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LECTURE XVII.

ROMANS V, 1, 2.

"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

To be justified here, is not to be made righteous, but to be counted righteous. To be justified by faith, expresses to us the way in which an imputed righteousness is made ours. Faith is that act of the recipient, by which he lays hold of this privilege. It contributes no more to the merit that is reckoned to us, than the hand of the beggar adds any portion to the alms that are conferred upon him. When we look to the righteousness that is made ours by faith, it is well to go altogether out of ourselves, and not to mix up any one personal ingredient whether of obeying or of believing with it. The imagination of a merit in faith, brings us back to legal ground again, and exposes us to legal distrust and disquietude. In the exercise of faith, the believer's eye looks out on a cheering and a comforting spectacle; and from the object of its external contemplation, does it fetch homeward all the encouragement which it is fitted to convey. In a former verse of this epistle, we are said to be justified by grace. It was in love to the world, that the whole scheme of another

righteousness was devised, and executed, and offered to man as his plea both of acquittal and of reward before the God whom he had offended. In another place of the New Testament, we read of being justified by Christ-even by Him who brought in that righteousness which is unto all, and upon all who believe. One should look out to that which forms the ground and the matter of our justification; and when we read here that we are justified by faith, one should understand that faith is simply the instrument by which we lay hold of this great privilege-not the light itself, but the window through which it passes-the channel of transmission upon our persons, by which there is attached to them the merit of the righteousness which another has wrought, and of the obedience which another has rendered.

'We have peace with God.' There are two senses in which this expression may be understood. It may signify that peace which is brought about by a transition in the mind of the Godhead, and in virtue of which He is appeased towards us. He ceases from that wrath against the sinner, which only abideth on those who believe not; and from an enemy, He, in consideration of a righteousness which He lays to our account after we have accepted it by faith, becometh a friend. Or it may signify that state which is brought about by a transition in our minds; and in virtue of which we cease from our apprehension of God's wrath against us -not, we think, a dissolving of our enmity against

Him, but a subsiding of our terrors because of Him-rest from the agitations of conscious guilt, now washed away-rest from the forebodings of anticipated vengeance, now borne by Him on whom the chastisement of our peace was laid. This we conceive to be the true meaning of peace with God in the verse before us. The whole passage, for several verses, looks to be a narrative of the personal experience of believers-of their rejoicing, and of their hoping, and of their glorying. The subject of the peace that is spoken of in this verse is the mind of believers-a peace felt by them, no doubt, because they now judge that God is pacified towards them; but still a peace, the proper residence of which is in their own bosoms, that now have ceased from their fears of the Lawgiver, and

are at rest.

Peace in this sense of it then, being the effect of faith, affords a test for the reality of this latter principle. Some perhaps may think that this could be still more directly ascertained, if, instead of looking at the test, we looked immediately to the principle itself. By casting an immediate regard upon one's own bosom, we may learn whether peace is there or not. But by casting the same inward regard, might not we directly learn whether faith is there or not? If it be as competent for the eye of consciousness to discern the faith that is in the mind, as to discern there the peace that is but the effect of faith-might not we, without having recourse to marks or evidences at

all, just lay as it were our immediate finding upon the principle that we want to ascertain; and come at once to the assurance that faith is in me, because I am conscious it is in me?

Now let it be remarked, that there are certain states and habitudes of the soul, which are far more palpable than others to the eye of conscience -certain affections, which give a far more powerful intimation of their presence, and can therefore be much more easily and immediately recognized -certain feelings of so fresh and sensible a character, that almost no power of self-examination is required to ascertain the existence of them. I could much more readily, for example, find an answer to the question, what the emotions of my heart are, if there be any depth or tenderness in them at all, than I could answer the question what the notions of my understanding are; and whether they amount to a belief, or stop short at a mere imagination. A state or a process of the intellect, is far more apt to elude the inward discernment of man, than a state or a process of sensible impression, which announces its own reality to him in spite of himself. And thus it is, that it may be a very difficult thing to find whether faith be in me, by taking a direct look at the state of the understanding while it may not be difficult to find, whether peace be in me, or love be in me, or a principle of zealous obedience be in me-all of these making themselves known, as it were, by the touch of a distinct and vigorous sensation. And

hence the test of the principle may be far more readily come at than the principle itself. The foliage and the blossoms may stand more obviously revealed to the eye of the inner man, than the germ from which they originate; and what our Saviour says of his followers is true of the faith by which they are actuated, that by its fruits ye shall know it.

And as to the peace of our text, which is stated there to be a consequence of faith-it surely cannot be denied, but by those who never felt what the remorse and the restlessness and the other raging elements of a sinner's bosom are, that the consequence is far more obvious than the cause. The mind that has been tost and tempest-driven by the pursuing sense of its own worthlessness, should ever these unhappy agitations sink into a calm, will surely feel the transition and instantly recognise it. When an outward storm has spent its fury, and the last breath of it has died away into silence, the ear cannot be more sensible of the difference-than the inner man is, when the wild war of turbulence and disorder in his own heart, is at length wrought off to its final termination. The man may grope for ever among the dark and brooding imagery of his own spirit, and never once be able to detect there that principle of faith, which may tell him that though he suffers now he will be safe in eternity. But should this unseen visitor actually enter within him, and work the effect that is here ascribed to it, and put an end to

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