His Spirit, all we speak of eternal life is but a dream c." b Rom. v. 19. See Chrysost. in Rom. v. 14. c Hooker, E. P. book v. §. 56. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 51 And if so, it is obvious how much it concerns us, in order to our having a right understanding of those high blessings towards which all our better hopes are directed, that we regard them in connexion with this great and central truth, that they are bestowed upon us in Christ, and flow to us through our union with Him. From no other point can they be seen adequately and in their just bearings. And very much of the confusion of thought and variance of opinion, which have prevailed respecting them, is to be traced to no other cause than that they have been viewed without sufficient reference to it. Thus sub jects, which though inseparably connected are yet essentially distinct, have been, on the one hand, con founded with each other, on the other, treated as though they were isolated and detached. Nor have any suffered more in this way than Justification and those akin to it. It shall be the object therefore of the present Sermon, to consider in what sense Christ may be said to be in His people, and His people in Him, and to point out, how, through the union implied in that mutual indwelling, God has graciously provided a remedy for the miseries which our first father entailed upon his race. There is doubtless much that is mysterious and beyond our utmost reach of thought in this high subject, but it is one on which Scripture has spoken so frequently and so explicitly, that, if we will be content with what Scripture teaches, we cannot be greatly at a loss. E 2 52 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. I. I would observe then, that when we are said to be in Christ, this is meant partly in a sense corresponding to that in which we are said to have been in Adam, partly in an infinitely higher sense. We may be said to have been in Adam, inasmuch as every effect is in the original cause which gives it being. When God created Adam he created us in him. And, on the other hand, Adam may be said to be in us, inasmuch as every original cause is, after a sort, in the effects which spring from itd. From Adam, considered in this respect, we derive both our natural life, and also that corrupt nature — the likeness of his — which is transmitted by propagation, through successive generations, to his whole race. Again, we may be said to be in Adam, inasmuch as we were represented by him in the covenant which God made with him, and, in him, with all who should be descended from him. He was the federal head of that covenant, and we were included under him. What he did and contracted, in regard to it, is set down to our account. And in this respect, we derive from him condemnation and death. Thus by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned in him; thus, by one man's disobedience many were made sinners ; thus by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation. Now in both these senses, our being in Christ in part corresponds to our being in Adam, in part d See Hooker, E. P. ch. vi. §. 56. MAN RESTORED IN CHKIST. 53 transcends it infinitely. Christ is in us as the source of our spiritual life, and we in Him as the stream in the source. And as from Adam we derive corruption of nature, so from Christ we derive incorruption. The Apostle's words, which were spoken with re ference to bodily, .apply with equal truth to spiritual, resemblance. " The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly0." Again, we are in Christ, inasmuch as He is the federal Head of the new covenant. God's covenant was with Christ, and, in Christ, with all His people, as it had before f been with Adam, and, in Adam, with his whole race. And as Adam, by violating his covenant, brought death and condemnation upon all descended from him, so Christ in that He stood to His, brought justification and life. And thus, since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead ; as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive g; as by the one" " 1 Cor. xv. 47—49. ' Before, if we regard the times at which the two covenants were respectively revealed; but afterwards in reality, seeing that God's covenant with Christ, and, in Christ, with those who are Christ's, was from everlasting. See Heb. xiii. 20. 1 Pet i. 20. Eph. iii. 11. 2 Tim. i. 9, 10. Tit. i. 2, 3. Rev. xiii. 8. &c. e 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. h Rom. v. 19. rov evos. Where els in this passage refers to Adam 54 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of the One Man shall many be made righteous ; as by the offence of one, or rather by one offence, the one sin of Adam, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, so by the righteousness of One, or rather by one righteousness, the perfect, complete, unbroken righteousness of Christ, the free gift came upon all men to justification of life. But then it is to be borne in mind that Christ is God as well as man. And this consideration gives a depth and force of meaning to our words, when we speak of Christ's being in us, and our being in Christ, which otherwise they could not have had. Had Christ been only man, none of the blessed effects just referred to could have resulted to us from any connexion we could have had with Him. It would no longer have been true, that as by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead ; that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. His obedience, however complete, could have been of no avail towards making us righteous, His righteousness, however perfect, could have brought to us neither justification nor life. or to Christ it usually has the article; see v. 15, 17, 19. At' ivbs wapairrapaTos in v. 18. is obviously, as our Translators have rendered it in the margin, " by one offence," not, " by the offence of one," as in the text : by one offence — that one offence by which Adam violatedhis covenant. At' evbs 8iicaiapiaTos,m the corresponding clause, is by one righteousness — that one unbroken course of perfect sinless obedience, which Christ rendered. Its equivalent phrase in the next verse is Sia rrjs vTraKor/s rov evos — by the obedience of that one man. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 55 In respect of our natural life, God, who is the highest cause, and first original of that life, is in us in an infinitely higher sense than any subordinate cause can be, and that not merely as its Author, but as its Preserver and Conservator. We not only have life from Him, but He is our life, and we live in Him. Life would cease the instant He should withdraw His presence. So it is likewise with regard to our spiritual life, the life which we derive from the second Adam. Christ, in that He is God as well as man, is not only the Author but also the Preserver and Conservator of that life. And thus St. Paul's words to the Colossiansh hold most strictly, whether we take them as referring to the natural creation or to the spiritual. Not only were all things created by Him that are in heaven and that are in earth, but also, by Him, or in Him, all things consist. He gave them their existence at the first, and He preserves it and will preserve it unto the end. And what the same Apostle said of himself may be truly spoken by every Christian. " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me'." Christ is our life; He lives in us and we. live in Him. And thus our life is hid with Christ in God; and when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory ". And yet, on the other hand, we must not look so exclusively to our Lord's divine nature, as to forget that it is by His human nature that He takes hold of us, (so to speak,) and unites Himself to us and us to Himself. Christ, as God, indeed, would have been h Col. i. 16, 17. ; Gal. ii. 20. k Col. iii. 3, 4. 56 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. in us, and we in Him, (for God is in all things, and His being in them is the cause of their existence,) whether He had assumed our nature or not. But it is His manhood which is the basis of that indwelling, whereby He dwells in His Church as He dwells in none other of His creatures. " There is one God," saith the Apostle, " and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus1." His manhood fitted Him for His office, in respect of the one party, as His Godhead did in respect of the other. But we shall better understand the nature of our indwelling in Christ, and Christ's in us, or, in other words, of the union which subsists between Christ and His people, as well as the importance which the word of God attaches to the subject, if we consider in what terms it is spoken of in Scripture. I. At times we have it referred to in express words. Thus Christ is said to be in His people. " Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates™?" "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness"." And as Christ is represented as being in His people, so, on the other hand, they are represented as being in Him. " There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus"." " Andronicus and Junia, who were in Chi ist before me V " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature'1." Elsewhere we have 1 1 Tim. ii i. m 2 Cor. xiii. 5. " Rom. viii. 10. " Rom. viii. 1. r Rom. xvi. 7. i 2 Cor. v. 17. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 57 Christ's indwelling in His people and theirs in Him spoken of together. " At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you\" 2. Not the least remarkable way in which this union is set forth is by the variety of images which are employed to illustrate it. Thus Christians are spoken of as the members of that body, whereof Christ is the Head, " from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together increaseth with the increase of Gods :" else where, as the stones of that building whereof " Christ Himself is the chief corner-stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord'." Once more, Christians are spoken of as branches, Christ as the Vine out of which they grow, and from which they derive both their life and fruitfulness u. And, lastly, Christians are spoken of as the children of that mother whose husband is Christ, who loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish*." Various as these images are, one cannot but observe how strikingly they agree in setting forth the common subject which they are brought to illustrate — the dependence which Christians have upon their Lord, ¦• John xiv. 20. s Col. ii. 19. ' Eph. ii. 20—22. » John xv. 1, &c. " Eph. v. 25—27. 58 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. and the close and intimate union in which they are united to Him. In such terms does Scripture speak of this high subject. Mysterious, however, as the union is which is referred to, it is a real, substantial, and living union. Christians are as truly one with Christ as the members of the natural body are with the head — " members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones y." Nay, even this, which is St. Paul's com parison, falls short of one to which our Lord likens the union between Himself and His people, when He speaks of it as corresponding to that between His Father and Himself. " At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you2." And in His prayer to His Father, the night before He suffered, " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word, that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us I in them, and thou in Me, that y Eph. v. 30. " The questions concerning our union are in general, Whether this union come nearer to the nature of the union between bodies civil, natural, or artificial. And to this we answer, that each of these unions in part resembles it, all of them do not fully express it, because it is more real, more firm, more solid, than any union can be betwixt the parts of bodies civil, artificial, or natural. For this Church is a true and living body, consisting of parts, all really, though mystically and spiritually, united unto one Head; and, by their real union with one Head, all are truly and really united among themselves," Jackson's Works, vol. iii. p. 81 7. » John xiv. 20. