JUSTIFICATION BY CHRIST
3. HOW EASY IT IS TO ERR IN THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION
Seeing that these things and others like unto them, contain the principal heads of all christian doctrine, divines should take special care lest they err in them; which care, unless they take, there will follow most grievous ruin and perturbation of all things, the foundations being put out of their places.
And yet error is no where more easily committed than in these points.
Neither is it so strange; for this animal nature we call human reason, when consulted about the things of God, is most blind, and sees nothing, unless it be illuminated with the better light of divine knowledge shining in upon it.
For the right understanding of divine things comes by the Spirit of God, and not by human capacity; and though the law, and the things of the law, were in some sense born with us, and cleave unto our nature, yelt the mysteries of the doctrine of the gospel are not apprehended so easily, for the nature of both is very different. Moreover, you may see many, who following the guidance of nature, and her precepts more than is meet, do teach and dispute of things belonging to the gospel; just as a philosopher discourses of the principles of nature, or a moralist of the perfection of virtues, in which they place their chief good; or as a pharisee, sitting in the chair of Moses, would dispute about the righteousness of the law.
But there will be another occasion of treating of these things, if opportunity be granted.
Though you teach us many things in your reasoning about righteousness, yet you scarcely teach any thing to the purpose, and nothing that is
profitable for salvation; but on the contrary, that which is very hurtful. For what assurance can there be of salvation, if you shut out mercy, and send us to our own righteousness, as the only way which conveys us to heaven?
For all your doctrine of divinity looks that way.
It would take up a long time to rake together out of all your books, those wonderful sayings, which are more than paradoxes, whereby you plead that all the safeguard of our salvation, should be placed in nothing but in the observance and care of righteousness, which if you could as well perform in reality, as you set forth in words magnificently, none were more happy, none more worthy of heaven than you. But now let us suppose that which
you would so fain have granted, that heaven is only due to perfect men upon the account of righteousness, and that there is no other way of coming to those blessed mansions, but that which is trodden by the most pure footsteps of good men, and settled in the perfect integrity of works.
Now we are not against the deserved praises of righteousness, neither do we withhold from it its rewards. Be it so indeed. But where shall we find this righteousness? Tell me in what country this man of righteous life dwells, who will so direct the course of his life according to this idea of virtue proposed by you, that he fails no where? F58 Who roots out all manner of wickedness? who refrains himself from railing with his tongue, suppresses the haughtiness, insolence, and madness of an ambitious spirit, and the rashness of a headstrong mind? who crucifies the flesh with its lusts? who, suppressing ungodly lustings, by frequent meditation upon death, brinks himself over from all impurity and impiety to the resemblance of Christ? who, separating his mind from the contagion of the body, applies it wholly to the imitation of Christ? who resembles the humility and
meekness of Christ, his bounty and benevolence, and his excellent holiness in all respects; and also cuts off all defilements of the mind, and all the roots of filthiness and impurity? Where will that man be found, who performs these and all other duties of true piety, and so performs them, that nothing in his life seems superfluous, nothing is unequal in his duties, nor defective in his manners? He may be found in the books of Osorio; but not in the life, in the daily confessions, or in the holy absolutions of Osorio.
There was of old, I confess, the image of this most perfect righteousness seen and known upon the earth. But that Phoenix hath long since left the earth, and departed hence to heaven, and now sits at the right hand of Majesty, drawing all to Himself? and I wish that at length he may draw Osorio also to himself. What if the Lord himself, looking down from heaven upon the sons of men, is affirmed in the prophetical psalm, to have found all their ways to be corrupted and depraved — if the mystical and royal holy psalmist durst not in confidence of his own righteousness enter into judgment with his God, or present himself to be tried by him, and condemns all other mortal men of unrighteousness, without excepting so much as one. Or, if Paul, writing to the Romans, very seriously, confirms the same, and stops the mouths of all men, that having called them away from a vain trust in their own works, and convinced them of the vanity thereof, he may bring men over, to the help of the Son of God only, which is placed in the faith of him. If John the apostle, yea and if James, that
powerful proclaimer and defender of human righteousness, could not himself deny but that in many things we offend all; will you now rise up after them, being a mortal and sinful man, and dare to affirm to others, that which you cannot perform yourself; after this manner, “That it is either righteousness or nothing, which obtains us the favor of God, and makes us acceptable and like unto him?” F59
Is there nothing else, I beseech you? What then? Is faith nothing? Is grace nothing? Is the mercy and promise of God nothing? Do the merits of Christ profit nothing to salvation? so that now there is nothing which reconciles us to God, but the righteousness of works? What! Do you so place all righteousness in works, that you think there is no righteousness of faith?
You think perhaps that the righteousness of faith and works is one and the same, and you make no difference between the law and the gospel,
whereas Paul teaches far otherwise, who openly and with great fervency of spirit deprecates that other righteousness, which is of works, that he may be found in Him, not having the righteousness which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ, which is of God, righteousness by faith, Philippians 3. Do you not perceive here a manifest opposition between these two: to be justified by the law, and to be justified by faith, yea, and by those very things which Patti removed far away from him, as dung in respect of obtaining salvation — will you pave that only way for us to heaven? And in the meanwhile, disputing about works, I discourse of these things with you, as if there were any such strength of so great virtues in this life, as could deserve not only the reward of righteousness, but also the name thereof. What will you say, if the most holy performances and
endeavors, undertaken in whatsoever manner, by the most perfect men, in this corrupted nature, are so unprofitable to the immortality of life, that they are rejected by Christ as without profit; yea that they are despised and utterly contemned in the sight of God, like a filthy cloth, as the prophet Isaiah witnesses, unless they are underpropped with better grace, and the commendation of faith? What if, in Isaiah, we all are said, and that truly, to have gone astray like sheep every one in his own way, from whom even so great a prophet does not separate himself? What do you suppose should be judged of our virtues and righteousness? You will say, this complaint of the prophet belongs not to all, but only to the Jews who in those times
wickedly forsook their duty. But by the same reason you may affirm, that all the diseases, of all men and times, were not healed by the death of Christ, but theirs only, who in those times had gone astray out of the way
as lost sheep. But how frivolous this cavilling is, appears evidently by the context of this prophetical prediction.
Whereby, being convinced by sacred testimonies, you see that those merits of our greatest virtues, if they are looked upon in themselves, are far from the perfection of that righteousness, which you clothe with such beautiful colors. Which yet I would not have to be so said by me, nor understood by you, as if those that live virtuously, did nothing aright and praiseworthy in this life. Or, as if the godly works of the saints were not acceptable to God, which God himself hath commanded to be done; for thus you reason concerning works — that they come not indeed without faith, and the grace of God, but yet so, that when they come, you affirm, that the
kingdom of eternal salvation is due to them by the best right; not only as a recompense and reward, but also as a lawful patrimony; as if the promise of salvation depended not on evangelical faith, but on the righteousness of the law; and not on Christ’s merits only, unless a covenant of works be joined together with it; or as if faith itself profited nothing for the obtaining of life upon any other account, but that it may procure grace, which may stir us up to the praiseworthy performances of works, by which works we attain unto eternal life.
4. FAITH JUSTIFIES NO OTHERWISE, BUT UPON THE