CHAPTER III

CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION.

THE View given in the preceding chapter of the Calvinistic doctrine with regard to the assurance of grace and salvation, proceeds upon the supposition that there are certain fruits of the operation of the Spirit of God which always accompany genuine faith; in other words, that there is an inseparable connexion between justification and sanctification. This connexion, although, in respect of practice, the most important doctrine in theology, is not obvious at first sight; it has been overlooked or neglected by several sects of Christians; and therefore it requires to be fully illustrated in this place.

Although it is the fundamental and characteristical doctrine of the Gospel that we are justified by faith, yet a great deal more than that word seems to imply is required of Christians. The Epistles of Paul, in which the doctrine of justification by faith is unfolded and established, like all the other parts of Scripture, are full of precepts commanding us to repent of our past sins, to abstain from all appearance of evil, to abound in the work of the Lord. While we read that "to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honour, and immortality, God will render eternal life," we read also that the wrath of God, which is revealed in the Gospel against all unrighteousness of men, will at length be executed upon every soul of man that doeth evil, and that without holiness no man shall see the Lord.* The precepts contained in the discourses of our Lord, and the writings of his apostles, are the revealed will of God prescribing to Christians their duty. The duty which they delineate is what our reason and our heart approve; and it is so agreeable to all our conceptions of the nature and the government of God, that the gospel, from the manner in which it delivers and enforces this duty, derives the high commendation of being the most effectual and the most refined system of morality which ever appeared. But where is the connexion, it is asked, between this system of morality and the doctrine which has been explained? If we are justified by faith alone, and if justification include the remission of sins and a right to eternal life, where shall we find a place for the precepts of the Gospel? And how can that obedience, which is certainly due to the will of our Creator, enter into a system of theology, which excludes works from having any share in our justification? The principles upon which the Calvinistic system rests, appear to all who understand them to furnish a satisfying answer to these questions.

* Rom. i. 18; ii. 6-9. Heb. xii. 14.

If faith were a single act, by performing which at one particular time we were justified, or if it were a solitary quality infused into the soul, and unconnected with the general character, there would be much difficulty in reconciling the necessity of obedience with the doctrine of justification by faith. But we have seen that faith arises from that change which the Spirit of God produces, according to the Calvinists, by an efficacious operation, according to the Arminians by moral suasion, upon all those to whom the remedy is applied. Now this change is the beginning of sanctification, by introducing the principles of a new life, without which we cannot hate sin and follow after righteousness. For although many circumstances may induce men to assume the outward appearance of sanctity, nothing but the influence of that Spirit, which produces faith, can so effectually overcome the corruption of human nature as to produce that uniformity of sentiment, and purpose, and conduct, those habits of virtue, and that continual progress in goodness, which enter into the notion of sanctification. And thus justification, a forensic act which acquits those who believe from the guilt of sin, and sanctification, an inward change, by which the soul is delivered from the stain of sin, and gradually recovers its native purity and dignity, although distinct from one another, are inseparably joined, because the faith by which we are justified has its origin and principle in the change by which we are sanctified. Accordingly faith was formerly found in its nature to be connected with many good dispositions; and although we do not allow that these dispositions are in any respect the cause of our justification, or that they give faith any degree of merit in the sight of God, still we cannot deny that the connexion between them and faith is of such a kind, as renders it impossible for any person to have saving faith who is devoid of these dispositions. It is plain also, that as faith implies good dispositions, so it brings along with it the strongest incentives to obedience. The different parts of the revelation of the Gospel are fitted by their nature to have an influence upon the most perverse mind which assents to the truth of the revelation: but to a mind renewed by the grace of God this influence becomes commanding. A man who receives with joy and gratitude the discoveries of divine love made in the Gospel, who has an impression of the divine authority of its precepts, who relies on the promises of God, and who trembles at his threatenings, derives from faith, motives to obedience the most powerful and interesting; and his mind, restored by the influence of the Spirit to the state in which objects, appearing as they are, produce their full and proper effect, is formed to be led by these motives. To him, therefore, the moral law, originally written upon the heart, afterwards delivered to the children of Israel from Mount Sinai, and republished in the precepts of the Gospel, approves itself as reasonable, and just, and good; obedience to it becomes delightful; the dominion of sin is broken; the liberty of the children of God is a matter of experience; so that, according to the significant language used by Paul, "being made free from sin, and become the servant of God, he has his fruit unto holiness, and obeys from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered him.'

