Brief Exposition (Whitehead) n. 50

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50. The reason why charity cannot be conjoined with the faith of the present church, and consequently why good works cannot be born from any marriage, is because imputation supplies everything, remits guilt, justifies, regenerates, sanctifies, imparts the life of heaven and thus salvation, and all this freely, without any works of man; what then is charity, which ought to be united with faith, but something superfluous and vain, and a mere addition and supplement to imputation and justification, to which nevertheless it is of no avail? Besides, a faith founded on the idea of three Gods is erroneous, as has been shown above (n. 39, 40); and with an erroneous faith, charity, that in itself is charity, cannot be conjoined. There are two reasons given for believing that there is no bond of union between that faith and charity; the one is, because they make their faith spiritual, but charity natural moral, thinking that there is not given any conjunction of the spiritual with the natural; the other reason is, lest anything of man, and so anything of merit, should inflow into their faith alone, as saving. Furthermore, between charity and that faith there is no bond, but there is with the new faith, which may be seen below (n. 116, 117).


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