BOOK II.

THE DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

THOUGH We have already attempted, even while stating, to guard the truth against attacks; our chief aim hitherto has been the exposition of our sentiments, which we shall now consider as known, though susceptible of additional proofs, which offer themselves from various quarters.

Those presented by the Divine writings claim our first notice, and will require much patient attention; but the experience of believers, which, however despised by those who would impose on us a false theory, must always possess weight with the sincere and practical inquirer after truth, will demand our next consideration. To the proofs furnished by the testimony of the Christian church would have been added the consent of antiquity, had it not been displayed by Mr. Faber, which has induced me to confine myself almost exclusively to existing communions. The concluding chapter will contain such considerations as had been previously overlooked.

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CHAPTER I.

The Evidence of the Sacred Scriptures.

By this commencement, we not only give to the oracles of God the honour which is their due, but also imitate the first Christians, who had no other court of appeal; and hearken to the fathers themselves, who bid us search the Scriptures. Here we have what artificers call a line to work up to, and by which to try every thing.

If the advocates of tradition and human authority say, this is prejudging the question, and at the very outset, biasing our minds by what we think Scripture, but which is merely our private interpretation; we reply, the fathers did so, and whatever course we pursue is liable to the same objection, with increased force. For, if we first consult Christian antiquity, which is far more difficult to be ascertained than the sense of the Scriptures, this will afterwards bias the mind when we come to consult the infallible records of inspiration. Nor do we mend the matter if we begin with an appeal to reason; for this is no more than our private reason, from which we cannot afterwards be induced to recede by the testimony

of either the fathers or the Scripture. Besides, the mode of our Justification is avowedly an affair of pure revelation, for which there had been no occasion, if the truth had been discoverable by reason.

In appealing, then, to the inspired writings, we turn at once to the New Testament, which not only treats most largely the subject in debate, but also quotes and illustrates whatever information can be derived from the Old. An indiscriminate examination even of this part of Scripture, would, however, be less satisfactory than a closer consideration of those portions which professedly treat the subject in dispute.

But to an introductory observation of great importance, we invite the attention of the reader. The ancient versions of the New Testament were, to those who used them, the Scripture, just as the English Bible is to the majority in our country; and these are to us the fathers by emphasis. For the earliest versions are not only of high antiquity, but must have been composed by men of the most distinguished ability; and unless these had enjoyed great authority among their contemporaries, the versions never could have been adopted by the church. The Peshito Syriac and the Latin Vulgate demand special notice; the former, as of great intrinsic excellence, and as exhibiting the New Testament in the very language, perhaps, spoken by our Lord and the apostles; but the latter is of less value, because it has been altered, by Jerome, from the original Italic, which may now be said to be lost.

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The evidence which these versions afford in behalf of the doctrine already laid down, is clear and decisive. We have seen that the Syriac translator did not confound Justification with Sanctification; and it may now be observed, that the censures heaped by the Romanists on Luther, for introducing into his German versions, faith alone, may equally be hurled at the oldest and best translator. For the Peshito thus renders Romans iv. 5, "To him that worketh not, but believeth only on him that justifieth sinners, his faith is reckoned to him unto righteousness.

To the first Latin version we unhappily cannot appeal; as it has been extinguished by that of Jerome, which I fear is like our last English version, a deterioration, as much as an improvement, of its predecessor. But whoever will examine the present Vulgate, on this point, will be convinced that it was, at least originally, made by one who saw clearly that Justification was not, as Rome asserts, virtually the same as Sanctification.

We now proceed to examine the New Testament on this point.

I. The epistle to the Romans is, at once the most complete inspired body of divinity, and the most copious and argumentative discussion of the doctrine in debate. It opens with a declaration of the apostle's readiness to preach at Rome, because he says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for therein is

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