Faith and Works

“What doth it profit, my brethren,
though a man say he hath faith,
and havs not -works f can fa ith
save him t If a brother or sister
be naked, and destitute of daily
food, and one of y oil say unto them,
Depart in peace, be ye “warmed
and filled; notwithstanding ye
give them not those things -which
are needful to the body; -what doth
it profit t Even so faith, if it
hat ft not -works, is dead, being
alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou
hast fa ith, and I ha ve -works: show
we thy faith -without thy -works,
and I -will show thee my faith by
wy works. Thou believest that
there is one God: thou doest well”
the devils also believe, and tremble.
But -wilt thou know, O vain man,
that faith without works is dead?
Was not Abraham our father
justified by works, when he had
offered Isaac his son upon the
altar? Seest thou how with his works, and by
tvorks was faith made perfect f

And the scripture was fulfilled
which saith, Abraham believed
God, and it “was imputed Tinto him
for righteousness: and he was
called the Friend of God. Ye see
then how that by works a man is
justified, and not by faith only.
Likewise also was not Rahab the
harlot ystified by works, when
she had received the messengers,
and had sent them out For as the body without
the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. — ST JAMES
ii 14-26.

‘INHERE is no analogy between mind and matter more remarkable than the reaction to which both are liable. Set free the pendulum which you have drawn to one side, and, obeying the law of gravitation, it returns to its centre; but in doing so, swings over to the other side. Or, twist a cord that has a weight attached to it; and set loose, whirling rapidly on its axis, it untwines itself; but does more, taking many a turn in the opposite direction. Or, follow the billow that, driven by the tempest and swelling as it advances, flings itself on the iron shore; it bursts, thundering, into snowy foam; but does more — like men from a desperate charge, it rolls back violently into the sea. Even so on a change of opinions and manners, how prone are men to pass from one to the opposite extreme, borne by the recoil beyond the line of truth — a danger this against which reformers, whether of states or churches, of public morals or private manners, need to be on their guard.

Thus we account for the extraordinary judgment that such a man as Martin Luther, that champion of the faith, pronounced on the book of St James. He denied its inspiration; and not content with robbing this book of divine authority, he scrupled not to speak of it in contemptuous terms — calling it a chaffy epistle. It is easy to account for his saying that, when he believed it. He was a man of dauntless courage. Remaining at Wirtemberg when all others had fled, he faced the plague, saying, It is my post; should brother Martin fail, yet the world will not fail. When Melanchthon, and every friend he had on earth, urged him not to go to Augsburg, to be given up to the machinations of the legate, They have already, he replied, torn my honour and my reputation, let them have my body if it is the will of God — my soul they shall not take. Entreated on his approach to Worms not to enter a town where his death was decided on, he pushed forwards, saying, Tell your master, that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I would enter. And there, before the world’s great Emperor, face to face with a host of princely and priestly enemies, he stood a lion at bay, and to the reiterated question, Whether he would retract, with a sword suspended over him, and a grave yawning at his feet, replied, I will retract nothing; here I take my stand; I cannot do otherwise. So help me God. Amen. This was a man to speak whatever he believed!

Nor is it difficult to account for Luther’s error. One day while climbing a stair at Rome on his knees, in hope of thus climbing to heaven, of meriting salvation through such pains and penances, the Spirit of God flashed this great truth into his mind, with the effulgence and force of lightning, “The just shall live by faith.” He rose a new man; a second St Paul; his mission henceforth on earth, to preach life by faith — the glorious doctrine of justification by faith without works, through the blood and merits of Jesus Christ.

Well, look now at his position. There, hoar with age, strong in the personal interests of her priests and the profound prejudices of her people, resting on salvation by works, ceremonies, pay, and penance, stood the old walls of Rome; and on their ramparts the cowled Dominican, selling indulgences, and boasting — (I quote his very words) — “I would not exchange my privilege against those that St Peter has in heaven, for I have saved more souls by my indulgences than he by his sermons. Whatever crime one may have committed, let him pay well, and he will receive pardon.” All that he said, and something about the Virgin more shocking — too shocking for your ears. This profanity, this daring blasphemy, and that whole Romish system which substitutes the crucifix for the Crucified, and for His merits man’s wretched works of penance and pilgrimages, sackcloth for the skin, and fish on Friday, these produced on Luther’s impulsive mind such a tremendous recoil, that in the rebound from error he passed the line of sober truth. Fancying something in the Epistle of St James to be at variance with the doctrine of justification by faith, as set forth in the writings of St Paul, he rejected it; rashly rejected it — scared by a phantom, the mere appearance of discrepancy. And doing so, he has furnished the Church of God with another illustration of the words, “Put not your trust in princes,” — nor in Luther, nor Calvin, nor in Cranmer, nor Knox — “nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.”

