Of Free Justification by Christ, Book 1 · Part 20
How far the Works of Human Life are from the perfection of Righteousness.
But now, do you your self perform all these things, which you require in us for the perfection of righteousness? Hath the great Husbandman watered the happy ground of your mind, with so great a vigor and verdure of his bounty, that no wild Vines nor Briars do any where appear in all your life? That no Lust draws you aside from your duty? No perturbation of affections throws you down from your state of constancy? No concupisence of the eyes defiles the purity of your mind? He that seeth a Woman, Mat. 5. Whatsoever things the law … it saith to those that are in the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the World may be guilty before God.saith he, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his Heart. What if a man is accounted unchast before God, if so much as his Eyes are Adulterous, if he is next to a Murtherer that is so much as rashly angry at his Brother; if he that calls his Brother Racha, or bespatters the name of his Neighbour R. 3.with the smallest reproach, is in danger of the Council; what shall be said to him, who hath poured forth, not only volumes of reproaches, but Cart-loads of spiteful speeches against his Brethren and fellow Servants, with so much virulency and gall of bitterness? So that I need not here go through all the Precepts of the Divine Law, as concerning loving God above all, concerning the strictest love to our Neighbour, concerning shunning offences, puting up injuries, praying for enemies, the abdication of this World, the framing the Life to a Dove-like simplicity, and other such like things. Which things, seeing they are so various in kind, and so difficult in the observation; I would know of you, not what ought to be done, but what you your self do express in deeds: Not what the Divine Grace is able to do in you, but what it does in effect: Whether he heaps you up with so many and so great gifts of his, that you are able to perform all things, that are written in the royal Law. Which if you can avouch so to be, I willingly congratulate your happiness, and I am not at all against your obtaining by way of merit, that which your works do merit, but that you may go up to the Kingdom, and may take your self Unpinioned Wings, as Arnobius saich wherewith you may go happily to Heaven, and 'may fly to the Stars, where you may reign with Christ, and you only, all other sinners being shut out, may with God overcome, when you are judged. But in the interim here it comes into my mind to ask you a thing, How will this consist with that which the Church Rev. 15. 4. The Ecclesiastical Hymn, thou only are holy. Hierom. ad Ctesiphontem. Dial. 2.sings in a holy Hymn, and sings so aright: Thou only art holy? For how shall he only have the praise of that thing, as saith Hierom, which he hath common to himself with many? What if you think there is no difference between his Righteousness and ours, and you suppose there is no Righteousness but what proceeds chiefly from Works; either let your life shew to us the same Works, which Christ wrought, or if you cannot, let him only have the honour of this Title, that Christ only may be righteous, and Osorius may confess himself to be unrighteous and à sinner, that now that saying may truely have place here, which just now I cited out of Augustine. Let man take sin, Aug. in Io. Hom. 49.to himself, which is his own, and leave Righteousness to God.
But, you will say, what then, is there no Righteousness which belongs to men? I do not deny that there is, but it is such a righteousness, as must be sought elsewhere than in works. But you may say, where then? Not only I, but also St. Paul will tell you, the Righteousness of God, saith he, to all, and upon all that believe. And again in the Rom. 3.same Epistle: The Gentiles which followed not after Righteousness, laid hold on Righteousness, to wit, the Righteousness of Faith: On the contrary, Rom. 9.Israel which followed after the Law of Righteousness, attained not unto the Law of Righteousness. Why so? Because they sought it not by Faith, but as by the Works of the Law. And writing to the Galatians, knowing, saith he, that a man is not justified by the Works of the Law, but by the Gal. 2.Faith of Iesus Christ, we also believe in Iesus Christ, that we may be justified by the Faith of Iesus Christ, and not by the Works of the Law, because no flesh shall be justified by the Works of the Law, &c. who is so dimsighted but he may clearly see what the meaning of the Apostle is in these words? Wherefore I the more wonder with my self, how great a stupidity darkens the minds of some of our own Country-men, and especially those Iesuits, who in a thing so perspicuous yield not unto Apostolick Authority, so that they seem to have sallied out of some Trophonian Den, for no other purpose, but that waging War with St. Paul, they may differ wholly from him in their opinion. For what things can more fiercely encounter than such 1 Cor. 1. Rom. 4. Rom. 11. Hab. 2.an opposition as this, Christ is our Righteousness? Faith is imputed for Righteousness: If of Work, then Grace is not Grace. The Iust lives by Faith. And after this manner doth the Apostle and Prophet instruct us. What, say they? We are Iustified by Rom. 4. Gal. 3. 2 Tim. 1. Ephes. 2.Works, and yet Grace is no less Grace. The Iust doth not live by Faith, but the Believer Liveth by the righteousness of Works. And whereas Paul doth so attribute our Righteousness to Tit. 3. Rom. 11. Phil. 3. Rom. 4. Rom. 9.Faith only, that he attributes nothing to Works, so often repeating these exclusive words, without works, apart from works, not according to works. If it is Grace, then it is not of Works: That I may be found in him, not having my own Righteousness, which is of the Law, but that which is of the Faith of Iesus Christ: To him that believeth in him that Iustifies the Ungodly, Faith is imputed unto Righteousness: also placing Iews and Gentiles as in a Scheme, that by experience it self it may be evident how hazardous it is, to seat the hope of Salvation any otherways than in the Faith of Christ only. On the contrary, those men overthrowing all these sayings of Paul, endeavour this only by all the means they can, that they may measure the whole sum of our Iustification by the performance of Works, and not by Faith; that they may take away all imputation of the Righteousness of another from us, that Faith may no more contribute any thing to Righteousness, but that it may render us worthy and fit, on whom the Divine Grace should. confer freely for the Merit of Christ, the first infusion Concil. Trident. Sess. 6.of inherent Righteousness. By which new qualities being received for the Merit of Christ, now man himself by that inherent Righteousness (as their words express it) merits a greater and fuller righteousness, reconciliation and adoption, and at length Life Eternal. Moreover, they proceed so far, that they assert, there is no Righteousness at all, but that which is peculiar to every man, and they so define it, that in all the nature of Righteousness there is no place at all for faith, and there appears not A definition of rig hteousness according to the Iesuits of Colonia. Censur. Coloniensis 186 frat Alpbonsus Philip 4. p. 34.so much as any mention thereof. For thus they define it, the righteousness of God, which is revealed in the Gospel, is a vertue in God which distributes to every one according to their deserving. Alphonsus adds, Evangelical righteousness is an equal proportion of merits to rewards.
I beseech you, Pious Reader, those that profess such vile and absurd things, will any man suppose that they have been exercised with serious meditation at any time in the holy Scriptures, or that they have not rather bestowed their whole age and wits in Heathenish and Aristotelian trifles? But now it will not … amiss to take notice with what props of reason they confirm these their opinions.