thought might be offered and accepted. 67 live at all, unless he be first made alive, as it is written, "The just shall live by faith' ?" Art. VII. Of the certainty of justifying faith. 62 "But of the certainty of that faith Paul teacheth, He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised He was able also to perform ;' which is that most perfect fulness of faith which the same Apostle so often praises. Hence there is generated in minds a certain. confidence towards God, whereby against hope we believe in hope,' and this motion of justifying faith the Council of Trent placeth therein, that the faithful believe that those things are true which are revealed and promised by God,' and this first of all, that the ungodly is justified through His grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;' whence they, being terrified, the judgment of God driving them, ' by His mercy are raised up to hope, trusting that God, for Christ's sake, will be propitious to them, and begin to love Him, as the Fountain. of all righteousness,' viz. justifying freely; through which love they detest the sins of their former life. In which words that justifying faith is admirably and fully stated, whereby also, embracing the Divine promises, we wholly lean on God through Christ. 67 "But this hope and confidence advance so far, that anxious fear should be absent; absent, that turbulent tossing of the trembling soul; and the solace of the Holy Spirit is present within, crying, "Abba, Father,' and suggesting that, “But if sons, then heirs ;' whereby rejoicing in hope,' we trust that we 8 have now our conversation in heaven.' Yet not on that account do we believe this so certainly, as to lay down without any doubt whatsoever, that we shall be saved; nor do we require to be more certain, whether as to present justification 68 Statement on justification, &c. [justitia] or future glory. This suffices, that, as far as relates to God, we are secure, so as not to doubt of His promises and mercy, and of the merits of Christ, the efficacy of His Death and Resurrection; but with regard to ourselves, we are compelled to fear; so that, although there be not that certainty of faith which can absolutely not be mistaken, yet, confidence predominating, we have the fruition of Christ the Saviour, and are happy in hope; which is the sum of the doctrine delivered by the Council of Trent'; the root of which doctrine is laid open in the following article. Art. VIII. Of grace and the co-operation of freewill. "The Lutherans thought that the Catholics in such wise maintained free-will in things Divine, that it should, of itself, avail to effect something, which should conduce to salvation; which since the Council of Trent condemned', there is no longer any reason for censuring the use and exercise of free-will cooperating with God. Nay, the Confession of Augsburg and its Apology openly own this, when they attribute merits even to the good works of the justified person, and grant that they are meritorious, as we have already mentioned, and I will again repeat that saying of the Confession of Augsburg, in the chapter on good works, 'To these gifts of God our own practice ought to be added, which should both conserve them and merit an increase, according to that, "To him that hath shall be given," and Augustine said excellently, "Love meriteth an increase of love," viz. when it is exercised. So, here, amid the very mention of the grace of God, occurs our exercise or co-operation; and no wonder, since the Apostle, too, says, 3 Not I, but the grace of God with me," on which place Augustine says rightly, "Neither the grace of God alone, nor 3 9 Sess. vi. c. ix. can. 13-16. 1 Sess. vi. c. i. xi. xii. xvi. Can. 1-3, 22. 2 See Art. ii. iv. ab. pp. 61, 63. * De grat. et lib. arb. c. v. T. x. col. 724. Doctrine of Satisfaction, or Making Amends. 69 himself alone, but the grace of God with him."' Nor did the Tridentine Fathers lay down groundlessly, that free-will- so cooperates, that it can also be at variance and cast away the grace of God. Nor does the Confession of Augsburg dissent from this doctrine, since it condemns the Anabaptists, who deny that those once justified can again lose the Holy Spirit,' Whom if we can lose and cast away when He indwelleth, how much more, when He moveth and inciteth, and is not yet enthroned on the mind; to which doctrine what is delivered in the same Confession of Augsburg agreeth'. Hereby it is abundantly clear, that the Spirit and His grace may be so resisted that they may also be lost; which, that it may not be, God is to be prayed that He would rule our will, which, from its liberty, readily goes astray. And hence that fear, which we mentioned in the former article, conjoined