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 59 they may be made perfect in onea." And as our Lord, in these passages, speaks of His union with His people, as corresponding to the union of His Father with Himself, so elsewhere He compares the consequences of the one union with the consequences of the other. " As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me even he shall live by MeV* And it is by the Holy Spirit's agency that this mysterious union is both formed and preserved. Christ dwells in us by His Spirit: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His V " Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit d." " It is the Spirit that quickeneth6" — the Spirit proceeding in the first instance from the Father, and poured forth without measure upon the Son, and flowing forth from the Son, as from the Head to the body, into His Church generally, and into the several members of His Church individually, as each from time to time is incorporated, breathing into them the breath of life, and uniting them all to Him, and in Him first to the Father and then to one another. And thus, to follow out the images with which Scripture has alreadv furnished us — if Christ be the head, and His Church the body, the Holy Spirit is the soul which animates the body ; if Christ be the vine, and His people the branches, the Holy Spirit is the vital a John xvii. 20—23. b John vi. 57. c Rom. viii. 9. " 1 John iv. 13. ' John vi. 63. 60 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. principle, which, through the juices of the tree, communicates life to the branches ; if Christ be the chief corner-stone, and His Church the temple which that chief corner-stone supports and holds together, the Holy Spirit is the Shekinah, by which God manifests His presence in the temple. And lastly, as Christ, when He became incarnate, was conceived by the Holy Ghost, so likewise His people, when they are born again into that new life which they live in Him, are born of the Spirit. It is obvious then, from the view here given, that while the sense in which we are in Christ in part corresponds to that in which we may be said to have been in Adam, in part it transcends it infinitely. II. But we shall obtain a further insight into the matter, as well as be enabled more clearly to under stand how God has, in Christ, provided a remedy for the evils which our first father entailed upon his race, if we proceed to enquire what Christ, as God, has received from us, and what, as man, He has received for us. 1 . The first thing of ours which He has received, and which indeed is the basis on which His union with us rests, is our nature. He took not on Him the person of a man, already in being, for then, as Hooker says, should that one have been exalted f, r " It pleased not the Word or Wisdom of God to take to itself some one person amongst men, for then should that one have been advanced which was assumed and no more, but Wisdom MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. Cl and no more ; but He took on Him our nature. The Word, the second Person in the Sacred Trinity, was made flesh; and thus laid the foundation of a union with every individual of the human family, who should be willing to accept His salvation. And, as the Apostle to the Hebrews reasons, seeing that both He that sanctifieth — (Christ) — and they who are sanctified — (His people) — are all of one — (sprung from one common original) — therefore He is not ashamed to call them brethren6. He became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, that having sanctified and ennobled our nature, by its union with the Divine, He might in turn make, us bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. For while He thus became man for our sakes, that Divine nature which He had originally, and of whose very essence it is to be eternal and immutable, still remained unchanged. He was as truly God, after His incarnation as before, but with this addition, that He was man also — God and man, in one person, and by consequence capable of meaner offices than otherwise He could have been : " the only gain he thereby purchased for Himself, being to be capable of loss and detriment for the good of others \" " Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, (says the Apostle,) that though He was rich, yet for your to the end she might save many, built her house of that nature which is common unto all ; she made not this or that man her habitation, but dwelt in us." Hooker, E. P. v. §. 52. s Heb. ii. 11. h Hooker, E. P. v. §. 54. 62 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich'." The Son of God became the Son of man, that He might make the sons of men sons of God. It is deeply important that we should habituate ourselves to realize both the entire oneness of our Lord's human nature with our own, and also the intimacy of His union with us of which that oneness of nature is the basis. Whatever we may hold theoretically, it is perhaps not easy in practice to avoid one or the other of two extremes; either the looking so exclusively to His Godhead as to forget that He is very man, or the looking so exclusively to His manhood, as to forget that He is very God. Yet is He as truly one as the other. So far forth as He is God, one from all eternity with the Father ; so far forth as He is man, in all respects one of ourselves, though exalted by reason of the union of Godhead with manhood in His person, infinitely above all other men. Nor yet does His union with us consist merely in the identity of His human nature with our own. " For What man in the world is there," as Hooker justly asks, " who hath not so far forth communion with Jesus Christ?" Though his human nature is the basis of His union with us, yet He with whom we are united is both God and man. And we, by being united to Him, become, to use St. Peter's expression, ' 2 Cor. viii. 9. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 63 " partakers of the Divine nature." We are new creatures in Christ. The life we live is a divine life. Yea it is not we that live, but Christ liveth in us. But while our Lord's infinite love to us led Him to humble Himself so as to become flesh, His infinite purity could not endure that He should defile Himself with sinful flesh k. The nature which He took was a sinless nature. It had all the essential properties of manhood, but it was without sin. Our Lord was made in the likeness1 of sinful flesh, not in sinful flesh. His birth of the Virgin Mary gave Him thus much in common with us, that He was as truly man as we are ; His conception by the Holy Ghost distinguished Him from all other men, in that He was wholly free from whatsoever of sin and guilt we have inherited from our first father. And therefore, even before He was conceived in the womb, He was spoken of as that holy thing which should be born m. He alone of all the sons of men, since the fall, was so born that He needed not to be born again. That which we become at our regene ration, He was, though in an infinitely higher and more perfect sense, at His natural birth. And His being such at His natural birth, is the cause of our becoming such at our second birth. k See Bp. Pearson on the Creed, Art. iii. vol. i. p. 265. 1 Vides in Domino carnem mortalem: non est caro peccati; similitudo est carnis peccati. August. Serin. 134. (alias 48.) m Luke i. 35. 64 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. And this original holiness, which our Lord brought into the world with Him, He preserved, unsullied by the slightest taint, from His birth to His death. With a nature in every other respect such as ours, — as keenly sensible of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, applause and shame, ease and weariness, — He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. The tempter came", but he had nothing in Him. His heart never swerved, for an instant, from that law of love to God, which enthroned God supremely in His affections, and of charity to man, which first led Him to be born, and then to lay clown His life for us. It was His meat to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work" : insomuch that he could appeal to His Father, when on the eve of leaving the world, that He had glorified Him on the earth, He had finished the work which He had given Him to dop. Thus, as He was wholly free from original sin, so was He from actual also. In the language of one sacred writer, " In Him is no sinq." In the language of another, " He knew no sinr." Whatsoever other unhappiness our nature is susceptible of, He knew full well. Hunger and thirst, fatigue and weariness, shame and reproach, sorrowfulness and dejection, cruel mockings and scourgings, torture and death — of these and the like, He had large experience ; but of sin He knew nothing, save by what He saw " John xiv. 30. ° John iv. 34. p John xvii. 4. i 1 John iii. 5. ' 2 Cor. v. 21. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 65 of it and encountered, in the world around Him. And truly it was not the least part of the suffering which He underwent for our sakes, that He was for so long a season constrained to dwell among sinners, and to. have His habitation in a world lying in wickedness. As our Lord's human nature was the basis on which His union with us rests, so was it also the stage, so to speak, on which He did and suffered whatsoever He came to do and to suffer on our behalf, Our first father sinned by disobedience to God's law; and He who should redeem us must render a perfect obedience, and fulfil all righteousness both in doing and suffering the will of God. But he must do it in the nature in which the transgression was committed ". Man had broken the law, and man must keep it. A body therefore was prepared for Him, that in that He might do and suffer the will of God ; and He who was " equal with the Father,1' became the servant of the Father, and though He 8 XptCTOff yap rjpas i£;rjy6pao~ev eK rjjs Kardpas tov vopov' rr\v 7rkr)po>aiv rov vopov, rr)V Sia rijs dirapxrjs ytvopevrfv Skat Xoyi^eoSai rm (hvpdparC yivao-Keiv rb npenbv Kal to aKoKovBoV ori, Qeov yvpvov rov v6pov 7r\t]pato~avTos, oirep ov Kal Xeyeiv appohwv, ovk rjv akkrjv ovo~iav perex^tv rov KaropBaparos, o-apxos 8e rr\s e£ f/pS>v iv rm Tvkrjpmo-avri rov vopov yvatpi^opevrjs, dvadjalverai tov ¦yevovs- rb Kavxfjpa, &>s Karairareiv abeas tov Bavdrov rb Kevrpov, ola pjjKen %wpav exov Kara rr\s (j}vo-ea>s, S? ft dirapxfl irpo\afiova-a Kareirdrrjcre Kal fjpjSXvve, Kal irao-i beba>Ke to'is rrto-Tevovo-i XeyeiV noO aov, Bdvarc, rb Kevrpov; irov croO, abrj, rb vIkos; Athanas. in Faber on Justification, p. 125. F 66 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered. He laid aside His glory, the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. This was the first step in His humiliation, and that on which the rest followed. