Page images
PDF
EPUB

state of moral evil, the mind, according to the view of human nature upon which the Calvinistic system proceeds, is not disposed to accept of the remedy until a change upon the will and the affections be produced by the Spirit of God. Hence faith stands opposed to that love of sin which produces an aversion to the remedy, to that love of the world which produces an indifference about it, to that pride and self-confidence which make it appear unnecessary; and faith implies what our Lord calls "a good and honest heart," humbleness of mind, poverty of spirit, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, all those moral dispositions, which lead us with cordiality and thankfulness to embrace that method of being delivered from the evils of sin which the gospel reveals. Hence arises the propriety of the many exhortations to faith which the Scriptures contain, and which the preaching of the word continually enforces; hence, too, the propriety of representing faith in Christ as a duty, for the neglect of which men are justly condemned, while in other places it is called the gift of God. For as the exhortations to faith are one of the instruments employed in producing that change out of which it arises, so the want of those moral dispositions with which it is connected is a proof of that depravity of mind, which, from whatever cause it proceeds, is, to every intelligent being who observes it, an object of the highest moral disapprobation.

As the Greek word rendered faith, nors, is a general term, denoting in its primary meaning persuasion, or credit given to testimony, and admitting of various applications, it is not always used in Scripture in that precise and full sense which has now been stated. Divines are accustomed to enumerate four kinds of faith. The faith of miracles, or that persuasion of the power of their master, and that immediate impulse which enabled many of the first Christians to perform, in his name, works far exceeding human strength; a kind of faith, which is expressly declared in Scripture to have no natural connexion with moral qualifications, and to give no assurance of salvation. "Though I have all faith," says Paul," so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."* Historical faith, or the assent given to truths, the evidence of which the understanding is unable to resist. So it is said, that "the devils believe and tremble ;" and it is conceived that a man may be able to give the most distinct exposition of the arguments for Christianity, and the most satisfying solution of every objection, while in his will and affections he is an enemy to the cross of Christ. Temporary faith, or those emotions of admiration, joy, and gratitude, and those purposes of obedience which are excited by the counsels or promises of Scripture, or by particular exhibitions of the grace of the gospel. Of this kind is the faith described by our Lord in one part of his exposition of the parable of the sower; the faith of many who followed him, of whom it is said at some times that they believed, although their conduct discovers that they retained all their evil passions: and the faith of a great part of the hearers of the gospel, who are not wholly unmoved by the calls which they receive, because the sentiments of human nature are not obliterated from their breasts, and yet upon whose conduct these calls do not appear to have

[blocks in formation]

any abiding influence. Saving faith, which is considered by the Arminians as distinguished from temporary faith only by its duration. Faith, according to their system, originates in the favourable reception which the mind gives to the grace of God. When it is lost by a change upon the character of him in whom it was begun, it appears to be temporary; when it continues during the whole of his life, it appears to be saving. But the Calvinists are led by their principles to consider saving faith as of a different species from that which is temporary; as originating in the operation of the Spirit of God upon those in whom he carries his purpose into execution; as a principle which cannot be lost, and whose fruit endures to everlasting life. As it presupposes knowledge and assent to the revelation of the gospel, it has a respect to all the parts of that revelation; and as it implies a firm reliance upon the promises of God in general, it has a special regard to that declaration which is characteristical of the gospel, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. "This saying," every one that believeth in Christ to the saving of his soul accounts "faithful," i. e. deserving credit, "and worthy of all acceptation," i. e. deserving to be cordially and thankfully embraced. The acceptance of this saying has been often expressed by the following phrases, all of which derive some countenance from Scripture; resting upon Christ, laying hold of him, flying for refuge to him, coming to him, trusting in him, receiving him. From the poverty of language, all these expressions are figurative, and consequently liable to abuse. But provided the figure contained in them be not tortured, and provided it be always remembered in the use of them that faith in Christ does not omit any part of the revelation concerning him, but embraces his whole character, they may serve to mark with significancy and precision that state of mind, and those sentiments which are the first fruit of the operation of the Spirit of God in the conversion of a sinner.

4 L

CHAPTER II.

JUSTIFICATION.

UPON the condition of those in whom the operation of the Spirit produces saving faith, there is a change which in Scripture is called justification; and that notion of justification by faith which arises out of the Catholic opinion concerning the nature of the remedy, and the Calvinistic tenets concerning the extent and the application of it, may be thus shortly stated.

The sufferings of the Lord Jesus were endured in the stead of those whom God from eternity decreed to bring to salvation; their sins were imputed to him as their substitute, and he bore them in his body on the tree. In all that he suffered and did there was a merit, which the apostle, Rom. v. 18. calls & dixauua, one righteousness, and upon account of which he says, 1 Cor. i. 30, Χριστος εγενήθη ήμιν δικαιοσύνη. When those for whom Christ suffered believe on him, this righteousness is imputed to them, i. e. counted as theirs in the judgment of God. Considered in themselves they are guilty and deserve to suffer, but by means of the imputation of this righteousness they are completely acquitted from the punishment due to their sins, because it was endured for them by the Lord Jesus, and they acquire a right to eternal life, because it was purchased for them by his obedience. According to the notion now stated justification is purely a forensic act, i. e. the act of a judge sitting in the forum, the place of judgment, in which the supreme ruler and judge, who is accountable to none, and who alone knows the manner in which the ends of his universal government can best be attained, reckons that which was done by the substitute in the same manner as if it had been done by those who believe in the substitute; and not upon account of any thing done by them, but purely upon account of this gracious method of reckoning, grants them the full remission of their sins. In this forensic sense of the word we understand the apostle to say, Rom. iii. 26, that God is "the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus; and Rom. iv. 5, that "to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness," or as in the 6th verse, "God imputeth," reckoneth to him, " righteousness without works."

