JUSTIFICATION, one of the most common terms of technical theology. In Protes tant theology it expresses an act of divine favor whereby a sinner is absolved from the penalty of his sins and accepted as righteous, not on account of anything in himself, but on account of the righteousness of Christ imputed to him. According to this view it is a purely forensic act—the act of a judge sitting in the forum, or place of judgment, and acquitting the condemned by an exercise of clemency, in consideration of the merits of another, who has paid the penalty which was justly his due. In this forensic sense of the word the apostle is understood by Protestants to speak (Rom. iii. 26) of God as "the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." In the doctrinal system of the Roman Catholic church justification is considered not purely as a forensic act, or act of acquittal, but, further, as an infusion of personal righteousness, and as hence equivalent to what Protestants specially call sanctification. The distinction between the two things is in Protestant doctrine a cardinal distinction— the one being viewed as an act, the other as a work; the one proceeding from the divine clemency or grace once for all, the other from the progressive agency of the divine Spirit. A corresponding distinction is likewise found in the Catholic system between the act of justification and the state or condition of habitudi justice.
This doctrine of justification is laid down most plainly in the epistles of St. Paul, and it has appeared to some as if there were a discrepancy in this respect between these writings and the epistle of St. James. Whereas the one says: " For if Abraham were
justified by works, he hat h whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." The other says: Was not Abraham our father justified by works? Ye see then that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." Perhaps the most effectual way of reconciling these statements is to suppose that the apostle Paul is describing the inward reality of justification, which has no dependence upon works, but only upon faith, while St. James is speaking of its outward.manifestation—of its reality as evinced in the Christian character and conduct, which necessarily expresses itself in good works, without which, in this sense, there can be no justification. Justification, in short, is independent of works in its origin and primary condition. Its origin is the grace of God—its only primary condition, acceptance of this grace, or faith. But it is dependent upon works as its essential manifestation. Faith is not passive, but ad ire; and a faith which is lot active, which is not a spring of earnest Christian activity, is not a true faith. Such a faith cannot justify a man.
a Roman historian who flourished, iu ail probability, in the 3d or 4th c., although some assign hint an earlier date. His history—which is of great value, from its being our only authority on many important points—is merely a selection of passages from the Mammal history of Trogus Pompeius, a work now lost.