Chapter 25

§ 1. This Doctrine of Paul not obsolete.

That portion of the New Testament which speaks so earnestly of justification by faith is by many supposed to have become obsolete for all useful purposes at the present time. The doctrine that “we are justified by faith, and not by works,” it is supposed, was intended for the benefit of the Jews alone, and to amount to this—that admittance to the privileges of the gospel is to be obtained, not by practising the ceremonies and external ritual of the Jewish law, but by a simple belief in Jesus Christ. Accordingly, as no one nowadays endeavors to become a Christian by practising the Jewish ceremonies, we suppose that there is no present need of this doctrine; and when we come upon it in the Scripture, we turn over the pages in search of something more practical and profitable. As, in the book of Acts, we read, that, “when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O Jews, reason would that I should bear with you; but if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters,” so we, when Paul is about to open his mouth to speak to us of this doctrine, think it a mere question of words and names, and of the Jewish law, and interrupt him to ask him for something _practical_. If he has anything to say to us of wrong-doing or wicked conduct, it would be reasonable to hear him; but we will be no judge of such matters as this.

There are also many persons, who, while they can understand the Gospels and enjoy them, find it difficult to understand and enjoy the writings of the apostle Paul. Among these writings, the most difficult is the Epistle to the Romans, and especially that part of it which treats of this doctrine of justification by faith. Anything which can be done to remove this difficulty will do good; for the writings of Paul are so intimately connected with the rest of the New Testament, that it is not easy to reject them, and yet to believe the rest. It can be done, no doubt; but it is done with difficulty. It is as if one part of the foundation of the house had given way: perhaps the house will not fall; but it has become unsafe. It is as if a part of the wall of a city had been battered down: the breach may be defensible from within; but it is also practicable from without. At all events, we miss the satisfaction of a complete faith, perfect and entire, round and full.

Besides, may there not be something important for us to know in this part of the New Testament? Are we quite sure we do not need these very doctrines, and that they will do us good?

We have said that it is sometimes thought that the questions discussed by Paul were only Jewish questions,—not human questions; that they belonged only to that time, not to all time. But, though the form which they assumed was temporary and local, there is reason to believe that the substance of the question is one belonging to human nature in every age; that it is the question of the spirit and the letter, the substance and the form, the root and the branches, the inside of religion and the outside. While contending against a particular Jewish error, the apostle unfolded principles by which similar errors may be opposed and refuted in every age.

At all events, it is a matter of fact, that there seldom has been in the Church any great religious movement which has not immediately gone back to the apostle Paul, and planted itself on his doctrine of justification by faith. This was the watchword of Luther, and the soul of the reformation. Luther and his companions armed themselves with this doctrine to contend against the great power of the Papacy and the Romish Church.

Let us, then, endeavor to see what we can of the truth there may be in this doctrine.

§ 2. Its Meaning and Importance.

And, first, let us see what the doctrine does not mean, and what it does mean.

To be justified by faith does not mean that we are to be saved by our opinions. To say that a man can be saved by holding certain opinions, instead of certain other opinions, is to say what is contradicted by all experience; for experience shows us that there are good men holding every variety of opinion, and bad men holding every variety of opinion. But God saves men by making them good: therefore men are not saved by their opinions. Let us suppose that men are to be saved by the opinion that Jesus is the Christ: then we ought to find that all men holding that opinion are on the way of salvation; that is, are becoming good men. But this is far from being the case. In fact, the connection between mere opinion of any kind, and goodness, is very distant and indirect. No doubt, in the long run, opinion affects character; but it is only in the long run that it does so. And, at all events, the doctrine of the New Testament is very distinct and decided, that men may hold very sound opinions, and yet not be in the way of salvation. The Scribes and Pharisees held very sound opinions; and Jesus told his disciples to do whatever they said, but not to imitate their works; for their doctrine was much better than their lives.

Nor does the apostle mean to say that one can be saved without morality. He certainly does not mean to undervalue goodness; for, in that case, he would contradict his own teachings, which uniformly declare, as all the rest of the Bible declares, that without holiness no man can see the Lord. It is certainly a very superficial view which is satisfied with supposing that an earnest man, as the apostle certainly was, devoting his life, as he certainly did, to the teaching of Christianity, with such a grand intellect as he certainly possessed, could assert with so much energy a doctrine plainly contradicting common sense, daily observation, the plain teachings of Jesus, and his own uniform doctrine elsewhere.

