1851.] Council of Trent on Justification. 69 according to the degree of his worthiness; while justification, according to the orthodox view, is the pronouncing just through the obedience solely of Christ from his most holy nativity even to the most ignominious death of the cross. To use the language of the Conc. Form, "sola sua, tota et perfectissima obedientia a nativitate sua sanctissima usque ad ignominiosissimam crucis mortem, est justitia.” And again: "Justitia fidei coram Deo in gratuita et benignissima imputatione justitiæ Christi absque ulla nostrorum operum additione consistit." The Helv. Confess.: "Passio vel mors sua, omniaque, quae a suo in carne adventu nostra causa fecit et pertulit." Melanchthon, in his Apology: "Christi merita nobis donantur, ut justi reputemur fiducia meritorum Christi, tanquam propria merita haberemus." Calvin: "Eo solo nos habemur justi, quia Christi obedientia nobis accepta fertur, ac si nostra esset." But the Heidelberg Catechism is even more decisive: "Sine ullo meo merito ex mera Dei misericordia mihi perfecta satisfactio, justitia et sanctitas Christi imputatur ac donatur, perinde ac si nec ullum ipse peccatum admisissem, nec ulla mihi labes inhæreret, imo vero quasi eam obedientiam, quam pro me Christus præstitit ipse perfecte præstitissem." We have presented these passages as showing the unanimous agreement of the Protestant Confessions. Let us now compare the Romish view. Justification, according to the Council of Trent, is not only remission of sins, but sanctification and renovation. Sanctification is not the fruit of justification, but a part of it, and enters into the act. The sinner is not regarded only, and pronounced righteous, but is made so by the operation of the Holy Ghost. He does not become righteous through a gracious sentence of God, but actually so through his indwelling virtue; and owes his eternal life and salvation far more to his own inward righteousness, (justitia inhaerens,) than to the grace of God. This inward righteousness, meriting de condigno the grace of God, is thus partly a gift of God, and partly a work of man. But as a comparison of the Romish and Protestant view is just here so important, we give the Decree of the Council of Trent. "Hanc dispositionem, seu præparationem, justificatio ipsa consequitur, quæ non est sola peccatorum remissio, sed et sanctificatio et renovatio interioris hominis. Non modo reputamur, sed vere justi nominamur et sumus, justitiam in nobis recipientes unusquisque suam secundum mensuram, quam Spiritus Sanctus partitur singulis prout vivet, et secundum propriam cujusque dispositionem et coöperationem. Quanquam enim nemo potest esse justus, nisi cui merita passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi communicantur, id tamen in hac impii justificatione fit, dum ejusdem sanctissimæ passionis merito, per Spiritum Sanctum caritas Dei diffunditur in cordibus eorum, qui justificantur, atque ipsis inhaeret. Unde in ipsa justificatione, cum remissione peccatorum, hæc omnia simul infusa accipit homo per Jesum Christum, cui inseritur per fidem, spem et caritatem." As justification is thus obtained by man's worthy predisposition,1 so is it to be preserved and increased by his own strength and good works; according to the Romish system, the man can go on from a first to a second justification. If righteousness is an imputation of the perfect righteousness of Christ, it cannot admit of degrees of greater or less, higher or lower; it can neither be increased or diminished, but must forever remain one and the same, or we deny perfect righteousness to Christ. If we can become still more righteous by our works, and deserve a higher degree, we are imperfectly justified by Christ, he becomes a minister of sin, and the true idea of righteousness is destroyed. This the Romish system does in its doctrine of progressive justification. It has decreed thus on this point: "In ipsa justitia per Christi gratiam accepta, coöperante fide bonis operibus crescunt atque magis justificantur. Si quis dixerit justitiam acceptam non conservari atque etiam non augeri per bona opera; anathema sit." It follows from this view of justification, that, as it has been earned by our own qualities and merits, and is to be preserved by the same, we can never be assured of our justification. The Council of Trent denounces accordingly an anathema against all who hold such a doctrine : "Nemini peccata dimitti, vel dimissa esse dicendum est. Neque aliud asserendum est, oportere eos, qui vere justificati sunt, absque ulla omnino dubitatione, apud se ipsos statuere, se esse justificatos. Quilibet, dum se ipsum, suam propriam infirmitatem et indispositionem respicit, de sua gratia formidare ac timere potest." It calls such a doctrine, inanis fides Haereticorum, and forgiveness is refused to those who hold it. That this doctrine flows naturally from the Romish view of justification, and is a gainful part of the Romish system, has been shown by Chemnitz. The man thus forced to look to himself, to his own infirmity and indisposition to what is good, the more conscientious he is, the more will he perceive his deficiencies, and stand in constant doubt of his justification. This doctrine of the Church of Rome must lead either to a careless security in sin and presumption, or else to despair, as Melanchthon says: Hæc doctrina 1 Beiträge 1. 118. 1851.] Confounding of the Law and Gospel. 71 Legis vel ad præsumptionem vel ad desperationem adducit. It fails us in our greatest extremity, in the trying hours of life, when the oppressive consciousness of our unspeakable deficiencies fills the soul with alarm; it makes us ashamed in the decisive hour of death, and as the last and bitterest fruit of false doctrine will perish with us before the bar of an infinitely holy God. If we compare the view of justification advanced by Wegscheider, which has been quoted, and the declarations of Kant, that by an imitation of Christ's example, and by forming in ourselves the ideal of humanity, which is acceptable to God, we are to be justified, we find no essential difference in the two systems. They know of no other justification than that by the law. Both are natural legal systems, and of both is it true, in the language of Melanchthon: "Non videt ratio aliam justitiam, quam justitiam legis." And from the fundamental error, that justification is incomplete without good works, must necessarily spring an entire confounding of the proper office of the law and the Gospel. The highly