it? They had found this obscured and half-forgotten truth recorded, as they believed, with perfect clearness, in the Scriptures. The authority of the Scriptures was fully acknowledged by the Church in which they had been trained, however it might superadd to them other authoritative sources of knowledge, and however it might deny the competence of the individual to interpret the Bible for himself. That Christ spoke in the Scriptures, all admitted. What his voice was the Reformers could not doubt; for the truth that he uttered was one of which they had an immediate, spiritual recognition. Their interpretation verified itself to their hearts by the light and peace which that truth brought with it, as well as to their understandings on a critical examination of the text. The Church, then, that denied their interpretation and commanded them to abandon it, was in error; it could not be the authorized, infallible interpreter of Holy Writ. Thus the traditional belief in the authority of the Roman Church gave way, and the principle of the exclusive authority of the Scriptures, as the rule of faith, took its place. By this process the second of the distinctive principles of Protestantism was reached. That the meaning of the Bible is sufficiently plain and intelligible was implied in this conclusion. Hence, the right of private judgment is another side of the same doctrine.

In the adoption of this, which has been called the formal, in distinction from the first, which is termed the material principle of Protestantism, there was no dissent among the churches of the reformed faith. Thus the Anglican body, which surpassed all other Protestant churches in its deference to the fathers and to the first centuries, affirms this principle. It accepts, in the eighth article, the ancient creeds, on the ground that they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture; it declares, in the nineteenth article, that the Church of Rome, as well as those of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and An

ROMAN CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION.

463 tioch have erred in matters of faith; and in the twentyfirst article it asserts that general councils may err and have erred in things pertaining to the rule of piety, and that their decrees are to be accepted no farther than they can be shown to be conformable to the sacred writings.

The two principles are united in the fundamental idea of the direct relation of Christ to the believer as his personal Redeemer and Guide.

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The Roman Catholic theory of Justification may be so stated as to seem to approximate closely to that of the Protestants; but on a close examination, the two doctrines are seen to be discordant with one another. In the formula which defines the condition of salvation to be faith formed by love-fides formata caritate separation between faith and love is conceived of, in which the latter becomes the adjunct of the former; and inasmuch as love is the injunction of the law, a door is open for a theory of works and human merit, and for all the discomforts of that legal and introspective piety from which the evangelical doctrine furnished the means of escape. Faith, in the Protestant view, is necessarily the source of good works, which flow from it as a stream from a fountain; which grow from it as fruit from a tree. The tendency of the Catholic system is to conjoin works with faith, and thus to resolve good works into a form of legal obedience. Moreover, Justification does not begin, as in the Protestant theology, with the forgiveness of sins; but the first element in Justification is the infusion of inward, personal righteousness, and pardon follows. Justification is gradual.1 By this incipient excellence of character, the Christian is made capable of meriting grace; and however this doctrine may be qualified and guarded by founding all merit ultimately on the merits of Christ, from which the sanctification of the disciple flows, the legal characteristic cleaves to the doctrine.

1 Concil. Trident. Sess. VI. c. x.

But the wide difference of the Catholic conception from the Protestant becomes evident, when it is remembered that according to the former, for all sins committed after baptism, the offender owes and must render satisfaction — a satisfaction that derives its efficacy, to be sure, from that made by Christ, but yet is not the less indispensable and real. And how is Justification imparted? How does it begin? It is communicated through baptism, and, hence, generally, in infancy. It is Justification by baptism rather than by faith; and for all sins subsequently committed, penances are due; satisfaction must be offered by the transgressor himself. We are thus brought to the whole theory of the Church and of the Sacraments, in which the discrepancy between the two theologies is most manifest.

If the conflict of the two theologies were limited to this topic of Justification, and of the relation of faith to works; if the dispute could be shut up to subtle questions and tenuous distinctions of theological science, it might be more easily settled. On these questions a meeting-point might possibly be found. But the Protestant interpretation of the Gospel involved a denial of the prerogatives of the vast Institution which assumed to intervene between the soul and God, as the almoner of grace and the ruler of the beliefs and lives of men.

