nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword, nor death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," shall ever prevail so far over me. "I know in whom I have believed;" I am not ignorant whose precious blood hath been shed for me; I have a Shepherd full of kindness, full of care, and full of power: unto him I commit myself; his own finger hath engraven this sentence in the tables of my heart, "Satan hath desired to winnow thee as wheat, but I have prayed that thy faith fail not." therefore the assurance of my hope I will labour to keep as a jewel unto the end; and by labour, through the gracious mediation of his prayer, I shall keep it.

A

LEARNED DISCOURSE

OF

JUSTIFICATION, WORKS, AND HOW THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH IS OVERTHROWN 1

HABAK. I. 4.

The wicked doth compass about the righteous: therefore perverse judgment doth proceed.

FOR better manifestation of the prophet's meaning in this place, we are, first, to consider "the wicked," of whom he saith, "that they compass about "the righteous: "secondly, "the righteous" that are compassed about by them and thirdly, that which is inferred; "therefore perverse judgment proceedeth." Touching the first, there are two kinds of wicked men, of whom in the fifth of the former to the Corinthians, the blessed Apostle speaketh thus: 2 "Do ye

с

the better E.

:

b Ergo D.

b

• Corinthes D.

1 [From a passage in Hooker's answer to Travers's Supplication, § 5. we know that this sermon was preached in the first year of Hooker's mastership of the Temple. For he says, "I am able to prove that myself have now for a full yeer together borne the continuance of such dealings," &c. And it appears from Strype's Collections, inserted in Walton's Life of Hooker, that the sermon was preached the 28th March, and that Travers's notes of exception to it were set down and shewed" March 30, 1585 but a MS. in the Harleian Collection, quoted above, vol. i. 59, gives March 1, 1585, as the date of the sermon ; erroneously, since the sermon was preached on a Sunday, (see Travers, Supplication, p. 561, 562, infra) and the 1st March did not fall on a Sunday in either of those years. The 28th did, in 1586. And this agrees with what Travers in his Supplication states, "that Hooker according to his course had of late taught that the church of Rome is a true church of Christ." He had been made Master of the Temple March 17, 1584-5. The sermon was collated by Archdeacon Cotton for the edition of 1836, with a MS. (A. 5, 6.) in Trin. Coll. Dublin, here designated by D.: the results of which collation, revised by Dr. Todd and Mr. Gibbings, are given in the margin below.]

2

I Cor. v. 12, 13.*

* Om. D.

not judge them that are within? but God judgeth them that are without." There are wicked, therefore, whom the Church may judge, and there are wicked whom God only judgeth; wicked within, and wicked without, the walls of the Church. If within the Church particular persons, being apparently such, cannot d otherwise be reformed, the rule of apostolical judgment is this,1 "Separate them from among f you:" if whole assemblies, this, "Separate yourselves from among them: for what society hath light with darkness ?" But the wicked, whom the prophet meaneth, were Babylonians, and therefore without. For which cause we have heard at large heretofore in what sort he urgeth God to judge them.

f

2. Now concerning the righteous, there neither is, nor ever was, any mere natural man absolutely righteous in himself: that is to say, void of all unrighteousness, of all sin. We dare not except, no not the blessed Virgin herself; of whom although we say with St. Augustine,2 for the honour's sake which we owe to our Lord and Saviour Christ, we are not willing, in this cause, to move any question of his mother; yet forasmuch as the schools of Rome have made it a question, we must answer with Eusebius Emissenus, who speaketh of her to1 this effect: "Thou didst by special prerogative nine months together entertain within the closet of thy flesh the hope of all the ends of the earth, the honour of the world, the common joy of men. He, from whom all things had their beginning, d be apparently such as cannot E. ⚫ of the apostolical E.

g never D.

h honour D.

1 2 Cor. vi. 14-17.*

3

i about D.

k may E.

↑ amongste D. 1 in E.

2 [De Nat. et Grat. contra Pelag. § 42. x. 144. G. "Commemorat eos, qui non modo non peccasse, verum etiam juste vixisse referantur, Abel, Enoch, Melchisedech, &c. Adjungit etiam fœminas, ipsam etiam Domini ac Salvatoris nostri matrem, quam dicit sine peccato confiteri necesse esse pietati. Excepta itaque sancta virgine Maria, de qua propter honorem Domini nullam prorsus, cum de peccatis agitur, haberi volo quæstionem, (unde enim scimus, quid ei plus gratiæ collatum fuerit ad vincendum omni ex parte peccatum, quæ concipere ac parere meruit, quem constat nullum habuisse peccatum ?) hac ergo virgine excepta, si omnes illos sanctos et sanctas, cum hic viverent, congregare possenius, et interrogare utrum essent sine peccato; quid fuisse responsuros putamus; utrum hoc quod iste dicit, sive quod Joannes Apostolus ?"]

