4 Futility of the charge that St. Paul is contradicted.

PREF. which I fancy you would be little pleased with, and reflect at length, how many and how great men you scathe in attacking me.

§ 4. Most ridiculous certainly is your charge as to my bold contradiction of St. Paul. For I do not contradict him more than St. James himself, that is, not at all. I grant that I have endeavoured (and God knows with the best intention) to reconcile the apparent discrepancy, and that one of greatest moment, in the two Apostles' writings; and if in my endeavour to do this I shall have met with the entire disapprobation of learned and pious men, (which many things prevent me from believing, though you so often assert it,) I am not the first, as you are aware, who have failed in the attempt. I am glad, however, that whatever in my Dissertation seems to you to disagree with the Scriptures and reason, you noted in the course of reading; for hence I may fairly conclude that nothing remains, after Aristarchus' judgment, that is opposed to Scripture or reason. Certainly, the objections you bring forward in your animadversions either miss the point altogether, or are supported by the most trifling or no arguments at all. Not to mention the number of paragraphs, and even entire chapters, in the Dissertations, in which the whole force and strength of my argument lies, which you either pass by in the most profound silence, or touch upon as slightly as possible. That these things are not bravado, but truth, they know who have compared my Dissertations with your Animadversions on the same.

§ 5. You have full permission then, my Censurer, to use your plainness of speech, and say freely what you think, though, as becomes an honest man and a gentleman, without abuse and slander, from which, if you had abstained in writing, you would have more nearly (even in the judgment of your own conscience) performed the duty, which you profess, of brotherly love. To your Strictures, however, which you have put before me for my consideration, I have paid serious attention; and I find nothing noted by you in your animadversions that I need regret having said. However, you must not expect me in my answer to follow you step for step; I would not so abuse the patience of my reader, or lay out good hours so badly. For how many of your censures are but

Stricture upon the method of proceeding.

5

mere calumnies! how many bare assertions do they contain PREF. without any proof! how frequently is the reader wearied out with the tiresome repetition of the same things! and, therefore, whatever is to the point in any way, and that only, have I brought once for all under examination. Lastly, whatever I may have written, either in this or other books, most humbly and most willingly do I submit it to the judgment of our holy mother the English Church; her to whom I have hitherto devoted myself in all filial obedience, and to whom, while I live, by God's help I will devote myself.

STRICTURE I.

ON INTRODUCTION.

In the introduction of my book, the method I proposed to myself, of treating the subject which I had undertaken to explain, as most convenient, was this:-1st. Taking the conclusion of the second chapter of St. James, briefly to explain its meaning, and then support the truth of it by some arguments. 2ndly. To take St. Paul's Epistles, and shew clearly that he agrees with St. James on the subject of justification. Here, at the margin of the book, you write as follows; "I do not see the reason of this method. It is unfair that one passage of St. James should be made the measure of the many lengthened discussions on which St. Paul has entered, in which he uses various, and those powerful arguments, to shew that a sinner is justified by faith without works, opposing faith to works in the obtaining of justification. It is unfair that that text should be held up as a light and a torch to the writings of St. Paul, as though to shew light upon what was more obscure. Tertullian says, 'Things which are rare ought adv. Prax. to be explained by things of oftener occurrence.""

ANSWER TO STRICTURE I.

§ 1. In the opening of your attack you give me evidence enough, my Censurer, how unfair an adversary you are likely to prove in the course of the conflict; you object even to my very

I.

6

Reasonableness of the interpretation pursued.

STRIC. plan of proceeding. How unreasonable is this lust for objection! for if I rightly and fairly explain the teaching of the two Apostles, what have you to complain of in my plan? What matters it, whether I begin my Dissertations with St. James or St. Paul, provided I do no wrong to either? But you say, "It is unfair that one passage of St. James should be made the measure of the many lengthened discussions on which St. Paul has entered." Be it so. What matters it, if I first, by many and clear arguments drawn from Scripture, establish the conclusion of St. James, and then passing on to St. Paul, shew his agreement with St. James, by solid arguments drawn (if I may so speak) from the very heart of his Epistles. I confess, indeed, that I think that St. Paul's meaning may be clearly enough drawn from the single discourse of St. James in his second chapter; and it was on Apost. II. this account that in another part of my writings I said it was far more reasonable in this controversy to interpret St. Paul from St. James, than St. James from St. Paul. I see, indeed, that you are greatly offended with this; you ought, however, to have attended to the grounds on which I support my opinion; and these I have determined to repeat here for the sake of the reader, and vindicate them from your cavils.

Harm.

Diss. iv. 2.

p. 57.