Rom. vi. 17, 22.

From this intimate connexion between justification and sanctification, there results the following conclusions, which it is of infinite importance for all the ministers of the religion of Jesus clearly to apprehend, and firmly to retain.

1. We observe with what propriety and significancy it is said that good works are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith. Although they follow after justification, they are the marks by which we know that we are in a justified state; there can be no wellgrounded assurance of grace and salvation to any person who is destitute of these marks; and therefore the great business of Christians, according to the direction of Peter, is "to give all diligence to make their calling and election sure," i. e. to attain the assurance of their being elected, by "adding to their faith" those things in which the elect are called to abound.*

2. We observe that a quaint phrase, which often occurs in theological writings, fides sola justificat, sed non quæ est sola,t is an attempt to express shortly and pointedly a distinction, which, when properly understood, enables us to reconcile the apostles Paul and James. Paul says, "that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law :"+ James says, "that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only."§ The two declarations appear to be inconsistent; but a little attention to the train of argument removes the apparent contradiction. Paul is arguing against persons who said that justification came by the law; and the works of the law mean, in his argument, not only the observance of the ceremonial law, but that measure of obedience to the moral law which any person, by the powers of human nature in its present state, is able to yield. This measure being always imperfect, and yielded by those who, as sinners, are under a sentence of condemnation, cannot justify; and therefore a man is justified only by that faith which accepts the imputation of the obedience of another. But this faith is represented by the apostle as working by love; and his writings not only abound with precepts addressed to those who believe, but are very much employed in illustrating the connexion between faith and obedience to these precepts. Although, therefore, Paul excludes all works done before justification from having any influence in bringing us into that state, yet the faith, to which he ascribes our justification, is understood and explained by him to be accompanied with every Christian grace, and productive of good works. But the faith of which James speaks is described as a faith without works, which is dead being alone; a faith which the devils have; for he says that "they also believe and tremble ;" and the apostle, combating probably some dangerous practical error of his time, declares that this kind of faith is of none avail; because the faith by which a person is justified must be shown and made perfect by works. And thus the two apostles mean the same thing. Although each states the subject in the light which his particular argument requires, yet their writings suggest a distinction by which they are reconciled; a distinction, to which we are

obliged to have recourse in explaining other parts of Scripture,* between that faith, which, being alone, does not save us, and that faith fruitful in every virtue, by which we are justified.

3. We observe that the soundest Calvinists may say, without hesitation, that good works are necessary to salvation. The first reformers, whose great object was to establish, in opposition to the church of Rome, the doctrine of justification by faith, were afraid to adopt an expression which might seem to give countenance to the Popish doctrine of the merit of good works. Melancthon, indeed, maintained that they were necessary: but as he was known to have departed in various points from the doctrine held by Luther, this expression gave offence to many who adhered to that doctrine. Amsdorf, in the year 1552, went so far as to declare that good works were an impediment to salvation. Few are disposed to follow Amsdorf; but amongst unlearned people, who have been educated with rigid ideas of Calvinism, there exists a general prejudice against saying that good works are necessary. It is proper, therefore, to understand clearly that, while this expression may be misinterpreted, as if it implied that some good dispositions or good actions are required previous to justification, and are the cause of our being justified, there is a sound sense in which the whole strain of Scripture and the amount of the principles of Calvinism warrant us to say, that good works are essential to salvation; for none can be saved who have not that character which is produced by the Spirit of God in all that are justified, and none have that character in whom these unequivocal fruits of it do not appear.

