the prolific root of several kindred errors which naturally sprung from it. It produced, in particular, three doctrines which were directly opposed to the truth of Scripture ;— first, the doctrine that justifying grace consists, not in the free favour and blessing of God, as these are opposed in Scripture to His wrath and penal sentence, but in subjective grace, or a gracious quality infused, such as is opposed in Scripture, not to the guilt, but to the power of sin; secondly, the doctrine that good works are meritorious, in the proper sense of the term, as being the conditions of pardon and acceptance with God,-the effectual means of satisfying His justice, averting His displeasure, and securing His favour now, and eternal life hereafter; and thirdly, the doctrine, that there is a difference between the precepts of the divine Law which are binding on all men, and certain Counsels of Perfection' which some may voluntarily undertake to fulfil, and by the fulfilment of which they may not only secure eternal life for themselves, but acquire a surplusage of merit, which may be imputed to others for their Justification-a merit arising from works of supererogation,' which even the mild Melancthon characterized as 'that irony of the devil.' The substitution of the inherent righteousness of man for the imputed righteousness of Christ, as the ground of a sinner's Justification, naturally led on to these kindred errors; and the doctrine of Merit, which was elaborated by the Scholastic theologians, lay at the foundation of all the superstitions and corruptions. of the Papal system. (20) Scholasticism contained the germs of Popery, and Popery was just Scholasticism developed and full-blown; while all the corruptions of the Church and all the speculations of the Schools coalesced, and found their point of union, in that crowning abomination, the sale of Indulgences.

LECTURE IV.

HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE AT THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION.

THE

HE revival of the Gospel doctrine of Justification was the chief means of effecting the Reformation of religion in Europe in the sixteenth century. That we may form some adequate estimate of the urgent necessity, the real nature, and the practical results of that great revival, it is necessary to consider the corrupt practices in the Church of Rome which were the immediate occasion of exciting inquiry and discussion on the subject of a sinner's pardon and acceptance with God,—and the doctrine of the Reformers, as contrasted with that on which these practices depended for their support.

The immediate occasion which led to inquiry and discussion at this time on the subject of a sinner's pardon and acceptance with God, was the prevalence of gross practical abuses in the Church of Rome. The Scholastic theory of Merit had reached its culminating point in the proclamation of Indulgences. The public sale of Papal pardons gave rise to a thorough discussion of the whole subject of a sinner's justification before God; it was the spark which ignited all the combustible matter that had been accumulating for ages, and produced an explosion which rent the Church to her foundation. It might seem, at first sight, as if it were rather one of the many practical abuses, or corrupt usages, which had sprung up in a dark and superstitious age, than a heretical doctrine, which threatened to subvert the divine method of Justification;

and it has sometimes been said that, at the first, there was no serious difference between the two parties in point of doctrine, but that the Reformers lifted their voice only against a practice, which must have been peculiarly offensive to enlightened and generous minds, by reason of its sordid and mercenary character, and might almost prompt them to say indignantly to the Priesthood, as the Apostle said of old to Simon Magus, 'Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.' But it was more than a practical abuse; it was the visible embodiment of a whole system of false doctrine, which subverted or undermined all the scriptural grounds of faith and hope towards God. Luther, like every other noble and unselfish spirit, must have recoiled from the unholy traffic, as alike dishonouring to God, and disgraceful to the Church; but, not content with denouncing corrupt practices, as some of his precursors had been, he had the sagacity to see that they had their root in false doctrine, and that he must strike at the root, if the Church was to be really reformed. Deeply exercised in his own mind on the subject of sin and salvation, he had felt the burden of guilt on his conscience, and had been all but overwhelmed by despair of mercy. He had the charge, too, of many penitents who came to him as their pastor, and poured into his ear in the confessional the expression of their sorrows and fears; and when the Pope's pardons were promulgated and offered for sale among the members of his own flock,-when they were actually presented to him, and pled as a reason for neglecting the penance which he prescribed, and when he observed their effect in deadening the sense of sin, and acting as an opiate on the conscience of the sinner,-his soul was stirred within him; for he felt that it was God's pardon, and not man's, that he needed for himself,-that it was

God's pardon, and not man's, that was equally needed by every one of his penitents. He was thus led to compare the Bull of Indulgences with the Gospel of Christ,—and he saw, with the vividness of intuition, that they rested respectively on two doctrines of Justification, which were not only different, but diametrically opposed;-the one revealed by God, the other invented by the Church,—the one a doctrine of Grace, the other a doctrine of Merit,the one founded on the finished work of Christ, the other depending on the imperfect works of sinful men. Seeing this striking contrast between the two, and knowing that both could not be true, unless light could have fellowship with darkness, he rejected the doctrine of man, and adhered to the doctrine of God; and from that day forth, in the whole exercise of his ministry, whether by word or writing, he set himself to disprove the one, in the only effectual way, by explaining and establishing the other. Convinced that truth alone can expel error, just as light alone can expel darkness, he sought to bring home to the hearts and consciences of his people the simple but sublime truth, that 'there is forgiveness with God' through faith in the blood of Christ; and to make them feel that they had no need of any of those human inventions by which that truth had been obscured and corrupted in the Church of Rome. He did not protest merely against Popish errors, he proclaimed the Gospel method of Justification, as that which, if it were once clearly understood and cordially believed, was sufficient to exclude them all; and his teaching, if it was necessarily to a large extent controversial, was far from being on that account either negative or destructive; it was mainly directed to the establishment of positive truth, and the building up of the Church on the only sure foundation, 'the faith which was once delivered to the saints.'

That we may see what doctrinal importance belonged at that time to the selling and buying of Indulgences, and how naturally Luther was led, by his horror for that monstrous corruption, to discuss the whole subject of a sinner's justification with God, it is necessary to trace them to their origin in those false views, which had long prevailed in the Church, and to exhibit a brief outline of the Romish doctrine on the subject.

The invention of Indulgences was the result of several distinct doctrines, which followed each other in consecutive order, and ultimately formed a compact and self-consistent system, opposed at every point to the doctrine of the Gospel. In delineating that system, we shall begin with the first error in the series, and then show how, by 'successive additions to it, all resting on that false principle, although not logically deducible from it, it was gradually matured till it reached its state of full development. In attempting to trace the idea of Indulgences to its origin, we connect it, in the first instance, with the Romish doctrine concerning the pardon of sin. This alone, and without the additions which were subsequently made to it, will not afford an adequate explanation of its origin,—for several distinct causes contributed to the result. But the Romish doctrine of pardon was the fundamental error, on which all subsequent additions were built. That doctrine divides itself into two parts-the pardon of sin contracted before, and the pardon of sin contracted after, baptism. All sin contracted before baptism, such as original sin in the case of infants, and both original and actual sin in the case of adults possessing certain previous dispositions, were said to be pardoned in Baptism,-but pardoned, not in the sense of being blotted out as criminal offences, which implied a charge of guilt and a sentence of condemnation for what was past, but in the sense of being 'deleted' in the