important and essential difference between them is either falsely represented, or alike rejected by both. Both parties agree, that the object of the coming of Christ into the world was, as a new moral lawgiver, to prescribe a higher and more perfect moral law than Moses, and present in his own person a perfect example of its fulfilment by imitation of which, men may be justified before God. They both regard him as a masterly teacher of a moral system, freed from the Mosaic ceremonial. They consider the gospel as differing from the law only in this respect, that the law requires external works; the gospel, besides, internal affections, a distinction which though sufficiently refuted by the tenth commandment, still Kant and his followers repeat. What is this, as Melanchthon says, but to teach the law and destroy the gospel, and confound the proper office of both? How full and clear was the voice of the Reformers as to the office of both! Says Melanchthon: "The office of the gospel is to receive good gifts from God, that of the law to offer our own. They divided the uses of the law into three parts; the civil, (usus politicus,) to bring man to an external reverence; the pedagogic, to bring him to Christ; and the didactic use for the regenerate, and partakers of Christ by faith. Of this last use, Melanchthon says: "The law is to be taught even to the regenerate, that as their knowledge and penitence for the sin that dwelleth in them increases, so may also their faith increase. The law is to teach us these good works, which God has prepared for us to walk in. We are not to invent such, but to be governed by his word." And again he says very forcibly: Hæc particula gratis facit discrimen legis et evangelii. Luther, in his sermon on the office of law and gospel, says: "The gospel does not tell man what God requires of him, but what he has done for him; it bids him believe and be sure that God will forgive him his sins, and receive him as his child." The whole sermon is worthy of an attentive study. We have thus seen the remarkable agreement of the two systems, in their doctrine of justification. They both teach sinful man to trust in himself, in the works of his own hands, and in his inward righteousness. They would begin and end, as we have proved from their own words, the salvation of man in his sinful self. Both maintain that man, by virtue of the natural light of reason, and by the power of his free will, can attain to the favor of God and to eternal life. It was against soul-destroying errors like these, that the Reformers, with the Bible in their hands and in their hearts, raised up a standard; and though the world and the rulers of its darkness set themselves against them, yet they boldly and loudly confessed the old Bible faith in Jesus Christ, the crucified, the Saviour of the lost, the eternal Son of God, whose power and glory are only surpassed by the greatness of that love which moved him to veil the splendor of his divinity in the form of a servant; the divine becoming human, that the human might become divine, and be restored to pure and holy fellowship with God. They declared that every thing that man put in his place must be rejected; and the word of God sounding forth in its power and greatness, penetrated the humbled hearts of thousands, and brought them in faith and love to the feet of Jesus, where alone the soul can find peace, sanctification and eternal life. They have bequeathed their faith, as their most precious legacy, to us. Their confessions have ever been the bulwark of Protestantism, the inviolable Magna Charta of its freedom. While these are preserved, like the ancient Palladium, the church is safe. Are these the boasted advances of our age in Theology, that after three centuries, we should relapse into the same errors from which we were then happily relieved by these great hearted men? Shall we extinguish the Sun of Righteousness, that we may be enlightened by the ignes fatui of Reason? Truly the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God! The wise of this world receive not the wisdom of God; nay, they despise it as foolishness. They are forever erecting their children's houses, which fall down as fast as they are set up, while his foundation, other than which no man can lay, standeth sure and immovable. God often leaves his enemies now, as he 1851.] French Philosophical Works. 73 did of old, to turn their swords against each other, and thus destroys them by themselves. I would mention only the systems of Kant, Fichte and Schelling. How remarkable that just at a time when human reason is so highly extolled, and the divine word so greatly despised, these systems are in conflict with each, and some have already fallen! Did the preservation of God's truth in the world depend upon human faithfulness, we might well despair. But a divine power sustains it; it conquers by its own irresistible might. When most depressed, as all history shows, it has often risen and crushed its adversaries. We must be then indeed of little faith, if we despair of its final triumph. The grass of human doctrine withereth; the flower of human wisdom fadeth, but the word of the Lord endureth forever.1 ARTICLE VI. REVIEW OF RECENT FRENCH WORKS IN METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE. Histoire de la Philosophie Allemande depuis Kant jusqu'a Hegel. Par J. Willm, Inspecteur de l'Académie de Strasbourg. Ouvrage couronné par l'Institut (Académie des Sciences, Morales et Politiques.) 4 Tom. 8vo. pp. 528, 630, 466, 648. Paris. 1846-1849. De la Philosophie Allemande. Rapport à l'Académie des Sciences, Morales et Politiques, précédé d'une Introduction sur les doctrines de Kant, de Fichte, de Schelling, et de Hegel. Par M. De Rémusat, Membre de l'Institut. 8vo. pp. CLVIII. 210. Paris. 1845. IN 1836, the Academy of Moral and Political Science of the French Institute, at the suggestion of the Philosophical section, proposed a critical examination of German philosophy, as a subject of competition. The result is contained in the above works. The competitors were to adhere to the following conditions: 1. By extended analysis to render an account of the principal German 1 Verbum Dei manet in æternum. This was the motto of the Elector of Saxony, and his servants wore its initial letters embroidered in their garments. See a sermon of Sartorius, delivered at the Commemoration of the Third Centen nial Anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, on The Glory of the Augsburg Confession. |