Bicknell on Articles XII, XIII, XIV: Of Good Works; Of Works before Justification; Of Works of Supererogation

‘works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.’ The title must give way to the text of the Article. There is abundant evidence in Scripture that God’s grace is given to men before justification. God’s grace was at work in the hearts of those who heard St. Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 287) and in the heart of St. Paul when he was converted (914). But in each case justification came later (cp 238, 91718), So, too, in the case of Cornelius, the workings of God’s grace preceded by a long interval of time his acceptance of

Christ (cp. 10? ff.). Hence works ‘done before the grace of God’ is much narrower than ‘works done before justification.’ The real difficulty of the Article lies in the addition ‘forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ.’ This seems to rule out the efforts of good and conscientious non-Christians. The only possible answer that can be given is along the lines suggested in a letter of Dr. Hort. ‘The principle underlying Article XIII seems to me to be this, that there are not two totally different modes of access to God for men, faith for Christians, meritorious performance for non-Christians. There is but one mode of access, faith ; and but one perfect, and, as it were normal faith, that which rests on the revelation in the person of Jesus Christ. But faith itself, not being an intellectual assent to propositions, but an attitude of heart and mind, is present in a more or less rudimentary

state in every upward effort and aspiration of men. Doubtless the faith of non-Christians (and much of the faith of Christians, for that matter) is not in the strict sense “‘ faith in Jesus Christ’; and therefore I wish the Article were otherwise worded. But such faith, when ripened, grows into the faith of Jesus Christ; as also it finds its rational justi- fication in the revelation made through Him. Practically the principle of the Article teaches us to regard all the good there is in the world as what one may call imperfect Christianity, not as something essentially different, requiring, so to speak, to be dealt with by God in a wholly different manner.’—(Life and Letters, vol. 2, p. 337.)

Of Works of Swpererogation.

Voluntary Works besides, over and akove God’s com- mandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, can- not be taught without arro- gancy and impiety. For by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required ; whereas Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We be unprofitable servants.

Almost unchanged since 1553.

De operibus supererogationis.

Opera quae supererogationis appellant, non possunt sine arrogantia et impietate praedi- cati. Nam illis declarant ho- mines, non tantum se Deo reddere, quae tenentur, sed plus in ejus gratiam facere, quam deberent, cum aperte Christus dicat ; Cum feceritis omnia quaecunque praecepta sunt vobis, dicite, Servi inu- tiles sumus.

Object : to condemn ‘ works of supererogation.’

§ 2. Sanctification.

(a) In our Articles there is no direct teaching on Sanctification. There is no mention of the continuous work of the Holy Spirit in us after justification nor of the practical holiness of life that God requires. So the doctrine of justification is left unfinished. Art. XII comes nearest to any teaching on this subject, and Arts. XIII and XIV deal with certain difficulties connected

with it.

God’s ideal for us is absolute holiness. ‘ Ye shall be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt.548R.V.). Nothing short of that is the object of Christ’s redemption. While we are justified by faith at the beginning of our Christian life, we shall be judged by our works at the end (2 Cor. 519, etc.). Good works are the necessary fruit of that life lived in union with God of which justification is the initial act (cp. Mt. 7!*89 etc.). If faith is all that St. Paul means by it, it must expand into action. A man who has accepted forgiveness through Christ, out of very gratitude to His Saviour, must try to serve Him and by serving Him to become like Him. We are to ‘follow after… the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord ’ (Heb. 1214). Justification apart from sanctification remains incomplete. Any teaching on the Atonement that regards it merely as a work wrought by Christ outside ourselves is grievously inadequate. Nothing has caused more misunderstanding about this doctrine than the neglect in popular preaching of the truth of our union with Christ and the resulting work of His Holy Spirit within ourselves, as an essential part of His Atonement. As the hymn says ‘ He died that we might be forgiven,’ but it goes on to add “He died to make us good.’ The latter is as essential as the former. Christ did not die only to save us from the punishment of sin, but from sin itself. He came to deliver us from the weak- ness of our fallen nature and from slavery to bad habits. He is the source of new life. Through the Holy Spirit He imparts to us His own perfect human nature—that perfect humanity which He built up by His life of obedience and consummated by His death. The will of God is our sanctification (1 Thess. 418), the complete subjection of all our powers of will and heart and mind to God’s Holy Spirit.

