which he has performed, he will receive no sentence of justification from God the Judge, unless He quit the tribunal of his severe justice and ascend the throne of grace, and from it pronounce a sentence of absolution in his favor, and unless the Lord of his mercy and pity graciously account for righteousness the whole of that good with which the saint appears before Him. For, woe to a life of the utmost innocency, if it be judged without mercy. (Psalm xxxii, 1, 2, 5, 6; exliii, 2; 1 John i, 7-10; 1 Cor. iv, 4.) This is a confession which even the Papists seem to make when they assert, that the works of the Saints cannot stand before the judgment of God unless they be sprinkled with the blood of Christ.

X. Hence we likewise deduce: That if the righteousness by which we are justified before God, the Judge, can be called formal, or that by which we are formally justified, (for the latter is Bellarmine's phraseology,) then the formal righteousness, and that by which we are formally justified, can on no account be called "inherent;" but that, according to the phrase of the Apostle, it may in an accommodated sense be denominated [imputativam] "imputed," as either being that which is righteousness in God's gracious account, since it does not merit this name according to the rigor of justice or of the law, or as being the righteousness of another, that is, of Christ, which is made ours by God's gracious imputation. Nor is there any reason why they should be so abhorrent from the use of this word, "imputed," since the apostle employs the same word eleven tinfes in the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, where the seat of this point or argument lies, and since the efficacy to salvation of God's gracious estimation is the same, as that of His severe aud rigid estimation would be if man had perfectly fulfilled the law without any transgression. (2. Cor. v, 19, 21.)

XI. And though Bellarmine, by confounding the word "justification," by distinguishing faith into [formatam et informem] that which is formed and unformed, by making a difference between the works of the law, and those performed by renewed persons through the virtue of the Holy Spirit, and by not ascribing a reward even to these works, unless because

it has been promised gratuitously, and promised to those who are already placed in a state of grace and of the adoption of sons, by which he confesses they have likewise a right to the heavenly inheritance, by granting besides, that the reward itself exceeds [dignitatem] the worthiness of the work, and by bringing down to a rigid examination the whole life of the man who is to be judged, though by these methods Bellarmine endeavors to explain the sentiments of the Romish Church so as to make them appear in unison with those of the apostle; (or, at least that they may not openly clash with those of St. Paul;) yet, since the Church of Rome asserts, that the good works of the Saints fully satisfy the law of God according to the state of this life, and really merit eternal life; that when we suffer for sins by rendering satisfaction, we are made conformable to Christ Jesus who gave satisfaction for sins; and that the works of the Saints, prayer, fasting, alms-giving, and others, are satisfactory [to divine justice] for temporal punishment, indeed for every punishment, and, what is more, for guilt itself, and are thus expiatory for sins; since she declares that the sacrifice of the mass is a propitiation for the sins and punishments both of the living and the dead; and since she says that the works of some men are super-erogatory, and extols them so much as to affirm that they are useful to others for salvation; since these are the assertions of the Church of Rome, we declare that her doctrine stands directly opposed to that of the apostle.

DISPUTATION XX.

ON CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

Respondent, ENGELBERT SIBELIUS.

I. LIBERTY, generally, is a state according to which every one is [suri juris] at his own disposal, and not bound to another person. Bondage or slavery is opposed to it, according to which a man is not his own master, but is [obnoxius] subject

to another, either to do what he commands, to omit what he forbids, or to endure what he inflicts. Christian Liberty is so called chiefly from Christ the Author, who procured it; it has received this appellation also from its subjects, because it belongs to Christians, that is, to believers in Christ. But it pre-supposes servitude; because Christ was not necessary for any, except for "those who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage." (Heb. ii, 15.)

II. Christian Liberty is that state of the fullness of grace and truth in which believers are placed by God through Christ, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit. It consists partly of a deliverance from both the real and the economic bondage of sin and the law, and partly of adoption into the right of the sons of God, and of the mission of the Spirit of the Son into their hearts. Its end is the praise of the glorious grace of God in Christ, and the eternal salvation of believers.

