I. Common Commitments: The Gift of the Holy Spirit and Manifestation of “Works”

Newman and Vermigli both maintain a robust pneumatology. For Newman, the Holy Spirit is the gift and the agent, who applies the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection. Starting with an initial grace that enlivens the sinner’s soul,931 this work includes pardon, grace, reconciliation, renewal, holiness, and spiritual communion—a collection of benefits that Newman summarizes with the word “atonement.”932 According to Newman, this is the manner in which the presence of Christ comes to bear upon one who is justified: by the Spirit. The Son merits salvation and the Holy Spirit applies it through personal inhabitation.

Similarly, Vermigli begins his locus by explaining how God endows believers “with his own Spirit and renews them fully by restoring the strength of their minds.”933 As with Newman, a concern for the Spirit’s renewing work is basic to Vermigli’s doctrine, as demonstrated by his description of justification as “the summit of all piety.”934 Such piety begins with the enlivening presence of the Spirit, which in turn produces faith, resulting in justification.935

When Newman describes the source of the Christian’s piety, he often employs the biblical concept of shekinah to describe the tangible work of the Spirit.936 For Newman, this glory denotes an “attribute, property, virtue, or presence of the Divine Nature manifested visibly.”937 He cites the words of Jesus in which the Lord prayed to the Father, “The glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them.”938 Newman then asks, “What is this glory which has passed from Christ to us?”939 He answers by pointing to the glory of the Father which raised Jesus from the dead, a glory that Paul attributes to “the Spirit of holiness.”940

Vermigli is also concerned with how justification leads to the development of tangible faith,941 and, with Newman, he looks to the Spirit for the answer. Martyr posits “two inward movements” of the Holy Spirit in which God exerts influence upon one’s mind and volition.942 From this double movement, faith is “engendered.”943 Vermigli conveys this idea—that God forgives those whom he has already enlivened—in his exposition of Romans 8:1–2, in which he states that “after the Spirit has first moved the hearts of the hearers to believe, then at last the Gospel obtains its power to save.”944 For this reason, Martyr describes the Holy Spirit as the “cause” of faith.945

The presence of the Spirit produces virtuous “works” in and through a believer. For Newman, these works are generated by the adherent presence of God. Such works are meritorious, rooted in the merit achieved by Christ, and are essential for salvation. For Vermigli, however, works before God are always non-meritorious.946 Their different conceptions of merit will be explored below.

Partly because of their Augustinian understanding of sin, and partly because of their concern to emphasize the need for Christian virtue, Newman and Vermigli share a pneumatological emphasis in their doctrines of justification, in which the agency of the Spirit transforms the sinner’s mind and volition with a view to manifesting good works. Such works validate the reality of one’s initial justification. In this way, Newman and Vermigli both affirm justification of works.

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