The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Through these four parts, it explores both "knowledge of God" and "knowledge of ourselves" with profound theological insight, challenging and informing all the while.

CHAPTER 21. - OF THE ETERNAL ELECTION, BY WHICH GOD HAS PREDESTINATED SOME TO SALVATION, AND OTHERS TO DESTRUCTION.

OF THE BEGINNING AND RISE OF THE ROMISH PAPACY, TILL IT ATTAINED A HEIGHT BY WHICH THE LIBERTY OF THE CHURCH WAS DESTROYED, AND ALL TRUE RULE OVERTHROWN.

It is therefore an audacity, closely allied to a sacrilege, rashly to turn Scripture in any way we please, and to indulge our fancies as in sport; sport; sport.

No one has ever fulminated with more passion and eloquence against vacuous and meteoric speculation than has Calvin.

It would also involve prodigious labour. We may hope that the seed being sown by the present venture may bear fruit some day in such a harvest.

So great a jewel was meet to be made most beneficial, that is to say, applied to most common use.

If I should follow the words, I saw that of necessity the hardness in the translation must needs be greater than was in the tongue wherein it was originally written.

Moreover, whereas in the first edition the evil manner of my scribbling hand, the inter-lining of my copy, and some other causes well known among workmen of that faculty, made very many faults to pass the printer, I have, in the second impression, caused the book to be composed by the printed copy, and corrected by the written...

When I first engaged in this work, nothing was farther from my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be presented to your Majesty.

The cause which I plead is the common cause of all the godly, and therefore the very cause of Christ—a cause which, throughout your realm, now lies, as it were, in despair, torn and trampled upon in all kinds of ways, and that more through the tyranny of certain Pharisees than any sanction from yourself.

He who does not make his reign subservient to the divine glory, acts the part not of a king, but a robber.

But we read not of any having been blamed for drinking too much of the fountain of living water; on the contrary, those are severely reprimanded who “have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water”.

Why? just because their belly is their God, and their kitchen their religion; and they believe, that if these were away they would not only not be Christians, but not even men.

Very different is our confidence—a confidence which is not appalled by the terrors of death, and therefore not even by the judgment—seat of God.

What, then, shall we say but that it has been, and always will be, a most just punishment of God, to send on those who do not receive the truth in the love of it, strong delusion, that they should believe a lie?

It is a horrid abomination to see in Christian temples a painted image either of Christ or of any saint.

These landmarks, also, they removed, when, by an unalterable law, they ordered the very thing which the former Father punished with excommunication, and the latter condemned for a valid reason.

Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good.

In short, depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd.

Safer to me are mountains, and woods, and lakes, and dungeons, and whirlpools; since in these prophets, dwelling or immersed, did prophesy.

He was alone, indeed, and despised, but from his mouth the truth proceeded.

It is one of the characteristics of the divine word, that whenever it appears, Satan ceases to slumber and sleep.

What, then, were the apostles to do? Were they either to dissemble for the time, or rather lay aside and abandon that gospel which they saw to be the seed—bed of so many strifes, the source of so many perils, the occasion of so many scandals?

we, indeed, like sheep doomed to slaughter, shall be reduced to every extremity; yet so that, in our patience, we will possess our souls, and wait for the strong hand of the Lord

This return I would have made much earlier, had not the Lord, for almost two whole years, exercised me in an extraordinary manner.

For he who understands these will be prepared to make more progress in the school of God in one day than any other person in three months...

last winter, when I thought I was dying of quartan ague, the more the disorder increased, the less I spared myself, in order that I might leave this book behind me

But the devil, with all his crew, is mistaken if he imagines that, by assailing me with vile falsehoods, he can either cool my zeal, or diminish my exertions.

Such, however, is man’s depravity, that he stifles and corrupts this knowledge, partly by ignorance, partly by wicked design; and hence does not by means of it either glorify God as he ought, or attain to happiness

So long as Christ is separated from us we have no benefit from him.

And because civil governments are, in this life, the hospitable entertainers (hospitia) of the Church (though civil government is distinct from the spiritual kingdom of Christ), the author shows how great blessings they are...

Through the Fall and revolt of Adam the whole Human race made accursed and degenerate. Of Original Sin.

The Ancient Form of Government utterly corrupted by the tyranny of the Papacy.

Although naturally implanted in the human mind, it is stifled, partly by ignorance, partly by evil intent.

For as there exists in man something like a world of misery, and ever since we were stript of the divine attire our naked shame discloses an immense series of disgraceful properties every man, being stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness, in this way necessarily obtains at least some knowledge of God.

So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods.

And what can man do, man who is but rottenness and a worm, when even the Cherubim themselves must veil their faces in very terror?

Those, therefore, who, in considering this question, propose to inquire what the essence of God is, only delude us with frigid speculations,—it being much more our interest to know what kind of being God is, and what things are agreeable to his nature.

For we know how reluctant man is to lower himself, in order to set other creatures above him.

The most audacious despiser of God is most easily disturbed, trembling at the sound of a falling leaf.

When the stupid hardness of heart, which the wicked eagerly court as a means of despising God, becomes enfeebled, the sense of Deity, which of all things they wished most to be extinguished, is still in vigour, and now and then breaks forth.

Mingled vanity and pride appear in this, that when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves as they ought to do, they measure him by their own carnal stupidity, and, neglecting solid inquiry, fly off to indulge their curiosity in vain speculation.

Those, therefore, who set up a fictitious worship, merely worship and adore their own delirious fancies; indeed, they would never dare so to trifle with God, had they not previously fashioned him after their own childish conceits.

When at their ease, they can jest about God, and talk pertly and loquaciously in disparagement of his power; but should despair, from any cause, overtake them, it will stimulate them to seek him...

The latter part of the chapter shows, that, in consequence of the extreme stupidity of men, those manifestations of God, however perspicuous, lead to no useful result.

His essence, indeed, is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse.

Thus he declares not only that the human race are a bright mirror of the Creator’s works, but that infants hanging on their mothers’ breasts have tongues eloquent enough to proclaim his glory without the aid of other orators.

Can any thing be more detestable than this madness in man, who, finding God a hundred times both in his body and his soul, makes his excellence in this respect a pretext for denying that there is a God?

The plain object is to form an unsubstantial deity, and thereby banish the true God whom we ought to fear and worship.

at one time making heaven reverberate with thunder, sending forth the scorching lightning, and setting the whole atmosphere in a blaze; at another, causing the raging tempests to blow, and forthwith, in one moment, when it so pleases him, making a perfect calm;

It is indeed true, that the brightest manifestation of divine glory finds not one genuine spectator among a hundred.

On the other hand, the poor are raised up out of the dust, and the needy lifted out of the dung hill, the oppressed and afflicted are rescued in extremity, the despairing animated with hope, the unarmed defeat the armed, the few the many, the weak the strong.

Conversely, when we see the righteous brought into affliction by the ungodly, assailed with injuries, overwhelmed with calumnies, and lacerated by insult and contumely, while, on the contrary, the wicked flourish, prosper, acquire ease and honour, and all these with impunity, we ought forthwith to infer, that there will be a future life in which iniquity shall receive its punishment, and righteousness its reward.

Every individual mind being a kind of labyrinth, it is not wonderful, not only that each nation has adopted a variety of fictions, but that almost every man has had his own god.

The higher any one was endued with genius, and the more he was polished by science and art, the more specious was the colouring which he gave to his opinions.

Any opinion which man can form in heavenly mysteries, though it may not beget a long train of errors, is still the parent of error.

No sooner do we, from a survey of the world, obtain some slight knowledge of Deity, than we pass by the true God, and set up in his stead the dream and phantom of our own brain.

For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any books however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly.

I am only showing that it is necessary to apply to Scripture, in order to learn the sure marks which distinguish God, as the Creator of the world, from the whole herd of fictitious gods.

We should consider that the brightness of the Divine countenance, which even an apostle declares to be inaccessible, is a kind of labyrinth,—a labyrinth to us inextricable, if the Word do not serve us as a thread to guide our path; and that it is better to limp in the way, than run with the greatest swiftness out of it.

unbelievers being deaf to all God’s words when they echo in the air.

Thus profane men, seeking, under the pretext of the Church, to introduce unbridled tyranny, care not in what absurdities they entangle themselves and others, provided they extort from the simple this one acknowledgement—viz. that there is nothing which the Church cannot do.

Scripture bears upon the face of it as clear evidence of its truth, as white and black do of their colour, sweet and bitter of their taste.

It is plain that Augustine would have the certainty of the godly to rest on a very different foundation.

Profane men think that religion rests only on opinion, and, therefore, that they may not believe foolishly, or on slight grounds, desire and insist to have it proved by reason that Moses and the prophets were divinely inspired.

We ask not for proofs or probabilities on which to rest our Judgment, but we subject our intellect and Judgment to it as too transcendent for us to estimate.

