I NOW propose to contrast the view of justification which has been drawn out in the last Lectures with that to which certain writers of the Roman School consider themselves committed by the wording of the Tridentine Decree, into which also some of our writers have virtually fallen, and which, moreover, is unfairly imputed to many of our standard divines. As to the Protestant doctrine, on the other hand, which was a third in the discussion, I cannot go more deeply into what seems to me a system of words without ideas, and of distinctions without arguments. If I am told, in reply, that such a view of it arises from want of spiritual perception,—those who are blind to heavenly objects not understanding heavenly words,—I answer, that, though undoubtedly divine words express divine things, and divine things are hidden from all but divinely enlightened minds, yet this does not tell against a man for stumbling at words which are not divine. Luther’s words are his own, reasoned out from Scripture, which every one of us has equal right to do. If I receive the doctrine of the Church Catholic as divine, it is as guaranteed by many concordant witnesses, which converge to one place and one time, the day of Pentecost, when the Apostles were with one accord assembled in one place 1. And if I bow to some individual teacher, as Irenæus or Augustine, it is not from a notion of his infallibility, but on the ground of his representing the whole Church, or from a sense of the authority of men of holy and mortified lives in questions of religion. But what binds me to yield a submission to the sixteenth century, which I withhold even from the second? why must I measure spiritual discernment in myself and others, by our apprehension, not of Scripture, but of comparatively modern treatises, and accept terms and distinctions which, over and above their human origin, have no internal consistence,—no external proof,—no part or lot in Antiquity; which, in short, have but a praiseworthy object for their excuse, the overthrow, as they think, of Roman error? Surely the reverse of wrong is not right; yet this doctrine mainly rests its pretensions upon the errors of a rival doctrine, assumes itself true because it is serviceable, proves itself Scriptural by proving Romanism unscriptural, flatters itself that it has a meaning viewed out of Romanism, and thinks to live and flourish though Romanism came to an end.
On these grounds, as regards the three doctrines above drawn out,—of the righteousness of Christ imputed only, imparted only, and both imputed and imparted by His real indwelling,—I omit the first in the comparison between them, which now naturally follows, as being partly negative, partly extravagant. It is a negative statement to say that justification is not by works; it is extravagant to say that it is by faith as the primary and sole instrument. Whether a disputant says nothing positive or nothing literal 2, in neither case is there room for discussion, which claims to touch and handle, to sift, to weigh, to adjust, to distribute. There is nothing precise, nothing to grapple with, when we are told, for instance, that faith justifies independent of its being a right and good principle—that it justifies as an instrument not as a condition,—that love is its inseparable accident, yet not its external criterion,—that good works are necessary, but not to be called so in controversy or popular preaching 3; and that nothing in us constitutes our being justified. Such a doctrine is, what it makes justification to be, a shadow.
2.
I proceed, then, to suggest some points of contrast between the two other views of justification mentioned, the doctrine of the justifying Presence, which I have been maintaining, and that of justifying obedience, as found among ourselves; for there certainly has been a school of divines in our Church, who by a very different road have practically approached the doctrine of Rome on this subject. What Roman writers have brought about by insisting exclusively on the effects of grace, many among ourselves have done by disparaging its sacramental means. The former raise man to the capacity, the latter have reduced him to the necessity, of being justified by his obedience and nothing else. By the latter divines I mean the Arminians who rose in Charles the First’s time, and have exercised an extensive influence in our Church since 1688. Those who conceive duly of the gift of justification, exalt the sacramental instruments of possessing it, as feeling that nothing short of means ordained of God can convey what is so much above them. Thus their glowing language about the Sacraments is but the measure of their estimation of their spiritual privileges. And if they go on to say that obedience justifies, it never occurs to them to suppose that they can be taken to be speaking of anything but the state of soul in which the heavenly gift resides, and by which it is retained, not that which really causes, or procures, or purchases it 4. Thus the high doctrine of the Sacraments held by Rome is a safeguard against any such defective or incomplete view of justification as is sanctioned by certain of her writers. But they who see nothing supernatural and mysterious in the Gift, though in words they refer it to the Sacraments, will practically associate it with that which they do see, and which seems to them naturally connected with it, viz., their own obedience. Not believing in any true sense that they are temples of the Holy Ghost, inhabited by Christ, and members of His Body, they consider their justification properly to consist in works, because they do not discern, they do not believe in, anything else, in which it can consist. Justification by obedience, then, is their distinguishing tenet; doubtless it is also the doctrine of the English Church, as it is of St. James; yet not only it, but much more besides. To put a parallel case, one man might say that our bodily life consisted in organization, or in a certain state of the nerves, or in the circulation of the blood; and another might ascribe it to the presence of the soul. The latter doctrine is the former and something besides; but the former by itself is defective. He who holds the former is not wrong, but he who holds only the former. Religious men may ascribe life to the heart, and thought to the brain; but those who say these are the only constituting causes of life and thought are materialists. In like manner St. Austin and others who, though they place justification in renewal, refer renewal to the indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost, are not to be compared with those who enlarge on what is seen, and explain away the mystery. This analogy holds in many other points; but I confine it to what is before us. I say, then, justification by obedience is anyhow true; it is sound doctrine, if we hold another doctrine too; it is incomplete, if we omit that other doctrine; it becomes erroneous, if we deny it.