Some persons have a short method of getting over the difficulty by saying that Paul did not himself know what he meant. They assume that he was talking at random. It would be about as wise, when we open Newton’s “Principia,” and cannot understand it, to say that Newton was talking at random; or, when we cannot understand Plato or some other profound metaphysician, to declare directly that he did not himself know what he was talking about. No doubt, this is the shortest and easiest way of getting out of such difficulties, but perhaps not the most modest, nor the most wise.

When an earnest man, a profound man, a man in the highest degree practical, a man who has done the greatest work for Christianity which has been done since its foundation, sums up his doctrine in a comprehensive maxim like this, it is, perhaps, wise to admit, at once, that he had a meaning, and probably an important one.

“No doubt he _had_ a meaning,” it may be said; “but has he any meaning _now_? His formula meant something for the Jews; but does it mean anything for us? Is not this merely a Jewish question, with which we have nothing to do?”

This is another easy way of getting over difficulties. In reading the New Testament, when we come to a place where we are stopped by something which looks deep and is dark, we are often told, “That darkness is not depth: it is the shadow of a Jewish error which lies across the path.”

Have we not often felt dissatisfied, when, approaching some great saying of Christ and his apostles from which we hoped to gain new insight, we have been told, “That has nothing to do with _us_. The Jews had such and such an opinion, and this was meant to show them their mistake”? So the great and earnest words of the Bible, which we thought to be full of spirit and life, are found to be only fossil remains of old opinions, of opinions long since passed away—good for nothing but to be put into the museums of antiquaries, and paraded by scholastic pedants.

But, after all, take it on the lowest ground, were not the Jews men? Did they not, as a race, represent some element, common, in a less degree, to the rest of mankind? and therefore is there not in each of us something of that Jewish element? Are not we also sometimes Jews, therefore liable to Jewish errors, and needing to have them corrected? The Jews did not live in vain: their struggles, errors, hopes, were for the benefit of humanity. We were to learn something by their mistakes, and to be taught something by their experience.

Another way of treating such a passage is to translate it into some trivial, insignificant commonplace. Thus, we are told, our doctrine only means that “_God does not approve a man merely for going through a routine of outward, formal ceremonies, but for a thoroughly religious life._” This explanation assumes that the apostle is here talking to simpletons, and that what he says is no more worth listening to by us than the prattle of a nurse to her infant.

There are, therefore, four ways of explaining this passage, none of which are satisfactory. These are, that Paul,—

1. Was teaching a self-evident absurdity;

2. Was teaching a self-evident truism;

3. Was teaching nothing, and only talking at random;

4. Was correcting a Jewish error, which only the Jews ever had, or are ever likely to have.

If these views are not satisfactory to us, the simplest way would seem to be, first, to endeavor to understand precisely what the Jewish error was, and then to see if there is anything like it in ourselves, and if there be anything which we can learn from this old argument which will be, not old, but new for our time and for all time, because a part of the tendencies of man. Let us translate these old terms—_justification_, _faith_, _works_—into their modern equivalents, and see what they mean for us at the present time.

We have shown that we may be mistaken in supposing this Orthodox doctrine of justification to be of merely local and temporary interest, having no permanent value. It is not likely that a man like Paul, of so large, so deep, so philosophic a mind, should have devoted himself so earnestly, and returned so fondly, to a theme involving no universal and eternal principles, whose interest was to perish with the hour. It is not probable that, in this small volume of writings of the new covenant,—this precious gift of God to the world in all ages and in every nation,—so large a portion should be devoted to a wholly temporary argument; and, more than all, it is a most remarkable fact, that whenever there arises a man uniting a deeper spirit of piety with a larger sense of liberty than other men,—a man commissioned by God to give a new religious impulse to his age, and to help Christianity to shake itself free from the cumbrous mass of human forms and traditions which have crushed it, and to go forth in its native grace and loveliness again,—some profound instinct should always lead him to this doctrine as to a weapon effectual for pulling down the strongholds of bigotry, scepticism, and spiritual death. Sir James Mackintosh somewhere says, that the great movement which shook Christendom to its centre, and did more to change and reform society than the political revolutions and wars of a thousand years, originated with an obscure Augustinian monk preaching the doctrine of justification by faith. This acute Scotchman saw, what all must see who read Luther’s writings with any attention, that it was no accident, no temporal interest, which led him to lay such stress on this doctrine. It was the soul of his preaching, the essence of his doctrine, the secret of his strength, the life of his life. And so, when Wesley and the early Methodists were called upon to pour new religious life into the English Church, they fell back on this doctrine—this ancient sword of the Spirit. And so we may believe that it has a value for all ages; that it did not relate merely to Jewish usages, but is a principle of vital and everlasting application.

