We have shown that we may be mistaken in supposing this Orthodox doctrine of justification to be of merely local and temporary interest, having no permanent value. It is not likely that a man like Paul, of so large, so deep, so philosophic a mind, should have devoted himself so earnestly, and returned so fondly, to a theme involving no universal and eternal principles, whose interest was to perish with the hour. It is not probable that, in this small volume of writings of the new covenant,—this precious gift of God to the world in all ages and in every nation,—so large a portion should be devoted to a wholly temporary argument; and, more than all, it is a most remarkable fact, that whenever there arises a man uniting a deeper spirit of piety with a larger sense of liberty than other men,—a man commissioned by God to give a new religious impulse to his age, and to help Christianity to shake itself free from the cumbrous mass of human forms and traditions which have crushed it, and to go forth in its native grace and loveliness again,—some profound instinct should always lead him to this doctrine as to a weapon effectual for pulling down the strongholds of bigotry, scepticism, and spiritual death. Sir James Mackintosh somewhere says, that the great movement which shook Christendom to its centre, and did more to change and reform society than the political revolutions and wars of a thousand years, originated with an obscure Augustinian monk preaching the doctrine of justification by faith. This acute Scotchman saw, what all must see who read Luther’s writings with any attention, that it was no accident, no temporal interest, which led him to lay such stress on this doctrine. It was the soul of his preaching, the essence of his doctrine, the secret of his strength, the life of his life. And so, when Wesley and the early Methodists were called upon to pour new religious life into the English Church, they fell back on this doctrine—this ancient sword of the Spirit. And so we may believe that it has a value for all ages; that it did not relate merely to Jewish usages, but is a principle of vital and everlasting application. No doubt that if by faith we understand intellectual belief, or the assent to opinions, and if by works we understand true obedience, and by justification final salvation or actual goodness, there can scarcely be a greater absurdity than to say that a man is justified by faith, and not by works. To say that goodness, in the sight of God, consists in receiving certain opinions, rather than in true obedience, is a most unscriptural and irrational doctrine.