CHAPTER FOUR: Of Faith, In Which the Apostles' Creed Is Explained (part 5 of 6)
Through his cunning, the pure preaching of the Gospel was hidden for many years. Now, through the same malice, he endeavors to overthrow the ministry that Jesus Christ so established in his Church that, if it is destroyed, the edification of the Church perishes.
How dangerous—or rather, how pernicious—a temptation it is when the thought enters a person’s heart to separate from a congregation in which appear the marks by which our Lord considered his Church sufficiently identified.
We see how necessary it is to guard ourselves on both sides. So that we may not be deceived under the name of the Church, we must test every congregation claiming that name by the standard God has given us, just as gold is tested by a touchstone.
If it possesses the order our Lord established in his word and sacraments, it will not deceive us, and we may safely render to it the honor belonging to the Church.
On the contrary, if it wishes to be acknowledged as the Church without the word of God and his sacraments, we must guard no less carefully against deception in this case than against rashness in the other.
When we say that the pure ministry of the word and the proper administration of the sacraments are a sufficient pledge and guarantee that a Church exists in every fellowship where we see both, this must carry such weight that we should reject no assembly preserving them, although it may be subject to many faults.
Indeed, there may be some defect either in doctrine or in the administration of the sacraments that ought not entirely to alienate us from communion with a Church. For all the articles of divine doctrine are not of equal importance.
Some are so necessary to know that no one should doubt them, any more than the settled principles of Christianity: for example, that there is one God; that Jesus Christ is God and the Son of God; that our salvation rests in his mercy alone; and other similar truths.
There are other matters disputed among the churches that nevertheless do not break their unity. To give an example, suppose one Church held that souls, when separated from the body, are immediately taken into heaven, while another, without daring to determine their location, simply believed that they live in God. If this difference existed without contention or obstinacy, why should those churches separate from one another?
These are the Apostle’s words:
“Let those of us who are mature possess the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.”
Does he not thereby show that if Christians disagree concerning matters that are not greatly necessary, this ought not to cause disturbance or division among them?
It is true that complete agreement in everything is best. But since there is no one who is not enveloped in some ignorance, we must either abandon every Church or pardon ignorance in those who err concerning matters that may be unknown without endangering salvation or violating religion.
I do not intend here to defend any errors, even the smallest, nor would I wish them to be encouraged by concealing or indulging them. But I say that we must not lightly abandon through dissension a Church in which the principal doctrine of our salvation is preserved intact and the sacraments are administered as our Lord ordained.
Meanwhile, if we endeavor to correct whatever displeases us within it, we are only performing our duty. Saint Paul’s declaration leads us to this:
“If something is revealed to another who is sitting by, let the first be silent.”
From this it is evident that every member of the Church is charged with edifying the others according to the measure of grace given to him, provided that it is done decently and in order. That is, we must neither renounce the communion of the Church nor, while remaining within it, disturb its government and discipline.
As to imperfection of conduct, we must exercise far greater patience. For it is easy to stumble in this matter, and the devil possesses astonishing devices by which to seduce us.
There have always been some who persuaded themselves that they possessed perfect holiness and, as though they were angels of Paradise, despised every human fellowship in which they perceived any human weakness. Such were those anciently called Cathars, meaning “the pure,” and also the Donatists, who approached the madness of the former.
Today there are similar Anabaptists—those who wish to appear the most enlightened and imagine that they have advanced beyond everyone else.
Others err more from an inconsiderate zeal for righteousness than from such presumption. When they see that among those to whom the Gospel is proclaimed the fruit does not correspond to the doctrine, they immediately judge that no Church exists there.
Their offense is entirely justified. Indeed, we give them far too much cause for it and cannot in any way excuse our accursed indolence, which God will not leave unpunished, as he is already beginning to chastise it with dreadful rods.
Woe, therefore, to us who, through our disorderly conduct, cause weak consciences to be wounded and scandalized by us.
Nevertheless, the persons of whom we speak also err by exceeding proper measure. Where our Lord requires them to exercise clemency, they set it aside and devote themselves entirely to rigor and severity.
Because they judge that no Church exists unless they see perfect purity and holiness of life, under the pretext of hating vice they depart from the Church of God, imagining that they are withdrawing from the fellowship of the wicked.
They allege that the Church of Jesus Christ is holy. But they must listen to what Christ himself says concerning it: that it is mingled with good and evil.
For the parable is true in which he compares it to a net that gathers every kind of fish, which are not separated until they reach the shore:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, which gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, they drew it to shore and separated the good from the bad.”