No doubt that if by faith we understand intellectual belief, or the assent to opinions, and if by works we understand true obedience, and by justification final salvation or actual goodness, there can scarcely be a greater absurdity than to say that a man is justified by faith, and not by works. To say that goodness, in the sight of God, consists in receiving certain opinions, rather than in true obedience, is a most unscriptural and irrational doctrine.

But none of the great reformers of whom I have spoken, and no profound theologians of any sect or school, have ever held the doctrines of justification by faith in this way. Neither Luther nor Wesley ever made faith synonymous with intellectual belief or opinion. “What is faith?” said Wesley. “Not an opinion, nor any number of opinions put together, be they ever so true. A string of opinions is no more Christian faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness. It is not an assent to any opinion, or any number of opinions. A man may assent to three or three and twenty creeds, he may assent to all the Old and New Testament, and yet have no Christian faith at all.”

But what is the true doctrine of justification by faith, as taught in the Scriptures, and as inspiring these great reformers? This is naturally our next inquiry.

§ 3. Need of Justification for the Conscience.

There is nothing in the nature of man more paradoxical than conscience. It is that which lifts him to God; and yet it is that which makes him capable of sin, and without which he could not be a sinner. It gives him the sense of right, but at the same time makes him conscious of wrong. It makes him capable of duty, but thereby also capable of disobedience. It shows us what we ought to do, without giving us the least strength wherewith to do it. It condemns us for not doing right, even when we have no power to do anything but what is wrong. It shows us a great ideal of goodness to which we ought to aspire, and discourages us by the very loftiness of the standard. It tells us in the same breath that we are sinners, and that we ought to be angels. It seems at the same time to elevate and degrade us. It elevates us by giving a great object to life, and making it serious and earnest; but it degrades us by making us constantly ashamed of ourselves, and keeping us in a perpetual state of humiliation. Now, one of the chief peculiarities of the conscience is, that beyond a certain point, the more we try to obey it, the less satisfaction we have. We know that this is not the usual theory. We are commonly told that the conscientious man is always contented and happy,—satisfied with himself, and at peace with God. But facts contradict this theory. The conscientious man is apt to be very much dissatisfied with himself,—much, more so than the man whose conscience is torpid and indifferent. There is comfort in faithful work; no doubt there is great content in the steady performance of regular duties; but here conscience is subordinate to work. It is _work_ which gives contentment; but CONSCIENCE, when thoroughly roused by the strong meat of a divine law, is the source of much self-dissatisfaction. How can it be otherwise? It shows us that we ought to _love God and love man with all our heart, soul, mind, strength_. Which of us does it? Do you? Do I? How large a part of our life have we given to the service of God? how large a part to the service of our neighbor? How often do we thank God for his goodness? How often do we pray to him? how often _think_ of him? If we do not think of him, of course we do not love him.

Love makes us very thoughtful of another’s wishes. When people love each other, they joy in thinking of each other; they treasure souvenirs of each other; they like to make each other presents of things they think will please; they steal an hour from daily cares or nightly rest to write letters to each other. Our heavenly Father’s arms are around us all day,—his infinite bounty blessing us, his careful providence making for us home, friends, all; yet we do not think of him, or wish to do anything to please him.

Conscience tells us that our heart is hard and cold to our best Friend; and that is by no means a pleasant piece of information.

Moreover, it is evident that this condition of self-dissatisfaction is not a good one. _Self-reproach may be a wholesome medicine, but it is a bad food._ We cannot do our work while we are finding fault with ourselves. The man whose conscience is always tormenting him is in a morbid state. He is a spiritually sick man,—sick of too much medicine. What must be done? He is always looking at his sins, and that disqualifies him for doing his duties. What shall he do?

This question in its Jewish form is stated thus: HOW SHALL HE BE JUSTIFIED BEFORE GOD? If God can excuse him, he can excuse himself. How, then, can he know that God looks at him not as a sinner, but as a just man, so that he can look on himself not as a sinner, but as a just man? This is the problem. What are its solutions?

In the Jewish mind, the Jewish law had brought the conscience into an extremely irritable state. The same effect, in a less degree, is produced by the Catholic confessional.

§ 4. Reaction of Sin on the Soul.