Accordingly, in our Christian life everything turns upon our realizing our membership with Christ, on our self-identification with Him. We are to do all things ‘in Christ.’ Our growth in holiness may be called equally either the work of Christ or of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit did not come to take the place of an absent Christ, but in His coming Christ Himself comes too. ‘Iwill pray the Father and he shall give vou another Advocate that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth… . I will not leave you desolate, I come unto you’ (Jn. 1416-19), Tt is through the Spirit that the Ascended Lord dwells

in the Church and operates in believers (Ro. 8”). The gift of the Holy Spirit is the seal of membership in Christ and acceptanc2 by God (Eph. 1”, 4°°, etc.). The presence of the Spirit is the presence of Christ (cp. 2 Cor. 31718), ‘We know that he (7.e. Christ) abideth in us by the Spirit which he gave us ’ (1 Jn. 3%). It is through the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that the Atonement is to be not an act outside our- selves, but a real transforming of our personality within. ‘Calvary without Pentecost is not yet Calvary in vital relation to ourselves.’ We may view the work of the Holy Spirit within us in two ways.

(i) Through Him we daily die to sin. The whole life of Christ was a dying to sin: this attitude to sin was perfected and con- summated on the Cross. By that death He revealed and iden- tified Himself with the mind of God towards sin. His whole attitude to sin was the perfection of that attitude to sin which God requires in us. Only the sinless can have a perfect anta- gonism to and hatred of sin. Every sin that we commit blunts our capacity for seeing sin in its true light and hating it as we ought. Our sins become a part of ourselves. It is ‘I’ who chose and enjoyed the thing that was evil and there still remains in me the latent capacity of enjoying the evil thing. The Cross of Christ stands for that utter abhorrence of and resistance to sin which God requires in us, but to which we cannot attain. Our penitence in order to be perfect must rest upon and include such a complete antagonism tosin.* That is just what we cannot achieve. So we reach the position, that God requires of sinners true penitence, and just because we are sinners we are incapable of true penitence. Here we need the power of the Holy Spirit. He brings into our life a new capacity for penitence. Through the Holy Spirit we are to die to sin. Oursinful selfis to be done to death. St. Paul speaks of us as crucified with Christ. ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ (Gal. 22°). As members of Christ we share His Cross. ‘Our old man was crucified with him’ (Ro. 6°). Through the Cross of Christ ‘the world has been

• Dr. Moberly speaks of Christ as ‘the perfect penitent,’ i.e. as realizing that attitude towards sin which in us would be penitence. He maintains that only the sinless can be perfectly penitent. The difficulty in this use of the term is that ‘penitence’ in ordinary usage implies the sense of personal

responsibility for sins committed. See, however, W. H. Moberly’s Hssay in Foundations,

crucified unto me and I unto the world.’ ‘They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof’ (Gal. 614, 5%). Crucifixion is a slow and painful process. Our old sin-loving self was, so to speak, nailed to the Cross when we first believed in Christ and accepted Him as our Saviour. But it is not yet dead, and like a crucified man will take a long time to die. But its death is assured, so long as we do not take it down. Christ has nailed it to the Cross and it cannot survive. So through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit our old self is slowly being crucified or done to death. We are “becoming conformed unto his death’ (Phil. 31°). Christ’s attitude to sin is being made our own, we are learning to hate sin as He hated it. We look forward to the day when the old self will be actually dead, slain by the power of the Cross of Christ infused into us through the Holy Spirit and made our own.

(ii) But there is also the positive side. It is not enough to be perfected in penitence, to grow into the mind of Christ towards sin. We must also be perfected in holiness. As the old self dies, the new self—the Christ-self—is being built up. We are not only to die with Christ but also to rise with Him (cp. the whole passage, Ro. 641). We are to realize in ourselves ‘the power of His Resurrection ’ (Phil. 31°). The death of Christ was the consummation of His filial obedience to the Father. He ‘Through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish unto God ’ (Heb. 914). All through His earthly life by repeated and unfailing acts of obedience and right choice He had built up a perfect human character. He had grown ‘in favour with God ’ (Lk. 2°). ‘Though he was a Son,’ yet He ‘learned obedi- ence by the things which he suffered.’ That is, as His life con- tinued, new opportunities were given and new temptatioas overcome. He was ever learning the fulness of perfect obedience (Heb. 5* 1°, cp. 108 1°). On the evening of His Passion He could say ‘I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which thou hast given me to do’ (Jn. 174). The Cross represented the climax of human obedience, the utter submission to the Father’s will, the complete surrender of self. ‘He hum- bled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross ’ (Phil. 28). So through the Holy Spirit we are to be built up into the likeness of His perfect obedience. Christ is to be found in us. We are to learn to say with St. Paul ‘I

have been crucified with Christ ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me’ (Gal. 22°). When sanctification is complete, the old self will be dead and the new man will be found in the image of Christ (Ro. 879). We shall have become our true selves in Christ. The secret of the Christian life is ‘Christ in you the hope of glory ’ (Col. 127).

