FIRST THEOREM: CONVERSION

§ 108. Conversion, the beginning of the new life in fellowship with Christ, makes itself known in each individual by Repentance, which consists in the combination of regret and change of heart; and by Faith, which consists in the appropriation of the perfection and blessedness of Christ.

Conf. Aug. xii.: Constat autem poenitentia proprie his duabus partibus, altera est contritio seu terrores incussi conscientiae agnito peccato, altera est fides.—Apol. Conf. v.: Nos igitur constituimus duas partes poenitentiae videlicet contritionem et fidem. Si quis volet addere tertiam videlicet … mutationem totius vitae ac morum in melius non refragabimur.—Expos. simpl. xiv. p. 36: Per poenitentiam autem intelligimus mentis in homine peccatore resipiscentiam verbo evangelii et spiritu s. excitatam fideque vera acceptam, qua protinus homo agnatam sibi corruptionem peccataque omnia sua … agnoscit ac de his ex corde dolet, eademque coram Deo deplorat et … execratur cogitans iam sedulo de emendatione. Et haec quidem est vera poenitentia, sincera nimirum ad Deum et omne bonum conversio, sedula vero a diabolo et omni malo aversio. Diserte vero dicimus hanc poenitentiam merum esse Dei donum et non virium nostrarum opus.—Ibid. xv. p. 48: Qua propter loquimur in hac causa … de fide viva vivificanteque, quae propter Christum quem comprehendit viva est. —Repetit. Conf. p. 147 (Twesten): Ostendimus supra, fide significari fiduciam acquiescentem in filio Dei, propter quem recipimur et placemus.—Melanchth., loc. s. t. de voc. fides: Fides est fiducia applicans nobis beneficium Christi … fiducia est motus in voluntate, quo voluntas in Christo acquiescit.—Ibid.: Quibuscunque verbis alii uti volent, rem retinere cupimus.

1. The definition found in these citations from confessional literature certainly does not appear to tally with that given formally here; for the word poenitentia rather corresponds merely to repentance—that is, to only one part of conversion; and in the Swiss Confession the word conversio, which corresponds to our word conversion, expresses only one part of it, namely, poenitentia. And even if we enter the caveat that although turning away from evil is not explicitly mentioned, it is understood to be implied, still these two together—turning away from evil and turning to God and the good—include only that part of conversion which we define as change of heart. It must be noted, too, that while aversio and conversio taken together are here regarded as equivalent to the whole experience, yet, in fact, this experience is already reckoned to include both the painful recognition of sin which precedes the turning away, and the faith which precedes the turning towards, so that turning away and turning towards do not really give a complete account of the matter. In the Augsburg Confession, besides faith we meet only contrition, equivalent to our regret. But in the Apology ‘change for the better’ is added, which of course in its permanent aspect means sanctification, but, regarded as a new beginning, has its place here and corresponds to our expression ‘change of heart.’ If we gather all the elements of the Confessions together, the general result is identical with our own statement. Our general definition is sufficiently justified by prevalent devotional usage, and certainly is greatly to be preferred to the expression poenitentia or repentance, because that word has no definite reference to the actual beginning of a new form of life, and also because it sounds very awkward to hear faith (a word that we obviously use in exactly the same sense as the Confessions) reckoned as a part of repentance. And indeed we find the expressions ‘repentance’ and ‘conversion’ made interchangeable in other places in the Apology.³ Another point of difference is best seen in certain passages in the confessional documents where contrition and faith as the two constituents of conversion are alluded to as ‘mortification’ and ‘revival.’⁴ Clearly ‘mortification’ here is regret or contrition and ‘revival’ is faith; but if so, no notice is taken of what we have called change of heart. Nevertheless, no genuine laying hold of Christ in faith is even conceivable without such an alteration in the innermost aspirations and endeavours, nor any contrition other than a passing wave of emotion; and so in both connexions change of heart too is silently taken for granted. Lastly, it must be emphasized that our general expression ‘conversion,’ as well as the narrower terms ‘repentance,’ ‘regret,’ and ‘change of heart,’ are all employed in Church usage, not only as denoting what happens at the beginning of the new life, but also for what occurs in the course of the new life in connexion with the sin that still remains. All the same, it follows from the explanations previously given⁵ that there must be a very great difference between what constitutes turning away from sin in the two differing cases of one who is not yet, and one who already is, in fellowship with the Redeemer. In the latter case, the connexion with the Redeemer and the correspondingly changed disposition may become clouded over and less effective, but neither is utterly lost. In their case no sin can come to consciousness unaccompanied by regret, yet they do not require to begin the new life all over again, nor is change of heart in the strictest sense necessary. On the other hand, in regard to faith, it is clear that faith is a permanently enduring state of mind, and that at this point in the treatment of the doctrine of conversion, strictly understood, only the origin of faith is in question. For appropriation, taking possession,⁶ is a single act; whereas faith in its duration is the resulting, abiding consciousness of being in possession. Thus the beginning of divinely created faith essentially belongs to conversion; its duration is the constant basis of the new life. Thus, even though treating regeneration and sanctification more or less separately, we begin by bringing out their necessary interconnexion, and the continuity of the divine action throughout the whole course of the new creation.

The Roman Church does not count faith as an element in conversion, but puts in its stead confession and satisfaction, in spite of the fact that confession, rightly understood, is included in regret, and that satisfaction is a sheer impossibility. The reason lies partly in her doctrine of the Church and partly in the different sense in which the Church uses the word ‘faith,’ understanding by it only the divinely imparted and humanly accepted knowledge of man’s destiny; its assertion being accordingly that faith precedes repentance and conversion.⁷ This difference of language is unfortunate, increasing, of course, the difficulty of comparing clearly the points of divergence; and it is unfortunate too that in ordinary life this same word ‘faith’ is so often used for a conviction that is without either influence on the will or adequate foundation. Nevertheless, we cannot let the word drop, but must rather maintain all the more strenuously its well-won title. The justice of our own usage is easily demonstrable. The expression has become established among us as the translation of the word by which the original language of Scripture defines the inward condition of one who feels content and strong in fellowship with Christ. Moreover, the controversy with the Roman Church about good works has given the word an additional historical value for us.