This is the great doctrine of justification by faith, which was preached by all the first reformers, which they thought they derived from Scripture, and which they opposed with zeal and with success to the following tenets of the church of Rome, upon which a great part of the corruptions of that church appeared to them to rest.

In the doctrine of the church of Rome justification was considered not as a forensic act, altering the condition of those who believe, but

as an infusion of righteousness into their souls, making them internally and personally just. It was in this way equivalent to what we call sanctification; and two things, which we consider as connected by an indissoluble bond, yet as totally distinct from one another, were confounded. By this confusion the remission of sins was understood to comprehend taking away the stain as well as the guilt of sin; and the merit of the sufferings and obedience of Christ was, in this sense, understood to be imputed or communicated to those who believe that by the merciful appointment of God, it procured that grace which renewed their hearts and made them conformable to the image of Christ; so that his righteousness was only the remote cause of their acceptance with God, but the immediate cause was their personal righteousness, or that likeness to him which is obtained through his mediation.

Further, while the reformers considered all sins that were past as completely forgiven upon account of the satisfaction of Christ, the church of Rome, which considered remission as grounded upon a removal of the pollution of sin, thought that a part of the punishment remains to be endured by the sinner; that the satisfaction of Christ, which alone is sufficient to deliver from future and eternal punishment those who are justified, is applied to their souls and rendered effectual for that purpose by the calamities which God sends them in this life, by the penances to which they submit, or by the torments endured in that intermediate state, where they are supposed to undergo a purification before they enter into heaven. All acts of mortification and every kind of affliction were thus regarded as a satisfaction offered on our part to the justice of God, deriving indeed all its acceptableness in the sight of God from what Christ has done, but concurring with the merits of Christ in our justification.

From the place assigned to personal righteousness, and to personal suffering in our justification, flowed the grossest corruptions in the church of Rome. The first reformers, therefore, regarding these corruptions with indignation, wisely and boldly attacked them in their principle, by dwelling upon the doctrine of justification by faith. According to this doctrine, the righteousness of Christ is the only impulsive or meritorious cause of our being justified with God; faith is only the instrument by which this righteousness is applied to us so as to be counted as ours; and the effect of this imputation is a complete remission of the punishment, as well as of the guilt, of sin; so that all the calamities, which they who are justified may be called to suffer, are fatherly chastisements, expressions of love, a salutary discipline ministering to their improvement, but in no respect a punishment or a satisfaction for sin.

Many of the sects into which the Protestants were afterwards divided, not being called immediately to combat the errors of popery, did not see the necessity of adhering to all the parts of this doctrine of the first reformers, and were led by the general principles of the systems which they adopted to depart from it more or less. The Socinians, who consider the gospel merely as a declaration of the mercy of God, a lesson of righteousness, and a promise of eternal life, exclude the satisfaction of Christ altogether; and finding no necessity and no place for the imputation of his righteousness, they

hold that, as all who repent are forgiven, so Christians are said to be justified by faith, or a reliance upon the promise which God has made to them through Christ, because this faith is the principle of that evangelical obedience which, through the essential goodness of God, will be crowned with eternal life. The Arminians, who retain the doctrine of the atonement, admit that the righteousness of Christ imputed to us is the only meritorious cause of our justification. But as this righteousness is imputed only to those who believe, and as faith, according to the Arminians, is the fruit of that favourable reception which the mind of him who believes is naturally disposed to give to the grace of God, faith is considered by them not merely as an instrument by which the righteousness of Christ is applied, but as an act implying the possession of that honesty of heart, and those good dispositions which, for the sake of Christ, are counted to us as righteousness. The Roman Catholics and the Arminians in this point agree; both ascribing to faith, not the merit of our justification, but that intrinsic value which is a preparation and predisposition for our being justified. They said, in the language of the schools, fidem justificare dispositive; that a man, by having faith, suæ voluntatis motu præparari et disponi ad justificationis gratiam consequendam. The Calvinists, on the other hand, considering all those dispositions, which go along with faith, as originating in the grace which is conferred by God, do not ascribe to them any co-operation with that grace in the act of justification; but as they read in Scripture that we are justified not δια την πίστιν, but δια πιστεως, εκ πίστεως, 50 they say that faith justifies organice, instrumentaliter; and it appears to them that the very reason why our justification is ascribed to faith, and not to other Christian virtues, is, that while obedience, charity, and repentance, have an intrinsic merit, something independent of any object foreign to themselves, which might be regarded as the ground of our acceptance, faith in Christ, by its very nature, looks beyond itself, and instead of presenting any thing of which the person who believes can boast, implies a reliance upon the merit of another; and this they understand to be the meaning of that expression of the Apostle, Rom. iv. 16, " It is of faith, that it might be by grace."

In the first paragraph of the eleventh chapter of the Confession of Faith, the doctrine of justification by faith is anxiously discriminated from all the errors which I have enumerated. And in the fourth paragraph of that chapter there is an allusion to an inaccurate expression which occurs in the writings of some who held this doctrine. They said that men were justified from eternity; thus confounding the decree of election, which entered into the eternal counsels of the Almighty, with that part of the execution of the decree which we mean by the act of justification; an act which pre-supposes that faith which is the fruit of the Spirit, and therefore does not take place until faith be produced.

There is another mode of expression which is not a mere inaccuracy, but proceeds upon a different view of the whole subject. It is said by the Roman Catholics, and by many Protestants, that no man is completely justified until the last day, when he is delivered from all the effects of sin, and put in possession of eternal life. But as the Scripture often speaks of men being justified prior to that day, a dis

« PreviousContinue »