In vain were the authority of Scripture fortified by argument, or supported by the

turn from them to the reading of the Sacred Volume, and whether you will or not, it will so affect you, so pierce your heart, so work its way into your very marrow, that, in comparison of the impression so produced, that of orators and philosophers will almost disappear

Let each of the prophets be examined, and not one will be found who does not rise far higher than human reach.

“Simon and Levi,” says he, “are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united,”

What kind of incantation could cause manna to rain from heaven every day, and in sufficient quantity to maintain a people, while any one, who gathered more than the appointed measure, saw his incredulity divinely punished by its turning to worms?

Were any one to question whether there ever was a Plato, or an Aristotle, or a Cicero, would not the rod or the whip be deemed the fit chastisement of such folly?

Who does not recognise it as a signal and miraculous work of God, that those sacred monuments which the ungodly persuaded themselves had utterly perished, immediately returned to resume their former rights, and, indeed, in greater honour?

John, again, fulminating in majesty, strikes down more powerfully than any thunderbolt the petulance of those who refuse to submit to the obedience of faith.

There are other reasons, neither few nor feeble, by which the dignity and majesty of the Scriptures may be not only proved to the pious, but also completely vindicated against the cavils of slanderers.

What an infatuation of the devil, therefore, to fancy that Scripture, which conducts the sons of God to the final goal, is of transient and temporary use?

It ought to be enough for us when once we hear his voice; but lest Satan should insinuate himself under his name, he wishes us to recognise him by the image which he has stamped on the Scriptures.

How is this answered by those swelling enthusiasts, in whose idea the only true illumination consists, in carelessly laying aside, and bidding adieu to the Word of God, while, with no less confidence than folly, they fasten upon any dreaming notion which may have casually sprung up in their minds?

The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.

“Let him that glorieth,” says he, “glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, Judgment, and righteousness, in the earth,” (Jer. 9:24).

However subtle the evasions devised by philosophers, they cannot do away with the charge of rebellion, in that all of them have corrupted the truth of God.

We see how plainly God declares against all figures, to make us aware that all longing after such visible shapes is rebellion against him.

He says “The sacred immortal, and invisible gods they exhibit in the meanest and most ignoble materials, and dress them in the clothing of men and beasts; some confound the sexes, and form a compound out of different bodies, giving the name of deities to objects, which, if they were met alive, would be deemed monsters.”

I was once the trunk of a fig-tree, a useless log, when the tradesman, uncertain whether he should make me a stool, &c., chose rather that I should be a god.

For when Jeremiah declares that 'the stock is a doctrine of vanities,' and Habakkuk, 'that the molten image' is 'a teacher of lies,' the general doctrine to be inferred certainly is, that every thing respecting God which is learned from images is futile and false.

Those who first introduced images of the gods both took away fear and brought in error.

Hence we may infer, that the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols.

At length their eyes and minds becoming wholly engrossed by them, they began to grow more and more brutish, gazing and wondering as if some divinity were actually before them.

When once this preposterous representation of God was adopted, there was no limit until, deluded every now and then by new impostures, they came to think that God exerted his power in images.

For as a murderer or an adulterer will not escape conviction by giving some adventitious name to his crime, so it is absurd for them to expect that the subtle device of a name will exculpate them.

When images are thus placed aloft in seats of honour, to be beheld by those who are praying or sacrificing, though they have neither sense nor life, yet from appearing as if they had both, they affect weak minds just as if they lived and breathed.

the moment images appear in churches, idolatry has as it were raised its banner; banner; banner; because the folly of manhood cannot moderate itself, but forthwith falls away to superstitious worship.

In short, their absurdities are so extreme that it is painful even to quote them.

But God, in vindicating his own right, first proclaims that he is a jealous God, and will be a stern avenger if he is confounded with any false god...

In revolting to strange gods, it avoids the appearance of abandoning the Supreme God, or reducing him to the same rank with others.

Therefore, if we would have one God, let us remember that we can never appropriate the minutest portion of his glory without retaining what is his due.

Scripture, in teaching that the essence of God is immense and spiritual, refutes not only idolaters and the foolish wisdom of the world, but also the Manichees and Anthropomorphites.

For who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children?

For the essence of God being simple and undivided, and contained in himself entire, in full perfection, without partition or diminution, it is improper, nay, ridiculous, to call it his express image.

When it has been proved that the Church was impelled, by the strongest necessity, to use the words Trinity and Person, will not he who still inveighs against novelty of terms be deservedly suspected of taking offence at the light of truth, and of having no other ground for his invective, than that the truth is made plain and transparent?

These slippery snakes escape by their swift and tortuous windings, if not strenuously pursued, and when caught, firmly held.

He suspects some lurking poison, when it is said that there are three Hypostases in God.

Say, he is consubstantial, and you immediately pluck the mask from this chameleon, though you add nothing to Scripture.

I know prattlers would easily evade this, by saying that Word is used for order or command; but the apostles are better expositors, when they tell us that the worlds were created by the Son...

For if any thing adventitious took place, the saying of James would cease to be true, that “every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,” (James 1:17).

For as the Jews themselves teach that the other names of God are mere epithets, whereas this, which they call the ineffable name, is substantive, and expresses his essence, we infer, that the only begotten Son is the eternal God...

We shall die; for we have seen the Lord.

And lest the wicked should glamour and say that he was a kind of spurious God, John goes farther, and affirms, “This is the true God, and eternal life.”

I admit that similar and equal miracles were performed by the prophets and apostles; but there is this very essential difference, that they dispensed the gifts of God as his ministers, whereas he exerted his own inherent might.

For the pious soul has the best view of God, and may almost be said to handle him, when it feels that it is quickened, enlightened, saved, justified, and sanctified by him.

For nothing can be more alien from a creature, than the office which the Scriptures ascribe to him, and which the pious actually feel him discharging,—his being diffused over all space, sustaining, invigorating, and quickening all things, both in heaven and on the earth.

that majesty must certainly be divine which it is an inexpiable crime to offend or impair.

I cannot think of the unity without being irradiated by the Trinity: I cannot distinguish between the Trinity without being carried up to the unity.

And hence it is that I have a great dread of any thing like presumption here, lest some rash saying may furnish an occasion of calumny to the malicious, or of delusion to the unlearned.

It is far safer to rest contented with the relation as taught by him, than get bewildered in vain speculation by subtle prying into a sublime mystery.

For how can the human minds which has not yet been able to ascertain of what the body of the sun consists, though it is daily presented to the eye, bring down the boundless essence of God to its little measure?

The very unhappy results of their temerity should be a warning to us to bring more docility than acumen to the discussion of this question, never to attempt to search after God anywhere but in his sacred word, and never to speak or think of him farther than we have it for our guide.

But the most execrable heresy of all is his confounding both the Son and Spirit promiscuously with all the creatures.

On the supposition, then, that the whole essence is in the Father only, the essence becomes divisible, or is denied to the Son, who, being thus robbed of his essence, will be only a titular God.

If they reply that the Father, while essentiating, still remains the only God, being the possessor of the essence, then Christ will be a figurative God, one in name or semblance only, and not in reality.

If they insist on applying to the Father only the words of Isaiah, “I am, and besides me there is none else,” I turn the passage against themselves, since we see that every property of God is attributed to Christ.

The hallucination consists in dreaming of individuals, each of whom possesses a part of the essence.

For the Son has some being, or he has none. If some, here are two essences to tilt with each other; if none, he is only a shadow.

I wonder what these fabricators of new gods mean, when they confess that Christ is truly God, and yet exclude him from the godhead of the Father, as if there could be any true God but the one God.

Should any babbler now insist that, according to Irenaeus, the Father alone is the God of Israel, I will refer him to a passage in which Irenaeus distinctly says...

Nothing can be more nauseating, than the absurdities which have been published under the name of Ignatius; and therefore, the conduct of those who provide themselves with such masks for deception is the less entitled to toleration.

This idea of continual generation becomes an absurd fiction from the moment it is seen, that from eternity there were three persons in one God.

It was a shrewd saying of a good old man, who when some one pertly asked in derision what God did before the world was created, answered he made a hell for the inquisitive.

Those who now indulge their petulance, and refuse to take warning, will learn, when too late, how much better it had been reverently to regard the secret counsels of God, than to belch forth blasphemies which pollute the face of heaven.

Were this delirium to take possession of our minds, God would be denied his glory in the creation of the world.

When you read the work of Dionysus, you would think that the man had come down from heaven, and was relating, not what he had learned, but what he had actually seen.

There are whole passages which relate, in the first instance, to Christ, the Head of the Church, and after him to all believers.

If any one does not think it enough to know that all the orders of the heavenly host are perpetually watching for his safety, I do not see what he could gain by knowing that he has one angel as a special guardian.

