righteousness of God;" is said to be "without the law;" to have been "witnessed by the law and the prophets;" to be "now manifested;" to be " by faith of Jesus Christ;" to be" to all them that believe;" and to be grounded on this fact, that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Let us separately examine these particulars.

both Jew and Gentile were subject, and which could not be the ceremonial law? Are not the offences charged on both classes entirely of a moral nature? Is he not speaking of a law, by the breach of which, he says, that "all the world have become guilty before God?" Indeed, the expressions on this subject are so general, as plainly to shut out obedience of all kinds from any share in our justification. "To him that worketh not," saith the apostle,

1. In the first place, the righteousness by which man is to be saved, is called "the righteousness of God." It is so called, as the righ-"but believeth on Him that justifieth teousness wrought out for us, by the perfect obedience, and by the death and passion of our Saviour Christ, in opposition to the righteousness of man, that righteousness to which man pretends through his obedience to the law of God. It is so called, also, as the righteousness which God bestows in and through Jesus Christ, and which alone he will accept. This righteousness is but little suited to our worldly notions, or to the pride of our hearts; it is, nevertheless, the only ground of our justification before God, and that should give it supreme importance in our eyes. The prisoner is not to choose his own terms of forgiveness. God, who alone can forgive sins, must appoint the way in which they shall be forgiven.

2. But, secondly, this righteousness is said to be "without the law;" that is, it is not a righteousness wrought out by our obedience to the law. That obedience to the ceremonial law, to the law of rites and ceremonies among the Jews, would not justify the sinner, might be shewn from many passages of Scripture, and from this among the rest. But the expression in the text is by no means confined to the ceremonial law: it has respect also to the moral law. Its main object, indeed, seems to be, to teach us that the righteousness appointed by God for our salvation is a righ teousness not wrought out by obedience to the moral law of God. For of what law is the apostle speaking in the chapter from which the text is taken? Is it not of the law to which

the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." "If there had been a law which could have given life," that is, by obedience to it, "righteousness should have been by the law," should have been acquired by it, and not as it now is. By the expression" without the law," there-. fore, it seems intended to place the Christian scheme of justification by faith in the righteousness of Christ, in opposition to justification by obedience to the law, whether ceremonial or moral. For, whatever be the necessity of a holy life; and that it is necessary, indispensably necessary, to salvation, there exists not the shadow of a doubt; it is plain that our works are not designed to pay any part of the price of our justification and acceptance with God. "The righteousness of God is without the law."

3. The next expression which I shall notice in the text, though not the next in order, is this; "the righteousnesss of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ." This righteousness, as we have seen, is " of God;" is" without the law;" and, in opposition to this, is by faith of Jesus Christ."

Faith," says Hooker," is the hand by which we put on Christ to justification." It is the medium by which all the blessings of God are conveyed to man. And the reason why it is so, is explained to us by the apostle: "It is of faith, that it might be by grace." In other words, it is the will of God to make the salvation of man the act of his

free, unmerited bounty; to be himself both the author and finisher of salvation. And in conformity with this design, it is declared; "He who believeth shall be saved;" "to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt; but to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." But faith itself, it may be said, is a good work, done in obedience to God's command. This is true; but, still, this is not the light in which faith is viewed when spoken of as the instrument of our justification; otherwise, like any other work, it might be regarded as the price or procuring cause of our justification, instead of the blood and righteousness of Christ. The true notion of justifying faith, therefore, is, not that of an act deserving justification, but of a state of the heart disposing us to close with the scheme of the Gospel; to renounce all pretensions to merit, all claim to be our own saviours; to lie low at the foot of the cross; to receive salvation as the free gift of God in Jesus Christ; to acquiesce cordially in all which God hath taught us of his Son, and cheerfully to perform all that he requires of us. Such a temper of mind as this-in other words, such a faith--will, without doubt, produce good works: still it will by no means follow that such works pay any part of the price of our justification; for our best works (which are themselves, as far as they are good, the fruits of divine grace) need still "the righteousness of God" to make them acceptable, because there is still that mixture of sin in them which, far from claiming pardon, requires it. "The best things which we do," says Hooker, "have something in them to be pardoned; how then can we do any thing meritorious, or worthy to be rewarded? Indeed, God doth liberally promise whatsoever appertaineth to a blessed life, to as many as sincerely keep his law, though they e not exactly able to keep it:

wherefore we acknowledge a dutiful necessity of doing well; but the meritorious dignity of doing well, we utterly renounce."-No, my brethren, good works-in other words, holiness of heart and life—are indispensably necessary to salvation: without them we cannot be saved: yet are they not the efficient cause of our salvation. It is "by grace we are saved, through faith and that faith not of ourselves; it is the gift of God" (a gift to be sought by earnest prayer): “not of works, lest any man should boast; for we are his workmanship" (if we be true believers in Christ), "created in Christ Jesus unto good works."