Between the sentiments of these two apostles there is no real discrepancy. Before St James had written his Epistle, the doctrine of justification by faith without works had been abused, and turned to the vilest purposes. “Wresting,” to use St Peter’s language, the words of St Paul from their true meaning, some made them a’ cover for the grossest sensuality, holding this immoral, horrible doctrine, that men could be saved by mere knowledge of the truth, mere intellectual assent to sound doctrines — miscalled faith, though they were impious in heart, and in practice impure. It was against this pestilent heresy, this poisonous weed, that, native to every soil, has sprung up in all ages, and against those who confessed Christ in words, but in works denied Him, that St James took pen in hand, saying, What doth it profit, my brethren, that a man say he hath faith and have not works? Can faith — this faith, such a faith — save him? Faith, i£ it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

We are saved by faith in the merits of Jesus Christ.

Can faith save? Certainly; if it be not that false and spurious thing which St James pronounces dead; but true faith. Sooner than believe otherwise, even on the authority of an epistle attributed to St James, I would believe with Luther that the apostle’s name was a forgery; and that the epistle which bore it, and was bound up with the Bible, had, like Satan among the sons of God, or bad money among the current coin, got into company better than its own.

And how are we saved by faith? Not by any merit in our faith, for that is the gift of God and the work of His Holy Spirit; and is, so to speak, but the rope which the drowning man clutches, and by which another pulls him living to the shore. God its author, the heart its seat, good works its fruit, Christ is its object; and it saves by bringing us to the Saviour. It weeps with the Magdalene at His feet; it prays with the thief, Lord remember me; with the blind it gropes for Christ, crying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us! and with Simon, as he sank arnid the roaring billows, seeing help in none else, it stretches out its arms to Jesus, with Lord save me, I perish! Greatest act of the soul, it lays my sins on Jesus, and so relieves my conscience of a load of guilt; and taking off my rags to put Christ’s righteousness on me, it covers a poor sinner with a robe fairer than angels wear.

May any be thus saved; without works; without merit; guilty as he who said, I believe that I have committed every sin possible to man unless murder? Ay, and with murder to boot. It is the glory of Christ’s blood that it cleanseth from all sin, and was poured out freely for the chief of sinners; so that if any man, troubled for his sins, in terror of divine wrath, afraid to die, afraid even to go to sleep lest he should awake in hell, is crying, Oh, sirs, what shall I do to be saved? I say with St Paul, when the jailer, at midnight, on his knees, was putting the same question, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” I know no other way. There is none. There is no name given under heaven whereby we can be saved but the name of Jesus; and united to Him, though by the weakest, slenderest faith, you are safe.

Christ drew divine lessons from gay flowers and singing birds. And in the conservatory I have seen a plant from which such saints as Bunyan’s Mr Feeble-mind might draw strength; gather something more fragrant than its odours, more beautiful than its purple flowers. Climbing the trellis, which it interwove with spreading verdure and flowery beauty, it sprang from the soil by a mere filament of a stem. Unlike the mountain pine and sturdy oak, that seem built for the heads they carry, and the storms they have to encounter, one had to trace it upwards and downwards to be convinced that this thread of a stalk was the living, nourishing, sustaining channel between these flowering branches and the hidden root. How like that seemed in its feebleness to the faith of some! But there the likeness ceased. Roughly handled, that fragile stem was broken; and, severed from their root, branches and flowers all withered away; but thanks be to God that, united to Christ, even by the feeblest faith, we can affirm that, Neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Good works are the certain fruit of this saving faith.

