On the Nature of Justification

by the recently beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman.  I'm told the only way to properly receive Newman is to either read his work aloud or hear it read aloud:

...That in our natural state, and by our own strength, we are not and cannot be justified by obedience, is admitted on all hands, agreeably to St. Paul's forcible statements; and to deny it is the heresy of Pelagius. But it is a distinct question altogether, whether with the presence of God the Holy Ghost we can obey unto justification; and, while the received doctrine in all ages of the Church has been, that through the largeness and peculiarity of the gift of grace we can, it is the distinguishing tenet of the school of Luther, that through the incurable nature of our corruption we cannot.

Or, what comes to the same thing, one side says that the righteousness in which God accepts us is inherent, wrought in us by the grace flowing from Christ's Atonement; the other says that it is external, reputed, nominal, being Christ's own sacred and most perfect obedience on earth, viewed by a merciful God as if it were ours. And issue is joined on the following question, whether justification means in Scripture counting us righteous, or making us righteous;—as regards, that is, our present condition; for that pardon of past sins is included under its meaning, both parties in the controversy allow...

Here I am to consider it, not as it is in fact, but as it is in idea: as an imputation of righteousness, or an accounting righteous; and I shall offer remarks in behalf of three positions, which arise out of what has been said, first, that justification is, in the proper meaning of the word, a declaration of righteousness; secondly, that it is distinct from renewal; thirdly, that it is the antecedent or efficient cause of renewal. "The Voice of the Lord," says the Psalm, "is mighty in operation; the Voice of the Lord is a glorious Voice." Justification then is the Voice of the Lord designating us;—designating us what we are not at the time that it designates us; designating us what we then begin to be...

Much citation of Scripture, Christian history, and so forth accompany the above, but they seemed an apt summary of the central point of the argument.