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself still more, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross'. For, further, Adam, by his disobedience, had brought death into the world, with its mournful train of suffering and sorrow here, and of interminable woe hereafter — and therefore it was not enough for our surety to fulfil the law, and to render a perfect obedience, both active and passive, to the will of God. He must also, that we might benefit by His obedience, bear our iniquities, and sustain the penalty of our sins, by submitting to death on our behalf. But as God, He could not suffer ; as God, He could not die. " Forasmuch therefore as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same, that, through death, He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them, who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage"." And thus our Lord's assumption of our nature • Phil. ii. 0-8. u Heb. ii. 14, 15. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 67 was subsidiary to His susception of our guilt and of our punishment. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews delights to dwell upon the types under which the Jewish law had shadowed forth the promised Saviour, both as the sacrifice which was to be offered for the sin of the world, and as the High Priest who was to offer it. And in both respects he speaks of Him as neces sarily partaking of our nature. That He might be the sacrifice, a body was prepared for Him, and we are sanctified through the offering of that body once for all". And in like manner, that He might be the High Priest, " in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining unto God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people" — merciful and faithful, as being touched with the feeling of their infirmities x. And yet again ; it was necessary that as Adam, by yielding to the Tempter, had brought himself and his whole race under the yoke of Satan, He who should deliver us from that yoke, should Himself encounter the evil one, and overcome him. And for this cause also it behoved Him to take upon Him our nature, that as man had been subdued, so man also should subdue. It was the seed of the woman which must bruise the serpent's head. Accordingly it was in His human nature that our Lord engaged in that fearful conflict, " Heb. x. 5—14. " Heb. ii. 17. F 2 68 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. struggling with the powers of darkness, as through His whole life, so more especially both at that season when it is expressly recorded that He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and also in His mysterious agony in the garden, and during His hours of suffering upon the Cross, when all the waves and storms of His Father's wrath went over Him. He partook of flesh and blood, that He might be tempted in all points like as we are, and that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. In all these respects, it is obvious how our Lord's assumption of our nature was necessary, in order to His doing and suffering whatsoever He came to do and to suffer in our behalf. But it was the perfect sinlessness of that nature in His Person, coupled with the circumstance that it was united to the Divine, which fitted Him to become a second Adam, the Progenitor of a second race, the Head and Representative of a second Covenant, and thus enabled Him to counteract the evils which the first Adam had entailed upon his descendants. Was it necessary that as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many should be made righteous2? Here was one both capable of rendering, and who actually did render, perfect obedience, and that obedience, as the obedi ence of Him who was God as well as man, of infinite merit. Was it necessary that one should be found, ' Rom. v. 19. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 69 who might, in His own person, bear the sins of the whole world ? Here was one, who being without sin Himself, both original and actual, and having the strength of Godhead bound up indissolubly with His human nature, was able to sustain the enormous load. Was it necessary, after God had provided a victim of sufficient price to make atonement, that a high priest should be found worthy to enter within the inmost recesses of the heavenly temple, and sprinkle its blood before the mercy-seat ? Here was one, who needed not daily, as the priests under the law, to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people's, seeing that he was holy, harm less, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens ". Was it necessary, that He who should rescue us from the yoke of Satan, under which our first father, through disobedience to the command of God, had brought himself and his posterity, should Himself encounter and overcome the evil one? Here was one, in whom the prince of this world, when He came, had nothing which He could challenge as His ownb; who, though He was tempted in all points like as we are, was yet without sin"-; and who, joining to this perfect sinlessness of His human nature the Almighty strength of Deity, was able to bind the strong man, and to lead captivity captive, and thus to spoil principalities and powers, and to make a show of them openly, triumphs ing over them in His Cross . a Heb. vii. 26, 27. b John xir. 30. c Heb. iv. 15. d Col. ii. 15. TO MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. ii. But we must pass on to consider what Christ, as man, has received for us. Hitherto, the subject we have had before us has been the wondrous humiliation of the eternal Word, who, for His great love wherewith He loved us, stooped so low as to become man, and, as man, submitted to a life of sorrow and a death of shame. We are now to consider the grace, which God hath given to that Man, who hath been so highly favoured as to be eternally joined in one Person with Deity. Doubtless God hath many ways exalted Him infinitely beyond our conception, and possibly in many respects in which we are but remotely con cerned. But thus much we know, that " God hath given unto Him a name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus (even that name which belongs to Him as man) every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father0." And thus far we are concerned in His exaltation, that the object for which our nature was both assumed by Him, at His incarnation, and was glorified in His Person, on His ascension, was, that He might be the Head over all things to His Church, according to the good pleasure of the Father, which He purposed in Himself, " that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, ' Phil. ii. 9—11. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 71 both which are in heaven, and which are on earth'." If then, it be asked, what hath Christ in His human nature received for us? we may answer generally, that as God hath exalted Him to be the Head of His Church, so hath He bestowed upon Him whatsoever blessings are requisite either for His Church collectively, or the members of His Church individually, to be derived from Him to all, as they severally have need. When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and received gifts for s men, as we have it in the Psalmist11, gave gifts unto men, as we have it in the Apostle1. He received that He might give. Yea, so intimately is He united to His Church, that as He became man for her sake, so, whatsoever He hath received as her Head, He hath received not for Himself alone, f Eph. i.9, 10. s In the man, marg. As though, In His human nature. St. Augustine, who lead, as the Vulgate still does, ' In hominibus,' understands the Psalmist to have an eye to Christ's oneness ivith His Church, the Apostle, to his oneness with His Father. As one with His Father, He gave the Holy Spirit, as one with His Church, He received the Holy Spirit in her members. " Secundum hoc (quod Deus cum Patre) ' dedil dona hominibus,' mittens eis Spiritum Sanctum, qui Spiritus est Patris et Filii. Secundum illud vero, quod idem ipse Christus in corpore suo intelligitur, quod est Ecclesia, propter quod et membra ejus sunt sancti et fideles ejus, (unde eis dicitur, ' Vos autem estis corpus Christi et membra') procul dubio et ipse ' accepit dona in hominibus.'" August, in Ps. lxvii. h Ps. Ixviii. 18. ' Eph. iv. 8. 72 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. but for her with Himself; for Himself as the Head, for His Church as the body, for His people indi vidually as the members of the body ; and this, by the way, may throw light upon St. John's expression, when after declaring that " the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,.... full of grace and truth," he adds, " and of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace'," grace received by us answering to the grace bestowed in the first instance upon Him, grace in the members derived from and corresponding to the grace poured forth upon the Head. Christ is represented in Scripture as the fountain of spiritual blessings of every description to His people. Whatever we have or hope for in respect of the divine life, is spoken of as given us in Him. In him we first became the objects of God's lovek. In Him we were chosen before the foundation of the world1. God hath called us to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus™. God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Sonn. We become new creatures in Christ0. And we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works p. In Christ we have redemp tion through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins q; and God hath forgiven us in Christ', and in Christ hath reconciled the world unto Himself8; and hath justified us in Him'', and He hath made us accepted ' John i. 14. 16. b Rom. viii. 39. 1 Cor. i. 4. ' Eph. i. 4. - I Pet. v. 10. " 1 John v. II. 1 Tim.i. 1. ° 2 Cor. v. 17. " Eph. ii. 10. i Col. i. 14. ' Ephes. iv. 32. s 2 Cor. v. \Q.. * 1 Cor. i. 30. 2 Cor. v. 21. Gal. ii. 17. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 73 in the Beloved". In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge *. He pours forth His Spirit upon His people, and they are sanctified in Him7; and in Him have strength to serve God, and overcome the enemies of their salvation \ The blessing of Abraham has come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus \ In Christ we have fellowship with our fellow Christians, being with them joint members of that Church in which all are one, " where there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor un circum cision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all\" Thus there is in truth no spiritual blessing which is bestowed upon Christians, but they receive it from Christ; and as they receive it from Christ, so He in the first instance received itfor them. If Christians are anointed with the Holy Spirit", it is because the gift was first bestowed upon Christ, that from Him, the Anointed of the Father, it might flow forth to His people. If Christians are endued with spiritual life, it is because, as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son also to have life in Himself4, and His life is the cause of theirs". If Christians are raised from the death of sin here, and if they shall be raised from the death of the body hereafter, and being so raised shall be exalted into heaven, it is because God exerts in them the same mighty power u Eph. i. 6. s Col. ii. 3. y 1 Cor. i. 2. * Eph. vi. 10. « Gal. iii. 14. b Col. iii. 11. ' 1 John ii. 20, 27. a John v. 26. * John xiv. 19. 