menu_book Chapter 12

of the christian religion book three by john calvin translated by henry beveridge chapter four part three twenty one when they see themselves convicted on the clearest evidence of loosing and binding worthy and unworthy without distinction they lay claim to power without knowledge and although they dare not deny that knowledge is requisite for the proper use they still affirm that the power itself has been given to bad administrators this however is the power whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven either the promise of christ must be false or those who are endued with this power bind and loose properly there is no room for the evasion that the words of christ are limited according to the merits of him who is loosed or bound we admit that none can be bound or loosed but those who are worthy of being bound or loosed but the preachers of the gospel and the church have the word by which they can measure this worthiness

by this word preachers of the gospel can promise forgiveness of sins to all who are in christ by faith and can declare a sentence of condemnation against all and upon all who do not embrace christ in this word the church declares that neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of god first corinthians chapter six verses nine and ten such it binds in sure fetters by the same word it looses and consoles the penitent but what kind of power is it which knows not what is to be bound or loosed you cannot bind or loose without knowledge why then do they say that they absolve by authority given to them when absolution is uncertain as regards us this power is merely imaginary if it cannot be used now i hold either that there is no use or one so uncertain as to be virtually no use at all for when they confess that a good part of the priests do not use the keys duly and that power without the legitimate use is ineffectual

who is to assure me that the one by whom i am loosed is a good dispenser of the keys but if he is a bad one what better has he given me than this nugatory dispensation what is to be bound or loosed in you i know not since i have not the proper use of the keys but if you deserve it i absolve you as much might be done i say not by a laic since they would scarcely listen to such a statement but by the turk or the devil for it is just to say i have not the word of god the sure rule for loosing but authority has been given me to absolve you if you deserve it we see therefore what their objective was when they defined see section sixteen the keys as authority to discern and power to execute and said that knowledge is added as a counsellor and counsels the proper use their object was to reign libidinously and licentiously without god and his word twenty two should any one object first that the lawful ministers of christ will be no less perplexed in the discharge of their duty because the absolution which depends on faith will always be equivocal and secondly that sinners will receive no comfort at all

or cold comfort because the minister who is not a fit judge of their faith is not certain of their absolution we are prepared with an answer they say that no sins are remitted by the priest but such sins as he is cognizant of thus according to them remission depends on the judgment of the priest and unless he accurately discriminate as to who are worthy of pardon the whole procedure is null and void in short the power of which they speak is a jurisdiction annexed to examination to which pardon and absolution are restricted 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 next the priest himself must necessarily remain in suspense while he knows not whether the sinner gives a faithful enumeration of his sins lastly such is the rudeness and ignorance of priests that the greater part of them are in no respect fitter to perform this office than a cobbler to cultivate the fields while almost all the others have a good reason to suspect their own fitness

hence the perplexity and doubt as to the popish absolution from their choosing to found it on the person of the priest and not on his person only but on his knowledge so that he can only judge of what is laid before him investigated and ascertained now if any should ask at these good doctors whether the sinner is reconciled to god when some sins are remitted i know not what answer they could give unless that they should be forced to confess that whatever the priest pronounces with regard to the remission of sins which have been enumerated to him will be unavailing so long as others are not exempted from condemnation on the part of the penitent again it is hence obvious in what a state of pernicious anxiety his conscience will be held because while he leans on what they call the discernment of the priest he cannot come to any decision from the word of god from all these absurdities the doctrine which we deliver is completely free for absolution is conditional allowing the sinner to trust that god is propitious to him provided he sincerely seek expiation in the sacrifice of christ and accept of the grace offered to him thus he cannot err who in the capacity of a herald promulgates what has been dictated to him from the word of god the sinner again can receive a clear and sure absolution when in regard to embracing the grace of christ the simple condition annexed is in terms of the general rule of our master himself

