Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

ARTICLE XIII

Opera ante Justificationem. Opera quæ fiunt ante gratiam Christi, et Spiritus ejus afflatum, cum ex fide Jesu Christi non prodeant, minime Deo grata sunt: neque gratiam (ut multi vocant) de congruo merentur: Imo cum non sint facta ut Deus illa fieri voluit et præcepit, peccati rationem habere non dubitamus.

Of Works before Justification.

Works done before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of His Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesu Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the school authors say) deserve grace of congruity: yea, rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.

THIS Article has remained unchanged since the publication of the Edwardian Series in 1553. There is nothing corresponding to it in the Augsburg Confession, nor has its language been traced to any earlier source. Its object is evidently to condemn the scholastic theory of congruous merit.

The subjects which require consideration in connection with it are these

1. The title as compared with the Article itself.

2. The scholastic theory of congruous merit.

3. The teaching of the Article upon the subject.

I. The Title as compared with the Article itself.

It will be noticed that whereas the title speaks of works before justification, in the body of the Article

the phrase is not repeated, but a different one takes its place. Works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of His Spirit. The question then at once arises, Are these two expressions strictly convertible terms? The answer to this must depend on the reply given to another question, Is grace ever given before justification? If not, the two expressions, "works before justification," and "works before grace," may be regarded as convertible; but if it should appear that grace is sometimes given before justification, then it will be evident that the title of the Article is too wide, and must be limited by the expression actually used in the Article itself. The question as to the relation of grace to justification depends partly on the meaning given to the term "grace." Some of the schoolmen, as S. Thomas Aquinas,1 were inclined definitely to limit it to the divine gift granted to Christians, while freely admitting that God's assistance (auxilium) was given to others. If, however, the word be used more generally for a gift of supernatural aid wherever given, the question is one which must be decided strictly by the testimony of Holy Scripture, and it is believed that there is ample evidence to establish the fact that grace may be given before justification. As Bishop Bull says: "The truth is that no work really good can precede the grace of God, since without that grace it cannot be performed. But good works may precede justification, and actually do precede it; for grace is given before justification, that we may perform those things by which we arrive at justification."2 For proof of this it is sufficient to refer to two representative instances: (a) On the day of Pentecost, after the address of the Apostle Peter to the multitude, we read, "They were pricked in their heart (κατενύγησαν τὴν καρδίαν), and said unto Peter and the 1 See the Summa, Ia. 11. cix. 1. • Harmony of Justification, p. 162.

ii. 37).

work.

rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do?" (Acts Here, without doubt, was the grace of God at The grace of compunction was granted; but the reply of S. Peter shows equally clearly that even so those who had thus received grace were not yet justified. "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (b) Again, it will scarcely be doubted that S. Paul received grace at the moment of his conversion. "Behold, he prayeth," was the message which came to Ananias (Acts ix. 11), and that prayer can only have been offered up and rendered acceptable by the action of the Holy Spirit upon his heart. But, strictly speaking, he was not justified for three days after his "conversion"; for when Ananias came to him his words were these: "And now, why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins" (Acts xxii. 16).

There is, then, on this view, a real discrepancy between the title of this thirteenth Article and the substance of it, and so much was practically confessed by the Westminster Assembly of Divines, who suggested as an emendation that the Article itself should run as follows: "Works done before justification by Christ and regeneration by His Spirit are not pleasing unto God," etc.1 The origin of this discrepancy has been traced by Archdeacon Hardwick to an earlier draft of the Article. As was mentioned in the Introduction, there still exists in the Record Office a MS. copy of the Articles, signed by the six royal chaplains, to whom they were submitted before their final revision and publication, and

1 See Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iii. p. 561. The Assembly also suggested a change in the closing words of the Article, substituting they are sinful" for the far milder phrase, "We doubt not that they have the nature of sin."

[ocr errors]

2 See p. 13.

in this we find that in the Article itself we have the expression: "Opera quæ fiunt ante justificationem cum ex fide Jesu Christi non prodeant," etc.1 It is evident that Cranmer and those working with him afterwards felt that this was inaccurate, and therefore modified the wording of the Article before publication, introducing the phrase which we now read in it, "Works before the grace of Christ," etc., although the old title was still allowed to remain, inexact though it was.

II. The Scholastic Theory of Congruous Merit.

The object of the Article, as has been already stated, is to repudiate the erroneous teaching of some of the school-authors on the subject of grace. The schoolauthors, or schoolmen here referred to, are the divines of the centuries immediately preceding the Reformation: S. Bernard (1115) being generally reckoned as the “last of the Fathers," and S. Anselm (1109) or Peter Lombard, the "Master of the Sentences" (1164), the first of the schoolmen. We are here concerned, how

1 See Hardwick, p. 281.

2 The Latin of the Article has merely "ut multi vocant." The regular name for the schoolmen in Latin is "scholastici" (cf. Art. XXIII. of 1553, doctrina Scholasticorum), a name which tells us nothing about the men themselves, except that they belonged to the "schools," either as teachers or learners.

The change of name is significant. The Fathers, "Patres," as Archbishop Trench points out, were productive, bringing out of their treasure things new and old. The schoolmen, on the contrary, were content simply to vindicate and establish the old. "The more illustrious teachers of earlier periods of the Church had found each his own special and peculiar work to perform, his own position to make good. Occupied with this, they had not found the inclination or the leisure for a deliberate oversight of the whole field of theology; they had not mapped it out as it demanded to be mapped out. It was to this that the schoolmen addressed themselves-to the organising after a true scientific method the rude undigested mass which lay before

ever, not with the men, nor with the scholastic system as a whole, but simply with one particular portion of it, namely, its teaching on grace. In reasoning on this

subject, some among the schoolmen had come to teach a doctrine which is, to say the least, seriously tainted with semi-Pelagianism; for they maintained that man might be entitled to receive initial grace as the reward of actions done in his own strength without the aid of God's Holy Spirit. Starting from the view that the Fall only involved the loss of the donum supernaturale, and left man with moral and religious faculties belonging to him by nature, they taught that the exercise of these faculties was the natural transition to grace, and that a good use of them was the medium of grace, or, in their phraseology, merited it of congruity (de congruo). God, they said, was not bound to reward such actions, but it was congruous or fitting that He should. But after grace was received, the work done in dependence on the aid of the Holy Spirit was really good, and this God was bound to reward, crowning His own gifts in man. Such actions deserved grace de condigno, and for them God was a debtor. The stock instance to which they made their appeal was the case of Cornelius (Acts x.), whose "prayers and alms came up for a memorial before God," and drew down God's grace upon him. The true explanation of such a case as this will be given in the next section. For the present, it is sufficient to notice that the theory, as popularly represented, opens the door to Pelagianism, and makes (at least in some cases) the beginning of man's

them." Thus their work was to adjust the relations of the various parts of theological learning, and to draw up in "Sums of Theology" the complete doctrine of the Church to which they professed implicit obedience. And further, they set themselves to "justify to the reason that which had first been received by faith," explaining the "how" and the "why" of the Church's teaching, and vindicating the rational character of supernatural truth. See Trench's Medieval Church History, Lect. xiv. 1 See Gabriel Biel (1495), Commentary on the Libri Sententiam, Lib. II. Q. xxvii.

« VorigeDoorgaan »