Now, the consequences of sin are these: First, every act of sin brings after it natural evil consequences. It weakens the strength of the soul, it darkens the spiritual eye, it hardens the heart, it adds a new link to the chain of evil habit. By a result as inevitable as the law of gravitation, every act of sin pollutes, darkens, weakens the spiritual principle in man. “He who sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.” We may call these results the _external_ consequences of sin, because they change our spiritual relation and position in God’s external universe. But there is another more awful and as inevitable consequence of sin. It alienates us from God himself. It turns our face from the Source of life and love. It makes us at war with him. It fills us with the sense of his displeasure, and burdens us with the consciousness of guilt. To escape the dreadful sense of his anger, we hide ourselves from him, as Adam did. It is a law of the human mind that we dread the sight of any one whom we have wronged, because it condemns us. Perhaps he may be perfectly willing to forgive us; perhaps he does not even know that we have wronged him; but we cannot bear to see him, notwithstanding. It was a profound feeling of this law which led an ancient historian to say, “He hated him because he had injured him.” Thus an active conscience, if it does not make a man better, will make him worse: to escape its torture he will plunge into new crimes. Some of the darkest crimes which stain the page of history may be traced to this source,—to the operation of a conscience strong enough to produce the sense of guilt, but not strong enough to produce the determination to reform. It is related that when the mother of Charles IX. of France and his uncles were urging the young king to consent to the execution of some of the principal Protestants to whom he was strongly attached, after a long resistance, when he at last gave way, it was with these remarkable words: “I consent, then, but only on one condition,—that you do not leave a Huguenot in France to reproach me with it.”(18) And hence the Bartholomew Massacre, which its authors had intended before only to include a few individuals. So sin takes occasion by the law, and the commandment ordained for life becomes death.

The same principle operates with respect to God. We have broken his law. We feel that he must be displeased with us; we therefore hide ourselves from him, turn away from him, avoid the thought of him, are alienated from him. This is the greatest evil of sin, and this we may call the inward consequence of sin, because it affects our inward relation to God rather than our outward relation to the universe.

And now, how are we to be reconciled to God? How are we to be freed from this sense of guilt which falls on us in his presence, and makes us fear and shun him?

§ 5. Different Methods of obtaining Forgiveness.

There are two ways in which, when we have injured our brother, and so have become estranged from him, we may become reconciled again, and freed from a sense of shame in his presence. One is by endeavoring to atone for the evil we have done by acts of kindness, by expressions of penitence. So at last we may feel that we have done him far more good than evil; and though he may not forgive us or be reconciled to _us_, we, on our part, may feel freed from any shame in his presence, and be reconciled to _him_. The other way is by _his_ coming to _us_, and _proving_ to us, by his conduct and words, that he is not estranged from us by our bad conduct; that he loves us as ever. So he will overcome our evil by his good, and reconcile us to him.

The pagan nations in all ages and lands have taken the first way of being reconciled to God. Oppressed by a guilty fear of their terrible idols, they have brought as gifts to their altars what they had most valuable; they have hung their gold, their jewels, in the temple; they have slain their cattle on the shrine. Still unable to pacify their trembling hearts, they have gone farther, and sought to prove the sincerity at least of their repentance by self-inflicted tortures, and by giving even their children’s lives to the bloody power whom they worshipped. Hence sacrifices: they originated in the very same feeling which induces a man to give a present to one whom he has wronged, to appease him.

Pagan religions are founded, therefore, wholly on the first mode of reconciliation. The offending party comes to him whom he has injured, and does something to pacify him. But these religions never brought peace to the heart of the worshipper. After the wretched mother had dropped her infant into the burning arms of Moloch, she still had no evidence that his wrath was turned away.

In the religion of Moses, the first mode of reconciliation was united with the second. Pitying the weakness of man, the law allowed him to bring his sacrifice of birds or beasts or the fruits of the soil, and place it on God’s altar as an expiation and atoning offering for his sin; and then, the suppliant, having faith in the permanent presence of God in the holy of holies, was received again to favor and assured of pardon. The Jew, who had broken any of the laws of Jehovah, knew exactly what to do in order to be reconciled to his national God and King. God had pointed out the way which he would accept. By certain acts of sacrifice and restitution, the Jew became once more worthy of living under the protecting care of Jehovah.

This mode of reconciliation under the law was far superior to that in pagan religions. It gave temporary peace to the conscience, though not permanent. It prevented the sinner from going farther from God, though it did not unite him with God in unbroken union. It kept the conscience awake, and prevented it from being hardened. It was a schoolmaster to bring the Jews to Christ. It was a preparation for a more excellent way. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer declares that the law was but the shadow of that which was to come; that it could not, “by the sacrifices offered year by year, make the comers thereunto perfect; for then would they have ceased to have been offered, because the worshippers, once purged, would have had no more conscience of sin.” The sacrifice made no revelation of God’s character and love, planted no root of piety in the heart: it relieved the conscience only for this once, only with respect to this one sin; and there its influence ended. And therefore was a new covenant necessary, and promised by the prophets, and looked forward to by holy men, when they should be reconciled not by works, but by faith.