The Reformers, in harmony with their idea of the way of salvation which has been described, brought forward the conception of the invisible Church. The true Church, they said, is composed of all believers in Christ, all who are spiritually united to Him; and of the Church as thus defined, He is the Head. This is the Holy Catholic Church, to which the Apostles' Creed refers, and in which the disciple professes his belief; "for we believe," said Luther, referring to this passage of the creed, "not in what we see, but in what is invisible." The visible Church, on the contrary, is a congregation of believers

DOCTRINE RESPECTING THE CHURCH.

465 in which the word of God is preached and the sacraments administered essentially as they were instituted by Christ. But no single visible body of Christians can justly assume to be the entire Church; much less exclude from the pale of salvation all who are not included in their number. The true Church is an ideal, which is realized but imperfectly in any existing organization. External societies of Christians are more or less pure; they approximate, in different degrees, to a conformity to the idea of the real or invisible community. The Protestants carefully refrained from arrogating for the bodies which they organized an exclusive title to be considered the Church. When charged with being apostates from the Church, and when themselves denouncing the Papacy as the embodiment of Antichrist, they never denied that the true Church of Christ was on the side of

their opponents, as well as with themselves. "I say," said Luther," that under the Pope is real Christianity, yea the true pattern of Christianity, and many pious, great saints." Calvin has similar expressions; for example, in his noted Letter to Sadolet.

The Roman Catholic theory affixes the attributes of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity to the external, visible society of which the Bishop of Rome is the chief, and declares that outside of this body there is no salvation. The notes of the true Church belong to this society; and accordingly the promises made in the New Testament to the Church, and the privileges there ascribed to it, are claimed for this body exclusively. The Church, says Bellarmine, is something as tangible as the Republic of Venice. In opposition to the second of the Protestant principles, the traditions of the oral teaching of Christ and of the Apostles, which, it is claimed are infallibly preserved in the Church, through the supernatural aid of the indwelling Spirit, are put on a level with Scripture; and of Scripture itself, the

Church is the appointed, unerring expounder. It was not an uncommon thing in the Middle Ages for doctrines to be attributed to revelations made to the Church, subsequent to the Apostolic age; doctrines not supposed to be contained in the Scriptures. But the prevailing Catholic doctrine since the Reformation finds the entire revelation as a complete deposit, in the written and oral teaching of Christ and the Apostles. The connection of the individual with Christ is not possible, except through his connection with the Church. In the Catholic theory, the invisible Church is not only included in the visible organization in communion with the Papal see, but it cannot exist out of it or apart from it.1

As an inseparable part of the Catholic theory of the Church stands the doctrine of a particular priesthood and of the sacraments. The idea of the sacraments was fully developed by the Schoolmen, and the number, which had been indefinite and variable, was fixed at seven. It is essential to the conception of the sacrament that it should efficiently convey the hidden gift of grace which it symbolizes. It is the channel through which the grace is communicated; the ordained and indispensable vehicle by which it passes to the individual; the instrument by the direct operation of which the divine mercy reaches the soul.2 Hence the efficacy of a sacrament is independent of the personal character of the

In the later editions of his Loci, Melancthon treats of the visible church alone. He was led to this course, not by a change of opinion respecting the reality of the conception of the invisible church, but in consequence of the aberrations, in a spiritualistic direction, of the Anabaptists. He is concerned to guard against the notion that the invisible church is a mere ideal, or is to be sought for outside of all existing ecclesiastical organizations -a mere Platonic republic. See Julius Müller, Dogmatische Abhandlungen (Die unsichtbare Kirche), pp. 297, 298.

2 "Per quæ omnis vera justitia vel incipit, vel coepta augetur, vel amissa reparatur." Concil. Trid. Sess. vii. Proemium. "Si quis dixerit sacramenta novæ legis non esse ad salutem necessaria;' ""si quis dixerit, per ipsa novæ legis sacramenta ex opere operato non conferri gratiam, anathema sit." Ibid., IV. viii.

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