III. The efficient cause of Christian Liberty is God the Father, who offers it; (Coloss. i, 12, 13;) the Son, who, as Mediator, confers it; (John viii, 36; Gal. v, 1;) and the Holy Spirit, who inwardly seals it. (2 Cor. iii, 17, 18.) The internal cause is the grace of God, and his love for man in Christ Jesus. (Luke i, 78.) The external cause is the ransom, or the price of redemption, and the satisfaction, which Christ has paid. (Rom. v, 6-21; vii, 2, 3.) The sealing and preserving cause is the Holy Spirit, who is both the earnest and the witness in the hearts of believers. (Rom. viii, 15, 16; Eph. i, 13, 14.) The instrument is two-fold. One on the part of God, who exhibits this liberty; the other on the part of man, who receives it. (1.) On the part of God, the instru ment is the saving doctrine concerning the mercy of God in Christ, which is therefore called "the ministry of reconciliation." (2 Cor. v, 19.) (2.) On the part of man, it is faith in Christ. (John i, 12; Rom. v, 2; Gal. iii, 26.) The matter about which it is exercised is not only sin, and the law "which is the strength of sin ;" but also the power or privilege of the sons of God, and the Spirit of Christ.

IV. The form consists in deliverance from the spiritual bondage of sin and the law, both real and economical, in the

donation of the right to be the sons of God, (Coloss. i, 13,) and in the sending forth of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers. (Gal. iv, 6.) Its subjects are all believers, who are [exempti] freed from the tyranny of sin and of the law, and received by God on account of Christ as sons, through the grace of adoption. (Gal. iii, 26.) The chief end is the praise of the glorious grace of God; (Eph. i, 14;) the subordinate end is the salvation of believers. (Rom. vi, 22.) The effects or fruits are two: The first serves for consolation. (Heb. vi, 18-20.) The other, for admonition, that "being made free from sin, we may become the servants of righteousness." (Rom. vi, 18-22; 1 Pet. ii, 16.)

V. But because this liberty is opposed to the bondage which preceded it, we must on this account treat in the first place about that bondage, that [ratio] the design of this liberty may be the more easily rendered evident. We must know, that the first man was created free by God; but that, having abused his liberty, he lost it, and was made the slave of him to whom he yielded obedience, that is, to sin, both as it respects the guilt of condemnation and its dominion; which is real bondage and consummate misery. To this succeeded the economical bondage, [or that of the dispensation of Moses,] which God introduced by the repetition of the Moral Law, and by the imposition of the Ceremonial. The bondage under the Moral Law was its rigid [exactio] demands, by which man, being reduced to despair of fulfilling it, might acknowledge the tyranny of sin [dominantis] which reigned or held dominion over him. The bondage under the Ceremonial Law was its [obsignatio] testifying to condemnation; by which man might be convinced of guilt, and thus [per hanc et illam] through both these kinds of bondage might flee to Christ, who could deliver him from the guilt of sin and from its dominion.

VI. Let us now see how believers are delivered from this bondage by Christian liberty. We will restrict this consideration to the church of the New Testament, to which the whole of this liberty belongs, omitting the believers under the Old Testament. Though to these likewise belonged, through the promise of the blessed seed and through faith in Him, (Gen.

iii, 15; xv, 6,) a deliverance from real bondage, the privilege of the sons of God, and the Spirit of adoption, which was intermixed with the spirit of economical bondage. (Gal. iv, 1-3.)

VII. We circumscribe Christian liberty within four ranks or degrees. The FIRST degree consists in a freedom from the guilt and condemnation of sin, which has been expiated by the blood of Christ, by faith in which we obtain remission of sins, and justification from those things from which we could not be absolved by the law of Moses. The SECOND degree consists in the deliverance from the dominion and tyranny of indwelling sin; because its power is mortified and weakened by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, that it may no longer have dominion over those who are under grace. (Rom. vi, 14.) But both these degrees of Christian Liberty have their origin in this-that sin was condemned in the flesh of Christ, and it therefore does not possess the power either to condemn or to command. (Rom. viii, 3.)

VIII. We place the THIRD degree in the attempering of that rigor by which God demanded the observance of the Moral Law in the primeval state, and could afterwards have demanded it, if it had been his pleasure still to act towards men in the same manner. Indeed, God did actually demand it, but in an economical way, from the people of the Old Testament; of which he gave manifest indications in that terrific legislation on Mount Sinai. (Exod. xx, 18; Gal. iv, 24, 25.) "But we are come unto Mount Sion, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant," whose "yoke is easy and his burden light;" (Isai. ii, 3; Micah iv, 2; Hebrews xii, 18-24; Matt. xi, 30;) because Christ has broken the yoke of exaction, and it has been the good pleasure of God to treat with man accord ing to clemency in the compact of the New Testament.

IX. We place the FOURTH degree in a freedom from the economical bondage of the ceremonial law, which had a fourfold respect under the Old Testament. (1.) For it was the seal of condemnation, and the hand-writing, or bond of our debt. (Gal. iii, 21; Heb. x, 3, 4.) (2.) It was a symbol and token, by which the Jews might be distinguished from all