and thus slipping into the gulf of Pantheism in backing away from imaginary Impiety and Presumption? Even if with Luther we call Christ the form of our faith, and hence the formal cause of our salvation, still there must be that in our very selves which at least negatively secures our union with him; to that we must come at last as the personal sine qua non of justification, whether we call it the proximate cause, or interpose another (the Holy Ghost dwelling in our hearts by faith), betwixt ourselves and heaven. The Anglican may call our holiness inchoate and imperfect, and may insist that only as sanctified and completed by Christ's merits is it even the conditional cause of salvation; still this holiness, if it connects us with the Saviour or precludes the impediment to such connection is, in one sense, complete and perfect, for it does this all-important work perfectly; it is no slight matter, for it is all the difference between salvation and perdition, as being indispensable to our gaining the first and escaping the last. Now in what other sense can the Romanist imagine that our holiness is perfect and complete? Does he think that it is perfect as God is perfect, or that it is more than a beginning even in reference to that purity which human nature may finally attain when freed from a temptable body and the clog of the flesh ?*

I am even bold enough to say, after all South's valiant feats against the windmill giant, Human Merit, that the dispute on this subject seems to me a mere dispute about words. That in us which even negatively (by preventing the prevention of it), unites us with Christ, may be said to deserve Christ, and hence to be unspeakably meritorious. The Romanist has declared that all the merit of procuring salvation is in Christ-surely then he only leaves to man-what no man should seek to deprive him of, the being rendered by the Holy Spirit a meet receptacle and worthy dwelling-place for Itself. As for grace of congruity and condignity—our Lord says that he who hath to him shall be given-does not this imply that he who hath grace deserves more, that it is due to his internal condition raised and purified by the Holy Spirit? Or does this notion really interfere with

* To call our inherent righteousness inchoate in reference to the power of justifying would be incorrect, would it not?—for it is the beginning and end of what we contribute toward our salvation, and certainly not the commencement of what is done for us.

the Scriptural truth, that we are unprofitable servants, and in our best performances can do no more than we are bound to do?* Is it essential to the idea of deserving reward, that he who deserves should be the original author and source of the services by which he deserves it? If it be, then the language of the Council of Trent is incorrect; but its doctrine is not incorrect, because the very same sentence which affirms the good works of the justified to be merits declares them previously to be gifts of God. Very indefensible is the next sentence which anathematizes him who calls them only signs of justification obtained and fears to add that they are merits.

The Tridentine and the Anglican statements of Justification

My Father says, "I am persuaded, that the practice of the Romish Church tendeth to make vain the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ alone; but judging by her most eminent divines I can find nothing dissonant from the truth in her express decisions on this article. Perhaps it would be safer to say:-Christ alone saves us, working in us by the faith which includes love and hope." "I neither do nor can think, that any pious member of the Church of Rome did ever in his heart attribute any merit to any work as being his work. A grievous error and a mischievous error there was practically in mooting the question at all of the condignity of works and their rewards." Remains, V. pp. 49, 50.

Canons 24 and 32 of the 6th Session of the Council of Trent are given in a note at the foot of the page to be compared with this opinion. I think there is no harm in them; they affirm that the good works of the justified are both gifts of God and merits of the justified person himself, that they deserve increase of grace and eternal life. Now in the only sense in which a believer in the primary merits of Christ can mean to affirm this I do not see how any rational Christian can deny it. There is a notion connected with this subject, which is taught not only in the Romish schools, but I grieve to say in some of our own schools too of late years, which does seem to me both presumptuous and unscriptural; I mean the notion, that a man can do more in the way of good works and saintliness than he is bound to do as a Christian,— —or at least that there is a kind and degree of holiness which some men may and ought to seek and obtain, which the generality of the faithful can not attain and ought not to strive after. This seems to me both false and fraught with corruptive consequences to religion. When Peter said to Ananias respecting his land, was it not thine own—in thine own power ?—he surely did not mean that in offering it Ananias did more than he was bound to do, as a Christian before God, but only that, as he was not compelled to surrender it by any outward force or authority, his pretending to give and yet not giving the whole of it, was a gratuitous piece of hypocrisy-something worse than a simple falsehood extorted by fear

are tantamount to each other,—may be resolved into each other; but there is a third way of stating the matter-between this and the other two there is perhaps a logical, though, I believe, no practical difference whatever. I allude to the notion of Luther that faith alone is that in us which connects us with Christ, and consequently is our sole personal righteousness (or that which entitles us to freedom from the penal consequences of sin); that faith justifies (in this conditional and instrumental way) in its own right, not as informed with or accompanied by or productive of love and works, but as apprehending Christ. Luther maintained that faith, although it is righteous and the necessary parent of righteous works, justifies only in bringing Christ to dwell in the heart,* and that the righteousness which flows from this inhabitation, is not our justification but the fruit of it, or in other words that faith not love is the justifying principle. Now I think it is a notable fact in favor of my Father's opinion that these different views are all but different aspects of the same truth, and are not substantially different one from another, that Mr. Newman's splendid work on justification, which is generally considered by the High Anglican party as an utter demolition of Luther's teaching in the Commentary, and perhaps was intended to be so, is, in fact, a tacit establishment of it, or at least of its most important position; since on this cardinal point, this hinge of the question, whether faith justifies alone, as uniting us with Christ, or as informed with love and works, and as itself a work and a part of Christian holiness,―he decides with Luther, not with Tridentines or High Anglicans. For he expressly states that Faith does in one sense (the sense of uniting us with Christ, which is the same as Luther's sense), justify alone; that it is the "only inward instrument" of justification; that, as such inward instrument, it is one certain property, act, or habit of the mind, distinct from love and other graces, not a mere name for them all; that there is "a certain extraordinary and singular sympathy between Faith and the grant of Gospel privileges, such as to constitute it, in a true sense, an instrument of it, that is of justification,

* Galatians ii. 3.

