Imatges de pàgina
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SIR,

Homerton, February 12, 1825.

a demand from of

tion of their personal holiness, in every possible respect.

Obs. I use the term personal holi

Torrespondents, but especially to ness, as the most accurate and com

one from Mr. Gibson, (p. 17,) I am happy to pay respectful attention. You and he will excuse my expressing myself more in the dogmatic form than is at all agreeable to me. I know no other way of avoiding diffuseness: and, if I were to introduce arguments and illustrations, my letter would swell to a very inconvenient size.

When, in the Remarks which you did me the favour of inserting upon the Statements of M. Chenevière, I touched upon the subject of JUSTIFICATION, it never occurred to me that it was needful to define the term and to guard it against such a confusion of ideas as Mr. Bakewell manifested in his Reply. (Mon. Repos. Vol. XIX. p. 663.) Notwithstanding our unhappy differences, I certainly should not have expected that a well-instructed Unitarian, or indeed any man but moderately acquainted with the theory of religion, could have so egregiously stumbled in subjects of such easy distinction as the nature, grounds and objects of Justification on the one hand, and Sanctification (or the dispositions and actions of universal holi ness) on the other.

Mr. Gibson suggests that "a simple affirmative or negative may suffice" for a reply to his four questions. In this I am sorry that I cannot entirely agree with him. His first and last cannot, I conceive, be answered without some explication of terms. I will, however, give the shortest answers that I can devise to each of the questions; and I trust you will allow me space for a few remarks to explain and guard against misapprehension.

Quest. 1. "Is the justification of a sinner in the sight of God determined by the unchangeable obligations of universal virtue ?"

Ans. The justification of a sinner in the sight of God is determined upon the principles of strict equity, in relation to the moral government of God and all the obligations of accountable beings: and it is a blessing gratuitously bestowed upon sinful men, in that mode and under all those circumstances which are, and ever will be, the most effectual to the promo

prehensive; and understanding by it a sincere, habitual and circumspect observance of all the inward principles and all the outward rules of piety towards God, virtue in the government of our passions and the employment of our faculties, and morality in relation to our fellow-creatures.

Quest. 2. "Will those persons who most habitually attend to the obligations of universal virtue, and who acquire most personal holiness, be the justified before God?" Ans. YES. Quest. 3.

"Will any such persons be excluded from the justification before God?"

Ans. NO.

Quest. 4. "Will those persons who have less habitually attended to the obligations of universal virtue, and who have less personal holiness, be preferred and equally justified before God?"

Ans. The term JUSTIFICATION expresses not a disposition or quality of mind which might exist in various degrees, but a state or relation of man, as an accountable being, with respect to God as the righteous and holy Governor of the moral universe. It therefore does not admit of degrees: it either is or is not. We may distinguish between the act and the state of Justification.

(1.) The act of Justification is the judicial decision of the Supreme Mo ral Ruler, by which he pardons the sins of those who are the subjects of this blessing, and regards them with complacency as persons upon whom it is equitable, right and well-pleasing to all the Divine perfections, to be stow the enjoyment of perfect and eternal happiness, a species of happiness of which holiness is the chief and essential part.

(2.) The state of Justification is that condition, standing or relation of a sinful human being, in respect of the perfect moral government of God, which denominates him pardoned and accepted to the favour of the righteous Deity.

This is not the opportunity for adducing proofs in support of this

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description of the great Christian plicity and godly sincerity," we are

doctrine concerning the Justification of a sinner in the sight of God. Yet I would say, that I have assumed no more than is contained in the definition of this subject given by Valentinus Smalcius in the Racovian Catechism: "By faith in Christ we obtain Justification.-Justification is God's esteeming us as righteous; which he does by granting us the pardon of our sins and the bestowment of eternal life; of which the Apostle Paul clearly testifies, when he says that the blessedness of man consists in the Lord's imputing to him righteousness;' and then adds from the Psalm, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin.""-P. 240, ed. Racov. 1609.

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Requesting attention to these preliminary positions, I answer Mr. Gibson's question by the following remarks:

1. Every man is either justified or not justified, in the righteous and unerring judgment of his holy Sove reign. There is no intermediate or neutral condition.

