A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

“We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith; and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine and very full of comfort: as more largely is expressed in the homily of justification.

“Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins and endure the severity of God’s judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; insomuch that, by them, a lively faith may be as evidently known, as a tree is discerned by the fruit.

“Works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ; neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the school-authors say) deserve grace of congruity; yea, rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.”

The homily referred to in the eleventh Article, under the title of The Homily of Justification, is styled, in the first Book of Homilies itself, “A sermon of the salvation of mankind, by only Christ our Saviour, from sin and death everlasting:” and this homily is described as more largely expressing the doctrine of justification than the necessary brevity of an article admitted. Therefore, obviously, the statement contained in it challenges our especial attention.

“Because all men be sinners and offenders against God, and breakers of his law and commandments; therefore can no man, by his own acts, words, 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 of 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 this justification or righteousness, which we so receive of God’s mercy and Christ’s merits, embraced by faith, is taken, accepted, and allowed, of God, for our perfect and full justification.

“The apostle toucheth specially three things, which must go together in our justification: upon God’s part, his great mercy and grace; upon Christ’s part, justice, that is, the satisfaction of God’s justice, or the price of our redemption by the offering of his body and shedding of his blood, with fulfilling of the law perfectly and thoroughly; and, upon our part, true and lively faith in the merits of Jesus Christ, which yet is not ours but by God’s working in us. So that, in our justification, there is not only God’s mercy and grace, but also his justice, which the apostle calleth the justice of God: and it consisteth, in paying our ransom, and fulfilling of the law. And so the grace of God doth not shut out the justice of God in our justification, but only shutteth out the justice of man, that is to say, the justice of our works, as to be merits of deserving our justification. And therefore St. Paul declareth nothing upon the behalf of man concerning his justification, but only a true and lively faith: which, nevertheless, is the gift of God, and not man’s only work without God. And yet that faith doth not shut out repentance, hope, love, dread, and the fear of God, to be joined with faith in every man that is justified; but it shutteth them out from the office of justifying. So that, although they be all present together in him that is justified, yet they justify not altogether. Neither doth faith shut out the justice of our good works, necessarily to be done afterwards of duty toward God; for we are most bounden to serve God, in doing good deeds, commanded by him in his Holy Scripture, all the days of our life: but it excludeth them, so that we may not do them to this intent, to be made just by doing of them. For all the good works that we can do, be imperfect; and, therefore, not able to deserve our justification. But our justification doth come freely, by the mere mercy of God, and of so great and free mercy, that, whereas all the world was not able of themselves to pay any part toward their ransom, it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite mercy, without any our desert or deserving, to prepare for us the most precious jewels of Christ’s body and blood; whereby our ransom might be fully paid, the law fulfilled, and his justice fully satisfied. So that Christ is now the righteousness of all them that truly do believe in him. He, for them, paid their ransom by his death. He, for them, fulfilled the law in his life. So that now, in him and by him, every true Christian man may be called a fulfiller of the law; forasmuch as that, which their infirmity lacked, Christ’s justice hath supplied.

“That we be justified by faith only, freely, and without works, we do read ofttimes in the best and most ancient writers: as, beside Hilary, Basil, and St. Ambrose, we read the same in Origen, St. Chrysostom, St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, Prosper, Œcumenius, Photius, Bernardus, Anselm, and many other writers, Greek and Latin. Nevertheless, this sentence, that ‘we be justified by faith only,’ is not so meant of them that the said justifying faith is alone in man, without true repentance, hope, charity, dread, and the fear of God, at any time and season. Nor, when they say, that we should be justified freely, do they mean that we should or might afterward be idle, and that nothing should be required on our parts afterward. Neither do they mean so to be justified without good works, that we should do no good works at all. But this saying, that ‘we be justified by faith only, freely, and without works,’ is spoken for to take away clearly all merit of our works, as being unable to deserve our justification at God’s hands, and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of man and the goodness of God, the great infirmity of ourselves and the might and power of God, the imperfection of our own works and the most abundant grace of our Saviour Christ; and therefore wholly to ascribe the merit and deserving of our justification unto Christ only, and his most precious blood-shedding. This faith the Holy Scripture teacheth us: this is the strong rock and foundation of the Christian religion: this doctrine all old ancient authors of Christ’s Church do approve: this doctrine advanceth and setteth forth the true glory of Christ, and beateth down the vain glory of man: this whosoever denieth, is not to be accounted for a Christian man, nor for a setter-forth of Christ’s glory, but for an adversary to Christ and his gospel, and for a setter-forth of men’s vain glory.”

The doctrine of the Church of Rome must be taken from the Council of Trent. The exposition of the Tridentine fathers, assembled in their sixth session, runs through sixteen chapters; and so extreme is its verboseness, and so perplexing is its incessant alternation, that we might be somewhat puzzled to form a distinct idea of their views in respect to justification, if the last of those chapters had not given us, in the shape of an article or summary, the result of their prolix theologising.

Omitting, then, the discussion upon which their definition is built, we will proceed immediately to the definition itself.

“Since Jesus Christ, as the head into the members and as the vine into the branches, perpetually causes his virtue to flow into the justified; which virtue always precedes and accompanies and follows their good works, and without which they would in nowise be grateful to God and meritorious; we must believe, that nothing more is wanting to the justified themselves, which need prevent us from thinking, both that they can satisfy the Divine law according to the state of this life, by those works which are performed in God; and that, in their own time, provided they depart in grace, they may truly merit the attainment of eternal life.