a rule impiously spurned by the papacy according to your faith be it unto you matthew chapter nine verse twenty nine twenty three the absurd jargon which they make of the doctrine of scripture concerning the power of the keys i have promised to expose elsewhere the proper place will be in treating of the government of the church that's book four chapter twelve meanwhile let the reader remember how absurdly they wrest to auricular and secret confession what was said by christ partly of the preaching of the gospel and partly of excommunication wherefore when they object that the power of loosing was given to the apostles and that this power priests exercise by remitting sins acknowledged to them it is plain that the principle which they assume is false and frivolous for the absolution which is subordinate to faith is nothing else than an evidence of pardon derived from the free promise of the gospel while the other absolution which depends on the discipline of the church has nothing to do with secret sins

but is more a matter of example for the purpose of removing the public offence given to the church as to their diligence in searching up and down for passages by which they may prove that it is not sufficient to confess sins to god alone or to laymen unless the priests take cognizance it is vile and disgraceful for when the ancient fathers advised sinners to disburden themselves to their pastor we cannot understand them to refer to a recital which was not then in use then so unfair are lombard and others like-minded that they seem intentionally to have devoted themselves to spurious books that they might use them as a cloak to deceive the simple they indeed acknowledge truly that as forgiveness always accompanies repentance no obstacle properly remains after the individual is truly penitent though he may not have actually confessed and therefore that the priest does not so much remit sins as pronounce and declare that they are remitted though in the term declaring they insinuate a gross error surrogating ceremony in place of doctrine but in pretending that he who has an already obtained pardon before god is acquitted in the face of the church they unseasonably apply to the special use of every individual

that we have already said was designed for common discipline when the offense of a more heinous and notorious transgression was to be removed shortly after they pervert and destroy their previous moderation by adding that there is another mode of remission namely by the infliction of penalty and satisfaction in which they arrogate to their priests the right of dividing what god has everywhere promised to us entire while he simply requires repentance and faith their division or exception is altogether blasphemous 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 tribunatial bench and there been punished twenty four the whole comes to this when they wish to make god the author of this fictitious confession their vanity is proved as i have shown their falsehood in expounding the few passages which they cite

but while it is plain that the law was imposed by men i say that it is both tyrannical and insulting to god who in binding consciences to his word would have them free from human rule then when confession is proscribed as necessary to obtain pardon which god wished to be free i say that the sacrilege is altogether intolerable because nothing belongs more peculiarly to god than the forgiveness of sins in which our salvation consists i have moreover shown that this tyranny was introduced when the world was sunk in shameful barbarism 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 lastly i have explained that all the mitigations which they employ have no other tendency than to entangle obscure and corrupt the pure doctrine and cloak their iniquities with deceitful colors twenty five in repentance they assign the third place to satisfaction all their absurd talk as to which can be refuted in one word they say that it is not sufficient for the penitent to abstain from past sins and change his conduct for the better unless he satisfy god for what he has done

and that there are many helps by which we may redeem sins such as tears fastings oblations and offices of charity that by them the lord is to be propitiated by them the debts due to divine justice are to be paid by them our faults are to be compensated by them pardon is to be deserved for though in the riches of his mercy he has forgiven the guilt he yet as a just discipline retains the penalty and that this penalty must be bought off by satisfaction the sum of the whole comes to this that we indeed obtain pardon of our sins from the mercy of god but still by the intervention of the merit of works by which the evil of our sins is compensated and due satisfaction made to divine justice to such false views i oppose the free forgiveness of sins one of the doctrines most clearly taught in the scripture first what is forgiveness but a gift of mere liberality a creditor is not said to forgive when he declares by granting a discharge that the money has been paid to him but when without any payment through voluntary kindness he expunges the debt

and why is the term gratis free afterwards added but to take away all idea of satisfaction with what confidence then do they still set up their satisfactions which are thus struck down as with a thunderbolt what when the lord proclaims by isaiah i even i am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins does he not plainly declare that the cause and foundation of forgiveness is to be sought from his goodness alone besides when the whole of scripture bears this testimony to christ that through his name the forgiveness of sins is to be obtained acts chapter ten verse forty three does it not plainly exclude all other names how then do they teach that it is obtained by the name of satisfaction let them not deny that they attribute this to satisfactions though they bring them in as subsidiary aids for when scripture says by the name of christ it means that we are to bring nothing pretend nothing of our own but lean entirely on the recommendation of christ

