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the efficient to the Holy Spirit; the instrumental to Baptism; and the formal (constituent or essential) cause only to a righteousness in us.” p. 170. "The merits of Christ are applied to the sinner, according to this new way, without any knowledge or application on his part, except as he comes to the sacraments or uses other 'sacred symbols' and 'effectual signs of grace.' And this applica. tion consists in the communication of inherent righteousness; so that we are justified, not by the merits of Christ, but by an inherent righteousness of our own, which is given for his sake."

p. 85.

5. The reader may now perhaps ask, where is the GREAT DANGER in adopting the Oxford view? Why is this DISTINCTION (which Oxford and Rome reject) BETWEEN JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION, between the justifying righteousness of Christ and inherent righteousness, so strongly and perseveringly urged by all evangeli. cal Protestants? The following extracts from Bishop M'Ilvaine's work will assist in throwing light upon this important subject:

"Now the moment a system of religion gets thus to rest in works for justification before God, its strong tendency, unless fortuitously directed otherwise, is to run to reliance on external works, because they are tangible, appreciable; they can be counted and distinctly grasped for refuge, while internal holiness is just the reverse. Hence, while all corrupt systems of Christianity, have talked much of inherent righteousness, inward holiness, &c., their real working in the long run has been most grossly to neglect the inward work of religion, and make the whole business of salvation consist in external observances; and the more they have resulted in this, the more has the outward show of devotion increased, and the power and efficacy of external symbols and gestures been magnified. All this is natural. We could make the whole aspect of our congregations at once as devout and prostrate in the dust, as that of a Romish Monastery, or a Mohammedan Mosque, or a Hindoo temple, were we only to make them thoroughly believe, as Papists, Mohammedans and Hindoos, that by our works we are making ourselves acceptable. But what, in such an experiment, we should gain in outward exhibitions of devotion, we should lose in that inward holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." p 212.

"Since the age that was distinguished by the bringing in of this doctrine of inherent righteousness for Justification, was also so remarkable for the introduction of all the other chief corruptions of Romanism, such as image worship, transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgences, &c; and since the very men, who were foremost in the former, were also eminently distinguished as patrons of the latter, as Aquinas and Bonoventura (the latter the chief devotee of the Virgin Mary) what are we to anticipate from the introduction of precisely the same doctrine of Justification among Protestants? Is its natural strength abated? Call it by a Protestant, or a Romish name, set it up at Oxford or at Trent, is it not the same;-the old righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, and as able as ever, to lead men to go about 'establishing their own righteousness, not submitting themselves to the righteousness of God?' This tendency seems to be at present quite as strong and active, and is doing its work quite as fast, considering the differences of age and circumstances, as in the days of Aquinas." p. 131.

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From imputed righteousness to inherent, for Justification, is a great step; but once accomplished, it makes many others easy. It would be a wonderful leap to cross at once, from imputed righteousness to Purgatory; but the middle ground of inherent, once gained, the rest is soon accomplished. From the righteousness of Christ imputed to me to the righteousness of saints imputed to me, is indeed a great gulf, which no leap of reforming agility could cross at a bound; but the half-way position of man's righteousness, for justification,

takes half the difficulty away, so that under a sense of one's need of some better righteousness than his own, the leap of the sinner is easy into the midst of the righteousness of All Saints,' living and dead, deposited under the keys of St. Peter, for the convenience of the Church, and the benefit of the system of indulgences." p. 105.

"If men work more and more (according to Rome) grace doth more increase, and they are more and more justified. To such as diminish it by venial sins, it is supplied by Holy water, Ave Marias, crossings, papal salutations, and such like: which serve for reparations of grace decayed. To such as have lost it through mortul sin, it is supplied through the Sacrament of Penance: which Sacrament hath force to confer grace anew.... ... and change the punishment eternal into a temporal satisfactory punishment here, if time do serve, if not, hereafter to be endured; except it be lightened by masses, works of charity, pilgrimages, fasts, and such like; or else shortened by pardon by term, or by plenary pardon.' The Church of Rome, in teaching justification by inherent Grace, doth pervert the truth of Christ." Hooker, as quoted by Bishop M'Ilvaine, pp. 20, 21, "A man who can never know whether his amount of inherent righteousness is sufficient, will always be excogitating some device or other by which God may be the more effectually propitiated and satisfied. In such righteousness, there is something that seems tangible, measurable, appreciable. A man can count his penances, measure his pilgrimages, weigh his gifts, and thus keep an account of his righteousness. Sinners of various descriptions will resort to dif ferent modes to establish such a righteousness; the rich will purchase what they are not willing to work out, by the prayers of priests and the merits of saints, and the virtue of indulgences, to save themselves the pains of austerities. Thus will arise the monster of Supererogatory Merit, &c."

"It is the Romish doctrine of Justification [by inherent righteousness] that gives value to Indulgences, need to Purgatory, use to the sacrament of Penance, motive to the invocation of Saints, credence to the existence of the sacred treasury of Supererogatory Merit, that makes Auricular Confession tolerable, and all the vain inventions of meritorious will-worship precious. Next come devices for the defence of these; and hence the Romish doctrine of tradition, and of infallibility, and of implicit faith." p. 22.

