CUMMINS: ROMAN AND REFORMED DOCTRINES OF JUSTIFICATION. 469 grand expanse of gulf-like water; the other turns southward, and becomes the beautiful Hudson, breaking through the Highlands to bear its full tribute to the sea. That Rome regards this as the essential point of divergence between her own system and that of Protestantism is evident from the importance given to this subject in the discussion of the Tridentine Council, convened to oppose and overthrow the work of the Reformation. The divines of that council were exhorted to "be assiduous and exact in their studies" on this subject, "because all the errors of Luther were resolved into that point." I. The Romish and the Reformed Churches differ as to the nature of justification. According to the teaching of the Reformed Church, the term Justification has but one meaning in the Word of God. "It is acquittal from guilt. It is a judicial act on the part of God, accounting us righteous, not making us so. It is an act done for us, and not in us. It implies a relative change in the state of an accused person in respect of the sentence of the Divine law.”* The Church of Rome, on the other hand, holds that justification and sanctification are one and the same. Says the Council of Trent, "Justification is not only remission of sins, but the sanctification and renewing of the inner man by the voluntary reception of grace and gifts;" or, in the language of Möhler, its most accomplished modern defender, "It is a power truly emancipating, dissolving the bands of evil, and extirpating sin." This, then, is the contrast: The Church of Rome holds the justification of a sinner to be the sanctification of his nature, the extirpation of sin, the making him truly and personally holy. The Reformed Church holds the justification of a sinner to be the act of God accounting him righteous, his acquittal from guilt, the forgiveness of his sins, and his reconciliation to God. Here, then, issue is made, and we make our appeal confidently to the Word of God to decide between the two teachings. Deuteronomy xxv., 1: "If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked." Proverbs xvii., 15: "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord." Job ix., 20: "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me." Psalm cxliii., 2: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.", Romans viii., 33, 34: "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth ?" Romans v., 18: "Therefore, as by the of fense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." In all these passages it is impossible to assign but one meaning to the terms "justify" and "justification." The judicial sense is prominent in all. Justification is the opposite of condemnation: it is acquittal from guilt. Here, indeed, the divergence of the two systems may seem to be very slight, and many may regard the difference as only a conflict of words and of subtle distinctions of theology. But, in fact, this divergence will be seen, as we examine more closely, to underlie all opposing teachings of the two systems. Let us mark this as the second great point of contrast. II. The Romish and Reformed Churches differ in their teachings concerning the ground or basis of a sinner's justification before God. Great caution is needed here to bring forth clearly the error of the Church of Rome, obscured as it is by the scholastic subtleties of the Tridentine doctors. The doctrine of the Reformed Church is most clearly stated in the eleventh of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England: "We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works and deservings." The doctrine taught here so plainly is that the ground or meritorious cause of our justification is the merit of Christ only. This the Church of Rome anathematizes. Says the Council of Trent: "Whosoever shall affirm that men are formally justified by the righteousness of Christ, let him be accursed."* Again, another decree says: Whosoever shall affirm that men are justified by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, to the exclusion of grace and charity which inheres in them; or that the grace by which we are justified is only the favor of God, let him be accursed."t What, then, does the Church of Rome hold to be the ground or basis of a sinner's reconciliation to God? She makes a distinction between the meritorious and the formal cause of justification. "The meritorious cause," she says, "is His most beloved, onlybegotten Son, who, when we were enemies, on account of his abounding love with which he loved us, by his own most holy passion on the cross, merited justification for us, and satisfied us to God." Thus far we agree. But proceeds the Council: "The only formal † Sess. II., cap. viii. * Sess. VI., cap. x. + Möhler's "Symbolism," page 190. ‡ Sess. II., cap. viii. cause is the righteousness of God, not that | by which he himself is just, but that by which he makes us just." Here, then, the Church of Rome teaches that our justification before God is a righteousness in us. Says Hooker: "When they of the Church of Rome are required to show what the righteousness is by which a Christian man is justified, they answer that it is a Divine spiritual quality; which quality received into the soul doth first make it to be one with them who are born of God; and, secondly, indue the soul with power to bring forth such works as they do that are born of God. This grace they will have to be applied by infusion; to the end that as the body is warmed by the heat which is in it, so the soul might be righteous by inherent grace."