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CHAP. XV. Bellarmines fourth principall argument, taken from the manner how faith doth justifie: and the fifth from the formall cause of justification.
* 1.1§. I IF Faith, saith hee, doth justifie, as a cause, as the be∣ginning,* 1.2 as the merit of justification, then faith doth not justifie alone, for love and penance and other good acts doe the like: but the antecedent is true, therefore the consequent. I deny first the con∣sequence of the proposition and the proofe thereof. For neither love, or penance, nor other good acts, doe either cause, begin, or merit justi∣fication. And therefore though faith did justifie, as a cause, as the begin∣ning, as the merit whereby justification is obtained, it might, for all them, justifie alone. This were sufficient to overthrow his whole Dis∣pute. But all his care is to prove the assumption, which hee endeavou∣reth in all the parts thereof. And first, that faith is a cause of justificati∣tion; which we doe not deny: yea, we affirme, that nothing in us doth concurre to the act of justification, as a cause thereof, but faith onely. But you will aske, what cause? We say the instrumentall onely. If Bel∣larmine meane any other cause, as no doubt but he doth; he should have done well to have named it, and to have proved it.
§. II. He proveth faith to be a cause by the prepositions ex and per,* 1.3 by and through, attributed to faith: whereto I answere, that these parti∣cles sometimes are used to signifie the instrumentall cause. As namely, when we are said to be justified or saved, through or by the word or the Sacraments, Rom. 6. 4. Tit. 3. 5. Ioh. 17. 20. 1 Cor. 1. 21. & 15. 2. Faith commeth by hearing, Rom. 10. 17. Preachers are Ministers by whom you doe beleeve, 1 Cor. 3. 5. Ephes. 3. 6. And first for those plàces wherein it is said, that we are justified by faith or saved by faith, Rom. 3. 28. 30. & 5. 1. Ephes. 2. 8. In these and the like places saith he, the preposition by or through, doth signifie a true cause. But he should have done well to have set downe what cause; for an instrumentall cause is also a true cause. The prepo∣sition per, saith a 1.4 B•…•…llarmine in another place, is not fitly accommodated to the favour of God (which is the efficient cause of justification) but ei∣ther to the formal as per gratiam, or meritorious, as permeritum filii, or in∣strumentall, cause as per fidem & Sacramenta: where you see, by Bellar∣mines confession, per is attributed to faith as to the instrumentall cause. It is also attributed to the matter and merit, as Rom. 5. 10, 19. When as therefore it is also attributed to faith, it cannot be attributed in the same sense, as to the death and obedience of Christ in propriety of speech;