brethren, and again, no! It is not so, and it may not so be presented; for then there would be no justification on God's part. You have a bill to collect from a man who failed in business, but who was accepted as the partner of a rich banker, who discharged all his debts. Is there now the slightest mercy or goodness on your part, when you indorse that man's check? Doing otherwise, would you not flatly contradict solid and tangible facts?

No, the Lord God does not act that way. Christ does not blot out the debt, and obtain us treasure outside of God; nor does the ungodly enter, through faith, into partnership with the wealthy Jesus independently of the Father; neither does God, being informed of these transactions, justify the ungodly, who already had become a believer. For then there would be no honor for God, nor praise for His grace; it would be not the ungodly, but, on the contrary, a believer that was justified.

The matter is not transacted that way. It was the Lord God, first of all, who, without respect of person, and hence without respect to faith in the person, according to His sovereign power, chose a portion of the ungodly to eternal life; not as Judge, but as Sovereign. But being Judge as well as Sovereign, and therefore incapable of violating the right, He who has chosen, that is, the Triune God, has also created and given all that is necessary and required for salvation; so that these elect persons, at the proper time and by appropriate means, may receive and undergo the things by which in the end it will appear that all God's doing was majesty and all His decision just.

And, therefore, this whole ordering of the Covenant of Grace; and in this Covenant of Grace the ordering of the Mediator; and in the Mediator that of all satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness; and of that satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness, first the imputation, and after that the gift.

Wherefore God does indeed declare the ungodly just before he believes, that he may believe, and not after he believes. This justifying act is the creative act of God, in which is also deposited the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, and from which flow also the imputation and granting of all these to the ungodly. Wherefore there is in this act of justification not the slightest mistake or untruth. He alone is declared just who, being ungodly in himself, by this declaration is and becomes righteous in Christ.

In this way alone it is possible fully to understand the doctrine of justification in all its wealth and glory. Without this deep conception of it, justification is merely the pardon of sin, after which, being relieved of the burden, we start out with newly animated zeal to work for God. And this is nothing else than genuine, fatal Arminianism.

But, with this deeper insight, man acknowledges and confesses: "Such pardon of sin does not avail me. For I know:

Ist. That I shall be again daily defiled with sin;

2d. That I shall have a sinful heart within me until the day of my death;

“3d. That until then, I shall never be able to accomplish the keeping of the whole law;

"4th. That, since I am already condemned and sentenced, I can not do business in the Kingdom of God as an honorable man."

The answer of justification, such as Scripture reveals and our Church confesses it, covers these four points most satisfactorily. It accepts you not as a saint, with a self-assumed holiness, but as one who confesses: "My conscience accuses me that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and have kept none of them, and that I am still inclined to all evil"; and yet, you are not cast out. It tells you that you can not depend upon any merit of your own, but must rely on grace alone. Wherefore it begins with putting you in the ranks of the law-abiding, of them that are declared good and righteous, “even so as if you never had had nor committed any sin." As the ground of godliness it does not require of you the keeping of the law, but it imputes and imparts to you Christ's fulfilment of the law; esteeming you as if you had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for you. And effacing hereby the difference of your past and future sin, it imputes and grants unto you not only Christ's satisfaction and holiness, but even His original righteousness, in such a manner that you stand before God once more righteous and honorable, and as tho the whole history of your sin had been a dream only.

But the closing sentence of the Catechism should be noticed: “Inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart." And that "believing heart," and that "embracing"-behold, that is the very work of the Holy Spirit.

Seventh Chapter.

FAITH.

XXXIV.

Faith in General.

"Through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."—Ephes. ii. 8.

WHEN the judicial act of the Triune God, justification, is announced to the conscience, faith begins to be active and expresses itself in works. This leads us to call the attention of our readers to the work of the Holy Spirit, which consists in the imparting of faith.

We are saved through faith; and that faith is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. It is very specially a gift of the Triune God, by a peculiar operation of the Holy Ghost: "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. xii. 3). St. Paul calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of faith (2 Cor. iv. 13). v. 22 he mentions faith as the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

And in Gal.

In salvation nearly everything depends upon faith; hence a correct conception of faith is essential. It has always been the aim of error to poison faith's being, and thus to destroy weak souls as well as the Church itself. It is therefore the urgent duty of ministers to instruct the churches concerning faith's being and nature; by correct definitions to detect prevailing error, and thus to restore the joy of a clear and well-founded consciousness of faith.

