mation, were all persuaded that the Church of Rome taught very serious error upon this subject, and they were of one mind as to what was the doctrine taught in Scripture concerning it. If Dr Whately's opinions upon this subject are correct, the Reformation, in the very matter to which its authors attached the highest importance, must have been founded wholly in misapprehension and error. For more than a century after the commencement of the Reformation, the divines of the Church of England continued to believe that the Church of Rome had very materially perverted the doctrine of Scripture upon this point. This is evident from two great works in which this subject is minutely investigated, namely, Bishop Davenant's "Prælectiones de Justitia habituali et actuali," published in 1631, and Bishop Downame's "Treatise of Justification," published in 1633. In these two works,-the best and fullest scholastic discussions of this subject which Britain has produced, it is proved that the Church of Rome teaches very material and dangerous error in regard to the place which men's good deeds hold in the scheme of salvation; while, incidentally, it also appears from them, that the defenders of the doctrine of the Reformation upon this topic had Papists for their only antagonists, and met with no opposition from any of their own brethren. When Protestants began to corrupt the doctrine of Scripture and of the Reformation, by inculcating those views on the subject of justification which Dr Whately maintains, the Papists raised a shout of triumph, and adduced the fact as a concession, at length extorted by the force of truth, to the effect, that there was no very material difference upon this point between Protestants and the Church of Rome, and that of course one fundamental article in the theology of the Reformers was based upon misrepresentation and falsehood.*

Ever since the time of Bishop Bull, very erroneous views upon the subject of justification have been widely prevalent in the Church of England-views in substance the same as those taught by the Church of Rome. Those who hold these views cannot but admit, as Dr Whately does, that the Church of Rome

* A proof of the truth of this state- | formers on the subject of justification, ment, and an interesting specimen of will be found in the work of the the use made by Romish controver- celebrated Jansenist Nicole, entitled sialists of the renunciation by some "Préjugés Légitimes contre les CalProtestants of the doctrine of the Re- vinistes," c. xi. pp. 270-6.

teaches no very material error upon this subject; and, of course, must maintain, if they would speak out, that the Reformers were defeated in argument by the Romanists, in that very matter which they reckoned the article of a standing or a falling church. It is true that the decrees and canons of the Council of Trent upon this subject are drawn up with a good deal of caution and cunning, and are well fitted to deceive those who have not thoroughly investigated it. But in the writings of the two great divines to whom we have referred, and in those of other old divines of the Church of England who might be mentioned, it is proved, we think, beyond the possibility of answer, that the Church of Rome does teach very serious error upon this important subject; and that the general scope and tendency of all the error she teaches, is just to cherish and foster self-righteousness in men's minds,—that is, to lead them to place a reliance upon their own good works as a means of obtaining forgiveness of sin and the favour of God, which the Sacred Scriptures not only do not sanction, but condemn and denounce.

The history of religion in every age and country seems to us to make it manifest, that there is in human nature a powerful ⚫ tendency leading men to place a measure of reliance upon their own good deeds-their own compliance with the laws of morality -as a means of obtaining pardon and acceptance from God, which is clearly precluded by the whole substance of what is taught in Scripture, concerning men's natural state of guilt and sinfulness, and concerning the remedy which has been provided for it. And the truth of this position is in no degree invalidated by the truth of another,—namely, that men have a strong natural tendency to rely unduly, with the same view, upon their external religious observances, and even to substitute the observance of religious ceremonies for the performance of moral duties. These two tendencies are perfectly consistent with, and mutually auxiliary to, each other. And in adducing and establishing against the Church of Rome the charge of fostering and cherishing men's natural tendency to self-righteousness, we have no difficulty in showing that it encourages men to rely unduly and unwarrantably both on good works, or external conformity to the moral law, and on outward ceremonies. It does the former by its anti-scriptural doctrines as to the meaning, the nature, the causes, and the grounds of justification, and by an error on the

subject of the merit of good works, going very far beyond what Dr Whately calls "the perhaps injudicious use of a word." It does the latter by inventing and imposing a host of unauthorized rites and ceremonies, and teaching men to regard them as conveying and conferring grace. There is perhaps no more striking proof of the strength of this tendency than its prevalence in a large section of professedly Christian and Protestant society. If we investigate the state of mind of the great body of those whom we see around us in the world,—not the openly profligate but the externally decent,—we will be satisfied, that the more ignorant they are of religion, and the more indifferent they are habitually to all their responsibilities and obligations as immortal beings, the more are they disposed to rely upon their own good deeds, or external observances, as a ground of hope towards God.

