In what sense some people claim good works are parts of repentance.
In what sense some people claim good works are parts of repentance.
§ 54. There is no reason for Bellarmine to bring against us the authority of Philipp [Melanchthon] and others who list new obedience among the parts of repentance, for many have explained their meaning very clearly, namely: (1) They consider an unbreakable connection between the righteousness of a good conscience and true repentance along with the justification of faith. However, it does not yet follow from this that good works constitute a part of repentance, properly and accurately speaking. For anything that is perpetually conjoined to something does not at once become an essential and constitutive part of it, just as the sun and its life-giving heat are conjoined, and faith and love are conjoined, with a constant connection. But far be it from us to wish to establish love as a constitutive part of faith, the way heat is a constitutive part of the sun. There are certainly some inseparable accidents, “consequences of the nature” [παρεπόμενα τῇ φύσει], which follow the nature of a thing very closely and nonetheless enter neither the constitution nor the essential definition of it.
(2) They use “repentance” to mean not only its form and what constitutes it but also what follows it.9 Thus in the Scriptures it is usually described from its works just as the goodness of a tree is recognized and described by its fruit. Yet the fruits of a tree are not its essence, nor do good works apply to the essential parts of repentance.
(3) They want this to be opposed to the Antinomians, who deny the necessity of good works, and to the Anabaptists, who contend that faith can exist with sins against conscience.
(4) They intended to resist the accusation of the Council of Trent that in our churches we preach a confidence removed from all piety.