3 Or whosoever it be, that was the author of those Homilies, that go under his name.t

* Om. D

VOL. I.

+ Note om. D.

B

hathm had his own" beginning from thee; of thy body he took the blood which was to be shed for the life of the world; of thee he took that which even for thee he paid. 'A peccati enim veteris nexu, per se non est immunis nec ipsa genitrix Redemptoris: 1 The mother of the Redeemer herself, otherwise than by redemption, is not loosed from the band of that ancient sin." P2 If Christ have paid a ransom for all, even for her, it followeth, that all without exception were captives. If one have died for all, all were dead, dead in sin; all sinful, therefore none absolutely righteous in themselves; but we are absolutely righteous in Christ. The world then must shew a Christian man, otherwise it is not able to shew a man that is perfectly righteous: "Christ is made unto us wisdom, justice, sanctification, and redemption : "8 wisdom, because he hath revealed his Father's will; justice, because he hath offered himself a sacrifice for sin; sanctification, because he hath given us of his Spirit; redemption, because he hath appointed a day to vindicate his children out of the bands of corruption into liberty which is glorious. How Christ is made wisdom, and how redemption, it may be declared when occasion serveth; but how Christ is made the righteousness of men, we are now to declare.

3. There is a glorifying righteousness of men in the world to come: and there is a justifying and a sanctifying righteousness here. The righteousness, wherewith we shall be clothed in the world to come, is both perfect and inherent. That whereby here we are justified is perfect, but not inherent. That whereby we are sanctified, in• bond E. P is not otherwise loosed a then all E. r were offered up himself E. u of om. E.

n own om. E.

m hath om. E. from the bond of ancient sin, than by redemption E. dead in sin E. * as E.

righteous E.

1 Knowing how the schoolmen hold this question, some critical wits may perhaps half suspect that these two words, per se, are inmates. But, if the place which they have be their own, their sense can be none other than that which I have given them by a paraphrastical interpretation.*

2 Hom. 2. de Nativ. Dom.* [t. v. pars ii. p. 545. Biblioth. Patr. Colon. "Spem terrarum, decus sæculorum, commune omnium gaudium, peculiari munere novem mensibus sola possides: initiator omnium rerum abs te initiatur, et profundendum pro mundi vita sanguinem de corpore tuo accepit, ac de te sumpsit, quod etiam pro te solvat. A peccati enim," &c.] 3 [1 Cor. i. 30.]

4 [Rom. viii. 21.]

Both notes om. D.

herent, but not perfect. This openeth a way to the plain" understanding of that grand question, which hangeth yet in controversy between us and the Church of Rome, about the matter of justifying righteousness.

4. First, although they imagine that the mother of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ were, for his honour, and by his special protection, preserved clean from all sin, yet touching the rest, they teach as we do, that all have sinned; a a that infants which did never b actually offend, have their natures defiled, destitute of justice, and averted from God. They teach as we do, that God doth justify the soul of man alone, without any other coefficient cause of justice; that in making man righteous, none do work efficiently d with God, but God.1 They teach as we do, that unto justice no man ever attained, but by the merits of Jesus Christ. They teach as we do, that although Christ

C

as God be the efficient, as man the meritorious cause of our justice; yet in us also there is something required. God is the cause of our natural life; in him we live: but he quickeneth not the body without the soul in the body. Christ hath merited to make us just but as a medicine which is made for health, doth not heal by being made, but by being applied; so, by the merits of Christ there can be no justification, without the application of his merits. Thus far we join hands with the Church of Rome.

:

5. Wherein then do we disagree? We disagree about the nature of the very essence of the medicine whereby Christ cureth our disease; about the manner of applying it; about the number and the power of means, which God requireth in us for the effectual applying thereof to our soul's comfort. When they are required to shew, what the

plain om. E.

⚫ that all have sinned om. E. • This clause in marg. E. which also reaus coeffective for work efficiently E. ⚫ there is also somewhat D.

1 * "Deus sine medio coeffectivo animam justificat." Casal. de quadripart. Just. lib. vi. [pars I. lib. i. cap. 8, p. 24, G. ed. Venet. 1599.] Idem, lib. iii. c. 9. ["Salvator noster est nostra justificatio, quia nos justificat effective secundum naturam divinam; estque nostra justificatio, quia nos justificat meritorie secundum naturam humanam," P. 304. Casal was bishop of Leiria in Portugal, and was distinguished at the council of Trent. See in Fra Paolo, vi. 53, his arguments for conceding the eucharistical cup to the laity; and vii. 32, his assertion of the divine right of episcopacy.] *Note om. D.