We have seen that there are two modes by which alienation may be removed: first, by the offending party doing something to atone for his offence; second, by the injured one showing that he has forgiven the offence, and is ready to be reconciled without an atonement. The first mode is the way of reconciliation in pagan religions; the first and second are united in the Jewish religion; the second is the mode in the Christian religion.

§ 6. Method in Christianity.

In Christianity, in the gospel of grace, God offers pardon freely to those who are willing to accept it. He is ready now to receive those who are ready to come to him. It is only necessary to believe this in order to be reconciled. We are, therefore, reconciled by faith.

But we are said to be reconciled by the death and blood of Christ. How is this? We have seen the source of our alienation: it lay not in God, but in ourselves. God had not gone away from _us_; we went away from him. He had not ceased to love us; but by a terrible reaction from our sinfulness, we had ceased to believe in his love. “God’s hand,” says the prophet (Isa. 59:2), “is not shortened, that he cannot save, nor is _his_ ear grown dull, that he cannot hear; but _your_ iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, that he doth not hear.” By an immutable law of our mind, God’s wrath abides on us, and we cannot believe in his love. Here is the source of our alienation. Now, merely to be told that God is merciful does not wholly help the matter. True, we say, He _is_ merciful, but not to _us_; we have sinned too long and deeply. Something must be done, then, to _convince_ us that God is ready to forgive and receive us freely. The death of Christ is the fact which produces this conviction. The death of Christ, therefore, is not merely an _emblem_ of God’s love, but an _act_ of God’s love. It draws us to him. It changes our hearts. It melts our doubt, our distrust. It reveals to us our Father’s love. The blood of Christ makes those who were afar off nigh. This all experience teaches as a _matter of fact_. It is the cross of Christ, borne by the simple missionary, preached by the devout Moravian, which, amid the ice of Greenland or beneath the burning sun of the tropic, reconciles the sinner to God.

And if one asks _how_ the death of Christ does this, we will briefly indicate what we believe to be the way in which it operates. We look at Christ, and see the brightness of God’s glory and express image of his person. We see a holiness pure and perfect, a character infinitely beautiful and lovely. We see how dear and near such a one must have been to God; and we hear God say, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;” and we hear him say of God, “My Father has not left me alone; for I do _always_ the things which please him.”

And now we look at the world, and see it “lying in wickedness;” we see men trampling on God’s law, polluting his image, cruelly oppressing each other, and boldly defying and mocking at the Almighty. What does he then? For the sake of these miserable, weak, and wretched sinners, who seem scarcely worth the saving, he sends his holy child among them; he sends this pure being to have his heart rent with the sight and knowledge of human sin; he sends him to be cruelly and shamefully killed by a death of agony, in order that _we_, sinful and miserable, may be reconciled. We say, in the view of all this, “He who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us, how shall he not _with_ him freely give us all things?” We say, “God commended his love towards us, in that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us.” “Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” Christ, “being lifted up, draws all men unto him.” Thus, in the midst of the gloom of that horrible scene on Calvary, when the power of darkness was at its height,—that crisis of the world, when human sin stood at the flood,—the heavens were opened, and a new ray of divine love poured into the world.

§ 7. Result.

Let us sum up, then, the doctrine of justification by faith, as we have now explained it.

1. JUSTIFICATION is not the doing away with all the consequences of sin, but only the consequence which consists in present alienation from God. It is objectively, as a divine act, what _forgiveness_ is subjectively, as a human experience. It relates to _present_ acceptance with God; it is not the cancelling of the results of our past sins on the character, nor is it the hope of future salvation. It relates to the _present_.

The following passages show that justification is equivalent to reconciliation or forgiveness. Rom. 5:8-10: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Rom. 4:6-8: “David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works; saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”

2. FAITH is not mere intellectual belief or opinion; nor is it mere feeling, nor a mystical emotion in which we are wholly passive; but a sentiment, in which belief, feeling, and determination are blended together. The belief is that Christ is the Son of God; the feeling is trust and joy in the love of God seen in him; and the determination is to rely on him as a Mediator and Saviour.

That faith is not a mere intellectual belief, but involves also a feeling of trust, appears from such passages as these: “If thou believe in thy heart;” “An evil _heart_ of unbelief.”

That faith is not a mere emotion, in which we are wholly passive, appears from such cases as those where men are exhorted to believe, as a thing in their own power.

3. WORKS, in this doctrine, include every effort to reconcile God by offering him anything in expiation of our sin, whether sacrifices, sacraments, the assent to creeds, the struggle after feelings and experiences, or reformation of character.

