N00347:52
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.
1. That Justification presupposeth a Legal Trial. The Apostle is here referring to the day of Judgment, and tells us that he would then be found in Christ, when he comes upon his last Trial, that so he may be able to stand it out, and find an absolution at Gods Tribunal. If there were no Judgment wherein men are to appear, and give up their accounts, there would be no need of their Justification: but Paul lives in expectation of such a thing, and hath also given us to understand that all men have as much reason to expect it as he, it being a truth of which there is not the least ground to make any doubt, 2 Cor. 5. 10. we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, Heb. 9. 27. it is appointed for men once to die, and after that the Judgment: Now if men must be judged, they must then first be tried, how else shall a Righteous Judgment proceed?
1. That Justification presupposeth a Legal Tryal. The Apostle is here referring to the day of Judgment, and tells us that he would then be found in Christ, when he comes upon his last Tryal, that so he may be able to stand it out, and find an absolution at Gods Tribunal. If there were no Judgment wherein men are to appear, and give up their accounts, there would be no need of their Justification: but Paul lives in expectation of such a thing, and hath also given us to understand that all men have as much reason to expect it as he, it being a truth of which there is not the least ground to make any doubt, 2 Cor. 5. 10. we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, Heb. 9. 27. it is appointed for men once to die, and after that the Judgment: Now if men must be judged, they must then first be tryed, how else shall a Righteous Judgment proceed?
2 That in this Trial there is a question supposed: and this question must be, whether the man who comes upon his Trial, be guilty