us that in his monastery he found a Latin Bible, and his thirst to understand the Epistle to the Romans was insatiable; and that as he was meditating day and night on the righteousness therein revealed, it pleased God to open his eyes and to show him that it related to the method of justifying a sinner by faith. "Hence," he adds, "I felt myself a new man, and all the Scriptures seemed to have a new face; I ran quickly through them; as my memory enabled me, I collected together the leading terms; and I observed in their meaning a strict analogy according to my new views. This expression, 'Righteousness of God,' now became as sweet to my mind as it had been hateful before, and this very passage of St. Paul against which my heart had risen up in a silent sort of blasphemy, proved to me the entrance into Paradise." The other case, that of Cardinal Bellarmine, is still more remarkable. All his life he had been the determined champion of the doctrine of human merit, but in the prospect of death he writes: "It is the safest way to rely wholly on the merits of Christ Jesus"; and in his will he says: "I beseech Thee, O God, to receive me among Thy holy and elect ones, not as the valuer of merit, but as the bountiful giver of mercy." These are not isolated cases. None can know peace with God who have not accepted the righteousness of God placed to their account; while

those who do accept and cling to Christ alone, have reason to know that to them there is no condemnation.

V. We come now to the last, but by no means the least important part of our subject: The doctrine viewed in connection with other fundamental doctrines of salvation.

1. What connection has Justification with Baptism? Of this the Tract divines say: "We are justified by Christ alone, in that He has purchased the gift; by faith alone, in that faith asks for it; by baptism alone, for baptism conveys it." To which Dr. Pusey adds: "Justification is the act of God imparting His divine presence to the soul through baptism"; and the Priest's Prayer-book, which arrogates to itself the position of an appendix to the Book of Common Prayer, says: "Baptism, by which we are admitted into close relationship with God through the atonement, is the external means or instrument of Justification." In the face of this, I venture to state that baptism and Justification have not the slightest necessary connection; each being able to exist, and as a matter of fact each existing, in hundreds of cases, independently of the other. For, in the Old Testament, as I have already shown, there is much of Justification; but there is nothing of baptism. Is it replied, "Circumcision was in

the place of it." Then observe St. Paul's words (Rom. iv. 9, 10): "Faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness which he had being yet uncircumcised."

Again, our Lord distinctly states the means of salvation to be faith alone: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life"; and when He gives His commission to the Apostles, He says, "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not," without any mention of baptism, "shall be damned." Baptism was thus to be the seal, on the one hand, of the confession of Christ by the convert; and on the other, of God's acceptance of his faith, and God's recognition of His own promise, thus visibly sealed by an act of His own institution. Baptism without Faith, by our Lord's own words, is valueless; but that Faith without Baptism will save, is evidenced by the thief on the cross, the salvation of Abraham; and the words of St. Paul, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." That this is really the teaching of the Church of England, according to the Word of God, is clearly shown by the 27th Article, in which, under the subject of Baptism, we find

the words: "Faith is confirmed, and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God"; it must, therefore, have existed independently before it can be confirmed.

We may say, then, that Justification by Faith has no necessary connection with Baptism, both may exist independently; the former sufficient of itself, the second bb itself valueless. Baptism, however, is a sign or seal on God's side; a seal to His promises, to those who believe, on man's side; a visible sign and outward profession (at any rate, in its original intention) of laying hold of Christ and following Him. It will readily be understood that in early Christianity, as now in Heathen Missions, the laying hold of Christ and believing in Him, on the part of Jew or Gentile, would almost invariably be closely followed by Baptism or the outward confession; and thus, far more would be understood by the word among those to whom the Apostles wrote, when Baptism involved often the giving up of all, even life itself for Jesus, than at the present day, when it is treated too often as a conventional rite, rather than as a solemn act of Dedication to God or Confession of Jesus.

2. What is the connection between Justification and Sanctification? Of this, the Council of Trent asserts, "Justification is not remission of sins alone, but Sanctification and renovation of the inner man." The Tract writers say, as before

quoted, "To justify, means counting righteous; but includes under its meaning making righteous." The Priest's Prayer Book, quoted above, states, "Justification and Sanctification are substantially the same thing." But how can this be, when their agents are different? Justification is throughout the Bible imputed to Jesus Christ. The Godhead justifies; but it is through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Sanctification, on the other hand, is attributed to the Holy Ghost as (I. Peter i. 2), "through Santification of the Spirit"; although it is also the work of the entire Godhead, through the agency of the Third Person.

Again, their scope is different. Justification being external and once for all; sanctification internal and continual. Those who put on the wedding garment in the parable were entitled at once to sit down to the feast and be alike strengthened and refreshed in the inner man; and so St. Paul shows in the Galatians, when he says (iv. 6), "Because ye are sons," i.e., have received the adoption and been justified, "God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts." In the structure of the Epistle to the Romans, too, the same truth is shown: for after the apostle has explained justification in the earlier chapters, he shows in the whole of the eighth chapter, how those that are in Christ by faith must walk in the Spirit. Our