Justification. 51
"When we celebrate the memory of the saints," says Ephrem (lib. de paen., cap. 2, if it be the true Ephrem whose book we have), "let us remember the sick, the widows, the fatherless, the poor, and the travelers." And hereupon after the death of any one in the primitive church, they sung allelujah. "The breath was no sooner out of her mouth," says Jerome in his epitaph of Fabiola, "but the report of it gathered the whole city together unto her funeral; the Psalms sounded and the allelujah resounding aloft did shake the gilded roofs of the temple."
So Epiphanius (Haeres. 75) and Chrysostom (Ad popul. Antioch., hom. 70 and hom. 4, in Heb.) affirm that they used to carry lamps and tapers, and sing hymns at the funerals of the dead, to signify glory and praise unto God that had vouchsafed already to crown the soul departed with felicity. Of this nature also were their offerings at marriages, on birthdays, etc., being all instituted for memories and gratulations, though afterward about Gregory's time when superstition got head, they were all changed into redemptions of souls out of purgatory:
Therefore, prayers for the dead, that they might be freed from their venial sins, and from that temporal punishment for their mortal sins, which they are to endure in purgatory, was never taught nor admitted by the fathers.
Justification 1. Augustine, and the rest of the fathers that dispute against Pelagius, do take justice for an inherent sanctity, or new obedience, grace for the
With the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and to justify, to make one from unjust, just. But indeed, they hold with us that this new obedience is not in this life perfected, and that we do satisfy God's judgment and attain unto everlasting life only by the sole obedience of the death of Christ. Look at their expositions upon 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 21. For so says Augustine, De verbis Apostolorum, sermon 6: "That we may be God's righteousness in Him, mark here two things: God's righteousness, and not ours, and that in Him, and not in us." And in his book, De Spiritu & litera, chapter 26:
"Justification befalls not to the doers of the law but goes before them that fulfill it. Or else it is so said, they shall be justified, as if it were said, they shall be taken for just, or accounted just." And De fide & operibus, chapter 14; Epistle 120, chapter 30: "Good works do follow him that is justified, and not go before him that is to be justified."
And again, Expositio inchoata Epistolae ad Romanos: "Men being justified by belief, do thenceforth begin to live righteously." So Jerome likewise on 2 Corinthians 5 says: "So Christ was offered for our sins, taking upon Him the name of sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, not our own, nor in ourselves."
(118) And so says Chrysostom, ibid.: "He made the just a sinner, thereby to make the sinner just." Nay, he said not thus, but far more powerfully: "For he assigneth not the quality, but the substance. He said not a sinner, but sin, that we might be made just. He said not righteous, but righteousness, and the righteousness of God. For that righteousness is of God, seeing we are justified not of works (wherein it is necessary also that there be not spot or stain), but of grace." And again, in his 17th homily upon the tenth of the Romans, he says in like manner: "If you have believed in Christ, you have both fulfilled the law, and far more than it commands, for you have already received a far greater righteousness." And Anselm, on 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, says plainly: "God made Christ sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He therefore was made sin as
we are made righteousness; neither is that righteousness ours, but God's (that is, it is not of ourselves, but of God), not in ourselves, but in Him, as He was made sin, not His own sin, but ours, neither was the sin in Himself, but in us." So Bernard, Sermon to the Knights
Templar, chapter 11, says: "Furthermore, death is chased away by Christ's death, and Christ's justice is imputed unto us." And Epistle
190: "Man has another's justice assigned unto him, lacking his own; one man's satisfaction is imputed unto all." And in his 61st sermon upon the Canticles: "Lord I will remember Thy justice only, for it is also mine. For Thou art made righteousness unto me of God. Shall I be afraid that one cannot suffice for us both? It is no short raiment, insufficient to cover two. Thy justice is an everlasting justice, and will cover both Thee and me also, and that largely, being most large and most lasting." Nay, some of the modern writers do acknowledge this imputative justice; as the Antididagma of Cologne does for one, and Albertus Pighius himself, Controversy 2, in these words: "If we speak formally and properly, we are not justified by our own faith nor charity, but by the only justice of God in Christ, that only justice of Christ being communicated unto us."
2. The fathers, howsoever they do speak differently and undefinitively of this place of justification, yet in their serious meditations, and when they were entangled with temptations, they never fled unto any justice by works, or unto any merits. Hear what
Ambrose says, epist. 71: "Let no man glory in his works, because no man is justified by his deeds. But he that has justice, has it in gifts, because after baptism he is justified. It is therefore faith that frees him through the blood of Christ, because happy is he that has his sins forgiven and his pardon granted." And Augustine cries out, Confess., lib. 9, c. 13, "Woe also be unto the man of most commendable life, if you sift his actions without the favor of mercy." "Only Christ," says he, ad Bonif., lib. 4, c. 4, "did undergo punishment for us without any
evil desert, that we might attain unto grace by Him, without any good desert." And Serm. 49, de Tempore: "What is that? Enter not into judgment with Thy servant. Stand not in judgment with me, nor exact of me all that Thou hast constrained me, and enjoined me, for Thou wilt find me guilty, if Thou enter but in judgment with me.
Wherefore I stand in need of Thy mercy, rather than of Thy most easy judgment." And De grat. & lib. arb., cap. 7: "If that your good deserts be God's gifts, then He does not crown your good deserts as your own deservings, but as His own gifts." And in Psal. 67: "The ungodly is justified by faith without any good deserts of his works."
And de spirit. & liter., cap. 13: "We do gather out of many testimonies, that man is not justified by the precepts of good life, but by the faith of Jesus Christ."
