[Lexicon theologicum in quo theologiae termini explicantur juxta seriem locorum communium; Accedit monitio de lectione Novi Testamenti; (Prostat, 1612)]
Biography: Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638), that industrious and God-fearing servant of the Church, was born in Mittenaar within the bounds of the Holy Roman Empire and was educated under the noble tutelage of Johannes Piscator at Herborn, and afterward under such men as Goclenius and Polanus, blending the disciplines of philosophy, theology, and the liberal arts. He was deeply steeped in the Reformed faith, trained in Ramist method and Lullist art, and rose swiftly to prominence as professor of philosophy and theology at Herborn Academy. In his later years, having been driven by the fury of the Thirty Years' War, he settled in the land of Transylvania, where, at the city of Alba Iulia, he established a Calvinist academy, laboring for the propagation of pure doctrine among the churches recently reclaimed from Socinian heresy. As a man whose very name was anagrammed into Sedulitas (diligence), Alsted pursued the systematization of knowledge with a singular zeal. His crowning achievement, the Encyclopaedia Septem Tomis Distincta (1630), was not merely an inventory of sciences, but a theological and philosophical edifice structured according to the order of divine wisdom. He sought to demonstrate that all branches of learning, rightly understood, flow from and return unto Sacred Scripture. His labors were praised by the godly Cotton Mather and influenced John Amos Comenius, while even Leibniz once considered revising his great work. Though some censured him for his unacknowledged borrowings, yet none could deny the utility or magnificence of his efforts. In theology, he was a fierce opponent of the Socinians, authoring his Prodromusto confound their impieties. Thus lived and died this encyclopaedic divine, whose writings form a citadel of Reformed learning, erected to the glory of Christ and the edification of the saints.
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The estate betwixt God and man hath one chief pillar, to wit, justification, the form, effect, and end whereof must be diligently considered. The form thereof hath respect either to God or to man. As touching God, the efficient cause, it consisteth of twain parts: the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. To remit sins is to account them as not committed. As touching man, the subject receiving it, the form is the acceptance of both remission and imputation.
The word vocation in Holy Scripture is manifold in signification, called by the Greeks klēsis. Firstly, it oft denoteth the condition and course of life which each man chooseth, preferring one manner of living above another, as it is written in 1 Corinthians 7:20, “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.” Secondly, vocation sometimes signifieth the vote and suffrage of men calling one to some office, as one serveth as a pastor, another as a deacon, another as a professor, and so forth. Thirdly, it betokeneth the beginning of the revelation of divine grace, whether to one or to many, either inwardly or outwardly, or both. In this sense we take it here, and it is to be considered in two ways: either by the manner of calling or by the effect thereof. By the manner, it is either internal or external. External calling is either general, to wit, of the Gentiles or a particular people, or special, that is, of one man.
By the effect, vocation is either effectual or ineffectual. The vocation of the Gentiles is termed klēsis ethnōn. For by the name of Gentiles, both Latins and Greeks, using the term tōn ethnōn, comprehend all those whom the Hebrews call Goyim, that is, all who are not of the seed and flesh of Israel or Jacob, nor bear the sign of circumcision as a memorial of God’s covenant. Some nations, indeed, have used circumcision, as the Idumeans, Ishmaelites, Egyptians of old, and now the Turks and Circassians in Pontus; yet not as a sign of the covenant, but merely by custom and tradition of their people, to harden their tender infants for labor, as in ancient Italy, newborn babes were plunged into rivers to toughen their skin and body, as Virgil teacheth in the Ninth Book of the Aeneid. The Greek interpreters of Scripture at first called the Gentiles allophyloi, though the Seventy in Judges 3 use this term for the Philistines alone. But Ambrose deemeth allophyloi as general as ethnōn, as Prudentius also hinteth in his verse: “The allophylus tyrant would destroy thy camp,” meaning the heathen and unbeliever. Greek profane writers call all provinces beyond the seat of empire, such as Rome and Italy in the Roman dominion, by the name of Gentiles. The rest, outside Italy, were called Gentium Praesidatus or, by the Greeks, ethnarchiai. Thus, the Greeks called the Latins barbarians, as Paul teacheth, and Ovid singeth: “Here I am a barbarian, for I am not understood by any.” But when we speak of the Gentiles here, we mean all peoples of the world not descended from the stock or seed of Jacob.
To justify, from its Latin root, signifieth to make righteous in very deed, that is, to renew the heart, which is the sole prerogative of God. Likewise, to sanctify is to make holy that which was profane. In this sense, the Apostle seemeth to use it in 1 Corinthians 6:11, a signification followed by some Fathers, especially Augustine, for whom to be justified was scarce other than to be made righteous from unrighteousness by God’s grace for Christ’s sake.
