This, however, is not the only sense in which the term justification is used in the New Testament, quite different from the forensic use of it in our courts of law. By the same Apostle whole bodies of men are said to be justified, when they are admitted into Christ's church by baptism, as by St Luke, they are on the same admission called* the saved—or owμevo, because they are then placed in a state of salvation, or in the kingdom of God, as the church is often called in the Scriptures. Thus, addressing the whole body of the church that was at Corinth, in which we are certain that there was one enormous sinner, as well as much indecency, if not profaneness, in their congregations, at the celebration of the most sacred ordinance of the Gospel, St Paul says of them all, without exception, “ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God."† This justification, therefore, whatever it was, must have been something quite different from the justification of those who shall be set on Christ's right hand at the judgment of the great day; for, as every man shall then receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad," we have very small ground to hope that every individual Corinthian, whom the Apostle here pronounces to have been washed, sanctified, and justified, shall be in the number of those to whom it will be said,

"Acts, ii. 47.

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+1. Cor. vi. 11.

"Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

It is evident, therefore, that, in the Scriptures of the New Testament, the term justification is used in very different senses; that in one of these senses a man may be justified on conditions which will not justify him in another; and that, in a third, we are all said to be freely justified by the gift of God through the atonement made by Jesus Christ, as we have been all under condemnation through the offence of Adam.

Justification, in the sense in which the members of the Church of Corinth are all said to have been justified, has been very generally called our first justification, to distinguish it from the final justification of those who shall be acquitted at the tribunal of Christ, when the whole human race shall be arraigned before him. The notion of a first, and second, or final, justification, seems to have been disliked by Bishop Bull;* and it is perhaps to be wished that our translators had rendered the Greek words differently when they relate to the admission of converts into the Christian Church, and when

*The distinction, however, and even the terms first and final justification, are admitted to be of great importance by Dr Wells-a great admirer of the bishop, and himself a profound divine. See his Help for the Right Understanding of the several Divine Laws and Covenants-a small work which deserves to be republished, as it ought to be in the library of every young clergyman. See likewise Waterland's Essay on Justification, published with his posthumous sermons, though evidently prepared for the press by himself.

they mean the acquittal of those, who, at the general judgment, shall be set on the right hand of the sovereign judge. The distinction, however, has been admitted, and appears to have been perfectly understood by the compilers of our articles; for if they had admitted of no other justification than that which shall be finally pronounced at the general judgment, they could not have said, as they do in the twelfth article, that good works, pleasing to God, are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification; for after our final justification our good works cannot possibly be the fruits of faith, which shall then be swallowed up in vision.

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If then there be, as our church and the Scriptures teach, a double justification, of which the first is when we are admitted into the church or kingdom of God, and the other when, at the end of the world, we shall hear that most joyful sentence of our Judge, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," there can, I think, be no difficulty in putting an end to all controversies about justification among those who are really desirous to discover the truth, and the whole truth, as it is in Jesus. It is in St Paul's epistles, more especially in those addressed to the Romans and Galatians, that the greatest importance is given to faith as the condition of our justification; and it is more especially in the Gospels and in the epistle of St James that the necessity of obedience is inculcated on us, because, by our works, we shall be judged at the last

day, and be justified or condemned, as they shall be found to have been either good or bad, according to the law of the Gospel. St Paul was peculiarly the Apostle of the Gentiles, though, in most-perhaps in all the churches, to which he addressed epistles, there was a mixture of Jewish and Gentile converts to the faith; and he framed his epistles so as to guard both parties against the errors into which they were most likely to fall. The Jewish converts-at least a great part of them, were everywhere desirous of imposing upon the Gentile Christians the Mosaic law, saying, "except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved;" whilst we may be sure that the Gentile converts at least such of them as had come from the schools of philosophy, would be equally zealous in teaching the merit of moral virtue; for the Greeks, we are told, sought after wisdom ;* and we know that the stoics considered a man of inflexible integrity as worthy of the admiration of even the immortal gods!

Against both these parties it was the duty of St Paul to exalt faith, or repentance and faith, above circumcision and ritual observances on the one hand, and above mere moral virtue on the other. The Jews, who appear to have abounded in Galatia, contended that faith, without the observance of the ritual law, could avail nothing to the justification of any man; whilst we may be sure that the scientific part of the Gentile converts would, like some

* See Schleusner on the word copía.

philosophical Christians of the present age, contend as strenuously, that faith is of very little importance to him whose moral conduct is correct. Both these parties appear to have claimed justification as due to their works-though works of different kinds; whereas we are everywhere taught in Scripture, that we could merit nothing as wages from our Maker, even were we able to do all that is commanded us; that it is only through Christ that the most innocent person can be justified or saved in the full Gospel sense of the word; and that it was by" the grace or favour of God that Jesus was måde a little lower than the angels, that he might taste death for every man.

It is therefore by grace, and grace alone, that we can either be saved or justified, if there be any difference in the meaning of these two words; and accordingly St Paul uniformly says to the Jews, that "in Christ Jesus neither circumcision, (which always includes the ritual law) nor uncircumcision, availeth any thing, but a new creature ;" and to both Jews and Gentiles, that " all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ;-therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." The condition, therefore, on which, and on which alone, Jewish and Gentile converts, and there could then be no other, were admitted into the church, and considered as justified, was faith in Jesus as + Rom. iii. 20.

*St Luke, xvii. 10.