De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

It is now hardly difficult, from the things which have been controversial up to this point and established according to the measure of our ability, to answer the adversaries concerning their faith alone. They construct all their arguments from very many authorities of the divine page. Concerning the understanding of these, therefore, the whole dispute between us lies. But there are more passages than it is so necessary to pursue individually. Especially because the interpretation¹ and indeed the judgment of all is nearly the same. But most of them are in Paul, and chiefly in the two epistles which are to the Romans and to the Galatians. For in both he had undertaken the task of defending the cause of the faith of Jesus Christ against those who, converted from Judaism, arrogated to their own merits of the law kept by them the benefit of justification. Boasting that Christ had been promised to them as the reward of keeping the law: by whose obedience and works they were formerly justified, and had even merited the mystery of redemption: as has been more fully explained by us in the beginning of the commentaries on Paul himself. Against this error the Apostle sets himself and confirms the divine truth.² Namely, that neither the coming of Christ, nor similarly the justification of anyone, can be ascribed to the works of any law, or to the merits of any man. But he asserts that as God both freely promised the redeemer, and as a faithful promiser freely sent him, so no one was ever made just, or can be had as just before God, from any works, but from the one faith of Christ, whether explicit or implicit. Whence when he first begins to speak of the Gospel, he says: It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek: that is, to all mortals, whether living in the written law or in the law of nature. And he cites that of Habakkuk: The just man lives by faith. But lest a confused citation and an undigested heap of authorities without order produce satiety, we have divided into three forms the passages by which these men argue.³ But let us first set before them the confession common to both sides. Namely, that faith is necessary for salvation, as has already been established above: Paul saying that without faith it is impossible to please God.⁴ For he who comes to him must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder.⁵ But whether that alone suffices, on this we disagree. On the affirmative side, the first argument of the Lutherans is taken from the mark of universality. For in sacred Scripture salvation is promised universally to every believer. For when Paul contrasts the power of the Gospel with the weakness of the law, whether written or natural, he makes mention of no office of ours except faith alone. For, he says, it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes:⁶ therefore faith alone suffices. For if anything else were required, he would not have said universally, “to everyone who believes,” but with a condition added: for example, to one who believes and at the same time loves or works: or something similar. Of the same form and weight are the authorities in which there is a similar mark of universality: as immediately, The justice of God⁷ through the faith of Jesus Christ upon all, and over all, who believe in him. And: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,⁸ so must the Son of man be lifted up: that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. And: God so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son: that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. And: This is the will of my Father⁹ who sent me: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. And: Through this one (namely Jesus Christ)¹⁰ forgiveness of sins is announced to you from all those things from which you could not be justified in the law of Moses. For in this everyone who believes is justified. To the same pertains that: Scripture concluded all things under sin,¹¹ that the promise of Christ might be given to believers: for it is as much as if he had said, to all believers. As also that: I am the resurrection and the life:¹² he who believes in me shall not die forever. As if he had said, whoever believes in me. The passage therefore and the seat of the argument is from convertibles.¹³ For if it is required for the nature of man that he be rational, and whatever is rational is man, then rationality truly suffices to constitute the species of man: and it brings with it all his qualities. By a like demonstration, if faith is required for salvation, and salvation is offered to everyone who believes, faith alone suffices. This is confirmed by the very deed and preaching of Christ. For whomever he healed of various diseases, from them he demanded one faith. Whence he often repeats: Your faith has saved you:

And: As you have believed, so be it done to you.¹⁴ As if the whole force and power of salvation resided in faith alone.¹⁵ To which that of John is most consonant: He gave them power to become the sons of God, to those who believe in his name.¹⁶