2. Repentance and faith, then, are to be taken as covering the whole experience of conversion. Now, since every turning-point is at once the end of one movement and the beginning of the reverse, in these two things, taken together, existence in the common life of sin ceases, and existence in fellowship with Christ begins. Since some activity of the self is an essential element in both, and opposed activities cannot accompany, but must succeed one another, the turning-point must be a twofold inactivity, a state of being no longer active in one direction and not yet active in another. In the spiritually living existence of the subject nothing is left in place of the vanishing activity except its inert echo in feeling, and nothing is present in respect of the activity not yet begun except inert anticipation of it in desire. The first is regret—which certainly expresses an existence in fellowship with sin, an existence, however, in which there is no activity of the self—for where regret is, the regretted condition has been abjured—but simply the retention in consciousness of something that is past. At every moment in which it is no more than an approach to complete transition, this consciousness witnesses to a disturbance and obstruction of life proper, and is felt as pain. The regret that goes with conversion, relating not to particulars but to a general condition, and abjuring that condition finally is, considered apart from everything else, the purest and most perfect pain, which, if allowed to reach its limit, might bring life itself to an end.⁸ This is to be noted, however, that regret arising out of the knowledge of sin given by the law is not the same as that directly appertaining to conversion. The law, after its wont, goes into particulars, and the regret evoked by it is only regret for particular motions and affections and not for the general condition and its deepest cause. Nor is there anything in this connexion out of which a new and opposite movement of life might develop. The outcome of such regret is therefore death or despair. However large the previous experience of this regret may have been the true conversion-regret must always eventually arise out of the vision of the perfection of Christ, and this beginning of regeneration must be due to Christ’s redeeming activity. It is only on this view of repentance and faith that their interconnexion is clear, their origin thus being the same. Christ awakens a wholly perfect regret just in so far as His self-imparting perfection meets us in all its truth, which is what happens at the dawn of faith. And Christ can, in fact, lay hold of us in His receiving activity only if and when His soul-stirring exhibition of Himself to us leads us to abjure utterly our previous condition. In the same way, regret and faith being directly interdependent, the beginning is present of existence in living fellowship with Christ. For our attitude here cannot be different from that of the human nature of Christ in its act of uniting with the quiescent consciousness of being accepted. This attitude is not only originally joyful and—unlike regret—uplifting,⁹ but it includes also in its steady progress a stimulation of the will, and develops into an activity of the will; and so with the dawn of faith conversion is complete. Still, in between that quiescent consciousness and real activity there comes desire, in two interconnected forms. There remains over from regret the continual abjuration of the fellowship of the sinful life, and there is also the desire to receive the impulses that come from Christ. This desire, acting in two directions, is the change of heart effected by Christ which binds regret and faith together and represents the true unity of conversion. One may include the negative ray of desire along with regret in the concept repentance, and count the positive ray as a part of revival, or one may with equal justice give desire a middle place of its own.

Regret that lies outside Christianity and has no reference to the consciousness of God is beyond the scope of our discussion. But within the sphere of Christian piety, if we carry our examination further back into the common life of sinfulness, we find many sorts of regret. Such regrets, too, can be traced back more or less directly to the vision of Christ, and are not always limited to some particular, but may show genuine pain at the general human state of sinfulness as illustrated in one’s own person; but they do not develop into a continuous inward movement amounting to the dawn of living faith. All the same such stimulations, arising as they do from the influence of the common Christian life, even though they are only an unconnected and casually-appearing mixture of elements, are to be regarded as divinely caused, and indeed involved in the divine ordinance which places all men in relation to the Redeemer; and in this sense such a condition is ascribed to the prevenient grace of God.¹⁰ In the same way a change of heart may appear before it is permanently bound up with conversion; and, all the more because the insight which rejects former desires is looking back to the figure and teaching of Christ, this too is to be regarded as a work of preparatory grace. Nor do we find such regret and change of heart always separately; they may be related to one another without losing their preparatory character. The higher character which both possess is only recognized from the simultaneous dawning of faith; and perfect and effective divine grace is seen only in the union of all three—regret, change of heart, and faith. There are similar preliminary approximations to faith. For, even when the perfection of the Redeemer is not recognized as more than human, it would be wrong to regard as an adverse judgment of human reason such a sense of its compelling power as sets Him on a different plane from other sages or God-gifted men, and such a satisfaction in the idea of His Kingdom as sets it high above other earthly aims. A presentiment of His higher dignity may be already implied in this, and an inward surrender may arise out of it. This, too, is a gracious work of preparation, and of faith also it is true that its higher character, as it dawns, is recognizable only in its unity with the other elements of conversion.

From all this it follows naturally that since imperfect regret and change of heart may quite easily occur even when the soul has conceived a higher idea of the Redeemer, conversion cannot be distinguished either in and for itself, or by any particular mark, from the effects of preparatory grace. Only gradually can each consciousness reach certainty for itself, and its peace of heart become fixed. Even approximations to faith are bound to have an influence on conduct indistinguishable with any certainty from the beginnings of sanctification, because in accordance with the laws of organic nature the true life of Christ in us announces itself at first only in weak and intermittent impulses, and then gradually a unified activity emerges. The only marks we can point to are steady progress in sanctification taken in its full meaning, and active participation in the extension of Christ’s Kingdom. What is incomplete is usually in its very nature fluctuating. And it is scarcely thinkable that a man should be received into unity of life with Christ without very soon actively proving himself an instrument of His redeeming activity. When therefore the Redeemer calls the decisive working of divine grace a new birth, we must take part of the meaning to be that just as in the natural life birth is not the absolute beginning, so here a period of hidden life precedes it, and at first even the newly-born life remains unconscious, only gradually learning to know itself as a real personality in a new world. Keeping to the illustration given us by the Redeemer Himself, we must rest assured that even though neither we nor others can point out the very beginning of our new life, and its moment in time is as little to be determined as the point in space from which the wind begins to blow, still the fact of the distinction between the new life and the old remains, and of our share in the new we become ever more certain.

