Forbes on Article XII: Of Good Works

Tins Article is a protest against the opinion of Luther, that every so-called good work of man, is, when con sidered in itself, an act of sin, though by reason of faith it is remitted to him a ; that of Melatichthon, that all our works, all our endeavours, are nothing but sinb; and finally, that of Calvin c, who states the same, only in milder language. On the other hand, it asserts that

c Calv. Inst, in edit., lib. ii. c. 8, § 59 ; lib. iii. c. 4, § 28.

they cannot take the place of Christ in putting away or expiating our sins, neither can they endure the severity of God’s judgment.

1. First, then, good works are the fruits of faith. This follows from what was said before, that faith is the beginning, and root, and foundation of all our justification. Faith being the beginning of the spiri tual life, good works must of course spring out of it. When the child is baptized it seeketh from the Church faith, and then and there receives the graces necessary to act rightly. Faith is the root of good works, in that the root and the rest of the tree being of the same sub stance, these two are in fact one, different expressions of the same habit of soul : the living faith is the good work still silently shut up in the soul, and the good Christian work is nothing other than the faith brought to light. Hence in Holy Scripture salvation is attri buted sometimes to work, sometimes to faith. Lastly, it is the foundation, for faith comes first in the order of intellectual conception, and the moral work rests on the intellectual ; for before a man can come to God — and so much the more, before a man can follow out the con sequences of that coining to God — he must be con vinced of His existence, and of the other truths with regard to Himself which He has graciously revealed.

2. Next, it is said that good works follow after justi fication. This proposition is self-evident, if we consider what has been said on this subject under the preceding Article. The state of light and grace, which is the justified state, will be one of actions done in union with

Jesus Christ, into whose fellowship we are already entered. Nay, the good works will become the mea sures, as well as the promoters of the necessary justi fication, according as it is written, “He that is holy, let him be holy still.”

The Latin version here indicates that the Article follows the mind of St. Augustine. The expression “follow after justification” is rendered “justificatos se- quuntur,” and evidently refers to the celebrated passage in the DC Fide et Operibus of that Father, ” Good works follow a justified person, but do not go before in one about to be justified” (sequl justificatum non autcm pr&cedere justificandum d) ; a passage which has been much misunderstood, for the Saint is here speaking of works of righteousness, which, <e after the faith has been received and professed,” are henceforth to bo per formed ; or of those works which are performed by habitual righteousness, i.e. which are implied in the act of justification, and so are inherent and habitual : not of those good works which, through the assisting or pre paring grace of the Holy Ghost, dispose to justification.

and terrible sins, will allow no such thoughts to enter his soul. His sense of the offence to God is too great to think that he may thus destroy his guilt ; but this passage must by no means be taken to exclude the ne cessity of penitential acts whereby, when forgiven, we would seek to discipline ourselves after sin, whereby we would seek to shew to Almighty God that we would, if we could, by a holy revenge, undo the hated past.

Good works cannot put away sin. ” One must dis tinguish first in what state the works are done, whether in a state of mortal sin, or in a state of grace ; and so one must distinguish in ’ putting away/ whether it- refer to cuJpa or pce/ia.”

” We say, then, 1st. That none of our works can put away sin quoad cuJpam, because if they are done in mor tal sin they do not satisfy God for the offence against Him ; and if they are done in the state of grace, that state of grace implies the abolition of the offc-ma and the riffyfff by the divine aid, from the satisfaction of Christ, who satisfied for the offences whereby we offend God, by offering up His own Life on the altar of the Cross.

” Secondly, we say, that no works of ours done in mortal sin are satisfactory to God for the pcena due to our sins, even those already absolved in the Sacrament of Penance; because when a sin is remitted by God, so far as the offence is concerned, the sinner, from an enemy, becomes the friend of God, and therefore is 110 longer to be punished as an enemy, i.e. eternally : yet if the measure of grace bestowed to any so meriting, as that with the remission of the c/tfpa there is not full

remission of the pcena, the sinner remains bound as .a friend to pay the rest of the pcena; and if he falls into sin again, and becomes again the enemy of God, before he have paid the penalty of that relapse, his works are works in a hostile state, he cannot pay as a friend, and therefore cannot satisfy for that pcena.

