that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only,' there is a great difference between Paul's only and James' only. For Paul's only is to be understood that faith justifieth in the heart and before God, without help of works, yea, and ere I can work." "But James' only is this wise to be understood, that faith doth not so justify that nothing justifieth save faith. For deeds do justify also. But faith justifieth in the heart before God, and the deeds before the world only."

What confusion of language, and ludicrous contradiction, does the above passage exhibit! And yet it contains the substance of the grand Protestant distinction between faith and works. It cannot be denied that Luther was far more consistent in his error than many of his disciples, and especially on this point, by his refusal, in toto, to admit the epistle of James among the canonical books.

Let us note, then, in the above, that, by "Paul's only," we are, according to Tyndale, particularly to understand that faith justifies without works only before God. And, on the other hand, by "James' only," that we are to understand, while faith justifies in the aforesaid manner, deeds also justify; but, in this case, "before the world only," and not before God, since this, according to Tyndale, is the province of faith without works in the sense of "Paul's only !" From this, it follows that, while faith justifies alone and without works, according to "Paul's only," works also justify alone without faith, according to "James' only." Hence is acknowledged two distinct and formal causes of our justification, neither of which, it is evident, are divine or consonant with Scripture, but both equally worthless and absurd. For faith without works is, evidently, no better than works without faith; and the "great difference, between Paul's only and James' only," is made to consist in the notion that the former refers only to God, and the latter only to the world! The above reasoning, in fine, however absurd it may seem, constitutes the very basis of the reformed doctrine of Justification according to the legal and judicial acceptation, as it is called, of the term, in opposition to the Catholic sense, as held by the Church of Rome.

BISHOP LATIMER.

The following is from the celebrated Bishop Latimer, another of the early and distinguished English reformers. "When we believe in Christ, we be like as if we had done no sin at all; for his righteousness standeth us in good stead, as though we, of our own selves, had fulfilled the law to the uttermost."*

To understand the meaning of the above passage it is necessary to bear in mind that the personal righteousness of Jesus Christ is held to be so accounted to us, 66 as though we, of our own selves, had fulfilled the law" to its very letter. In this manner, Tyndale also says, we are considered as if we were "full righteous," which he, moreover, explains by affirming that it is equivalent to "God's justifying us actively." Hooker also says that the same personal obedience is so accounted to the creature that he is thereby considered as more perfectly righteous than if he himself had fulfilled the whole law."t

In all this we are held to have obeyed the law according to its letter, and as if this were done by our own selves, and in the same personal manner as it was effected by Jesus Christ in "the days of his flesh." The whole of the reasoning, therefore, proceeds upon a contradiction and an absolute impossibility; and what renders the absurdity more striking, is its maintenance with an opinion that this mode of justification is effected by a supposed act and sentence of the law.

Since, then, it is an obvious contradiction to suppose that we could have obeyed, of our own selves, in the manner in which Christ obeyed, so is it equally an absurdity for us to believe that we could be either made or accounted just by such a vain and preposterous supposition. So far, then, from this being an act of justifying faith, on our part, it is no less than an act of downright folly and presumption. But when Protestant divines consider faith as nothing more than mere opinion, it must

* Fathers of the English Church, Vol. 2, p. 485. + Hooker on Justification, § 6.

cease to be a wonder that they should speak of it as a "poor and mean virtue, or as "the bare and empty hand of a beggar." But it certainly is surprising that men of such learning could suppose it possible that man could be either made or accounted just by God, merely and barely through such a senseless and presumptuous notion of the creature. Bishop Hopkins, however, on the contrary, thinks"It is very wonderful that the Papists, (as he calls them,) should so obstinately resolve not to understand this doctrine of imputed righteousness, but still cavil against it as a contradiction." "And some," he adds, "besides this slander (!) of a contradiction, give us this scoff into the bargain; viz. that the Protestants in defending an imputative righteousness, show only an imputative modesty and learning."t

Such, however, is the Protestant idea of our most holy faith, and such the imputative manner by which we are, said to be, accounted just in the sight of our Creator. We add, moreover, that such is the cardinal principle of the Protestant reformation; and, according to its supporters, in the words of Bishop Hopkins, "the very sum and pith of the whole Gospel, and the only end of the covenant of grace."‡

But to return to the reformer Bishop Latimer. If we actually believe that the righteousness of Christ is accounted to our persons, in the manner above described, by a mere human faith alone, we are, then, according to him, considered by God, 66 so that we be like as if we had done no sin at all;" and "as though we, of our own selves, (!) had fulfilled the law to the uttermost," that is, strictly so, according to its letter! In other words, we are accounted just before God, not only for believing what is, in itself, a manifest contradiction to all reason, but, moreover, for the presumptuous notion that we are considered by him as just as the unspotted victim himself who fulfilled the law for us in his own flesh! Nay, as Hooker says, more perfectly righteous than if we

*Archbishop Usher's Sermons, No. 12.