There is, then, in human nature, a powerful tendency to selfrighteousness. The Popish system, in place of seeking to eradicate this, as evangelical Protestantism does, is fitted to confirm and extend it. And there is no one aspect in which Popery can be contemplated, better fitted to illustrate its injurious bearing upon the spiritual welfare of men, than when we survey those of its tenets and practices above referred to, in connection with that tendency of human nature to which they are so skilfully accommodated. The Apostle Paul seems to have found this strong natural tendency of men to self-righteousness to be the great obstacle to the success of his labours; and the experience of most men who have rightly understood the real nature of the Apostle's object, and who have adopted his method of seeking to effect it, has been of a similar kind. It was this tendency to self-righteousness that was most influential in making the preaching of Christ crucified a stumbling-block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks. It is still true, we fear, in regard to multitudes to whom Christianity has been made known, that "they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."* And this statement of the Apostle's applies perhaps more fully and emphatically to the victims of Popish delusion, than to any class of men within whose reach Christianity has been brought. The whole system is fitted to keep them in ignorance

Rom. x. 3.

of God's righteousness, to encourage them to go about to establish their own righteousness, and thereby to prevent them from submitting unto God's righteousness, the only scheme or provision by which sinners can be saved. If there be any principle better entitled than all others to a place in an exposition of the depraved tendencies of human nature in which the errors of Romanism originate, and if there be any error of Romanism against which it is peculiarly important to warn Protestants, it is self-righteousness, or an undue reliance upon good works and religious observances as a means of procuring forgiveness and acceptance from God.

There is one of Dr Whately's colleagues on the Irish episcopal bench, who holds what are, in our judgment, much more scriptural views on the subject of justification and good works, and the relation in which they stand to each other,—namely, Dr O'Brien, Bishop of Ossory. Dr O'Brien has rendered an important service to what we believe to be the cause of truth in this matter, in his work, entitled "An Attempt to Explain and Establish the Doctrine of Justification by Faith only." The revival in the Church of England of the scriptural doctrine of the Reformers upon this important subject, has found in Dr O'Brien a worthy representative and advocate. His work is an able and learned defence of what we believe to be the true doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures, of the whole body of the Reformers, and of the authors of the symbolical books of the Church of England, upon the subject of justification. It is peculiarly valuable to the theological student, because of the fulness with which it adduces the evidence, that the Reformers unanimously maintained, in opposition to the Romanists, those views upon that subject which have been generally rejected by the divines of the Church of England ever since Bishop Bull's time.*

Dr Whately, in a note to the above-mentioned Appendix,† gives a brief indication of the general method by which he would attempt to show that the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, did not teach the doctrine on the subject of justification

which the Reformers deduced from his statements; and plainly hints, that by the very same process it might be shown, that the Reformers did not teach the doctrines which have been generally ascribed to them by those who have most highly valued and most carefully studied their writings. It is in substance this,— that the Apostle, in discussing the subject of justification, was dealing with men who did not place their reliance for pardon and acceptance upon their good works properly so called,—upon the performance of moral duties,-upon any conformity, even in external action, to the moral law, but merely upon ceremonial observances; and that the Reformers had to do with a similar class of persons and of notions. He says, "The error which is perhaps the commonest among Protestants upon this point, is that of forgetting that the 'works' by which the Pharisees sought to establish their own righteousness, which was of the law,' were not the performance of moral duties, but ceremonial observances." And again: "An error very nearly the same had crept in among us to a vast extent before the Reformation. Good works' had come to signify principally, if not exclusively, pilgrimages, fasts, genuflexions, and ceremonial observances of various kinds; and hence our Reformers use much the same language as the Apostle Paul, with the same meaning, and on a like occasion."

The notion which Dr Whately seems to intend to convey by these statements is, that the works which Paul and the Reformers so absolutely excluded from the matter of justification, to which they so strenuously denied all justifying efficacy,—were merely ceremonial observances. He admits, indeed, that "to found a claim to immortal happiness, on the ground of morality of life, would have been an error," and that both Paul and the Reformers "were well aware that virtuous actions can never give a man a claim to the Christian promises, independently of Christian faith; and also that the best actions-in themselves the best-are not acceptable in God's sight (indeed, are not even morally virtuous at all), independently of the principle from which they spring." But these are statements to which no Romanist would object; and we are not at present considering the whole subject of justification, or Dr Whately's views concerning it, but merely adverting to the interpretation he puts upon a portion of the language employed by Paul and the Reformers, in treating of it. And with reference to this point, we regard as fully warranted the