4. The next expression I shall notice in the text is this: "the righteousness of God," which is "witnessed by the law and the prophets." The law of Moses bears witness to the Gospel method of salvation in more than one way. Its sacrifices, and many of its ceremonies, point to Christ. There can be little doubt that real believers, in every age, had some expectation, however dark, that a full, perfect, and sufficient oblation and satisfaction would be provided by God for the sins of the whole world; and that it was in the faith of this sacrifice, they offered those sacrifices of the temple which were the shadows of good things to come. The law, then, in this sense also, was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The holiest persons under that law, may not have clearly perceived the strict meaning of many of these ceremonies: the thoughtless and the worldly would practise them without any reference to their spiritual object. Nevertheless, they had all a respect to Christ, and bear testimony to the method of justification ordained by God before the foundation of the world.

If we take the law in the sense in which it is sometimes used, for the whole of the Old Testament, with the exception of the prophetical writings, it may be well said of this, also, that it bore witness to the justi

fying efficacy of faith. For what Ilustrious examples does it produce to establish this doctrine! Take the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews, and see there the noble testimony to the power of faith, which is drawn from the examples given us in the Old Testament. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. By faith, Abel of fered an acceptable sacrifice, Enoch was translated, and Noah became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. And besides these, behold the cloud of witnesses, recorded in the same chapter, of whom the world was not worthy, who by faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, and obtained the promises; who, therefore, may be consider ed as rising up to bear testimony to the value of faith. Behold the thrones of heaven filled with men whom this faith guided through life and supported in death, and who have thus proved its power through a succession of ages. They have seen generations sink and rise; kingdoms appear and disappear; systems of human philosophy, and the men who reared them, perish together: but they have found that true faith is as a rock, on which whatever is built will never fall, but abide the storms of eternal ages; and which never loses its power to make and to preserve the happiness of man.

In like manner," the prophets" bear witness to the system of justification by faith in Christ. Their writings abound with allusions to the benefits which should flow from the coming of Christ. All, indeed, with them, was shadowy and dark; but, now that the light of the Gospel has dawned, we begin to see the expla-nation of much, which perhaps neither the hearers of the prophets, nor possibly even the prophets themselves, in all cases, could comprehend. We hear them using language which is in strict agreement with that of the New Testament: "I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. This is the covenant which I will make with them in those days; I will put my laws

into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more:" and again, "The just shall live by faith." Christ, however darkly revealed to the prophets, seems to have been the great object on which their regards were fixed. All the pomp of language, and all the harmony of numbers, are exhausted to do him honour. Every thing which genius, and knowledge, and piety could collect, is cast, like the gifts of the eastern sages, at the feet of the yet unborn Saviour. As it has been well said: "they lay all nature under contribution, to find images sufficiently splendid. They take the pride of courts, the splendour of thrones, the ornaments of heaven, and throw them together, to form a stage, on which, as it were, to exhibit a Saviour to an astonished world.". "To him give all the prophets witness, that, through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins."

5. But it is further said, that this righteousness, thus witnessed by the prophets, is "now," in the days of the Gospel, "manifested."-The whole of the writings of the Old Testament prove how faint was the light which dawned on the patriarchs and prophets; but now, blessed be God, the way of salvation is openly" manifested" to us; is revealed to us by other writings; is made clear by the descent of the Holy Ghost; is honoured by the miracles of Christ and his apostles; is stamped and sealed by the death resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God. We can have no excuse for not embracing this faith,once so indistinctly, but now so clearly, revealed. We can have no excuse for confidence in ourselves, or for distrust of the efficacy of the Redeemer's sacrifice. The apostles lived and died to establish this doctrine. And in different ages of the church there have been many who counted not even their lives dear to themselves, so that they might bear testimony to its truth. The Reformation was one vast effort of believers