+ Bishop Hopkins' Works, Vol. 2, p. 323. Bishop Hopkins is commonly designated by a large portion of the English church as "a giant" in theology.

+ Doctrine of the Two Covenants.-Works, Vol. 2, p. 382.

ourselves had fulfilled the whole law." (!)* "Therefore," says Bishop Latimer, "let us study (so) to believe in Christ." "Let us patch him with nothing. (!) It is his doing only." That is, he means, without us or any cooperating agency on our part, save the bare believing act of what is called "faith alone," or, as Tyndale, as we have seen, expresses it, faith according to "Paul's only," as distinguished from "James' only." "O! what a joyful thing," he continues, "is this! what a comfortable thing is it that we know now that neither devil, hell, nor any thing in heaven or earth shall be able to condemn us when we (thus) believe in Christ."+

In another discourse, he says, that "The preacher hath a busy work to bring his parishioners to a right faith, as Paul calleth it-to a faith that embraceth Christ and trusteth to his merits; a lively faith, a justifying faith, (in short,) a faith that maketh a man righteous without respect of works, as ye have it very well declared and set forth in the Homily."+

But as faith, according to him and the Protestant creed, is only alone in its justifying office, or when it accounts a man to be righteous, without actually making him so, since it is on the imputative principle without respect of works, neverthless, it is, he maintains, not alone after the man has been once made just. For, in a sermon before King Edward, he says,

"Faith is a great lady, and she hath ever a great company and train about her. First, she hath a gentlemanusher that goeth before her; and where he is not, there is not Lady Faith. This gentleman-usher is called knowledge of sin. Now, as the gentleman-usher goeth before her, so she hath a train that cometh behind, they be all of Faith's company, they are all with her-her whole house. hold, &c., &c.; and these be the works of our vocation, when every man considereth what vocation he is in, and doth the works of the same, as to be good to his neighbor, to obey God, &c. Faith is never without her train she is no anchoress; she dwells not alone; she is never a private woman." (!!)§

* Hooker on Justification, § 6.

+ Fathers of the English Church, Vol. 2, p. 677. § Ibid, p. 652.

+ Ibid, p. 640.

;

Such are the ludicrous shifts and expedients to which the first reformers resorted in order to illustrate and sustain their absurd distinction between faith and works ; and such are the arguments which are still gravely appealed to by their admiring followers of the present day, as evidences of their profound knowledge and most spiritual discernment!

In the train, referred to above, Latimer reckons hope and love; and his description of the latter, in comparison with faith herself, is strongly characteristic of the imputative opinions in relation to "faith alone" in “her justifying office." "Though love," says Latimer, "be the chiefest, yet we must not attribute unto her the office which pertaineth unto faith only. Like as I cannot say, the Mayor of Stamford must make me a pair of shoes, because he is a greater man, yet it is not his office to make shoes; so, though love be the greater yet it is not her office to save.'

Here the office of faith is so confounded with the principle itself that we cannot know whether he means to hold that there is, indeed, any such power in man, or, whether he intends to call the justifying office, only, by that name. If the former is not meant to be disputed, it does not even then appear that she is of any further service after the termination of the justifying office. For when the shoemaker has finished the shoes, which is the only business, it seems, he is capable of doing, why should his presence in the train be any longer wanted when his services are no longer required; and when the Mayor of Stamford is, now of himself alone, sufficient for the accomplishment of every future end; seeing, moreover, that nothing is, now, to be added or diminished in regard to the past and completed work of the former ? And, again, as love and good works are, by no means, necessary to salvation, on Protestant grounds, we cannot

Fathers of the English Church, Vol. 2, p. 677. In other words, the love of God, though it be shed abroad in our hearts, has, according to Latimer, neither power to justify nor to save! Seeing that this office belongs, as Usher says, to the " poor virtue of faith," and to which, notwithstanding that "love be the greater," "God hath," in the words of the same divine, " given it a name above all names." (!!)