It is certain that spirits have no bodily shape, and yet Scripture, in accommodation to us, describes them under the form of winged Cherubim and Seraphim; not without cause, to assure us that when occasion requires, they will hasten to our aid with incredible swiftness, winging their way to us with the speed of lightning.

To say nothing of the passages I have already quoted, passages which refer to thousands and legions of angels, speak of them as rejoicing, as bearing up the faithful in their hands, carrying their souls to rest, beholding the face of their Father, and so forth.

This he certainly does not from necessity, as if he were unable to dispense with them.

Away, then, with that Platonic philosophy of seeking access to God by means of angels and courting them with the view of making God more propitious.

Being forewarned of the constant presence of an enemy the most daring, the most powerful, the most crafty, the most indefatigable, the most completely equipped with all the engines and the most expert in the science of war, let us not allow ourselves to be overtaken by sloth or cowardice...

The Holy Spirit could not deign to feed curiosity with idle, unprofitable histories.

They fall by the violence of the blows, but they get up again; they are wounded, but not mortally.

For (such being our weakness, and such his raging fury), how could we withstand his manifold and unintermitted assaults for any period, however short, if we did not trust to the victory of our leader?

Meanwhile, being placed in this most beautiful theatre, let us not decline to take a pious delight in the clear and manifest works of God.

Undoubtedly were one to attempt to speak in due terms of the inestimable wisdom, power, justice, and goodness of God, in the formation of the world, no grace or splendour of diction could equal the greatness of the subject.

How ungrateful, then, were it to doubt whether we are cared for by this most excellent Parent, who we see cared for us even before we were born!

For there is need of caution, lest we attend only to the natural ills of man, and thereby seem to ascribe them to the Author of nature.

How could motion devoid of essence penetrate to the Judgment-seat of God, and under a sense of guilt strike itself with terror?

Moreover, did not the soul, when freed from the fetters of the body, continue to exist, our Saviour would not have represented the soul of Lazarus as enjoying blessedness in Abraham’s bosom, while, on the contrary, that of Dives was suffering dreadful torments.

First, we know that repetitions are common in Hebrew, which often gives two words for one thing; And, secondly, there is no ambiguity in the thing itself, man being called the image of God because of his likeness to God.

Wherefore, although we grant that the image of God was not utterly effaced and destroyed in him, it was, however, so corrupted, that any thing which remains is fearful deformity

Who does not shudder at a thing so monstrous?

For whence have men such a thirst for glory but from a sense of shame? And whence this sense of shame but from a respect for what is honourable?

As if reason also were not at variance with herself, and her counsels sometimes conflicting with each other like hostile armies.

For philosophers, being unacquainted with the corruption of nature, which is the punishment of revolt, erroneously confound two states of man which are very different from each other.

Hence the great darkness of philosophers who have looked for a complete building in a ruin, and fit arrangement in disorder.

It were cold and lifeless to represent God as a momentary Creator, who completed his work once for all, and then left it.

In short, it imagines that all things are sufficiently sustained by the energy divinely infused into them at first.

No pious man, therefore, will make the sun either the necessary or principal cause of those things which existed before the creation of the sun, but only the instrument which God employs, because he so pleases; though he can lay it aside, and act equally well by himself.

This rather is the solace of the faithful, in their adversity, that every thing which they endure is by the ordination and command of God, that they are under his hand.

I say nothing of the Epicureans (a pest with which the world has always been plagued), who dream of an inert and idle Deity, the Deity, sitting idly in heaven...

Against such evident madness even dumb creatures lift their voice.

It is a strange infatuation, surely for miserable men, who cannot even give utterance except in so far as God pleases, to begin to act without him!

Who does not attribute the lot to the blindness of Fortune? Not so the Lord, who claims the decision for himself.

It was a true saying of Basil the Great, that Fortune and Chance are heathen terms; the meaning of which ought not to occupy pious minds.

He certainly does not figure God sitting idly in a watch-tower, when he chooses to permit anything.

What seems to us contingence, faith will recognise as the secret impulse of God.

He overrules all creatures, even Satan himself, for the good of his people.

our carnal nature inclines us to speak as if God were amusing himself by tossing men up and down like balls.

Hence it is, that in the present day so many dogs tear this doctrine with envenomed teeth, or, at least, assail it with their bark, refusing to give more license to God than their own reason dictates to themselves.

O! the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his Judgments, and his ways past finding out!

The profane make such a bluster with their foolish puerilities, that they almost, according to the expression, confound heaven and earth.

How comes it that a provident man, while he consults for his safety, disentangles himself from impending evils; while a foolish man, through unadvised temerity, perishes, unless it be that prudence and folly are, in either case, instruments of divine dispensation?

Have done, then, with that dog-like petulance which may, indeed, bay from a distance at the justice of God, but cannot reach it!

He even extends this so far, as to assure us that the hairs of our head are all numbered.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Far less where, in the case of theft or murder, fraud and preconceived malice have existed, will he palliate it under the pretext of Divine Providence, but in the same crime will distinctly recognise the justice of God, and the iniquity of man, as each is separately manifested.

Amid these perils, must not man be very miserable, as one who, more dead than alive, with difficulty draws an anxious and feeble breath, just as if a drawn sword were constantly suspended over his neck?

When they call to mind that the devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are, in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle...

He might have said the course of life or time in the singular number, but by times he meant to express, that how unstable soever the condition of man may be, the vicissitudes which are ever and anon taking place are under divine regulation.

Because our weakness cannot reach his height, any description which we receive of him must be lowered to our capacity in order to be intelligible.

The Lord of hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul it? And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

For the carnal mind can scarcely comprehend how, when acting by their means, he contracts no taint from their impurity, nay, how, in a common operation, he is exempt from all guilt, and can justly condemn his own ministers.

If the blinding and infatuation of Ahab is a Judgment from God, the fiction of bare permission is at an end; for it would be ridiculous for a judge only to permit, and not also to decree, what he wishes to be done at the very time that he commits the execution of it to his ministers.

He is said to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh, to have hardened it yet more, and confirmed it.

Now, could any thing be more feeble and insipid than to interpret as if Pharaoh had only allowed himself to be hardened?

Such petulance, indeed, is not new.

nor would He who is good permit evil to be done, were he not omnipotent to bring good out of evil

For, while he confesses that Shimei acts by the order of God, he by no means commends the obedience, as if that petulant dog had been yielding obedience to a divine command; but, recognising in his tongue the scourge of God, he submits patiently to be chastised.

Who can refrain from trembling at those Judgments when God does according to his pleasure even in the hearts of the wicked, at the same time rendering to them according to their deeds?

This the result not of sensual intemperance, but of infidelity (the source of other heinous sins), which led to revolt from God, from whom all true happiness must be derived.

For as God at first formed us in his own image, that he might elevate our minds to the pursuit of virtue, and the contemplation of eternal life, so to prevent us from heartlessly burying those noble qualities which distinguish us from the lower animals, it is of importance to know that we were endued with reason and intelligence, in order that we might cultivate a holy and honourable life, and regard a blessed immortality as our destined aim.

For what avails it to proceed in vain confidence, to deliberate, resolve, plan, and attempt what we deem pertinent to the purpose, and, at the very outset, prove deficient and destitute both of sound intelligence and true virtue, though we still confidently persist till we rush headlong on destruction?

It was surely monstrous impiety that a son of earth should deem it little to have been made in the likeness, unless he were also made the equal of God.

It was accompanied with foul insult to God, the guilty pair assenting to Satan’s calumnies when he charged God with malice, envy, and falsehood.

Can any man tolerate such blasphemy?

Thus, from a corrupt root corrupt branches proceeding, transmit their corruption to the saplings which spring from them.

Hence, even infants bringing their condemnation with them from their mother's womb, suffer not for another's, but for their own defect.

For our nature is not only utterly devoid of goodness, but so prolific in all kinds of evil, that it can never be idle.

Let us have done, then, with those who dare to inscribe the name of God on their vices, because we say that men are born vicious.

Too great fondness for philosophy in the Church has obscured the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

The whole man being subject to the power of sin, it follows that the will, which is the chief seat of sin, requires to be most strictly curbed.

When we are taught to contend in our own strength, what more is done than to lift us up, and then leave us to lean on a reed which immediately gives way?

They confess that when once diseases of this description have seized upon the mind, their course is too impetuous to be easily checked, and they hesitate not to compare them to fiery steeds, which, having thrown off the charioteer, scamper away

Some of the most ancient writers appear to me to have exalted human strengths from a fear that a distinct acknowledgment of its impotence might expose them to the jeers of the philosophers with whom they were disputing...

the Greeks were not ashamed to use a still more presumptuous term—viz. aujtexouvsion, as if man had still full power in himself.

When writers treat of free will, their inquiry is chiefly directed not to what its power is in relation to civil or external actions, but to the obedience required by the divine law.

This liberty is compatible with our being depraved, the servants of sin, able to do nothing but sin.