with the highest confidence and the deepest peace. our fear from ourselves; which the reject, since the Apostle monisheth, vation with fear and trembling;' yet 9 being confident of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will perform it to the Day of Jesus Christ." For our trust is in God, 8 d) There is yet a subject connected with justification, which it is well to mention here, because it is thought to trench most on the merits of Christ, viz. the doing of deeds of penitence, by which the soul, which gave itself to unlawful pleasures, should chasten itself by self-affliction, mortifying itself either directly, as by penitential prayer, or mediately through the body, as by fasting, &c., and other privation of bodily ease, or cutting off occasions of 5 Sess. vi. c. v. Can. 4. 7 Art. 6. and de bonis op. 9 Ib. i. 6. cap. • Art. ii. 8 Phil. ii. 12. 70 Protestant Doctrine same as Roman, self-indulgence and worldliness, through selfdenying mercy and almsgiving to the poor. And yet such deeds must have their place in the Gospel, not only on the ground of the uniform belief of the Church, as taught immediately by the Apostles, but from Holy Scripture itself, since S. John Baptist enjoined those who came to him, to do works meet for repentance, and S. Paul includes "revenge 'revenge" among the parts of true repentance. Bossuet set forth clearly that, being fruits of the grace of Christ, and availing by virtue of the All-perfect Satisfaction, of which they are fruits and applications, they cannot interfere with those merits of which they are fruits. "It is certain that Protestants abhor the doctrine of satisfaction, chiefly on this ground, that Christ Alone could satisfy for us; which is most true as to a full and exact satisfaction, nor was ever ignored by Catholics. But it does not follow that, if Christians are not equal to make payment, they should therefore not hold themselves bound to imitate Christ according to their little capacity [facultaculâ], and give what they have out of His largesse, afflicting their souls in mourning, in sackcloth and ashes, and redeeming their sins by almsgivings; offering, in fine, after the way of the Fathers from the very first centuries, their own 'satisfactions' (be they what they may) to avail in Christ's name, and to be through Him acceptable, as we said before 2, from the Council of Trent (Sess. xiv.). Wherefore neither would satisfaction, rightly understood, give offence, since the Apology says, "Works and afflictions merit, not justification but other rewards.' But of almsgiving, which is 1 Projet de réun. c. 2. Art. ix. n. 84, p. 443. 2 See ab. Art. iii. p. 62. 3 Respons. ad arg. p. 136 save in name: Bossuet's Statement. 71 accounted even chief among those satisfactory works, they say, **Let us grant this, too, that alms merit many benefits of God, mitigate punishments, merit that we should be defended in perils of sins and death;' which comes to this, that, rejecting the word satisfaction,' which yet all antiquity admitted, they still admit the thing itself." I may supplement this by the fuller statement of the "Exposition," which received so much formal approbation in the Roman Church. "Catholics teach with one common consent, that Jesus Christ, at once God and Man, could Alone, through the Infinite dignity of His Person, offer to God a sufficient satisfaction for our sins. But, having satisfied superabundantly, He could apply to us this infinite satisfaction in two ways; either by giving an entire effacement [of sins] without reserving any suffering, or by commuting a greater suffering into a less, i. e. eternal punishment into temporal punishments. The first way being the most entire and most conformable to His goodness, He employs it, first, in Baptism; but we believe that He employs the second in the remission which He grants to the baptized who fall back into sin, being, in a manner, forced thereto by the ingratitude of those who abused His first gift; so that they have to suffer some temporal punishment, although the eternal punishment is remitted to them. "We must not conclude from this, that Jesus Christ did not entirely satisfy for us; but, contrariwise, that having acquired an absolute right over us by the infinite Price which He gave for our salvation, He grants us pardon on what conditions, under what law, and with what reservation He pleases. "We should be unjust and ungrateful towards the Saviour, if we dared to dispute with Him the infinity of His merits, on the pretext that, in pardoning us the sin of Adam, He does not at the same time discharge us of all its consequences, leaving us still subject to death and to so many infirmities, bodily and 4 Ib. p. 117. 5 Exposition, n. 8. T. xviii. pp. 97-100. |