As we have seen, God does not wait until this has been accom- plished. He accepts us here and now.. But so long as our union with Christ is maintained, the end is certain. Seeing that it is God ‘ which began a good work’ in us, we may be confident that He ‘ will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ ’ (Phil. 1°). Hence St. Paul can look forward and speak in anticipation of it as already accomplished. Thus he can write, ‘If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things are passed away ; behold they are become new ’ (2 Cor. 51”), though it is clear that in actual fact a great deal of the old man was still left in the Christians of Corinth. So, too, in Col. 314 he tells the Colossians in the same breath ‘ ye died and your life is hid with Christ in God,’ and also that, as having been raised with Christ, ‘ they must seek those things that are above.’ So in Eph. 1° God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.’ That is to say, God views us and we are to view ourselves as identical with the perfected saints that we hope one day to become.

On Salvation, see Du Bose, Soteriology of N.T. c. i.

(b) We have already seen that ‘ good works ’ are the necessary fruit of a lively faith.’ As representing our best efforts to please, God accepts them through Christ. The kindness of the Pbilip- pians to St. Paul is ‘ an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice accept- able, well-pleasing to God’ (Phil. 418). We are ‘created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them ’ (Eph. 27°). Titus is bidden to show himself “an ensample of good works’ (Tit. 2”). St. Paul always appeals to the common-sense of his converts against the perversion of his teaching known as ‘antinomianism,’ that is, the doctrine that since our salvation from first to last depends on the grace of God, we need make no effort to observe the moral law. ‘The more that we sin, the more opportunity for the grace of God to forgive’ (cp. Ro. 61ff.). This error reappeared at the Reformation.

Our Article employs needlessly harsh language about good works. It may be perfectly true in the abstract 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.’ Since we are imperfect, our noblest actions bear the mark of our imperfection. As being tainted by sin they cannot endure the judgment of an all-holy God (Ro. 378, cp. Is. 648). But religion is a personal matter. God is our Father. To use the best illustration, the presents that a small child brings to his parent may be intrinsically worthless, but are very precious to the parent as tokens of the child’s wish to please him. So our good works may be full of imperfection but yet acceptable to God as an expression of our desire to serve Him. Of course they cannot earn or deserve our forgiveness.

(c) As we saw, our salvation can only be realized by the co- operation of our wills with the grace of God. Our own effort, therefore, plays a real part in obtaining it. Further, all salvation is social. The right use of grace benefits not only the user but his fellowmen. The saint saves not only his own soul but for- wards God’s purpose for mankind. Under God he is a real means of saving others. Humanly speaking, if he had failed to do his part, not only he but others would have suffered loss. Hence, from one point of view, salvation is acquired as the result of ‘ good works ’ and holy living, in the sense that without them it would not have been acquired. The Church, as a whole, has won through the labours of the saints blessings that without them she would never have enjoyed. This truth is fully recog- nized in Scripture. The welfare of one member of Christ affects all the members (1 Cor. 1276 ep. Ro. 12°). It is the supplication of a ‘righteous ’ man that avails much (Jas. 516). St. Paul speaks of his work and sufferings as being endured for the salvation of others (2 Cor. 18, cp. 12%, Eph. 318, 2 Tim. 21°). Further, in Col. 1% he writes, ‘I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the church.’ These words mean more than that he suffers as Christ suftered, or,even that Christ in a real sense suffers in His members’ sufferings on earth (cp. Phil. 34° and 2 Cor. 15). They mean what they say. St. Paul asserts that his own sufferings have a real place in affecting the salvation of the world, In the case of the individual,

Christ’s sufferings need to be filled up by our own self-identifica- tion with them (cp. 1 Pet. 41 with Bigg’s note). We must take up our Cross and be crucified with Him. So in the case of the world, Christ’s sufferings need to be filled up by the sufferings of His members. As Christians can forward the salvation of others by their intercessions, so they can by their sufferings.* As prayer for another is no substitute for his own personal faith and repentance, but rather a means of forwarding them, so the sufferings of the saints are not a substitute for the penitence of sinners, but a means through which such penitence may be brought about. There is such a thing as vicarious suffering, but never vicarious sanctification. But without vicarious suffering there would be little sanctification in the world. It is these two truths, first, that our sanctification demands our own effort, secondly, that by our efforts we can help forward the sanctification of others, that, however distorted, underlie the whole doctrine of merit as held in mediaeval times, and attacked in Articles