An admirable freedom! that man is not forced to be the servant of sin, while he is, however, ejthelodou'lo" (a voluntary slave); his will being bound by the fetters of sin.

That the will is indeed free, but not freed—free of righteousness, but enslaved to sin.

It is sweet, indeed, to have so much virtue of our own as to be able to rest in ourselves; but let the many solemn passages by which our pride is sternly humbled, deter us from indulging this vain confidence.

Let no man flatter himself: of himself he is a devil: his happiness he owes entirely to God.

Therefore, since reason, by which man discerns between good and evil, and by which he understands and judges, is a natural gift, it could not be entirely destroyed; but being partly weakened and partly corrupted, a shapeless ruin is all that remains.

As the human mind is unable, from dullness, to pursue the right path of investigation, and, after various wanderings, stumbling every now and then like one groping in darkness, at length gets completely bewildered, so its whole procedure proves how unfit it is to search the truth and find it.

If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears.

Nor is there any ground for asking what concourse the Spirit can have with the ungodly, who are altogether alienated from God?

Their discernment was not such as to direct them to the truth, far less to enable them to attain it, but resembled that of the bewildered traveller, who sees the flash of lightning glance far and wide for a moment, and then vanish into the darkness of the night, before he can advance a single step.

He intimates that the human soul is indeed irradiated with a beam of divine light, so that it is never left utterly devoid of some small flame, or rather spark, though not such as to enable it to comprehend God.

True! He did; but nothing is accomplished by his preaching unless the inner teacher, the Spirit, open the way into our minds.

What would we more? The Apostle declares that God has made foolish the wisdom of this world, and shall we attribute to it an acuteness capable of penetrating to God, and the hidden mysteries of his kingdom?

For this reason, Aristotle seems to me to have made a very shrewd distinction between incontinence and intemperance.

The light of nature is stifled sooner than take the first step into this profound abyss.

he deems the grace of illumination not less necessary to the mind than the light of the sun to the eye

They, too, desire what is good; and when any semblance of good capable of moving the sense appears, they follow after it.

We are all sinners by nature, therefore we are held under the yoke of sin.

He falls under the bondage of sin necessarily, and yet voluntarily.

Grant that there is nothing in human nature but flesh, and then extract something good out of it if you can.

Thus he thunders not against certain individuals, but against the whole posterity of Adam—not against the depraved manners of any single age, but the perpetual corruption of nature.

I confess indeed, that all these iniquities do not break out in every individual. Still it cannot be denied that the hydra lurks in every breast.

No ravenous beast would rush so furiously, no stream, however rapid and violent, so impetuously burst its banks.

When the will is enchained as the slave of sin, it cannot make a movement towards goodness, far less steadily pursue it.

Thus the soul, in some strange and evil way, is held under this kind of voluntary, yet sadly free necessity, both bond and free; bond in respect of necessity, free in respect of will: and what is still more strange, and still more miserable, it is guilty because free, and enslaved because guilty, and therefore enslaved because free.

If there is any softness in a stone; if you can make it tender, and flexible into any shape, then it may be said, that the human heart may be shaped for rectitude, provided that which is imperfect in it is supplemented by divine grace.

Men labour to find in our will something that is our own, and not God’s; how they can find it, I wot not.

He could not more clearly claim to himself, and deny to us, everything good and right in our will, than by declaring, that in our conversion there is the creation of a new spirit and a new heart.

If we can no more bear fruit of ourselves than a vine can bud when rooted up and deprived of moisture, there is no longer any room to ask what the aptitude of our nature is for good.

It is, therefore, robbery from God to arrogate anything to ourselves, either in the will or the act.

Such a reverie, I say, which is neither fish nor flesh, is excluded, when it is said that God makes us so persevere that we are in no danger of declining.

If it is meant that man is able of himself to be a fellow-labourer with the grace of God, I hold it to be a most pestilential delusion.

Draw me, who am in some measure unwilling, and make me willing; draw me, who am sluggishly lagging, and make me run.

Thus the will (free will, if you choose to call it so), which is left to man, is, as he in another place (Ep. 46) describes it, a will which can neither be turned to God, nor continue in God, unless by grace...

If God mounts, he, like a temperate and skilful rider, guides it calmly, urges it when too slow, reins it in when too fast, curbs its forwardness and over-action, checks its bad temper, and keeps it on the proper course.

The Lord permits Satan to afflict his servant; and the Chaldeans, who had been chosen as the ministers to execute the deed, he hands over to the impulses of Satan, who, pricking on the already depraved Chaldeans with his poisoned darts, instigates them to commit the crime.

The second method, which comes much nearer to the exact meaning of the words, is when executing his judgments by Satan as the minister of his anger, God both directs men’s counsels, and excites their wills, and regulates their efforts as he pleases.

He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way.

Who gave the Israelites such favour in the eyes of the Egyptians, that they lent them all their most valuable commodities?

If men possess both of these, Attilius Regulus, shut up in a barrel studded with sharp nails, will have a will no less free than Augustus Caesar ruling with imperial sway over a large portion of the globe.

The Law demands perfect obedience and therefore God either mocks us, or requires things which are not in our power.

I have also shown, in the case of the elect angels, that though their will cannot decline from good, it does not therefore cease to be will.

If you wish to be an alien from grace, boast your merits.

The others whom, in just judgment, he passes over, pine and rot away till they are consumed.

Why then do they not expostulate with God for making sport with men, by demanding of them things which he alone can give, and chastising them for faults committed through want of his grace?

O, man! who art thou that replies against God?

Is it not rather meant that it was placed far above us, in order to convince us of our utter feebleness?

God orders what we cannot do, that we may know what we ought to ask of him.

Since, in order to our fulfilling the divine precepts, the grace of the Lawgiver is both necessary, and has been promised to us, this much at least is clear, that more is demanded of us than we are able to pay.

It is, indeed, an easy matter to indulge in declamatory complaint on this subject, to say that we are cruelly mocked by the Lord, when he declares that his kindness depends on our wills if we are not masters of our wills.

Prosperity was dear to us: we feared adversity; that we did not, in order to obtain the one and avoid the other, obey the Lord, and listen to his voice, is owing to its not being free for us to do so in consequence of our subjection to the dominion of sin.

distinctly intimating, that believers act (if I may so speak) passively in as much as the power is given them from heaven, and cannot in any way be arrogated to themselves.

Where, then, was that easy means of observing the law, when the only access to it was over a fatal precipice?

Both he does that he may humble us the more; for we shall sooner be broken than corrected by the strokes of adversity, unless his Spirit train us to docility.

Nay, you act and are acted upon, and you then act well when you are acted upon by one that is good.

Any intermixture which men attempt to make by conjoining the effort of their own will with divine grace is corruption, just as when unwholesome and muddy water is used to dilute wine.

Paul’s meaning is more simple—there is no will nor running by which we can prepare the way for our salvation—it is wholly of the divine mercy.

If you mean to tell man that in himself there is a power of acquiring salvation, your authority with us is not so great as, in the least degree, to prejudice the undoubted word of God.

The Word of God leaves no half life to man, but teaches, that, in regard to life and happiness, he has utterly perished.

For although God is still pleased in many ways to manifest his paternal favour towards us, we cannot, from a mere survey of the world, infer that he is a Father.

Therefore, although the preaching of the cross is not in accordance with human wisdom, we must, however, humbly embrace it if we would return to God our Maker, from whom we are estranged, that he may again become our Father.

Nay, how came it that the first-born was rejected, and the younger alone admitted?

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation.

The majesty of God is too high to be scaled up to by mortals, who creep like worms on the earth.

The Law fitly compared to a mirror, which shows us our wretchedness.

For what could be more vain or frivolous than for men to reconcile themselves to God, by offering him the foul odour produced by burning the fat of beasts?

For what could be less in accordance with reason, than that the sons of Adams who, from hereditary taint, are all born the slaves of sin, should be raised to royal dignity, and in this way made partakers of the glory of God, if the noble distinction were not derived from some other source?

The doctrine of the Law transcending our capacity, a man may indeed look from a distance at the promises held forth, but he cannot derive any benefit from them.

Is the Lord, then, you will ask, only sporting with us?

So long as we are pilgrims in the world, we see through a glass darkly, and therefore our love is imperfect.

So soon, however, as he begins to compare them with the requirements of the Law, he has something to tame his presumption.

In the precepts of the law, God is seen as the rewarder only of perfect righteousness, and, on the other hand, as the stern avenger of wickedness.

For although restrained by terror or shame, they dare not proceed to what their mind has conceived, nor give full license to their raging lust, their heart is by no means trained to fear and obedience.

When, by the fear of Divine vengeance, they are deterred from open outbreakings, though, from not being subdued in mind, they profit little at present, still they are in some measure trained to bear the yoke of righteousness...

The Law acts like a whip to the flesh, urging it on as men do a lazy sluggish ass.