The second passage is from the exclusive sign,¹⁷ which is very frequent in the Apostle. For he says: We reckon that a man is justified by faith, and not by the works of the law.¹⁸ Similarly to the Galatians: A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.¹⁹ And: By grace you are saved through faith,²⁰ and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should glory. From these an argument is built.²¹ An exclusive statement (such as, We are justified by faith alone) is proved by two expository propositions, an affirmative and a negative (as the dialecticians speak); both are clear in Paul: therefore we are justified by faith alone. The subsumed proposition is clear from this, that when he opposes faith to works, by the name of works he excludes every action of ours from the causes of justification. As if he had said: We are justified by faith, and by nothing else besides. Melanchthon²² deplores this complaint in his common places, and casts it against us by way of reproach. If the exclusive “alone” displeases, he says, let them also take away from Paul those exclusives, “freely,” “not of works,” etc. For these too are exclusives. To the strength and confirmation of this there also come many other things of the same energy: as is that which he immediately adds in testimony of the same truth from the history of Genesis,²³ Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice.²⁴ By which he intends to demonstrate that before the law was given Abraham was already just by faith: and therefore that justice does not come to anyone as a reward owed to one who works: but to one who believes in him who justifies the impious, his faith is reputed unto justice. Where he seems to make the same exclusion, so as to instruct us that the grace of God is obtained by faith alone. Whence when Christ had admonished the crowds²⁵ to work for the food which remains unto eternal life, and they asked what they should do to work the works of God — that is, those which would be pleasing to God and acceptable unto eternal life — he answered nothing else but that they should believe in him whom he has sent: as if that alone were sufficient.

The third passage for arguing²⁶ arises from the very nature of the evangelical promise: which is apprehended by faith alone, that is, by the assent of the mind. And this is the point from which the whole disagreement between us and them is brought forward: as we made clear in ch. 5. Luther began this argumentation under evil auspices²⁷ in On Christian Liberty and in the first article to Leo. The syllogism is such: The one sole word of Christ, promising us remission of sins, is necessary for salvation: but the truth of the word is received and apprehended by faith alone, that is, by the assent of the mind: therefore by the same faith the divine mercy is apprehended, by which we are justified freely. Thus Luther understands there that: Man does not live by bread alone, but in every word which proceeds from the mouth of God:²⁸ And: He sent his word, and healed them:²⁹ namely, that by the word apprehended by faith we are justified: And: With the heart we believe unto justice:³⁰ And: Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace.³¹ And Paul could seem to allude to the same when he calls the Gospel the power unto salvation revealed to everyone who believes. Further he gathers from this, in article 1 to Leo, that the sacraments do not confer grace: but faith in those promises, “He who has believed and has been baptized,”³² and “Whose sins you shall forgive,” etc.³³ They continue to fortify this same way with certain other not dissimilar passages of Scripture, as is that in Galatians: Scripture concluded all things under sin,³⁴ that the promise of Jesus Christ might be given to believers. Behold, they say, how the promise of salvation is received by believing. But the passage by which they think us conquered as by an Achilles is that word of Peter: To this one (namely Christ)³⁵ all the prophets give testimony, that through his name those who believe in him receive remission of sins. For the name, says Philip, (which signifies the cause of justification) is apprehended by faith alone.³⁶

Nevertheless, at this so unsound phalanx of arguments, those who have sincerely and without prejudice read what has been explained will not be greatly terrified: for they will easily judge how little solid is the sense which these men seem to themselves to extract from such testimonies. Yet that an answer may be given to each in order, certain foundations must be laid. First,³⁷ whatever may be the case with the sense, the very phrase “to be justified by faith alone” is ill received by the apostles Peter and James,³⁸ as Augustine testifies in On Faith and Works ch. 14, as violently extorted from the depraved words of Paul. For on account of this extorted heresy he says that the other apostles published their epistles:³⁹ whose authors Peter calls depravers of the epistles of Paul. And James (says Augustine)⁴⁰ is vehemently hostile to those who think that faith without works is of value for salvation, so that he even compares them to demons: saying that even the demons believe and tremble.