4. We learn to guard against the errors of those who have received the names of Solifidians, Antinomians, and fratres liberi spiritus. The Solifidians probably meant nothing more than to exclude the merit of works in our justification. But their doctrine has often been so expressed, both in former times and in the present day, as to give countenance to an opinion that nothing more than faith is required of a Christian, and that he is saved by the solitary act of resting upon Christ. The Antinomians derive their name from appearing to institute an opposition between the moral law and the Gospel. There was a monstrous form in which Antinomianism appeared both before and after the Reformation, and which was revived in Britain amidst the extravagancies of the seventeenth century. It represented the elect as absolved from the obligation of the moral law, as at liberty to indulge their appetites without restraint, and to perform what actions they pleased without contracting any guilt, because, being in a justified state, it was impossible that any thing done by them could be displeasing to God. This horrible doctrine, from which the fratres liberi spiritus, in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, derived their name, calls for the correction of the civil magistrate rather than for an answer by argument: and although this doctrine has been avowed by some who profess to hold the Calvinistic system of predestination, yet he must have a very false and imperfect conception of that system who cannot readily show how it may be separated from so gross an abuse.

Acts xvi. 30, 31. John xii. 42, 43.

There is a more temperate form of Antinomianism, according to which it is not pretended that men are absolved from the obligation of the moral law; but it is said that obedience to its precepts being purely the effect of the irresistible grace of God,-an effect which his grace will infallibly produce in the elect, and which no human means can produce in any others, the inculcating these precepts in discourses to the people is unnecessary, and may be hurtful, by inspiring their minds with a false opinion that something may be done by them, whereas the unregenerate can do nothing, and God does every thing in the elect. The only business, therefore, of preaching, according to this system, is to exhibit the condition of men by nature, and to proclaim the riches of the divine love in the whole economy of the gospel; leaving sinners to feel that conviction of guilt and misery which will be thus excited in their breasts, and saints to follow the operations of the grace communicated to them, and of the sentiments of gratitude and love which the display of that grace may cherish. This more temperate form of Antinomianism, which has at different periods pervaded all the Reformed churches, and which gave their character to the greater part of British sermons during the seventeenth century, was ably combated in England by Bishop Stillingfleet and Dr. Williams. The first example of a kind of preaching, proceeding upon different principles, was set by the profound and learned Dr. Barrow, in sermons abounding with excellent matter, but written in a rugged obscure style, and affecting a multiplicity of divisions more fitted to perplex and fatigue the memory, than to assist the comprehension of the whole subject. His matter was exhibited in a more popular form by the copious Dr. Tillotson, who, although to us he appears diffuse and verbose, deserves to be ranked very high in the class of preachers, because, while he attacked the Antinomians by argument, he was the first who gave amenity and interest to a species of public discourses opposite to that which he condemned in them. The example was followed and improved by a succession of English divines; early in the last century it found its way into Scotland; and the gradual extension of moral science, the refinement of taste, and an enlarged acquaintance with life and manners, have produced amongst us a style of preaching totally different from that which our forefathers practised. With certain descriptions of people there still remains so much of Antinomian principles as to produce a predilection for what they call evangelical, or gospel preaching, as opposed to what they call moral or legal preaching. But this distinction is losing its hold of the minds of the people in many parts of Scotland; and although discourses from the pulpit, approaching to the character of moral essays, are universally and justly disliked, there is a method of preaching morality which is far from being generally unpopular.

It may be thought, however, that the disrepute into which Antinomian preaching has begun to fall, is owing to a departure from Calvinism; and there appears to be the more reason for this suspicion, that some of the sects amongst whom that kind of preaching continues to prevail, profess the strictest adherence to Calvinism, that Tillotson and other early adversaries of Antinomianism were avowed Arminians, and that all the peculiar tenets of the Arminians lead