A Letter to the Right Rev. Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Oxford

against them from among their own friends. Some of these "shall be mentioned before we consider the theory itself. A "remarkable testimony, for instance, of this kind is St. Austin's, "who thus speaks in his De Civitate Dei: 'Our very righteous

ness, although it be real for the faith in Him who is really good "to whom it is referred, yet reaches so far only in this life as "rather to consist in the remission of sins, than in the perfection "of virtues. Witness the prayer of the whole city of GoD, in its "pilgrimage on the earth; in that, in all its members, it crieth "to GOD, Forgive us our trespasses.'-xix. 27. And St. Jerome: "For then are we righteous, when we own ourselves sinners; our righteousness consisteth not of our own merit, but of the mercy of God.'-contra Pelag. i. (tom. ii. p. 179.) Against "such statements it seems hardly in point to urge passages from "the Fathers on the other side which speak of inherent righteousness as justifying; the sole question being whether, granting 'this, it justifies after being sprinkled with the blood of CHRIST, "" which passages such as the above seem clearly to imply. So 'again St. Ambrose: I will not glory that I am righteous, but "that I am redeemed; I will glory, not that I am free from sin, "but that sins are remitted me; not that I have profited, or that 66 any one hath profited me, but that for me CHRIST is an Advocate "with the FATHER, but that for me the Blood of CHRIST was shed.' "de Jacob et vit. beat. i. 6. And Pope Gregory: 'Our Righteous "Advocate will maintain us righteous in the judgment, because 66 we both know and accuse ourselves as unrighteous. Trust we "then not in our tears, not in our actions, but in the pleading of

our Advocate.'-In Ezek. lib. i. hom. 7. fin. And so St. Ber"nard on his sick bed, as Hooker after him: I confess, I am "not worthy, nor can I by my own merits obtain the kingdom "of heaven; but my LORD obtaining it by a double right, by "inheritance, namely, from the FATHER, and the merit of His "Passion, Himself content with the one, bestows on me the "other, by whose gift claiming it, with good ground am I not "confounded.'-Life of S. Bern. i. 12. col. 1084. These pas

sages are not inconsistent indeed, still they differ in tone from "the Roman view of the doctrine."-pp. 400, 401.

"In a word, they [many of the Roman doctors] do not consider

our holiness or good works a cause in the way of nature, but in "the mind and dealings of a gracious GOD; at the same time, as " is hardly necessary to add, the Roman doctors often use language "most grating and revolting to our ears, and (as we cannot but "think) very perilous to those who acquiesce in it."—p. 403.

"The question is, what is the formal cause of justification :— "now let us grant that our divinely imparted sanctity and works are not the immediate antecedent to our receiving the sentence "of justification; that justification does not depend on, or con"sist in any thing we are or can do; that CHRIST's merits must ever interpose, intercede between us and GoD, and so preclude "our righteousness from being the formal cause; the question recurs, what is the formal cause of our justification? and on "this question we shall find in the writings of Protestants great diversity of opinion and little satisfaction. Some say that faith "is the formal cause, some forgiveness of sins, some the imputa"tion of CHRIST's righteousness, and some that there is no formal cause at all.

Perhaps the best choice that can be made out of these answers, is to say it is faith. Such was the answer originally given by the Lutherans, but they retracted it. And such is the "answer virtually given by Bishop Bull and many others of our "divines who have chosen to express themselves in what may be "called the calculus of Protestantism. By faith, according to

Bishop Bull, is meant fides formata charitate et operibus, or the "obedience which is of faith; a view which one is glad to find was admitted in the deliberations of the Council of Trent, and "differs from the view I have called properly Roman, in this, "that by calling inherent righteousness by the name of faith, it "implies that that righteousness can only be accepted in CHRIST, "and is unable to stand GoD's judgment unless sprinkled with "His Atoning grace."-p. 404.

"To sum up what has been said :—the form into which we cast "the original question was this, are our holiness and works done "in CHRIST accepted or not without a fresh imputation upon them "of CHRIST's merits? do the persons of Christians or do CHRIST'S "merits come next upon the act of God justifying them? The "Romanist answers, Christians are justified in their holiness and "works without any fresh pardon, and explains himself to mean, "not that CHRIST's merits are not imputed, but that either they "have been imputed once for all on the original justification, or "that their continual imputation accompanies that inward gift of grace by which Christians are holy and do good works. The "Protestant maintains that we are saved merely by that imputa"tion, because even granting our holiness and works were in "themselves good, which both Lutherans and Calvinists deny altogether even of the fruit of the SPIRIT, yet that after all they "would be but inchoate and incomplete.