” Thirdly, we say, the work of our persevering in the friendship of God, has no impediment in the way of satisfying for that residuum of pcena. In this the Lutherans err doubly, 1. in teaching that when sin is remitted quoad qffemamii is remitted also quoad pacnam, in the teeth of the example of David. 2. They take away from the works of the living members of Christ any power that may satisfy for pcena not yet remitted. For this were to contradict the power of Christ the Head in us : for I satisfy, yet not I, but Christ satis- fieth in me. It were also to contradict the practice of the Church which is used to impose salutary satisfac tions, by the ministry of priests, on those who, being truly penitents, have confessed their sins c.”

4. An extreme school of the Reformers held that oven the most excellent acts of the just are defiled with sin, and are of themselves worth}^ of eternal death, although done by the grace of Christ. Every work of ours is an abomination. The expression of the filthy rags in Isaiah Ixiv. 6, (in which the Jewish Church, polluted by idolatry and apostasy, complains mournfully of the severity of the punishments laid on her, and, confessing her sins, alludes to the things

e Cajetan, Opmcula, torn, iii. p. 169. Antwerp, 1012.

192 ART1CLK XII.

she had done during her public alienation from God,) was applied by them to the actions of the holiest of Christians.

This dogmatic use of the text is, of course, wholly independent of a pious employment of it, made, at all times, by holy souls, who in sight of the Infinite holiness of God and their own coming short of their own ideal of what is due from the creature to the Creator, have not found words strong enough to ex press their own sense of unworthiness.

This opinion of the Reformers as above stated, is opposed to Scripture, to tradition, to right reason. In the Word of God, the works of the just are called ” goods ;” ” works of […] sacrifices acceptable and well-pleasing to […] and they who here have lived holily, are said to have done ” works of righteousness, and kept their garments undefiled : ;” also, to those who walk aright is promised a great reward, ” both in this world, and in that which is to comem;” and St. James says, “In many things we all offend ”,” therefore not in all things.

So even those Fathers, who are most opposed to Pelagius, though they denied that a just man would entirely avoid all sin for his whole life, or even for a long portion of his life, yet granted that the just could do so, at least for a short time.

Lastly, in view of right reason. Can anything be

f St. Matt. v. 16. e Eph. v. 8, 9. h Phil. iv. 18; comp.

Heb. xiii. 16. * Rev. vii. 13. k Rev. xix. 8. l Rev. ii. 4, iii. 4. ro 1 Tim. iv. 8; comp. St. Matt. v. 12. ” St. James iii. 2.

so despiteful to the grace of Christ, which has freed us not only from liability to punishment for our innate corruption, but from the dominion of it ? Certainly those who maintain this opinion,, although they seem to themselves to extol God’s mercy and grace, do, in fact, though unwittingly, exalt the strength of the old Adam, and of indwelling sin more.

We of the Church of England content ourselves with the affirmation that none of our works can endure the screrift/ of the judgment of God. It is enough that they can endure God’s judgment, as tempered with grace and mercy on account of Christ ; but we are not so ungrateful or unjust to that grace, as to assert that nothing whatever can here be performed by us through its strength, which is in view of human frailty not in some way defiled by sin °.

If God should strictly judge our works, they might be said to be vices, and our just works to be unjust ; because many things which are now just, good, and meritorious, would be truly vices, and bad, and unjust, if they were brought to the standard of that sanctity and purity wherewith we ought to serve God, and which God might rigorously exact from us, as well on account of His own goodness, as on account of the excellent benefits He has conferred upon us. For not only is it true that the life of every one of the just is denied by many venial sins, but also the very works of the perfect fall very far short of that goodness wherewith we ought to worship, praise, and honour 0 Forbesii Cousid., vol. i. p. 407.

God ; for they are joined during this life to much, imperfection, nor are they so pure, holy, or fervent, as the greatness of the divine goodness towards us re quires. And whereas God, on account of His exceed ing kindness and graciousness towards us, does not at present impute to us these defects and imperfections even as a venial fault, yet He might reckon them as u fault if He willed to treat us strictly, and apart from. His graciousness and benignity p.

