434 RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. I might add here, that in several places of St. Paul's epis- tles, the word righteousness is used to signify justification in the passive sense of the word, or a justified state, a rectitude in court, or a right to impunity and life. Rom. x. 3. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth; which-must mean that Christ is the great designor accomplish- ment of the law of God, in order ,to the justification of be- lievers, or to their obtaining a right to life. Rom. x. 19. With the heartman believeth unto righteousness, thatis, to obtain jus- tification, or a justified state. Gal-ii. 23. If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain ; that is, if a justified state, or a right to life came by the law &e. And particularly where the word Toytoµat, or impute, is joined with righteous- ness, as Rom. iv. 3. Gal. iii. 6- Abraham believed God, and it was counted or imputed to him for righteousness ; Rom. iv. 5. Hisfaith is counted for righteousness ; it is not ¢m. or urreq, that is, for and instead of righteous works, but ,sç SNMIossrtm, that is, in order to justification, or acceptance with God. And so in other places of scripture, work whether good or evil, is put for the reward of it. Job xxxiv. 11. The work of et man will he render unto him ; that is, the recompence or fruit of his work: So the word iniquity isused to signify the punishment of it. Hog., xii. 13. Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniiuiiy ; that is, the punishment that it deserves. So Paul desires Philemon to impute any wrong lie- had received from Onesimus to himself ; Phítem, ver. IS. Not the evil action, . but the damagehe sttstained. And upon this account when sin or righteousness are said to be imputed toany man upon the account of the works of right- eousness or sin which he himself has done ; then these words perhaps may sometimes denote the good or evil actions them-: selves, together with the.'legal result of them in guilt and con- demnation, or the legal rectitude in absolution and justification. But when the sinful or righteous actions of one person are so imputed to another as to bring punishments or rewards upon that other, then generally the words imputed sin and righteousness signify the legal and forensic result of these sinful or righteous actions, that is, auobligation Or a liableness to punishment on one side, or a right to impunity, and the reward on the other. It may be granted indeed, if one man commit murder, and three or four other men contrived or encouraged, aided Or abetted the murderer in the commission of the crime, perhaps the actionof murder, as well as the legal penalties of it, may be in a sense imputed to all these men, because they are all actual sharers in the fact : But this is not the case in these scriptural imputations we are speaking of, therefore it is only guilt or penalty that is imputed or transferred. Someperson may be ready to enquire,
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