obstructions to faith, should yet deny the removal of them to be necessary to it. He will allow some sort of conviction of sin to be necessary to believing in Christ; but nothing that includes the removal of enmity or pride, for this were equal to allowing repentance to be necessary to it: but if enmity and pride be not removed, how can the sinner, according to our Lord's reasoning in John viii. 43, and 44, understand or believe the gospel? If there be any meaning in words, it is supposed by this language that in order to understand and believe the gospel, it is necessary to "endure" the doctrine, and to feel a regard to "the honour that cometh from God." To account for the removal of pride and enmity as bars to believing by means of believing, is I say very extraordinary, and as inconsistent with his own concessions as it is with scripture and reason: for when writing on spiritual illumination he allows the dark and carnal mind to be thereby rendered spitual, and so enabled to discern and believe spiritual things.*

Yours, &c.

* Reply, p. 7.

137

LETTER VIII.

An inquiry whether the principles here defended af fect the doctrine of free justification by faith in the righteousness of Christ.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

You are aware that this subject has fre quently occurred in the foregoing letters; but being of the first importance, I wish to appropriate one letter wholly to it. If any thing I have advanced be inconsistent with justification by faith alone in opposition to justification by the works of the law, I am not aware of it; and on conviction that it is so, should feel it my duty to retract it. I know Mr. M'Lean has laboured hard to substantiate this charge against me; but I know also that it belongs to the adherents of the system* to claim the exclusive possession of this doctrine, and to charge others with error concerning it on very insufficient grounds. You may remember, perhaps,

* I do not mean to suggest that Mr. M'LEAN'S System is precisely that of Mr. SANDEMAN. The former in his Thoughts on the Calls of the Gospel, has certainly departed from it in many things, particularly in respect of the sinner's being justified antecedent to any act, exercise or advance" of his mind toward Christ; and on which account Mr. S. would have set him down among the popular preachers. But he has so much of the system of Mr. S. still in his mind, as often to reason upon the ground of it, and to involve himself in numerous inconsistencies.

* See Letters on Ther, and Asp. vol. II. p. 481, Note.

N

that Dr. GILL was accused of self-righteousness by Mr. SANDEMAN on the ground of his being an anti-pædobaptist!

A large part of that which Mr. M'LEAN has written on this subject is what I never meant to oppose; much of what he imputes to me is without foundation; and even where my sentiments are introduced, they are generally in caricature.

I have no doubt of the character which a sinner sustains antecedent to his justification, both in the account of the lawgiver of the world and in his own account, being that of ungodly. I have no objection to Mr. M.'s own statement, that God may as properly be said to justify the ungodly as to pardon the guilty. If the sinner at the instant of justification be allowed not to be at enmity with God, that is all I contend for; and that is in effect allowed by Mr. M. He acknowledges that the apostle "does not use the word ungodly to describe the existing character of an actual believer."* But if so, as no man is justified till he is an actual believer, no man is justified in enmity to God. He also considers faith, justification, and sanctification as coeval, and allows that no believer is in a state of enmity to God. It follows that as no man is justified till he believes in Jesus, no man is justified till he ceases to be God's enemy. If this be granted, all is granted for which I contend.

If there be any meaning in words, Mr. SANDEMAN considered the term ungodly as denoting the existing state of mind in a believer at the time of his justification: for he professes to have been at + Reply, p. 48.

Reply, p. 123.

*

enmity with God, or, which is the same thing, not to have "begun to love him,' "till he was justified, and even perceived that he was so. It was this notion that I wished to oppose, and not any thing relative to the character under which the sinner is justified. Mr. M.'s third question, namely, "Whether justifying faith respects God as the justifier of the ungodly?" was never any question with me. Yet he will have it that I make the apostle by the term ungodly to mean godly." He might as well say that when I allow pardon to respect men as guilty, and yet plead for repentance as necessary to it, I make repentance and guilt to be the same thing.

I am not aware of any difference with Mr. M. as to what constitutes a godly character. Though faith is necessary to justification, and therefore in the order of nature previous to it, yet I have no objection to what he says, that it does not coustitute a godly character or state previous to justification. And whatever I have written of repentance as preceding faith in Christ, or of a holy faith as necessary to justification, I do not consider any person as a penitent or holy character till he be lieves in Christ, and is justified. The holiness for which I plead antecedent to this is merely incipient; the rising beam of the sanctification of the Spirit. It is no more than the spirituality which Mr. M. considers as produced by divine illumination, previous, or in order to believing; and all the consequences that he has charged on the one, might with equal justice be charged on the other.

Epis. Cor. p. 12. † Reply, p. 145. Ibid, p. 7.

2"* MOST CERTAIN

Nor am I aware of any difference in our views respecting the duties of unbelievers: if there be any however, it is not on the side that Mr. M. imagines, but the contrary. Having described the awakened sinner as "convinced of guilt, distressed in his mind on account of it, really concerned about the salvation of his soul, and not only ear nestly desiring relief, but diligently labouring to obtain it according to the directions given him, by the exercise of holy affections and dispositions," he adds, "All this I admit may be previous to faith in Christ, and forgiveness through him. And will Mr. FULLER deny this is the repentance he pleads for in order to forgiveness? LY HE WILL. Had this been what he pleaded for, he had been justly chargeable with the consequences which Mr. M'LEAN has attempted to load him with. But it is not. I cannot but consider this question as a proof that Mr. M. utterly mistook my sentiments on this part of the subject as much as I did his in another, in consequence of having considered him as the author of a piece called Simple Truth. I have no more idea of their being any holiness in the exercises which he has described than he himself has. I might add, nor quite so much for notwithstanding what he has here advanced, in his Thoughts on the Calls of the Gospel he does not keep clear of unregenerate works being somewhat good, or at least that they are not all and altogether sinful. If this be compared with what I have written on total depravity in Essays p. 54-81, it will be seen who holds, and who

*Reply, p. 148. See vol. II. of his Works, p. 63, 64.