Puritan: Robert Traill
Source: Justification Vindicated
Originally Delivered: ~1692, London, England
The Lord’s Day: November 15, 2026
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ ...”
Galatians 2:16
“The plain old Protestant doctrine is that the place of faith in justification is only that of a hand or instrument, receiving the righteousness of Christ, for the sake of which alone we are justified. To be justified by faith is to be justified by Christ’s righteousness, apprehended by faith. It can be no doctrine of God that is not according to godliness. This faith, we teach, purifies the heart, and always inclines to holiness of life. Neither do we hold any faith to be true and saving, that does not show itself by good works.
This faith, in the office of justification, is neither condition, nor qualification, nor our gospel-righteousness, but is in its very act a renouncing of all such pretenses. That the law of God can only damn all sinners; that it only rebukes, and thereby irritates and increases sin; and that it can never subdue sin, till gospel grace comes with power upon the heart; and then when the law is written in the heart it is copied out in the life.
God justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5), neither by making him godly before He justifies him, nor by leaving him ungodly after he has justified him; but that the same grace that justifies him does immediately sanctify him. Let us carefully keep the boundaries between the law and gospel clear, which ‘whosoever doth, is a right perfect divine,’ says blessed Luther, in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, a book that has more plain sound gospel than many volumes of some other divines. Let us keep the law as far from the business of justification as we would keep condemnation, its contrary. For the law and condemnation are inseparable, except by the intervention of Jesus Christ our Surety (Gal. 3:10-14). But in the practice of holiness, the fulfilled law given by Jesus Christ to believers as a rule is of great and good use to them, as has been declared.
There can be no righteousness without a righteousness; no righteousness can suffice but that which answers fully and perfectly the holy law of God; no such righteousness can be performed but by a divine person; no benefit can accrue to a sinner by it unless it is in some way his and applied to him; no application can be made of this but by faith in Jesus Christ. The forsaking of the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ’s righteousness has been the first step of apostasy in many who have not stopped till they revolted from Christianity itself.
It is undoubted that there is a mystery in this matter of justification. As it is God’s act, it is an act of free grace and deep wisdom. Herein justice and mercy kiss one another in saving the sinner. Here appears the God-man, with the righteousness of God, and this is applied and imputed to sinful men. Here man’s sin and misery are the field in which the riches of God’s grace in Christ are displayed. Here the sinner is made righteous by the righteousness of another, and obtains justification through this righteousness, though he pays and gives nothing for it. God declares him righteous, or justifies him freely; and yet he is well paid for it by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:24-26). It is an act of both justice and mercy when God justifies a believer on Jesus Christ. And must there not then be a great mystery in it? Is not every believer daily admiring the depth of this way of God?
Blessed be the rock, Christ, on which all is built; blessed be the new covenant, ordered in all things and sure; and blessed is he that believeth, for there shall be a performance of those things which are told him from the Lord (Luke 1:45). Amen.