or in any way so imparted to him as to change, or constitute his moral character. Imputation never changes the inward, subject- ive state of the person to whom the imputation is made. When sin is imputed to a man he is not made sinful ; when the zeal of Phinehas was imputed to him, he was not made zealous. When you impute theft to a man, you do not make him a thief. When you impute goodness to a man, you do not make him good. So when righteousness is imputed to the believer, he does not thereby become subjectively righteous. If the righteousness be adequate, and if the imputation be made on adequate grounds and by com- petent authority, the person to whom the imputation is made has the right to be treated as righteous. And, therefore, in the fo- rensic, although not in the moral or subjective sense, the imputa- tion of the righteousness of Christ does make the sinner righteous. That is, it gives him a right to the full pardon of all his sins and a claim in justice to eternal life.
That this is the simple and universally accepted view of the doctrine as held by all Protestants at the Reformation, and by them regarded as the corner-stone of the Gospel, has already been sufficiently proved by extracts from the Lutheran and Reformed Symbols, and has never been disputed by any candid or competent authority. This has continued to be the doctrine of both the great branches of the Protestant Church, so far as they pretend to adhere to their standards. Schmid * proves this by a whole catena of quotations so far as the Lutheran Church is concerned. Schweizer 2 does the same for the Reformed Church. A few cita- tions, therefore, from authors of a recognized representative character will suffice as to this point. Turrettin with his charac- teristic precision says : " Cum dicimus Christi justitiam ad jus- tificationem nobis imputari, et nos per justitiam illam imputatam justos esse coram Deo, et non per justitiam ullam quae nobis in- haereat ; Nihil aliud volumus, quam obedientiam Christi Deo Patri nomine nostro praestitam, ita nobis a Deo donari, ut vere nostra censeatur, eamque esse unicam et solam illam justitiam propter quam, et cujus merito, absolvamur a reatu peccatorum nostrum, et jus ad vitam obtinemus ; nee ullam in nobis esse justitiam, aut ulla bona opera, quibus beneficia tanta promereamur, quae ferre possint severum judicii divini examen, si Deus juxta legis suae rigorem nobiscum agere vellet ; nihil nos illi posse opponere,
1 Die Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, dargestellt und aus den Quetten belegt, 3d edit. Frankfort and Erlangen, 1853.
2 Die Glaubenslehre der evangelisch-re/ormirten Kirche dargestellt und aus den Quetten belegt, Zurich, 1844, 1847.