The Fundamentals
142
IMPORT OF THE TERMS. Let us apply ourselves first to a study of the meaning of our terms. Here are two great terms before us, Justification and Faith. We shall, of course, consider in its place the word which, in our title, links them, and ask how Justification is “by” Faith. But first, what is Justification, and then, what is Faith? By derivation, no doubt, J u s t i f i c a t i o n means to make just, that is to say, to make conformable to a true standard. It would seem thus to mean a process by which wrong is cor rected, and bad is made good, and good better,^ in the way of actual improvement of the thing or person justified. In one curious case, and, so far as I know, in that case only, the word has this meaning in actual use. “Justification’ is a term of the printer’s art. The compositor “justifies” a piece of typework when he corrects, brings into perfect order, as to spaces between words and letters, and so on, the types which he has set up. But this, as I have said, is a solitary case. In the use of words otherwise, universally, Justification and Justify mean something quite different from improvement of condition. They mean establishment of position as before a judge or jury, literal or figurative. They mean the winning of a favorable verdict in such a presence, or again (what is the same thing from another side) the utterance of that verdict, the sen tence of acquittal, or the sentence of vindicated right, as the case may be. I am diitilring of the word not at all exclusively as a re ligious word. Take it in its common, everyday employment; it is always thus. To justify an opinion, to justify a course of conduct, to justify a statement, to justify a friend, what does it mean? Not to readjust and improve your thoughts, or your actions, or your words; not to educate your friend to be wiser or more able. No, but to win a verdict for thought, or ac-
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