And the whole doctrine of justification by faith may be thus expressed:—

If you are burdened with a sense of unworthiness and guilt; if something seems to separate your heart from God; if you want confidence to come to him boldly in prayer,—do not try to remove this difficulty by any effort to do something different, or become something different; but simply look at Jesus in his sufferings and death, and see your heavenly Father calling you to him _now_ to be forgiven. Go at once to God through Christ. Repose on that love that will cleanse you, that will save you; and nevermore doubt, even in your darkest hour, that your Father is ready to hear, to forgive, and bless you.

§ 8. Its History in the Church.

We have seen the origin, nature, and value of this doctrine. Let us now look at its history.

The apostolic Church was founded on the simple doctrine of faith in Christ. It was not founded on any theory or speculation _about_ Christ, or about his plan of salvation, but on _Christ himself_ as the Saviour. All that the first Christians professed was faith in Jesus as the Son of God. They had been reconciled to God by him; they were at peace with God; they were washed in the blood of the Lamb; and they were happy. A deep and wonderful joy brooded over the early church. A hurricane of persecution and war raged around them: within the Church, all was security and peace. How beautiful are the expressions by which the apostles describe the serenity and joy of the Church! “They ate their meat in gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people.” New converts “gladly received the word, and were baptized” by thousands, in the face of the bitterest persecution. “The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them, that aught of the things that he possessed was his own.” Whence came all this peace and union in the early Church? Was it because they had attained to such clear views of truth, and all held the same opinions? So far from it, some had not heard that there was a Holy Ghost; others did not believe in a resurrection of the dead; and many thought the whole Jewish ritual essential to salvation. Was it that they had become suddenly pure in heart, and holy in life, and freed from sin? So far from it, we find the apostles exhorting them against very great vices,—against murder, theft, and licentiousness,—and condemning them for having practised gross immoralities. It came from the simplicity of their faith. They looked to Jesus, and their faces were lightened. They _saw_ the love of God in him; they felt it in their hearts; they reposed on it undoubtingly. In quietness and confidence was their strength. O, happy days! in which men’s minds had not yet been harassed by thousands of vain controversies and empty verbal disputes; by questions, and strifes of words; by most profound theological discussions, ending in nothing but weariness; but were satisfied, that, if men would go to Christ, they would find truth. O, happy time! in which men had not learned to dissect their own hearts, and pry curiously into their feelings, and torture themselves by anxious efforts to _feel_ right, and tormenting doubts as to whether their inward experiences were as they ought to be, but believed that all good feelings would come in their own time out of Christian faith. O, happy, golden hour! when love, and joy, and duty were all one; when men did not prescribe for themselves and others a task-work, an outward routine of duties; but had confidence, that, if they lived in the Spirit, they would also walk in the Spirit.

That hour of simple, child-like faith passed away. Its decay appeared in a return to the old mode of justification. Instead of simply relying on what God had done, men must do something themselves to atone for their sins; they must do penance, and have priests, and sacraments, and masses, and countless ceremonies to come between them and God; they must pile up a cumbrous fabric of religious and moral works, by which to climb up to God; until, at last, though the doctrine of justification by faith was never given up, it was made of none effect by the rubbish of human ceremonies heaped before it. And then came Luther, armed with the old doctrine, to sweep these all away, and call men back to the simple faith in the Saviour. The pure word of faith went forth through all lands, conquering and to conquer.

But there is a continual tendency to fall back again from faith upon works. Ever as the life of religion weakens, ever as the strength of holy confidence decays, men betake themselves to some outward forms or efforts. When they cease to lean on the love of God, they begin to lean on sacraments and ceremonies, on opinions and doctrines, on feelings and experiences, on morality and works of duty. Ever, as the cold winter of worldliness and sin causes the stream of holy faith to shrink back into its channel, the ice of forms accumulates along its shores; and then, as the inevitable consequence and sign of the decay of faith, we find the Church becoming anxious and troubled, confidence giving way to anxiety, cheerfulness to gloom, hope to fear. Everything terrifies the unbelieving Church; new opinions terrify it; new measures terrify it. It has ashes instead of beauty, mourning for joy, the spirit of heaviness instead of the garment of praise.

§ 9. Orthodox Errors, at the present Time, in Regard to Justification by Faith.

We have said that there is a constant tendency to fall back from faith to works of some kind or other. The important question comes, How is it with us _now_? Does this tendency show itself in our present churches? And the answer we am compelled to make is, that _it does_, certainly to some extent, and in all the churches. Orthodox churches have fallen away, more or less, from the doctrine of justification by faith. They have fallen back from the central point of Christianity, faith in Jesus, in different directions, and seek to be justified by a law,—some upon a law of belief, and others on a law of emotion.

