Green on Article XIII: Of Works before Justification

The wording was altered to its present form before the Articles were published, but the title remained unaltered. Hence the discrepancy now existing between the title and contents of the Article. A more exact title would be, Of Works before Faith, or, Of Works before Grace.

§ 2 .—OBJECT.

To condemn the scholastic doctrine (expressly referred to in the Article), that the favour of God may be gained by man, and the bestowal of grace merited, as the reward of actions done merely in his own strength, and without any dependence on the Holy Spirit. This Article is thus strongly anti-Pelagian.

§ 3.— EXPOSITION.

In Article XII. it is laid down that works which follow after, and spring out of, faith are pleasing and acceptable to God. The question now arises, What are we to say of works of man which are done before faith, or before the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit ? The Schoolmen spoke of a twofold merit attaching to human actions : —

(i.) Merit de congruo, which they ascribed to such works as man does by his own unaided strength, without God’s grace. Such works, they taught, would be rewarded out of God’s liberality.

(ii.) Merit de condigno, which they ascribed to such works as are done with the assistance of grace, and to which a reward was held to be due as a matter of justice.

We have seen that in Article XII. the doctrine of merit de con¬ digno was rejected ; in the Article now under consideration a like emphatic denial is given to the doctrine of merit de congruo. Our Article treats, then, only of works done by man in his natural state, by his own unaided strength, and of such works it declares that : —

(1.) They are not pleasing to God.

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, (See Rom. viii. 7, 8 ; S. John xv. 5.)

(2.) They cannot make Men meet to receive Grace (or, in the technical language of the scholastic theology, they do not deserve grace of congruity).,

neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the School-authors say) deserve grace of congruity : (Rom. iv. 2, 6 ; Tit. iii. 5.)

This is, in reality, only another way of saying that no works or efforts of our own can avail at all for bringing us into a state of favour with, neither can they constitute any claim upon, God.

(3.) They have the Nature of Sin.

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. (Rom. xiv. 23 ; Tit. i. 15? Heb. xi. 6.)

This last clause has caused some difficulty, because the Article seems at first sight to class any efforts after goodness

on the part of the heathen as sin. But such a position would be contrary to the teaching of Scripture, as given, e.g ., in what is recorded of the Roman centurion Cornelius, who did not belong to God’s Covenant people, and yet his good works were acceptable to God (Acts x. 4). The answer to the difficulty in which we here seem to be involved is to be found in the doctrine of c Preventing Grace ’ : the works of Cornelius, even in his Gentile state, were not done without faith, or apart from the grace of God. We must recognise that God gives to all men their measure of the Holy Spirit ; many, indeed, may quench the Spirit, but to His blessed influence is to be attributed what¬ ever of goodness is found in the lives of righteous heathen. There is a <£ Light which lighteth every man ” (S. John i. 9), so that even the heathen are led to seek the Lord, if haply they might find Him (Acts xvii. 27). To this Divine Light we must attribute all that is good in mankind. But good works done without this — e.g ., from pride, self- righteousness, love of praise, or other similar motives — are not pleasing to God, and have the nature of sin.

With our Article we should compare the Canons of the 6th Session of the Council of Trent : —

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“ Canon I. — Si quis dixerit, hominem suis operibus, quae vel per humanae naturae vires vel per legis doctrinani fiant, absque divina per Christum gratia, posse justificari coram Deo : anathema sit.

[…]

It will be seen that the doctrine of the Roman Church, as defined by the Council, agrees in the main with that laid down in the English Article. There is, however, one point of diver¬ gence which should not be overlooked. Canon YII. anathe¬ matises those who hold that ‘ works before justification ’ are truly and properly sins. Our Article does not, indeed, affirm that such works are sin, but it uses with respect to them the same

guarded phrase which we have already noticed in Article IX., and declares that they “ have the nature of sin ” (peccati rationem habere).1

§ 4-— NOTEWORTHY EXPRESSION IN THIS ARTICLE .

The School-authors.

We may briefly describe Scholasticism as an attempt to unite theology and philosophy by systematising theology upon a philo¬ sophie basis. It may be said to date from the time of Charle¬ magne, the monasteries established by him becoming the schools of a revived study of philosophy ; and, since learning and literary skill were in those times chiefly confined to ecclesiastics, it was natural that philosophical activity should show itself chiefly in the domain of theology. From the ninth to the eleventh centuries we have the rise of Scholasticism. During the latter half of the twelfth century came the struggle between the Nominalists and the Realists,2 which resulted in the triumph of the latter. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries may be regarded as the prime of Scholasticism, and the three most renowned of the School¬ men were Albertus Magnus,3 Thomas Aquinas,4 and John Duns Scotus.5

1 The formularies influenced by the Calvinistic Theology, which emphasises the total corruption of the natural man, lay stress, as we should expect, upon the sinful character of works done by man in his natural state. See the text of Article XIII. as revised by the Westminster divines, Appendix IY.

2 This controversy was with respect to our abstract or general ideas. The Realists contended that an abstraction — e.g., circle, beauty, right — had a real existence (apart from round things, beautiful objects, right actions). Those that held the opposite view were called Nominalists, since they held that there is nothing general but names ; e.g., the name circle is applied to round things, and is merely a general name.

3 Count of Bollstadt, a Dominican, born 1193 or 1205 ; died 1280.

4 A Dominican, born 1224 ; died 1274. He was the author of the famous ‘ Summa Theologiae,’ and is called the ‘ Angelic doctor.’ His followers inclined rather to Nominalism ; they followed S. Augustine on the doctrine of Grace, and were opposed to the teaching which was springing up in some quarters as to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin.

5 A Franciscan, died 1308. The Scotists inclined to Realism, and somewhat to Pelagianism ; they strongly upheld the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin.

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