* monies, and services of the Church. They found it in the doctrine of gratuitous pardon from the bare mercy of God, through the mediation of Christ; a pardon that waits for nothing but acceptance on the part of the soul-the belief, the trust, the faith of the penitent.' What, then, according to the teaching of Rome, is the instrument of our justification? It is baptism, and not faith. Hear the Council of Trent: "The instrumental cause of our justification is the sacrament of baptism, without which no one ever attained to justification."+ Then the dying thief was not justified when Christ opened to him the gates of Paradise. Then Mary Magdalene was not justified when Christ said to her, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." Then the publican was not pardoned when he went down to his house "justified rather than the other." The same far-seeing mind discerned the specious error here concealed. "This," says he, "is the mystery of the man of sin, that they make the essence of justification to con- We see now the relation of the teaching sist in a divine quality inherent, a righteous- of an infused personal righteousness to the ness within us. If it be in us, then it is ours, whole system. Justification or personal even as our souls are ours, though we have righteousness or sanctification is communithem from God, and can hold them no long-cated by baptism in infancy; and thus baper than he pleaseth; but the righteousness wherein we must be found if we would be justified is not our own; therefore we can not be justified by any inherent quality. Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in him: in him God findeth us, if by faith we are incorporated into Christ." Subtle and obscure as may be the utterances of Rome concerning the nature of justification, it can not conceal the deadly error that the doctrine of infused personal righteousness lays a foundation for the doctrine of human merit. By this infused righteousness, the Christian is made capable of meriting God's grace, and securing salvation by a righteousness of his own. "It is not the logic of this point we contend for," says Bishop Hall, "it is not the grammar, it is the Divinity; what that is whereby we stand acquitted before God; whether our inherent righteousness, or Christ's imputed righteousness apprehended by faith. The divines of Trent are for the former; all antiquity is with us for the latter.” III. The Romish and Reformed Churches differ vitally in their teachings as to the instrument or instrumental cause of our justification. "Faith," says Hooker, "is the only hand that putteth on Christ unto justification." And this is the unanimous testimony of all Protestant Christendom; the witness of all the Reformers—a witness founded upon personal experience. "They had sought in vain for this infinite good," says Professor Fisher, "in the teachings, injunctions, cere "Discourse on Justification." tismal justification or sanctification becomes If it be asked, "What is the relation of baptism to justification according to the Reformed Church," perhaps the best reply is to be found in the Twenty-seventh Article of the Church of England: "Baptism is not only a sign of profession, whereby Christian men are discerned from those that be not christened; but it is also a sign of regeneration, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sins and of our adoption to be the sons of God are visibly signed and sealed; faith is confirmed and grace increased by virtue of prayer to God." To this all Protestantism agrees: Faith is the sole instrument of justification. Baptism is— 1. A sign of a Christian man's profession. 2. A sign of regeneration or new birth. 3. An instrument, when rightly received, by which we are grafted into the Church. 4. The promises of our forgiveness and adoption are visibly signed and sealed; and, 5. Faith is confirmed and grace increased by virtue of prayer to God. IV. The Romish and the Reformed Churches differ most essentially in their teaching as to the relation of good works to justification. It is the doctrine of the Reformed Church that all our works are utterly worthless to merit salvation of God, and any attempt to regard them as a ground of * "History of the Reformation," page 461. + Conc. Trident., Sess. VI., cap. viii. forgiveness is to disparage the work of the Redeemer, who made upon the cross a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" 66 one sacrifice for sins forever." "Good works," says the Twelfth Article of the Church of England, "which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, can not