While it was right to re-assert the existence of the divine work in the justification of man, and that in one sense eternal life is emphatically the free gift of God, it cannot be doubted that some of the Reformers ran into extremes on the want of value of man’s part in the mighty co-operation with the grace of God in making his calling and election sure. Luther by his theory of faith, Calvin by his exaggerated teaching of predestination, went far to destroy man’s faith in what he had to do. Moreover, the matter did not rest with the authors of these teachings : their followers very much surpassed them, and a deep Antiiiomian spirit became very prevalent. It was to meet this that the Article was framed. No such Article is found in the code of 1553. It is the result of Archbishop Parker’s first endeavour to restore a patristic line of thought. He guards indeed the other side, where he says that they cannot expiate sin, or take the place of our Lord’s Blood, and where he asserts that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment; but he goes on to

P Vega, de Jusiificatione, ii. 38, cit. Forbes.

assert that they are 1. grata ct accepta, and 2. that they spring from faith. Both these are distinctly Christian propositions.

1. The good deeds of those who sent offerings to Jerusalem are called a sacrifice, a sweet savour, well- pleasing to God: and various other passages in the Bible enforce this upon us. Indeed, no such severe blow has ever been struck at Christian morality as the one-sided conception of the Reformation on this head. Surely to please God we must in our measure be really virtuous. The approval of God must be correlative to human goodness. To be rewarded ” according to our works, good or bad,” is not only according to the dic tates of natural theology and the sense of justice im planted in each of us, but it is the very foundation of the Gospel teaching. A neglect of this truth leads to very one-sided notions of religion : in many cases it leads to infidelity. The divorce between theology and morals is against the will of God. To substitute what is termed ” a personal interest in the atonement/’ which interest is obtained by a renunciation of our own merit, or by the conviction that the atonement is per sonally ours, for a life of goodness and virtue wrought in man by the power of the life and death of Christ, as if the blessed Apostle St. John, and the most wretched lazar of a sinner plucked like a brand out of the fire at the last by a stupendous mercy, were equals in His sight, and should have an equal reward, is an assault upon the conscience. This theory has tended, first of all, to stunting the spiritual life in preventing great

ventures in faith. It has destroyed self-sacrifice. It has crippled those usages of self-dedications where men, from the love of God have given themselves up to spend and to be spent in His service. It has taken away the motives for self-discipline and watchfulness, tend ing to substitute sentiment for principle. It has tended to a certain softening of the soul, and to an idolatry of comfort and respectability. In short, it is a mistake to seek to be wiser than Jesus Christ. If He makes the joys of the next world to be the reward of good deeds on earth, who are we that we should seek to place Christian action on a supposed higher platform ? No man can purchase heaven by his good actions, but actions done in the power of Christ, by His grace, with the aid of His Spirit, are the things which determine our position and measure of glory in the life to come, — God thus crowning His own gifts in us, so that to Him and to Him alone belongs the glory.

Although the first grace ever comes from God, and precedes all on man’s part, yet faith is the first in order of time in all supernatural acts ; nay, more, it is the source from whence they flow : and, as the Article says, they tell back on their source, the holy act being but the embodied conviction, and the strong impression of the soul welling forth and expressing itself in the outward act.

A true faith here is mentioned in contradistinction to a false faith ; the faith of heretics, as such, has no justi fying power. Hence the severity with which the Church has always regarded intellectual errors. All religious

truth, finds its ultimate term in Christ, who is the Eternal Truth. He it is who warrants all revelation. It is on His authority, as the Revealer of God’s will and purpose, that we accept any proposition laid before us. And if the Church be His Body, and the Bible His Word, then those dogmas which we accept on their joint authority come to us on His authority.

And, next, it is a ” lively/’ a living faith, which is spoken of. This is the same as the formed faith of the Schoolmen. The form of a thing is that which causes it to be what it is ; the life of a thing is that which gives it the power of motion and energy, of fulfilling the end for which it was created. By a formed faith the Schoolmen understood a faith that had love as its soul, its vivifying, plastic principle, its life, in short, and on this account it was termed fide* char itate for maty, animatciy fides vim, fides civida, a lively faith. This is that higher faith which brings man into a real vital communion with Christ, fills him with an infinite de votion to God, with the strongest confidence in Him, with the deepest humility and love towards Him, liberates him from sin, and causes all creatures to be viewed and loved in God q.

It would be improper to pass over the word ’ merit/ which so often occurs in theology, as men have justly

i Mohler, vol. i. p. 171.

The sentiment of this Article is in accordance with the formula agreed upon between Protestants and Catholics at Ratisbon, in 1541 : — ” It is a settled and sound doctrine, that sinful man is justified by living and active faith : for by it we are rendered agreeable and well-pleasing unto God for Christ’s sake.”

dreaded a theory of the meritoriousness of good works out of Christ. They have rightly said that the best of man’s good deeds, in themselves, are filthy rags. They have dwelt upon the evidence of that imperfection which clings to the actions of man, and taints all efforts done in his own strength.