For years the people have listened to the poorest and vaguest theories of faith. Every minister has had his own theory and definition, or worse, no definition at all. In a general way they have felt what faith is, and presented it eloquently; but these brilliant, metaphorical, often flowery descriptions have frequently been more obscuring than illuminating; they have failed to in

struct.

The definition of faith being left to the inspiration of the

moment, it often occurred that the minister unconsciously offered to his people one Sunday the very opposite of what he had eloquently proclaimed the week before. This should not be so. The Church must increase in knowledge also; and what sufficed for the apostolic Church is not sufficient now. The ideas of faith were confused then; and the earliest writings show that the various problems regarding faith had not been solved.

But not so in the apostolic writings, whose inspiration is proven from the fact that they contain a clear and definite answer to nearly all these questions. But after the apostles had passed away, the depth of their word not yet understood, there was a childlike confusion of ideas in the Church of the first centuries; until the Lord allowed various heretical forms of faith to appear, which the Church was compelled to oppose by the real forms of faith. To do this successfully it had to emerge from that confusion and to arrive at clearer distinctions and conceptions.

Hence the many differences, questions, and distinctions which subsequently arose regarding faith's being and exercise. Owing to the earnest debates, the real being of faith became gradually more defined and clearly distinguished from its false forms and imitations. That in the present time every path, good and bad, has its own distinctive sign-post, so that no one can turn in the wrong direction ignorantly, is the fruit of the long conflict waged with so much patience and talent.

Undoubtedly ignorance has caused much misunderstanding. But we maintain that a guide who neglects to examine the roads before he undertakes to guide travelers is unworthy of his title. And a minister of the Word is a spiritual guide, appointed by the Lord Jesus to conduct pilgrims traveling to the heavenly Jerusalem through the high Alps of faith, where the ordinary communications of the earthly life have ceased, from one mountain-plateau to another. Hence he is inexcusable when, merely guessing at the location of the heavenly city, he advises his pilgrims to try the path which seems to lead in that direction. By virtue of his office he should make it his chief business to know which is the shortest, safest, and most certain way, and then tell them that this and none other is the way. Formerly, when the various paths had not yet been examined, it was to some extent praiseworthy to try them all; but now, since their misleading character is so well known, it is unpardonable to try them again.

And when the easy-going people say, "Above all things let us retain our simplicity; what is the use in our Christian faith of all those wearisome distinctions," we would ask of them whether in the case of a surgical operation they would prefer a surgeon who in his simplicity only cuts no matter where or how; or in case of sickness, an apothecary who simply puts a mixture together from his various jars and bottles, regardless of the names of the drugs; or, to take another example, in case of a sea-voyage, would they embark in a vessel whose captain, chary of the use of charts and instruments, in sweet simplicity steers his ship, merely trusting in his luck?

And when they answer, as they must, that in such cases they demand professionals thoroughly acquainted with the smallest details of their professions, then we ask them in the name of the Lord and of their accountability unto Him, how they can go to work so simply, i.e., so carelessly and thoughtlessly, when it concerns spiritual disease, or the voyage across the unfathomable waters of life, as tho in these matters thoughtful discrimination were immaterial.

We refuse, therefore, to be influenced by that sickly talk about simplicity regarding faith, or by the impious cry against a so-called dogmatism, but shall diligently seek to give an exposition of the being of faith, which, eradicating error, will point out the only safe and reliable path.

As a starting-point, let it be plainly understood that there is a sharp distinction between saving faith and the faith which in the various spheres of life is called “faith in general."

When Columbus is incited, by internal compulsion, to direct his restless eye across the western ocean to the world which he there expects with almost absolute certainty, we call this faith; and yet, with this instinctive inclination in the mind of Columbus saving faith has nothing to do. And the preacher, using this and similar examples otherwise than as a faint analogy, does not explain but obscures the matter, and leads the Church in the wrong direction.

Sometimes we have among our children one whose mind is constantly occupied by an unconscious aim or idea, that leaves him no rest. In after years it may appear to be his life's aim and purpose. This is the compulsion of an inward law belonging to his nature; the mysterious, constraining activity of a ruling idea governing his