put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment." Now hear the Council of Trent: "Whosoever shall affirm that the good works of a justified man are in such sense the works of God that they are not also his worthy merits; or that he being justified by his good works, which are wrought by him through the grace of God, and the merits of Jesus Christ, of whom he is a living member, does not really deserve increase of grace, eternal life, the enjoyment of that eternal life if he dies in a state of grace, and even an increase of eternal glory, let him be accursed." Which is right? "To the law and the testimony." Hear, then, what the Spirit saith unto the Churches. "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." "To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." "By grace are ye saved, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” "That I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Does the Protestant theory disparage and depreciate good works-holy living? God forbid. It teaches that good works are--1. The necessary fruit of faith, springing from it as certainly as good fruit from a good tree; 2. That they are the evidence of a living faith, as the tree is known by its fruits; 3. That they are pleasing and acceptable to God, and are rewarded, but of grace and not of merit. But while holding strenuously that the motive to good works is higher under the Evangelical than under the legal system, Protestantism declares that to claim any desert of God for man's righteousness is to deny the sufficiency of Christ's righteousness, and presumptuously to attempt to strengthen and complete it by our own. V. One other point of contrast yet remains, practically of greater importance than all: it is concerning the pardon of sins committed after justification, or, what is synonymous, in the view of Rome, after baptism. In the teaching of Rome, "for all sins committed after baptism the offender owes, and must render, satisfaction." Sins are divided by the Church of Rome into two classes: venial and mortal sins. Venial sins do not destroy our justification before God. Mortal sins do, and these are removed only by the sacrament of penance. Hooker thus sets forth this teaching of Rome: "As grace may be increased by the merit of good works, so it may be diminished by the demerit of sins venial, and may be lost entirely by mortal sin. To such as diminish it by venial sins, grace is applied by holy water, Ave Marias, crossings, papal benedictions, and such like. To such as have lost it by mortal sin, it is applied by the sacrament (as they term it) of penance, which sacrament hath power to confer grace anew, yet in such sort that it only changeth the punishment eternal into a temporal, satisfactory punishment in this life, if time is given; if not, hereafter to be endured, except it be lightened by masses, works of charity, pilgrimages, fasts, and such like.” "This is the mystery of the man of sin !" he exclaims; "this maze the Church of Rome doth cause her followers to tread when they ask her the way to justification. I can not stand now to unrip this building and sift it piece by piece; only I will pass it by in few words, that that may befall Babylon in the presence of that which God hath builded, as happened unto Dagon before the Ark." In strong contrast to all this will-worship, Protestantism teaches that for all sins there is during life full and free forgiveness, by the immediate approach of the penitent soul in faith to the fountain opened in the house of David for sin and all uncleanness. Rome denies this great truth, and in its stead has built up that gigantic system of error whose essence consists in placing the Church between the soul and God, as the sole dispenser of this grace, and without whose ministrations there is no salvation. From this spring all the kindred errors, the elevation of the ministry into a hierarchy, a sacrificing, mediating priesthood, through whose offices alone all heavenly blessings can come; a priesthood in whose hands sacraments convey grace ex opere operato, independent of the faith of the recipient; a priesthood empowered to forgive sins after securing the confession of the penitent; a priesthood by whose words the bread of the sacrament becomes God incarnate; a priesthood empowered to offer sacrifices for the quick and dead. From this error, too, spring the doctrines of works of supererogation, a treasury of which is laid up in the Church, to be dispensed in indulgences—of the invocation of saints and the mother of Christ, of pilgrimages and fasts, and the whole system of asceticism. All these fall before the doctrine of justification by faith as Dagon fell before the Ark. "Whenever justification by faith is held in its true Protestant sense, the doctrine of a human priesthood becomes a useless excrescence, and falls off of itself. For what need can he feel of a human medi ator who already enjoys fellowship with God in and through Christ? Hence is to be explained the peculiar vehemence with which the Romish writers have ever assailed this doctrine, and the misrepresentations to which, in their