22 ORIENTATION.
submission to the church. The Reformers derived their idea from Paul, the Romanists appealed chiefly to James (2: 17-26); but Paul suggests the solution of the apparent contradiction by his sentence, that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.”
Faith, in the biblical and evangelical sense, is a vital force which engages all the powers of man and apprehends and appropriates the very life of Christ and all his benefits. It is the child of grace and the mother of good works. It is the pioneer of all great thoughts and deeds. By faith Abraham became the father of nations; by faith Moses became the liberator and legislator of Israel; by faith the Galilean fishermen became fishers of men; and by faith the noble army of martyrs endured tortures and triumphed in death; without faith in the risen Saviour the church could not have been founded. Faith is a saving power. It unites us to Christ. Whosoever believeth in Christ “hath eternal life.’ “We believe,” said Peter at the Council of Jerusalem, “that we shall be saved through the grace of God,” like the Gentiles who come to Christ by faith without the works and ceremonies of the law. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved,” was Paul’s answer to the question of the jailor: “What must I do to be saved ?”
Protestantism does by no means despise or neglect good works or favor antinomian license; it only subordinates them to faith, and measures their value by quality rather than quantity. They are not the condition, but the necessary evidence of justification ; they are not the root, but the fruits of the tree. The same faith which justifies, does also sanctify. It is ever “ working through love” (Gal. 5: 6). Luther is often charged with indifference to good works, but very unjustly. His occasional unguarded utterances must be understood in connection with his whole teaching and character. “ Faith,” in his own forcible language which expresses his true view, “faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing,and it is impossible that it should not do good without ceasing ; it does not ask whether good works are to be done, but
§ 7. JUSTIFICATION BY ΕΑΙΤΗ. 23
before the question is put, it has done them already, and is always engaged in doing them; you may as well separate burning and shining from fire, as works from faith.”
The Lutheran doctrine of Christian freedom and justification by faith alone, like that of St. Paul on which it was based, was made the cloak of excesses by carnal men who wickedly reasoned, “Tet us continue in sin that grace may abound” (Rom. 6: 1), and who abused their “freedom for an occasion to the flesh” (Gal. 5: 13). All such consequences the apostle cut off at the outset by an indignant “God forbid.”
The fact is undeniable, that the Reformation in Germany was _,
accompanied and followed by antinomian tendencies and a degeneracy of public morals. It rests not only on the hostile testimonies of Romanists and separatists, but Luther and Melanchthon themselves often bitterly complained in their later years of the abuse of the liberty of the gospel and the sad state of morals in Wittenberg and throughout Saxony.’
But we should remember, first, that the degeneracy of morals, especially the increase of extravagance, and luxury with its attending vices, had begun in Catholic times in consequence of discoveries and inventions, the enlargement of commerce and wealth.” Nor was it near as bad as the state of things which Luther had witnessed at Rome in 1510, under Pope Julius II., not to speak
1 The weight of Déllinger’s three volumes on the Reformation (1848) consists in the collection of such unfavorable testimonies from the writings of Erasmus, Wizel, Haner, Wildenauer, Crotus Rubeanus, Biblicanus, Staupitz, Amerpach, Pirkheimer, Zasius, Frank, Denk, Hetzer, Schwenkfeld, Luther, Melanchthon, Spalatin, Bugenhagen, and others. They give, indeed, a very gloomy, but a very one-sided picture of the times, Janssen makes good use of these testimonies. But both these Catholic historians, whose eminent learning is undeniable, wrote with a polemic aim, and make the very truth lie by omitting the bright side of the Reformation. Comp. on this subject the controversial writings of Késtlin and Ebrard against Janssen, and Janssen’s replies, An meine Kritiker, Freiburg i. B. 1883 (Zehntes Tausend, 227 pages), and Ein zweites Wort an meine Kritiker, Freib. 1883 (Zwélftes Tausend, 144 pages).
* Even Janssen admits this, but is silent about the greater corruption in Rome. See his Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes I. 375 sqq. Comp. his Hin zweites Wort an meine Kritiker, p. 82.