146 PART III. Ch. XVII. — JUSTIFICATION.
nisi Christi meritum et satisfactionem, in qua sola, peccatorum conscientia territi, tutum adversus iram divinam perfugium, et animarum nostrarum pacem invenire possumus." 1
On the following page he refers to Bellarmin,2 who says, " Si [Protestantes hoc] solum vellent, nobis imputari Christi merita, quia [a Deo] nobis donata sunt, et possumus ea [Deo] Patri offere pro peccatis nostris, quoniam Christus suscepit super se onus satisfaciendi pro nobis, nosque Deo Patri reconciliandi, recta esset eorum sententia." On this Turrettin remarks, " Atqui nihil aliud volumus ; Nam quod addit, nos velle * ita imputari nobis Christi justitiam, ut per earn formaliter justi nominemur et simus,' hoc gratis et falso supponit, ex perversa et praepostera sua hypothesi de justificatione morah. Sed quaeritur, Ad quid imputatio ista fiat ? An ad justificationem et vitam, ut nos pertendimus, An vero tantum ad gratiae internae et justitiae inhaerentis infusionem, ut illi volunt ; Id est, an ita imputentur et communicentur nobis merita Christi, ut sint causa meritoria sola nostrae justificationis, nee ulla aha detur justitia propter quam absolvamur in conspectu Dei ; quod volumus ; An vero ita imputentur, ut sint conditiones causae formalis, id. justitiae inhaerentis, ut ea homo donari possit, vel causae extrinsecae, quae mereantur infusionem justitiae, per quam justificatur homo ; ut ita non meritum Christi proprie, sed justitia inhaerens per meritum Christi acquisita, sic causa propria et vera, propter quam homo justificatur ; quod illi statuunt." It may be remarked in passing that according to the Protestant doc- trine there is properly no " formal cause " of justification. The righteousness of Christ is the meritorious, but not the formal cause of the sinner's being pronounced righteous. A formal cause is that which constitutes the inherent, subjective nature of a person or thing. The formal cause of a man's being good, is goodness ; of his being holy, holiness ; of his being wicked, wickedness. The formal cause of a rose's being red, is redness ; and of a wall's being white, is whiteness. As we are not rendered inherently righteous by the righteousness of Christ, it is hardly correct to say that his righteousness is the formal cause of our being righteous. Owen, and other eminent writers do indeed often use the expression re- ferred to, but they take the word " formal " out of its ordinary scholastic sense.
Campegius Vitringa8 says: "Tenendum est certissimum hoc lundamentum, quod justificare sit vocabulum forense, notetque in
1 Institutio, loc. xvi. iii. 9, edit. Edinburgh, 1847, vol. ii. p. 570.
2 De Justificatione, ii. 7: Disputationes, Pans, 1608, p. 801, b.
« Doctrina Christianas Religions, in. xvi. 2; Levden, 1764. vol. iii. p 254, ff.