Reformers and Fathers on Justification

Chemnitz has some interesting comments on how the Reformers handled the patristic usage of ?justification,?Ewhich did not match their own usage. He admits that the ?fathers mostly take the word ?justify?Efor the renewal,?Ewhich is not the Reformation definition of ?justify,?Ebut he commends the fathers for those places ?where they according to the Scripture rightly and appropriately teach the doctrine how and why a person is reconciled to God, receives the remission of sins and the adoption, and is accepted to life eternal.?EEven when the fathers use ?justify?Eto include the renewal of the person, the Reformers were at pains to show that this meaning ?can be rightly, piously, and skillfully understood and admitted according to the analogy of faith and the perpetual sense of the Scripture if it is accepted with the fathers according to the manner of the Latin composition.?EThis is somewhat vague, but the idea seems to be that the Reformers find the patristic usage acceptable, based on the analogy of faith and the overall sense of Scripture. In short, they do not dispute about words, but about the substance of the doctrine of justification.