§ 2. My first argument then is, that St. James's discourse is clear and perspicuous, and his words so express, that he who doubts their meaning may be deservedly said to be seeking difficulties where there are none; on the other hand, the argument of St. Paul is obscure, involved and intricate. In the interpretation of Scripture it is a well known rule, that the obscurer passages must be explained by the clearer. Here, either from ignorance or spitefulness, you carp at what I said about the perspicuity of St. James, asking, “Had all the learned and pious men, who have doubted of the meaning of St. James's words, nothing else to do but look for difficulties, where there were none?" I answer: that the reason that those pious and learned men doubted of the meaning of St. James's words was a preconceived opinion about justification by faith only, as a single virtue, which they had drawn from a misunderstanding of St. Paul's words, (it being no difficult thing, from the obscurity of his writings, to mistake

Plainness of St. James's language.

7

I.

that Apostle's meaning, unless the drift of his argument be STRIC. carefully attended to). In order to maintain this opinion, and at the same time to reconcile the two Apostles, there was no stone they did not turn and convinced that they had hit the meaning of St. Paul's argument, they laboured by every invention to do away the seeming opposition of St. James. Now, barring the unpopularity which great names cast upon a truth otherwise most evident, I appeal to the conscience of any pious and learned reader, who is free from prejudice, whether St. James's language be not clear, perspicuous and express? Certainly, in the Apostle's conclusion, that "a man is justified by works, and not by faith only," there is not a word, not a term, (to use the barbarous language of the schoolmen,) the meaning of which is not most evident from the context in the Apostle's discourse. Do you ask of what justification St. James speaks? It is plain that he is not speaking of the declaration only of a man's righteousness before men, but of his justification also in the sight of God. For he speaks plainly of that justification by which a man is made "the friend of God," (ver. 23,) and by which righteousness is imputed to him by God, (in the same verse,) and lastly, by which a right to salvation is given him, (ver. 14). Have you any doubt of what faith the Apostle is speaking? Vid. Harm. He means true faith, perfect of its kind, such as was Abra- Apost. II. ham's, (vv. 21, 22); and he says, that according to the Gospel p. 45, 46. covenant it is not sufficient without works for our obtaining that justification. Of what works St. James is to be understood, there can be no question; he speaks expressly of works proceeding from faith and the grace of the Gospel, or works co-operating with faith and perfecting it, (ver. 22); and thus I have with reason affirmed that St. James's language is clear and perspicuous: and this is plainly confessed by those of our opponents who (with bold and impious presumption) ventured to thrust out St. James's Epistle from the canon of Scripture. Why did they do so? Because, not weighing the arguments of St. Paul with the care that they require, they were led to think that a man is justified by faith alone; meaning by that expression the single virtue of faith, as distinct from the other virtues of the Gospel. Fully aware that St. James's reasoning was diametrically opposed to this

Diss.i.6,7.

I.

8

Obscurity of St. Paul, noted by the Fathers,

STRIC. their rashly conceived opinion, and seeing that his doctrine could by no ingenuity be reconciled with the opinion they had formed: unable to untie this Gordian knot, as it seemed to them, they assayed to cut it, by calling in question or openly rejecting the authority of that Epistle which bears the name of St. James, as I have observed in the Introduction of my book. Thus much, then, of St. James's perspicuity.

cap. 9.

§ 3. With my remarks as to St. Paul's obscurity you are well nigh driven to madness. Thus you write at p. 57 of my book: "It is impiety to try to prove St. Paul to be obscure, and to raise and spread clouds, because you must have them. This Dissertation is but too like the smoke which arose out Rev. 9. 2. of the bottomless pit, and darkened the sun and the air."" Who does not rather here perceive you breathing out the smoke of your anger and indignation, (look you to it from what pit it has arisen)-but stay! beware, lest while you are falsely accusing me of impiety, you convict yourself of real impiety. If he must be an impious man who has called St. Paul's discourse obscure, then were Origen, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and very many other most illustrious doctors in the ancient Church, all impious men; for they hesitated not Philocal. to say the very same thing. A passage of Origen is quoted in which he remarks that "some parts of the Scriptures seem not to have regular composition and consequence, nor to Úva follow one from the other, and this is most observable in the prophetical and apostolical writings, and among the latter in the Epistle to the Romans especially:" in which he says, "what is said of the law is said in different ways, and in reference to different points; so that it seems as though St. Paul in that Epistle did not attain the object he proposed to himself." This saying of Origen's has been approved by the holy Fathers Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, inasmuch as they made the collection of passages from Origen, called the Philocalia, "being selections of use to the studious," as Gregory Epist. 87. himself says in his Epistle to Theodoret bishop of Tyana. [Hom.xiii. Chrysostom on the seventh chapter to the Romans, says, 1. p. 558.] « You see unless we trace his words with the care and caution they require, and keep our eye on the drift of the Apostle, ten

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