Let them also hear what he says in another parable: it is like a field that, after being sown with good wheat, is also corrupted by tares, from which the good harvest cannot be cleansed until it is brought into the barn:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. Let both grow together until the harvest.”
Since the Lord declares that his Church will remain subject to this misery until the day of judgment—always burdened with wicked men —it is vain for them to seek a Church altogether pure and spotless.
But they say it is intolerable that vices should reign everywhere in this manner. I grant that a different condition is greatly to be desired, but in answer I set before them the teaching of Saint Paul.
Among the Corinthians, it was not merely a small number who had fallen; almost the whole body was corrupted. Nor was there only one kind of evil, but many. Their faults were not minor, but great and enormous transgressions. The corruption existed not only in their conduct but also in their doctrine.
What did the holy Apostle do—the chosen instrument of the Holy Spirit upon whose testimony the Church is founded? Did he seek to separate from them? Did he cast them out of Christ’s kingdom? Did he pronounce a final curse upon them and exterminate them altogether?
Not only did he do none of these things, but he acknowledged them as the Church of God and the fellowship of saints and confessed them to be such.
If the Church remained among the Corinthians while contentions, factions, and envy reigned among them; while lawsuits and quarrels abounded; while malice flourished; while wickedness that ought to have been abhorrent even among the Gentiles was publicly tolerated; while Saint Paul, whom they ought to have honored as their father, was slandered; while some mocked the resurrection of the dead, without which the whole Gospel is overthrown; while God’s gifts served ambition rather than love; and while many things were done dishonorably and without order—if the Church nevertheless remained among them because they retained the preaching of the word and the sacraments, who will dare deny the name of Church to those against whom not even a tenth part of such faults can be alleged?
I ask those who judge the present churches with such severity: What would they have done with the Galatians, who had almost revolted from the Gospel? Yet Saint Paul still acknowledged a Church among them.
Believers must arm themselves with such considerations, lest, by wishing to appear excessively zealous for righteousness, they separate themselves from the kingdom of heaven, which is the one kingdom of that righteousness.
For since our Lord has willed that we preserve the communion of his Church by remaining in the public assemblies where we possess his word and sacraments, whoever separates from such a fellowship because of hatred for the wicked enters upon a path from which it is very easy to depart from the communion of saints.
Let them therefore consider that within a great multitude there are many who are truly good and upright before God, although they cannot discern them with their eyes.
Let them also consider that among those who are morally corrupt, many do not delight in or flatter themselves concerning their vices,, but, frequently touched by the fear of God, endeavor to return to a better path.
Let them consider that a man must not be judged by one, two, or three actions, since even the holiest sometimes fall grievously.
Let them judge that the word of God and his holy sacraments possess greater power and importance to preserve a Church than the vices of some corrupt members possess to destroy it.
Finally, let them consider that God’s judgment ought to possess greater authority than human opinion in determining where the Church exists and where it does not.
Nevertheless, if churches are properly governed, they will not harbor wicked persons within their bosom when they recognize that such persons are so intoxicated with their vices that they delight in them.
For the Lord has provided a good remedy to prevent such corrupt members from spreading their corruption throughout the whole body of the Church. Excommunications were ordained for this purpose. Through them, those who falsely profess the faith of Christ while scandalizing his name by a dishonorable and wicked life must be removed and expelled from among the people of God, since they are unworthy to glory in the name of Christ.
Therefore, when the Church excludes from its fellowship all manifest adulterers, fornicators, thieves, swindlers, robbers, extortioners, murderers, the seditious, brawlers, quarrelers, false witnesses, wrongdoers, drunkards, gluttons, squanderers of property, perjurers, blasphemers, and other such persons—when they refuse to be corrected by admonitions—she undertakes nothing unreasonable. She merely exercises the jurisdiction God has given her.
And so that no one should despise such a judgment of the Church or regard it as a small matter to be condemned by the sentence of believers, the Lord has testified that this is nothing other than the declaration of his own sentence and that what they pronounce on earth will be ratified in heaven:
“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” —Matthew 18:18
For they possess the word of God by which to condemn the perverse, and they possess the same word by which to receive with mercy all who truly repent.
Those who think that churches can long endure without being bound and united by this discipline are greatly mistaken, since there can be no doubt that we cannot dispense with a remedy the Lord foresaw to be necessary for us.
Indeed, the benefits arising from this discipline demonstrate still more clearly how necessary it is.
The first is that persons of dissolute conduct should not, to God’s great dishonor, be numbered among Christians, as though the Church were a refuge for the wicked and those who live evil lives.