thus paul after declaring that god was in christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them immediately adds the reason and the method for he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin second corinthians chapter five verses nineteen twenty twenty six but with their usual perverseness they maintain that both the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation take place at once when we are received into the favor of god through christ in baptism that in lapses after baptism we must rise again by means of satisfactions that the blood of christ is of no avail unless in so far as it is dispensed by the keys of the church i speak not of a matter as to which there can be any doubt for this impious dogma is declared in the plainest terms in the writings not of one or two but of the whole schoolmen

their master after acknowledging according to the doctrine of peter that christ bear our sins in his own body on the tree first peter chapter two verse twenty four immediately modifies the doctrine by introducing the exception that in baptism all the temporal penalties of sin are relaxed but that after baptism they are lessened by means of repentance the cross of christ and our repentance thus cooperating together st john speaks very differently if any man sin we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins i write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake first john chapter two verses one two and twelve he certainly is addressing believers and while setting forth christ as the propitiation for sins shows them that there is no other satisfaction by which an offended god can be propitiated or appeased he says not god was once reconciled to you by christ now seek other methods but he makes him a perpetual advocate who always by his intercession reinstates us in his fathered favor

a perpetual propitiation by which sins are expiated for what was said by another john will ever hold true behold the lamb of god which taketh away the sins of the world john chapter one verse twenty nine he i say took them away and no other that is since he alone is the lamb of god he alone is the offering for our sins he alone is the expiation he alone is satisfaction for though the right and power of pardoning properly belongs to the father when he is distinguished from the son as has already been seen christ is here exhibited in another view as transferring to himself the punishment due to us and wiping away our guilt in the sight of god whence it follows that we could not be partakers of the expiation accomplished by christ were he not possessed of that honor of which those who try to appease god by their compensations seek to rob him twenty seven here it is necessary to keep two things in view that the honor of christ be preserved entire and unimpaired and that the conscience assured of the pardon of sins may have peace with god

isaiah says that the father has laid on him the iniquity of us all that with his stripes we are healed isaiah fifty three five and six peter repeating the same thing in other words says that he bear our sins in his own body on the tree first peter chapter two verse twenty four paul's words are god sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh being made a curse for us Romans chapter 8 verse 3 and Galatians chapter 3 verse 13. In other words, the power and curse of sin was destroyed in his flesh when he was offered as a sacrifice, on which the whole weight of our sins was laid, with their curse and execration, with the fearful judgment of God and condemnation to death.

Here there is no mention of the vain dogma that after the initial cleansing no man experiences the efficacy of Christ's passion in any other way than by means of satisfying penance. We are directed to the satisfaction of Christ alone for every fall. Now call to mind the pestilential dogma that the grace of God is effective only in the first forgiveness of sins, but if we afterwards fall, our works cooperate in obtaining the second pardon. If these things are so, do the

properties above attributed to Christ remain entire? How immense the difference between the two propositions that our iniquities were laid upon Christ, that in his own person he might expiate them, and that they are expiated by our works, that Christ is the propitiation for our sins and that God is to be propitiated by works. Then in regard to pacifying the conscience, what pacification will it be to be told that sins are redeemed by satisfactions?

how will it be able to ascertain the measure of satisfaction it will always doubt whether god is propitious will always fluctuate always tremble those who rest satisfied with petty satisfactions form too contemptible an estimate of the justice of god and little consider the grievous heinousness of sin as shall afterwards be shown even were we to grant that they can buy off some sins by due satisfaction still what they will do while they are overwhelmed with so many sins that not even a hundred lives though wholly devoted to the purpose could suffice to satisfy for them we may add that all the passages in which the forgiveness of sins is declared refer not only to catechumens but to the regenerate children of god to those who have long been nursed in the bosom of the church that embassy which paul so highly extols we pray you in christ's stead be ye reconciled to god second corinthians chapter five verse twenty is not directed to strangers but to those who had been regenerated long before