74 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, quickening them together with Christ, and raising them up together, and making them sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesusf. And in like manner we might follow out the connexion through a variety of particulars, in which, very observably and surely not without design, the very same words are applied by the sacred writers both to Christians and to Christ. Are Christians, e. g. spoken of as God's elect people9? It is because Christ is the elect of the Father^, and they are elect in Him1. Are Christians called to be Saints*? Christ is the Holy One1, and they are sanctified in Him. Are Christians, sons of God, and, if sons, heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ™ ? It is because Christ is the Son of God and Heir of all things", and they are sons and heirs in Him. Are Christians Abraham's seed"? It is be cause Christ is the seed of Abraham, and they are accounted such in Himp. Are Christians the light of the world*? It is because Christ is the Light of the world1, and they are light in Him, they shine by His light and reflect His light by which they shine, to the eyes of men. Are Christians made kings and priests unto God"? It is because Christ is the King 1 Eph. i. 19, 20. and ii. 5, 6. * 2 Tim. ii. 10. h Isaiah xiii. 1. ' Eph. i. 4. l 1 Cor. i. 2. ' Mark i. 24. m Rom. viii. 16, 17. " Heb. i. 2. ° Gal. iii. 29. » Gal. iii. 16. i Mat. v. 14. ' John ix. 5. ¦ Rev. v. 10. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 75 of kings, and the great High Priest of the Father1, and they are kings and priests in Him. In these respects then and the like has Christ, as man, received gifts for men. God hath anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows11. Yet in such wise that they also are anointed with Him. The precious ointment which was poured upon the head, hath run down unto the beard and gone down even unto the skirts of His clothing-, and the whole world is filled with its odour \ And thus, in the very exaltation of our Lord's human nature, we are reminded of the wondrous condescension of His divine. For even to be capable of exaltation, is what the eternal Son, as God only, could not have stooped to; and to be capable of re ceiving — otherwise than, as the Only-begotten of the Father, He hath received from all eternity from the Father, to be God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God — would but for His manhood have been impossible. But such was His marvellous love, that He, who, as God, is the fountain and source of grace, as man, received grace, that on us He might bestow grace. He, from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds, received the Spirit, that He might make us partakers of the Spirit. He, who dwelt in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, was exalted to the Father's right hand in the heavenly places, that He might exalt us with Himself, and make us partakers ' Rev. xix. 16. Heb. iv. 14. u Ps. xL. 7. * Psalm cxxxiii. 76 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. We have now seen what Christ hath received from us, and what He hath received for us. He hath received from us our nature, that, as man, He might render a perfect obedience to His Father's will and fulfil all righteousness; that, as man, He might bear our sins in His own body upon the tree; that, as man, He might both die for us, and, through death, destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil : and in the same nature having been exalted to His Father's right hand in heaven, He hath been made Head over all things to His Church, that receiving from the Father whatsoever blessings are needful whether for His Church collectively, or the members of His Church individually, He may be the fountain of life and grace to His people, quickening them by His Spirit, conforming them to His own divine image, in which man was originally created, and preparing them for that day when He shall com plete what He has begun, when He shall raise them from the dead, and exalt them to heaven, and grant them to sit with Him on His throne, even as He is set down with His Father on His throne y. Thus Christ is become to us a second Adam ; only with these infinite advantages over the first : that whereas the first Adam was made a living soul, the second Adam was made a quickening spirit z; whereas the first man was of the earth, earthy, the second * Rev. iii. 21. ' 1 Cor. xv. 45 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 77 man is the Lord from heaven"; whereas the first after fulfilling his appointed term of days, returned to the dust from which He was taken, the second abideth for ever, the perpetual and inexhaustible well-spring of life and immortality to His people. And hence the union which we have with Christ, while in part it corresponds with the connexion which we have with Adam, in part transcends it infinitely. We are in both, respectively, as every effect may be said to be in the cause, from which it derives its being: we are in both, respectively, inasmuch as we are represented by them in the covenants, in which each stands as the Head and Surety of all belonging to him. But Christ being the great first cause and highest original, and not only the Author, but also the Preserver and Conservator, as well of our spiritual as of our natural life, and having taken man's nature upon Him for the express purpose that of Himself, now both God and man, He might frame His Church, we are in Him, as it is impossible we should be in any subordinate cause. We dwell in Him, and He in us, we are one with Him, and He with us. We are members of that body of which He is the Head, united to Him by His Spirit, by which He quickens us and abides within us, in a true and living union. And what the Apostle says in reference to the inferior members is strictly applicable in reference to Him, who, as the Head, is the chief member. Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer • 1 Cor. xv. 47. 78 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. with it, or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with itb. Christ's sufferings are His Church's sufferings, Christ's exaltation is His Church's exalt ation. And this union is the true basis of the covenant relationship which He bears towards us". As the Husband of His Church, He represents His Church; as the Father of His people, He represents His people; as the first-born among many brethren, He represents His brethren; as the Head of His body, whatsoever He hath done or suffered is ac counted as the deed or suffering of His body, and whatsoever of grace or glory He hath received, is given Him for the ornament and exaltation of His body : God's covenant therefore is with Christ, and, in Christ, with His Church, and the individual members of His Church; and thus "all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him amen, to the glory of God by us \" They are made to Him, and, in Him, to His people. And seeing it is alike im possible that either the Son, to whom they are made, should fail of the conditions, or the Father, by whom they are made, of His word, they are established on an immovable and imperishable basis. O blessed security of our hope, which rests not upon the weak ness or fickleness of man, but upon the Almighty strength of Christ, and the unchangeable truth of God! b 1 Cor. xii. 26. ° see Gal. iii. 16. d 2 Cor. i. 20. MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. 79 Thus under whichsoever aspect we regard Him, whether as united to His Church as the Head to the body, in a true and living union; or as the Repre sentative of His Church in the everlasting covenant which His Father made with Him before the world was, Christ is the remedy which the abounding love of God hath provided for the misery of our fallen and ruined race. 1. Did Adam bring death into the world, — the death of the body? Christ is the resurrection and the life : and because He lives, we, if we believe in Him, shall live also? " If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in youd." " Our corruptible bodies could never live the life they shall live, were it not that here they are joined with His body which is incorruptible, and that His is in ours as a cause of immortality, a cause by removing through the death and merit of His own flesh, that which hindered the life of ours6." 2. Again ; Did Adam bring condemnation upon his whole race? Christ hath borne the penalty of the broken law, and we have borne it in Him. Christ hath rendered a perfect obedience to His Father's will, and His obedience is ours. God looks upon us no longer as we are in ourselves the guilty children of the first Adam, but as we are in Christ, His Son in whom He is well pleased. " Such we are, (to use d Rom. viii. 11. " Hooker, E. P. v. §. 56. 80 MAN RESTORED IN CHRIST. Hooker's well-known words,) in the sight of God the Father, as is the very Son of God Himself. Let it be counted folly or frenzy or fury whatsoever; it is our comfort and our wisdom. We care for no knowledge in the world but this, that man hath sinned and God hath suffered; that God hath made Himself the Son of man, and that men are made the righteousness of Godf." Lastly; Do we derive from Adam a corrupt nature ? Is that glorious image of God in which our first father was created, marred and defaced ? For this also we have a remedy in Christ. For our union with Christ involves necessarily the presence of the Spirit of Christ, insomuch that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His : and where that Spirit dwells, there must be holiness. Thus, every way, Christ is the remedy for Adam's sin. As in Adam all die, in every sense of which the word death is capable, even so in Christ, and with the like extent of meaning, are all made alive. Our guilt is washed away in His blood; our corruption is cleansed by His Spirit ; our death is swallowed up in His victory. In one word, Christ " is made unto us of God wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lordg." r Hooker on Justification, \. 6. B 1 Cor. i. 30, 31. SEEMON III. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. " Ipse ergo peccatum, ut nos justitia; nee nostra, sed Dei ; nee in nobis sed in ipso : sicut ipse peccatum, non suum, sed nostrum ; nee in se sed in nobis constitutum, similitudine carnis peccati, in qua crucifixus est, demon- stravit." Augustin. Enchirid. xli. " Adae peccatum imputabitur mihi, et Christi justitia non pertinebit ad me?" Bernard, apud Davenant de Justitia habituali. c. xxviii. " I must take heed what I say : but the Apostle saith , ' God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.' Such we are in the sight of God the Father, as is the very Son of God Himself. Let it be counted folly, or frenzy, or fury, whatsoever ; it is our comfort, and our wisdom ; we care for no knowledge in the world but this, That man hath sinned and God hath suffered ; that God hath made Himself the Son of Man, and that men are made the righteousness of God." Hooker on Justification, §. 6. 