ligion of Christ, the system of grace which he brought.14 Who
can doubt that such is the meaning of the word in these instances?
"Contend for the faith once delivered to the saints;" "Greet them
that love us in the faith;" "Have not the faith of our Lord Jesus
Christ with respect of persons." So, in the text now under our
notice, "the faith which is in his blood" means the dispensation
of pardon and justification, the system of faith, which was
confirmed and exemplified to us in his death and resurrection.
Secondly, "the righteousness of God," which is here said to be
"pointed out" by Christ's death, denotes simply, in Professor
Stuart's words, "God's pardoning mercy," or "acquittal," or
"gratuitous justification," "in which sense," he says truly, "it
is almost always used in Paul's epistles."15 It signifies neither
more nor less than God's method of salvation by freely forgiving
sins and treating the sinner as if he were righteous, the method
of salvation now carried into effect and revealed in the gospel
brought by Christ, and dramatically enacted in his passion and
ascension. Furthermore, we ask attention to the fact that the
ordinary interpreter, hard pressed by his unscriptural creed,
interpolates a disjunctive conjunction in the opposing teeth of
Paul's plain statement. Paul says, as the common version has it,
God is "just, and [i. e. even] the justifier." The creed bound
commentators read it,

14 Robinson has gathered a great number of instances in his
Lexicon, under the word "Faith," wherein it can only mean, as he
says, "the system of Christian doctrines, the gospel."

15 Stuart's Romans i. 17, iii. 25, 26, &c.

"just and yet the justifier." We will now present the true meaning
of the whole passage, in our view of it, according to Paul's own
use of language. To establish a conviction of the correctness of
the exposition, we only ask the ingenuous reader carefully to
study the clauses of the Greek text and recollect the foregoing
data. "God has set Christ forth, to be to us a sure sign that we
have been forgiven and redeemed through the faith that was proved
by his triumphant return from death, the dispensation of grace
inaugurated by him. Herein God has exhibited his method of saving
sinners, which is by the free remission of their sins through his
kindness. Thus God is proved to be disposed to save, and to be
saving, by the system of grace shown through Jesus, him that
believeth." In consequence of sin,