N00347:48
A brief discourse of justification. Wherein this doctrine is plainly laid down according to…
A brief discourse of justification. Wherein this doctrine is plainly laid down according to the Scriptures. : As it was delivered in several sermons on this subject. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Ten lines of quotations]
Boston: printed by S for Samuel Phillips, 1686
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
I shall therefore endeavour to offer a brief Scripture account of it, and that with the greatest plainness, and accommodation of it as far as I can to the meanest capacities; and let it be attended with diligent heed, for it is our life; there is but one way for a Sinner to be Justified, and if he so mistake in that, as finally to come short of it he must fall under everlasting condemnation, therefore it infinitely concerns us to take pains with our selves that we may come to be acquainted with it.
Here then,
1. What is meant by Justification?
Answ. To justify a man, is in Scripture sense, For a Judge to absolve a person from guilt, by pronouncing him Righteous. Now this sentence which is thus past upon this person, is his Justification properly, Justification is a word borrowed from Courts of Civil Judicature and the right understanding of it is best […] unto by considering ⟨p. 9⟩of the allusion, and comparing it by these several steps that are taken in this process in order to such an issue. Here then these things may be observed.