Note 128 — Chapter VI · THE OLD SCOTTISH CONFESSION OF 1560.

Considerable ingenuity has been expended in the attempt to show that the words "who is the end and accomplishment of the law" are to be understood in some other than their most obvious and commonly received meaning. Without questioning the competency of such ingenious rather than ingenuous exposition, were a case raised before the judicial committee of a modern privy council to have the expounder tried and condemned as a heretic, I venture to think that when the matter to be determined is rather what, in point of fact, did Knox and his associates hold and teach, the following brief quotation from the "godly and perfect" treatise of Balnaves on Justification must go pretty near to settle it: "Christ is the end of the law (unto righteousnes) to all that beleeve—that is, Christ is the consummation and fulfilling of the lawe, and that justice whiche the lawe requireth; and all they which beleeve in Him are just by imputation through faith, and for His sake are repute and accepted as just" (Laing's Knox, iii. 492). If more than this has been taught in recent times, I should be greatly inclined with Principal Lee to trace it to Jonathan Edwards, or perhaps even to the great Independent, Dr Owen, rather than to the Westminster divines, or the earlier Scottish.