hands, it has been subject. The assailants may, in many cases, be too well acquainted with the writings of the Reformers, not to know that Solfidianism, so far as the word expresses a tendency to laxity in practice, is as earnestly repudiated by the latter as by themselves; the animosity exhibited proceeds from a different source, and the Protestant doctrine of justification is assailed, not so much because it is thought dangerous to morality, as because it robs the Church-that is, the clerical order-of its assumed priestly character. As the dogma of the corporate life makes the Church, and not Christ, the author of spiritual life, so the doctrine of a human priesthood, under the Gospel, makes the clergy the arbiters of the Christian's destiny; for such surely they are, to whom is committed the power of barring or opening as they please access to God. With an instinct that never errs, the advocates of the Tridentine system feel that justification by faith-by which is simply meant that Christ in his priestly office is present instead of being represented by a sacerdotal order—is out of place in their doctrinal structure, and must either remain to mar its symmetry or be expelled from it." A recapitulation of the two theories will now be of value. According, then, to the teaching of the Reformed Church And for all sins committed after justification there is full and ample provision in the free grace of God, received by faith, upon genuine repentance. Such is the simple yet sublime doctrine of all Protestant Christendom. According to the teachings of Rome— Justification is the sanctification of the soul. This sanctification is an inherent or internal righteousness, the formal cause of our acceptance before God. This internal righteousness is imputed to the soul through baptism, and chiefly in infancy. This justification is increased by our good works, which merit of God eternal life and an increase of glory. For all mortal or deadly sins committed after baptism a sacrament of penance is provided which removes the eternal consequences of guilt, but not the temporal. These must be expiated by self-inflicted punishments in this world, or else by purgatorial fires in the world to come. Such is the dark and perplexing maze into which the followers of Rome are led when they ask, "What must I do to be saved?" It remains only to characterize these opposing theories as to their effect and results upon the individual and society. 1. The one is justification by immediate access of the soul to the Redeemer, through the Holy Spirit. The penitent believing heart approaches, not through media, but directly, the mercyseat of God in Christ, lays hold of the bloodsprinkled sceptre of mercy, and receives from Justification is the office of God, and not a reconciled Father's hand the grace of parthe work of man. It is the act of God accounting us righteous, not making us so. It is the forgiveness of the sinner, the acceptance of the penitent believer, as righteous, into Divine favor and the hope of eternal life. don and peace. The other is a justification by the Church, by and through the sacraments in the hands of a mediating priesthood. It is first effected by the sacrament of baptism. It is renewed or recovered, if lost, by the sacrament of penance. It is nourished and sustained It can not be purchased by our good by the sacrament of the mass. It is perworks, and is therefore dependent on no in- fected in the hour of death by the sacraternal righteousness, but is wholly depend-ment of extreme unction. "The substance ent on the righteousness of our Lord and of this sacrament," says the Council of Trent, Saviour Jesus Christ. The only means of our securing it is faith, and this not because faith is meritorious, but because faith remits us altogether to Christ, “faith being only the instrument to convey so great a benefit to the soul, as the hand of the beggar receives the proffered alms."+ This faith is the principle of all good works, and the parent of holiness. Good works spring from it as fruit from a living tree, and the incentive to their performance is the love of Christ constraining the soul. *Litton's "Church of Christ," London edition, pages 652, 653. "is the grace of the Holy Spirit, whose anointing wipes away offenses, if any are yet to be expiated, and the remains of sin.' 2. The one is a humbling doctrine; the other, a self-exalting doctrine, inculcating the proud notion of human merit. The one humbles the sinner and exalts the Saviour. It cuts at the root of all selfrighteousness. It renounces all dependence for salvation upon human worth. It points only to the Lamb of God. It lays the sinner low at the foot of the Cross. It teaches him to say from the first moment of repentance to his latest hour, "I will make * Conc. Trid., Sess. XIV., cap. ii., De Extrema Unc † Archbishop Usher, “Body of Divinity," page 196. tione. mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only." It puts into his mouth the jubilant song, "Thou only art worthy; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed and washed us in thy blood, and hast made