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be my husband. Of that interesting truth I have
never doubted since.
"The other doctrine which fixed my attention
and excited much care and study respected Justification.
"A conviction of guilt and misery, of pollution
and inability, assured me of the impossibility of my
being accepted of God, either in whole or in part,
for any thing to be produced or performed by me.
I was fully convinced that without a better righteousness than my own, I must and should perish
forever. This conviction prompted me most attentively to read, and with fervent prayer to study the
word of God. I made no use of commentaries,
nor any human aid, but perused and compared again
and again the sacred scriptures, especially the Prophecy of Isaiah, the Epistles of Paul to the Romans
and to the Galatians, the first Epistle of Peter,
and the Gospel of John. These I attentively read,
— upon these I meditated, and with a sincere desire for instruction, continually supplicated the
throne of grace to be led into the truth, preserved
from error, and established in the doctrine of the
Gospel. And it pleased the Lord, I trust, to give
me the light and instruction I sought. The righteousness of Christ, comprising his active and
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passive obedience, and the imputation of that righteousness to every soul who receives the Saviour by
faith, and thus, by his Spirit, becomes united to him,
which is the basis upon which imputation rests,
were rendered so intelligible, clear and, convincing
to my mind, that I considered the result to be the
teaching of the Holy Spirit by his word, and received it and submitted to it, as such, without any
wavering or carnal disputation. — That the atonement of Christ was specific, complete, and worthy
of all acceptation, I was sure.
"These were my views of justitication by faith,
but not for faith. And my belief of the relation of
God the Redeemer to all the redeemed, and of the
imputed righteousness of the precious Saviour,
was then so decided, clear and full, that although a
long life of study in this, and other doctrines, has
succeeded, I do not know that I have ever obtained
one new or additional idea, respecting the justification of a sinner. All I know of it, I gained at
that period of my life and of my exercises, and no
adverse winds of false doctrines have ever shaken
my faith."
That these two great fundamental doctrines of
the gospel, which so clearly exhibit the unsearchable riches of the grace of God, and so clearly
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