A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATIO N. BY DANIEL WATERLAND, D.D. LATE CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY. ADVERTISEMENT. IF it were needful for the Editors of the Churchman's Remembrancer to assign a reason for having given the ensuing Tract the preference before many others they have it in contemplation to re-publish; its connection with the two Sermons on Regeneration, re-edited by them a year ago, as a specimen of their intended collection, might be pointed out. To these Sermons the learned Author expressly states, that he designed it as an "Appendage or Supplement;" and a Supplement ought to appear whilst the work it is intended to complete is fresh in the recollection. But the observation prefixed to the former Treatise applies equally to this; its Title sufficiently accounts for the early attention it has received—Justification being a term to the full as important, as little understood, and as indecently bandied about in in these our days, as Regeneration; and no where perhaps so satisfactorily cleared of all its difficulties, so accurately defined, or rendered so perspicuous and intelligible, as by Dr. Waterland, in the Tract now reproduced, and recommended to public attention. It is not indeed so scarce as the former Treatise, having been annexed to the second volume of the Author's Sermons, and thus preserved from that neglect which the other has experienced. But even these volumes, it is to be feared, rarely fall into the hands of young Students in Divinity, for whose benefit the present work was chiefly undertaken: and should some chance to have them in possession, so little is there of the spirit of investigation in the present age, that the probability is, it would escape their observation, unless particularly pointed out. And though Justification is indeed one of those deep questions in Divinity into which it would be well if young Students would not too curiously enquire, it being time enough to make that the object of their researches when they are established in the principles of the doctrine |