PREFACE.

ALL reflecting persons will admit that the most important point in every religion is its doctrine concerning our acceptance with God, which the inspired writings of the Jewish, as well as the Christian church, call, our Justification. As, therefore, a treatise on this question involves the very essence of revelation, the controversial form which it may assume is but the consequence of the militant state of the church.

Every one who takes an interest in the literature of religion, is aware that a contest now rages between a party that is accused of going over to Rome, and those who still value the Reformation as a distinguished blessing. The Tracts for the Times, usually called, from their birth-place, the Oxford Tracts, at first, indeed, by a strange anachronism, accused the

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Council of Trent of separating our country from those whom they denominated Tridentine Romanists; but Mr. Newman's Lectures on Justification betray a change, or progress, in the movements of the party, by defending against Luther the essence of the doctrine of Trent. Of this work, which is dedicated to the Bishop of Oxford, the Advertisement speaks as follows:

"The present volume originated in the following way: It was brought home to the writer from various quarters, that a suspicion existed in many serious minds against certain essential Christian truths, such as Baptismal Regeneration and the Apostolical Ministry, under the impression that they fostered notions of human merit, were prejudicial to the inward life of religion, and incompatible with the doctrine of justifying faith, nay, with express statements on the subject in our Formularies; while confident reports were in circulation that the parties who advocated them, could not disguise even from themselves their embarrassment at those statements: moreover, that though both these classes of doctrines had in matter of fact been continuously held by the great body of our divines for two centuries and more, yet historical considerations did not weigh with men in general against their own impressions; and that

nothing would meet the evil but plain statements on the subject argued out from Scripture; statements which, if not successful in convincing those who efused to trust tradition and the church, might at least be evidence to the world, that the persons so suspected, themselves honestly believed that the doctrines of our articles and homilies were not at variance with what they thought they saw in the Sacramental and Ordination Services, and other forms contained in the Prayer Book."

The partition wall between Trent and the Tractators being thrown down, the question now is whether the Roman or the Protestant doctrine of Justification be the truth. Mr. Newman often appears, indeed, to argue against the council; but his own peculiar opinion Mr. Faber declares he cannot understand. To me it appears substantially that of Rome. Luther maintained that Justification was a forensic term, expressive of the act of God when accepting a believer as righteous on account of Christ's obedience unto death; in opposition to which the council framed the following decree: "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also Sanctification, and the renovation of the inner man, by a voluntary reception of graces and gifts, whence a man from unjust be

b

comes just, and from an enemy a friend, that he may be an heir according to the hope of eternal life.”

That this is really the doctrine of Mr. Newman will be seen, if not by those who read his Lectures, at least by such as peruse the following work. If he differs, it is merely in the mode of statement, which amounts not to as much as we find among those who composed the council of Trent, which will by the following record. Father Paul says,

appear

"Et in questa occasione fu trattato longamente contra li Lutherani, che non vogliono il verbo giustificare esser effettivo, ma giudiciale, e declarativo, fondandosi sopra la voce Hebrea, e sopra la Grece, che significano pronunciare giusto, e per molti luoghi della scrittura del nuovo e vecchio testamento, che anco nella tradittione Latina é usata in tal significatione, e se ne allegano sino quindici. Ma il Soto escludeva tutti questi di San Paolo che parlano della nostra giustificatione, et in quelli diceva, non potersi intendire, se non in significatione effetivo; di che nacque gran disputa tra lui, et il Marinaro al quale non piaceva, che si fondasse in cosa cosi leggiera; ma diceva, l' articolo della gratia habituale, non poter ricevere dubio, come deciso nel concilio di Vienna, e sententia commune di tutti i Theologi; e questo