One of the greatest marshals of France had for his opponent in a civil war the Prince of Conde. In him Turenne found a foeman worthy of his steel — the only man indeed who could rival him in military genius, moving troops, the arrangement and fighting of battles, sudden surprises and successful attacks. One night, when the prince was supposed to be many leagues away, Turenne lay sleeping securely in his camp. He was suddenly roused, to hear in cries and shouts, the roar of musketry and cannon, the signs of a midnight assault. Hasting from his tent, he cast his eye around him; and at once discovering, by the glare of burning houses, the roar of the fight, the skill with which the attack had been evidently planned, and the energy with which it was being executed, the genius of his rival, he turned to his staff, and said, Conde is come! Now, in some cases especially of sudden conversion, the advent of faith may be as certainly pronounced upon. The peace of death is broken, conscience awakes, sin appears exceeding sinful, empty forms no longer yield any comfort, carelessness about divine things gives place to all absorbing and intense anxieties, Death seems crowned with terrors, Sinai clothed with thunders, and exclaiming, What shall I do to be saved, the trembling soul hies to the Cross, clasps it, clings to it, to cry, Lord, save, I perish: in such circumstances you can safely say conversion is come, salvation come, Christ come; and there is no presumption then in using, as we fall at Jesus’ feet, the language of him who said, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!

But though thus saved through faith, and not of works, as St Paul says, lest any man should boast, St Paul is not less explicit about works; on that subject his trumpet has an equally certain sound; for in the very same passage he tells us that believers, they that have a true saving faith, are not only cleansed through Christ from guilt, but are created in Christ unto good works, which God, he adds, “hath foreordained that we should walk in them” — that these in fact are, in all cases, as surely as divine foreordination can make them, the fruit of living faith. How should it be otherwise? Is not faith in every other condition of its existence full of works; the world’s great worker? Look abroad! In yonder husbandman who, though snow lies on hill-tops and frost bites in the air, and nights are long and days are short, and woods are bare, and birds are mute, believing that spring will come, summer come, and autumn come, gives his labour to the naked fields, Faith ploughs the soil. And in yon sailor, who though he sees the land sink beneath the wave, boldly pushes out on the pathless deep, and trusts not to sight, for he sees only a wide waste of water where other keels have left no furrow, but to his charts and trembling needle. Faith ploughs the sea. And there were men, inspired with confidence in their comrades’ bravery and commander’s skill, march to their positions on the battle-field as on parade, stand up facing the deadly hail, or, crouching like lions to the spring, wait the word to rise and charge, Faith fights and wins. Not cannon, nor bayonets, but mainly Wellington’s faith in his men, and his men’s faith in Wellington, won Waterloo; and who takes time to follow out the thought will find that faith in God’s providence, in what are called the laws of Nature, in the fidelity of husbands and wives, in the affection of children and parents, in the justice of masters and honesty of servants, in man’s integrity where they buy and sell, exchange or manufacture goods, in every mill and market, in every harbour and counting-room, is the working power of the world — the mighty wheel that most turns its machinery.

Well, if faith is so productive of works outside the region of religion, how much more within it? If faith in man so works, how much more faith in God? Such faith as naturally produces what are called good works, as vines produce grapes, or sorrow tears, or joy smiles; as the soil beneath us yields fruits and flowers, or the skies above us showers and sunshine. In the character of God, in the person, love, and work of His Son, in an eternal world, in the Bible, its gracious promises and its glorious prospects, it has to do with the grandest truths; and for a man whose heart is not devout, nor his life holy, to say that he has that faith, is to deceive himself — and furnish an awful illustration of the saying, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Let no man deceive you. Not I, but God says, “No whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God.”

Therefore the hopes of salvation that rest on a faith without works are false, and being false, are fatal.

Last century, faith was out of fashion; the peculiar doctrines of the gospel were ignored, unless it might be at a communion time. “Christ and Him crucified” were thrust out of sight; unless in the form of some old mouldering stone, which the hammer of Reformers had missed, the cross was removed from the Church; children learned to repeat the creed, but the boasted creed of many was that sung by Pope — “For modes of faith let graceless bigots fight, His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.”