Secondly it is supposed⁴¹ that the epistle of Paul to the Romans is very obscure and most difficult to understand. This not only Origen, Augustine and as many as expound it acknowledge: but Peter the apostle himself⁴² took care to admonish us of this matter, saying that there are in Paul certain things difficult to understand. Whence it follows that whatever doubt has arisen concerning this matter in Paul must be interpreted through the other apostles, who for this reason, as Augustine asserts, wrote as it were his interpreters. Nay rather, thirdly it must be supposed⁴³ that even if neither Peter nor any of the Fathers had ever admonished us of this, it is most evident of itself that all passages of Scripture in which faith alone is brought forward as the cause of justification⁴⁴ must necessarily be interpreted with a tempering qualification, otherwise sacred Scripture could not be vindicated from contradiction. This foundation I would oppose to the clamors of those who reproach us that, although there are express testimonies of Scripture that we are justified by faith alone, we nevertheless require other works. For it is not we who invent it, but the same divine page which so openly demands other things besides faith — both sacraments and our works — not only for increasing but for obtaining justice. As: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit. And: He who has believed and has been baptized. And: Do penance. And: Unless you do penance. And: We are saved by hope. And: He who loves me shall be loved by my Father. And: He who does not love remains in death. Which sentences, and many more of this kind which we have recalled above, would manifestly contradict those [passages] that we are justified by faith without works, unless they were reconciled by the Catholic understanding. Therefore since this exclusive, “We are justified by faith alone,” is expounded by two propositions (as we said),⁴⁵ namely, we are justified by faith, and by no other action of ours, the affirmative must first be examined. Namely, why, if faith uses other companions, is it itself, if not always, at least more frequently, declared in Scripture to be the cause of justification, as appears from the first argumentation? Then we must answer as to the negative, what works are excluded. To speak of the former: those universal authorities of the first order, by which salvation is promised to every believer, seem to assert two qualities of faith: namely, necessity and sufficiency for salvation. Yet it is established that they do not exhibit the same sense concerning both: but they declare that faith is simply necessary: because without faith it is impossible to please God:⁴⁶ but sufficient if it works through charity. Namely, if the believer is disposed by penance and other works together, with divine help preventing, which works faith itself admonishes us are necessary for salvation. Concerning the necessity of faith the sense of Paul is most patent.⁴⁷ Surely his mind is that faith so compares with the old law that the law was not necessary except for that little and tiny people peculiarly: but faith for all mortals. And this is what he says of the Gospel: For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes,⁴⁸ to the Jew first and to the Greek: that is, not only to the Jews, to whom it was first promised, but to the whole world. But to demonstrate the amplitude of faith, that it not only begins to be necessary for all in the Gospel, but that it was the same by which the ancients were saved, he adds: The justice of God is revealed in it from faith unto faith: that is, from the faith of the ancient Fathers unto our faith. Which although it is the same on the part of the object, yet they believed from the testimonies of the prophets, in which God formerly spoke, that he would come, whom we believe from the mouth of Christ and his apostles to have come. Yet in what way faith suffices he leaves as most known of itself. First, from other passages of Scripture, which equally demand both the sacraments and other works. As, He who has believed and has been baptized, where, against Luther's will, the sacrament is joined to faith in the cause of justification. Secondly, Paul presupposed this from the law of nature. For (which must be repeated continually) faith does not condemn nature, but only fault. Nor does it abrogate its rights: but rather perfects it, supplying sufficient help where nature fails. Wherefore God, the author of nature, presupposed the natural light in the revelation of faith,⁴⁹ by which we might understand that we are to be justified by faith in such a way that we do not oppose an obstacle to his grace. For it is a natural right (as we said in ch. 1) that he who is an enemy to another cannot be restored to his grace except by penance for the deed, with a changed mind. Nay, even if these reasons ceased, although Scripture proclaimed that we are to be reconciled by faith alone, from the very notion and character of faith we would be taught that this must be understood to mean that faith