rightly understood and inculcated. When we speak of assurance as essential to faith, many suppose we teach that none can be real Christians who do not feel that they have passed from death unto life; and have not unclouded and triumphant views of their own interest in Christ, so as to say, under the manifestations of his love, 'my beloved is mine, and I am his." But God forbid that we should thus offend against the generation of his children. That many of them want such an assurance may not be questioned. This however is the assurance, not of faith but of sense; and vastly different they are. The object of the former is Christ revealed in the word; the object of the latter Christ revealed in the heart. The ground of the former is the testimony of God without us; that of the latter the work of the Spirit within us. The one embraces the promise, looking at nothing but the veracity of the promiser; the other enjoys the promise in the sweetness of its actual accomplishment. Faith trusts for pardon to the blood of Christ; sense asserts pardon from the comfortable intimations of it to the soul. By faith we take the Lord Jesus for salvation; by sense we feel that we are saved, from the Spirit's shining on his own gracious work in our hearts.

These kinds of assurance, so different in their nature, are very frequently separated. The assurance of faith may be, and often is, in lively

exercise, when the other is completely withdrawn. "Zion said, My Lord hath forgotten me; and the Spouse, My Beloved hath withdrawn himself and was gone." "He may be a forgetting and withdrawing God to my feelings, and yet to my faith, my God and my Lord still." This case is accurately described by the prophet. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Here the believer, one who fears the Lord, is supposed to be absolutely destitute of sensible assurance, for he walks in darkness and has no light; yet he is required to exercise the assurance of faith by TRUSTING in the Lord, and staying upon HIS God.・・

Seeing, therefore, that the scriptures teach that there is in saving faith a special appropriation of the Lord Jesus Christ to the soul, with a persuasion of its own particular salvation through him; and that this doctrine is in nowise contrary, but most conformable to the experience of the saints; the synod do reject, and solemnly testify against the prevailing errors, that justifying faith does not necessarily contain an appropriation of Christ to ourselves, as our own Savior in particular; nor any assurance that we in particular shall be saved; but merely a belief and persuasion of God's mercy in Christ,

and of his ability and willingness to save those who come unto God through him. And the synod do warn their people against the principles herein condemned as contrary to the faith of God's elect; as tending to encourage in sinners a lying hope, founded on a general assent to the truth of the gospel; and to mar instead of promoting the growth and consolation of believers.

II. OF JUSTIFICATION.

Justification, being the reverse of condemnation, expresses a change, not of personal qualities, but of relative state. For, as condemnation does not make the subjects thereof wicked, so justification does not make them holy. But as the former is a sentence according to law, declaring a person unrighteous and adjudging him to punishment, so the latter is a sentence according to law, acquitting him from guilt and declaring him righteous. In justifying sinners, the Most High God, as an upright moral Governor, passes a sentence, wherein he pardoneth all their sins, and accepteth them as righteous in his sight. For he forgiveth all their iniquities, and makes them accepted in the Beloved.

This justification is an act, and is therefore completed at once. It is necessarily an act, because it is a legal sentence; and an act cannot

be progressive: this is the property of a work. The origin of justification is the sovereign grace of God-We are justified freely by his

grace.

The meritorious cause of it; that which renders it meet and right for God to absolve the sinner from the curse and receive him into favor, and on account of which he is just in justifying, is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, consisting of his whole obedience to the law, both in its precept and penalty. We have redemption through his blood, and by his obedience many are made righteous.

This righteousness is conveyed to us by imputation; that is, is placed to our account as really and effectively as if it had been accomplished in our own persons. He was made under the law; so under it as to become SIN for us, though he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him; i. e. as our sin, being charged on him, is sustained in law, as a sufficient reason for exacting from him, in our name, full compliance with all the demands of justice; so that compliance, which is his righteousness, being imputed unto us, is sustained in law as a sufficient reason for acquitting us, in his name, from guilt, and conferring on us a title to everlasting life. The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all; and, therefore, by his stripes we are healed.

With the imputation of the Surety's righteousness on the part of God the Judge, there is necessarily connected the cordial reception of it on our part. This is done by faith, the faith of the operation of God. It is in believing on the Lord Jesus, or, as has already been explained, accepting him for righteousness; on the divine warrant, that our persons are released from the curse, and we are personally instated in the right to the inheritance. In this sense, and in this only, does faith justify; not as being, in any possible form or degree, our justifying righteousness; but simply as it embraces the righteousness of the Surety to the entire exclusion of our own. So speaks the scripture: We are justified by faith; only as it is faith in his blood.

Hence it is apparent that personal justification takes place at the moment of believing, and not before. But as this part of the doctrine of justification has been recently and boldly denied within the bounds of the synod, they judge it their duty briefly to confirm it, and to bear their testimony against the contrary error.

1. It is not righteousness as imputed merely that justifies, but as received also. On this the scriptures lay particular stress. As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God; which receiving is immediately explained by believing on his name. No righteousness can justify me at the bar of justice, VOL. III. 43