omnium sententia, opera bona justorum vere, ac proprie esse mer- ita, et merita non cujuscunque praemii, sed ipsius vitas aeternae." The thirty-second canon of the Tridentine Council at this sixth session anathematizes any one who teaches a different doctrine. " Si quis dixerit, hominis justificati bona opera ita esse dona Dei, ut non sint etiam bona ipsius justificati merita ; aut ipsum justifi- catum bonis operibus, quae ab eo per Dei gratiam et Jesu Christi meritum, cujus vivum membrum est, fiunt, non vere mereri aug- mentum gratiae, vitam aeternam, et ipsius vitae aeternae, si tamen in gratia decesserit, consecutionem, atque etiam gloriae augmen- tum ; anathema sit." It appears from all this that, according to the doctrine of the Church of Rome, faith has no special or direct connection with justification, and that " justification by faith " in that Church means something entirely different from what is in- tended by those words in the lips of evangelical Christians.
Remonstrant View.
3. According to the Remonstrants or Arminians, faith is the ground of justification. Under the Gospel God accepts our im- perfect obedience including faith and springing from it, in place of the perfect obedience demanded by the law originally given to Adam. There is one passage in the Bible, or rather one form of expression, which occurs in several places, which seems to favour this view of the subject. In Romans iv. 3, it is said, " Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness ; " and again in ver. 22 of that chapter, and in Galatians iii. 6. If this phrase be interpreted according to the analogy of such pas- sages as Romans ii. 26, " Shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?" it does mean that faith is taken or accepted for righteousness. The Bible, however, is the word of God and therefore self-consistent. Consequently if a passage admits of one interpretation inconsistent with the teaching of the Bible in other places, and of another interpretation consistent with that teaching, we are bound to accept the latter. This rule, simple and obvious as it is, is frequently violated, not only by those who deny the inspiration of the Scriptures, but even by men profess- ing to recognize their infallible authority. They seem to regard it as a proof of independence to make each passage mean simply what its grammatical structure and logical connection indicate, without the least regard to the analogy of Scripture. This is unreason- able. In Genesis xv. we are told that Abraham lamented before the Lord that he was childless, and that one born in his house was
168 PART III. Ch. XVII. — JUSTIFICATION.
to be his heir. And God said unto him, " This shall not be thine heir ; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels, shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord ; and He counted it to him for righteousness." Taking this passage by itself, it is inferred that the object of Abraham's faith was the promise of a numerous posterity. Supposing this to be true, which it certainly is not, what right has any one to assume that Abraham's faith's being imputed to him for righteousness, means anything more than when it is said that the zeal of Phinehas was imputed for righteous- ness (Ps. cvi. 31) ; or when in Deuteronomy xxiv. 13, it is said that to return a poor man's pledge " shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God." No one supposes that one man- ifestation of zeal, or one act of benevolence, is taken for complete obedience to the law. All that the phrase " to impute for right- eousness " by itself means, according to Old Testament usage, is, to esteem as right, to approve. The zeal of Phinehas was right. Returning a poor man's pledge was right. These were acts which God approved. And so He approved of Abraham's faith. He gained the favour of God by believing. Now while this is true, far more, as the Apostle teaches, is true. He teaches, first, that the great promise made to Abraham, and faith in which se- cured his justification, was not that his natural descendants should be as numerous as the stars of heaven, but that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed ; secondly, that the seed intended was not a multitude, but one person, and that that one person was Christ (Gal. iii. 16) ; and, thirdly, that the blessing which the seed of Abraham was to secure for the world was redemption. " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse f or us : . . . . that the blessing of Abraham (i. e., the promise made to Abraham) might come on " us. The promise made to Abraham, therefore, was redemption through Christ. Hence those who are Christ's, the Apostle teaches, are Abraham's seed and heirs of his promise. What, therefore, Abraham believed, was that the seed of the woman, the Shiloh, the promised Redeemer of the world, was to be born of him. He believed in Christ, as his Saviour, as his righteousness, and deliverer, and therefore it was that he was accepted as right- eous, not for the merit of his faith,, and not on the ground of faith, or by taking faith in lieu of righteousness, but because he received and rested on Christ alone for his salvation.