us, which is laid to our account, in order to our justification. The language of the New Testament is so constructed, as irresistibly to impress upon the mind the representative and vicarious character of our blessed. Lord. It is through union with Him that Christians enjoy their distinctive privileges: in Him they die to sin; in Him they rise to a new life; with Him they sit down in the heavenly places: and the imputation of His righteousness is but a particular application of the more comprehensive fact, that believers are one with Him. It is true that the expression "righteousness of Christ imputed to us" does not occur in Scripture, the usual phrase being, "faith is counted for righteousness," (Rom. iv. 9.); but since faith cannot possess any inherent excellence to justify, and derives its virtue solely from its object, (otherwise justification by faith would, contrary to the Apostle's doctrine, be justification by works under another form,) we arrive, in explaining this phrase, ultimately at the meritorious work of Christ, active as well as passive, as the true source of justification; or, (to adopt the exact language of Scripture,) Christ "is made unto us righteousness" in the same sense in which He " was made sin for us." 1 Cor. i. 30. 2 Cor. v. 21. As against Rome the doctrine of imputed righteousness expresses the truth, that the formal cause of our justification is not any thing in ourselves; and in this connexion it is sufficient to insist on the idea of imputation as distinguished from an inherent quality, without further more definite statements. The forensic view of justification, which Rome has always assailed, is no other than that set forth in Art. XI., that "we are counted righteous," &c. There is a tendency, however, in some Protestant theologians to confine the idea of justification to the pardon of sin; a type of doctrine at variance with the confessions of

the Reformed Churches, and inadequate to the statements. of Scripture on this subject. The tendency is to make the death of Christ, by which sin was expiated, the sole object of the Christian's contemplation; and proportionably to obscure the great doctrine of union, not with a dead, but with a living Saviour, by virtue of which we obtain not only the obliteration of sin, but a share in the rewards of His perfect obedience, a participation in the glory which He now at the right hand of God enjoys. Not that, in fact, we can separate the two elements of justification, forgiveness and the imputation of righteousness; they ever go together, and form one act of God: but mentally they are separable; and (if the analogy of human tribunals is to be held applicable to the divine procedure) we recognise the difference between the mere pardon of a criminal, and his restoration to the favour of his sovereign. As regards the charge of Antinomian tendencies, supposed to be connected with the doctrine, it can be founded only on the supposition that imputed is separable from inherent righteousness, the work of Christ for us, appropriated by faith, from the work of Christ in us, the effect of His Spirit, which, however, both Scripture and experience shew to be impossible.

H.

ON ROM. viii. 16.

Page 213, line 8. The rather jejune interpretations of such passages as the foregoing, which may be found in the works of some of our divines, &c.] The reign of Charles the First was, as is well known, marked by a great change in the current theology of the Church; a change which speedily made itself felt on the subject of spiritual influences. Arminianism, as distinguished from Calvinism,

has ever exhibited a Pelagian tendency, and an inclination to reduce the work of the Spirit to the lowest possible, consistent with any adequate interpretation of Scripture. To this may be added, the reaction from Puritanism, which took place after the Restoration, and which produced a general distaste towards such topics. The usual method was to interpret the expressions of our Lord or of St. Paul, in reference to the spiritual influences proper to the Gospel, of the miraculous gifts of the Apostolic age, which were to cease with the occasion which required their presence. As a specimen, we may take the following remarks of Stebbing, or rather Clagett, on our passage: "This testimony of the Spirit is the public testimony which was given by the Spirit that Christians are the children of God. For it is said in the foregoing verse that they had received the Spirit of adoption, which being opposed to the spirit of bondage, shews the Apostle's meaning to be, that the Christians were the children of the promise, and x Ts λsuligas, of the free woman, as he expresseth it, Gal. iv. 28. Whereas the Jews, i. e. those of them that were under the Law, answered to the condition of Ishmael, who was ex TS Tadioxy, the son of the bond-woman, to whom there was no promise of an inheritance. Now that none but Christians were the sons of God, and heirs of the promised inheritance, was that which was testified against the Jews, by the miracles and supernatural gifts of the Apostles and primitive believers; i. e. by the testimony of the Spirit. And thus this text is far from intending any immediate testimony of the Holy Ghost to our minds that we are God's children." (Discourse touching the Operations of the Spirit.) According to this view, the witness of the Spirit with the Christian's spirit is something altogether external to him; a mere testimony from

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God, by miracles, that Christianity was now to take the place of Judaism. Nearly to the same effect is Hammond's paraphrase of the passage. By Warburton the indwelling of the Spirit in believers is reduced to "His constant abode and supreme illumination in the sacred Scriptures of the New Testament" (Doctrine of Grace, b. i. c. 5.); a theory which, first, I believe, broached by Stillingfleet, unhappily has received the sanction of the pious Bishop Heber in his Bampton Lectures. Yet Barrow had spoken far more scripturally: "By participation of this immortal seed" (of the Spirit), we are engrafted into alliance with the heavenly King, become children of God, brethren of Christ, heirs of Paradise; for this is that πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας, that Spirit which constituteth us the sons of God, qualifying us to be so, by dispositions resembling God, and filial affections towards Him; certifying us that we are so, and causing us by a free instinct to cry, Abba Father." (Whit-Sunday Sermon.) So Pearson: "It is the office of the Holy Ghost to assure us of the adoption of sons, to create in us a sense of the paternal love of God towards us, to give us an earnest of our everlasting inheritance. ... As therefore we are born again by the Spirit, and receive from Him our regeneration, so we are also assured by the same Spirit of our adoption." (On the Creed, Art. VIII.) Several modern commentators have understood the witness of the Spirit in our passage to mean, the conviction of his being a child of God, which arises in the Christian's mind from an observation of the fruits of faith which he has been enabled to bring forth; a reflex act of the Christian's own mind: but this interpretation is neither suitable to the context, nor does it express the plain meaning of the Apostle's words.

I.

ON THE INVISIBLE CHURCH.

Page 256, line 10. The one true, or, as Protestants call it, the Invisible Church, &c.] The difficulty which the idea of an Invisible Church presents to many persons arises from their understanding the distinction between it and the visible Church as an absolute, and not, as it really is, a relative one: a mistake which has perhaps been occasioned by the language of some of our divines, who speak of two Churches, a visible and an invisible, or a Church within a Church. Thus Barrow: "For because this visible Church doth enfold the other (as one mass doth contain the good ore and base alloy, &c.)" Discourse concerning the Unity of the Church.

It is really one and the same Church that is the object of consideration, but which is regarded under different aspects, or from different points of view, according as we fix our attention on its external notes, and its visible condition in this world, or its true essential being. Distinctio illa, says Gerhard, (Aphor. 19.) non introducit duas veluti distinctas ecclesias, et diversos cætus, sed cætum vocatorum κατ' ἄλλον καὶ ἄλλον ὑπολήψεως τρόπον, videlicet Ewbev xal tσwby, considerat. Or, as he explains it more fully in his Loci, de Eccles. c. vii.; Ecclesia pro toto vocatorum cætu accepta dupliciter consideratur, šowlev scilicet atque wev, id est, respectu internæ et externæ societatis. Interna ecclesiæ societas consistit in unitate fidei salvificæ, spei et caritatis, qua Christo cogniti et reliquis mystici corporis membris vere pii sunt conjuncti. Externa ecclesiæ societas consistit in professione fidei et usu sacramentorum, cui disciplinæ ecclesiasticæ exercitium. potest addi.

Visibilis est ecclesia respectu societatis