unless I am warranted in law to plead it as my own. It is palpably absurd to plead a righteousness which I reject. The very plea supposes that the righteousness is mine, and that I trust in it. Now, the righteousness of Christ is not mine in possession till I accept it as the Father's gift, which I do in believing. Before believing, therefore, I have no righteousness to oppose to the claims of the law, and consequently neither am nor can be justified. It will not be questioned that the Lord never imputes righteousness to those who never believe, and that he always bestows the grace of faith on those to whom he imputes righteousness. And this demonstrates that there subsists such a connection between imputation .on his part and faith on ours, that without the latter the former could not produce its effect. But that effect is our justification; therefore justification cannot take place before believing.

2. The law applies its curse to the person of every sinner in particular, and its terror to the conscience of every convinced sinner in particular.

That the gospel, as the ministration of righteousness, may be directly opposed to the law as the ministration of condemnation, and that its effect may completely destroy the effect of the law's curse, it is necessary that there be a particular application of righteousness to the

person of the sinner, and that the peace-speaking blood of Jesus be particularly applied to his conscience. Both are asserted in the scripture. Believers are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through SPRINKLING of the blood of Jesus Christ, which purges their conscience from DEAD WORKS. But it has been shown under the preceding head, that it is faith which appropriates the Lord Christ in his saving benefits. And as there is no justification before he be thus appropriated, there can be none before believing.

3. The scriptures divide the hearers of the gospel into believers and unbelievers, and pronounce upon them sentences according to their respective characters. He that believeth is not condemned; he is justified from all things; he hath everlasting life. While he that believeth not is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him. Till the sinner believe he is an unbeliever; and as long as he continues so he is in a state of condemnation; the wrath of God abideth on him. Justification, therefore, before believing, is impossible; it exhibits a monster which the Bible cannot know, a justified unbeliever. It includes the revolting absurdity of a man's being, at the same time, and in the same respects, both acquitted and condemned, both in a state of favor and in a state of wrath, at once a partaker of Christ and an heir of hell.

However plain and peremptory the scriptural doctrine on this point, there are not wanting some to corrupt and oppose it by teaching, not only that justification precedes believing, but that the elect were justified from eternity.

If nothing more were meant than that the Lord, from eternity, purposed to justify his elect through the righteousness of their Head, Jesus Christ, and that this gracious purpose or decree infallibly secures their justification in time, it would be a glorious truth. Though to call this justification, when it is in fact the same with election, would be a strange abuse of terms, and would engender an idle and unedifying strife of words. But it is contended that justification, strictly and properly speaking, is eternal that Jehovah, having from eternity accepted the suretyship of the Son, accepted, and therefore justified, the elect in him: that as his will to elect is election, so his will to justify is justification: that this being eternally an immanent act of the Divine Mind, is the true justification: that the transient act, which passes in time on the person of a sinner, and which we style justification, is only an intimation to his conscience of what was done in eternity: and that the proper business of faith is not to justify, but to impart to the believer a clear manifestation and a comfortable sense of his eternal justification.

How contrary all this is to the nature of things, to the testimony of God's word, and to the experience of his people, may be easily demonstrated.

1. Justification, being the sentence of God the Judge, acquitting the sinner from guilt and pronouncing him righteous according to the tenor of the moral law, necessarily implies both the existence of the law and the breach of it by the person justified; neither of which can consist with the doctrine of eternal justification.

2. If, as is alledged, the will to justify is justification, as the will to elect is election, it is certain that the will to create is creation, the will to sanctify sanctification, the will to save salvation; so that men were created, sanctified, saved from eternity.

That sanctification is a change of personal qualities, and justification of legal relations, will neither alter the question nor remove the difficulty; for justification as necessarily supposes the existence of the relations affected by it, as sanctification does the existence of the person sanctified. Both these blessings impart a real and glorious change; only the subject of the latter is a sinner's person, and of the former his state. Beside, condemnation affects only legal relations; and if the will to justify is justification, the will to condemn must be condemnation; so that mankind were condemned from eternity ;

that is, eternally before the covenant for the breach of which they were condemned had any being or else the covenant with Adam was as eternal as the covenant with Christ; i. e. was made with Adam an eternity before he was created.

3. If the elect were justified from eternity in virtue of their being from eternity in Christ, by covenant representation, it must follow, either that they never were in Adam as a head of condemnation, or else that they were condemned in Adam after their justification in Christ; because the latter was from eternity and the former only in time; for it is evident that they could not be condemned in Adam before he fell under condemnation himself. But both these propositions are most repugnant to every principle and declaration of the scripture.

4. The elect could not be eternally justified in Christ their Surety, because the Surety himself was not thus justified. As the God-man, he was made under the law, both in its precept and penalty, nor was he discharged till he had satisfied both to the uttermost. God was first manifested in the flesh, then justified in the Spirit. This is usually called the virtual justification of the elect; by which must be understood, that in the obedience and death of the Lord Jesus a foundation was laid for their pardon and acceptance, so that God might be just in justifying