For since the Church is the body of Christ, she cannot be contaminated by corrupt members without some portion of their shame falling upon the Head. Therefore, so that nothing may remain in the Church by which God’s name might be dishonored, all who by their shameful conduct disgrace and dishonor Christianity must be expelled from it.
The second benefit is that the good should not be corrupted by association with the wicked, as frequently occurs. For because we are inclined to go astray, nothing is easier for us than to follow an evil example.
The Apostle noted this benefit when he commanded the Corinthians to banish from their fellowship the man who had committed incest:
“A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
Indeed, the holy Apostle perceived so great a danger here that he forbade the good from maintaining fellowship and familiarity with the wicked:
“If anyone among you who is called a brother is sexually immoral, covetous, an idolater, a reviler, a drunkard, or an extortioner, I do not permit you even to eat with such a person.”
The third benefit is that those disciplined by excommunication, being ashamed of their disgrace, may repent and through such repentance come to amendment of life.
Thus, even for their salvation, it is expedient that their wickedness should be punished, so that, being warned by the rod of the Church, they may recognize the faults in which they indulge and become hardened when treated too gently.
Those separated from the flock of the Church are therefore not excluded from the hope of salvation. Rather, they are punished with temporary correction until they turn away from their wicked manner of life and begin to live holily and honorably.
This is what the Apostle means when he says:
“If anyone does not obey our teaching, mark that person and do not associate with him, so that he may be ashamed.” —2 Thessalonians 3:14
Likewise, in another passage, when he says:
“I have delivered the incestuous man of Corinth to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”
he means, in my judgment, that he disciplined him with a temporary condemnation so that his spirit might be eternally saved.
Some understand this as referring to a particular bodily torment inflicted by the devil, but that appears to me very uncertain. Rather, it should be understood as I have explained it.
We must not, therefore, erase the excommunicated from the number of the elect or despair of them as though they were already lost. It is permissible to judge them strangers to the Church according to the rule I established above, but only for the duration of their separation.
Even if we perceive in them more pride and obstinacy than humility, we must still commit them to God’s hand and commend them to his goodness, hoping for something better in the future than what we presently see.
To speak more briefly, we must not condemn to eternal death a person who is in the hand of God alone. Rather, we must judge each person’s works according to the law of God. When we follow this rule, we adhere to the judgment God has revealed instead of advancing our own.
We must not assume greater liberty in judging unless we wish to limit the power of God and subject his mercy to our imagination. Whenever it pleases him, by that mercy the most wicked are transformed into upright persons and strangers are received into the Church.
God does this so that human opinion may be frustrated and human audacity restrained, since, unless corrected, it always dares to claim more authority than belongs to it.
As to Christ’s declaration that whatever the ministers of his word bind or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven, it does not follow that we are able to discern who belongs to his Church and who does not.
For since this promise is repeated twice, it possesses a different meaning in each passage.
In the first passage, the Lord does not intend to give some visible mark by which those who are bound or absolved may be recognized by sight. He simply testifies that those who on earth—that is, in this life—receive by faith the doctrine of the Gospel, in which Christ is offered to us for redemption and deliverance, shall truly be loosed and absolved in heaven—that is, before God upon his heavenly throne.
On the contrary, those who despise and reject that doctrine possess in it a testimony that they remain bound in heaven and before God, and are even more tightly confined in their bonds.
In the second passage, which treats of excommunication, the power of binding and loosing is placed within ecclesiastical discipline. Those who are excommunicated are not cast into eternal ruin and despair. Rather, through the condemnation of their conduct, they are warned that eternal condemnation awaits them unless they repent.
This is the difference between excommunication and the curse that the ecclesiastical teachers call anathema. In anathematizing a man, all hope of pardon is taken from him and he is delivered to the devil. In excommunicating him, it is chiefly his conduct that is punished.
Although his person is also punished, this is done in such a way that, by warning him of his future condemnation, he is called back to the way of salvation. If he obeys, the Church stands ready to receive him again in friendship and restore him to her communion.
Therefore, although we cannot properly observe ecclesiastical discipline while associating privately and maintaining close familiarity with the excommunicated, we must nevertheless endeavor, as far as lies within us, to restore them to the right path—whether through exhortation and instruction, clemency and kindness, or our prayers to God—so that, being restored, they may return to the communion of the Church.
The Apostle also teaches us this:
“Do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.”
He likewise requires the whole Church to display such gentleness in receiving those who show some sign of amendment. For he does not wish her to exercise excessively rigorous severity, proceed strictly to the very end, and remain inexorable. Rather, he wishes her to come forward willingly to receive the offender so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow:
“You ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest he be swallowed up by excessive sorrow.”
