3. The third doctrinal view on this subject is that of the Ro- manists, who make love the essence of faith. In other words, love with them is the form (in the scholastic sense of the word) of faith ; it is that which gives it being or character as a Christian virtue or grace. While on the one hand they teach, as we have seen with the Council of Trent, that faith is in itself mere intellectual assent, without any moral virtue, and which may be exercised by the unrenewed or by those in a state of mortal sin ; on the other hand, they hold that there is such a Christian grace as faith ; but in that case, faith is only another name for love. This is not the distinction between a living and dead faith which the Scriptures and all Evangelical Christians recognize. With Romanists the fides informis is true faith, and the fides formata is love. On this point, Peter Lombard 1 says : " Fides qua dici- tur [creditur?], si cum caritate sit, virtus est, quia caritas ut ait Ambrosius mater est omnium virtutum, qua* omnes informat, sine qua nulla vera virtus est." Thomas Aquinas 2 says : " Actus fidei ordinatur ad objectum voluntatis, quod est bonum, sicut ad finem. Hoc autem bonum quod est finis fidei, scilicet bonum divinum, est proprium objectum charitatis : et ideo charitas dicitur forma fidei, in quantum per charitatem actus fidei perficitur et formatur.', Bellarmm 8 says : « Quod si charitas est forma fidei, et fides non justificat formaliter, nisi ab ipsa caritate formata certe multo
1 Liber Sententiarum, m. xxiii. C. edit. 1472( ?)
« 2TS£ tf qU*;t 5" "*• 3' ?ttjD*W 1640, p. 11, a, of third set. ^ De Justtficattone, hb. u. cap. 4; Disputations, edit. Paris, 1608, vol. iv. pp. 789, a, b,