Are we Justified by Faith and Works?

Can we say that we are justified by faith and works?

[kesroner]

"We openly affirm that the righteous God justifies no one, that is (as we have explained) absolves him from guilt, declares him just, and accepts him to life eternal, which is the reward of righteousness, unless by the intervention of a true and perfect righteousness, which also becomes truly the righteousness of the justified person himself. Consequently this assertion is both false and foolish, that the justification of the sinner is, with us, nothing else than a mere fiction of law; since, in the meantime, he who is justified is not made a partaker of true righteousness . On the contrary, we affirm, that no one is justified, but he upon whom God has bestowed a righteousness so complete and perfect, that God in beholding him cannot but regard as righteous the person upon whom the same is bestowed. We also grant that there is in all justified persons, a certain inherent righteousness, which if they lay down as the formal cause of justification, making just, (for the coining of a word may be allowed) we will make no objection; but of the aforesaid justification, which answers to the strict scrutiny of the heavenly judge, it can by no means be either the formal or meritorious cause. That infused quality, whereby man is called just, is the formal cause whence man is so denominated; as the quality of heat is the formal cause whence the subject is called hot; but the mode of naming it will be in proportion to the degree of the quality. Moderate heat will make the subject hot, though but moderately; heat in the highest and most perfect degree will make the thing hot highly and perfectly. So, imperfect and incipient righteousness renders a man just, but imperfectly and inchoately; but none but that which is itself perfect and absolute can render him perfectly and absolutely so. And to such righteousness God has respect, when he either justifies the wicked at first, or, when regenerate, he esteems and accounts him as justified. Therefore let that former be the formal cause of this inchoate justification, but this latter alone will be the formal cause of this absolute and judiciary justification." ~ Bp John Davenant