Virtue and vice, the beauty of the one and the deformities of the other, were the favourite topics of the pulpit. Yet the people had so little taste, that they did not appear to fall in love with virtue; nor were even some of those much smitten by her charms to whom she sat for her portrait. Men drank deep last century; swore profanely; talked obscenely; and indulged in a very loose morality. Strange to say, good works were never so much preached, and so little practised. The more they were found in Sabbath sermons, the less they appeared in everyday life. Yet not strange! “Thou bleeding Love,” as Young sings —

“The grand morality is love of Thee,”

and Jesus, His love, His life, His death, excluded from pulpits, there was nothing to produce good works; no pith in preaching; no seed to yield a harvest; no straw to make bricks; no solid backbone, so to speak, to support the soft parts, and keep the frame erect And the attempt at home to have a morality without religion proved as signal a failure as that abroad, in France, to have a nation without a God.

Morality without religion is a dream; but not less a dream, and wild a dream, is religion without morality — a faith that lies in an orthodox creed without a godly and honest life — that lies in the cold assent of the understanding to truths that never touch the heart or affect the conduct This won’t stand the day which shall try the tree by its fruits, and by Christ’s own lips pronounce perdition on the workers of iniquity. We want a religion that walks in the path of the ten commandments — saying, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners. We want a religion that, not dressed for Sundays and walking on stilts, descends into common and everyday life; is friendly, not selfish; courteous, not boorish; generous, not niggard; sanctified, not sour; that loves justice more than gain; and fears God more than man; to quote another’s words — “a religion that keeps husbands from being spiteful, or wives fretful; ihat keeps mothers patient, and children pleasant; that bears heavily not only on ‘the exceeding sinfulness of sin, but on the. exceeding rascality of lying and stealing; that banishes small measures from counters, sand from sugar, and water from milk-cans” — the faith, in short, whose root is Christ, and whose fruit is works.

Any other St James pronounces dead — not like a dead stone which in flashing diamond, or sculptured marble, may be beautiful — but dead like a lifeless body; putrid, horrible, in decay. Not more loathsome to me the fetid corpse where no trace of beauty lingers, than to a holy God the man who holds good doctrines, but lives a bad life; who unites a low practice to a high profession; who, in words, exalts the Saviour’s Cross, but in works — in crucifying His flesh, in living for others, in acts of self-denial, won’t take up his own. Like some of old, does he say, I am for St Paul, not for St James? St Paul is not for him. I can fancy that apostle, in horror, rending the garment he wears in heaven; repudiating the connexion. One in glory before the throne, he and St James are one in sentiment in this Bible. St Paul, indeed, counted all things loss for Christ. He held the Cross aloft; and, shaking that banner from its folds in the face of friend and foe, he waved it over the scaffold where his testimony was sealed with his blood. But the faith he preached was a faith that worketh — worketh by love; crucifieth the flesh; purifieth the heart; and overcometh the world. Mark his last words to the Christians of a city in whose dungeons he had sung Christ’s praises, and whose jailer he had conducted to Christ’s feet. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think 01? these things.”

Believers are called by Christ’s word to be workers.

There are times — and such are ours — when, the inspiration of God’s Word, the propitiation of the Cross, the necessity of conversion being denied, sound men are called to close their ranks, and contend together for the faith once delivered to the saints. The Captain of our salvation now seems to address His Church, as a commander the hollow square that with its front rank on the knee presenting a hedge of bayonets, and the second on their feet, with eyes glaring along the deadly barrel, is formed to receive cavalry. Their swords flashing in the sun, thundering on they come, with the impetus of a tremendous shock. The moment, how critical! Let courage fail, the line waver, offer an opening, and in sweeps the foe like a whirlwind of steel. It is the moment for their commanding officer, as he runs his eye along the grim and stern faces, and ere he gives the word that, in a burst of musketry, empties many saddles, and rolls back that array like a broken, bloody wave, to cry, Be steadfast, immovable! In regard to matters of doctrine, atfiicked in our day from strange quarters, so Christ speaks to us now; but He adds as when He first spake these words by the mouth of St Paul, “always abounding in the work of the Lord,” Yes! Believers are now and then to be warriors; but always to be workers.

