Is it Scriptural to say that a person is justified by faith alone? I answer, No. Neither Prophet nor Apostle has ever said that a sinner is pardoned by faith alone. Without repentance there is no pardon, and yet sinners are not pardoned by repentance alone; without faith there is no justification, and yet men are not justified by faith alone. Sinners are justified by grace, by blood, by faith, by knowledge; but not by any one of these alone. Professors are not justified by faith, by grace, by blood, by knowledge; but by works. Nor are they justified by works alone, only as professors. As persons they are justified by a living, working faith.

      "Faith alone" is an abstraction, and a man will as soon live animally on pure oxygen, as spiritually on pure faith. Yet as man can not live without oxygen, so can he not live without faith. It is the vital principle in the new man; for the just man by faith shall live.

      James asks, "What is the advantage, my brethren, if any one say he have faith, but have not works--can faith save him? And more remarkable still, faith alone is dead faith. Our brethren who talk of faith alone seem to have forgotten that we have divine authority for calling faith alone dead faith. Ask James the Apostle for a definition of dead faith, and he answers, "A dead faith is faith alone."

[A. C.]      
1840, page 492.      

[MHA2 1]