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1110 NOTES TO VOLUME II.
and 1740 in his first theological essay on Faith and Good Works,
which is printed in his "Posthumous Tracts" (pp. 10 to 15). He
says, "There can be no doubt that it is faith which saves, and not
works separate from faith; but, where there is a possibility of doing
good works, the question is whether faith will save without them,
according to the dogma of the Lutherans. We reply that the
affirmative seems compatible neither with the Divine Word of reve
lation, nor with human reason ; both of which lead rather to the
conclusion, that faith without works is a nullity, and were it any
thing, would condemn, not save" (p. 9). After entering into all the
scriptural and rational arguments bearing on the subject, he says
on page 12, "Love exactly keeps pace with faith, for whoever has
faith amounting to confidence in God, has also the accompaniment
of love as inseparable from faith ; for the grace of God is universal,
in that when He gives faith he also gives love, and the love increases
in the same degree as the faith ; and when the faith is conjoined
with love, it then for the first time constitutes saving or true faith."
His next argument is that love implies action or that "love to God
involves love to the neighbour;" whence he establishes the following
position, that "Saving faith, which cannot be separated from love to
God, necessarily involves good actions, or the actual exercise of love
to the members of the society in which we live" (p . 14.) In the
Adversaria we read, "The love itself which must be in faith and
obedience is the Messiah Himself, the God who is all in everything;
and without Him faith and obedience are dead ; wherefore faith itself
in the Messiah, and faith in act or obedience is the only faith which
vivifies, and which produces those things which by agreement and
union are something" (Vol. 11, no. 707, p. 456).
This doctrine is expressed in the Diary for 1744, thus: "Faith is,
indeed, a sure confidence which is received from God; but it, never
theless, consists in every man acting according to his pound ; in his
doing to his neighbour that which is good, and continually more
and more. A man must do so from faith, because God has so
ordered it, and must not reason any more about it, but do the work
of love out of obedience to faith ; even though this be opposed to
the lusts of the body and its persuasions. Wherefore faith without
works is not the right kind of faith" (no. 111).
"Faith is purely God’s gift, and is received by man when he
lives according to the commandments of God, and when he continually
prays to God for it" (no. 99).
X. Free- Will. The doctrine of the vicarious atonement of Christ,
and of justification by faith alone, is based on this doctrine respect
ing Free Will, "That man since the fall is entirely incapable of
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