# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1861_S259
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Theological Axioms. 259

What comes after a thing is not always because of it.

41. Opera sequuntur justificatum, non praecedunt justificandum. (Augustinus.)

Works follow when a person is justified; they do not go before, when he is first to be justified.

42. Spiritus S. in scriptura varie de fide loquitur, jam de fide abstracta vel absoluta, jam de fide concreta, composita seu incarnata. (Luther.)

"The Holy Spirit speaks in Scripture of faith in various ways: now of faith merely in its essence, and afterward of faith that is active in its fruits."

43. Justificatio soli fidei tribuitur, ut creatio divinitati; et tamen, ut vere dicitur: Jesus, Mariae filius, creavit omnia — ita (in scriptura) tribuitur etiam justificatio fidei incarnatae seu fideli facere. (Luther.)

Justification is ascribed to faith alone, just as creation is ascribed to the Godhead (in Christ); and yet, as it is quite truly said: Jesus, the (incarnate) Son of Mary, created all things — so also justification is ascribed to incarnate faith (that is, faith that has become love and good works), or to believing action.

44. Cuncta dicta scripturae, quae videntur aliquid tribuere operibus, praesupponunt fidem. (Mich. Neander.)

All passages of Scripture which seem to ascribe something to works presuppose faith and take it as their foundation.

45. "Non est gratia ullo modo, quae non est gratia omni modo." (Augustinus.)

That is grace in no way at all, which is not grace in every way.

46. Fides justificat, non quatenus agit vel activitatem suam exserit, sed quatenus recipit et habet. (V. Loescher.)

Faith justifies, not insofar as it acts or exerts its own activity, but insofar as it receives and has.

47. Fides, quae justificat, est notitia, assensus, fiducia; sed qua justificat, est nuda apprehensio beneficiorum Christi passiva, admissiva motuum Spiritus sancti, recubitoria et requietoria in meritis Christi. Hinc Veterum maxima theologica: Fides justificat non praedicamento qualitatis, ut est opus aut virtus, sed relationis, in suo correlato seu per suum correlatum, i. e., res credita, meritum Christi fide acceptum, justificat. Sic manus mendici non ditat, sed thesaurus donatus ac eleemosyna manu apprehensa. Os non satiat stomachum, sed cibus apprehensus. (Quenstedt.)

The faith which justifies is knowledge, assent, trust; but as that by which it justifies, it is the bare passive apprehension of the benefits of Christ, admitting the movements of the Holy Spirit, and reclining and resting in the merits of Christ. Hence comes the theological maxim of the ancients: Faith justifies not in the category of quality, as though it were a work or a virtue, but in that of relation, through