(i) The idea of ‘ merit ’ is found quite early in the writings of Tertullian.t He taught first that a man could ‘satisfy ’ God by doing what he knew to be His will and by not doing what God has forbidden, or, in the case of falling into sin, by voluntarily taking upon himself an equivalent amount of punishment. In this latter case the ‘satisfaction ’ may be attamed by alms, fasting, or the like, and above al! by martyrdom. Such suffering is of the nature of an expiatory sacrifice. It balances the debt due to God. Further, if this suffering exceeds the amount required, the superfluity counts as ‘merit.’ It is reckoned as a ‘ good work ’ and so to say places God in our debt. Secondly, he taught that in many matters God has left man free to choose between a higher and a lower course. No man may do what God has for- bidden, but if he takes advantage of God’s permission to follow his natural inclinations he does not commit sin. If, on the

• See Bethune Baker, Christian Doctrine, pp. 353-355.

other hand, he does not take advantage of God’s permission and takes the highest course of all—what God wills, instead of what God merely allows—then he earns merit in the sight of God. This teaching was carried a step further by Cyprian. He held that in certain cases it is possible to acquire an amount of merit more than sufficient to deserve even the highest reward of heaven. In that case the surplus may be passed on to benefit others, through an act of God’s grace done in answer to the prayers of the saint, though the benefit is always conditioned by the state of the recipient. In these ideas we have in germ the mediaeval teaching on merit, on works of supererogation and on indulgences.

(ii) In mediaeval times it had come to be accepted that in some sense good works carried ‘merit’: further, that the merits of the saints were available to make up the deficiencies of others. This being the current belief and practice of the Church, the duty was laid upon the Schoolmen or School-authors mentioned in Art. XIII, to place the whole system on a rational basis. The Schoolmen were the systematic theologians of the middle ages.* Their object was with the aid of the newly discovered philosophy of Aristotle to reconcile faith and reason. Taking the doctrine and discipline of the Church as they found them, without questioning their origin or validity, they strove to present them as a symmetrical whole, agreeable to reason no less than to faith. Their task was not criticism nor the discovery of new truth, but the harmonization of the old. Their achievement took the form of ‘sums of theology,’ weaving into a consistent and orderly system, complete even in the minutest detail, all that the Church had seen fit to say or to do.t

The Schoolmen explained the idea of merit by a distinction. They argued that the case of Cornelius showed that human

• The Schoolmen were the successors of the Fathers. Usually St. Bernard (d. 1115) is styled the last of the Fathers and St. Anselm (d. 1109) the first of the Schoolmen. The change of name marks a very real change of aim. ‘ Doctores they claimed to be, not Patres; not, as fathers, productive ; not professing to bring out of their treasures things new, but only to justify and establish things old.’ See Trench, Mediaeval Church History, Lect. XIV.

• The most famous is the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas (1270), still the standard work of theology on the whole in the Roman Church. Scarcely less famous in their day were the writings of Albertus Magnus (1280), Bonaventura (1274) and later William of Occam and Duns Scotus.

S

free-will could go a certain way in its own strength in turning towards God. Such an effort done by man’s unaided power did not indeed deserve a reward, but it was fitting that God’s liberality should reward it. In technical language it earned merit not as a matter of debt, but ‘of congruity ’ (de congruo), z.e. ‘of fitness.’ This is repudiated in Art. XITI. On the other hand, good works done by the aid of grace deserved a reward. They earned merit ‘de condigno,’ as a matter of debt.* This is attacked in Art. XII.

Before we criticize the whole idea of merit, it is only fair to remember that the scholastic doctrine of merit can only be fully understood and judged as a part of a very complex and intricate system of theology. It is there balanced by statements of a very different nature. But popular religion is unable to make subtle distinctions. What is attacked in our Articles is the use made of the scholastic teaching in popular religion.

The mediaeval idea of merit is abstract and artificial. Our Lord in His teaching no doubt uses current Jewish language about the rewards given by God to those who serve Him. But in so doing He transforms the whole idea of reward. It becomes qualitative rather than quantitative. ‘Since opportunities are a divine gift (Mt. 25”), service is a mere duty which cannot merit reward (Lk. 17°ff.). Reward, therefore, becomes free undeserved grace and is pictured as great out of all proportion to the service rendered (Mt. 19?°, 2447, 2571, etc.). This teaching really eliminates the idea of reward altogether.’ In other words the reward is not something external that can be abstracted from the man who receives it. It is primarily an inward quicken- ing of soul, a new capacity for service and a closer union with God. Further, the whole idea of ‘merit,’ in the sense of running up a debtor and creditor account with God, is utterly un-Christian. ‘Merit lives from man to man, and not from man, O God, to Thee.’ For our whole life, for every power that we possess as well as for every opportunity of exercising it, we are utterly depen- dent upon God. He has an absolute claim upon all our life. Nothing that we can do can give us a claim against Him. Hence

• We may compare the illustration that is often given. ‘ A servant deserves his wages ex condigno: he may deserve support in sickness or old age ex con- gruo.

