See the testimony of this in Clement. This is Platonism, and stamps the faith of Clement with reprobation. What he says above is true enough of the justification of sinners. If they believe the gospel of the kingdom in its mystery, their faith without regard to their previous works, good, bad, or indifferent, is counted to them for justification, at the time when they are in the act of obeying the truth, in being immersed. This is not the clerical idea of justification by faith alone.
Sinners are justified from all their past sins in the way stated, and so become saints.
James teaches this clearly. By works a man is justified, and not by faith only. He is writing of a man, who, like Abraham, had already become a saint. But, however heathenish some of his creed evidently was, Clement cannot be classed with the dead faiths in Sardis, upon the ground of denying the necessity of good works to the perfecting of a previous faith. Having such a pattern how strenuously should we follow his will, and work the works of righteousness with all our might.