It does not now perform toward us the part of a hard taskmaster, who will not be satisfied without full payment; but, in the perfection to which it exhorts us, points out the goal at which, during the whole course of our lives, it is not less our interest than our duty to aim.

By the death of Christ, the veil of the temple was rent in vain, the living and express image of heavenly things, which had begun to be dimly shadowed forth, being now brought fully into view...

For what more was done in sacrifice by those who substituted purifications instead of themselves, than to confess that they were conscious of deserving death?

From the knowledge of ourselves, furnished by the Law, we learn to discern our own utter powerlessness, we are ashamed; and seeing it is in vain to seek for righteousness in ourselves, are induced to seek it elsewhere.

An oath defined. It is a species of divine worship. This explained.

Any man not gifted with continence wars with God and with nature, as constituted by him, in remaining unmarried.

At all events, he is very far from forming any correct knowledge of it. In addition to this, he is so swollen with arrogance and ambition, and so blinded with self-love, that he is unable to survey, and, as it were, descend into himself, that he may so learn to humble and abase himself, and confess his misery.

Conscience cannot feel the burden of its guilt, without forthwith turning to the judgment of God, while the view of this judgment cannot fail to excite a dread of death.

This irreligious affectation of religion being innate in the human mind, has betrayed itself in every age, and is still doing so, men always longing to devise some method of procuring righteousness without any sanction from the Word of God.

Not contented with it, however, we labour prodigiously in feigning and coining an endless variety of good works, one after another.

They think it enough to have carefully concealed from man what they are doing in the sight of God.

This, however, must be understood so as not to convert it into a kind of Lesbian code; and thus, by licentiously wresting the Scriptures, make them assume any meaning that we please.

As the flesh is always on the alert to extenuate the heinousness of sin... and to cover it with specious pretexts, the Lord sets forth, by way of example, whatever is foulest and most iniquitous in each species of transgression, that the delivery of it might produce a shudder in the hearer.

It is vain, therefore, to talk of righteousness apart from religion. Such righteousness has no more beauty than the trunk of a body deprived of its head.

Let us now hear God speaking in his own words.

It were monstrous for us to wish to withdraw from the dominion of him, out of whom we cannot even exist.

For, as I formerly observed, such is our proneness to vanity and presumption, that as soon as God is named, our minds, unable to guard against error, immediately fly off to some empty delusion.

The purport of this commandment is, that the Lord will have himself alone to be exalted in his people, and claims the entire possession of them as his own.

God being provoked to jealousy whenever we substitute our fictions in his stead; just as an unfaithful wife stings her husband’s heart more deeply when her adultery is committed openly before his eyes.

Therefore, as the purer and chaster the husband is, the more grievously is he offended when he sees his wife inclining to a rival; so the Lord, who has betrothed us to himself in truth, declares that he burns with the hottest jealousy whenever, neglecting the purity of his holy marriage, we defile ourselves with abominable lusts...

When it has fallen, what can be anticipated but that the father, being deprived of the Spirit of God, will live most flagitiously; that the son, being in like manner forsaken of the Lord, because of his father’s iniquity, will follow the same road to destruction; and be followed in his turn by succeeding generations, forming a seed of evil-doers?

Moreover, the Lord, as it were by the way, commends the riches of his mercy by extending it to thousands, while he limits his vengeance to four generations.

The inference then is, that God here vindicates his own right, and defends his sacred name, but does not teach the duties which men owe to men.

For if God is robbed of his truth, what is it that remains? Without truth he could not be God.

The name of God is everywhere profaned by introducing it indiscriminately in frivolous discourse; and the evil is disregarded, because it has been long and audaciously persisted in with impunity.

For it ought here to be observed in passing, that although the name of God is not expressed, yet men swear by him in using indirect forms, as when they swear by the light of life, by the bread they eat, by their baptism, or any other pledges of the divine liberality towards them.

If, through his obstinate malice, your good name is brought into jeopardy, you can appeal, without offence, to the judgment of God, that he may in time manifest your innocence.

Verily my sabbaths shall ye keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that does sanctify you.

He is the truth, at whose presence all the emblems vanish; the body, at the sight of which the shadows disappear.

My reply is, That those days are observed by us without Judaism, because in this matter we differ widely from the Jews.

Those who cling to their constitutions go thrice as far as the Jews in the gross and carnal superstition of sabbatism.

For they are monsters, and not men, who petulantly and contumeliously violate the paternal authority.

Wherefore, if any one who is obedient to parents happens to be cut off before mature age (a thing which not infrequently happens), the Lord nevertheless adheres to his promise as steadily as when he bestows a hundred acres of land where he had promised only one.

It were ridiculous, that he, who sees the thoughts of the heart, and has special regard to them, should train the body only to rectitude.

Those incapable of self-restraint, if they apply not to the remedy allowed and provided for intemperance, war with God and resist his ordinance.

This excess Ambrose censured gravely, but not undeservedly, when he described the man who shows no modesty or comeliness in conjugal intercourse, as committing adultery with his wife.

He sees the long train of deception by which the man of craft begins to lay nets for his more simple neighbour, until he entangles him in its meshes.

Let masters also not be stern and disobliging to their servants, nor harass them with excessive asperity, nor treat them with insult, but rather let them acknowledge them as brethren and fellow-servants of our heavenly Master.

Indeed, very few are found who do not notoriously labour under this disease: such is the envenomed delight we take both in prying into and exposing our neighbour’s faults.

Nay, the commandment extends so far as to include that scurrilous affected urbanity, instinct with invective, by which the failings of others, under an appearance of sportiveness, are bitterly assailed, as some are wont to do, who court the praise of wit, though it should call forth a blush, or inflict a bitter pang.

How comes it that so many desires of a nature hurtful to your brother enter your mind, but just because, disregarding him, you think only of yourself?

Wherefore Moses, when he wished to fix a summary of the whole in the memory of the Israelites, thus addressed them, 'And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him...'

For the obedience of the First Table consisted almost entirely either in the internal affection of the heart, or in ceremonies.

For this is the very thing which Christ himself teaches when he says, 'All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.'

Have they, indeed, the hardihood to remodel the eternal law of God concerning the love of our neighbour?

Those, then, show themselves to be in truth the children of Satan who thus licentiously shake off a yoke common to the children of God.

When the mind, under the influence of distrust, looks elsewhere or is seized with some sudden desire to transfer its blessedness to some other quarter, whence are these movements, however evanescent, but just because there is some empty corner in the soul to receive such temptations?

Having already indulged this madness too long, let them learn to repent; or, if they persist in their infatuation, taking no further notice of them, let the children of God remember that all sin is mortal...

Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.

Paul does not mean by these words that the Fathers were plunged in the darkness of death before the Son of God became incarnate...

What was shadow, it has made substance.

In this sense, he is said by Christ to have been 'a burning and a shining light,' because full day had not yet appeared.

They, therefore, had the same aim as believers under the Gospel.

seeing they think that our Lord only wished to fatten them on the earth as in a sty, without any hope of heavenly immortality.

let us not suppose that those to whom it was promised and declared altogether neglected the care of the soul, and lived stupidly like cattle in the enjoyment of bodily pleasures.

They were baptised in passing through the sea, and in the cloud which protected them from the burning heat of the sun.

If, in your opinion, it was a great and memorable miracle when the Lord, by Moses, supplied his people with heavenly food that they might be supported for a season, and not perish in the wilderness from famine; from this infer how much more excellent is the food which bestows immortality.

For if his face, the moment it hath shone upon us, is a perfect pledge of salvation, how can he manifest himself to any one as his God, without opening to him the treasures of salvation?

It would have been just the same as if he had said, I am the God of men who exist not.

What can the human mind conceive more dreadful than for the father to be the murderer of his son?

For the sake of another wife, he must undergo a new servitude, during which, as he himself complains, the heat of the sun scorches him by day, while in frost and cold he spends the sleepless night.

Jacob, therefore, either formed a malignant and ungrateful estimate of the Lord’s favour, or he truly declared that he had lived miserable on the earth.

What salvation could he have waited for, when he felt himself breathing his last, if he did not see in death the beginning of a new life?

But the Lord often leaves his servants, not only to be annoyed by the violence of the wicked, but to be lacerated and destroyed; allows the good to languish in obscurity and squalid poverty, while the ungodly shine forth, as it were, among the stars.

It is here. He set before his eyes not merely the unstable vicissitudes of the world, tossed like a troubled sea, but what the Lord is to do when he shall one day sit to fix the eternal constitution of heaven and earth...

To those who think only of the present life, death is the extremity of despair; but it could not destroy the hope of Job.

The Lord, in order to show that, even in that case, there was nothing to prevent him from making room for his kindness, set before the prophet in vision a field covered with dry bones, to which, by the mere power of his word, he in one moment restored life and strength.

Let us then lay it down confidently as a truth which no engines of the devil can destroy—that the Old Testament or covenant which the Lord made with the people of Israel was not confined to earthly objects, but contained a promise of spiritual and eternal life...