alone shows us the door and path of salvation. For faith, as according to its substance it is distinguished from the other virtues,⁵⁰ is nothing else than a star and light showing us the way, not only by which the just ought to walk, but by which the grace of justification itself is to be entered by us: but for salvation it is not enough to know the way, unless you enter it with the steps of the will: therefore faith alone does not suffice. Further, this is what Paul's definition signifies: namely, the substance⁵¹ of things to be hoped for, the argument of things not apparent. Namely, that its office is to show us beforehand those future goods, so that from this our hope may be raised and the love of God stirred up, and therefore repentance for our sins: by which steps we may come to him, and then by advancing may arrive. This testimony cited by the Apostle from Habakkuk most evidently proclaims in our favor: so far is it from favoring the adversaries. For when the prophet says, The just man lives by faith:⁵² or (as another reading has it) by his faith, whether you understand it of God or of the just man himself, he does not mean that faith is the life of the just man and the whole form by which he is just: but plainly that faith entices the just man to perform the commanded works of the law, and sustains him in patience of labors on account of hope. As if he said: The just man does not first receive the reward before he works: but hoping for the future he works. This sense is clearly patent in the words of the prophet: as others have knowingly noted before us. For the Lord there encourages by his mouth slothful and senseless men, who are moved only by present things. To whom he says: The vision is far off and shall appear at the end, and shall not lie: if it delays, wait for it, because coming it will come, and will not tarry. Behold, he who is unbelieving, his soul shall not be right in himself: but the just man shall live in his faith: that is, in the hope revealed through faith he shall endure in work. And the Apostle himself in Heb.⁵³ brings out precisely the same sense: where he says: Do not therefore lose your confidence, which has a great reward: for patience is necessary for you, that doing the will of God you may receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he who is to come will come, and will not tarry: but my just man lives by faith: but if he withdraws himself, he shall not please my soul. Let anyone with keen eyes consider what sense both the prophet and the Apostle exhibit to us from those words, The just man lives by faith: whether it can be expressed from them that life consists in faith alone, or rather that faith so raises our hope that through works of charity, with the favor of God going before, we may both be prepared for obtaining his grace and then expend our effort in increasing it. Therefore wherever the divine testimonies promise salvation to every believer, and wherever they attest that man is justified by faith, this only is signified, that faith is the first motion⁵⁴ in us, from which God begins to convert us to himself: surely by which one must believe that he alone, without any preceding merits of ours, justifies the impious: without which motion we can neither hope nor love. And therefore in justification faith is the leader, and the other works are followers. Whence Augustine on Ps. 31: Where faith is not, there is no good work: namely, simply good. For intention makes a good work: but faith directs the intention. And by the same reason faith is the beginning, the origin and the foundation of Christian piety: as he says in On the Predestination of the Saints. Nay, Paul to the Corinthians says: No one can lay another foundation⁵⁵ than that which is laid: which is Christ Jesus. Surely Christ and faith in him are the same in force. And that is the genuine sense of that: He gave them power⁵⁶ to become the sons of God, to those who believe in his name. Since outside the faith of the name of Christ there is no power unto salvation. And since the beginning and first cause (as it is in the philosophers) contains the effects in virtue, by its right and merit faith is proclaimed the cause of justification. For unless our liberty stood in the way, faith by its own character is fertile of all good things: for it is the mother of hope and the parent of charity. But nevertheless because the virtues are distinct, and we are free toward each one (as we discussed in ch. 7), in truth it alone does not suffice for justice. Wherefore although Christ in the Gospel always attributed miracles to faith, which he performed in healing the diseases of both kinds of man, as to the foundation of religion, nevertheless concerning the same Magdalene, to whom he said, Your faith has saved you,⁵⁷ he had said beforehand: Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much. And he taught that faith had saved her for the reason that it had kindled charity, so as to soften the heart with the tears of saving penance and dispose it for the infusion of divine grace.

