Law and Gospel
By definition, the command to pray presupposes faith. One cannot ask anything of God unless he believes that God has made a promise. Part of the Roman problem is that they do not distinguish the law and the gospel:
God in the Gospel commands us to believe the pardon of our own sins, and life everlasting; and therefore we must believe thus much, and may be assured thereof. This proposition is plain by the distinction of the commandments of the law, and of the Gospel. The commandments of the law show us what we must do, but minister no power to perform the thing to be done; but the doctrine and commandments of the Gospel do otherwise, and therefore they are called spirit and life: God with the commandment giving grace that the thing prescribed may be done. Now this is a commandment of the Gospel, to believe remission of sins, for it was the substance of Christ’s ministry, repent and believe the Gospel.
Since Rome makes all of Scripture a species of law (old law or new law), they see no free promise in Scripture. It is worth noting how naturally Perkins turns to this distinction in A Reformed Catholic. It was a basic part of his hermeneutic (way of interpreting Scripture) and a quite uncontroversial piece of mental furniture.
Again, the gospel is not believed in general but in particular. It is more than a vague hope. When Rome speaks of hope, they make it essentially uncertainty. Biblically, hope is certainty. “For the property of true and lively hope is never to make a man ashamed, Romans 5:5.” Rome objects that we can never be sure of our own disposition, and Perkins agrees. We cannot be certain of our disposition, but we can be certain of God’s toward us, and we may be on the basis of his gracious promise in Christ revealed in his Holy Word.
The Formal and Material Principles of the Reformation
In theological terms, there were two principles of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation: the formal principle and the material principle. The formal principle was the doctrine that Scripture is the sole, unique, and infallible authority for Christian faith and life. The material principle was the pan-Protestant consensus that sinners are justified—that is, accepted by God as righteous—solely on the basis of the righteousness or merit Christ earned for his people and imputed to them and they received by faith that rests and trusts in Christ and his finished work.
In his fourth point, Perkins turned his attention to the material principle of the Reformation, the “justification of a sinner.” He first summarizes the Protestant position and then the Roman view, indicating where there is disagreement. We get a glimpse into the significance of this section (and the heat with which it was composed) when he added, “wherein we are to stand against them, even to death.”
He began with “four rules”:
Rule I. That justification is an action of God, whereby he absolves a sinner, and accepts him to life everlasting for the righteousness and merit of Christ.
Rule II. That justification stands in two things: first, in the remission of sins by the merit of Christ his death: secondly, in the imputation of Christ his righteousness; which is another action of God whereby he accounts and esteems that righteousness which is in Christ, as the righteousness of that sinner which believes in him. By Christ his righteousness we are to understand two things, first, his sufferings specially in his death and passion, secondly, his obedience in fulfilling the law: both which go together: for Christ in suffering obedience and obeying suffered. And the very shedding of his blood to which our salvation is ascribed, must not only be considered as it is passive, that is, a suffering; but also as it is active, that is, an obedience, in which he showed his exceeding love both to his Father and us, and thus fulfilled the law for us. This point if some had well thought on, they would not have placed all justification in remission of sins as they do.
A word of explanation is in order here. Under this point Perkins not only gave a brief account of the Protestant doctrine of justification but articulated it in light of developments after Calvin, one of which was the denial of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience by the Lutheran theologian Kargius and the Reformed theologian Piscator (and others). To do this they first made a chronological distinction between the obedience Christ owed for himself, which he accomplished in order to qualify himself to be the Savior of sinners by his death. His passion, or “suffering,” they argued, is that part of Christ’s obedience intended to be substitutionary. Most Reformed theologians, however, rejected the chronological distinction in Christ’s work. They taught that his “whole obedience” (to use the language that was proposed at the Westminster Assembly but rejected in favor of “perfect obedience” in order to satisfy the minority who opposed imputation of active obedience) was both active and passive. This is why Perkins says that Christ suffered while he obeyed and obeyed while he suffered.1
Rule III. That justification is from God’s mere mercy and grace, procured only by the merit of Christ.
Rule IV. That a man is justified by faith alone; because faith is that alone instrument created in the heart by the holy Ghost, whereby a sinner lays hold of Christ his righteousness, and applies the same unto himself. There is neither hope, nor love, nor any other grace of God within man, that can do this but faith alone.
In contrast, Perkins wrote, the Roman communion teaches that before justification there must be a “preparation” that is worked partly by the Holy Spirit and partly by the “power of natural free will” by which a man disposes himself or a “habitus” is created in him toward future justification.
When Rome says “faith,” they mean “a general knowledge” or an intellectual apprehension of one’s sins, “a fear of hell, hope of salvation, love of God, repentance and the like.” When we have attained to these things, Rome says they are to be “fully disposed” to our justification. In short, for Rome, justification is the process, the result of sanctification or grace and cooperation with grace.
For Rome, justification is not God’s declaration that we are righteous on account of what Christ has done for us but a recognition of the righteousness that has been wrought in us by grace and cooperation with grace.
To effect this, two things are required: first, the pardon of sin, which is one part of the first justification: secondly, the infusion of inward righteousness, whereby the heart is purged and sanctified, and this habit [disposition] of righteousness stands specially in hope and charity.
This is the first justification. According to Rome there is a second, when a “just man is made better and more just: and this, say they, may proceed from works of grace: because he which is righteous by the first justification, can bring forth good works: by the merit whereof he is able to make himself more just and righteous: and yet they grant that the first justification comes only of God’s mercy by the merit of Christ.”
The great difference between the Protestants and Rome is the “cause,” or ground, of justification with God. Protestants say, “Nothing but the righteousness of Christ, which consists partly in his sufferings and partly in his active obedience in fulfilling the rigor of the law.” Rome grants that “in justification sin is pardoned by the merits of Christ, and that none can be justified without remission of sins,” and they concede that “the righteousness whereby a man is made righteous before God, comes from Christ” alone. Further, the “most learned among them” teach that Christ’s satisfaction and merit are “imputed to every sinner” who believes, and we agree.
The “very point of difference” is that Protestants say Christ made satisfaction for us, and Rome says,
The thing . . . that makes us righteous before God, and causes us to be accepted to life everlasting, is remission of sins, and the habit of inward righteousness; or charity with the fruits thereof.
Perkins hastened to add that we believe in a “habit of righteousness.” We call it sanctification, and it is the “most excellent gift of God,” but it is not the ground of justification; rather, it is the fruit of justification.
Conclusion
William Perkins illustrates the Reformed contention that Rome, by embracing the very error rejected at the Council of Ephesus (AD 431); by effectively turning their back on Augustine; by rejecting the biblical doctrines of sin, grace, free will, regeneration, and the biblical distinction between law and gospel removed themselves from true catholicity. Perkins thought that catholicity was a significant category. He valued universality. In other words, he did not consider the Reformed a mere sect nor the Reformation a sectarian movement. In that he might be thought to have answered critics of the Reformation such as Hillaire Belloc, who classified the Reformation as one of the great heresies in the history of the church.
Note
- For more on this, see R. Scott Clark, “Do This and Live: Christ’s Active Obedience as the Ground of Justification” in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry, ed. R. Scott Clark (P&R, 2007).
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on the Heidelblog in 2012.
You can find the whole series here.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He is professor emeritus of church history and historical theology at Westminster Seminary California, where he taught for 29 years. He also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007 and the Heidelcast since 2009.
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