Good works of all sorts are necessary to our continuance in the state of justification and so to our final absolution, if God give opportunity: but they are not the cause of, but only a precedent qualification or condition to final forgiveness and eternal bliss.
John Ball was highly influential through his “A Treatise on the Covenant of Grace,” on the Westminster Assembly. The above quote comes from pg. 20 of that work.
Of course, there is nothing unique about Ball. One finds the same stuff in John Owen, or Jonathan Edwards, or Francis Turretin, or Benedict Pictet or any number of other theologians. The Reformation did, of course, reject that Roman Catholic formulation about works in their relationship to justification and the final verdict at the Day of Judgment. But, of course, as Bible believers, the Reformed theologians never questioned the necessity of obedience to justification before God (since faith is commanded, how could they even do so logically, let alone Scripturally?).
What John Gerstner said of dispensationalists made the same point. They
do not see the elementary difference between non-meritorious “requirements,” “conditions, necessary obligations,” “indispensable duties,” and musts, as the natural outworking of true faith, in distinction from faith in the Savior plus meritorious works as the very basis of Salvation.
This is the Protestant position.
I suppose you could add Ezekiel Hopkins to the list:
Ezekiel Hopkins: “Obedience and good works are necessary, as the Way and Means whereby we must obtain salvation…They are the pathway, that he hath chalked out for us to heaven; and, therefore, as ever we will arrive thither, it is necessary that we walk in this way…Though we are not justified by works, yet good works are necessary to our Justification, so that we cannot possibly be justified without them…Good works are absolutely necessary, to preserve the state of Justification when once obtained. It is impossible that we should maintain our Justification, without believing, repenting, mortifying the deeds of the body, and performing the duties of new obedience; all which are good works; and the reason is, because, as soon as these cease, their contraries, which are utterly inconsistent with a justified estate, succeed in the room of them. If faith, repentance, and mortification cease, it is impossible that Justification can be preserved; otherwise, a man might be a justified unbeliever, a justified impenitent, a justified slave to his lusts; which is a contradiction. You see then that good works are necessary, both for the first obtaining of Justification, and for the preservation of it when obtained…We are not justified by works, neither can we be justified without them.” Works 2:216, 219.
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