Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles
without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to
take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through
the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six
men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners,
speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his
own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the
awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation
which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses,
relieved only by occasional “ahems,” the sipping of tea, the sound of
spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as
the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from
behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There
was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be
profitable.
“Have you seen the last Spiritual Journal?” asked No. 1 of
No. 2 in a low voice.
No. 2 had just read it.
“A very remarkable article that,” said No. 1, “upon the deathbed of
the Pope.”
“No one is beyond hope,” answered No. 2.
“I have heard of it, but not seen it,” said No. 3.
A pause.
“What is it about?” asked Reding.
“The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth,” said No. 3; “he seems to have
died a believer.”
A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more.
“The Journal gives it on excellent authority,” said No. 2;
“Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract
Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience
with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address
him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of
sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him
the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned
him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding
to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to
receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope
listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion.
When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent
hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one
communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was
astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all
merit,' as he expressed it—a remarkable phrase.”
“In what language was the conversation carried on?” asked Reding.
“It is not stated,” answered No. 2; “but I am pretty sure Mr.
O'Niggins is a good French scholar.”
“It does not seem to me,” said Charles, “that the Pope's admissions
are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own
Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery.”
“But they are extorted from such persons,” said Freeborn, “while the
Pope's were voluntary.”
“The one party go back into darkness,” said No. 3; “the Pope was
coming forward into light.”
“One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist,”
said Freeborn, “and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is
both charity and common sense.”
“This was not all,” continued No. 2; “he called together the
Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that
inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a
contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise—which, you
know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory.”
“A brand from the burning, I do hope,” said No. 3.
“It has frequently been observed,” said No. 4, “nay it has struck me
myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the
Pope.”
“It is a sure way, at least,” said Charles timidly, afraid he was
saying too much; but his irony was not discovered.
“Man cannot do it,” said Freeborn; “it's the power of faith. Faith
can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps,”
he said, turning to Charles, “better than you did, what I meant by
faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had
passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties
continue?”
Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully
several times, and he answered, “Why, I don't think they do to the same
extent.”
Freeborn looked pleased.
“I mean,” he said, “that the idea hangs together better than I
thought it did at first.”
Freeborn looked puzzled.
Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the
profound silence of the whole party. “You said, you know, that
justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself,
and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from
its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine
himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had
faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the
promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a
hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me
that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed
result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward
of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like
faith, is a judicial punishment.”
In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was
uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake,
and an audible emotion.
“There is no such thing as previous merit,” said No. 1; “all is of
grace.”
“Not merit, I know,” said Charles, “but”——
“We must not bring in the doctrine of de condigno or de
congruo,” said No. 2.
“But surely,” said Charles, “it is a cruel thing to say to the
unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do
not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this
announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure
them by previous religious training against self-deception!”
“That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine,” said Freeborn,
“that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you
are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is
yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'”
“On the contrary,” said Charles, continuing his argument, “when it
is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an
intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain.
Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this
secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and
he is not an unbiassed one.”
Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into
a state of great excitement. “My dear friend,” said Freeborn, “I had
hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things
differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be,
spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?”
“But you tell me faith too is not spiritual,” said Charles.
“I tell you!” cried Freeborn, “when?”
“Well,” said Charles, somewhat puzzled, “at least you do not think
it holy.”
Freeborn was puzzled in his turn.
“If it is holy,” continued Charles, “it has something good in it; it
has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards,
you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing
at all itself.”
There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought.
“Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling,” said No. 1.
“No, it is spiritual, but not holy,” said No. 2; “it is a mere act,
the apprehension of Christ's merits.”
“It is seated in the affections,” said No. 3; “faith is a feeling of
the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is my
Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces
self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness.
Holiness comes after.”
“Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of
axiom,” said Charles; “if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the
root, is holy.”
“You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily
white,” said No. 3.
“Pardon me, Reding,” said Freeborn, “it is, as my friend says, an
apprehension. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more
holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance
which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his
'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself—it is a mere
instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the
notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love.”
“I cannot assent to that doctrine,” said No. 1; “it may be true in a
certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers.
Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying
faith is always accompanied by love.”
“That is what I thought,” said Charles.
“That is the Romish doctrine all over,” said No. 2; “it is the
doctrine of Bull and Taylor.”
“Luther calls it, 'venenum infernale,'“ said Freeborn.
“It is just what the Puseyites preach at present,” said No. 3.
“On the contrary,” said No. 1, “it is the doctrine of Melancthon.
Look here,” he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, “I
have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the
Divinity-school the other day: 'Fides significat fiduciam; in
fiducidâ inest dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi.'”
Three of the party cried “Impossible!” The paper was handed round in
solemn silence.
“Calvin said the same,” said No. 1 triumphantly.
“I think,” said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which
contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the
conversation, “that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged.
It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says,
ahem, 'faith is without love,' meaning, 'faith without love
justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is
with love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are
true: for, ahem, faith-without-love justifies, yet faith
justifies not-without-love.”
There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation.
“On the contrary,” he added, “it is the Romish doctrine that
faith-with-love justifies.”
Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of
Melancthon which Luther condemned.
“You mean,” said Charles, “that justification is given to faith
with love, not to faith and love.”
“You have expressed my meaning,” said No. 4.
“And what is considered the difference between with and
and?” asked Charles.
No. 4 replied without hesitation, “Faith is the instrument,
love the sine quâ non.”
Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it “legal” to
introduce the phrase sine quâ non; it was introducing
conditions. Justification was unconditional.
“But is not faith a condition?” asked Charles.
“Certainly not,” said Freeborn; “'condition' is a legal word. How
can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?”
“There are no conditions,” said No. 3; “all must come from the
heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with
the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new
nature.”
“Is there no obligation to obey?” said Charles, surprised.
“No obligation to the regenerate,” answered No. 3; “they are above
obligation; they are in a new state.”
“But surely Christians are under a law,” said Charles.
“Certainly not,” said No. 2; “the law is done away in Christ.”
“Take care,” said No. 1; “that borders on Antinomianism.”
“Not at all,” said Freeborn; “an Antinomian actually holds that he
may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound
to keep it.”
Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it
seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an
opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never
had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his
friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the
run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by
inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in
consequence from our pages.