And such a speech has Basil in his commentaries upon the 114 Psalm: "Eternal rest is prepared for those that have resisted the devil strongly in this life, not as a debt given to their works, but out of the bounteous grace of the most mighty and merciful God." And in his commentary upon the 32nd Psalm: "If by Himself the judgment of God were sufficient, and if He should deal with us severely according unto our merits, what hope were there remaining for any of us?
Which of us all should be saved?"
Hilary in like manner, Psalm 51, affirms that those works of justice are not of themselves sufficient to merit perfect bliss, unless that God's mercy even in this will and desire of justice do not impute the viciousness of man's motions and changes unto him. Jerome, in Ezech., lib. 14, cap. 46: "Let a man attain unto perfection never so much, yet shall he stand in need of mercy for all that; and cannot attain unto the fullness of perfection by his merits in this life, but only by grace." Primasius, in Roman., cap. 8: "It is God's purpose to justify man, without any works of the law or any other merits
whatsoever, by faith alone." Chrysostom, Sermon Octav., in Roman., cap. 4: "This is a wonderful thing, that he who became so famous for his worthy acts, could not be justified by his good works, but by his faith; herein is the power of faith mightily manifested."
And so says Paulinus, epistol. decrim. ad Sever.: "Although we are able to keep His commandments (with His help), yet ought we perforce to acknowledge our unprofitable service, because we cannot impute unto ourselves a just execution of our duty if we keep the commandments only."
"And in the same sense," says Marcus the Hermit in his book De Lege spirituali, "whoever among us is thought worthy of the washing of the new birth does not perform good works for the sake of retribution, but only to preserve the purity and cleanness that has been entrusted to us. The kingdom of heaven is not a reward for any works, but the mere grace of God prepared for His faithful servants."
And Gregory the Great also, Mor., lib. 9, cap. 14, and lib. 21, cap. 15, doubts not to affirm that all man's justice would be found to be injustice, if God should use strict judgment. And lib. 5, cap. 7: "This justice of ours being tried upon the touchstone of the divine justice will be found injustice, and it is filthy in the discussion of the Judge, though it shows fair in the estimation of the doer." And lib. 9, cap.
14: "I grow strong unto life, not by merits, but by pardon." And cap.
28: "Note that the holy man says not, my hands shined being most pure, but my hands shined as most pure, because as long as we are bound under the punishment of corruption, though we take never so much pains in doing good works, yet shall we never attain unto true purity." And the same father, in his seventh homily upon Ezekiel sub finem, says: "Let us repose no hope in our tears, nor in our deeds, but in the mediation of our advocate." And in his commentaries upon
the first penitential Psalm: "I do not entreat Thee to save me, trusting to mine own merits, but presuming to obtain that out of Thine only mercy, which I despair to do out of mine own deservings."
Eusebius Emissenus in like manner confirms our assertion thus:
"Though we sweat in toil of soul and body," says he, "and exercise all our powers in obedience, yet shall we never attain by any desert to get the kingdom of heaven as a recompense for them." And Bernard,
Sermon. 10, de Aununt.: "You can never merit the glory eternal, unless it be given you freely. Nor are man's merits of that value to claim heaven as their just due." And Serm. in Cant. 13: "It is sufficient for me unto all righteousness, to have Him my favorer, to whom only I have given cause of offence. All that He does not impute unto me is as though it were not at all. Not to sin is God's justice, and man's justice is God's pardon."
This also Anselm, upon Romans 12, directly affirms. "Because all men," says he, "were enfolded in sin, therefore thenceforth salvation consists not in man's merits, but in God's grace." And in his meditations, "My life terrifies me, for if it be diligently examined, it appears wholly either sin or barrenness. And if there be any fruit therein, it is either so feigned, so imperfect, and some way so corrupted, that it cannot but either not please, or displease God.
Truly it is either wholly in sin and damnable, or barren and contemptible." But this of Anselm is most of all to be noted. "In this death alone," says he, "place all your trust; unto this death commit yourself wholly, with this death cover yourself wholly, and therein enwrap yourself wholly. If God will judge you, say, 'O Lord, I put the death of our Lord Jesus Christ betwixt me and Thee and Thy judgment; no otherwise do I stand out with Thee.' If He say, you have deserved damnation, say then, 'I put the death of my Lord Jesus
Christ betwixt me and my evil deservings. I offer the merits of His
most worthy passion for the merits which I should have had, and alas have them not.'" And Bellarmine's free confession hereof is not to be overpassed with silence, de Justi., lib. 5, cap. 7: "Because of the uncertainty of our own justice," says he, "and the danger of vain glory, it is most safe and sure to place all our trust upon the only mercy and benignity of God."
3. The fathers sometimes speak unfitly of the article of justification, and that because of three errors:
1. Because they speak of justification rather like philosophers than divines, bending their divinity unto the likeness that moral philosophy bore then among the Gentiles, thereby the more easily to gain the more of them unto God. Look in Clemens of Alexandr.,
Stromat. 2.
2. Because they confound the law and the Gospel, not distinguishing the justice of the one from the justice of the other, as Origen, hom. 6, in Levi., says, "It is God's law that washes you and purges your sins."
3. Because they extolled man's natural strength too much. For Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clemens, Justin, and Epiphanius held all, that men were saved by the law of nature and by philosophy.
4. The distinction of justification into the first and second was not known among the fathers for 1500 years after Christ but is an invention of this age.
5. The fathers do often speak improperly of justification according unto common use, putting sometimes the word of justification for sanctification, or the renewing of the whole man, both according unto nature and manners, and this they will have done by inward virtues and works.