us kings and priests unto God." The other exalts self. It encourages complacency and confidence in human rightcousness. It mingles man's merits with Christ's merits. It aggrandizes the Church and abases the Saviour. It falls in with the innate self-righteousness of the human heart. "There is no man's case so dangerous," says Hooker, "as he whom Satan hath persuaded that his own righteousness shall present him pure and blameless in the sight of God." 3. The one is a comforting doctrine; the other, where it operates upon sincere and earnest minds, leading to gloom, to fear, to despair. The Reformed doctrine, according to the Eleventh Article of the Church of England, is "very full of comfort." There is," says Asher, "no such comfort to a Christian soul like that which floweth from this well of salvation, this sweet doctrine of justification." "Let it be accounted," says Hooker, "folly, or frenzy, or fury, whatsoever; it is our comfort and wisdom; we care for no knowledge in the world but this: that man hath sinned, and God hath suffered; that God hath made himself the Son of man, and that men are made the righteousness of God." What heart but the heavy-laden and sinburdened shall tell the preciousness of this truth? It is the word of freedom to the captive. It unveils the face of a reconciled Father. It discloses the beaming smile of a God of love. It is the spirit of adoption. Its first lisping is, "Abba, Father! my Lord and my God!” Its challenge to the Universe is, "It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth ?" Its firm and unshaken Rock is this: "There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." Audamidst all the changes and chances of this mortal life, its exulting song is, "Neither life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord." of the Saints" but records of appalling austerities, of macerations, of penances, of selfinflicted cruelties? "Where Rome's doctrine of justification lays hold of earnest and devout minds," says an able American review, "what labyrinths does it lead them to mistake for the way of holiness! Their attention, of course, will be mainly directed to that satisfaction which they must make for past sins, notwithstanding their release from its eternal penalties by the satisfaction of Christ. Their whole life thus becomes a scene of purgatorial endurance, and their attainments in holiness which are held forth for admiration in the lives of their most esteemed saints are those self-inflicted mortifications and sufferings in which the Fakirs of India excel them. Such is the sanctity which, in the lives of eminent saints, published in our own day, is commended to the pious aspirations of the faithful of Rome. The sanctity of hair shirts, and galling iron chains, and cruel scourgings, and eating of unwholesome and putrid food, and all the strangest devices of self-torture which can be conceived-this was the sanctity, as set forth by Romanists themselves, of Alphonsus Liguori, and Francis de Girolamo, and Joseph of the Cross, and Pacificus, of San Severius and Veronica, Ginbrani, and the saints whose lives are contained in the Breviary; all of whom Rome loves to honor, and for such sanctity canonizes. And who shall say that such sanctity is not the native result of the Romish teachings on justification and satisfaction? But such teachings are a strange exhibition of that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, a most sad forgetfulness of his saving grace, and a most lamentable caricature of that holiness to which he hath called us. And yet such achievements as those above alluded to are the very masterpieces of the Romish system. What well-instructed Christian will say that they do not stamp with falsehood the doctrine of justification from which they spring?" 4. Once more, the Reformed doctrine is a "wholesome doctrine;" the Roman teaching, pernicious in its tendencies and effects. The objection to the doctrine of justification by faith only, that it is unfavorable to morality and holy living, is as old as the apostles' day. Even then St. Paul is found defendThe opposing doctrine is a doctrine lead-ing it against the gainsayers: "Do we make ing to uncertainty and dread. It is a spir- void the law through faith? God forbid; it of bondage again unto fear, and not a spir- yea, we establish the law." it of adoption. It puts a yoke upon the tru- The Scriptural doctrine of justification is ly earnest soul more galling than the Jew-eminently a "wholesome," a holy doctrine. ish," which," says the apostle, "neither we It can not be embraced earnestly and truly nor our fathers were able to bear." After leading the devout soul through its maze of will-worship, it leaves its eternal salvation in doubt and uncertainty. Hence the type of piety which this teaching has ever produced. What are the "Lives and fail to bring forth fruit unto holiness. It implants within the soul the mightiest mainspring of all exertion. "The love of Christ constraineth us," is its noble incentive. "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" the first cry of the pardoned soul. "How |