when he wonders at their inability to understand it, according to the forensic rule of Protestantism, and the system of its "double Christian righteousness." For the Catholic faith, we have seen, declares it to be evidently repugnant to reason as well as Scripture, to suppose it possible that a fallen creature can either be accounted just by the power of Sinai's law, or be made holy by a righteousness of his own nature. On the other hand, let it ever be remembered that, while Protestantism values her faith according to the principles of man's own judgment, and according to a personal sanctity of his own, the Church of Rome speaks only in the Name and Spirit of her invisible Head, according to that faith which was once delivered to her from above, in the unity of a righteousness which is not our own, but the gracious power and merit only of Jesus Christ in the hearts of his obedient followers. Here, and here only, do men find a strength which is not their own, and by which, only, they are enabled to co-operate in the race, at whose goal above they "shall receive a never-fading crown of glory."

BISHOP HALL.†

Bishop Hall, in his exposition of the Protestant principle of inherent justice, also informs us that it is considered by his Church as a righteousness of our own, but that it is nevertheless "wrought in us by the Holy Spirit."(!) What a contradiction! The work of the Holy Spirit, a self-righteousness of man! And although it is not, he says, so perfect that it can bear us out be

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wit, that therefore is man made just by faith, because faith is the beginning of man's salvation, the foundation and root of all justice, without which it is impossible to please God."-(Sess. vi. c. 8) This faith, therefore, we perceive to be essentially one, being both justifying and sanctifying, and conformable also to its object, viz. the truths taught by Jesus Christ. To those truths Catholic faith gives an entire and implicit assent.

1 Peter, iv. 5.

+ Bishop Hall is the author of the celebrated work, entitled "No peace with Rome."

+ See Hall's works, 8vo., from p. 238 to 244.

fore the tribunal of God," yet is it notwithstanding capable, in his view, of actually making us holy in ourselves! But the way by which, on the other hand, we are, according to him, accounted just before God, is a judicial imputation to us of the righteousness of God, which being, he says, in this manner "made ours by faith, is that whereby we are justified in the sight of God; and this doctrine," he very correctly adds, "is that which is blasted with a Tridentine curse.'

The following is the exposition of the " Tridentine" Council, which so clearly condemns the doctrine contended for by Bishop Hall :

Though no man can be just, but he to whom the merits of the passion of Christ are communicated; yet this is done in the justification of the sinner, when, by the merit of that passion, the charity of God is infused into the hearts of them that are justified, and dwells therein; whence, together with the remission of sins, man receives through Jesus Christ the virtues of faith, hope, and charity." (Sess. vi. c. 7. p. 30.) "Wherefore, to them who do well unto the end, eternal life ought to be proposed; both as a grace which is mercifully promised to them through Jesus Christ, and as a recompense of their good works and merits, in virtue of this promise. And as Jesus Christ perpetually sheds his influence on them that are justified; which influence precedes, and accompanies, and follows all their good works, and without which no works can be pleasing to God, we must believe that nothing is now wanting to render them deserving of eternal life, in reward of their good deeds, provided they depart this life in the grace of God. Although in the Holy Scriptures good works are so much valued, that Jesus Christ himself promises, that a cup of cold water shall not lose its reward; and that the Apostle testifies, that a momentary pain endured in this world shall produce an eternal weight of glory; nevertheless, God forbid that a Christian should trust or glory in himself, and not in the Lord, whose bounty is so great to all men, that he will have those gifts, which he bestows upon them, to be their merits."-(lb. c. xvi. p. 39.) "This council," (in the language of a work entitled "The Faith of Catholics," &c., compiled by Rev. J. Berington and Rev. J. Kirk,) "which opened in 1585, was convened against the errors of Luther, and other innovators, and for the reform of abuses; and as it is the last general one that has been held, and its decisions on doctrinal points are universally admitted by the Latin Church, these decisions may be considered as forming a complete statement of the doctrines which the prelates, assembled at Trent, had received from their predecessors. On the subject of justification they say: 'This holy Synod means to expound to the faithful that true and sound doctrine, which Christ, the author of our faith, taught, which the Apostles delivered, and which the Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, has ever retained. "—(Sess. vi.)

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'Lo," he continues, "so were we made his righteousness as he was made our sin."(!) That is, according to Bishop Hall, he was personally accounted by the law as a sinner, and in the same personal manner are we also accounted his righteousness. The same legal "imputation," he says, "doeth both." For "St. Paul," he adds, was a great saint; he had a righteousness of his own, not as Pharisee only, but as an Apostle."(!) Thus a legal righteousness which is ascribed to him as a Pharisee, according to the Mosaic law, is united with the evangelical righteousness of an Apostle of the Church of Christ! And although he holds that by neither of these was the Apostle justified, yet he maintains that he was by these actually made holy or sanctified! In this, he says, consists the glorious distinction between that of being accounted just, and that of being made holy; God thus imputing, without giving, to men his own righteousness, for their justification, and then sanctifying them by a legal and pharisaical righteousness of their own! And this, he argues, was the distinctive righteousness of St. Paul, both as a Pharisee and an Apostle.*

NICHOLSON,

BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.