3. The idea that every Christian must be able to point to the very time and place of his conversion is accordingly an arbitrary and presumptuous restriction of divine grace, and can only cause confusion. In its most definite form it is found in the assertion of an otherwise worthy party in the Church that every true Christian must be able to allege, as the beginning of his state of grace, a penitential crisis of soul, that is to say, a surging up of regret to the limit of despairing self-abhorrence, followed by a feeling of divine grace reaching to the limit of inexpressible felicity; all steadfastness of heart being mere illusion, and all evidences of sanctification deceitful works of men. This view never became part of the general teaching of the Church; it is no more than a dubious aberration. In this connexion two points can be made here. In the first place, the true change of heart, complete because covering all the ground from regret to faith, need by no means invariably spring from a flood of regret that almost wrecks the whole being by its painful emotion. On the one hand, the capacity of people for emotion is very various. What to an insusceptible nature is a very intense degree of excitement seems but a trifle to one more emotionally constituted, and in this respect the same person differs from time to time. In such a matter no definition or summary statement is possible. On the other hand, the experiences recorded in the autobiographies of many religious men show that even if a shattering storm of feeling occur which is reckoned by themselves to be the moment of their conversion, often enough they sink back again into a state of futility and uncertainty; and so the supposed value of that moment seems entirely doubtful. Even in these cases steadfastness of soul comes only gradually. Further, self-abasement being not a pure judgment but also feeling must as the spiritual side of regret be distinguished from pain, its sensuous side, and these may stand in very various relations to each other. One practised in the estimation of sensuous susceptibilities may have the strictest and profoundest judgment of self-abasement without any corresponding intensity of feeling. So, on the one hand, care must be taken, if intensity of feeling gives a predominantly sensuous colouring to the whole condition, lest regret, being not yet pure and in its inmost fibre free from sensuous admixture, may thereby be unfitted to have life-giving faith as its immediate result. And, on the other hand, the oftener and more strongly such imperfect regret occurs before conversion, the easier it is for the relation between self-abasement and pain to take a quite different form within genuine repentance. The very thing that evokes the utter self-abasement to which faith and the positive pole of change of heart attach themselves, may be allowed a place only as a kind of memory of former suffering and a shadowy image of already felt pain. This is new evidence of the inadmissibility of the demand that everyone must be able to distinguish, in the phenomena of consciousness, between the working of grace as initiating the new life and the preparatory work of grace. Hence we can concede the reality of this conception of an agonizing crisis of repentance only as denoting the whole change of conditions, from the first challenging and preparatory effects of grace on to the unchangeable fixing of the heart in faith. Whether these are spread over a longer or compressed into a shorter interval, and how far during this period particular oscillations may differ in amplitude, and whether the final oscillation must be the largest—all these questions are left quite undetermined.

The second point we can determine is this. A constituent part of living fellowship with Christ is a share in His blessedness. This too, then, must be included from the very beginning in the dawn of faith; all the more because the unblessedness that clings to regret can be relieved only by its opposite, namely, blessedness. The two chief elements in conversion can still be very closely linked together, and even in perfect regret no great pain need be felt. Thus many and various relations are possible between the pain of repentance and the joy of conscious fellowship with Christ; among them this one, that if a glorious outpouring of joy be found along with a faint measure of sorrow, the suffering may become almost imperceptible. Undeniably there are types of conversion which seem to be mainly a happy rescue from despair. But there are others in which no such agonizing crisis occurs, and which are experienced as an almost unalloyed blessing from above, the painful element in regret being suppressed to a point just short of actual disappearance.

4. Although some teachers in English and German Churches have recently declared that no conversion whatever is needed in the case of those born in the bosom of the Christian Church and already as children received into its fellowship, since they are already members of the body of Christ and recipients of regeneration in baptism, we must in accordance with almost the whole trend of our discussion withhold our agreement. For everything we said regarding the original cause of the beginning of sin in man holds good just as much about those born within the Christian Church as about others. The former, too, reveal a tendency to drag down the divine, which of course influences them like others through the Christian community, to the sphere of the sensuous. It may, indeed, be fitly said that in Christian children sensuous representations of the divine spontaneously develop, sometimes of the pagan, idly frivolous kind, sometimes Judaic and gloomily fearful. If, therefore, in spite of infant baptism, sin thus shows its power in them, they need conversion as much as anyone born outside the Church. The only difference really present is that in the case of others it is a matter of chance how and when the gospel call reaches their ears, whereas Christian children are already called in virtue of their standing in a natural and orderly relation to the working of divine grace. This in no way invalidates the natural order we described, namely, the sequence of preparatory and quickening grace; and where this order obtains conversion takes place. Furthermore, the opinion referred to finds at most an apparent support in our confessional statements; fundamentally they are in entire agreement with our position. This may be seen partly in the fact that they never raise any distinction in connexion with the doctrine of conversion, between those born inside and outside the Church,¹¹ and partly because they expressly ascribe to our baptism only the beginning of the divine work of grace.¹² That the same effect occurs within the Church even without previous baptism is evident from the facts about persons baptized in heart alone. It is true that some passages seem to approach more nearly to the opinion in dispute.¹³ But if we recall how differently they speak of regeneration, saying that in it the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the understanding of divine mysteries,¹⁴ and that sanctification begins with regeneration, it is clear that they are really seeking to connect with regeneration the original baptism of adults who asked for it, and only loosely by indulgence let their statement serve for infant baptism too. Nowhere in the testimony of such Churches is anything more intended than what Calvin¹⁵ himself has said. With him indeed we have been in pretty close agreement; his phrase ‘seed of repentance and faith’ might have been our text.

It is evident enough that one can all too easily lapse unawares into the region of magic, if regeneration be brought into connexion with our particular method of administering the sacrament of baptism. We need only look at the answer we should have to give to the question how, in our commonly adopted practice of the rite, the receiving activity of Christ and the passive condition of him who is received are related to one another.

