CHAPTER XLIII. PRACTICAL TENDENCIES OF THE TWO SYSTEMS.

In the preceding pages it has been shown that the common‐sense system presents an intelligible, practical and consistent standard of right and wrong, by which we can judge clearly of the character and conduct, both of the Creator and of his creatures.

The mind of the Creator existing from all eternity, independently of his own will, is the pattern of perfectness in the construction of mind. He has formed and sustains a system fitted to his own perfections. The chief end of this system is happiness‐making on the greatest possible scale. In order to this, his _laws_, by which the most possible good with the least possible evil will be secured, must be discovered and obeyed.

Accordingly, all that tends to secure happiness without evil is right, and all that needlessly lessens or destroys happiness is wrong. Every effort to discover the laws of God and to obey them is right and pleasing to him as promoting his chief desire and great end. This view furnishes a foundation for clear conceptions in every practical question of right and wrong. What is _for the best_ as discovered by reason and experience? This is the great question, when we have no direct revelation from God. And even when revelation intervenes, it must be only in regard to _general rules_, leaving it still a matter of experience and discussion in _applying_ these rules to the multitudes of varying cases in human experience. Thus, for example, a command to be honest toward all, leaves innumerable questions to be settled as to what _is_ honest and fair in the multiplied cases arising between man and man.

But we always have the great principle of common sense to guide us, that _whatever is for the best is right_, leaving it for reason and experience to settle what is and what is not for the best.

But in contrast the Augustinian system, in many ways, tends to becloud the mind in regard to practical questions of right and wrong.

Thus the assumption that there are no principles in the human mind that enable us to judge of the character and conduct of God; that we have no means of learning what is the object or end for which all things are made; that man is so depraved as to be disqualified to know what is right and wrong, except as taught by revelations from God; and at the same time disqualified to interpret such revelations until regenerated, or by the help of a priesthood; all this tends to create the feeling of incertitude as to any question of right and wrong, while the abuses of priestly interpretations have so often set the Bible in opposition to our moral sense and common sense as greatly to increase the evil.

Add to this, the assumption that there is no true virtue in any acts of the unregenerate, but that all their moral deeds are sin, and only sin, and the perplexity is increased as to what is right and what is wrong moral action.

Again, the fact that salvation from eternal misery is possible only to those who have gained a new “nature,” while it is often seen that some of those received into churches as having this new nature, are not so charitable, amiable, just or honest, as many who are not thus admitted, and the mind is still more beclouded as to the real nature of right and wrong in practical conduct.

Again, the manner in which this new nature is recognized by those appointed to decide who are regenerated and who are not, in order to admit to or exclude from churches, still farther increases the difficulty. The questions often propounded on such occasions relate mainly to certain states of feeling toward God or Christ, or to certain doctrines involved in the Augustinian theory. If replies to these are satisfactory, the candidate is pronounced regenerated and received to the church.

Meantime, ever since the days of Luther, the doctrine of “justification by faith,” in opposition to “salvation by works,” has been assumed to be the foundation principle, both of Protestantism and of true piety, while there has been great indistinctness of conception as to the true meaning of these terms. At the time of the great conflict between Romanism and the Reformers, the grand evil to be combated was a reliance for salvation on the prescribed outward rites and forms of the church without any reference to an internal spiritual principle. The attempt of the Reformers was to substitute for these outward forms that spiritual principle which consists in a _ruling purpose to discover and to obey the will of God according to the teachings of Christ_, whom they regarded as “God manifest in the flesh.” They recognized the fact that no man ever did or ever could live without some violations of the laws of God, so that no man could be saved on the ground of perfect obedience to law. Instead of this they assumed that man could gain eternal life by “becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus,” meaning by this that “new life” which consists in ceasing to live to please self, and living to please God in Christ as the chief end of life, by earnest conformity to his will as learned either by reason and experience or by the Bible.

This is what they intended by faith in Jesus Christ. And the opposite doctrine of “salvation by works” was that which the Romish church was urging, viz., conformity to her outward rites and forms.

But in process of time, and for want of clear conceptions and clear teaching, it came about that the real good works, commanded by Christ, as a part of the love of God required, were confounded with the rites and forms, and outward deeds commanded by the church, and which may be performed without the principle of love to Christ, which is exhibited in obedience to his teachings. The result has been that the teachings and writings of many Protestants often make the impression that the good works of a pure morality are of no avail and often very much in the way of a man’s final salvation. Thus has arisen the distinction often made between good _moral_ men and good _religious_ men. This classification rests entirely on the Augustinian dogma, that until the depraved nature received from Adam is regenerated, all the moral acts of men, however virtuous and excellent, are “sin, and sin only.”

The true meaning of “justification by faith and not by works,” is that men are not to be saved by _actually finding out_ in all possible cases what is for the best and then _doing_ it, which no man ever did or ever can do without mistake; but rather by _a ruling purpose to discover and to obey_ all the laws of the Creator. This last is the _spiritual_ principle in opposition to mere _outward acts_. It is _practical_ faith in God which is to save the soul of man. All, therefore, who believe Christ to be God are “justified” by _faith_ in Christ. That is, they are regarded and treated as just and righteous, when they have this internal principle of obedience to Christ, even though they are never free from actual transgression of law, either known or unknown. Thus the ancient patriarchs were saved by faith in Christ, he being the God of the old dispensation as much as of the new.

That this is the sense in which the Reformers used the words “justification, or salvation by faith,” in opposition to “salvation by works,” may easily be proved. At the same time, it is as easy to show that they used this term in another sense also. But at this time no reference will be made to any other use than the one under consideration. Their other use of this term in reference to the atonement of Jesus Christ will be referred to hereafter.

The preceding exhibits the several ways in which the Angustinian theory tends to becloud the mind in regard to practical questions of right and wrong. These tendencies have been more or less counteracted by the implanted principles of reason. Still more have they been rectified by the steady and clear teachings of the Bible, which never, when truly interpreted, contradict either the moral sense or common sense of man, but rather strengthen them and guide them aright.