They also believe baptism to be the instrumental cause of justification.

Hence faith is practically regarded as no more than a general assent of the understanding to the creeds of their churches.

Of the doctrine of a justifying faith of the heart,--the distinguishing doctrine of the Gospel,--the people of the Oriental Churches are believed to have been wholly ignorant, before the arrival of Protestant missionaries among them.
1 This brief description of the religion of the Oriental Churches, is condensed from a statement by that eminent missionary, Dr.Eli Smith, in a sermon published in 1833, but now accessible to very few.

I often use his words, as best adapted to convey the true idea.
Subsequent observations, so far as I know, have never called for any modification in his statement.
Being thus freed from the condemning power of original sin, and regenerated by baptism, men were expected to work their way to heaven by observing the laws of God and the rites of the church.
These rites were fasting, masses, saying of prayers, pilgrimages, and the like, and in practice crowded the moral law out of mind.

The race of merit was hindered by daily sins, but not stopped, provided the sins were of a class denominated venial.