5. As regards the first of these, we again become conscious of an inconvenience in our arrangement, for in the public teaching of the Church regeneration is usually ascribed to the Divine Spirit, of whom we have not yet treated, and, to mention what we have already said would be our next topic, the divine activity in justification is usually ascribed to God the Father. But here again we must recall our fundamental proposition, that the whole procedure in redemption, the same for all races, Jew and Gentile, is also the same for all ages, and that the essential identity of redemption and of the Christian fellowship would be imperilled if our faith had either another content or another origin—the one implies the other—than it had in the case of the first disciples. If faith arises in the same way, conversion must happen in the same way. Now in the first disciples both were effected by the Word in its widest sense, that is, by the whole prophetic activity of Christ. And we must be able to understand this that we have in common with them, if need be without a doctrine of the Holy Spirit, just as the disciples understood their own condition without any such doctrine. The constant factor is above all the divine power of the Word—taking the expression in its widest sense—by which conversion is still effected and faith still arises. The difference is simply that the self-revelation of Christ is now mediated by those who preach Him; but they being appropriated by Him as His instruments, the activity really proceeds from Him and is essentially His own. This is definitely and uncompromisingly asserted in most of our Confessions, though with references to the Holy Spirit which will become clear to us only later in our discussion.¹⁶ If other passages¹⁷ seem to be less convincing, still they draw attention to exceptions which when looked at more closely are only apparent. For if one ventures to make a merely relative separation between the Word itself and the public ministry of the Word, and to recall that all Christians are summoned to a common ministry of the Word, it is with a view to affirming boldly that no example can be given of conversion apart from the mediation of the Word: and we need cherish no misgiving that to assert this strenuously is to limit the divine omnipotence. For the second creative act is recognized as a work of the divine omnipotence just because only through the power revealed in it the business of conversion is carried through in all believers. The miracle of the appearance of Christ, who could Himself work only in the form of the Word, would be insufficient if some had to be converted otherwise than through influences proceeding from Him; indeed, in that case they would not be included in the priestly intercession of Christ.¹⁸ Again, if it were possible that Christ should reveal Himself to some immediately and inwardly without the Word, this could happen to all; which would amount to redemption through the mere idea of the Redeemer, making the actual appearance of Christ superfluous. For the present day this is the specially relevant reason for the position we take, which has behind it the whole apostolic usage and the express witness of Scripture,¹⁹ and is no mere design of strengthening our case in opposition to certain visionaries. All the same, this statement was needed in order to expose fully the danger of fanaticism on this point. For if it be allowed that there are divine workings of converting grace in no actual historical relation to the personal efficacy of Christ (even though it is as workings of Christ that they come to consciousness), there would be no security that this inward mystic Christ was identical with the historical Christ. Every exposition of the matter, therefore, which deprives the Word of its sole place in conversion not only wipes out all lines of demarcation (for then everyone with unrestrained caprice can profess that anything and everything is Christian and due to Christ), but also dissolves all fellowship; for every individual, who is inwardly and independently enlightened, must also be perfectly complete in himself, with no inducement to, or need of, fellowship. All essentially separatist tendencies spring from ideas of this kind. The influence of Christ, therefore, consists solely in the human communication of the Word, in so far as that communication embodies Christ’s word and continues the indwelling divine power of Christ Himself. This is in perfect accord with the truth that, in the consciousness of a person in the grip of conversion, every sense of human intermediation vanishes, and Christ is realized as immediately present in all His redeeming and atoning activity, prophetic, priestly, and kingly. In this sense everything that in any way contributes to conversion, from the first impression made on the soul by the preaching of Christ on to its final establishment in faith, is the work of Christ. These divine workings of grace are supernatural in so far as they depend upon and actually proceed from the being of God in the Person of Christ. At the same time, being historical and formative of history, they are natural in so far as they have a general natural connexion with the historical life of Christ; and in detail each working that establishes a new personality is bound up in its efficacy with the historical totality of Christ’s effects.

6. As regards the state of the subject himself during conversion, we may take conversion to be the moment at which the entry into living fellowship with Christ is complete. This moment is the beginning of a higher form of life which only Christ can communicate, because only in Him is it originally present. It seems obvious, then, that here no causal agency can be attributed to the person who is being taken up into fellowship, for the higher form cannot be in any way derived from lower stages of life as present either in the individual or in a group of people yet to be converted. On the other hand, if we remember that the converted person, both afterwards within the living fellowship of Christ and even beforehand in the common life of sin, is, as an individual of reasonable perceptions, spontaneously active, and that in general there is never in any living being a complete moment wholly devoid of spontaneous activity, two questions are inevitable. The first is: How is the ordinary natural action of the subject going on at the moment of conversion related to the work of Christ which produces change of heart and faith? The second is: How is the presupposed passive condition during conversion related to the spontaneous activity which ensues in fellowship with Christ?

In regard to the first question, we may, without abandoning our fundamental assumption, regard the natural spontaneous action of the subject in that moment as non-co-operative. All that preparatory grace has already brought to pass within him of course co-operates, but this is itself part of the divine work of grace and not of his own action.²⁰ Anything proceeding purely from his own inner life could co-operate only so far as the efficacy of divine grace was actually conditioned by these activities of his own. It cannot indeed be denied that this may happen. For the Word through which the influence of Christ is mediated can mediate only by making an impression on men, and for this the activity of his sense-faculties as well as of the inner functions of his consciousness is required. In so far as the activity of all these functions depends on the free will of man, the capacity of apprehension must therefore be allowed to exist in his natural condition.²¹ But as regards what happens after the Word has made its impression on the soul, in the attainment of its aim for men, here we cannot concede man’s natural co-operation. Even the consent accompanying the reception of the Divine Word, as far as it is directed to what is essential and characteristic in it, can be ascribed only to the antecedent work of grace. On the other hand, if it should be held that the natural activity which goes on during Christ’s working of conversion is of the nature of resistance, it must be, if not disapproval, at least indifference; that is to say, the activity remains directed to other matters, and as far as the operation of Christ is concerned, negligible. If conversion is effected during such a condition it is certainly not in virtue of the Word so received. To assume an entire lack of relation between man’s personal activity and the higher operation of Christ therefore yields no satisfactory result, and the problem remains to find room for an activity in real relation to the work of Christ, and yet neither co-operation nor resistance. If now we take as starting-point that organic co-operation which we admitted to go on before apprehension of the Word, and that minimum of opposition consisting in the direction of the will to other things, which we rejected, it is clear that the two cannot coexist. That co-operation of the mental organism in the reception of the Word implies a consent of the will; and this is just a surrender to the operation of Christ or giving rein to a lively susceptibility thereto. This middle stage, to which we have recourse in all similar cases—a passive condition, yet including that minimum of spontaneous activity which belong to every complete moment—meets the conditions of the problem perfectly. The solution, however, is invalidated if this susceptibility be again divided into active and passive, and only the latter allowed as applicable to our case; for then one would simultaneously have to find room for another spontaneous activity, and the whole difficulty would return.²²