Indeed, an idle Christian is a contradiction in terms; as much so as a drunken, lying, or adulterous Christian. For is not the Church a body, that has Christ for its Head, and His people

for its members? But did God ever make a

P body which He encumbered with idle members? Never. What part, what member of this frame, moulded of clay, yet so fearfully and wonderfully made, does not work, was not made for working? The eye is formed to see; the ear to hear; the tongue to speak; the feet to walk; the hands to grasp; the lungs to breathe; the brain to think; the busy heart — the first to live and the last to die, a clock that needs no winding — to beat — and beating, send its blood through all the throbbing arteries. Let all, or even some of these members cease to work, I die instantly. Let any work irregularly, my health suffers; the whole body, where each member has sympathy with anothef, suffers. Every member works. And the harbour, with its forest of tall masts, the city, with the grinding noises, and rolling carriages, and hurry of crowded streets, present no scene of activity so wonderful as that which, covered and concealed by our untransparent skin, is going on within us — innumerable organs all at work — working the livelong day — the night that stills the hum of streets, and throws the world’s machinery out of gear, bringing no pause to them.

Although in communion with this or that other Church, a member of an Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or Independent Church, who is not a working Christian, is no member of Christ’s Church. Let those who are, work — do all the good, to all the persons, at all the times, in all the ways they can — abounding in good works. Every day they live, the busier — the shorter the time, the busier — the nearer the grave, the busier; as a stone, descending the hill, rolls with increasing speed, till, taking its last bound, it plunges into the lake, and sinks into its placid bosom.

So may the grave, with its “rest for the weary,” close above our heads; and, as heaven opens to receive our spirits to the repose of the just, may Jesus meet us at the gate, with His “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,”

Believers are called by Christ’s example to be workers.

It is common to speak, by way of distinction, of the working classes. And men of lofty social position, and loftier minds — for, after all, there is nothing great about man but mind — when they stand on the platform of a popular assembly addressing the sons of toil, to win their ears and hearts, will sometimes, referring to the labours and brain-work of office, rank themselves among the working class. But whatever be their sex, sphere, or talents, all true followers of Jesus are of the working class. They were otherwise no followers of Him who is not our Propitiation only, but also our Pattern; who is not our Propitiation unless He is also our Pattern; and whose life, begun in Bethlehem, and closed in Calvary, was spent in “doing good.”

Bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, true man as well as God, He drank of our cup — enjoying as much, and more than we, the pleasures of friendship, the loveliness of nature, the feast kindness spread, the happy faces of a marriage scene, seasons of welcome rest amid mountain solitudes, by Galilee’s smiling lake, in the sweet society of Bethany. But was it for these He lived? for enjoyment, or for employment? for others, or Himself? Himself! He denied Himself; forgot Himself; barely allowed Himself the rest that nature needed. His heart felt, and His eye wept, and His hand was ready for all human wretchedness. Who so patient with the bad — so gentle to the erring — so tender to the penitent? Who sought His help in vain? What poor beggar unpitied, or poor sinner unpardoned, ever left His door? What blessings fell from the hands, on what errands of mercy went the sacred feet, they nailed, O Calvary, to thy cruel, accursed tree!

In the charity that covereth a multitude of sins, that hopeth and believeth all things, I can believe much. I believe that God will have mercy on the chief of sinners. I believe there is no sin you or I have done but may be washed out in the fountain where sins are lost and souls are saved. I believe that the vilest creature who pollutes society and degrades humanity, may creep into heaven at the back of the thief, shine with the purity, and mingle her voice with the song of angels. I believe no one is to be despaired of; not even the man who is just going over into the pit. Let him turn to Christ — He saves at the uttermost. But I cannot believe that a God of truth, with, reverence be it spoken, will tell a lie — and what but a lie were it to say to a man that had wasted his life in ease, and pleasure, and self-indulgence, Well done! How could He, who made it His meat and drink to do His Father’s will, who lived and laboured for His Father’s glory, who died for the good of men, say to one who came up with his talent in a napkin, Well done, good and faithful servant — follower of mine, Well done! Certainly not. None share in Christ’s joy but those that, in a sense, have shared in His agony. They enter into His rest who, baptized with the Spirit as well as the blood of Calvary, have entered into His labours. The wages, no doubt, are of grace; yet no work, no wages! No work, no wages — as true an aphorism as the well-known saying, No cross, no crown. Crowns are for living brows, but faith without works is dead. Ours be such a life as grace forms, and the poet sings, —

“I live for those that love me,
For those that know me true,
For the heaven that smiles above me,

And waits my coming too.
For the cause that lacks assistance,
For the wrongs that need resistance,
For the future in the distance,

For the good that I can do.”