20 ORIENTATION.
the Scriptures. But such institutions do not exist. Fortunately papal bulls have little effect in modern times, and in spite of official prohibitions and discouragements, there are zealous advocates of Bible reading among modern Catholics, as there were among the Greek and Latin fathers.’ Nor have the restrictions of the Council of Trent been able to prevent the progress of Biblical scholarship and exegesis even in the Roman church. E pur si muove. The Bible, as well as the earth, moves for all that. i
Modern Protestant theology is much more just to ecclesiastical tradition than the Reformers could be in their hot indignation against the prevailing corruptions and against the papal tyranny of their day. The deeper study of ecclesiastical and secular history has dispelled the former ignorance on the “dark ages,” so called, and brought out the merits of the fathers, missionaries, schoolmen, and popes, in the progress of Christian civilization.
But these results do not diminish the supreme value of the sacred Scripture as an ultimate tribunal of appeal in matters of faith, nor the importance of its widest circulation. It is by far the best guide of instruction in holy living and dying. No matter what theory of the mode and extent of inspiration we may hold, the fact of inspiration is plain and attested by the universal consent of Christendom. The Bible is a book of holy men, but just as much a book of God, who made those men witnesses of truth and sure teachers of the way of salvation.
§ 7. Justification by Faith.
The subjective principle of Protestantism is the doctrine of justification and salvation by faith in Christ; as distinct from the dcctrine of justification by faith and works or salvation by grace and human merit. Luther’s formula is sola fide. Calvin goes further back to God’s eternal election, as the ultimate
1See L. Van Ess, Ausziige tiber das nothwendige und niitzliche Bibellesen aus den Kirchenviitern und anderen kathol. Schriften, second ed., 1816; also the preface to his translation of the New Testament.
§ 7. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 21
ground of salvation and comfort in lifeand in death. But Luther and Calvin meant substantially the same thing, and agree in the more general proposition of salvation by free grace through living faith in Christ (Acts 4: 12), in opposition to any Pelagian or Semipelagian compromise which divides the work and merit between God and man. And this is the very soul of evangelical Protestantism."
Luther assigned to his solifidian doctrine of justification the central position in the Christian system, declared it to be the article of the standing or falling (Lutheran) church, and was unwilling to yield an inch from it, though heaven and earth should collapse.? This exaggeration is due to his personal experience during his convent life. The central article of the Christian faith on which the church is built, is not any specific dogma of the Protestant, or Roman, or Greek church, but the broader and deeper truth held by all, namely, the divine-human personality and atoning work of Christ, the Lord and Saviour. This was the confession of Peter, the first creed of Christendom.
The Protestant doctrine of justification differs from the Roman Catholic, as defined (very circumspectly) by the Council of Trent, chiefly in two points. Justification is conceived as a declaratory and judicial act of God, in distinction from sanctification, which is a gradual growth ; and faith is conceived asa fiducial act of the heart and will, in distinction from theoretical belief and blind
' Only in this sense can it be called Augustinian; for otherwise Augustin’s conception of justificatio is catholic, and he identifies it with sanctijicatio. Moreover he widely differs from the Protestant conception of the church and its authority. Luther felt the difference in his later years.
? Articuli Smalcaldici, p. 305 (ed. Rechenb., or 310 ed. Miiller): “ De hoc articulo [solam fidem nos justificare] cedere or aliquid contra illum largiri aut permittere nemo prorum potest etiamsi ceelum et terra et omnia corruant. (Acts 4: 12; Isa. 53: 3). Et in hoc articulo sita sunt et consistunt omnia, que contra papam, diabolum et universum mundum in vita nostra docemus, testamur et agimus. Quare opportet nos de hac doctrina esse certos, et minime dubitare, alioquin actum est prorsus, et papa et diabolus et omnia adversa jus et victoriam contra nos obtinent.’ Luther inserted in his translation of Rom. 3: 28, the word allein (sola fide, hence the term solifidianism), and the revised Probebibel of 1883 retained it. On the exegetical questions involved, see my annotations to Lange on Romans 3: 28.