11. If a man thinks himself to be justified, while he does not from the heart abhor and renounce all sin, and with equal earnestness cultivate all holiness, he is under an awful delusion.

III. Yet it is a fact which we know by painful and humbling experience, that sincerity of motive, uprightness of intention, and circumspection of practice, with regard to all the duties of holiness, do not imply perfection, in the present life. There are low degrees, as well as high, in the character of genuine and cordial obedience; and there are all the intermediate points of the scale: but the lowest, be it ever remembered, is honest, sincere, upright, allowing of no sin, and aiming at perfection. The Omniscient alone knows unerringly the real character and state of individuals. If we see a person who seriously professes faith in Christ, according to the Scriptures, and whose conduct exhibits all the appearances of Christian integrity, we rejoice in the rational evidence that he is a justified person, pardoned and accepted by God. If, with the same outward evidence, we are conscious of "sim

scripturally encouraged to take the same consoling hope to ourselves; yet ever remembering the apostolic caution, "Examine yourselves:-thou standest by faith:-be not high-minded, but fear."

IV. SANCTIFICATION, or the sincere love and persevering practice of all holiness, is the necessary and invariable adjunct of Justification. It is the criterion of all well-founded hope of favour with God. As, in the animal frame, the nervous and the arterial parts of the constitution are totally different in structure and function, yet neither can subsist without the other, and both are essential to life; so, in the moral system, Justification and Sanctification are blessings of salvation quite distinct, yet each absolutely necessary, the one inseparable from the other, and both equally essential to the spiritual life or the reality of religion.

The following distinctions may be of some use to preclude misapprehension:

1. Justification respects the state of the soul as standing in the judicial presence of God, the Supreme Lawgiver and Ruler. Sanctification respects the inward and conscious perceptions of the mind, in its inclinations, aversions, motives, aims and practical determinations.

2. Justification is an act of Divine Benevolence; yet, through the infinitely valuable MEDIATION of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is conferred without compromising the honour of the divine law, in either its requirements or its sanctions. The penitent and believing sinner is pardoned, because Christ gave himself a sacrifice, a ransom, an atonement; not to purchase the Father's grace, but as a fruit and effect of that grace, and in order that this exercise of mercy might be just, fit and glorious, and in no way disparaging to the claims of infinite and unchangeable rectitude. The penitent and believing sinner is also beheld with complacency by the Holy One; and supreme happiness is conferred upon him as the recompense of merit to Christ, whose righteousness is no more than justly acknowledged by the conferring of all the blessings of salvation on those who seek them

through him, but to the sinner himself as the free gift of sovereign and unmerited grace.

Sanctification is a work of Divine Power and Goodness upon the rational susceptibilities and faculties of the mind, producing a holy sensibility and justness of feeling, by virtue of which it detests all sin, and loves and pursues all holiness.

3. Justification is an act of Divine love and mercy performed for us: Sanctification is an operation of Divine influence performed in us.

4. Justification is the ground of right and title to celestial blessedness: Sanctification is the process of preparing and qualifying for the possession of that blessedness. The one may be compared to the reversal of an attainder, and the restoration of the forfeited estate, by the proper act of the legislature; the other, to the educating of the heir to fill his station, and the imbuing him with the mind and manners congruous to his rank. Only, let it be observed, that in this imagined illustration the two requisites might be separated; but, in the case illustrated, they are absolutely and for ever inseparable.

v. There is, therefore, an essential difference between the lowest degree of that kind of personal character which necessarily accompanies Justification before God, and that kind which is governed by sinful principles, whether it be plainly laid open or masked with plausible hypocrisy."Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor impure abusers of themselves, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor rapacious men, will inherit the kingdom of God." change of state may, indeed, take place with such persons, through the riches of Divine grace; and it will be infallibly attended by a change of cha

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In which class I cannot but include

plagiarists, who publish other men's writ ings as their own; and malverters of trusts, who apply the property which they hold as trustees for fulfilling the will and intent of others, to purposes which they know to be entirely contrary to that will and intent.

racter: they will abhor and renounce their sins, and turn to God and holiness with all their hearts. Then may they be addressed by the sequel of the passage: "Such were some of you: but ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified, by the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."