This prelate was made Bishop of Gloucester in 1660, and is considered as one of the most learned divines in the English Church. "His works," says Nelson in his Life of Bishop Bull, "show him to have been a person of great learning, piety, and prudence, particularly his apology for the discipline of the Antient Church and his Exposition of the Apostles' Creed. Not only for his knowledge of the Fathers and Schoolmen, but also for the great share of critical learning whereof he was master." He is also said to have been much consulted by Bishop Bull, while engaged in his celebrated Harmonia.

* Or rather, in the words of Bishop Hall, "a righteousness of his own; not as a Pharisee only, but as an Apostle."(!) A sectarian righteousness, united to another one of the Universal Church!

This distinguished divine of the English Church maintains, with Hooker, Andrews, and all the other writers we have cited, the same doctrine of "a double Christian righteousness," or, in the words of Hooker, that "there be two kinds of Christian righteousness," and with Andrews, that both these are ours."

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Although his phraseology may somewhat vary from that of the above-named divines, his doctrine, in the article of imputation, is, in all respects, the same. Like them, he divides Christian righteousness into two distinct kinds, calling the one inherent, as contradistinguished from the other, which, like all the rest, he styles imputed. The former, he says, is imperfect, but, notwithstanding, "consists in true sanctification and holiness, enabling a man to mortify his sins and lusts, and to bring forth the fruits of repentance, &c." Considering, therefore, that this "true holiness" is, according to him, "imperfect," "in what degree soever," necessary it is," he adds, "that we hunger and thirst after another, which is the righteousness of Christ," viz. that which, in his opinion, effectually wrought the acceptation of our persons."(!) In his judgment, also, faith itself is not the justice by which we are accepted; but instead of this he maintains the mere external obedience of Christ, (as it is called in Protestant nomenclature,) legally imputed to us in such a manner as to ensure the "acceptation of our persons."(!) Nothing, he maintains, "that we do," even when it "is called believing in Christ," will, or can be accepted for justice, but only "that which God doth" alone without us, and this, he says, "is called imputation." "And happy," he concludes, "is that soul to whom this (so called outward) righteousness is imputed," and that by faith alone!*

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Although St. Paul tells us expressly that our true faith is counted (and by consequence accepted) as righteousness, instead of that dead faith which is alone without Christ, and which St. James describes to be as vain and lifeless as a body without its soul.

Yet this is the faith-the barren and empty quality which is acknowledged by divines of the English Church to be founded on mere opinion, and taught by them to be the cardinal principle by which man is saved and justified. And this, moreover, is the very doctrine by which they accuse the Catholic Church of holding the damning error of salvation by our own works, but which, while the

But besides the "double or two-fold Christian righteousness,' ""we must,” he says, "know that there is a two-fold purging," in order "that we may understand this point the better and be practitioners in it." The one is the consequence of imputation, and "is made by the blood of Christ." "The other, purging away sin, is by the Spirit of Christ." The first operates only by accounting us just, but the second by really making us holy.

This same distinction between the two Christian righteousnesses, as they are called, we have seen, is also maintained by Bishop Andrews, (who is called in the Oxford Tracts "one of our wisest doctors and rulers,") in phraseology almost identical. This, he also says, is so important to be kept in mind, that "we shall never," to use his words, "take the state of the question aright, unless we consider it in this view."

What confusion of the unity of our divine religion! What an unlawful severance of Christian faith, from Christian justice, and from Christian holiness! What an unholy separation of "the blood of Christ" from "the Spirit of Christ."(!) But it is needless, from what we have before remarked on these distinctions, either to ex

latter rejects them in toto for any divine grace whatever, as the selfish works of the law, the former upholds them as the very instrument of our sanctification and as the very basis of Christian charity and holiness. "Nevertheless," we say with the Council of Trent," God forbid that a Christian should trust or glory in himself, and not in the Lord, whose bounty is so great to all men, that he will have those gifts, which he bestows upon them, to be their merits." (c. 16.) And this, we add, is that Catholic faith which is so much abused and misrepresented by Usher, Hooker, and Andrews, and all the other writers whom we have quoted; that faith, indeed, which is coeval with the birth of the Christian commonwealth and commensurate with the ends of the earth; or, in the words of St. Vincent of Lerins, "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est."

See his Exposition of the Apostles' Creed, pp. 40, 607.

+ Who, that knows the history of our divine Lord, can be ignorant that his most sacred flesh, and blood, and soul, were violently and sacrilegiously rent asunder by the hands of cruel and wicked men? But how can Christians presume to teach their separation, in his risen and glorious state? This, indeed, can only be accounted for by that extraordinary confusion of mind which the novelty of the reformed creed has produced in relation to the cardinal points of distinction between our blessed Saviour's manner of being in his humanity before and after his resurrection, or be