Justification and Sacraments

Vermigli discusses the role of works in salvation, arguing that those who do not live uprightly and practice virtue “shall not come to eternal salvation,” yet these works are the “fruits of faith and effects of justification, not causes.” He understands the fathers’ references to “something more” than faith in this sense: Yes, something more is required, but this is not in conflict with sola fide. Their comments are more about the nature of faith than about justification, and Vermigli agrees that faith comes always accompanied by love, hope, and good works.

Vermigli then writes (Proposition 3, section 87): “As to the sacraments, we have often taught how justification is to be attributed to them, for they stand in relation to justification as does the preaching of the Gospel and the promise of Christ offered to us for salvation. Very often in the Scriptures what belongs to the substance is ascribed to a sacrament. Since baptism promises remission of sins by Christ, and signifies and seals it in those who are washed, Jerome, therefore, attributes this to it alone of all other sacraments. So the words of the fathers should not bother us when they write that faith alone is not sufficient for salvation, for they understand it of that eternal salvation to which we do not come unless some fruit follows our faith.”