terized for it. And no one can doubt that the denial of the doctrine, and the denial of the right of free inquiry, have gone together. It was the same system that by all its arrangements denied the doctrine of justification by faith, which imprisoned Galileo. The Inquisition grew up in lands where this doctrine was rejected, and has flourished there only, and could live nowhere else. The proclamation of this doctrine in Europe by Luther and his fellow-labourers unfettered the human mind, and abolished the Inquisition; and nothing can be clearer than that no circumstances could ever arise in any land in which the doctrine of justification by simple faith in Christ is held, under which the Inquisition could be established; and we may be certain that, as long as we can assert this doctrine in its purity throughout all our borders, we shall be free from thumb-screws, and racks, and auto-da-fés, and dark dungeons made to incarcerate the advocates of any religious belief. Whatever else we may be subjected to, this doctrine will be a palladium to us of far more value than the image of Minerva was to Troy, to secure for us the protection of Heaven. : The reasons of the fact which is now adverted to would be found in such considerations as these that in this doctrine there is nothing which we wish to conceal; that it depends for its support on nothing which may not be fully examined; that it recognises everywhere the equality of men; that it asks no patronage from the State; that it relies for its advancement on its own simple power as truth-as commending itself to the conscience and the reason of mankind, and as finding a response in the soul of every man who feels that he is a sinner. The support of the other system is to be found in just the opposite of these things. It cloaks itself in mystery. It seeks to establish the claims of a priesthood composed of a superior order of menand this must be based on arguments that will not bear the light. It is, and must be, sustained by the power of the State. It loves a teaching rather than a reasoning religion. It is identified with all that human ingenuity can devise to substitute a righteousness in the place of that by faith in the Saviour. It is identified with interest-where the procuring of absolution becomes a matter of bargain and sale. And it is conscious that the free examination of its claims would show how baseless is the fabric on which it stands, and how worthless all the devices which have been originated to enable man to work out a righteousness of his own. Without pursuing these thoughts further, one other remark may be added: (4.) It is the fourth in order, and is this, that the doctrine of justification by faith is connected with liberality in religion. We have seen what is the character, in this respect, of the opposite system. It is essential to every other system that it be illiberal and exclusive. The reason is this:-According to every such system, grace is conveyed only through a certain channel. There are certain men who alone are appointed to dispense it; it is to be obtained only in union with a certain ecclesiastical connexion, and in the performance of certain specified rites and ceremonies. But none of these things are essential to the doctrine of justification by faith. It is a direct concern between the soul and its Saviour. It practically removes every human being from any participation in obtaining for the sinner the favour of God. However the ministers of religion may have been instrumental in arousing the attention of the soul to its guilt and danger, or in pointing the way to the Cross, yet the transaction is one where all foreign agency and all human holiness of office are excluded. It matters not whether the minister officiates with or without a surplice; whether in a plain "meeting-house" or a magnificent cathedral; whether he can trace his commission through the apostolic succession or not; whether his doctrines can or cannot be sustained by synods and councils; nay, whether there be any minister of religion at all ;the soul may be justified by simple faith in the Lord Jesus. The worshipper may be a Cameronian on the hills of Scotland under the open heaven; or a man who has strayed somehow into a conventicle; or a wandering savage who is made to listen, to attend, to be enraptured, till his eyes pour forth tears under the preaching of some humble missionary on whose head the hands of a mitred prelate have never been laid,-and there shall be all the elements of the doctrine of justification. What has occurred to him on the hills, or in the woods, or in a schoolhouse, or in a church, he feels may occur anywhere else in the same way. It will not then become essential, in his view, that the doctrines of religion should be preached on a hill, or in a valley; that the minister stand in front of a tent, or that he serve at a particular altar; that he wear a certain vestment, or be able to trace his spiritual genealogy back to far-distant times. That which he wishes to know is, whether a man has experienced in his own soul what he has in his-the power of the doctrine of justification by faith in the blood of Jesus. If so, that is enough. It is to him a question of comparatively no moment whether such an one thinks that baptism by immersion is the only method; or whether he regards John Wesley as the greatest and the best of men; or whether he believes that all human wisdom was embodied in the Westminster assembly of divines; or whether he thinks that the ministry exists only in three orders. All these will be comparative trifles. The grand matter is, that the lost and guilty soul is justified by the blood of the "everlasting covenant;" and this settles everything that is truly valuable in his view in regard to the salvation of the soul. Such a system, it is clear, must be essentially liberal. It cannot be a system which will be primarily concerned in "questions and strifes of words " about the externals of religion. It will recognise in every man, who has ever felt the efficacy of the blood of Christ, a Christian brother. It will regard all men by nature as essentially on the same level in reference to salvation. There will be, in the matter of religion, no favoured class, no holy order; none by nature nearer heaven than others, and none who shall have a right to prescribe to others what they are to believe or to do. One point, one grand doctrine distinguishes them,—no matter of what sect, or country, or complexion they may be,-that they are redeemed by the blood of the same Saviour. They are of the same family. They have the same rights in the kingdom of grace. No one has a right, in virtue of blood, or name, or connexion with outward forms of religion, to claim a superior nearness to heaven; nor, if the soul is justified by the blood of Jesus, has any believer the right or the disposition to withhold the name of Christian, or to say that a soul thus justified is left to "the uncovenanted mercies of God." The doctrine which has been considered constitutes the peculiarity of the Protestant religion. Protestantism began in the restoration of the doctrine of justification by faith. This, more than anything else, distinguishes the system. All there is of Protestantism that is of value, is in this doctrine; and all that we have of liberality in religion, and freedom from persecution, and purity of doctrine, is to be traced to this. The whole discussion on the doctrine of justification may be closed by a personal appeal. There are but two ways conceivable in which you can be saved. One is, on the ground of your own righteousness; the other is, on the ground of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus. There is no middle way. The grand question, then, and one in which every individual has the deepest interest, is, What is the ground of your reliance? On which of these do you depend, when you think of being admitted to heaven? If you rely on the former,-on your own righteousness,—it must be either because you can disprove the facts which are charged on you as sin; or because, if the facts are undeniable, you will be able to vindicate your conduct before the bar of the Almighty. Here, then, it may be solemnly asked, whether you are willing to rest your soul's interests on such a foundation ? Are you prepared to abide the issue of such a trial? Can you calmly look forward to such an investigation of your life before God's bar, and feel secure when you think how tremendous the interests of the soul that are at stake? Are you prepared to go up to meet your Maker with the feeling that your only hope there is self-vindication? I AM NOT. I turn to the other system which I have endeavoured to set before you. I look away from all that I have done,—the miserable rags of my own righteousness,-to the white robe of salvation wrought out by my great Redeemer, and seek to wrap that robe around my guilty soul; and I feel that, if justified by faith in his blood, I shall be safe. A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall; Be Thou my strength and righteousness, THE END. |