In the usage of Scripture, justify is a forensic term, signifying to impute righteousness, to account one righteous by imputation, to absolve from charges laid, and to pronounce one righteous by sentence. This is the sense of the Hebrew hitsdik, oft opposed in Scripture to the word for condemning, as also the Greek dikaioō, used forensically to mean “to deem righteous,” as in Proverbs 17:15, Matthew 12:37, Luke 7:29, and Luke 16:15. Forensic, I say, is the word justification. For a defendant is justified by judges who pronounce his innocence. The Greeks say dikaios, as in Luke 7:29, opposed to katadikaō in Matthew 22:37. From this word derive three Greek terms: dikaiōma, dikaiōsis, and dikaiosynē. Dikaiōma is the act whereby the righteousness of the accused shineth forth, or wherein his innocence and purging lieth, and it is the foundation of his cause. Thus are spoken of dikaiōmata sarkos, that is, just actions of the flesh; and in the Law of Moses are delivered sundry dikaiōmata, that is, just actions (Hebrews 9:1, 10; Luke 1:6). Yet sometimes dikaiōmais taken for dikaiosynē, and contrariwise, as appeareth in Romans 8:4. Dikaiosynē is the integrity, holiness, and innocence of the soul, whereby we live uprightly and please God and the godly (Romans 4:5). Thus, the difference betwixt the concrete and the abstract is the same as betwixt dikaiosynē and dikaiōma. Dikaiosynē is the soul’s integrity and inherent quality; dikaiōma is the honest deed itself, properly of the accused, for which the judge freeth and pronounceth them innocent by their honest works. Dikaiōsis is the judge’s very pronouncement of the accused’s innocence.
But in this question, our justification (for so it must be called) is naught else but our absolution before God, freely granted, as Paul excellently teacheth in Romans 4:7. Wherefore, our justification, whereof we treat here, is neither properly dikaiōma nor dikaiosynē, as the workers of merit dream (monstrous men seek monstrous terms), but is only dikaiōsis. For our justification before God is everywhere by Paul called a charisma theou (Romans 5:6-8). Here we must recall the rule of verbal nouns ending in -io, which denote both action and passion. Hence, justification is active and passive, our justifying and our being justified. These differ as heaven from earth.
Thus far, we have unfolded two significations; one remaineth. For justify sometimes meaneth to promote others to righteousness by teaching, reproving, instructing, and correcting, as in Daniel 12:3, “They that justify many,” that is, make them righteous by the ministry of the Word, and in Revelation 22:11, “He that is righteous, let him be justified still,” that is, let him advance by well-doing. The Apostle Paul, in the doctrine of man’s justification before God, useth not the first nor the third, but the second signification, which is plainly forensic. For to be justified, to the Apostle, is the sentence of the heavenly Judge, absolving from condemnation and guilt, and being accounted righteous, as is clear from the antithesis Paul setteth forth in Romans 8:33. Thus, justification to Paul is a pronouncement of sentence, and, as it were, a declaration of righteousness rather than a making righteous.
This justification is twofold: of works and of faith. In Scripture, a threefold remission is set forth. The first is plenary and unlimited, whereby God fully remitteth sins, and properly so, as in Isaiah 43. Thus the Pharisees say, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” The second is improper, as that of the ministers of the Gospel, in John 20, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted.” They only declare remission, but God remitteth in and through them. As when a king sendeth his steward to a poor man to grant him an estate, the steward is said to have given it, for he announced it. But He who remitteth through man can also remit without man. The third is of brotherly love and debt, whereby we are bound to forgive our brother’s offenses, as in Matthew 6, “Except ye forgive,” and as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. But let us return to the word justification. The verb justify is taken in two senses: now as making righteous or causing to be righteous, now as pronouncing righteous or being pronounced righteous. These two agree and cohere as cause and effect. For God, being a just Judge, pronounceth none righteous or absolveth none unless He hath first made them righteous. And He maketh man righteous (whom He will pronounce righteous) by the imputation of righteousness, that is, insofar as He imputeth righteousness to him, or doth not impute sins, but remitteth and pardoneth them (Romans 4:5-8). In the former sense, justify is taken in Romans 4:5, where God is said to justify the ungodly. But God doth not pronounce the ungodly righteous; rather, He maketh him righteous by imputing righteousness to him. In the latter sense, it is taken in Romans 8:33, where justification is opposed to condemnation, whence it is clear that the word here signifieth judicial absolution, whereby the Judge pronounceth the accused (that is, the one charged and summoned to the tribunal) righteous and innocent.
Justification, taken in this latter sense, is again to be distinguished. For it cometh to pass either in this life, in each justified person severally and secretly, or after this life, on that day of universal judgment, in all together and openly. Thus, justification is not the infusion of new qualities, but a free sentence or absolution from sin, and the imputation of righteousness unto eternal life, and that for Christ’s sake. Hence, the parts of justification are twain: the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Some object against this doctrine, saying, “As the renewal of a thing, as a wall, and the obliteration of the old differ not, so it is here.” But, good sirs, they differ in terms. So too, the mortification of the old man and vivification, generation and corruption, differ in terms.
As a crown to this discourse, I add the elegant saying of Luther: “Justification is the article by which the Church standeth or falleth.” And verily, for this article, our churches made their secession from the Papists.