"Now in the case of those who say that the fruit of the SPIRIT "in us is in no degree good, and that we have no inherent righteousness at all, this difference is not verbal; the one party say "that we are justified entirely by what is without us, because "there is nothing within us which can justify; the other by what "GOD plants within us, completed by His merciful imputation. "But those who even though admitting the infection of sin to “remain in the regenerate, deny that it is a mortal matter, or "'deserves God's wrath and damnation;' or even if so, yet that "it may be through God's grace subdued, seem to have no irre"concilable difference on this point with the Romanists. And "this has ever been virtually and practically the prevalent doc"trine in the English Church; nay, Le Blanc, in his Theses

Theologica, maintains that Protestants generally have no dif"ference with Romanists on this subject. When they [the "Roman doctors] explain their meaning more distinctly, they come to the same meaning as the Reformed Theologians.'-De "Justit. inhær. 27. But however this may be, at least English "divines teach that our holiness and works done in the SPIRIT

are something towards salvation, but not enough; or that we are justified by obedience under the Covenant of mercy, or by "obedience sprinkled with or presented in the Atoning Sacrifice. According to them then we are saved in CHRIST's righteousness, yet not without our own; or considering CHRIST's righteousness as a formal cause, by two contemporaneous formal causes, "by a righteousness, meritorious on CHRIST's part, inchoate on ours."-pp. 412–414.

"Our divines, though of very different Schools, have, with a "few exceptions, agreed in this, that justification is gained by "obedience in the shape of faith, that is, an obedience which con"fesses it is not sufficient, and trusts solely in CHRIST's merits "for acceptance; which is in other words the doctrine of two righteousnesses, a perfect and imperfect; not the Roman, that "obedience justifies without a continual imputation of CHRIST'S "merits; nor the Protestant, that imputation justifies distinct "from obedience; but a middle way, that obedience justifies in,

or under CHRIST's Covenant, or sprinkled with CHRIST's meri"torious sacrifice. It would be easy to show this in the case of "Bull, Taylor, Barrow, Tillotson, and Wake, who implies his agreement with Bossuet on this point, Expos. Art. 5. Nay, "it is almost the opinion of the Calvinists, which is worth "remarking. Davenant, for instance, grants the doctrine of "justitia inchoata. He grants, it is true righteousness in the same sense in which a white wall, though not perfectly white, "has whiteness, (vid. Extract, p. 91.) and he grants that inherent righteousness is justification in a passive sense, or what he calls justifaction, c. 22; that is, in fact, we have two righteousnesses, a perfect and an imperfect, CHRIST's and our own; the point in which he differs being merely this, whether this inchoate 'righteousness can be said to tend towards justification, or to serve us in any stead in GoD's sight. And this would seem

very much a question of words; for if he means to deny it is "such as we can trust to, Bucer confesses this distinctly; but "that there is something good in it, he surely cannot deny, unless

"he will contend there is no whiteness in a wall that is partially "white. Nay, in one place he confesses as to a kindred point, "We have then no dispute with the fathers, nor with these "sounder Romanists, on the mere term merit, (although it is "much better and safer to abstain from this word,) but we will " contend against the modern Papists.'-De Just. Act. c. 53. "To the same effect Hooker, whose view of justification is supposed to be adverse to Bucer's and Bull's; 'I will not in "this place dispute . . whether truly it may not be said, that penitent both weeping and fasting are means to blot out sin, "means whereby, through God's unspeakable and undeserved mercy, we obtain or procure to ourselves pardon; which attain"ment unto any gracious benefit by Him bestowed, the phrase "of Antiquity useth to express by the name of merit.' Eccl. "Pol. v. Hooker then holds that God has not only made His "SON Righteousness to us by imputation, but that He does for us still more; He begins actually to make us in this life what "CHRIST is, righteous. That doctrine surely is neither derogatory to God's grace nor an incentive to man's pride, which, "while it adds a gift, does not tend to dispense with the utter "necessity of CHRIST's merits for our justification. In like manner Chamier makes this curious confession :-' We . . deny "not that our righteousness in some sort consists in inherent righteousness, as we have often attested, namely, because we must "needs die to sin and live to God. But still we place the begin"ning and end of righteousness in the remission of sins; namely, "because this makes us righteous before God, which the perfec"tion of virtues cannot. What is the difference then? namely, "that we distinguish two righteousnesses, as well as two formal causes, since it is absurd, that there should be two formal causes of one and the same thing;-we, therefore, have entitled our righteousness, as far as it consists in remission of sins, justi"fication, with Paul, but that which consists in the perfection of "virtues, sanctification.' . . . All this being considered, it does "not seem rash to say with Grotius, that, so that we acknowledge

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A Letter to the Right Rev. Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Oxford: On ...