Modern Protestant theology is much more just to ecclesiastical tradition than the Reformers
could be in their hot indignation against the prevailing corruptions and against the papal tyranny
of their day. The deeper study of ecclesiastical and secular history has dispelled the former ignorance
on the "dark ages," so called, and brought out the merits of the fathers, missionaries, schoolmen,
and popes, in the progress of Christian civilization.
But these results do not diminish the supreme value of the sacred Scripture as an ultimate
tribunal of appeal in matters of faith, nor the importance of its widest circulation. It is by far the
best guide of instruction in holy living and dying. No matter what theory of the mode and extent
of inspiration we may hold, the fact of inspiration is plain and attested by the universal consent of
Christendom. The Bible is a book of holy men, but just as much a book of God, who made those
men witnesses of truth and sure teachers of the way of salvation.
§ 7. Justification by Faith.
The subjective principle of Protestantism is the doctrine of justification and salvation by faith
in Christ; as distinct from the doctrine of justification by faith and works or salvation by grace and
human merit. Luther’s formula is sola fide. Calvin goes further back to God’s eternal election, as
the ultimate ground of salvation and comfort in life and in death. But Luther and Calvin meant
substantially the same thing, and agree in the more general proposition of salvation by free grace
through living faith in Christ (Acts 4:12), in opposition to any Pelagian or Semi-pelagian compromise
which divides the work and merit between God and man. And this is the very soul of evangelical
Protestantism.^11
Luther assigned to his solifidian doctrine of justification the central position in the Christian
system, declared it to be the article of the standing or falling (Lutheran) church, and was unwilling
to yield an inch from it, though heaven and earth should collapse.^12 This exaggeration is due to his
personal experience during his convent life. The central article of the Christian faith on which the
church is built, is not any specific dogma of the Protestant, or Roman, or Greek church, but the
broader and deeper truth held by all, namely, the divine-human personality and atoning work of
Christ, the Lord and Saviour. This was the confession of Peter, the first creed of Christendom.
The Protestant doctrine of justification differs from the Roman Catholic, as defined (very
circumspectly) by the Council of Trent, chiefly in two points. Justification is conceived as a
declaratory and judicial act of God, in distinction from sanctification, which is a gradual growth;
and faith is conceived as a fiducial act of the heart and will, in distinction from theoretical belief
and blind submission to the church. The Reformers derived their idea from Paul, the Romanists
appealed chiefly to James (2:17–26); but Paul suggests the solution of the apparent contradiction
(^11) Only in this sense can it be called Augustinian; for otherwise Augustin’s conception of justificatio is catholic, and he identifies it
with sanctificatio. Moreover he widely differs from the Protestant conception of the church and its authority. Luther felt the difference
in his later years.
(^12) Articuli Smalcaldici, p. 305 (ed. Rechenb., or 310 ed. Müller): "De hoc articulo [solam fidem nos justificare] cedere or aliquid
contra illum largiri aut permittere nemo piorum potest etiamsi coelum et terra et omnia corruant. (Acts 4:12; Isa. 53:3). Et in hoc articulo
sita sunt et consistunt omnia, quae contra papam, diabolum et universum mundum in vita nostra docemus, testamur et agimus. Quare
opportet nos de hac doctrina esse certos, et minime dubitare, alioquin actum est prorsus, et papa et diabolus et omnia adversa jus et
victoriam contra nos obtinent." Luther inserted in his translation of Rom. 3:28, the word allein (sola fide, hence the term solifidianism),
and the revised Probebibel of 1883 retained it. On the exegetical questions involved, see my annotations to Lange on Romans 3:28.