All works whatever are expressly excluded from any interest in our justification before God — What intended by the works of the law — Not those of the ceremonial law only — Not perfect works only, as required by the law of our creation — Not the outward works of the law, performed without a principle of faith — Not works of the Jewish law — Not works with a conceit of merit — Not works only wrought before believing, in the strength of our own wills — Works excluded absolutely from our justification, without respect unto a distinction of a first and second justification — The true sense of the law in the apostolical assertion that none are justified by the works thereof — What the Jews understood by the law — Distribution of the law under the Old Testament — The whole law a perfect rule of all inherent moral or spiritual obedience — What are the works of the law, declared from the Scripture, and the argument thereby confirmed — The nature of justifying faith farther declared
We shall take our fourth argument from the express exclusion of all works, of what sort soever, from our justification before God. For this alone is that which we plead, — namely, that no acts or works of our own are the causes or conditions of our justification; but that the whole of it is resolved into the free grace of God, through Jesus Christ, as the mediator and surety of the covenant. To this purpose the Scripture speaks expressly. Rom. iii. 28, “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law.” Rom. iv. 5, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Rom. xi. 6, “If it be of grace, then is it no more of works.” Gal. ii. 16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Eph. ii. 8, 9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith … not of works, lest any man should boast.” Tit. iii. 5, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.”
These and the like testimonies are express, and in positive terms assert all that we contend for. And I am persuaded that no unprejudiced person, whose mind is not prepossessed with notions and distinctions whereof not the least tittle is offered unto them from the texts mentioned, nor elsewhere, can but judge that the law, in every sense of it, and all sorts of works whatever, that at any time, or by any means, sinners or believers do or can perform, are, not in this or that sense, but every way and in all senses, excluded from our justification before God. And if it be so, it is the righteousness of Christ alone that we must betake ourselves unto, or this matter must cease for ever. And this inference the apostle himself makes from one of the testimonies before mentioned, — namely, that of Gal. ii. 19–21; for he adds upon it, “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”
Our adversaries are extremely divided amongst themselves and can come unto no consistency, as to the sense and meaning of the apostle in these assertions; for what is proper and obvious unto the understanding of all men, especially from the opposition that is made between the law and works on the one hand, and faith, grace, and Christ on the other (which are opposed as inconsistent in this matter of our justification), they will not allow; nor can do so without the ruin of the opinions they plead for. Wherefore, their various conjectures shall be examined, as well to show their inconsistency among themselves by whom the truth is opposed, as to confirm our present argument:—
1. Some say it is the ceremonial law alone, and the works of it, that are intended; or the law as given unto Moses on mount Sinai, containing that entire covenant that was afterwards to be abolished. This was of old the common opinion of the schoolmen, though it be now generally exploded. And the opinion lately contended for, that the apostle Paul excludes justification from the works of the law, or excludes works absolutely perfect, and sinless obedience, not because no man can yield that perfect obedience which the law requires, but because the law itself which he intends could not justify any by the observation of it, is nothing but the renovation of this obsolete notion, that it is the ceremonial law only, or, which upon the matter is all one, the law given on mount Sinai, abstracted from the grace of the promise, which could not justify any in the observation of its rites and commands. But of all other conjectures, this is the most impertinent and contradictory unto the design of the apostle; and is therefore rejected by Bellarmine himself. For the apostle treats of that law whose doers shall be justified, Rom. ii. 13; and the authors of this opinion would have it to be a law that can justify none of them that do it. That law he intends whereby is the knowledge of sin; for he gives this reason why we cannot be justified by the works of it, — namely, because “by it is the knowledge of sin,” chap. iii. 20: and by what law is the knowledge of sin he expressly declares, where he affirms that he “had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet,” chap. vii. 7; which is the moral law alone. That law he designs which stops the mouth of all sinners, and makes all the world obnoxious unto the judgment of God, chap. iii. 19; which none can do but the law written in the heart of men at their creation, chap. ii. 14, 15; — that law, which “if a man do the works of it, he shall live in them,” Gal. iii. 12, Rom. x. 5; and which brings all men under the curse for sin, Gal. iii. 10; — the law that is established by faith, and not made void, Rom. iii. 31; which the ceremonial law is not, nor the covenant of Sinai; — the law whose righteousness is “to be fulfilled in us,” Rom. viii. 4. And the instance which the apostle gives of justification without the works of that law which he intends, — namely, that of Abraham, — was some hundreds of years before the giving of the ceremonial law. Neither yet do I say that the ceremonial law and the works of it are excluded from the intention of the apostle: for when that law was given, the observation of it was an especial instance of that obedience we owed unto the first table of the decalogue; and the exclusion of the works thereof from our justification, inasmuch as the performance of them was part of that moral obedience which we owed unto God, is exclusive of all other works also. But that it is alone here intended, or that law which could never justify any by its observation, although it was observed in due manner, is a fond imagination, and contradictory to the express assertion of the apostle. And, whatever is pretended to the contrary, this opinion is expressly rejected by Augustine, Lib. de Spiritu et Litera, cap. viii. “Ne quisquam putaret hic apostolum ea lege dixisse neminem justificari, quæ in sacramentis veteribus multa continet figurata præcepta, unde etiam est ista circumcisio carnis, continuo subjunxit, quam dixerit legem et ait; ‘per legem cognitio peccati.’ ” And to the same purpose he speaks again, Epist. cc., “Non solum illa opera legis quæ sunt in veteribus sacramentis, et nunc revelato testamento novo non observantur a Christianis, sicut est circumcisio præputii, et sabbati carnalis vacatio; et a quibusdam escis abstinentia, et pecorum in sacrificiis immolatio, et neomenia et azymum, et cætera hujusmodi, verum etiam illud quod in lege dictum est, ‘Non concupisces,’ quod utique et Christianis nullus ambigit esse dicendum, non justificat hominem, nisi per fidem Jesu Christi, et gratiam Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.”