Do not understand us as saying that any of the churches have denied, or that they do not constantly teach, the doctrine of justification by faith. This is not the point. The Romish Church never denied, nor ceased to teach, this doctrine; but she virtually abolished it, and made it of none effect by teaching other things also. Is not this, to some degree, the case now?

Are there not many Orthodox Christians, at the present time, who seek to make their peace with God, not by relying on Jesus himself, but on some theory with respect to his nature or person; not on his death, but on some speculation _about_ his death,—some theory, scheme, or plan? Is it not the idea of many, that they are to be brought to God, not by faith in Jesus and his death, but by assenting to the correct doctrine about it? and accordingly they anxiously labor, and make it a WORK, to believe in the true theory, in order that they may be brought to God. We do not say that correct opinions on these points are unimportant; but we say that the faith in Christ which justifies us does not come from believing right opinions, but that right opinions come from the justifying faith. Are religious teachers now willing to do as Paul did, and say simply, “_Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ_”? or do they not rather find it necessary to say, “Believe this, that, and the other thing, about Jesus Christ”?

And again: is it not thought by Orthodox people, that, in order to be justified and have peace with God through Jesus Christ, it is necessary that a person should experience certain feelings, beginning with a sense of guilt, a fear of punishment, and passing into a state of hope and assurance? And, accordingly, men make it a WORK, and labor, to have these feelings in the precise order and manner, and, until they can experience these feelings, believe that they can have no access to God. As before, we do not mean that these feelings are unimportant, but only that we should not try to work ourselves up into certain feelings in order to be just before God. It is faith in Jesus which is the _source_, not the _result_, of piety as well as of holiness. It is faith in God’s love to us which enables us to love him. The sense of pardon produces both the feeling of gratitude and of unworthiness. God does not forgive us because we have had the right feelings, but that we may have them. Those love much to whom much is forgiven; but to whom little is forgiven, the same love little.

Were we ever struck with the remarkable contrast between the conversions to God in the apostolic time and those which we hear of now? How much more _simple_ they were! A man is riding in a chariot, reading his Bible, and trying in vain to comprehend it. An apostle comes, and explains to him the prophecy, and applies it to Jesus. Presently they come to water, and he says, “See, here is water;” he is baptized, and goes on his way rejoicing. We fear there are not many churches now who would receive that Ethiopian as a member, if he could give no further account of his religious experience than is recorded in the book of Acts.

But is it not, we say again, remarkable, that not only in this case, but in all the cases of conversion recorded and described in the Acts, there should be nothing of the descriptions which we read every week in our religious newspapers? In the case of the three thousand baptized on the day of Pentecost, we only read that they were cut to the heart; said, “What shall we do?” were told to repent and be baptized; joyfully received the word, and were baptized. Even the remarkable conversion of Paul was nothing like what we now have. How is this—that now we are not willing to trust to a simple act of faith in Jesus Christ, and in turning to God; but we have a scale and rule of religious experience—a work which all must go through in order to be justified?

And what is the result of thus substituting for justification by faith, justification by belief in opinions, and by processes of feeling? Look at the churches where this has been carried farthest, and see the result. Religion becomes gloomy, anxious, and austere; it ceases to breathe cheerfulness and joy around; the gentler graces die before it; fear treads fast in the footsteps of hope; a stiff formality introduces cant in the place of what is natural and artless; the heart is stretched on a rack of self-torturing doubts and anxieties. The biographies and private journals of many eminent saints show us how little happiness they had in their religion,—how they were tortured by spiritual doubts, perplexities, and anxieties. The reason is, that they rely on their _own_ feelings, instead of relying on Christ.

And with the reliance placed on theory and opinion vanishes the union of the Church. There are five sects in this country, all holding to the Assembly’s Catechism—a large and minute compendium of opinions,—and yet which often do not allow each other to commune at the Lord’s table. The New School Presbyterians might permit the others to commune with _them_, but are themselves excluded. The Old School Presbyterians would commune with all but the New, but are not permitted. Nay, the Associate Reformed, the Covenanters, and the Seceders carry it so far as to discipline and excommunicate their members for what is called _occasional hearing_; i.e., attending worship at other churches than their own. There was in the State of Indiana an Old School preacher, and president of a college, who refused to allow a Unitarian to give a literary address which the students had asked him to give, and which he had gone to deliver, and, in defending himself for this, called him a “public propagator of infidelity;” and within a mile or two of his college there was a society of Seceders, or Covenanters, holding, like himself, the Assembly’s Confession, who would excommunicate any of their members who should go to hear him preach.

There is, then, a tendency among the Orthodox to rely on their own opinion and their own feelings, rather than on Jesus Christ.

