let him look up with comfort to the blest Redeemer. I testify to that soul, that his sins are forgiven. Where there is repentance there is faith; and "he that believeth shall be saved."

Amen.

18

LECTURE XI.

JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION.

ROMANS v. 10.

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

I HAVE chosen this text as the foundation of a lecture on justification and sanctification, because it seems fairly to include both those subjects. Like faith and repentance, these two doctrines stand so intimately related, that it was judged expedient to discuss them together. They are certainly connected in many other passages of scripture, as well as that chosen for our text; and if we can first present a fair exposition of what the apostle here teaches, the foundation will be then laid for inferring all the essential points respecting the doctrines in question.

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For understanding the full import of the passage, we have only to look into its connexions, and especially those of the preceding chapter. The writer had there been discussing the nature of justification by faith; and he comes now to speak of the ciousness and extent of its privileges.("Therefore, says the being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." He afterwards describes these privileges, as felt in as felt in every condition of life-extending to the whole elect family of Christ; and, in our text, as inseparably connected with salvation. "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."

The phrase reconciled to God, is here used to express what had before been meant by justification; and the salvation spoken of in the close of the verse, does include, at least, the idea of sanctification. The object of the writer is then to affirm, that, in God's plan of mercy, sanctification does certainly follow from justification; and he reasons for it, by glancing at the circumstances and agency of each operation. If, while we were enemies, we were justified by the death of

Christ, much more, being justified, we shall be perfectly sanctified through his life.

He reasons from greater to smaller things -from certain to more certain-and his representation may be considered as standing thus: When you were dead in sins, you were justified and made alive by the mercy of God: shall then that life not be continued now, that it is once begun? When you were enemies, you were made friends to God. Now being friends, shall he not much rather raise and consummate that friendship ?— Moreover, it was by Christ's death that this justification was procured: shall not his life in heaven, which is to be the moving cause of all blessings, secure your sanctification rather? In one word, if a dying Saviour could justify and make men friends to God, while they were enemies, shall it not much rather be, that those who are friends, be sanctified and saved through the prevailing intercession of him, of whom it is testified that he liveth?

Having thus stated what we suppose to be Paul's meaning in the text, and seen that justification and sanctification are evidently the subjects of it, let us proceed to draw out the principal things, which enter into the doctrines, by way of inference. Not an in