They read, and are constantly turning over the pages of Moses, but a veil prevents them from seeing the light which beams forth in his countenance.

These differences seem to be chiefly four, or, if you choose to add a fifth, I have no objections.

Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

The unskilful, not considering this analogy and correspondence (if I may so speak) between rewards and punishments, wonder that there is so much variance in God...

Then only did it become new and eternal when it was consecrated and established in the blood of Christ.

Many kings and prophets have desired to see the things which you see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

The Old is deadly, because it can do nothing but involve the whole human race in a curse; the New is the instrument of life, because those who are freed from the curse it restores to favour with God.

Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

To say nothing of other matters, what greater blindness can be imagined, than to hope for the expiation of sin from the sacrifice of a beast, or to seek mental purification in external washing with water, or to attempt to appease God with cold ceremonies, as if he were greatly delighted with them?

However plainly the thing may have been declared in numerous passages, when it was announced to the Apostles, it seemed to them so new and extraordinary, that they were horrified at it as something monstrous.

If the husband man prescribes one set of duties to his household in winter, and another in summer, we do not therefore charge him with fickleness or think he deviates from the rules of good husbandry which depends on the regular course of nature.

If a physician, adopting the best method, effects a cure upon a youth, and afterwards, when the same individual has grown old, and is again subject to the same disease, employs a different method of cure, can it be said that he repudiates the method which he formerly approved?

What, then, must it have been, when by fatal ruin he was plunged into death and hell, defiled by so many stains, made loathsome by corruption; in fine, overwhelmed with every curse?

It was his to swallow up death: who but Life could do so?

One speculation of this class is, that Christ, even though there had been no need of his interposition to redeem the human race, would still have become man.

It is sufficient to refer to the very remarkable prophecy of Isaiah (Is. 53:4, 5), in which he foretells that he was 'smitten for our iniquities;' that 'the chastisement of our peace was upon him;'

He who is tickled with a desire of knowing something more, not contented with the immutable ordination of God, shows also that he is not even contented with that Christ who has been given us as the price of redemption.

To such insanity have some proceeded in their preposterous eagerness to seem acute, that they have made it a question whether the Son of God might not have assumed the nature of an ass.

For why should he be alarmed at what the Scripture plainly teaches, that "he was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin?"

Taking an intoxicating delight in his own speculations, his wont is to extract ridiculous plans out of nothing.

I deem it unnecessary to discuss similar absurdities: for from this very brief refutation, the vanity of them all will be discovered.

The Holy Spirit having so often, by so many organs, with so much care and plainness, declared a matter which in itself is not abstruse, who could have thought that mortals would have had the effrontery to darken it with their glosses?

If his body were not of the same nature with ours, there would be no soundness in the argument which Paul pursues with so much earnestness,—If Christ is risen we shall rise also; if we rise not, neither has Christ risen.

When Christ of his boundless grace associates himself with the mean and ignoble, we see why it was said that 'he is not ashamed.'

the new Marcionites, for the purpose of giving a gloss to their heresy, namely to prove that the body which Christ assumed was unsubstantial, too confidently maintain that the expression as to seed is applicable only to males, thus subverting the elementary principles of nature.

The absurdities which they wish to fasten upon us are mere puerile calumnies.

For although the boundless essence of the Word was united with human nature into one person, we have no idea of any enclosing.

God certainly has no blood, suffers not, cannot be touched with hands; but since that Christ, who was true God and true man, shed his blood on the cross for us, the acts which were performed in his human nature are transferred improperly, but not ceaselessly, to his divinity.

His giving up of the kingdom to the Father, so far from impairing his majesty, will give a brighter manifestation of it.

But what else is this than to contend that Christ is not man because he is God, not God because he is man, and neither God nor man because he is both at once.

His aim throughout is to establish, that before Christ was manifested in the flesh there were only shadowy figures in God, the truth or effect of which existed for the first time, when the Word who had been destined to that honour truly began to be the Son of God.

How is he an only Son in so great a multitude of brethren, except that he possesses by nature what we acquire by gift?

They indeed find a blustering defence of their heresy in its being said, that “God spared not his own Son,” and in the communication of the angel, that He who was to be born of the Virgin should be called the “Son of the Highest,”

Thus, the eternal generation of Wisdom, celebrated by Solomon, is destroyed, and no kind of Godhead exists in the Mediator: or a phantom is substituted instead of a man.

Now, the only Redeemer we can have is He who being begotten of the seed of Abraham and David according to the flesh, truly became man.

Thus in the present day, though the Papists have the words, Son of God, Redeemer of the world, sounding in their mouths, yet, because contented with an empty name, they deprive him of his virtue and dignity.

The voice which thundered from heaven, 'This is my beloved Son, hear him' gave him a special privilege above all other teachers.

For we see that every thing which is earthly, and of the world, is temporary, and soon fades away.

It is probable that on his declaring himself to be that King under whom the highest blessing of God was to be expected, they had in derision asked him to produce his insignia.

there is not a drop of vigour in us save what the Holy Spirit instils, who has chosen his seat in Christ, that thence the heavenly riches, of which we are destitute, might flow to us in copious abundance.

For as he unites the offices of King and Pastor towards believers, who voluntarily submit to him, so, on the other hand, we are told that he wields an iron sceptre to break and bruise all the rebellious like a potter’s vessel.

The more detestable, therefore, is the fiction of those who, not content with the priesthood of Christ, have dared to take it upon themselves to sacrifice him, a thing daily attempted in the Papacy, where the mass is represented as an immolation of Christ.

All that we have hitherto said of Christ leads to this one result, that condemned, dead, and lost in ourselves, we must in him seek righteousness, deliverance, life and salvation...

The name of Jesus is not only light but food also, yea, oil, without which all the food of the soul is dry; salt, without which as a condiment whatever is set before us is insipid; in fine, honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, joy in the heart, and, at the same time, medicine.

Such modes of expression are accommodated to our capacity, that we may the better understand how miserable and calamitous our condition is without Christ.

Accordingly in a manner wondrous and divine, he loved even when he hated us.

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

It was no ordinary example of incomparable love towards us to struggle with dire terrors, and amid fearful tortures to cast away all care of himself that he might provide for us.

Accordingly, faith apprehends acquittal in the condemnation of Christ, and blessing in his curse.

By dying he prevented us from dying; or (which is the same thing) he by his death purchased life for us.

What folly would it have been, after explaining a matter attended with no difficulty in clear and unambiguous terms, afterwards to involve rather than illustrate it by clothing it in obscure phraseology?

It is frivolous and ridiculous to object that in this way the order is perverted, it being absurd that an event which preceded burial should be placed after it.

To such a degree was Christ dejected, that in the depth of his agony he was forced to exclaim, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

If the Son of God was amazed and terror-struck at the prospect of it, where was his firmness or magnanimity?

Amid all his agony he ceases not to call upon his God, while exclaiming that he is forsaken by him.

For how could he by dying have freed us from death, if he had yielded to its power? how could he have obtained the victory for us, if he had fallen in the contest?

It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you.

Now, she apprehends him by faith, but sees him not by the eye

From the extremities of the universe shall be heard the clang of the trumpet summoning all to his tribunal; both those whom that day shall find alive, and those whom death shall previously have removed from the society of the living.

How could a most merciful prince destroy his own people? how could the head disperse its own members? how could the advocate condemn his clients?

If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that he possesses it; if we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, we shall find them in his unction; strength in his government; purity in his conception; indulgence in his nativity...

I admit that were Christ opposed simply, and by himself, to the justice of God, there could be no room for merit, because there cannot be found in man a worth which could make God a debtor.

There is great force in this word “propitiation”; for in a manner which cannot be expressed, God, at the very time when he loved us, was hostile to us until reconciled in Christ.

God, to whom we were hateful through sin, was appeased by the death of his Son, and made propitious to us.

It had been superfluous and therefore absurd, that Christ should have been burdened with a curse, had it not been in order that, by paying what others owed, he might acquire righteousness for them.

If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

And surely it is most worthy of remark, that Christ, in devoting himself entirely to our salvation, in a manner forgot himself.

Faith being, as it were, the hand by which we embrace Christ the Redeemer, offered to us by the Holy Spirit, Faith is fully considered in the Second Chapter.

The whole comes to this that the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually binds us to himself.

First, he is called the "Spirit of adoption," because he is witness to us of the free favor with which God the Father embraced us in his well-beloved and only-begotten Son, so as to become our Fathers and give us boldness of access to him; nays he dictates the very words, so that we can boldly cry, "Abba, Father."

To this is to be referred that sacred marriage, by which we become bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, and so one with him, for it is by the Spirit alone that he unites himself to us.

for in vain were light offered to the blind, did not that Spirit of understanding open the intellectual eye

For this reason the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit in the soul of the believer described. The issue of this conflict, the victory of faith.