§ 10. Errors of Liberal Christians.

Liberal Christians have fallen into error of a different sort. They seek to be justified, not by opinion nor by feeling, but by action; by works of righteousness, honesty, charity; by the faithful performance of social duties; by an active obedience to the law of God. Looking at the Scriptures, and seeing in how many places we are plainly taught that we are to work out our own salvation; to be rewarded and punished according to our active goodness; to be judged by our works,—they say that a man is forgiven when he has corrected his fault, and not before; that repentance and reformation are the only means of atonement with God; that, if we wish to be forgiven, we must reform our conduct and change our character. Accordingly, they lay great stress on DUTY, and are continually exhorting men to the performance of their duties in order to be forgiven.

But there is a mistake here also, which arises from confounding two very different things; namely, justification and final salvation. We have seen that the consequences of sin are twofold—external and internal. The inward consequence of sin is separation from God; the external is the weakening and debasing of the soul. The first consequence is removed by faith; the second, by obedience. Every act of sin pollutes, darkens, and ruins the soul; every act of obedience strengthens, elevates, and saves it. Obedience, persevered in to the end, insures the salvation of the soul. But, in order that we may obey, we must first be justified; for what is to give us the strength and the heart to obey, except the pardoning love of God? It is this sense of reconciliation,—it is this spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father,”—which gives us the power to obey. We do not obey God to be forgiven; but we are forgiven that we may obey. Have we read the Gospels, and have we forgotten all the instances in which Jesus said, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” before there had been any change of conduct, or reform of character? and have we forgotten the memorable passage in which he explains to the captious Pharisee why he does this (Luke 7:36-50),—on the principle that the one to whom the most is forgiven will love the most?

To point out to men their duties, and tell them to do them, does not enable them to do them; but the sight of God’s love in Jesus Christ _does_ create in them new strength. That true follower of Jesus, the first of our Ministers at Large, Dr. Tuckerman, did not say to the poor victim of sin, that when he reformed his conduct, he would be his friend. No: like his Master, he showed himself his friend while he was yet a sinner, and so gave him hope and courage to break away from his sin. He has left on record one of the most touching instances of the power of love to melt down the impenitent heart, in the case of a convict whom he persisted in visiting, though he was perfectly hardened, and filled with bitterness and rage. He persisted in patient attempts to soften his heart, till he succeeded, by the irresistible power of love, in making him humble as a little child. Suppose he had sent him word, that if he repented, and showed the proper spirit, he would come and visit him. He had not so learned God or Christ. He knew that he must overcome evil with good. Exactly so does God overcome our evil with good.

To tell men to do their duties that they may be forgiven, is to tell them to do what they have no power to do. A confident reliance on God’s love, and steadfast communion with him, are the only source of real improvement. When we feel these, we are one with God; when we can go to him confidently, as children to a father; when we can betake ourselves to his love in every emergency of life,—we have a source of real strength, and growth, and improvement within us. But, without this feeling of peace with God, the effort to do our duties only harasses and irritates our conscience: it produces weariness of heart, a constant feeling of unworthiness and failure, a constant sense of obligations and responsibilities which we do not and cannot fulfil. Duty is a weary task, a heavy burden; and our life is crushed down by constant anxiety and care. But if we begin right, and come to God first, and lean on his love, and rely on his promise, then we are filled with hope and joyful assurance, and failure does not dismay us, for we say, “God’s truth is pledged for our success; and if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

It may be objected that it is dangerous to religion to admit that we can be justified before we have believed certain important doctrines or experienced certain peculiar feelings. It may also be objected, on the other hand, that it is dangerous to morality to suppose that pardon can precede reformation. But the more we read the Scriptures, the more we look into our own heart, and the more we become acquainted with our fellow-men, the deeper is our conviction, that there is but one source of true piety and sound morality—a heart reconciled to God, and at peace with him. We do not undervalue correct belief, deep feeling, or active obedience; but we place them where they belong. They are the fruit of the tree, not the root of the tree. The root and source and beginning of all piety and holiness is simple faith in God through Christ. We must ask ourselves, therefore, first of all, “Are we reconciled to God, or are we not? Are we living in filial communion with him, or living without him in the world?” If unreconciled, we must not think to work ourselves up into a degree of goodness or pious feeling without God. There is no strength where there is no confidence, where there is nothing to lean on, where there is hollowness within. We ought to come at once to God. We ought to lift our hearts to him, not saying, “Who shall go up to heaven for us, to bring him to us? Who shall go over the sea for us?” For his word is very nigh, in our mouth and heart.

The above discussion will show what we consider to be the truths, and what the errors, in the Orthodox view of justification by faith.