Let us now go back to the other question. Since the whole life of the Redeemer, because solely determined by the being of God in Him, is activity, and not passivity, it is clear that in fellowship with His life no moment can be purely passive, because everything in it that proceeds from Him and becomes an impulse is necessarily activity. Spontaneous activity in living fellowship with Christ begins in the moment of being received into His fellowship. There is no interval. Conversion may be said to be just the evocation of this spontaneous activity in union with Christ. The lively susceptibility passes into quickened spontaneous activity. Every heightening of that lively susceptibility is a work of preparatory grace. The grace that effects conversion changes it into quickened spontaneous activity. If we trace this element backwards from the point at which it first appears already heightened by the preparatory work of grace, and ask in what the first beginning of life has consisted by which it can be differentiated from pure passivity, we can only point to that desire for fellowship with God, never entirely extinguished, though pushed back to the very frontiers of consciousness, which is part of the original perfection of human nature. As this is what we regard as the first point of attachment for every operation of divine grace, the only thing we are ruling out is a passivity that would be entirely foreign to human nature, in virtue of which a person would resemble a lifeless object in the matter of conversion,²³ and we are saying nothing about that in our Christian self-consciousness which we ascribe to the grace of God in Christ. For mere desire is not an act; it is but the anticipatory feeling of an act that may possibly happen if a certain impulse occurs later. It is exactly what shows itself as the feeling of need for redemption, a feeling without which there could be no dissatisfaction with the common state of sinfulness, but only a universal complacent recognition of the inevitability of sin. Hence this desire is simply the ineradicable residuum in human nature of the original impartation of the divine which makes human nature what it is, and not in itself but only in so far as it is stirred up to some definite degree of strength does it give rise to the contrast between nature and grace. Indeed, the parallel between the beginning of the divine life in us and the incarnation of the Redeemer comes out here too. In Him the passivity of His human nature in that moment was just such a lively susceptibility to an absolutely powerful consciousness of God, accompanied by a desire to be thus seized and determined, which became changed through the creative act into a spontaneous activity constituting a personality. In the same way our desire is heightened in conversion by the self-communication of Christ till it becomes a spontaneous activity of the self that constitutes a coherent new life.

SECOND THEOREM: JUSTIFICATION

§ 109. God’s justifying of one who is converted to Him includes the forgiving of his sins, and the recognizing of him as a child of God. This transformation of his relation to God, however, follows only in so far as he has true faith in the Redeemer.

Augsb. Conf. iv.: ‘And it is taught that we attain the forgiveness of sins and are counted just before God out of grace for Christ’s sake through faith.’—Conf. Tetrap. iii.: … nostri hanc totam (iustificationem) divinae benevolentiae Christique merito acceptam referendam solaque fide percipi docuerunt. —Expos. simpl. xv.: Iustificare significat peccata remittere, a culpa et poena absolvere in gratiam recipere et iustum pronunciare… . Certissimum est autem omnes nos … iustificari solius Christi gratiâ, et nullo nostro merito aut respectu … Quoniam vero iustificationem hanc recipimus non per ulla opera sed per fidem … ideo docemus … hominem iustificari sola fide in Christum. —Conf. Gallic. xviii: Credimus totam nostram iustitiam positam esse in peccatorum nostrorum remissione, quae sit etiam … unica nostra felicitas. Itaque … insitâ Jesu Christi obedientiâ acquiescimus, quae quidem nobis imputatur, tum ut tegantur omnia nostra peccata, tum etiam ut gratiam coram Deo nanciscamur. —Ibid. xx.: Credimus nos sola fide fieri huius iustitiae participes… . Itaque iustitia quam fide obtinemus pendet a gratuitis promissionibus, quibus nos a se diligi Deus declarat et certificatur.—Conf. Belg. xxii.: Interim proprie loquendo nequaquam intelligimus ipsam fidem esse quae nos iustificat, ut quae sit duntaxat instrumentum, quo Christum iustitiam nostram apprehendimus. —Ibid. xxxiii.: Credimus nostram beatitudinem sitam esse in peccatorum nostrorum propter Jesum Christum remissione atque in ea iustitiam nostram coram Deo contineri.—John 1¹², Gal. 3²⁶ 4⁵. 1. In the treatment of this subject, too, the language of the Confessions cited is not quite consistent, and so the diction of our proposition does not conform to that of every quotation. Some, like us, use the word ‘justification’ for the larger conception; others use for that ‘forgiveness of sins,’ understanding by that phrase the whole state of blessedness, and accordingly counting justification, if it is to be regarded as something additional, as a special element therein. In this connexion it is evident that forgiveness in itself is just the removal of something negative, and therefore can be no full description of complete blessedness. Indeed, from our point of view, strictly speaking, one relation to God is abolished but no other established, unless indeed an earlier relation had come into existence; otherwise, though one has forgiven the other, both remain as far apart as ever. The term ‘justification,’ however, applied to the same experience has, as bearing on inquiry into what happens, a more positive sound, leaving aside for the moment the question of accuracy. It is therefore better fitted either, as in the Augsburg Confession, to describe a positive element accompanying that negative one, or, as is preferred here, to describe the whole, and leave a place for a positive element alongside of forgiveness. This method of description has been chosen because, where sin has to be presumed, an act of justification (however it comes about) must include forgiveness; at the same time, since justification includes something more than forgiveness, this too has to be specified. This several Confessions express positively, but the others in a rather indeterminate and inconvenient fashion, by ‘attaining grace,’ ‘received into grace’—indeterminate, because the content of the additional factor is not explained; and inconvenient, because the same expression ‘grace,’ used everywhere in this connexion for the divine activity itself, is thus made to signify merely its result. Our designation of this positive element is unquestionably more exact, but (even though works on Dogmatics frequently use the terms ‘sonship’ or ‘adoption’) it is in this connexion so little an accepted credal definition that we need to point back to passages in which its content has been established in the most precise way and in the same connexion. Our designation has, indeed, this drawback, that it is in verbal agreement neither with the ordinary nor with the other and more special expression; but this difficulty vanishes as soon as the actual interrelations of the subject are understood.

The Roman Church differs entirely from the Protestant in its use of the expression ‘justification’: instead of something correlated to conversion, and therefore included in regeneration, it makes ‘justification’ mean something more general than these, including both them and sanctification. If we recall how, on the other hand, the existence of faith is placed anterior to conversion, we can perceive how the two things go together: faith and justification are kept as far apart as possible, in order the more easily to show man’s justification to be dependent on his sanctification. But even apart from this, it cannot be advisable virtually to abolish the difference between the divine work on man and the divine work in man. The previous life void of divine influence is what is here given in experience, and we are faced by the task of rightly distinguishing the turning-point which is the source of everything later from the results that flow from it.

2. For the self-consciousness at rest in contemplation, justification is the same thing that conversion is for the self-consciousness passing into movement of will; an analogy is therefore to be expected between the two aspects of both. Repentance, as the self-consciousness moved by the consciousness of sin, comes to rest in forgiveness in the same way as the faith which from its birth is active through love is in thought the consciousness of being a child of God, and as this itself is identical with the consciousness of living fellowship with Christ. That this is not to be interpreted as meaning that forgiveness could precede faith is stated in the theorem itself: it means simply that forgiveness, like repentance, denotes the end of the old state; as also being a child of God, like faith, expresses the character of the new. Each, of course, like both elements of conversion, is dependent on the whole activity of Christ, but directly and for itself expresses merely the relation of the man to God. In the common life of sinfulness the individual as a human being has no other relation to God except (in view of His holiness and justice) a consciousness of being guilty before Him and meriting punishment. It is obvious that this consciousness must cease as soon as, through and along with faith, living fellowship with Christ begins.²⁴ If we ask how this happens, the easiest answer certainly is that the longer and more uninterruptedly we are under the sway of Christ, the sooner do we forget sin, because it no longer emerges; and if sin does not come into consciousness, neither does the sense of guilt and of deserving punishment. Yet, for one thing, this would be to place the change in our relation to God at the end of the process of sanctification, during which the sense of deserving punishment and therefore the lack of blessedness would continue. And besides, the forgetting of guilt is not the consciousness of forgiveness; for even if this last is no more than the abolishing of a previous consciousness, it is also a real consciousness in which the memory of sin is an essential factor.