• McNeile on Mt. 5”: The whole note deserves reading in this connexion.

not only is the ‘ reward ’ that we receive from Him non-transfer- able, but from the nature of the case even the holiest saint can never possess any ‘merit’ that belongs to him, as it were, in his own right and can be transferred to another’s account. Our personal relationship to our Heavenly Father cannot be expressed in terms of arithmetic.

The theory of congruous merit attacked in Art. XIII does indeed represent in a distorted form the great truth that any effort that we make will be met by God with an ever-increasing supply of grace. It is most surely congruous with the character of God to bestow more abundant grace on those who are unconsciously striving to serve and know Him. But this, like all God’s gifts, is freely given. His grace is so magnificent a gift that we could never deserve it by the excellence of our own efforts. Further, the scholastic theory is frankly semi-Pelagian. It denies the need of prevenient grace. This is illustrated by the case of Cornelius. His prayers and alms were certainly good works done before justification. But equally certainly they were not done apart from God’s grace. From first to last his salvation was due to divine grace. The whole idea of having to earn God’s grace by making a good start in our own strength flatly contradicts St. Paul’s teaching on Abraham (io.4 4 cp, 9M”),

So, too, with the idea of ‘merit de condigno.’ As we saw above, even our best efforts come far short of perfection. They cannot ‘deserve’ or ‘earn’ our acceptance or anything else. At the same time, it is true at all times that the more fully we respond to God’s calls, the more grace He bestows. But the right to expect this grace depends on the unfailing generosity of God, not on any excellence residing in our own works.

At the Council of Trent the phrases ‘merit de congruo’ and ‘merit de condigno’ were entirely avoided. The need of pre- venient grace was clearly asserted. On the other hand, the asser- tion that ‘all works done before justification … are truly sins or deserved the hatred of God’ was anathematized : an obvious and not undeserved rebuke to our Article. Still the idea of ‘merit ’ was retained, and to-day, in spite of the balanced state- ments of her theologians, the Church of Rome in her ordinary teaching and practice never seems able to get away from the idea of accumulating merit by good works. There are large

portions of St. Paul’s Epistles which find no place in her teaching. On this point her teaching is un-Catholic. Popular Protestant- ism, with its insistence—often exaggerated insistence—on the freeness of God’s salvation, bears witness to a portion of Catholic truth that Rome ignores.

(iii) In close dependence on mediaeval views about merit came the idea of ‘ works of supererogation,’ * 7.e. ‘ voluntary works over and above God’s commandments.’ We have seen that as early as Tertullian a distinction was drawn between what God ‘permits’ and what God ‘wills.’ It is not sin to do what God permits, but it is meritorious to do what God wills. In defence of this distinction the chief passage alleged is 1 Cor. 7. Here St. Paul permits marriage, but ‘ by reason of the present distress,’ encourages celibacy. ‘ Concerning virgins I have no command- ment (praeceptum) of the Lord, but I give my judgment (con- silium)’ (cp. also 2 Cor. 88 @“4 1°, where we find a similar contrast between ‘commandment’ and ‘judgment ’). On the basis of this text a formal distinction was made between ‘ precepts ’ and ‘counsels.’ ‘ Precepts’ were commands of God binding upon all men which it was sin to disobey. ‘Counsels’ or ‘ Counsels of perfection ’ were, as it were, recommendations, which it was not necessary for a Christian to follow. Such refusal was not sinful. Such ‘counsels’ would include poverty, celibacy, the monastic life and the like. The performance of these, as being

Notes

• Bp. Lightfoot, in his note on Col. 1*, distinguishes between Christ’s sufferings as ‘ satisfactoriae’ and as ‘aedificatoriae. He maintains that we fill up the sufferings of Christ merely in forwarding His Kingdom, not in anysense in making atonement. Such a distinction is quite arbitrary and implies a view of the atonement as a transaction effected entirely outside human life. Cp. Chandler, Cult of the Passing Moment, p. 106 ff.