VI. Do the defects of Sanctification extinguish the interest in Justification? I answer, No; for they are defects, felt, lamented and opposed in sincerity and with constancy: they are defects, not indulged sins masked under the name of infirmities. If the case be not thus; if the professor of religion prove that he is not "redeemed from all iniquity, purified unto Christ, and living soberly, righteously and piously," let him know that he has neither part nor lot in this matter, for his heart is not right in the sight of God."

VII. But does not this doctrine make all characters equal, as sinners before their conversion, and as saints after it? By no means. The remarks already submitted sufficiently prevent such an inference. As, among unconverted persons, there are vast differences of character, though all are alienated from a right regard to God, and form themselves upon principles of corrupt selfishness, whether gross or refined; so, among true Christians, though all are justified before God, and all are governed by sincere and upright principles, there are great inequalities as to the attainment and exercise of personal holiness. Yet I venture to think that, abating those dreadful falls by sudden and violent temptation which with real Christians are, I trust, very rare, their deficiencies and infirmities are to be ascribed more to other causes than to any corruptness of motive or principle. The more closely I have been enabled to study the human character, and the more intimately to become acquainted with serious persons, the more have I seen reason to conclude that their unhappy infirmities are chiefly the offspring of intellectual deficiencies; of absurd and unchristian education; of natural weakness of nind, producing contracted habits of thought and an inaptitude to understand and apply general principles to particular cases;

of ignorance, become inveterate by untoward circumstances; of connexions with prejudiced and ill-informed persons; of a vicious style of religious instruction from the pulpit; and of a neglect to cultivate the mind by judicious and comprehensive courses of reading. I admit that much blame attaches to the persons who are perverted, by these and similar causes, from the simplicity and purity of the Christian character, or are prevented from attaining to higher degrees of them. The moral evils of the heart mingle with those noxious causes and occasions. The subjects of them are what the apostle denominates "babes, unskilful in the word of righteousness, carnal, and walking as men" governed by low and worldly principles. Yet, with all this deduction from attainment, comfort and usefulness, it is evident that sincerity and integrity do indeed reign in the heart and character.

VII. Mr. Gibson has inserted the word "preferred," in a manner which I do not clearly understand, and which seems to obscure the purport of his query. Perhaps the intention is to ask whether, according to what appears to me to be the scripture doctrine of Justification, defective, yet sincere, Christians will have the same dignity and happiness in the heavenly state as those who have far exceeded them in the practice of personal holiness and universal virtue. I reply, By no means. Though the future happiness of the righteous will be pure and unalloyed, we have reason to think that its quantity (if I may so speak) will be very different in different subjects. The capacity for holy happiness and immortal services to the Lord of glory, will probably be unspeakably greater in some than in others: and this capacity in the world of perfect bliss will be in proportion to the amplitude and energy with which holy principles operated in this probationary state. Thus, though all sincere followers of Christ are justified, all are sanctified, and all shall be with him, where he is, to behold" and to partake "his glory;" yet the degrees of glory will be very different, according to the degrees of ardent and active holiness acquired in the present life. I should

esteem myself happy if my request could induce my respectable Querist to read Mr. Fuller's Sermon on "The Christian Doctrine of Rewards."

I beg to conclude this long letter by two extracts from the writings of a dear and venerable friend, who, through a long and useful life, has been eminently "set for the defence of the gospel." Though these citations refer to those unhappy persons, the Antinomians, who ignorantly misrepresent or perversely misapply the doctrines usually called Calvinistic, they are not the less available for obviating the GREAT misapprehensions which are entertained by my respectable Querist, and probably by many others in his class of religious profession.