Such being the natural consequences of Roman and Oxford justification, who can embrace, or endorse such a system, and yet be considered an evangelical theologian?

11. Faith.

"Next to an enquiry," says Bishop M'Ilvaine, "as to the nature of the righteousness in which the sinner is to be justified, is the question, by what means he is to become possessed of that righteousness. The plain answer of the Scriptures is by faith." p. 178.-The Oxford writers also speak of faith; but they mean a very different thing, and assign to it a very different office. Faith before Baptism is, according to them, a mere historical knowledge and naked assent -a condition of justification, but not its instrument. At Baptism, Faith is regenerated and made living; but even then it is not trust

The reader is requested to note that the sale of these indulgences or pardons, led to the Reformation, and was the means under God, of restoring to the Church the Apostolic doctrine of justification by faith through the imputed righteousness of Christ.

in the righteousness of Christ, but is one of the graces of sanctification, and as such, in connection with the other graces, it sustains the justification received in Baptism.

BISHOP DOANE.

According to Dr. Pusey, whom Bishop Doane freely quotes, it is wrong to "consider faith, as the proper instrument of justification; . . . . . faith being but the sine qua non, the necessary condition on our parts of receiving it." p. 53.

"This is truly and really our justification, NOT FAITH." Newman, quoted by Bishop Doane, p. 75.

"True faith may be called colourless, like air or water; it is but the MEDIUM through which the soul views Christ. The soul as little really rests upon it, and contemplates it, as the eye can see the air." do. p. 75.1

"To think of being justified by faith is to look from Christ and to fall from grace." do. 75.

"Christ's cross does not justify by being looked at, but by being applied; not by being gazed at in faith, but by being actually set up within us,2 and

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BISHOP M'ILVAINE.

"In truth what Hooker and the Ho. mily mean by the righteousness of Christ, made ours by imputation through the instrumental agency of faith alone, has no place in Oxford divinity." p. 79.

"Faith, before Baptism, is in this divinity, no instrument at all, because dead." 209. "Such, according to this system, was the dead faith of Paul, the converted, before he was baptized; of the three thousand, who were converted at the Pentecost, before they were baptized of Cornelius and his household and friends, although on all of them fell the Holy Ghost. Still their faith must have been dead, unregenerate, needing to be converted by Baptism, because it was faith before Baptism; and so says Dr. Pusey." p.

187.

In this divinity, "faith, when regenerate and justified by baptism, is not such a trust in the divine mercy as lays hold on the righteousness of

1 Bishop Andrews calls faith "the eye of our hope ;" and Leighton " the seeing faculty of the soul;" but the Tractarians degrade it from all such special agency in salvation, and consider it as a mere "medium." Their faith has little to do with the living organ; it is much more like the inanimate element. 2 The Oxford writers talk much of "the cross within," a kind of phraseology with which Bishop Doane seems to sympathize. For example, in one of his last sermons (at Troy) he says, So shall the Cross imprint its saving signature on your hearts and lives." p. 34. And again, "While he proclaimed the Cross as that in which alone St. Paul might glory, he was most careful to show, that not the Cross on which the Saviour died for us was SUFFICIENT, but the Cross on which we die with him." p. 24. Exactly so does Mr. Newman express himself: "The Cross in which St. Paul gloried was not the actual sacrifice on the Cross; but it is that sacrifice coming in power to him who has faith in it, and converting his body and soul into a living sacrifice. It is the Cross realized, present, living in him, sealing him, sanctifying him, afflicting him." Far differently does Bishop M'Ilvaine express himself: "God grant they may abundantly rejoice in Christ, in spite of the lamentable substitution of a crucifixion within them, as the object to be looked to for justification, instead of the sacrifice upon the cross, in which alone we are permitted to glory." p. 172. And again, "The Cross of Christ, lifted up on high for every soul to be ever looking at, as the single object of his justifying faith and foundation of his only hope, is borne away from its central position in the grand panorama of Gospel truth, and baptism is set up in its stead, having for its symbol a name of faith, and for its virtue a Cross within, Christ crucified, only in the sense of self-mortification.”—M’Ilvaine, p. 521.

BISHOP DUANE.

that not by our own act, but by God's invisible grace. Men sit, and gaze, and speak of the great atonement, and think this is appropriating it. Men say that faith is an apprehending and applying; faith cannot really apply it." Newman, quoted by Doane, p. 65.

BISHOP M'ILVAINE.

Christ, and thus justifies the soul before God." p. 196. "All this is directly denied of faith in Oxford divinity. "It would seem (says Mr. Newman) that Luther's doctrine now so popular, that justifying faith is trust, comes first, justifies by itself, and then gives birth to all graces, is not tenable; such a faith cannot be, and if it could, would not justify." p. 198.

