"Because all men be giveness of sins at any time is intended. sinners and offenders against God, and breakers of his law and commandments, therefore can no man by his own acts, works, and deeds, (seem they never so good) be justified and made righteous before God: but every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another righteousness, or justification, to be received at God's own hands; that is to say, the forgiveness of his sins and trespasses, in such things as he hath offended." And the remission of sins after baptism is expressly mentioned, in the next paragraph: "And they which in act or deed do sin after their baptism, when they turn again to God unfeignedly, they are likewise washed by this sacrifice from their sins, in such sort, that there remaineth not any spot of sin that shall be imputed to their damnation. This is that justification or righteousness which St. Paul speaketh of, &c." And in the 2d part of the same Homily, p. 22. "So that the true understanding of this doctrine, We be justified freely by faith without works, or, That we be justified by faith in Christ only, is not, that this our act to believe in Christ, or this our faith in Christ, which is within us, doth justify us, and deserve our justification unto us; (for that were to account ourselves to be justified by some act or virtue that is within ourselves) but the true understanding and meaning thereof is, That although we hear God's word, and believe it; although we have faith, hope, charity, repentance, dread and fear of God within us; and do never so many works thereunto; yet we must renounce the merit of all our said virtues, of faith, hope, charity, and all other virtues and good deeds, which we either have done, shall do, or can do, as things that be far too weak, and insuffi cient, and imperfect, to deserve remission of our sins, and our justification; and therefore we must trust only in God's mercy, and that sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of God, once offered for us upon the cross, to obtain thereby God's grace, and remission as well of our original sin, in baptism, as of all actual sin committed by us after our baptism; if we truly repent, and turn unfeignedly to him again." In the mind of our Reformers therefore, Justification, as the term is used in the 11th Article, will amount to nearly the same thing with Salvation: and hence we may discern how it came to pass, that "The Homily of Salvation" is referred to in the Article by the title of "The Homily of Justification." It is manifest then, at once, that "Justification by faith only" in our 11th Article, and St. Paul's "Justification by faith without works," are very different things. But the different state of the question will shew more distinctly the difference of the propositions. In St. Paul the state of the question is this: Justification, or that state of righteousness before God which places a man as an object of favour in his sight, is the title of admission to all the benefits of the Gospel :-is the candidate for Christianity to bring this along with him, as a claim for his own merits; or is he to receive it as a free gift at the hands of God?-The state of the question in our 11th Article is as follows: The Romanists assert the merit of good works; is a Christian man to depend upon these, or solely upon the merits of Christ, for his Justification? Our Reformers deemed it expedient to retain the terms, "Justification by faith only;" but they avoided the difficulty and danger attendant upon Luther's sense of them, in two ways : 1. By diverting the sense of them, from the condition, to the cause meritorious, of our Justification and Salvation. For whereas, in Luther's acceptation, they went to exclude good works as a condition; in our 11th Article they are applied to the expression of that true foundation, "whereupon indeed Christianity standeth," Salvation by Christ only. 2. By referring for the sense of them to the Homily, in which we find all danger of misapprehension and abuse guarded against with very remarkable anxiety. For the purpose of summary discrimination, to be easily retained and carried in the memory, it seems that the sense of "Justification by faith without works," or, "Justification by faith only," according to St. Paul, Luther, and our 11th Article, may be truly expressed in the three following questions respecting good works: 1. St. Paul: Are good works a qualification required in order to Baptismal Justification, and admission to the Gospel Covenant? 2. Luther: Are good works a condition of our Justification and Salvation? 3. Article XI, of the Church of England: Are good works in any degree the cause meritorious of our Justification and Salvation? * Hooker, Disc. of Justification, §. 29. |