If, however, justification and conversion are simultaneous, forgiveness must be our present possession, even while sin and the consciousness of it are also present. But if the relation of sin to the holiness and justice of God is to cease, it and the consciousness of it must be transformed. Now, one who has let himself be taken up into living fellowship with Christ is, in so far as he has been thus appropriated, a new man; and both are one and the same consciousness. Sin in the new man is no longer active; it is only the after-effect of the old man. The new man thus no longer takes sin to be his own; he indeed labours against it as something foreign to him. The consciousness of guilt is thus abolished. His penal desert must vanish with this; while for the rest, there lies in living fellowship with Christ, immediately and not just as a vague something in the future, a readiness for and a right to fellowship with the sufferings of Christ, which make it impossible for him to keep regarding social and still less natural evils as punishment,²⁵ or to go on fearing future punishment—impossible, for he is at the same time received into the fellowship of the kingly office of Christ. Thus, owing to faith, the consciousness of sin will become the consciousness of forgiveness of sin. And in regard to the second element of conversion, Christ cannot live in us without His relation to His Father being formed in us also and making us sharers in His sonship; this is the power to be children of God that flows from Him, and it includes the guarantee of sanctification. For it is the children’s right to be brought up to a free, active share in the home-life; and it is the law of childhood that through the shared life the likeness of the father develops in the child.

The two elements are therefore inseparable. Divine adoption would be nothing without forgiveness, for to deserve punishment begets fear, and fear slavery. And forgiveness without adoption would not fix a settled relation to God. The two, however, in their indissoluble connexion, constitute that complete transformation of the relation to God which, as bound up with the putting off the old man, is forgiveness, and as bound up with the putting on the new man is adoption. The two are so mutually conditioned that either can be regarded as first in order. One can say if one likes that the feeling of the old life must first be wiped out before the new life can begin to take shape; but just as well that only in the new life is found the right and the power to throw off the old. It is equally true to assert that after a man is forgiven he is made a child of God, and that after he is received among God’s children he obtains the forgiveness of sins.

3. This exposition of the matter is indeed readily liable to the misconstruction that each man justifies himself, although in point of fact it traces everything back to the influence of Christ. But truly, deriving justification entirely as it does from conversion, it would appear to ascribe both justification and conversion wholly to Christ and so to harmonize completely with the view that the two elements of regeneration are related to one another as sharing respectively in the perfection and in the blessedness of Christ, and are thus referred entirely to Him. That is a position for which an exact confessional basis can be found,²⁶ although it certainly diverges far from the prevailing fashion of basing justification alone on a divine activity and attributes both forgiveness and adoption in a special way to God.²⁷ The same thing is demanded by our own method of statement, where justification is described as a change in the relation to God. For in that, of course, an activity of God is implied, and man can be conceived only as passive. In regard to this last point we have already put ourselves in harmony with the prevailing view by not ascribing everything in this connexion to the activity of the convert, even though it be an activity conditioned and evoked by Christ (as if justification were a part of sanctification or its result), but by deriving it entirely from the influence of Christ producing faith in man’s living susceptibility. In regard to the first point, however, we have to see how the formula of a divine act of justification stands related to what has been said.

In this connexion it is clear, first, that we cannot conceive this divine activity as independent of the agency of Christ in conversion, as if one might exist without the other. This follows from the position already taken, that justification itself and conversion are interdependent; just as in the Church formula which declares faith to be the receptive organ for this act of justification, which it could not be if the act were not received.²⁸ In devotional poetry and prose this connexion is usually set forth in its bearing on the intercession of Christ, as if Christ indicated to God those in whom He had wrought faith and urged Him to give them their share in forgiveness and adoption. This is of course a very poetic manner of putting things, for it is materializing things greatly to imagine Christ pointing out something to God. But neither in this positive nor in the other negative formula is there any dependence of the divine activity on the activity of Christ or its result, not even in the intermediate form of its being motivated by Christ. For the decision as to who is to attain to conversion and when we have already assigned, not to the realm of grace, making it depend on Christ, but to the realm of power, making it depend on God; which is the Father’s drawing men to the Son.

In the second place, if we would as far as possible avoid figurative language and speak in exact dogmatic terms, we can as little here as elsewhere admit an act in time eventuating at a particular moment or an act directed upon an individual. All that can be individual or temporal is the effect of a divine act or decree, not the act or decree itself. Only in so far as the dogmatic treatment makes its starting-point the self-consciousness of the individual, and therefore in this case the consciousness of an alteration in the relation to God, can we think of the justifying action of God as bearing on the individual. Because everyone connects this alteration with others involved in it, that bearing appears simultaneous with these others; but only thus far and in this respect is such an individualizing and temporalizing of divine activity permissible. It must never be regarded as something in and for itself, as if the justification of each individual rested on a distinct and separate divine decree—not even though it should be described as determined from all eternity and only passing into reality at a fixed point in time.²⁹ There is only one eternal and universal decree justifying men for Christ’s sake. This decree, moreover, is the same as that which sent Christ on His mission, for otherwise that mission would have been conceived and determined by God without its consequences. And once more, the decree that sent Christ forth is one with the decree creating the human race, for in Christ first human nature is brought to perfection. Indeed, since thought and will, will and action are not to be sundered in God, all this is one divine act designed to alter our relation to God; its temporal manifestation is seen in the incarnation of Christ from which the whole new creation proceeds, and in which it has its starting-point. Thenceforward the promulgation in time of this divine act is really a continuous one, but in its effects it appears to us in as many points separated and (as it were) strung out from one another, as there are different people whose union with Christ is accomplished.