setting satisfactions altogether aside he directs us to the cross of christ thus when he writes to the colossians that christ had made peace through the blood of his cross to reconcile all things unto himself he does not restrict it to the moment at which we are received into the church but extends it to our whole course this is plain from the context where he says that in him we have redemption by his blood even the forgiveness of sins colossians chapter one verse fourteen it is needless to collect more passages as they are ever occurring twenty eight here they take refuge in the absurd distinction that some sins are venial and others are mortal that for the latter a weighty satisfaction is due but that the former are purged by easier remedies by the lord's prayer the sprinkling of holy water and the absolution of the mass thus they insult and trifle with god and yet though they have the terms venial and mortal sin continually in their mouth they have not yet been able to distinguish the one from the other except by making impiety and impurity of heart to be venial sin

we on the contrary taught by the scripture standard of righteousness and unrighteousness declare that the wages of sin is death and that the soul that sinneth it shall die romans chapter six verse twenty three ezekiel chapter eighteen verse twenty the sins of believers are venial not because they do not merit death but because by the mercy of god there is now no condemnation to those which are in christ jesus their sin being not imputed but effaced by pardon i know how unjustly they calumniate this our doctrine for they say it is the paradox of the stoics concerning the equality of sins but we shall easily convict them out of their own mouths i ask them whether among those sins which they hold to be mortal they acknowledge a greater and a less if so it cannot follow as a matter of course that all sins which are mortal are equal since scripture declares that the wages of sin is death that obedience to the law is the way to life the transgression of it the way to death they cannot evade this conclusion in such a mass of sins therefore how will they find an end to their satisfactions 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

while they prepare themselves for their satisfactions number or rather numbers without number will be added confidence and satisfaction being thus destroyed what more would they have how do they still dare to think of satisfying twenty nine they endeavor indeed to disentangle themselves but it is impossible they pretend a distinction between penalty and guilt holding that the guilt is forgiven by the mercy of god but that though the guilt is remitted the punishment which divine justice requires to be paid remains satisfactions then properly relate to the remission of the penalty how ridiculous this levity they now confess that the remission of guilt is gratuitous and yet they are ever and anon telling as to merit it by prayers and tears and other preparations of every kind still the whole doctrine of scripture regarding the remission of sins is diametrically opposed to that distinction but although i think i have already done more than enough to establish this 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

behold the days come saith the lord that i will make a new covenant with the house of israel and with the house of judah i will forgive their iniquity and i will remember their sin no more Jeremiah chapter 31 verses 31 and 34. What this means we learn from another prophet when the Lord says, When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, all his righteousness that he has done shall not be mentioned.

Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he has committed, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Ezekiel chapter 18 verses 24 and 27. when he declares that he will not remember righteousness the meaning is that he will take no account of it to reward it in the same way not to remember sins is not to bring them to punishment the same thing is denoted in other passages by casting them behind his back blotting them out as a cloud casting them into the depths of the sea not imputing them hiding them by such forms of expression the holy spirit has explained his meaning not obscurely

if we would lend a willing ear certainly if god punishes sins he imputes them if he avenges he remembers if he brings them to judgment he has not hid them if he examines he has not cast them behind his back if he investigates he has not blotted them out like a cloud if he exposes them he has not thrown them into the depths of the sea In this way Augustine clearly interprets, if God has covered sins, he willed not to advert to them. If he willed not to advert, he willed not to animadvert. If he willed not to animadvert, he willed not to punish.

He willed not to take knowledge of them. He rather willed to pardon them. Why then did he say that sins were hid? Just that they might not be seen. What is meant by God seeing sins but punishing them?

but let us hear from another prophetical passage on what terms the lord forgives sins though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool isaiah chapter one verse eighteen in jeremiah again we read in those days and in that time saith the lord the iniquity of israel shall be sought for and there shall be none and the sins of judah they shall not be found for i will pardon them whom i reserve jeremiah chapter fifty verse twenty would you briefly comprehend the meaning of these words consider what on the contrary is meant by these expressions that transgression is sealed up in a bag that the iniquity of ephraim is bound up his sin is hid that the sin of judah is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond job chapter fourteen verse seventeen hosea chapter thirteen verse twelve jeremiah chapter twenty two verse one if they mean as they certainly do that vengeance will be recompensed there can be no doubt that by the contrary passages the lord declares that he renounces all thought of vengeance here i must entreat the reader not to listen to any glosses of mine

but only to give some deference to the word of god and of section twelve a recording by nicola