which takes advantage of this righteousness, an inherent virtue as a predisposing cause, or as is termed, a grace of congruity.

It will be observed that each of these respective systems attributes more or less value to human works. The broad and sweeping principle which the apostle has so elaborately expounded, that we are justified wholly by grace, exclusively of the smallest degree of human merit or the smallest amount of human works, is by no means cordially and fully admitted as the basis of their creeds. The doctrine of an infusion of personal holiness which obtains with the first, is seen at first glance to confound the distinctions between justification and sanctification, while the imperfection which they attribute to the first and the efficacy of the second justification are palpably at variance with the fundamental idea of a gratuitory salvation. The Socinian view of the whole Gospel as a merely moral lesson is so degrading to the great plan of redemption that their system of justification cannot but share the general censure which must be passed upon their creed. And the Armenian, while it certainly approximates more nearly the truth, still is not exempt from that charge of self-righteousness to which their view of faith as a righteousness exposes them, and which restrains us from acknowledging that they maintain at least theoretically the simple principle of salvation by free and sovereign grace.

The Moravian and Antinomian view which lies at the opposite extreme of an actual justification in the eternal decree of God is erroneous, inasmuch as it confounds a secret purpose existing in eternity with a positive act which can only occur in time, as justification from guilt necessarily presupposes commission of sin. And

the practical inferences which are drawn from this position are so obviously surversive of that holiness which the Gospel demands that they constitute a living proof of the falsity of their principles.

The view of justification which the apostle gives is founded, according to his own exposition, upon the legal imputation of a vicarious righteousness to the person of the sinner. It is just in this particular aspect that we regard the various systems to which we have referred as diverging from the Scriptures. They all unite in denying the imputation of Christ's righteousness as the only true ground of justification. That this is the doctrine of the apostle is clear from the parallel which he draws between Adam and Christ in the chapter immediately preceding: "If by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Just as we become unrighteous through the sin of Adam, so we become righteous through the righteousness of Christ.

The fact that some connexion does exist with these two persons is denied by none who pretend to derive their views from the Sacred Scriptures. The question is as to the precise nature and effects of that connexion.

The apostle unquestionably assumes it as the basis on the one hand of our fall into sin and consequent condemnation, and on the other of our restoration to righteousness and consequent justification, and it becomes, therefore, a matter of the most serious import to discover the true bearing of his doctrine on the subject.

It is evident from his discussion of the plan of salvation in the previous part of the Epistle, that he regarded a righteousness which should be able to stand

the test of comparison of God's holy law as the great postulate of the sinner; a righteousness which should be competent to justify before the dread tribunal of the final judge. And it is equally evident that every scheme upon which men rely for salvation derives its origin from the inquiry so loudly and urgently pressed upon the natural conscience: "How shall a man be just with God?" Whether or not we admit that view of the law which considers it as administered in the form of a covenant, we must allow its just demands can be satisfied by no less than a perfect fulfilment of the obligations it imposes, or what is equivalent, a perfect righteousness. But as it is a fact, palpable to sense, that all men have sinned and come short of meeting this first requirement, they become necessarily exposed to the threatened penalty. Whatever view we adopt of that nature, of that penalty, one thing is certain: that it involves a condemnation which dates from the first moment of transgression. Now, a state of condemnation is absolutely incompatible with any available effort to furnish a satisfactory obedience to law. Hence the state of condemnation and consequent moral impotency is of necessity perpetual, on the ground that a personal righteousness is exacted from the sinner. The very first infraction of the law is a sea-wide breach between the sinner and his God which cuts him off from communion with Him and raises a barrier durable as the eternal throne, one operating forever against his future acceptance. But as the original requisition of a perfect righteousness remains in all its force it becomes the gravest question which can occur to man: "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, calves of a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" But turn which way he will, consume what means he please, and employ all the moral energies which an anguished soul can devise, the thick darkness that may be felt still shrouds his spirit, and the bitterness of disappointment still crushes him lower into the depths of despair. The insulted justice, the spotless holiness, the avenging wrath, nay, all the glorious perfections of Jehovah rise up in terrible array, and as with double flaming swords guard each separate avenue to the tree of everlasting life. The decree of the Almighty, penned as with a diamond upon the eternal rock, still frowns the uncompromising death warrant to all his hopes. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die!" The perfections of God, the unchanging penalty of His law, and the immutability of his government, conspire to render it morally impossible that the sinner can be saved on the original principle of a personal obedience. And well is it for us that those perfections, that law and that government admit a substitute in the stead of the transgressor. If we be saved it must be by virtue of the righteousness of a competent substitute, accepted by God in the sinner's place. As a righteousness cannot, in the nature of things, be furnished by himself, it must be furnished by another for him. Now it is remarkable that the principle by which we become first unrighteous is the very method by which we become righteous—that principle is legal imputation. The apostle shows in the 5th chapter that all men become sinners in the first instance not by their personal violation o fthe law, but on account of the acts of one to whom they sustain a

peculiar relation. Whatever that relation is admitted to be none can deny that the apostle asserts it: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." It is clear that the apostle assigns as a reason for the death of all men their common connexion with the first man, and lest some should assert that the sin of Adam only introduces a tendency to sin, and that we die only in consequence of our own personal transgressions, he excludes this evasion of his doctrine by showing that death equally passes upon those who from the nature of the case cannot commit voluntary transgression in the instance of those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's trangression. The argument is briefly this: Death is the effect of sin, consequently where no sin exists there is no room for death. But those die who cannot commit voluntary transgression, as for instance infants, and therefore cannot merit death on account of personal acts. But since they do die, it is by virtue of their participation in the sin of another. They have sinned, and since sin is the transgression of the law, they have transgressed the law, and not being capable of doing it personally and voluntarily, must have done it in Adam. And just here the point of controversy exists. How is it that we become participants in Adam's sin? It is clear that we were not conscious agents in Adam's transgression, both from the fact that we did not then consciously exist, and from the fact that infants are liable to the penal consequences of that sin before they are capable of performing voluntary acts. It cannot be wholly by virtue of our natural descent from Adam as common root from whom we sprung, as in that case we would be chargeable with all his sins, whereas we