. . . the Father approves fully those
works, however far removed they still are in themselves from the purity that
the severity of divine law requires yet covered through the purity of His Son.
And He crowns those who have legitimately struggled, as we have learned from
the Word of God, since our justification and sanctification continually cling
to each other in that nexus. (Theodore Beza, “A Defense of Justification
through the Righteousness of Christ Alone, Freely Imputed, Obtained by Living
Faith” (1592), in Justification by Faith Alone: Selected Writings from
Theodore Beza (1519-1605), Amandus Polanus (1561-1610), and Francis Turretin
(1623-1687) [trans. Casey Carmichael; Classic Reformed Theology 6; Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Reformation Heritage Press, 2023], 13)
. . . neither faith nor good works are
absolutely (απλως) excluded by us from justification.
But then it is acknowledged by us that faith, as the sole instrument, was
created within us by the Holy Spirit for seizing that righteousness. And we
teach our good works, although they properly obtain no reason of cause, whether
initial (προκαταρκιτκης) or efficient or
material or even final in justification, are nevertheless required in the
justified and before the tribunal of God are approved as certain of faith and
therefore as a sure sign (τεκμηριον) of
obtaining grace and are even crowned. (Ibid., 22)
On Sanctification
Thesis 1
By the grace of God, we were set free
from the penalty owed for corruption and its fruits, not so that we may heap up
sins on sins but, on the contrary, so that, truly converted to God, we may live
an entirely new life in Him. (But this is so far removed—that we can answer to
Him by ourselves, so that, on the contrary, we are set free from every sin by
nature.) Therefore, by the same mercy of the Most High God, the one mercy, the
other in the same Christ and through the same Christ seized by faith (not now
so much as instrument but as source and root of all good works), we perceive
the benefit likewise as merely free and must be taken as accepted with
absolutely no preparation. Thereby it happens that, set free from the tyrant of
the corruption of nature, we begin according to the measure of the grace of
renewal to will and to do the things of God. That is what is indicated by the
term sanctification. (Theodore Beza, “Thesis Written Out in Full with
the Unanimous Consent of the Pastors of the Swiss Churches by the Authority of
the Very Distinguished Senate of Bern in the General Synod on AD April 23,
1588,” in ibid., 113)
. . . I confess that the Fathers did
not distinguish those two benefits as carefully as was necessary. That is to
say, this question about righteousness from works was not treated in the church
before the Pelagians. Moreover, just as the minds of godly bishops were
occupied in the commendation of good works, so several of their successors,
abusing their hyperbolic way of speaking, gradually gave way to meritorious
righteousness, through which crack the very cunning Satan introduced the dogmas
of consubstantiation and transubstantiation. (Theodore Beza, “Thesis Written Out
in Full with the Unanimous Consent of the Pastors of the Swiss Churches by the
Authority of the Very Distinguished Senate of Bern in the General Synod on AD
April 23, 1588,” in Justification by Faith Alone: Selected Writings from
Theodore Beza (1519-1605), Amandus Polanus (1561-1610), and Francis Turretin
(1623-1687) [trans. Casey Carmichael; Classic Reformed Theology 6; Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Reformation Heritage Press, 2023], 122)