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"They who are redeemed from the curse of the law,' will never suppose that Christ has cancelled or lessened their obligations to obedience. Like Paul, they will consider themselves as being not without law unto God, but under the law unto Christ; or as debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh, but debtors to God and grace. Knowing that they are bought with a price, they will own that they are the property of their Redeemer, and feel themselves bound to glorify God with their bodies and with their spirits, which are God's. The Lamb that was slain hath redeemed us to God by his blood; and his grand object, when he once suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, was, that he might bring us to God, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. He has confirmed every antecedent obligation which we were under to obedience, and has superadded new ones, of the most powerful and endearing kind. He has redeemed us from the curse of the law, not from the blessing of the law. For surely it is a blessed thing to have a certain standard of duty, a directory to shew us how we ought to walk and please God; and a still higher blessing to be truly conformed to that standard." Dr. Ryland's Sermon on Redemption from the Curse of the Law, p. 35.

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Surely, of the two, there is far more reason to say natural evil can do no harm to the believer, than to say moral evil can do him none. But

will any man abuse this, so as to encourage a disregard to health or safety, or to discourage the use of means for preservation? We are expressly as sured that neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor peril, nor sword, shall separate from the love of Christ: but who will say, 'Be not careful to avoid poverty, or contagious diseases, or robbers, or fire, or inquisitors;-none of these things can hurt a believer! Leap from St. Vincent's rocks, or throw down your child from the precipice; -neither broken bones nor loss of children can hurt a believer! You would not tell a consumptive friend, or one in danger of any infectious disorder, You need not be so careful of your bodily health, for sickness and death cannot hurt you.' And will you tell a poor, imperfect professor, before he becomes exposed to any particular temptation, that, if it should come in his way, and he should comply with it, it can do him no hari? Can that man be a believer who fears nothing but final damnation; who cares nothing for the dishonour of God?"-The same Author's Serious Remarks, p. 69.

SIR,

J. PYE SMITH.

TAD I been less connected with

grounds than this-as an infringement on Christian liberty?"

If I understand the import of this phrase aright, it presumes that the service under consideration deprives the individuals concerned in it of some Christian privileges which they previously enjoyed. The only parties whom it can affect are either the congregation or the minister: and upon the liberty of which does it infringe? The minister is already the fixed and unbiassed choice of the society with which he is connected. He seeks not the counsel of his brethren to qualify him for the work which he has undertaken; for previously to this service he has fulfilled all the duties of his office. He makes no profession of opinions which are to fetter his investigations, or to prevent any future change in his sentiments. He makes no promises, he enters into no engagements, except that he will devote his time and his abilities to the discovery and diffusion of truth, and to the peculiar duties of his office. If, then, the mutual privileges of the parties remain the same; if the right of private judgment is uncontrolled, and the independence of each church is strictly preserved, how can there be any infringement of Christian liberty? Such a power is specially disclaimed in the "Services" already alluded to. "Never, indeed," says the author of the passage in never may any of us forget that the whole business of this day and place has our common advantage for its object; that we are all brethren in the midst of brethren; that we humbly aim at recognizing and aiding a fellow-labourer in our Master's household; and that your appointment and admission here are exclusively the acts of the Christian society who have chosen you to be their pastor." *

Hthe Services at Bolton which question,

have called forth the animadversions of your correspondent Ruris Colonus, (pp. 27-29,) I might have felt disposed to trouble you with some remarks in reply to his paper: but, under present circumstances, something more than inclination-a sense of duty-compels me to come forward in defence of the service of Ordination; since, in my own case, it was neither determined upon without an anxious and careful examination of its propriety, nor adopted in connexion with any circumstances that could legitimately give it even the appearance of superstition.

. The Services of that occasion are now before the public, so that your correspondent will have an opportunity of judging for himself whether, "in its present form, its liability to be abused to superstitious purposes is not guarded against." But he adds, Was it not objectionable on far other

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But Ruris Colonus further inquires, whether the service" is not objectionable as a practice not enjoined by Christ, or authorized or used by his apostles, and, as such, partaking truly of the character of will-worship?"

To the first part of this objection, it might be enough to state, that there is no precept in the gospel for the

* See the Services at the Ordination of the Rev. F. Baker, Mr. Kentish's Charge, p. 40.

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