Turning now to justification in its two elements, we must similarly say that to admit an individual decree of forgiveness and adoption would be to subject God to the antithesis of abstract and concrete, or universal and particular, since the decree of redemption is just the universal in its two particular bearings. Besides, the consciousness of guilt and of penal desert being ordained for men by God only in relation to redemption, that is, only as something which everywhere and for everyone vanishes with the entrance of redemption into his life, no special decree or act is necessary for its cessation. All that is needful is that the consciousness of its cessation should arise in the individual. How this happens in connexion with conversion has been shown. Similarly with reference to adoption, it is already implied in the divine decree of redemption or of the new creation of human nature that God is gracious to the human race in His Son; hence an individual act making the individual an object of the divine love is not necessary. All that is needful is that the consciousness of this relation should arise in the individual; and this happens in the way already described. Thus we have to posit only one universal justifying divine act bearing on redemption, and this realizes itself gradually in time.

In the third place and finally, we cannot pass over the fact that this exposition seems to conceal one other divergence from the view prevailing in our Church. For in our Church the divine act is regarded as declaratory; the converted man ‘is declared just’ by God; and in such an exposition no room at all seems to be left for this phrase which indicates the opposition between our own Church and the Roman. But the truth is this. The phrase in question certainly goes back to what is here denied, namely, a multiplicity of divine justifying acts or decrees. For in regard to a single universal decree it is not easy to conceive how it could be declaratory in particular cases. God ordained the Redeemer because through Him sin was to be taken away and men become children of God. But in God thought and will are one. He expresses thought by deed, and through preaching the deed propagates the thought. A special act, therefore, by which God—so we should have to state the matter—declared to Himself what He in another act performs, would be an utterly empty thing. This form of representation, so common in the Old Testament, is simply one of its anthropomorphisms. Looked at more closely, however, any individual declaratory act is in the same case. It cannot as such prevent a recurrence of the consciousness of being concerned in the production of sin, and to that extent would be vain. So also would be a declaration of sonship; for that is not in itself capable of preventing a man from being conscious of sharing in enmity to God. Such an act attains reality only as combined with the influence of Christ in effecting conversion. But this also being traceable to the universal divine ordinance, the declaratory act is again merged in the creative act. Since, however, with faith there arises a simultaneous consciousness of forgiveness and of adoption, it is quite right to say that every act of conversion is for the man himself a declaration of the universal divine decree to justify for Christ’s sake. But as regards our relation to the Roman Church, it is only superficially that our opposition to it seems to lie in this point of the declaratory character of the divine justifying act, and that Church will assuredly be very far from accepting the mode in which this character is here denied. For we still hold to this, that a man is justified as soon as faith has been wrought in him;³⁰ the interest of Rome, on the contrary, is to establish that this takes place afterwards by means of good works.

4. The final point in regard to this distinctively Protestant doctrine that we are justified by faith—that is, that the application of the universal divine justifying act to the individual is bound up with and conditioned by the dawn of faith—is this. The doctrine is all the more necessary if justification be conceived as a purely declaratory act. Otherwise colour might be lent to the notion that a man has redemption assigned to him in a method which is arbitrary—a method, that is, which, as far as he himself is concerned, is baseless. Yet even if we do not sunder the effective and the declaratory, it is needful to fix the point when, and the manner how, the justifying divine act completes itself in man. On this our theorem makes these pronouncements.

The first is that although once forgiveness and adoption exist, the man is the object of divine favour and love, this does not happen until he lays hold believingly on Christ.³¹ This does not in the least mean that previously he was the object of divine displeasure and wrath, for there is no such object. But the word ‘overlooked’ [English A.V. ‘winked at’], used in another connexion, has here its specific sense, inasmuch as for God the individual is not previously a personality at all in this reference, but merely a part of the mass out of which persons come to exist through the continuance of the creative act from which came the Redeemer.³²

But since faith arises only through the agency of Christ, it is clearly implied in our theorem that no natural constitution of man, nothing that takes shape in him independently of the whole series of gracious workings mediated by Christ, alters his relation to God, or effects his justification, and that no merit of any kind avails for this. From this it follows immediately that before justification all men are equal before God, despite the inequalities of their sins or their good works; this is in harmony with the self-consciousness of everyone who finds himself in fellowship with Christ, as he reviews his former share in the common life of sin.

The second point is this. Since, as has been laid down, sharing in the blessedness of Christ is involved in justification, as sharing in His perfection is involved in conversion, and since faith needs no supplement, it follows that faith gives blessedness (saves), and indeed in such wise that the blessedness cannot be increased from any quarter, i.e. faith alone saves. For anything that could increase the blessedness could have originated it. This blessedness indeed is such that only in the smallest degree does it admit of maxima or minima, but as far as possible is constant. For just as the union of the divine with the human nature in Christ remained the same through all experience and development, so our union with Christ in faith remains always the same.

On the other hand—and this is the third pronouncement—our exposition of the facts certainly does not lead up to the customary formulæ that faith is the causa instrumentalis, or the ὄργανον ληπτικὸν of justification. These formulæ, liable to many misunderstandings, are not greatly fitted to throw light upon the subject. A productive cause has no place as an essential constituent in the course of the series of activities for which it is employed. Having done its part, it is laid aside. But faith abideth always. A receptive organ, on the other hand, belongs to the sphere of nature; and the above formula might give the impression that faith is something which everyone has to produce in order that divine grace may become effective; whereas we bring with us nothing except our living susceptibility, which is the real receptive organ. It is perhaps this formula that has betrayed many theologians into maintaining the position that faith must be our own work, and that only when this work has been accomplished can the operation of divine grace begin.

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Footnotes

1. Cf. §§ 83 and 84. ↩

2. E.g. ‘enlightenment,’ Eph. 3⁹ 5¹⁴, Heb. 6¹⁻⁶; ‘renewal,’ Eph. 4²³, Tit. 3⁵ Heb. 6⁶. ↩

3. See p. 168: Ostendendum est quod scriptura in poenitentia seu conversione has duas partes ponit. ↩

4. Apol. Conf., ibid.: Paulus fere ubique cum describit conversionem, facit has duas partes mortificationem et vivificationem … sunt ergo hae duae partes contritio et fides. ↩

5. ↩

6. Expos. simpl. xv. p. 42: fides Christum recipit. ↩

7. Catech. Rom. praef. 27: Cum enim finis qui ad beatitudinem hominis propositus est altior sit; quam ut humana mentis acie perspici possit, necesse ei erat ipsius a Deo cognitionem accipere. Haec vero cognitio nihil aliud est nisi fides.—Ibid. p. II. de poenit. 8: Verum in eo quem poenitet, fides poenitentiam antecedat necesse est … ex quo fit, ut nullo modo poenitentiae pars recte dici possit. ↩