But, on the other hand, wre must not forget that God in many parts of Hoty Scripture makes the eternal life- the reward of a holy life here on earth, and that great promises, both in this life and in the world to come,, are held out to obedience. Sometimes merit is taken strictly and in the rigorous sense of the word, and means a free action, to which, out of justice, is duo a certain reward or premium. At other times it is- taken in a wider sense, as a free action entitled ta a certain reward, either in terms of debt, or compact,, or condition, or bargain, or even for grace : and gene rally it is taken for any work which impetrates any reward, and is the cause of its bestowal r. Now, theo logically speaking, it is a voluntary work, either in ternal or external, to which in right a reward is duer according to the Apostle s : “To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.3’ So that four parties concur to the establishment of merit : 1. The person who merits ; 2. the voluntary work, which is the merit; 3. the reward due; 4. the E-ewarder.

However, the question becomes complicated when we deal with the relation which exists between us and

’ Vega, de Just’if., lib. via. p. 192, ed. 1672. » Rom. iv. 4.

God, for it seems difficult to conceive how in justice our work should be rewarded by God, since no absolute and simple right can exist between us : ” In Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” It can only be a relative right at best, a jus secumhun quid, like the* relations of master and slave, only infinitely less than that. Yet this feeble right is of divine ordination, and thus God owes, not to man but to Himself, to reward good actions with eternal life. Moreover, both under the old and new Law we find evidence of covenants made between God and man, and just as in a covenant between master and slave, an actual right is generated^ so it is between God and man ; yet even then, God is not a debtor to us, but to Himself, to His own will, which induced Him to enter into covenant with us *.

The word ( merit’ is hardly to be found in Holy Scrip ture, though there are expressions nearly equivalent to it, as where we read ” worthy/’ or ” to be accounted worthy”.” Yet it is of frequent occurrence in the- Latin Fathers of the best and purest ages, e.g. St. Cy prian, having nearly the same sense as to obtain, or to become apt and fitted for obtaining; so as nothing i& detracted from God’s grace, from which all merits arise^

The word is used in this sense in the Latin classics : ” Sequi gloria, non appeti, debet, nee si casti aliquo non sequatur, idcirco quod gloriam non meruit, minus pulchrum estx.”

But the true philosophy of the matter rears on the

Apoc. iii. 4. * Pliny, Kp., lib. via. ep. 13, up. Fac-ciolut.

truth, that the merit of eternal life is not our work, but the work of Christ our Head in us and by us. Men by grace are made the living members of Christ. The sufferings of the body are the sufferings of the Head : “Why persecutest thou Me?” Christ spoke in Paul, and Paul lived ; yet not he, but Christ lived in him y. Hence we may say, ” I merit, yet not I, but Christ meriteth in me/’ ” I fast, yet not I, but Christ fast- eth in me.”

80 that while baptized infants are saved purely by the merit of Christ’s life and death, in the case of adults eternal life is due in two ways : 1. by right of the merit of Christ, which He earned in His own person; 2. by right of the merit of Christ, which Christ the Head earns in the adult and by the adult, it being suitable to the divine liberality that in both ways He should communicate to adults the merit of eternal life, as it is written, ” Them lie did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son V And men are so conformed to the image of Christ by having the merit of eternal life in both ways : for He had glory also in two ways, 1. by virtue of the hypostatic union, and this was with out merit; and 2. by virtue of His obedience unto death a, wherefore in a meritorious sense ” God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name that is above every name b.”

And this in no wise contradicts what the Apostle says, that ” eternal life is the gracious gift

Gal. ii. 20. ’ Rom. viii. 29. » Phil. ii. 8, 9.

b Caj titan, iii. Tract, x. p. 16i).

Notes

• Op., torn. ii. fol. 325 1>. b Loc. Theol., p. 108.
• . Yet they cannot put away our sins, i.e. expiate (eopiare) them. Christ alone is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, and we cannot sot so much good work against so much past sin. We cannot keep a debtor and creditor account with God, and pay for the sins we love by certain acts, even the best. This is almost a truism; for the justified man, inhering, as he does, in the True Vine, even when he falls into great d cap. 11, § 21, t. vi. p. 177.
• Cajetan, torn. iii. p. 168. u St. Luke xxi. 36 : 2 Tlioss. i. 5;