What very many Protestants affirm, [viz.] that the
Apostle simply denies that Abraham was justified by works, even those of faith,
is false; for thus St. Paul would openly contradict St. James, who most
expressly affirms the contrary; (I do not stop here to consider any of the
foolish methods of reconciling these apparently contradictory passages, which
have been devised by many of late, as I purpose afterwards, God willing, to
refute them at length); in that passage the Blessed Apostle means merely the
works of the law, or of nature, done without faith in Christ; for, 1st,
the Blessed Apostle here is speaking of no other works than those of which he
had been discoursing before, where he more than once directly called them the
works of the law; since otherwise his arguments would not truly cohere either
among themselves, or with the principal thesis, which is, that neither Jews nor
Gentiles (but specially the Jews, who gloried in the law) could ever be
justified before God, without faith in Christ. 2dly, Because, in verse
2, the Apostle denies in Abraham justice and glory from works, not simply, nor
in the sight of men, but only in the sight of God: for he thus shows (as St.
Augustine explains these words, “I is one thing not to be justified, and
another not to be justified before God,”) that he is speaking of those works
which can indeed obtain praise from men, but cannot look for an eternal reward
from God, which only comes through faith. 3dly, Because he immediately,
in verse 3, subjoins from Gen. 15, 6, “Abraham believed in God, &c.;” for
St. Augustine shows excellently well that this passage of Scripture is adduced
by the Apostle in order to show that faith was present in the works of Abraham;
and I beg any one who desires to know the judgment of St. Augustin on this
passage of the Apostle to read diligently the preface to his Comment on the
thirty-second Psalm. 4thly, Because in verses 4 and 5, he makes an
opposition between the worker to whom reward is given of debt, not of grace,
and him who works not, but believes; where by “the worker,” he does not
understand every one who works well in any manner, even by grace, but him only
who follows solely the justice of the law, and thinks that, by his own works of
justice, he merits praise and reward from God; and by “him that worketh not,”
he does not mean him who simply works nothing, not even from the grace of
Christ, (For that would be most absurd, since he believes, hopes, loves,
repents, prayers, &c.), btu him who does not trust in his works done
without the faith and grace of Christ, nor attributes to them justice or merit,
but depends entirely on the grace of God in regard to his justification; and
therefore, in this antithesis, he does not oppose faith alone to good works
done through faith, but faith to works done without faith and the grace of
Christ. Lastly, In verse 13 et seq., he opposes to each other “the law”
and “faith,” in the same sense in which he had before opposed “works” and
“faith,” and in which he is wont in other passages, to oppose “the law” and
“grace.” When it clearly appears that by the works which the Apostle excludes
from the act of justification, we are to understand merely the works of the law
which proceed from our own powers, and by which a perfect and unbroken
obedience to the law is performed, and by which, therefore, a man thinks
(though falsely) that he merits justice; but not the works of grace which flow
from the faith of Christ. (William Forbes, Considerationes Modestae Et
Pacifica Controversiarum: Tom 1. De Justificatione [J. H. Parker; 1850], Book
1, Chapter 4, pp. 51, 53)
On
“Sola Fide” in the Patristics:
Read the passages in the authors themselves; but if you
read all these, and whatever others can be cited for this opinion, with a mind
pure and free from all party feeling, you will clearly see that, by the word
‘alone’, the Fathers never intended simply to exclude all works of faith and
grace from the causes of justification and eternal salvation; but, in the first
place, the natural and Mosaic laws; secondly, all works done by our own
strength, without faith in Christ and the preventing grace of God; thirdly, a
false faith or heresy, to which, and not to works, they here oppose faith;
fourthly, the absolute necessity (viz. when either the power or the opportunity
to do such works is awanting,) of external works, even those that are done from
grace, as love, penitence, reception of the sacraments, &c.; for then,
faith alone, without external works, is sufficient, yet not without some good
affections of penitence and love of God, which are internal works. (William
Forbes, Considerationes Modestae Et Pacifica Controversiarum: Tom 1. De
Justificatione [J. H. Parker; 1850], Book 1, Chapter 4, p. 61)
On 2 Cor 5:21:
As to what is said that God “hath made Christ, Who knew
no sin, &c.,” it has this meaning: ‘God has made Christ sin for us,’ i.e.,
‘a victim or sacrifice for our sins,’ as many both ancients and moderns,
interpret the word ‘sin’ in this verse from many passages in the Old Testament;
or’ A man obnoxious to death, miseries and various calamites, and thereby like
to sinners,’ so that by ‘sin,’ ‘the likeness of sin,’ or ‘the punishment of
sin,’ be understood so;--so others, or thirdly, as S. Chrysostom and others of
the Greeks, ‘For our sakes He treated Him as sin itself, as crime itself,’ i.e.,
‘as a man signally depraved,’ as being Him on Whom He had laid the iniquity of
us all, viz., when for us He subjected Him to the death of the cross, by which
accursed and ignominious kind of punishment infamous criminals were wont to be
punished; ‘That we through Him,’ in the Greek it is ‘in Him’, which is a
Hebraism for ‘through Him,’ and so OEcumenius expounds it; “through Him,” i.e.,
‘through the merits of Christ’’ “might be made the justice of God,” i.e.,
‘truly just,’ viz., with that justice which is given to us by God, and is
pleasing to Hm for Christ’s sake, for all sins having been forgiven, and we
ourselves sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. Consult all the more learned
interpreters, as well ancients as moderns, on the text, for we are not now
writing commentaries. So that nothing is more foreign to this passage than what
is inferred by those who defend this opinion, viz., that all our justice
whereby we are justified before God is external, to wit, the very justice of
Christ, which becomes ours by God’s gratuitously imputing it to us; in the same
way (so they speak) in which Christ was made sin, or a sinner, not on account
of sin inherent in Him, but because of the imputation of our sins &c. (William
Forbes, Considerationes Modestae Et Pacifica Controversiarum: Tom 1. De
Justificatione [J. H. Parker; 1850], Book 2, Chapter 23, pp. 129, 131)
On James 2 and the
“Justification” of Abraham:
That what the Apostle says of Abraham’s justification by
works is not to be taken as the mere declaration of justice before men, but of
justification before God itself, is evidently proved from verse 23, where the
Apostle expressly affirms, that the Scripture was fulfilled, which affirms that
faith, (namely that faith which is living and working), was imputed to him for
justice, and that he himself by that justification was called the friend of
God, or was accounted by God to be His friend: nor can the other example (that
of the justification of Rahab by works,) which is adduced to confirm this
proposition be otherwise understood.
4thly, That which is said, ‘Ye see, therefore, that a man
is justified by works and not by faith only,’ cannot be understood of the
declaration of justice before men, unless we say that the declaration is made
not merely by works, but also by faith itself; which cannot be; since no one
can see another’s faith, in itself and by itself, inasmuch as it is hid in his
heart; by works only it can be seen in a certain manner, (provided it be living
and efficacious,) as Piscator rightly says, not indeed infallibly, but only
probably, whence it is said, ‘Show me thy faith by thy works, &c.’ (William
Forbes, Considerationes Modestae Et Pacifica Controversiarum: Tom 1. De
Justificatione [J. H. Parker; 1850], Book 4, Chapter 5, pp. 413, 415)
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