Lecture X. throughout p. 256-287.

Ib. pp. 258-9-" When it (faith) is called the sole instrument of justification it must stand in contrast to them (trust, hope, etc.), and be contemplated in itself, as being one certain property, habit, or act of the mind.”

which includes them all:" that "it alone coalesces with the sacraments, &c., and through them unites the soul to God."* Further he identifies his doctrine with that of our Homilies which declares that repentance, hope, love and the fear of God are shut out from the office of justifying. It seems as if, while he contended against Luther, the Lutheran doctrine laid hold of him, and held him and would not let him go, till it brought him home to its own habitation.

Surely after all this Mr. Newman's apparent hostility to Luther, in the matter of justification, is a mere shadow-fight. He may dislike his tone and language, and disapprove some subordinate parts of his view, either as false or half true, but on the main point he has adopted the Reformer's doctrine; and his new Harmonia, which was to be the ruin of solifidianism, is solifidian itself, in the only sense in which any systematic divine ever was So, It is true that, while thus embracing Luther, unwillingly, he tries to fling the old giant away from him, by declaring that he holds an antecedent external instrument, even Baptism; that Baptism gives to faith all its justifying power. But this does not in reality separate him one hair's-breadth from his unhonored master. Luther held the doctrine of regeneration in baptism as well as himself; he bids men cling fast to their baptism, recur to it as to a ground of confidence, and in the comment on verse 27 of chapter iii. of Galatians, he speaks of the "majesty of baptism" as highly as the Highest Churchman could speak of it, at the same time observing "these things I have handled more largely in another place, therefore I pass them over briefly here."‡ Luther * Ib. pp. 58-9, 270-71, 286, 333.

+ Sermon of Salvation, Part i.

Luther received baptismal regeneration as it had been handed down to him; he taught that "the renewing of the inward man is done in baptism." Would that he had been a reformer in this article also-had renewed the form of the doctrine, while he maintained its life and substance !—then probably disbelievers in "baptismal transubstantiation" would not have been disquieted by the wording of our Liturgy. Dr. Pusey did once cite Luther in his Scriptural Views, p. 28, as a witness to the true doctrine of regeneration in baptism; why is not this remembered by writers of Dr. Pusey's school when Luther's doctrine of justification is under review?

Luther taught indeed that men are born again of the Word of God, that the Holy Ghost changes the heart and mind by faith in or through the hearing of the external word; but if the sayings of St. Peter and St. Paul and St. James, affirming the same thing, can be reconciled with inward re

believed in baptismal regeneration and must therefore have believed that every spiritual principle in the soul was derived from it he taught that faith was the work of the Spirit and that the Spirit was given in baptism: his solifidianism is not incompatible with a sound belief on that subject, unless Mr. Newman's is so too, for they are one and the same.

What Luther fought against was not an external instrument of salvation preceding actual faith and producing it: he saw no harm in that notion; what he fought against with all his heart and soul and strength, was justification by charity and the deeds of charity, or what is commonly called a good life. He saw that practically salvation was given to outward works and money gifts, which might proceed from evil men, while, in theory, it was ascribed to love and the works of the Spirit. He thought to preclude this abuse and establish Scripture at the same time by declaring faith alone the means of salvation, and good works the necessary offspring of faith in the heart. And how could such a doctrine encourage Antinomianism, for is it not plain, that if good works flow necessarily from saving faith, where the works are not good, the mind whence they spring can not have saving faith? This Luther expressly states. "Whoso obeyeth the flesh," says he, "and continueth without any fear of God or remorse of conscience in accomplishing the desires and lusts thereof, let him know that he pertaineth not unto Christ." The whole strain of his commentary on chapters v. and vi. of Galatians is an utter shattering of Antinomianism, which indeed is precluded by the doctrine of the commentary from beginning to end. In one respect a Solifidian like Luther is a more effectual opponent to Antinomians than a teacher of justification by faith and works, because he more completely wrests out of their hands those sayings of St. Paul which seem to deny that works of any sort do in any sense justify.-But it is an insult to the apostolic man's memory to defend him from the charge of Antinomianism. He knocked down with his little finger more Antinomianism than his accusers with both hands. If his doctrine is the jaw-bone of

newal in baptism, so can Luther's, for he went not beyond Scripture on this point. There are certainly comings of the Holy Spirit spoken of in the N. T. unconnected with baptism. See among other places John xiv. 23. * Burnet urges this plea for solifidians, though not one himself. + Commentary on Galatians, chap. v. verse 18.