THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
tion doctrine would be surrendered. For the Christian would then again be directed to ground his assurance of salvation by reflection upon himself, i.e., on the existence of faith in himself. There would be no place for a simple and radical grounding of certainty on Christ and the Word to which he witnessed. Manifestly that kind of judgment of justification, which amounts to a confirmation of faith already existing in man, can not be thought of as mediated by the Gospel; and again a suggestion of such a judgment of justification could not be presented by means of the Gospel. For the Word, whether it is applied to the individual as a sacramental word or as absolution, can never establish the existence in man of a qualification of justification, but remains simply an active offer of the universal promise. If, therefore, one believes that the reality of the process of justification can be defended only when it is interpreted as confirmation of existing faith, then one must not deceive himself by supposing that a corroboration of such a justifying judgment must be sought in an immediate witness of the Spirit, or won by reflection on the criteria of faith. The Reformed way, on the contrary, which allows the assurance of salvation to be experienced only in the trust springing from the promise, points in another direction — justification is mediated by the Gospel, so that the word of promise becomes itself a justifying judgment wherever it is able to awaken acceptance in man. Thus the position is fully warranted that only where faith exists is there justification, and faith justifies only because it makes Christ avail before God : Christ is indeed the central content of the Word and he it is who is apprehended in the Word. Accordingly justification takes place before God and not in the heart of man — in the strict sense an act of God, and not a conscious process in man. Only in this way is it seriously maintained that every action of God necessarily aims at establishing a present communion with himself. But this is manifestly not attained by a purely transcendent process. Where justification is mediated by the Gospel, the meaning is that this rightly demands trust for and in itself; where man trustfully accepts this, he has what he believes; justification and a state of communion with God is subjectively and objectively realized. One can make this plain to himself in the simplest possible way with reference to absolution. Absolution is not confirmation of a faith existing in man, nor an ineffective announcement of a forgiveness bound to conditions; just as little does it bring forgiveness to all who hear it irrespective of their faith; but being an efficacious offer of forgiveness, it is really forgiveness wherever it is received in faith. Thus understood, justification and certainty concerning it are grounded in faith. This excludes neither a possible nor an actual series of degrees in faith and in certainty; the completion of the divine justification is of significance for faith. Here then the Biblical writers have their place, according to whom, where faith and justification are, there the Holy Spirit who was already active in man for this end becomes for the believer a personal possession in such a way that he witnesses to the existing kinship with God and
appears as its seal and pledge. Hence it is possible to apprehend the element of truth in the distinction of faith before and after justification and in the distinction of justification and confirmation The last intimations, if they are to receive concrete form, depend on the answer to a previous question which can not be solved in this article. The foregoing discussion suffers from an unavoidable abstraction in that it can not
5. Justifica- show whether the original justification tion and is mediated by the Word or by bap- Baptism, tism, in the case of children or adults.
In fact, manifold difficulties and obscurities beset the treatment of the subject when one does not seriously consider how the general propositions concerning justification are necessarily modified according as they are put to the test in a community of those who were baptized in infancy, or are maintained in the mission field. It is, e.g., plain how the question of the relation of confirmation to justification gains a wholly different meaning when it is put on the basis of child-baptism. Yet these questions can not be settled here because they presuppose the understanding of baptism (see Baptism, I.-IL). Only this, however, maybe directly inferred from the treatment of the doctrine of the Scripture, that justification and baptism are to be combined. If this is true in the first instance of baptism itself, then it must of necessity apply to child-baptism, if only this is regarded as a real baptism. Here the question concerning the relation of justification and faith takes on a new meaning and raises serious difficulties. For a solution of these a path has already been so far prepared as it was expressly emphasized how faith springs from the divine offer. In any case, one must believe that in the baptism of adults there is a completion both of the divine offer of salvation and, under its influence, of faith, and just in this way the Christian position is both objectively and subjectively established. With reference to the baptism of children, it is to be maintained under all circumstances that even in such cases faith, which affirms baptism, must somehow grow out of baptism. But the question, whether and in what sense one is to connect the origin of faith with baptism, can not here be settled.
The discussion concerning the nature of Christian assurance begun in III., § 1, may now be completed so far as need be in accordance with what has been established in III., §§ 2-5. First then one may formulate the signifi-
6. Conclu- cance of Rom. viii. 16 for the assurance sion. of salvation. If faith in the historical
divine revelation, by which the Christian position is created, takes place only by the Holy Spirit, the immanent certainty of the Christian therein given could not maintain itself without the continuous witness of the Spirit. This repudiates the Methodistic view which will experience this witness of the Spirit in an immediate feeling of peace; preferable is the Lutheran view which has the entire economy of salvation on its side as it relates the continuous witness of the Spirit to the historical process of salvation, mediating this by the Word and the sacrament. Yet the strictly supernatural