'Eternal Life is not to be obtained without Works': Nelson's 'Life of Dr. George Bull', 'Harmonia Apostolica', and the Protestant Confessions
Despite this, Nelson presents the opposition to Bull's work as unnecessary. He notes at the outset, for example, that, from the perspective of 1713, Bull's understanding of the relationship between faith and works had become the settled view of the Church of England:
The best of it is, this Contention was of no long Continuance: For not long after this Treatise was Printed and received with much Applause on one side, and Contradiction on the other; the Sense of the Church of England, as it is founded upon the Word of God, came to be cleared up, by the Care and Diligence of those who were excited hereby, much better than ever it had been before! And by the sober Manner of treating this Controversy in both these Dissertations, and the Author's most serious Protestation and Appeal to Heaven, it pleased God to cool, by degrees, the Minds of some, which had been heated about this Matter over-much, through the Intemperance of a truly laudable Concern for the Victory of Faith: And to win over others intirely to the Acknowledgment of the Truth, which is according to Righteousness and Godliness, who had been before but too averse to it, out of Jealousy of making void the Gospel of Christ, and of setting up instead thereof a certain mixture of Judaism and Christianity; for so this was misrepresented to be. But the Vanity of the Charge, as also that of Popery, was soon made evident to as many as would be content to read with their own Eyes, which many did labour to affright them from.
As Nelson here implies, it was also explicitly the case that Bull regarded himself as setting forth the orthodox faith of the Church of England, according to the Formularies. In providing a summary of Bull's understanding of Justification, Nelson portrays Bull as the faithful expositor of Article XI's declaration that "we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith":
More particularly, Of this meritorious Obedience of Christ for us Sinners, he plainly and roundly says, That this alone hath given Satisfaction to the Divine Justice; that This alone rendereth the most Holy and most Righteous God propitious to sinful Men; and that This alone is the efficacious Cause of God's promising and offering us Pardon and Eternal Life upon so very reasonable and equitable a Condition, as in the Gospel is set forth. And he constantly moreover teacheth, both in the very Treatise and in the Apology for it, "That no Man can, without Divine Grace, and the Assistance of the Holy Spirit, as flowing forth from the precious Side of the Crucified Jesus, perform the Condition of the Gospel-Covenant". And, in a Word, he most severely Anathematizes the Pelagian Heresy, as it is received by the Socinians and others, for derogating from the grace of God and ascribing too much to the Power of Man in his fallen Estate: And most frequently celebrates the Praise of this Divine Grace so perfectly according to the Mind of St. Paul, and the Declaration of the Church of England, both in her Articles and Homilies, that it may well be doubted whether any one can do it more.
What, then, of works? Nelson emphasises that Bull did not regard works as "properly any Cause at all" of our justification:
And Works of Righteousness, are, according to him, not properly any Cause at all thereof, but meerly a Condition, sine qua non, as the Schools love to speak, by God required in the Evangelical Covenant. This Observation he draweth from the Use of the Particle ἐξ, as it is applied by St. James to Works, and by St. Paul to Faith.
It is this which, in Nelson's account, gives Bull the freedom to affirm the necessity of works (cf. Article XII) to our salvation:
St. Paul is so far from denying, that Moral Works, proceeding from the Grace of the Gospel, do by virtue of the Gospel-Covenant effectually contribute to a Man's Eternal Justification and Salvation, that he is almost wholly taken up in demonstrating it ... And this is the very thing that is contended for by Saint James. And the Foundation of them both is our Saviour's Sermon aforesaid, which both beginneth and endeth herewith; and is throughout a plain Demonstration, that there can be no true Justification under the Gospel, or Attainment of Blessedness, but by Obedience as well as Faith, and by the following of Christ; and that consequently, not only Works of Righteousness are required in order to it, but even such as surpass the Righteousness of the very strictest of those that are under the Law. For he that granteth good Works to be a Condition, which must necessarily be fulfilled by a Christian for the obtaining of Life Eternal, according to God's Promise, doth at the same Time clearly confess, That the Right to Eternal Life is not to be obtained without Works. And again, he that denieth any Right to Salvation to be acquired by Works, doth contradict the clear and express Testimony of the Holy Ghost, who faith, Blessed are they who do his commandments, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life, Rev. xxii. ver. 14.
Not only does Bull regard his stance as faithful to the Articles and Homilies of the Church of England, he also, Nelson notes, understands it as cohering with the confession of the Continental Reformed churches:
And here he justifies the Publick Confessions of the Reformed Churches in this Point, as being all or most of them on his side; since notwithstanding that they may in Terms declare, that a Man is justified by Faith alone without Works, it is certain, if we may allow of their own Exposition, that by Faith they understand Grace which answereth to it; and that the plain meaning is, a Man is justified by Grace alone, and not by the Merit of Works. For this they must mean, as he proveth, if the Authors of those very Confessions maybe depended on to understand their own meaning itself ... he examineth also with great accuracy, the Judgment of the Foreign Reformed Churches, by their several Confessions: and he is very full in vindicating the Confession of Ausburgh, which he had stiled the most Noble of all the Reformed Churches; and shewing how it was followed by our first Reformers, and particularly by them in compiling our Articles. Nor doth he omit any thing considerable, that could be said upon the Head of all the rest of the Confessions, to prove that they taught, that besides Faith, true Repentance was moreover necessary for the obtaining Remission of Sins and Justification.
We observe here, of course, that Bull follows the quite traditional Church of England understanding that the Lutheran churches were to be accepted as Reformed; likewise the influence of the Augsburg Confession on the Articles of Religion was widely accepted by Church of England divines. Above all, however, Bull's insistence that this reading of justification cohered with the Augsburg Confession explicitly placed his reading within the context of the Churches and Confessions of the Reformation. As Bull himself stated in Harmonia Apostolica:
When the first Protestants taught that we were justified by faith alone, they did not therefore mean, that by this faith other virtues, and other good works were excluded, as by no means necessary unto the obtaining of justification, or that faith had in the work of justification a greater effect than other virtues. But they would have this proposition regarded as true in this sense only, that the word faith denotes such an obedience as is united with confidence in the merits of Jesus Christ, and a perfect rejection of all merits of our own, and which therefore excludes all those works which are performed with any confidence in, or opinion of, our own merits. It is this which Melancthon means in his Apologyfor the Augsburg Confession, in answer to the question, "What is justifying faith? The difference between faith and the righteousness of the law, may be easily perceived. Faith is a service, λατρεία, which receives from God the blessings offered us; the righteousness of the law, that which presents to Him our own merits. By faith God would be so worshipped that we should receive from Him what He promises and offers."
Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that performs good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith.
This post is not, to say the very least, attempting to give anything like a full account of the debates surrounding Harmonia Apostolica or, indeed, to adequately summarise Bull's exposition of the doctrine of justification. It does, however, seek to give, through Nelson's Life of Dr. George Bull, a sense of Bull's understanding of how his reading of justification was thoroughly Protestant. In Nelson's words, Bull "fully justified the Conformity of his Doctrine to the Determination of the Church of England, and to that of the other Reformed Churches".
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