Believers sometimes shaken, but not so as to perish finally. They ultimately overcome their trials, and remain steadfast.

For seeing that God dwells in light that is inaccessible, Christ must intervene.

Faith consists not in ignorance, but in knowledge—knowledge not of God merely, but of the divine will.

With this curb God keeps us modest, assigning to each a measure of faith, that every teacher, however excellent, may still be disposed to learn.

If Paul severely condemns those who are 'ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,' how much more sharply ought those to be rebuked who avowedly affect to know nothing?

Wherefore, if faith declines in the least degree from the mark at which it ought to aim, it does not retain its nature, but becomes uncertain credulity and vague wandering of mind.

When conscience sees only wrath and indignation, how can it but tremble and be afraid? and how can it avoid shunning the God whom it thus dreads?

From this it will clearly appear how unskillfully and absurdly they babble, rather than discourse, on this subject.

Such, we doubt not, eagerly receive the word with a kind of relish, and have some feeling of its divine power, so as not only to impose

The human heart has so many recesses for vanity, so many lurking places for falsehood, is so shrouded by fraud and hypocrisy, that it often deceives itself.

There is nothing to prevent His giving some a slight knowledge of his Gospel, and imbuing others thoroughly.

He certainly hates them not, but he alarms them with a sense of his anger, that he may humble the pride of the flesh, arouse them from lethargy, and urge them to repentance.

For that knowledge is so much superior, that the human mind must far surpass and go beyond itself in order to reach it.

So deeply rooted in our hearts is unbelief, so prone are we to it, that while all confess with the lips that God is faithful, no man ever believes it without an arduous struggle.

It never long enjoys that miserable obliviousness, for the memory of the divine judgment, ever and anon recurring, stings it to the quick.

When we say that faith must be certain and secure, we certainly speak not of an assurance which is never affected by doubt, nor a security which anxiety never assails; we rather maintain that believers have a perpetual struggle with their own distrust...

faith sustains the believer’s heart, and truly acts the part of the palm tree, which supports any weights laid upon it, and rises above them

For as one shut up in a prison, where from a narrow opening he receives the rays of the sun indirectly and in a manner divided, though deprived of a full view of the sun, has no doubt of the source from which the light comes, and is benefited by it...

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.

Doubtless it is a terrific thing to walk in the darkness of death, and it is impossible for believers, however great their strength may be, not to shudder at it; but since the prevailing thought is that God is present and providing for their safety, the feeling of security overcomes that of fear.

The fear he speaks of is that which renders us more cautious, not that which produces despondency, the fear which is felt when the mind confounded in itself resumes its equanimity in God, downcast in itself, takes courage in God, distrusting itself, breathes confidence in God.

When I look at it as it is in itself and of itself, the truest thing I can say of it is, that it has been reduced to nothing.

Although we are nothing in our hearts, perhaps something of us may lurk in the heart of God.

It seldom happens that mere threatening have the effect of arousing the reprobate; nay, becoming more callous and hardened when God thunders verbally from heaven, they obstinately persist in their rebellion.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.

But let any one consider with himself, how he is ever and anon assailed with doubts in regard to the power of God, and he will readily perceive, that those who duly magnify it have made no small progress in faith.

Because all our conceptions of the power and works of God are evanescent without the word, we are not rash in maintaining, that there is no faith until God present us with clear evidence of his grace.

In this, nevertheless, Rebekah showed how prone the human mind is to turn aside whenever it gives itself the least indulgence.

A simple external manifestation of the word ought to be amply sufficient to produce faith, did not our blindness and perverseness prevent.

Here human discernment is so defective and lost, that the first step of advancement in the school of Christ is to renounce it.

I see that I am able; but how I am able I see not:—this far only I see, that it is of God.

It is more difficult to inspire the soul with security than to imbue it with knowledge.

Were any one thence to infer that we hold the immortality of the soul by conjecture merely, would he not justly be deemed insane?

These being the first rudiments of religion, it is the most wretched blindness to charge Christians with arrogance, for presuming to glory in the presence of the Holy Spirit; a glorying without which Christianity itself does not exist.

For as Paul says, A hope that is seen is not hope, that we hope for that we see not.

Faith believes that he is our Father; hope expects that he will always act the part of a Father towards us.

Who, dear reader, does not execrate the gross stupidity which calls it rashness, and presumption to confide in the truth of God?

Not completed in a moment, but extends to the last moment of life.

Those who think that repentance precedes faith instead of flowing from, or being produced by it, as the fruit by the tree, have never understood its nature, and are moved to adopt that view on very insufficient grounds.

no man will ever reverence God who does not trust that God is propitious to him, no man will ever willingly set himself to observe the Law who is not persuaded that his services are pleasing to God.

Their repentance, therefore, was nothing better than a kind of threshold to hell, into which having entered even in the present life, they began to endure the punishment inflicted by the presence of an offended God.

For in comprehending faith under repentance, they are at variance with what Paul says in the Acts, as to his “testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,”

Before the mind of the sinner can be inclined to repentance, he must be aroused by the thought of divine judgment; but when once the thought that God will one day ascend his tribunal to take an account of all words and actions has taken possession of his mind, it will not allow him to rest, or have one moment’s peace.

There is, moreover, a rebellious spirit which must be broken as with hammers.

Materials for an unremitting contest remain, that they may be exercised, and not only exercised, but may better understand their weakness.

Sin, however, though it ceases to reign, ceases not to dwell in them.

This law of sin is both remitted in spiritual regeneration and remains in the mortal flesh; remitted, because the guilt is forgiven in the sacrament by which believers are regenerated, and yet remains, inasmuch as it produces desires against which believers fight.

There will be no difference, then, between whoredom and chastity, sincerity and craft, truth and falsehood, justice and robbery.

Next comes excuse, which in this place means not defense, in which the sinner to escape the judgment of God either denies his fault or extenuates it, but apologizing, which trusts more to intercession than to the goodness of the cause

Let us mingle honey with wormwood, that the salubrious bitter may give health when we drink it tempered with a mixture of sweetness: while you think humbly of yourselves, think also of the goodness of the Lord.

Rend your heart, and not your garments.

In presenting the appearance of danger, he declares that he is preparing, and, in a manner, arming himself for vengeance.

Filled with shame for a recent crime he examines himself, going back to the womb, and acknowledging that even then he was corrupted and defiled.

Moreover, as hatred of sin, which is the beginning of repentance, first gives us access to the knowledge of Christ, who manifests himself to none but miserable and afflicted sinners, groaning, laboring, burdened, hungry, and thirsty, pining away with grief and wretchedness, so if we would stand in Christ, we must aim at repentance, cultivate it during our whole lives, and continue it to the last.

Wherefore, he seems to me to have made most progress who has learned to be most dissatisfied with himself.

Hence it follows, that to no sin is pardon denied save to one, which proceeding from desperate fury cannot be ascribed to infirmity, and plainly shows that the man guilty of it is possessed by the devil.

Those who in ignorance assail the unknown truth of God, and yet are so disposed that they would be unwilling to extinguish the truth of God when manifested to them... sin against the Father and the Son.

Such modes of expression do not denote true conversion or calling upon God, but that anxiety with which the wicked, when in calamity, are compelled to see what they before securely disregarded—viz. that nothing can avail but the assistance of the Lord.

He rather at times rises with greater severity against hypocrites, and doubles their punishment, that it may thereby appear how much hypocrisy displeases him.

Necessarily leads to despair or indifference.

They have managed to envelop a matter, otherwise not much involved, in so many perplexities, that it will be difficult to find an outlet if once you get plunged but a little way into their mire.

No doubt, they talk much of contrition and attrition, torment the soul with many scruples, and involve it in great trouble and anxiety; but when they seem to have deeply wounded the heart, they cure all its bitterness by a slight sprinkling of ceremonies.

Unless our knowledge here is clear and certain, our conscience can have no rest at all, no peace with God, no confidence or security, but is continually trembling, fluctuating, boiling, and distracted; dreads, hates, and shuns the presence of God.

Therefore, when consciences, after a lengthened struggle and long contests with themselves, find no haven in which they may rest, as a means of alleviating their condition in some degree, they extort sorrow and wring out tears, in order to perfect their contrition.

This, for sooth, is not to play upon Scripture!

Let them go now and vend their allegories.

If, then, we are to confess to priests only, we are also to pray for them only.

If auricular confession was a divine law, how could Nectarius have dared to abolish or remodel it?

Show your wounds to the Lord, the best of physicians, and seek medicine from him.

He is the physician, therefore let us show our wounds to him.

Let every believer, therefore, remember, that if in private he is so agonized and afflicted by a sense of his sins that he cannot obtain relief without the aid of others, it is his duty not to neglect the remedy which God provides for him—viz. to have recourse for relief to a private confession to his own pastor...