But that we may proceed to the explanation of the authorities of the second order,⁵⁸ which are exclusive, there have not been lacking those who interpreted that wherever the Apostle says that a man is justified by faith, and not by the works of the law, those ceremonies precisely were excluded, and the sacraments and shadowy sacrifices, which profited no more than to be a delineated figure of evangelical truth, and therefore as weak and needy elements (as he says elsewhere) instructed that people living as it were under a pedagogue concerning the God to come, and sustained them by expectation of him. For since the converted Hebrews so boasted of those ceremonies, the intention of Paul, these men say, was to persuade that not by those ceremonies, but by the faith veiled under them, all who were just in that law obtained justice. But to one who thoroughly examines the words of Paul, it is most perspicuous that he excludes not only the ceremonies but the whole law, nay not only the written law, but also the law of nature, and whatever works are done by natural powers. And this is the sentence of Augustine in On the Spirit and the Letter ch. 13 and following.⁵⁹ And Jerome on the Galatians,⁶⁰ and nearly the chief notes of the Fathers. Nay, Paul has published it more luminously than all. For comparing faith with the law, which does not justify but only shows the reason of sin, he says: I did not know concupiscence unless the law said, Thou shalt not covet.⁶¹ Which commandment, since it is in the Decalogue, plainly shows (as Augustine knowingly notes) that Paul's purpose was that not even the works of the Decalogue justified. But we do not need to beg the words of Paul. For from the very beginning of the epistle he sets forth his mind, comparing Jews with Greeks, and concluding that all are under sin, and that no works of theirs had the power of justifying: but all need the glory of God. Whence he immediately adds: We reckon that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law. In the works of the written law, therefore, he depicted all works of any law whatsoever, as those which are not solid for salvation without faith. Yet because the Gentiles did not arrogate to themselves the merits of justice as the Jews did, therefore he peculiarly excludes the works of the Jewish law. Wherefore the comparison of faith⁶² to the works of the law is not altogether the same as that of the Gospel to the old law: but it is the comparison of the faith of Jesus Christ, however known, under any law whatsoever, to the works of that same law. And this is what he says, that human boasting is excluded by the law, not of works, but of faith. Namely, that no one who from the beginning of the world obtained justice can boast from the works of his law: but from the faith of Jesus Christ. For the office of the law is only to command, and by commanding to teach the reason of sin. But faith alone is what teaches whence we ought to seek help to fulfill the law. Whence Augustine in the cited place says: This is the difference between the law and faith, that what the law of works commands by threatening, the law of faith obtains by believing. Not that salvation is obtained by faith alone, but that through faith we ask for help: for he adds: By the law of works God says, Do what I command: by the law of faith it is said to God, Give what thou commandest. Therefore he calls the law of faith not only the Gospel but the knowledge of faith: for even the ancients, even in the law of nature, implored help through the same faith. Although by antonomasia the Gospel is called the law of faith, because in it through the coming of Christ the mysteries are made manifest which lay hidden under the old law: according to that of Paul: But before faith came,⁶³ we were kept under the law, shut up unto that faith which was to be revealed. We have said these things concerning the comparison of faith to the works of the law, so that through it the understanding of Paul may become plainer and more conspicuous. Further, what he abdicates and repels in justification is only the works preceding faith, so that wherever he says, We reckon that a man is justified by faith. And, Not of works, he means nothing else than that no works preceding faith are in any way the cause or merits of justification: but faith is the beginning, from which, with God preventing, the motion of our conversion begins, and of the good works which then follow. Thus Augustine in the prologue of his exposition of Ps. 31 explains that: To him who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the impious,⁶⁴ faith is reputed unto justice. Not that faith alone justifies without our cooperation, but, he says, to him who does not work, that is, to the impious man lying in sin, and therefore not working well: that is, bringing no merit to his justification: yet believing through the help of God, faith is reputed to him unto justice. But what faith? Surely that which works through charity. Whence the Apostle immediately adds the testimony of the Psalmist: As David says, blessed is the man to whom God renders justice without works: that is, without preceding