Was the Reformation necessary?-IV

John Henry Newman. The nature of justifying faith.

But though faith, considered by itself, is not a grace, it must be borne in mind that it never does exist by itself; it always exists in this person or that, and, as exercised by the one or the other, it must be either a grace or not. Faith in the abstract does not exist except as a mere conception of our minds. The devils believe, and Christians believe; we may compare the two together, and observe that the outline of the faith in each is the same; they both realize the unseen and future on God’s word. But an outline never exists by itself; it ever exists in a certain body or substance. One man is said to be the same as another man, when the mind contemplates them as man; yet after all the mind can but contemplate, it cannot create or alter what is external to it. In spite of our arbitrary abstractions, each existing man exists to himself, as an individual, complete in himself, independent of all others, differing from all others, in that he is he, and not they nor one with them, except in name. No one thing can be another thing; faith in this man is not faith in that; nay, the one is not necessarily like the other, except in outline, or as one kind of animal, for instance, is like another, or as a good spirit is like an evil one. An animal in the abstract, is neither man nor brute, but then there is no such thing as an abstract animal; every animal must be man or brute; and so faith, as actually existing, either is an excellence or it is not, though considered in its abstract nature it has no positive character.

Or, to take another illustration:—the animal nature, when found in man, is the organ of doing what neither the soul can do without it, nor it can do without the soul. It sees, and enables us to read; yet no one would so confuse the case, as to say that the animal nature, as such, reads, because we read through it. In some such way does faith stand towards a right state of mind. Together they make up religiousness; the one reports, the other feels and acts on the report. Moral rectitude without faith is a soul without eyes; faith without moral rectitude is perception without appreciation. It may see, but it cannot read the message of mercy, though it gaze ever so hard; it is said to do so, as the eye is said to read, but it does not of itself really appreciate or obey that message from above.

It would seem, then, that Luther’s doctrine, now so popular, that justifying faith is trust, comes first, justifies by itself, and then gives birth to all graces, is not tenable;—such a faith cannot exist, and if it could, would not justify. For, as faith cannot exist except in this or that mind, so it cannot be as much as trust, without being also hope, nor hope without having some portion of love. Mere trust as little gives birth to other graces as mere faith. It is common indeed to say that trust in the mercy of God in Christ ensures all other graces, from the fertilizing effect of the news of that mercy on the heart. But surely that blessed news has no such effect unless the heart is softened to receive it; that softening then is necessary to justification, and by whatever name it is called, religiousness, or love, or renewal, it is something more than trust. That is, something more than trust is involved in justifying faith; in other words, it is the trust of a renewed or loving heart. But after all, it is an abuse of terms to go so far as to define faith to be trust, unless one might also call the devil’s faith despair. Faith is neither trust nor despair, but faith; though it takes the colour of trust or of despair, according to the mind into which it is received.