2 Cor. v. 21. He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Hitn. Our blessed Lord, in joining Himself to His Church, was both a giver and a receiver in various respects. The language which He addressed to His Father, He might fitly have spoken to her also — " All Mine are Thine, and Thine are MineV Thus, He took our nature, and made us partakers of the Divine. He became the Son of man, that we, in Him, might become sons of God. And if it be possible to find a more stupendous instance even than these, of the mutual participation which His people and He have in each other, it is that with which the text furnishes us. God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Christ received from us that which He had not and could not have of Himself. And we receive in Him that which we have not and cannot have of ourselves. He was made sin for us, we become the righteousness of God in Him. * John xvii. 10. G 2 84 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. We have here then an illustration, in the particular instance of the transfer of our sins to Christ, and of our being made the righteousness of God in Him, of the general principle of which I spoke at large in my last Sermon. Christ, whether we regard Him as united to His Church, as the head to the body, in a true and living union, or as the representative of His Church in the everlasting covenant which His Father made with Him before the world was, is the remedy which the abounding love of God hath provided for the evils entailed upon us by the offence of our first father. These evils, we have seen, consist mainly in an entailed condemnation and a corrupt nature; and the actual transgressions proceeding from the latter, as well as its own inherent sinfulness, have added to the weight of the former. In Christ we have de liverance from both ; deliverance from the guilt of sin, for He has been made sin for us, and we are made the righteousness of God in Him; deliverance from the power of sin, for we are made partakers of His Spirit, which flowing from Him to His people, as from the head to the body, assimilates them to Himself, and conforms them to the image of God. And the one deliverance is inseparably connected with the other. He who " once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to GodV is the same, who, " His own self, bare our " 1 Pet. iii. 18, IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 85 sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness0." Yet while these two deliverances are inseparably connected, it may be a question, whether they are so co-ordinately, in that they spring together from one common source, or subordinately, in that one is derived from the other. Is our deliverance from the power of sin the cause of our deliverance from its guilt and condemnation? or are both deliverances to be traced up simply and distinctly, like two separate streams issuing from the same fountain, to their common original? This might seem, at first sight, a question of little moment. And yet it is the point on which one of the chief controversies with regard to our justification turns. That God is the efficient cause of our justification, and Christ the meritorious and procuring cause, there is no dispute. That we must have a principle of righteousness within us, and that principle so pregnant with life, that, wherever time and opportunity are given, it will shew itself in the fruits of a holy and religious conversation, is agreed by all parties who have any real earnestness in the matter of their salvation, however men, in the heat of controversy, may have charged their adversaries with denying it: but the question is, Is this the righteousness, which justifies us before God? True though it is, and wrought in us by the operation of Christ's Spirit, is it sufficient to bear the severity of ' 1 Pet. ii. 24. 86 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. God's righteous judgment ? Or must not we rather rest simply and at once and without the interpo sition of any such medium upon Christ, accounting that the ground of our acceptance in the sight of God is not our own inherent but imperfect righteous ness, but the perfect righteousness of Christ, ours because of our union with Christ ? This then is the subject which, with God's help, I would to-day bring before you. It shall be my endeavour to shew, that our justification consists, not, as the Church of Rome teaches, in our being made righteous, though this also we must be if ever we would reach heaven, but, as our own Church teaches1, in our being accounted righteous, God dealing with us in Christ as though we had perfectly fulfilled the whole law, not because we have done so or can do so, but because our guilt in transgressing the law has been laid upon Christ, whose members we are. If, in pursuing this plan, I shall make the passage which was read at the outset the basis of such con siderations as I shall bring before you, there will be this advantage, in such a method, over what might be thought a more independent course, that I shall be enabled to commit myself more simply and unreservedly to the guidance of the divine word. I pray that both on the present and on such future occasions as I may be permitted to speak from this place, I may have grace to follow that guidance with d Article xi. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 87 all godly sincerity, and that so large a measure of God's Spirit may accompany what shall be spoken, that both our hearts and lives may bear witness to its sanctifying influence. Such subjects, of all others, have need to be studied with a continual view to practice. And indeed this is the only spirit in which we may safely approach any controverted subjects, especially in a time of such unnatural and harassing excitement as the present. " The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will shew them His Covenant." " The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way6." May He give us " the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord'," and endue us with " meekness of wisdom8." That the righteousness of which the text speaks is the righteousness which forms the ground of our acceptance in the sight of God, is plain from the scope of the Apostle's argument, which is to shew, that the obstacle which formerly stood in the way of our reconciliation with God has been removed; and that we may now draw nigh to Him with confidence as to a most loving Father. " Now then," he says, after declaring that " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them," and that He had committed to him with others the word of reconciliation, — " now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we • Ps. xxv. 14^ 9. ' Isaiah xi. 2. g James iii. 13. 88 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We therefore as workers together with Him beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." As though he had said, Be ye reconciled to God ; for, whereas our iniquities did separate between us and Him, he hath graciously removed the barrier, and provided us with a righteousness, in which we may approach Him acceptably. The text has two obvious divisions, which mutually throw light upon each other. I. " God hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin." This is what Christ hath received from us. II. " That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." This is what we receive in Him. I. With regard to the former : It has already been sufficiently shewn in what sense Christ knew no sin ; and I need not dwell upon this point now. He took our nature, but not its sinfulness, and He preserved what He took unsullied by the slightest stain from His birth to His death. And yet God " made Him to be sin for us." There are two ways in which this may be taken, though they both amount to the same thing in the end. Either, God dealt with our blessed Lord as a sinner, as altogether sinful, nay the word is stronger still, as though He were sin itself, the very personifi- IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 89 cation of sin ; or, God made Him a sin-offering, an offering for the sins of the whole world, according to the Prophet's description, " The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all11;" and the Baptist's declaration, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world1." For the former, we have the structure of the sentence, which, it should seem, designedly contrasts the sin which Christ was made for us, with the righteousness which we are made in Himj. For the latter, we have the fact that the word sin (apaprloC) is frequently used for sin-off eringv . Thus, for example, in the fourth chapter of Leviticus we have the following directions given for the sin- offering of the congregation of Israel. " If the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance.... h Isaiah liii. 6. ! John i. 29. ' See Chrysost. in loc. 1 " Nulla igitur voluptate carnalis concupiscentiae seminatus sive conceptus, et ideo nullum peccatum originaliter trahens; Dei quoque gratia Verbo Patris unigenito, non gratia filio sed natura, in uuitate persona; modo mirabili et ineffabili adjunctus atque concretus, et ideo nullum peccatum et ipse commiltens; tamen propter similitudinem carnis peccati in qua venerat, dictus est et ipse peccatum, sacrificandus ad diluenda peccata. In vetere quippe Lege peccata vocahantur sacrificia pro peccatis : quod vere iste factus est cujus umbrae erant illee. Hinc Apostolus cum dixisset ' obsecramus pro Christo reconciliari Deo,' continuo subjunxit atque ait, ' Eum qui non noverat peccatum, pro nobis peccatum fecit, ut nos simus justitia Dei in ipso' . . . id est, Christum pro nobis peccatum fecit Deus cui reconciliandi sumus, hoc est, sacrificium pro peccatis, per quod reconciliari valeremus." August. Enchirid. xli. 80 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. when their sin is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin, (or for the sin- offering, irepl ttjs apaprla?,) and bring him before the tabernacle of the congregation, and the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the Lord : and the bullock shall be killed before the Lord. And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation, and the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, even before the vail, and he shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar, which is before the Lord, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, (the altar of incense,) and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt-offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first bullock: it is the sin of the congregation," (apapria o-vvaycoyijs eo-Tiv,) where sin is evidently used for sin-offering, and so accordingly our tranlators have rendered it, " it is a sin-offering for the congregation1." Moreover our blessed Lord is frequently expressly spoken of or referred to in Scripture under the figure of a sin-offering. Thus, " That which the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, 1 Lev. iv. 13 — 21. Compare also Lev. iv. 25. and v. 9. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 91 and for sin, (jrepl apapria?, the usual term in the Septuagint for a sin-offering,) condemned sin in the flesh"1." And the writer to the Hebrews, referring to the passage from Leviticus just quoted, and other like passages, speaks of Christ as the antitype which the Jewish sin-offering typified. " We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest, for sin, (that is, as sin-offerings, irepl apapria?) are burnt without the camp, (as in the instance above quoted.) Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate :" that is, He was the great and true sin-offering, of which the sin- offerings appointed by the law were but types and shadows11. These passages shew, that as the Apostle's term " sin" will bear the interpretation sin-offering, so there are instances enough elsewhere of Christ's being spoken of as a sin-offering to warrant the interpretation here. And here we may observe the peculiar suitableness, in connection with the word he had just used, in the Apostle's mention of our blessed Lord's freedom from sin, forasmuch as it was invariably required in the victims to be offered in sacrifice, that they should be without spot or blemish. That which was re- '" Rom. viii. 3. " Heb. xiii. 10 — 12. See also ix. 24 — 28. 