8. Apol. Conf. v. p. 169: Mortificatio significat veros terrores quos sustinere natura non posset, nisi erigeretur fide. Ita hic (Col. 2¹¹) exspoliationem corporis peccatorum vocat, quam nos usitate dicimus contritionem, quia in illis doloribus concupiscentia naturalis expurgatur. ↩

9. Ibid.: Et vivificatio intelligi debet … consolatio quae vere sustentat fugientem vitam in contritione. ↩

10. This is never more than an inexact phrase, for according to our general formula all divine grace is always prevenient; and it would be more correct to say ‘preparatory.’ ↩

11. Compare, in the Apology for the Augsburg Confession, the whole treatment of the conceptions repentance, confession, and satisfaction. ↩

12. Apol. Conf. i.: Addidit etiam (Lutherus) de materiali quod spiritus sanctus datus per baptismum incipit mortificare concupiscentiam et novos motus creat (and obviously only incipit creare) in homine.—Ibid. iv.: Igitur necesse est baptizare parvulos, ut applicetur iis promissio salutis. ↩

13. Expos. simpl. xx.: Assignantur haec omnia baptismo. Nam intus regeneramur purificamur et renovamur a Deo per spiritum sanctum, foris autem accipimus obsignationem, etc. —Conf. Gallic. xxxv. p. 123: Quamvis baptismus sit fidei et resipiscentiae sacramentum, tamen … affirmamus … infantes … esse baptizandos. ↩

14. Expos. simpl. ix.: In regeneratione intellectus illuminatur per Spiritum sanctum ut et mysteria et voluntatem Dei intelligat. ↩

15. Institutt. ix. 16. 20: Baptizantur in futuram poenitentiam et fidem, quae etsi nondum in illis formatae sunt, arcana tamen spiritus operatione utriusque semen in illis latet. ↩

16. Augsb. Conf. v: To win such faith God has appointed preaching, by means of which the Holy Spirit awakens and comforts the heart and imparts faith.—Art. Smalc. vii.: Constanter tenendum est Deum nemini spiritum vel gratiam suam largiri nisi per verbum et cum verbo externo et praecedente: and it is here to be remarked that the communication of the Spirit is described as a consequence or result—ut ita praemuniamus nos contra Enthusiastas, qui iactitant se ante verbum et sine verbo spiritum habere.—Expos. simpl. xiv.: Per poenitentiam autem intelligimus mentis in homine peccatore resipiscentiam, verbo evangelii et spiritu sancto excitatam. Ibid. xvi.: Haec autem fides merum est Dei donum, quod solus Deus ex gratia sua … donat, et quidem per Spiritum sanctum mediante praedicatione Evangelii.—Conf. Gall. xxv.: Credimus quoniam non nisi per Evangelium fimus Christi compotes.—Conf. Belg. xxiv.: Credimus veram hanc fidem per auditum verbi Dei et Spiritus sancti operationem homini insitam eum regenerare. ↩

17. Expos. simpl. i.: Quamquam enim nemo veniat ad Christum, nisi qui trahatur a patre ac intus illuminetur per spiritum sanctum, scimus tamen Deum omnino velle praedicari verbum Dei. Equidem potuisset per spiritum sanctum suum aut per ministerium angeli instituisse Cornelium, etc.—Agnoscimus interim Deum illuminare posse homines etiam sine externo ministerio, etc.—Conf. Helv. xiv.: Quae (ecclesia) externis … ritibus ab ipso Christo institutis et verbi Dei … publica disciplina … ita construitur, ut in hanc sine his nemo nisi singulari Dei privilegio censeatur. ↩

18. John 17²⁰. ↩

19. Rom. 10¹⁷, Tit. 1³. ↩

20. Sol. decl., p. 674: Ex his consequitur, quam primum Spir. s. per verbum et sacramenta opus suum regenerationis et renovationis in nobis inchoavit, quod revera tunc per virtutem Spir. s. cooperari possimus ac debeamus.—Hoc vero ipsum non est ex nostris carnalibus et naturalibus viribus, sed ex novis illis viribus, quae Spir. s. in nobis in conversione inchoavit. What is said expressly of the period after conversion holds good all the more for the period preceding it.—Ibid., p. 681: … hominem ex se ipso aut naturalibus suis viribus non posse aliquid conferre vel adjumentum adferre ad suam conversionem. ↩

21. Ibid., p. 671: In eiusmodi enim externis rebus homo adhuc etiam post lapsum aliquo modo liberum arbitrium habet, ut … verbum Dei audire vel non audire possit. ↩

22. Cf., inter alia, Gerhard, t. v. p. 113, and Sol. decl., p. 662: Et hoc ipsum vocat (Lutherus) capacitatem non activam sed passivam, which are not really Luther’s words. ↩

23. Sol. decl., p. 662: Antequam autem homo per Spir. s… . regeneratur … ex sese ad conversionem nihil … cooperari potest, nec plus quam lapis truncus aut limus. ↩

24. Cf. § 107, I. ↩

25. Rom. 8²². ³⁵⁻³⁹. ↩

26. Conf. Belg. xx.: Necessarium est enim aut omnia quae ad salutem nostram requiruntur in Jesu Christo non esse, aut si in eo sunt omnia, tum eum, qui fide Jesum possidet, totam salutem habere. ↩

27. This is also scriptural, if we venture to assume that the expression ‘justify,’ as here expounded, corresponds to the Pauline δικαιῶσαι; this comes out most strikingly in Rom. 8³³. ↩

28. Confessional formulæ, too, state this inseparability, though often hesitatingly, and in language the content of which becomes clear only after a careful comparison, e.g. Expos. simpl. xv.: Itaque iustificationis beneficium non partimur partim gratiae Dei vel Christo partim nobis … sed in solidum gratiae Dei in Christo per fidem tribuimus. ↩

29. Cf. Gerhard, iv. p. 147. ↩

30. Conf. Belg. xxiv.: Fide utique in Christum iustificamur, et quidem priusquam bona opera praestiterimus.—Apol. Conf. ii.: … quod fides sit ipsa iustitia, qua coram Deo iusti reputamur … quia accipit promissionem … seu quia sentit quod Christus sit nobis factus a Deo sapientia iustitia sanctificatio et redemtio. ↩

31. Atqui extra controversiam est neminem a Deo extra Christum diligi (Calv., Institt. iii. ii. 32). ↩

32. Sola gratia redemtos discernit a perditis, quos in unam perditionis concreverat massam ab origine ducta causa communis (Augustin., Enchir. xxix.). ↩