THERE is hardly any revealed truth which has not been openly contradicted or secret'y undermined by one or other of the numerous errors which have troubled the church of God. But of all the parts of our holy religion none has been opposed under more plausible pretences, or with more uniform and unabated malignity, than the doctrine of justification by faith in Jesus Christ without the works of the law. This opposition was as early as the murderous envy of Cain. The apostle tells us, that by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Abel's faith, no doubt,_respected the promise which had been given to our first pa rents concerning salvation by the seed of the woman. Hence it appears that Cain, whose offering was rejected for his want of that faith, was an enemy to the doctrine

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of salvation by grace through faith. That the opinion of self-righteousness prevailed amongst the Israelites in the days of Moses, is evident from his caveat against it in the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy. Not for thy righteousness, says he to Israel, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess the land. A legal temper was the ruin of the Jews in the time of Christ and his apostles. Israel, who followed after righteousness, did not attain to the law of righteoussness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith; but, as it were, by the works of the law: for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. They being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God*. The New Testament church, as soon as it was erected, began to be troubled with legal doctrine. To set forth the danger of that leaven is the principal design of Paul's epistles to the Romans and Galatians. He shews, in these epistles, that the righteousness, for which alone we are justified, is not to be procured by our performance of any work or by our attainment of any good qualification as the condition of our interest in it; but to be received as the free gift of divine grace through faith. Hence it is called the righteousness which is of faith; and which God imputes to us without works†.

After the times of the Apostles, the opposition to the doctrine of free grace continued and increased; but did not come to a remarkable height, till the beginning of the fifth century, when Pelagius rose. He openly denied the doctrine of the victorious work of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling; with which doctrine that of

* Deut. ix. 5. Rom ix. 30, 31, 32. x. 3.

† Rom. ix. 39. iz. 6.

justification by free grace through the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ is closely connected. Though his errors were well refuted, particularly by Augustine, and also condemned by several councils; yet they were never eradicated; but, in one form or another, were still maintained and propagated by many. When the Papal Antichrist attained his height, the doctrine of justification by man's works or inherent righteousness was the principal of his abominations: it was the head and heart of Popery. Still, however, even in the darkest periods, there were witnesses against this error: Some of them, such as Bernard and Anselm, in the communion of the church of Rome; and others, who departed from that most impure communion, such as, the Waldenses, Wickliffe, Hus. But in the sixteenth century, the scripture-doctrine of justification through the righteousness of our Lord Jesus imputed to us and received by faith alone, began to shine forth with such a peculiar splendor, as had never been known before from the times of the Apostles. In the preface to the Syntagma Confessionum, or Collection of the Confessions of the Reformed churches, it is observed, that all these Confessions teach the same doctrine concerning the justification of a sinner before God; a doctrine, which is the very life and soul of the Christian religion; and which our first reformers, such as Luther, Calvin, Beza, delivered, just as they found it in the holy scriptures. It would have been happy for the Protestant churches, if their public teachers had satisfied themselves with that simplicity, and had not attempted in various ways to corrupt this article, in order to render it more palatable to a carnal, self-conceited generation of professors. There are, in general, three ways in which the doctrine of the reformation has been deserted. First, instead of teaching, with our old reformers, that the righteous

ness of Christ is our only justifying righteousnes; some have taught, that God, for Christ's sake, will accept our own sincere, though imperfect obedience, as our justifying righteousness. Secondly, there are some, who, though they allow the righteousness of Christ to be our justifying righteousness, yet maintain that our actual justification by it is not received by faith alone, but procured by our performance of the conditions of faith, repentance and sincere obedience. Thirdly, however much these legal preachers differ otherwise among themselves in their accounts of the manner in which we obtain justification before God, they all agree in disapproving the definition of saving faith delivered by our reformers, as a fiducial reliance on Christ crucified, or on the free promise of the gospel in him, for our own everlasting salvation, and in representing true faith as our willingness to comply with certain terms or conditions upon which, according to them, salvation is offered.

These pretended improvements, but real corruptions, of the doctrine of the reformation were zealously opposed by Messrs. Marshall, Boston, Ralph and Ebenezar Erskine, Hervey, Gelatly and others, who were convinced that the old Protestant doctrine concerning justification by faith alone, the free access of sinners to Christ, and the nature of saving faith, was the same which had been taught by the Prophets and Apostles. No human writings are absolutely faultless; but it may be safely asserted that there are few equally intitled, with the writings of the Divines now mentioned, to the commendation of having represented the doctrines of the Bible in their native simplicity, free from the mixture of preconceived opinions. Nor is the the testimony, which these writings have obtained, of the spiritual