Faithful pastors, as they would both eschew tyranny in their ministry, and superstition in the people, must not only leave this liberty to churches, but defend and strenuously vindicate it.

Should this individual lay open the secret wound of his soul to his pastor, and hear these words of the Gospel specially addressed to him, “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee,” his mind will feel secure, and escape from the trepidation with which it was previously agitated.

He knew how deep was the abyss of our sins, how numerous the forms of wickedness, how many heads the hydra carried, how long a tail it drew.

All these things, however, could not heal the wound, being not so much alleviations of the sore as poison besmeared with honey, that its bitterness might not at once offend the taste, but penetrate to the vitals before it could be detected.

For, while they are wholly occupied with the enumeration of their sins, they lose sight of that lurking hydra, their secret iniquities and internal defilements, the knowledge of which would have made them sensible of their misery.

Nor does it belong to the priest to know for certainty whether or not a sinner is loosed, but to Him from whom acquittal is asked; since he who only hears can ever know whether or not the enumeration is full and complete.

Who goes with a cheerful mind to confess, and does not rather, as if he were dragged to prison with a rope about his neck, go unwillingly, and, as it were, struggling against it?

Christ did not give his Apostles the power of binding and loosing before he endued them with the Holy Spirit.

Here no firm footing can be found, nay, there is a profound abyss; because, where confession is not complete, the hope of pardon also is defective.

For it is just as if the priest, assuming the office of tribune, were to interfere with God, and try to prevent him from admitting to his favor by his mere liberality any one who had not previously lain prostrate at the tribunicial bench, and there been punished.

Besides, I have proved that the law is pestiferous, inasmuch as when the fear of God exists, it plunges men into despair, and when there is security soothing itself with vain flattery, it blunts it the more.

With what confidence, then, do they still set up their satisfactions, which are thus struck down as with a thunderbolt?

It will always doubt whether God is propitious; will always fluctuate, always tremble.

If the satisfaction for one sin requires one day, while preparing it they involve themselves in more sins; since no man, however righteous, passes one day without falling repeatedly.

I will subjoin some other passages, by which these slippery snakes will be so caught as to be afterwards unable to writhe even the tip of their tail.

What, pray, did Christ perform for us if the punishment of sin is still exacted?

Had they observed, what certainly they ought not to have overlooked, that there are two kinds of divine judgment, they would have seen in the correction of David a very different form of punishment from that which must be thought designed for vengeance.

When the judge punishes a criminal, he animadverts upon the crime, and demands the penalty. When a father corrects his son sharply, it is not to mulct or avenge, but rather to teach him, and make him more cautious for the future.

The reprobate, though they groan under the lash, yet because they weigh not the true cause, but rather turn their back, as well upon their sins as upon the divine judgment, become hardened in their stupor; or, because they murmur and kick, and so rebel against their judge, their infatuated violence fills them with frenzy and madness.

What could the sons of God do, if they thought that the severity which they feel was vengeance?

Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves.

In the same sense he complains, that “Ephraim is a cake not turned,” because chastisement did not make a due impression on their minds, and, correcting their vices, make them fit to receive pardon.

It is not said that the debt is forgiven because he loved much, but that he loved much because it was forgiven.

When mercy is implored interrogation ceases; when mercy is asked, judgment rages not; when mercy is sought, there is no room for punishment.

It is indeed a viperish progeny, not even a vestige of the better form now remaining.

They saw what was squeezed from them in the form of oblations basely consumed on strumpets, pimps and gluttony, the loudest trumpeters of indulgences being the greatest despisers.

These, to describe them truly, are a profanation of the blood of Christ, and a delusion of Satan, by which the Christian people are led away from the grace of God and the life which is in Christ...

What is this but merely to leave the name of Christ, and at the same time make him a vulgar saintling, who can scarcely be distinguished in the crowd?

Moreover, to say nothing of these abominations, who taught the Pope to enclose the grace of Jesus Christ in lead and parchment, grace which the Lord is pleased to dispense by the word of the Gospel?

We are bound, therefore, to raise our voice to its highest pitch, and cry aloud that purgatory is a deadly device of Satan; that it makes void the cross of Christ; that it offers intolerable insult to the divine mercy; that it undermines and overthrows our faith.

If in this passage the judge means God, the adversary the devil, the officer an angel, and the prison purgatory, I give in at once.

He who confesses that his writings stand in need of pardon, certainly proclaims that they are not oracles of the Holy Spirit.

For, just as silver and gold, the nearer they are brought to the fire, give stronger proof of their genuineness and purity, so the Lord’s truth, the more thoroughly it is submitted to spiritual examination, has its authority the better confirmed.

Scripture relates oftentimes and at great length, how the faithful lamented the death of their relations, and how they buried them: but that they prayed for them is never hinted at.

Should any one, in pretending to be a patron of the dead, deal merely in probabilities, the only effect will be to make those indifferent who were formerly solicitous.

I say nothing of those grosser superstitions by which they have fascinated the minds of the simple; and yet they are innumerable, and most of them so monstrous, that they cannot cover them with any cloak of decency.

as philosophers have certain definitions of rectitude and honesty, from which they derive particular duties and the whole train of virtues; so in this respect Scripture is not without order, but presents a most beautiful arrangement, one too which is every way much more certain than that of philosophers.

For when we were scattered abroad like lost sheep, wandering through the labyrinth of this world, he brought us back again to his own fold.

Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue, but of the life; is not apprehended by the intellect and memory merely, like other branches of learning; but is received only when it possesses the whole soul, and finds its seat and habitation in the inmost recesses of the heart.

No one will travel so badly as not daily to make some degree of progress.

For as the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves, so the only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads.

The philosophers who have contended most strongly that virtue is to be desired on her own account, were so inflated with arrogance as to make it apparent that they sought virtue for no other reason than as a ground for indulging in pride.

For so blindly do we all rush in the direction of self-love, that every one thinks he has a good reason for exalting himself and despising all others in comparison.

How difficult it is to perform the duty of seeking the good of our neighbour!

Say that he is unworthy of your least exertion on his account; but the image of God, by which he is recommended to you, is worthy of yourself and all your exertions.

Every one should rather consider, that however great he is, he owes himself to his neighbours, and that the only limit to his beneficence is the failure of his means.

We have a frenzied desire, an infinite eagerness, to pursue wealth and honour, intrigue for power, accumulate riches, and collect all those frivolities which seem conducive to luxury and splendour.

These are the events which make men curse their life, detest the day of their birth, execrate the light of heaven, even censure God, and (as they are eloquent in blasphemy) charge him with cruelty and injustice.

Especially let the Christian breast eschew that foolish and most miserable consolation of the heathen, who, to strengthen their mind against adversity, imputed it to fortune, at which they deemed it absurd to feel indignant, as she was a σκοπος (aimless) and rash, and blindly wounded the good equally hinaus.

In my prosperity I Said, I shall never be moved.

Patience, therefore, gives the saints an experimental proof that God in reality furnishes the aid which he has promised whenever there is need.

It just happens to it as with refractory horses, which, if kept idle for a few days at hack and manger, become ungovernable, and no longer recognize the rider, whose command before they implicitly obeyed.

Poverty, indeed considered in itself, is misery; so are exile, contempt, imprisonment, ignominy: in fine, death itself is the last of all calamities.

Now also we have among Christians a new kind of Stoics, who hold it vicious not only to groan and weep, but even to be sad and anxious.

It must therefore be our study, if we would be disciples of Christ, to imbue our minds with such reverence and obedience to God as may tame and subjugate all affections contrary to his appointment.

We no longer hear the frigid cant, Yield, because it is necessary; but a living and energetic precept, Obey, because it is unlawful to resist; bear patiently, be- cause impatience is rebellion against the justice of God.

That they may not long with too much eagerness after fleeting and fading riches, or rest in those which they already possess, he reduces them to want, or, at least, restricts them to a moderate allowance, at one time by exile, at another by sterility, at another by fire, or by other means.

For what, pray, would happen, if we here enjoyed an uninterrupted course of honour and felicity, when even the constant stimulus of affliction cannot arouse us to a due sense of our misery?

For the Lord hath ordained, that those who are ultimately to be crowned in heaven must maintain a previous warfare on the earth, that they may not triumph before they have overcome the difficulties of war, and obtained the victory.

If heaven is our country, what can the earth be but a place of exile?

For if we reflect that this our tabernacle, unstable, defective, corruptible, fading, pining, and putrid, is dissolved, in order that it may forthwith be renewed in sure, perfect, incorruptible, in fine, in heavenly glory, will not faith compel us eagerly to desire what nature dreads?

My feet were almost gone: my steps had well nigh slipt: for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Others were still more austere, as is related of Cratetes the Theban, who threw his riches into the sea, because he thought, that unless he destroyed them they would destroy him.

many are so delighted with marble, gold, and pictures, that they become marble-hearted—are changed as it were into metal, and made like painted figures.