merits. For that works are not excluded which by divine help concur together with faith, the Psalm itself explains: adding, I said, I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord,⁶⁵ and thou hast forgiven the impiety of my sin. For this reason Luther in On Christian Liberty and his followers, in their most customary manner, cite that half and truncated truth, With the heart we believe unto justice. For if they added the other member, which is, But confession is made unto salvation, they would perceive that confession ought everywhere to be the companion of faith. Further, for entering into the grace of God, that confession which is the detestation of sins on account of him: but for cultivating it, that which is made in heart, mouth and work for his glory. Faith therefore without works does not exclude the motions of hope and charity, of which faith is the beginning. But “without works” means the same as “freely, with no preceding merits.” Wherefore the same Augustine in On Faith and Works ch. 14⁶⁶ says: When the Apostle says that he reckons a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law, he does not do this so that the commandments and the works of professed faith should be condemned as not justice, but so that each one may know that he can be justified by faith even if the works of the law have not preceded: for they follow the justified man, they do not precede the one to be justified. He says they follow: not that in the point of justification our assent and cooperation are not necessary, but that justifying grace is infused prior by nature than the works are meritorious: yet they precede together with the act of faith in the genus of material cause, as has been explained above. And therefore he adds that when Paul says we are justified by faith, he never defines any faith whatsoever by which one believes in God, but that saving and plainly evangelical faith which works through love. Behold how faith, while it justifies, works through love: so that we are disposed for grace not only by the act of faith (although it is first) but also by the acts of hope and charity, through which the same acts are made merits of glory. And not, as the adversaries say,⁶⁷ that by faith alone without any other preceding act we receive grace: which grace charity follows. For although this is true of infused charity, nevertheless the act also of hope, charity and penance precedes: just as they themselves confess that the act of faith precedes. And in On Grace and Free Will ch. 8, he says: Hear and understand, “Not of works” was said, not as if [they were] yours from yourself, but as if [they were] those in which God fashioned you: that is, formed and created you. As Paul says: We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works.⁶⁸ Here note, reader, that Paul excludes only our own works: not those by which God, with special help, converts us cooperating. For this cooperation of ours does not prevent us from being converted freely: just as, according to the adversaries, the act of faith itself does not prevent it, by which, although it is ours, we apprehend (as they say) justice. And in On the Predestination of the Saints ch. 7 (where he compares faith and the works which are born from it to Israel and Judah, who was born from Israel), he says: Paul says that a man is justified by faith, not by works, for this reason, because faith itself is first given, from which the other things are obtained which are properly called works, in which one lives justly. He says the rest are obtained through faith: because it teaches from whom we ought to ask help to do true works, that is, those pertaining to salvation. In this manner, although not so fully and clearly, all the saints speak. And the words of Ambrose⁶⁹ make precisely the same sense, which Melanchthon⁷⁰ in his apology openly says patronize him against us. For the words of Ambrose are: Let no one glory in works, because no one is justified by his deeds. But he who is just has it as a gift, because he was justified after the laver. Faith therefore is what frees through the blood of Christ, because blessed is he whose sin is forgiven and to whom pardon is given. But in these words, what, I ask, does Ambrose bring forward against us? He says that no one is justified by his deeds: that is, by his own deeds: but by faith through the blood of Christ. Which we confess: but nevertheless by faith working through charity, as has been explained. But there is no need to go further in reviewing the sentences of the Fathers. The determination of the Catholic Church is more than a thousand years old as to what Paul taught us when he says, Not of works. For he altogether teaches that which was sanctioned against Pelagius: namely, that no one is justified by our works: that is, by the powers of our free will. And therefore Paul to the Ephesians takes “not of works”⁷¹ and “not of yourselves” for the same thing. Which word, if these men would consider carefully, they would recognize that not all our works are excluded: namely, those which are done by us cooperating, with God preventing: but those which are altogether from us.