Bishop M'Ilvaine has a long and able chapter, in which he shows in detail that Oxford and Roman faith are the same, and concludes in the following words: "Faith before baptism, is in this divinity, no instrument at all, because dead. In baptism, it is no instrument at all, because not made alive till baptism is completed. After baptism, it is an instrument of justification, only as it sustains what baptism has already effected, and which, when lost, it cannot renew. And even in that instrumentality, it is not a sole instrument, but is instrumental only as all other graces are also; and it is only said to be the sole instrument, as a reward for something peculiar to itself, which we do not pretend to understand. Such is the whole internal and sole instrumentality of that faith, which St. Paul speaks of when he says: Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." p. 209.

It thus appears "that justifying faith, like justifying righteousness in this system, is a matter of works altogether; that the latter [righteousness] is sanctification, and the former [faith] is justifying only as it works by love and other graces; that is as it works by sanctification." p. 211.-" Justifying faith is literally nothing in this system but a name, a pretence to something which it is not." "Such honor, then, has faith in Oxford divinity."

III. Sacraments. Eaptism.

p. 510.

"It is notoriously the doctrine of the Trent Decrees, that Baptism is "the only instrumental cause" of justification; so absolutely necessary thereto, that without it, justification is obtained by none. This is precisely the doctrine, and a great distinguishing doctrine, of the Oxford School..... Justification in

1 Precisely in accordance with these Oxford views is the language of Bishop Doane: "His first care was to graft them in by holy baptism, into the living vine; and then to keep them there, by grace through faith, unto salvation." Troy sermon, p. 25. Christians are first united to Christ by baptism, and then this union is sustained by faith! Here is more " pretty Popery."

2" This symbol, faith, [Mr. Newman adds] is said to justify (the italics are his) not that it really justifies more than other graces; but it has this peculiarity, that it signifies in its very nature, that nothing of ours justifies us; or it typifies the freeness of our justification. Faith heralds forth divine grace, and

Baptism, and only there, is the sole subject of a whole volume of Oxford Tracts, called "Scriptural Views of Holy Baptism." Bishop M'Ilvaine, p. 213.

"The reader is now requested to observe that what is called the OPUS OPERATUM, in the Romish doctrine of the Sacraments, iš found in all its offensive substance in Oxford Divinity."1 p. 215.

The OPUS OPERATUM doctrine of Oxfordists is proved by their making Baptism the only instrument of justification.

BISHOP DOANE.

"Indeed this may be set down as the essence of sectarian doctrine to consider faith, and not the sacraments, as the proper instrument of justification and other gospel gifts; instead of holding that the grace of Christ comes to us altogether from without (as from Him, so through the externals of his ordaining.") Pusey quoted by Doane, p. 53.

"The question is, whether the Oxford religion is a sacramental religion in such sense as to convict itself of Popery." p. 54.

"Peter taught" (Acts ii. 38,) with Dr. Pusey, that "by baptism an individual receives the forgiveness of sin, and a new nature, and is made a real child of God, and a real member of Christ."-" It is what Paul constantly taught, (Titus iii. 5.-Gal. iii. 27.1 Cor. xii. 13.) Nay, it is the very teaching of our blessed Lord himself." (John ii. 5.-Mark xvi. 16.) p. 79, 80.

"So it was understood by Archbi shop Cranmer." p. 80.

BISHOP M'ILVAINE.

"Without a doubt Baptism is considered, in Oxford divinity, as efficacious to justification in the adult recipient, without any faith except such as Devils may have, as well as we. He is made righteous by baptism, from being up to the time of baptism, unrighteous." p. 217.

"A living faith, working by love, is begotten in baptism, and is expressly said not to precede, but to follow it. Further evidence cannot be needed than this, that in the opus operatum of Baptism the two schemes of Rome and Oxford are one." p. 217.

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Nothing could more plainly or more impressively display the "great gulf fixed between this Divinity and that of the Scriptures, than simply this-that while the evidence of justification which the Scriptures refer to continually is that of faith, and never to our having been baptized; on the contrary, the evidence of Oxfordism, like that of Romanism, is simply and exclusively our baptism." p. 389.

"Now if Cranmer did hold literally and strictly, that justification cannot take place until we are baptized, how is it that he writes the Homily on Jus

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its name is sort of representative of it, as opposed to works. Hence it may well be honored above the other graces, and placed nearer Christ than the rest, as if it were distinct from them, and before them, though it be not. It is suitably said to justify us, because it says itself, that it does not-so to speak, as a sort of reward to it." p. 205.

The opus operatum doctrine is, that the sacraments are efficacious as instruments of salvation, without regard to the preparation of the recipient. Thus, Tract 32 says "the gifts of grace are deposited in mere positive ordinances, as if to warn us against dropping the ceremonial of Christianity!"

2 If the Oxford view be the true one, what is to become of the members of the SOCIETY OF FRIENDS, who do not use the sacraments? Tract No. 41, speaking of the Quakers, says a churchman "must consider such persons to be mere heathens, except in knowledge!" This is a precious illustration of "Catholic charity."

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