92 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. quired in the type was pre-eminently fulfilled in the antitype. He was " a lamb without blemish and without spot0." " He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sinp." The reason why the sin-offering was sometimes called sin, as in the passage in Leviticus above referred to, where the sin-offering of the congregation is called the sin of the congregation, was, it should seem, that the sin of the offerer was transferred to the victim offered, which was significantly intimated in the prescribed ceremonies. Thus the victim which was to be sacrificed, and which must be free from blemish of every sort, was to be placed before the tabernacle, before the Lord; and the elders of the congregation, as the representatives of those in whose behalf it was to be offered, were to lay their hands upon its head, as it were to connect themselves with it, and in token that their guilt was to be transferred from themselves to it. Then it was to be killed, the guiltless and unoffending animal for their sin, and some of its blood sprinkled before the Lord, before the vail of the tabernacle, some put upon the horns of the altar of incense, which was within the holy place, and the rest poured out at the bottom of the altar of burnt-offering at the door of the tabernacle. So many different ways were there in which the blood was to be presented before God, for a memorial. And last of all, the whole carcase was ' 1 Pet. i. 19. p 1 John iii. 5. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 93 to be carried forth without the camp and there burnt, as though unclean and defiled, and not fit to be retained longer on holy ground. The transfer of the sins of the offerer to the victim offered, which was intimated by the laying of the offerer's hands upon the victim's head, was indicated with still greater distinctness in the type of the scape-goat, on whose head the high priest was commanded to lay both his hands, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and then to send him away, by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, " and the goat," it is added, " shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited'1." With these ceremonies the Jews were familiar from their childhood, and in them, though numbers possibly saw nothing but the outward rite, little dreaming of the depth of spiritual meaning hidden under them, the Gospel was virtually taught. As indeed the time of the promise drew nigh, other and clearer intimations were afforded in the more explicit declarations of prophecy, the whole heavens, as it were, being irradiated with the beams of the approaching Sun of righteousness; but yet when Isaiah spoke so explicitly in his fifty-third chapter of the sufferings and atonement of Christ, he, in i Lev. xvi. 21, 22. 94 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. effect, declared little more, than the law had already intimated, though less openly, in its types and shadows. He used the same language in reference to the true, which it had used in reference to the typical sin- offering. For it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sinss. The types of the law and the more express declarations of the prophets all pointed to a higher and better sacrifice, on whose head our iniquities should be laid, and to whose person our guilt should be transferred. And thus, as I observed at the outset, it comes to the same thing, whichever of the two meanings we put upon the word " sin" in the passage we are considering, " God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin," He hath transferred our guilt to Christ, He hath dealt with Him as though He were not merely a sinner, but sin, the very personification of sin, as though all the sins of all the world were concentrated in Him. And it is very much to be remarked, how the whole history of our Lord's passion corresponds to this. It was surely not without design that the death by which He died was a public and judicial one, and that while on the one hand, there were so many (and these independent) testimonies to His innocence, on the other, all the principal circum- ' Heb. x. 4. IMFUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 95 stances connected with His death tended to represent Him as a malefactor. Thus, His judge, even while he gave sentence upon Him, acquitted Him : " I am innocent," he said, " of the blood of this just person," and vainly washed his hands in token that he disowned all participation in the guilt of His death'. And Pilate's wife's message was to the same effect : " Have thou nothing to do with that just manu." Herod's conviction agreed with Pilate's : " I having examined Him," said Pilate, " have found jio fault in Him . . . no, nor yet Herod1." We have besides the testimony of one of His fellow-sufferers : " We indeed justly,. ...but this man hath done nothing- amiss3';" and of the centurion who watched Him while He hung upon the cross: " Certainly this was a righteous man2." Nay, the very people who stood by beholding the crucifixion, many of whom, no doubt, had joined in the murderous cry, Crucify Him, Crucify Him, went away smiting their breasts, as though acknowledging His innocence and their own and their nation's guilt*. Here then were so many independent testimonies to His innocence. Not less remarkable are the multiplied instances of His being dealt with as a malefactor. Thus, when He was first apprehended, He was apprehended as a malefactor. And His ' Matt, xxvii. 24. " ib. v. 19. " Luke xxiii. 14, 15. y ib. v. 41. z ib. v. 47. * ib. v. 48. 96 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. words spoken to those who apprehended Him shew how keenly He felt the indignity. " Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and staves for to take Meb?" When He was condemned by the Jews, He was condemned as a malefactor". When He was delivered up to Pilate, He was delivered up as a malefactor : " If He were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered Him up unto theed." When He was given over to be put to death, a malefactor was released, and He retained for punish ment6. And the death by which He died was the death of a malefactor, — the death of the cross, a death accounted infamous by the Gentiles and accursed by the Jews. Nay, as though this were not enough to stamp His character with the brand of infamy, He must have two companions in His death, and they likewise malefactors'. And to com plete all, when man had done his worst, to blacken and traduce His good name, and there seemed nothing left but that hidden stay of innocence in the midst of outward trials, the calm sunshine of God's presence felt within, even this was denied Him. For our sins, now become His, had hid His Father's face from Him, and He gave utterance to that cry which indicates perhaps the deepest and the most b Matt. xxvi. 55. See Barrow's Sermon " Upon the Passion of our Blessed Saviour." Serm. xxxii. c ib. v. 65, 66. i John xviii. 30. • Luke xxiii. 25. ' ib. v. 32, 33. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 97 mysterious of His sufferings, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken M e ?" Thus was that innocent and most holy Person " numbered with the transgressors'1," thus was He " wounded for our transgressions," thus was He " bruised for our iniquities," thus was "the chas tisement of our peace upon Him V thus, in one word, did God make " Him to be sin for us who knew no sin." There are two passages which I shall notice separately as harmonizing very remarkably with the one under our consideration, and conveying most strikingly the same idea of the transfer of our sins to Christ. 1. That David, in the fortieth Psalm, speaks in the person of Christ, is put beyond a doubt by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who quotes verses 6, 7, and 8, expressly as the words of Christ, declaring that He had come to be the true sin- offering for the sins of the worldk. Now observe, in what perfect consistency with the figure of the sin-offering, though now the reference to that figure is dropped, Christ, whose words they are, is repre sented as speaking in the twelfth verse. " Innumerable evils," He says, " have compassed Me about; mine iniquities have taken hold upon Me so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head : therefore my heart faileth Me." And yet of B Matt, xxvii. 46. h Isaiah liii. 12. ' ib. v. 5. " Heb. x. 5. &c. H 98 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. Himself He knew no sin. But they were our iniquities transferred to Him, and made His by reason of His union with us, which pressed thus heavily upon His soul, and made it exceeding sorrowful even unto death. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He took it off from us and charged it on Him. And it was not less in testimony of His meekness and patience, than in acknowledg ment of the justice of the punishment under which He suffered, that He was so silent under His suffer ings. And, as it has been truly remarked, " though His enemies dealt most unjustly with Him, yet He stood as convicted before the judgment-seat of His Father, under the imputed guilt of all our sins, and so eyeing Him, and accounting His business to be chiefly with Him, He did patiently bear the due punishment of all our sins at His Father's hands; according to that of the Psalmist, ' I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it.' For which reason also, the prophet immediately subjoins the description of His silent carriage, to that which He had spoken of, the confluence of our iniquities upon Him: ' As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth1.' " 2. We have the same truth taught us under another image in the Epistle to the Galatians : " Christ," saith the Apostle, " hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for usm." Both Jews and Gentiles (and St. Paul, as is evident 1 Leighton on 1 Pet, ii. 24. - Gal. iii. 13. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 99 from the following verse, contemplates both) were under the curse. The Gentiles, as obnoxious to the ancient curse entailed by Adam on all His de scendants; the Jews, over and above, as having come short of the requirements of the law, which pronounced a curse on every one that continued not in all things that were written in the book of the law to do them. How then shall any find deliverance ? Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. He who, on His own account, was obnoxious to no curse ; He in whose favour is life, and the light of whose countenance is the everlasting joy of His people; He in whom men shall be blessed, and whom all the generations of the redeemed throughout eternal ages shall call blessed, became a curse for us. The curse was taken from our heads, and laid on His". In this sense did God make His most holy Son to be sin for us, transferring our sins to Him, and dealing with Him as though He were laden with the iniquities of the whole world. Here then we have an unquestionable instance, " 'Ewci ovv Kal 6 Kpepdpevos enl £vXov eTriKardpaTos, Kal 6 tov vdpov napafiaivaiv imKardparos, peXKovra be eKeivrjv Xveiv rfjv Kardpav vneiBwov ovk ebet yevecrBai avrqs, Set be be^ao-Bai Kardpav avr eKeivr/s, Toiavr-qv ebegaro, Kal bi avrrjs iKeivr/v eXvo-e. Kal KaBdirep rivbs KarabiKao-BevTos airoBavelv, erepos dvevBvvos eXd/ievos Bavelv imep iKelvov, i£apird£ei T^r Tipapias avrdv ovra> Kal 6 Xpio-rbs eiroirjo-ev. 'Eireibr) yap ovx vireKeiro Kardpa rrj rijs Trapa^dcreais, avebegaro 6 Xpiorbs dvT eKeivrjs ravrrjv, iva Xvo-r) ttjv iKeivav. 'Apapriav yap ovk iiroli]0-ev, ovbe d6Xos eipeBrj iv r o-ropaTi avrov. Chrysost. in Gal. iii. 13. H 2 100 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. and that in the very point in hand, of imputed guilt : and shall we hesitate to admit, what rightly under stood, is its inseparable correlative, imputed righteous ness? If our sins have been transferred to Christ, then can they no longer be reckoned to our account. God's justice forbids Him to inflict on us the punish ment which Christ hath already borne and He hath accepted on our behalf. And that eternal attribute of His which was before against us, is now on our side. And " if God be for us," as the Apostle tri umphantly asks in language which conveys through out the idea of forensic proceedings, " who can be against us ? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justified). Who is He that condemneth ? It is Christ that died; yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us °." And this view may prepare us for the more par ticular consideration of the righteousness which we become in Christ, so far forth as it is the ground of our acceptance with a righteous God. II. The Scriptures, both in the Old and New Testa ment, speak of a twofold righteousness; a righteousness imputed, as when it is said that Abraham " believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righte- " Rom. viii. 31—34. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 101 ousnessp;" and a righteousness inherent, as in these words of St. John, " Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doeth righteousness is righte ous'1." And in like manner the verb " to justify" is used both of accounting or pronouncing righteous, and of making righteous, though in the former sense, much more frequently than in the latter. If however we look to those places, where the ground of our acceptance in the sight of God is spoken of, we shall find that the words are both used in a, forensic sense, — righteousness, of a righte ousness accounted, notinherent, to justify, of accounting or pronouncing, not making righteous. This has been often proved in detail"; and I shall content myself with referring to two passages, one in which the sinner's justification is distinctly introduced, the other in which it is the subject which the sacred writer is treating expressly and of set purpose. 1. The first occurs in St. Paul's speech to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia: " Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins ; and by Him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses » :" where to be justified is plainly the same as to have forgive- p Gen. xv. 6. q 1 John iii. 7. ' See Bp. Andrewes' Sermon on Justification in Christ's name; Barrow's Sermons on the Creed, Serm. 5. Of Justification by faith ; Bp. Bull, Harmon. Apostol. Diss. Prior, c. 1 ; Whitby's Preface to the Epistle to the Galatians ; Waterland on Justification. ¦ Acts xiii. 38, 39. 102 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. ness of sins. And it is all one as though the Apostle had said, By Him all that believe receive forgiveness of those sins, for which the law of Moses offered no forgiveness. For many sins the law had its prescribed sacrifices; the offerer laid his hands upon the head of the victim, his guilt was transferred to it, and he was thenceforward dealt with as an innocent person, both ceremonially, and also, through the virtue of the true sacrifice, the great sin-offering, really. There were other sins of a graver kind for which no sacrifice was appointed. But for these also, the Apostle says, provision is now made in Christ, and if we would express in other words what that provision is, we could not find any so fit to our purpose, as those with which he has himself fur nished us in our text : " God was in Christ recon ciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;" for which purpose, " He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him'." 2. The other passage to which I refer, and which extends over part of the third and throughout the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, will require a fuller consideration, inasmuch as Justifica tion is not here touched upon incidentally and by the way, but is treated of expressly and of set purpose. St. Paul enters upon the subject imme diately on opening his Epistle, declaring that to reveal the righteousness of God, or, in other words, that righteousness, which God both requires and 1 See Bp. Bull, Harmon. Apostol. Diss. Prior, c. 1. §. 4. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 103 gives in order to our salvation, was one of the characteristic glories of the Gospel. Then, after shewing at considerable length the misery of all mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, in their natural state, and their utter inability to stand before God in a righteousness of their own, seeing that there is none righteous, no not one, so that every mouth must be stopped, and all the world brought in guilty before God, (observe how in the very approach to the subject we are prepared for a forensic righte ousness,) he proceeds, towards the end of the third and throughout the fourth chapter, to describe the righteousness which the Gospel has brought to light, which yet had been intimated, though not clearly revealed, by both the Law and the Prophets. Now I would remark, in the first place, that he speaks of this righteousness, as God's righteousness, — God's righteousness bestowed upon those, who, in themselves, were altogether void of righteousness. " For all have sinned," he says, repeating what he had elaborately proved in the former part of his argument, " and come short of the glory of God." And if it be God's righteousness, bestowed upon those, who, being in themselves altogether void of righteousness, are represented as standing at God's bar, without one word to plead in arrest of judgment, every mouth stopped, all the world guilty before God, the very law to which some at least were disposed to look, as though it would plead in their favour, only raising its voice to condemn them, — I say, if it be God's righteousness bestowed upon persons 104 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. so circumstanced, this alone is a strong presumption that it is a righteousness accounted, not a righteousness infused. It has been urged indeed that the righteous ness which God works in His servants by the operation of His Spirit, may well be termed God's righteousness as distinct from any righteousness wrought in our natural strength and the fruit of our unassisted efforts. Let us see then, whether a further consideration of the passage we have in hand, does not exclude the one sense as well as the other, and constrain us to accept the Apostle's words as referring to an extrinsic righteousness. Now St. Paul proceeds to describe it as a righteousness " which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe." And on this ground he declares that it shuts out boasting. " For," says he, instancing the case of Abraham, " if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, though even so, not before God ;" because his works, whatsoever they were, so far as they were good, must be traced up to God, as their true author. " For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not counted of grace but of debt" — it is not imputed as a matter of favour, freely bestowed, where no claim could be preferred, — it is a debt due. " But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Here then plainly is an extrinsic righteousness, a righte- IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 105 ousness not inherent but imputed ; a righteousness bestowed as a matter of grace and favour, not a righteousness which can claim a reward. I may add with regard to the description here given of God's character, " He that justifieth the ungodly," that though the expression, taken by itself, might possibly signify, as they who contend for justification by an inherent righteousness would maintain, to make righteous those who before were unrighteous, yet, taken with its context, " to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteous ness," there can be no doubt but that it is to be under stood in the forensic sense, of accounting righteous, pronouncing righteous. Nor is it to be passed over, that the expression is the very same as that in the Prophet, " Woe unto them which justify the wicked for reward, (ol BiKaiovvres rov dae^rj is the Sep- tuagint Version,) and take away the righteousness of the righteous from himu," where the forensic sense is unquestionable. It might indeed be objected, that according to the sense of justification we have been contending for, God is represented as dealing with us in the very manner which he here reprobates in those inferior magistrates, who are, in some sort, his representatives to men. But this very objection confirms the view which has been taken, for it is precisely the objection which St. Paul felt that his doctrine was liable to, as is apparent from his adding, after he had been explaining the steps which God u Isaiah v. 23. 106 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. had taken towards the justification of the ungodly, " that he may be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." No doubt the justification of the ungodly could not but seem incompatible, at first sight, with our ideas of God's justice, and must remain so, but for the wondrous scheme, which he first devised for our justification, and then revealed for his own™. But where would have been the difficulty, or apparent inconsistency, if the Apostle had used the word " justify" in the sense of making righteous? That God should make righteous those who before were unrighteous, is what all can under stand; but that the just Judge of all the earth should forgive, freely forgive, those who had trampled upon His righteous laws, this was indeed a marvel, which could not be explained, till it was revealed how " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them," and this by making " Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him V The Apostle had referred to the case of Abraham : still further to prevent mistake, and to shew that w " Sed quse, inquis, justitia est ut innocens moriatur pro impio? Non est justitia, sed misericordia. . . At vero si justitia non est, non tamen contra justitiam est: Alioquin et Justus et misericors simul esse non posset." Bernard. Exhort, ad mil. Templi, c. xi. * See a similar instance of the forensic sense of biKatda, Gal. ii. 17. Et be £r]TOvVTes blKaia>8fjvai iv Xpio'r^, evpiBrjpev Kal avrol apapra>Xol, apa Xpio-rbs apaprias biaKovos; Such a supposition could not have been put where to be justified meant to be made righteous. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 107 the righteousness he spoke of consists not in the infusion of righteousness, but in the forgiveness of unrighteousness, he adduces David as a witness, quoting, from the thirty-second Psalm, his descrip tion of the righteousness in which we must stand, if we would find acceptance before God : " Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works." And in what doth this righteousness consist 1 " Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." The Psalmist adds, " and in whose spirit there is no guile." But the Apostle, it is worthy of remark, omits this clause, as though, while it describes the state of heart which inseparably accompanies justification, it was yet beside his immediate object, which was to set forth the righteousness, which God imputes to us, not, works in us. But we have not yet exhausted St. Paul's account of the righteousness we are considering. Not only does he speak of it as God's righteousness, thereby excluding our own righteousness, not only does he speak of it as a righteousness bestowed upon faith, thereby excluding works, shutting out boasting, making it a matter of grace and favour, and not of debt ; not only does he expressly call it a righteous ness accounted, but he proceeds to describe it par ticularly, and, in describing it, represents it as consisting not in an inherent righteousness, but in the forgiveness of unrighteousness. "All have sinned," 108 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. he says, "and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness, for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." Every word here points to a righteousness accounted, not inherent. The persons justified sinners; the justification bestowed upon them bestowed freely, by God's grace ; the procuring cause of their justification, the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, with regard to which expression if we consult the Apostle for his own sense of his own words, we have it twice repeated in the self-same terms, once in the Epistle to the Ephesians, once in that to the Colossians. " In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins' " or, as he proceeds to explain himself here, " to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God." I have dwelt the longer on this passage, because it is one in which the sinner's justification before God is treated of expressly and of set purpose. And the clear testimony of one such passage is a sufficient answer to arguments drawn from the interpretation of other passages which are either less explicit, or which do not professedly treat of the subject in question. Bellarmine* attempts to force upon the Apostle's words the sense of an inherent righteous ness, by urging that in the expression, " being J Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14. * De Justifications, lib. ii. u. 3. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 109 justified freely by His grace," " by His grace" must mean grace infused. But even if the words were ambiguous, they would be of no avail against the overwhelming current of testimony running through out the whole passage in the opposite direction. So far however from being ambiguous, they occur again a few verses further on in a sense which cannot be mistaken : " To him that worketh the reward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt," where grace is opposed to debt, and can only signify that which is given freely and without claim. With regard to the other passages", which Bellarmine adduces in proof that the righteousness by which we are justified is an inherent righteousness, they either come under the description above referred to, or else they plainly do not touch the subject at all. The utmost they prove is, that every justified person has an inherent righteousness, which is no matter of dispute. But it is one thing to prove that the Christian must have an inherent righteousness, another, that that inherent righteousness is the ground of his acceptance with a righteous Godb. * Rom. v. 17, 18, 19. (on which, with reference to Bellarmine's remarks, see Barrow's Sermon on Justification by Faith.) 1 Cor. vi. 11. Tit. iii. 7. Heb. xi. 4, 7. Rom. viii. 29. 1 Cor. xv. 49. Rom. vi. 7. Rom. viii. 10. See Bp. Davenant on each of these passages, De Justitia habituali, c. xxiii. b The same may be said of much that is alleged from the Fathers, who often use the words Justification and Justify indifferently of an inherent and an imputed righteousness. Controversy had not yet led men to weigh their expressions with 110 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. We have seen then in what sense the word righ teousness is to be taken, when we speak of our justi- scrupulous accuracy. But yet the things themselves are dis tinguished plainly enough. " Illud praemittendum, quod Vasques observavit," says Bishop Davenant, " hanc controvessiam de formali causa justificationis, a Patribus non tarn exacte discussam, quam alteram de necessitate gratiae ad operandum, quam contra Pelagii haeresin egregie illustrarunt. Si itaque aliquis patrum, propter arctam illam cognationem et individuam concatenationem gratiae infusae sive inhaerentis cum gratia remissionis ac imputatione justitia? Christi, haec inter se commiscere videatur, non debemus nos idcirco ilia confundere, qua; Spiritus Dei in Sacris Scripturis accurate solet distinguere. Illud etiam in memoriam revocandum est, nos contra inhserentem justitiam non pugnare : talem si- quidem qualitatem infundi agnoscimus in actu justificandi ; sed asserimus tamen, remissionem peccatorum nostrorum, re- ceptionem in favorem divinum, acceptationem ad aeternam vitam, non ab hac qualitate dimanare, aut ea niti; sed gratuita Dei misericordia propter Christum, Christique obedientiam nos a peccatis absolventis, et ad aeternam vitam acceptantis. Neque huic sententiae nostrae reelamare patres illico judicandi sunt, si justificandi vocabulum ad justitiae infusionem aliquando referant : nam idem vocabulum diverso sensu, non modo a patribus, sed etiatn ab ipsis Scripturis quandoque usurpatur. Non itaque jam quaerimus de diversis hujus vocabuli justificationis apud patres significationibus, sed, (quod theologicas disquisitionis prorjrium est) de ipso dogmate justificationis quid illi senserint indagamus. . . . Non negandum est, Augustinum uti justificationis vocabulo sub duplici sensu. Aliquando enim ex mente Apostoli, per justificationem intelligit gratuitam absolutionem a peccato, et acceptationem ad vitam aeternam, per et propter obedientiam Mediatoris fide apprehensam : ut in Psalmum tricesimum primum, ' Si justificatur impius, ex impio fit Justus. Sed quomodo ? Nihil boni fecisti, et datur tibi remissio peccatorum.' Multo planius, ' Quantaelibet fuisse virtutis antiquos praedices justos, non eos IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. Ill fication in God's sight. How aptly this sense is suited to the passage which we set out by consider ing will be apparent, whether we look at the structure of the sentence in which it occurs, or to the scope of the context. As Christ was made sin for us, in that our sins were laid on Him, so we become the righteousness of God in Him, in that God, beholding us in Him, deals with us as righteous persons, as persons in whom no spot of sin is to be found, and against whom no charge can be preferred ; just as beholding Christ standing in our stead, He dealt with Him as a sinner, yea as charged with the sins of the whole world. And that this is the true sense of the word righ teousness in the passage before us, that it signifies an imputed not an inherent righteousness, a righteousness accounted to us not wrought in us, is further evident from the context. For the subject on which the Apostle is engaged, and on which, to the second verse of the following chapter, he continues to dwell, salvos fecit, nisi fides mediatoris, qui in remissionem peccatorum sanguinem fudit.' {Contra Duas Epist. Pelag. lib. i. c. 21.) Sed aliquando, ex Latinae vocis structura, per justificationem intelligit actionem Dei infundentem et imprimentem nobis gratiam habitu- alem sive justitiam inhaerentem. Hoc igitur sensu dicit Pelagianos oppugnare illam gratiam qua justificamur, hoc est rejicere sancti- ficantem gratiam qua justitia perfundimur: sed interim non dicit hanc gratiam in nobis ad tantam perfectionem pervenisse, ut jus tificationis priore sensu acceptas causa fonnalis habeatur." Dave nant de Justit. habituali, c. xxv. 112 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. is the gracious message which had been given him to deliver — that " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Where the implied ground of their reconciliation is not a righteousness which God found in them, or infused into them, but simply the forgive ness of their unrighteousness^. And it is to be observed, that the reconciliation of the sinner to God was the proper end of the legal sin-offerings/and they attained their end, so far as they did attain it, by the removal of the cause of enmity— by the transfer of the sins of the offerer to the victim offered. The victim was dealt with as though polluted with sin, the offerer, as though he were free from guilt. When therefore the Apostle proceeds to intreat the Co rinthians, " We pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God," and follows up his intreaty by adding, " For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righ teousness of God in Him," he is evidently declaring how God in Christ did reconcile the world unto Himself, and in order to this how He took away the sins of the world, namely, that, as under the law, in the case of such sins as had sacrifices prescribed for them, the sins of the offerer were transferred to the victim, so, under the Gospel, our sins are transferred to Christ, and we stand before God as righteous persons in Him not on the ground of an inherent c "Ubi reconciliatio ibi remissio peccatorum; et quid ipsa nisi justificatio ?" Bernard. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 113 righteousness which we have in ourselves, though this also, whatsoever it be, is from Him, but of the forgiveness of our unrighteousness which we have in Christ. It is true, and a most deeply important truth it is, that under the law certain dispositions were required in the offerer : the sacrifice of the wicked was an abomination to God e ; men must wash their hands in innocency who would come to God's altar with acceptance f, that is, they must come with a sincere hatred of sin, and full purpose of forsaking it, and with a sure trust in God's mercy. And, in like manner, under the Gospel, whoever would be a partaker of the benefits of Christ's sacrifice, must draw nigh in true penitence, and with a lively faith, and with the sincere purpose of a holy life. These are indispensable, as dispositions or conditions required on our parts — though these also are from God. But the real ground of acceptance is in the one case, as it was in the other, not an inherent righteousness, but the forgiveness of unrighteousness. " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Their trespasses were the grand barrier, which separated between them and their God, and the least trespass as effectually as the greatest. God reconciled the world unto Himself by taking away the barrier. And He did so by laying those tres passes upon Christ, so making Him to be sin for us J Prov. xv. 8. ' Ps. xxvi. 6. 114 IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. who knew no sin, that we might be made the righte ousness of God in Him. " God made a righteous person to be a sinner," says St. Chrysostoin, commenting upon this passage, " that he might make sinners righteous. Or rather, the Apostle saith not this, but what is much more — for the word he uses designates not the habit, but the quality. He saith not, God made him to be a sinner; but, God made him to be Sin; and not merely, Him who never sinned, but, who did not even know sin. And all this, that we might be made, not righteous, but more, righteousness, yea, the righteousness of God. For truly this is the righte ousness of God, when we are justified not of works, for then no stain or spot of sin must be found, but of grace, where all sin is wholly taken away15-" A passage most distinctly recognising the doctrine, that we are justified not by an inherent, but by an * Tov prj yvovra dpapriav, r]o-l, rbv avTobiKawo-vvrjv ovra, dpapriav (Troi^a-e- rovrecrriv-, as dpapraiXov KaraKpiBrjVai aqbr/Kev, o>? iiriKardparov dtroBaveiv Tbv yap biKatov, (pT]0~lv, iiroirjo'ev dpapraiXov, iva ruvs apapra>Xovs iroiijo-r] biKaiovs. MaXXoy be ovbe ovras elwev, dXX' o 7roXXat pei£ov r]v ov yap e£iv eBrjKev, dXX' avrrjv ttjv Troiorrjra' ov yap elirev eiroiTjo-ev dpapraiXov, dXX' 'Apapriav oi^i rbv pi] apaprdvra povov, dXXd rbv ptfbe yvovra dpapriav tva Kal rjpels yevwpeBa, oix ehre, bUaioi, dXXd AiKatoavvr], Kal Qeov AiKaioo-vvrj. Qeov yap io~Tiv avrrj, orav prj i£ epyatv, orav Kal KrpXiba dvdyKT] riva pi] evpeBrjvai, dXX' dnb Xapiros biKaicoBoipev, evBa ndaa dpaprla T]