But concerning the faith of Abraham I shall add one word.⁷² The Lutherans chiefly confirm that we are justified by faith alone by the testimony which Paul from Gen. 15 brought forward to this sentence: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice. To the right understanding of this, first of all this must be premised, which I wonder was noted neither by them nor by our men. Paul, I say, does not allege that passage in such a sense as to assert that Abraham was then first justified: that is, made just from unjust. For that is affirmed concerning the faith which he showed to God promising him seed according to the number of the stars: and that indeed from barren and dead Sarah. But that Abraham had long before been just is beyond doubt: since already by God's command he had sojourned into the land of Canaan, had traversed Egypt and the south country, and had subdued four kings in the power of God. Nay, it is not to be doubted that even before God first spoke to him in Haran, he had been his friend. As Noah, and many of his forefathers, and Sarah, and Lot. Namely, through that faith which sufficed in the law of nature. Nay, I would believe that Abraham was then the best of all mortals, with whom God made peace concerning the highest mysteries of Christ, receiving and giving faith. For he had prepared a mind to which he was about to entrust his secrets. Therefore Paul by that testimony intends to establish two things. First, that before circumcision, and therefore before the written law, men had already been just. Against the pride of the Jews, who attributed the cause of justification from original fault to that sacrament alone. Secondly, that there was never any just work except what proceeded from faith: and therefore that faith is the foundation and beginning of salvation. Whence that word, It was reputed to him unto justice, signifies nothing else than that that assent of faith was an act of justice, meritorious and acceptable to God: as the work of a just man. Such indeed is also that of the Gospel concerning the Publican:⁷³ This man went down justified to his house rather than the other. For the sense is not that he was then first made just from unjust, as we said in ch. 4: but that that confession of sins, and prayer of one not trusting in his own works like the Pharisee, was a work of justice. And in the same understanding must be heard that series of the just, in which the Apostle shows the necessity of faith. For he does not speak only of the first justification, but in general, that there was never any just work unless it proceeded from faith. And therefore he says:⁷⁴ By faith Abel offered a much more excellent victim than Cain. By faith Noah prepared the ark. By faith Abraham, when called, obeyed. Namely, that faith showing one God as rewarder, and therefore by the hope of reward, those works were made just from the love of the same God. From these passages, therefore, not only is it not elicited that faith alone suffices, but it is openly gathered that as no work can be done justly before God unless it proceeds from faith, so neither is faith sufficient by itself, not only for cultivating and multiplying the friendship of God, but neither for entering it without other works done by the help of God, which faith itself shows to be necessary. And to the same pertains the mind of James interpreting Paul and the faith of Abraham.⁷⁵ For he indeed intends not only that faith cooperates with works for the increase of justice, as some interpret, but also that not even the first justice is acquired by faith alone without works flowing from that same faith through the help of God. For he speaks in general, proposing thus: What will it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but has no works? Can faith save him? And he adds: Faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself. Which is certainly understood not only of a relapsed Christian, but that if an infidel had the most certain faith in the Gospel, yet did not do what it teaches for obtaining justice, faith would be idle. And therefore he adds that Abraham our father was justified by works, offering his son Isaac: that is, that faith which he showed to God would never have been a work of justice unless he proposed to do according to God's command. And so faith cooperated with works, and by them was afterwards increased and consummated. He shows the same in the faith of Rahab the harlot: who was not justified by faith alone: but because, believing the spies who promised that they would save her, who came by God's command, she hid them in hope and love of God. The intention of James, therefore, is that from the very obtaining of justice faith begins at once to work through works of charity. Whence Augustine⁷⁶ in book 83 of Questions q. 76, where he clarifies this matter professedly, reconciling Paul saying that a man is justified by faith without works with James saying that faith cooperates with works, says that the first speaks of works preceding faith: but the other of works following. Yet it is to be understood not only of works following justifying grace, but also in its own way of works following faith by nature and disposing for the infusion of grace.

It follows finally that we answer the third argument, in which the axis of this controversy turns.⁷⁷ Luther says in On Christian Liberty that all works are to be rejected, not only external but even speculations, meditations, and whatever can be carried on by the studies of the mind: because none of these profits anything. But one thing, and that alone, is needed for life, justice and Christian liberty. That is the most holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ, as the truth itself says: I am the resurrection⁷⁸ and the life; he who believes in me shall not die forever. But the word is apprehended by faith alone, as it is the assent of the mind; therefore it alone suffices. In the first place, that the word alone is our whole salvation is a new and unheard-of idiom. For Christ in the parable of the sower⁷⁹ does not teach that the word is the whole crop: but, he says, the seed is the word of God. And according to the cooperation of the soil in which it is sown, he says it bears fruit. But if it falls by the wayside, it is not even allowed to sprout by the birds of heaven. And elsewhere:⁸⁰ He who hears these my words and does them shall be likened to a wise man building his house upon rock. But if he hears and does not do them, he shall be like the foolish man building on sand. The evangelical word, therefore, is indeed the cause of our salvation: for it is the power unto salvation to everyone who believes, but nevertheless power as a seed and foundation. Therefore it is not enough for salvation that the word be apprehended by faith alone: that is, that the promise be believed by the assent of the mind, unless we who believe cooperate with God through charity for our conversion and justice. We acknowledge therefore that believers receive remission of sins through the name of Christ, as Peter teaches,⁸¹ yet not so that we apprehend it by faith alone assenting, but by faith working through charity. For we do not listen to the recent evangelical Philip commenting in the common places,⁸² that by the sole assent of faith, by which the word is apprehended, justice is apprehended, but to Philip formerly a minister of the Gospel in the Acts of the Apostles, asking the Eunuch before he baptized him whether he believed with his whole heart.⁸³ And to believe with the whole heart is the same as what Christ says, to love with the whole heart. Where we are admonished that no one is received into the grace of God unless by an act of charity and penance he is borne against the sins which are impediments to loving him with the whole heart. But here I already hear our men overwhelming us with clamors and complaints, why we so unjustly impose on them: because, they say, we do not deny that penance is necessary, nor indeed works: nay, we so attribute to faith that it works through charity that we everywhere cry out that they are inseparable companions. Surely there is no one among us who imposes on you. For we have sufficiently demonstrated above that you preach orally that we are justified by faith working through charity: but in reality you deny it. For even if you admit the necessity of penance, you nevertheless will no disposition for grace. And although you say that charity is infused after nature than grace, you nevertheless acknowledge no motion of it by which, with God himself preventing, we are moved toward God to obtain grace: but you wish it to be received by faith alone. Nay, you say two things that fight with each other. Namely, that justifying faith includes charity, and yet it justifies prior by nature than the act of charity comes. But “to be justified by faith alone,” says Philip in the common places, has no other force than “to be justified freely.” But this he will never extort from us. For “freely” and “through faith” are not the same: for Paul utters both as two things, namely “freely through faith”: freely, because by no preceding merits. But through faith, not because it alone is what justifies, but with the Holy Spirit preventing, FAITH WHICH WORKS THROUGH CHARITY.⁸⁴ Thus the holy Synod, taught by the same Holy Spirit, expounds Paul in Sess. 6 ch. 8: namely, that wherever the Apostle says that a man is justified by faith, and freely, those words are to be understood in the sense which the perpetual consensus of the Catholic Church has held and expressed: namely, that we are said to be justified by faith for this reason, because faith is the beginning, foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God and to come to the fellowship of his sons. But we are said to be justified freely for this reason, because none of those things which precede justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification itself.

End of the second book.