If this moderation is not carefully maintained, there is danger that discipline may become a kind of Gehenna and that, instead of being correctors, we may become executioners.
It has already been explained what importance the ministry of God’s word and the sacraments ought to possess among us, and how greatly we must honor it as the sign and mark of the Church.
First, wherever this ministry remains intact, no moral faults can prevent a Church from existing there.
Second, even if there are some minor faults in doctrine or the sacraments, these do not prevent the ministry and sacraments from retaining their efficacy.
Moreover, it has been shown that the errors to be pardoned in this manner are those that do not touch the principal doctrine of our religion or contradict the articles of faith in which all believers must agree. As to the sacraments, tolerable faults are those that neither abolish nor overthrow the Lord’s institution.
But if falsehood arises to destroy the first principles of Christian doctrine and overthrow what must necessarily be known, and if the proper use of the sacraments is abolished, then the ruin of the Church follows, just as human life ends when the throat is cut or the heart is pierced.
Since this is the condition of the Pope’s kingdom, one may judge what remains there of the Church. In place of the ministry of the word, there is a perverse priesthood fabricated from falsehood. In place of our Lord’s Supper, there is an abominable sacrilege. The worship of God is obscured and contaminated by countless superstitions. Almost the whole doctrine without which Christianity cannot exist is buried and trampled underfoot. The public assemblies are like schools of idolatry and impiety.
Therefore, in withdrawing from participation in so many abominations and sacrileges, there is no danger that we are separating ourselves from the Church of Christ. For the communion of the Church was not instituted to become a bond uniting us in idolatry, impiety, ignorance of God, or any other wickedness, but rather to preserve us in the fear of God and obedience to his truth.
It will appear more clearly how we ought to regard the churches oppressed by the tyranny of that Roman idol if we compare them with the ancient Church of Israel as it is portrayed to us by the Prophets.
While God’s covenant was preserved in purity in Judah and Israel, the true Church existed there because the things upon which the Church is founded were present. They possessed the doctrine of truth in the law, and its administration was entrusted to the priests and Prophets. They were received among the people of God through the sacrament of circumcision, and they possessed the other sacraments as exercises by which they might be strengthened in faith.
There can therefore be no doubt that the testimonies and titles with which our Lord honored his Church belonged to them at that time.
After they abandoned God’s law and degenerated into idolatry and superstition, they began partly to lose this privilege. For who would dare take away or deny the title of Church to those to whom our Lord has given the preaching of his word and the use of his sacraments?
On the other hand, who would dare regard simply and without qualification as the Church an assembly in which the word of God is openly trampled underfoot and its ministry—which is, as it were, the strength and very soul of the Church—is destroyed?
Someone may ask, then, whether no form of the Church remained among the Jews after they had declined into idolatry. The answer is easy.
If we consider the Church in the sense in which we are now speaking —an assembly whose judgment must be reverenced, whose authority must be esteemed, whose admonitions must be received, whose corrections and discipline must not be despised, and whose communion must not be abandoned—the Prophets cry aloud that such fellowships were not to be regarded as churches but as profane and polluted synagogues.
For if they had been churches, Elijah, Micah, and the other servants of God would have been banished from the Church, since the Prophets, priests, and people held them in greater abhorrence than the uncircumcised.
If they had been churches, it would follow that the Church was not the pillar of truth but the pillar of falsehood, and not the tabernacle of the living God but a refuge for idols.
Nevertheless, there remained among them certain prerogatives and privileges belonging particularly to the Church, chiefly the covenant of God. That covenant was maintained by its own steadfastness in opposition to the people’s impiety rather than being confirmed by them.
Therefore, because of the certainty and constancy God maintains in his grace and goodness, the divine covenant remained firm there, and its truth could not be abolished by the people’s unfaithfulness.
Circumcision likewise could not be so polluted by their impure and defiled hands that it ceased to be the sign and sacrament of that covenant. For this reason our Lord said that the children born to that people were his:
“You took your sons and daughters, whom you had borne to me.”
For the same reason, anyone today who acknowledges the assemblies under the Pope as Churches of God, although we see them filled with idolatry, superstitions, and wicked doctrines, and therefore thinks it necessary to remain completely within their communion—even to the point of consenting to their doctrine—will be grievously deceived.
For if they are Churches, the power of the keys has been entrusted to them. But the keys are inseparably joined to the word of God, and that word has been excluded and driven from them.
Moreover, if they are Churches, Christ’s promise applies to them:
“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” —Matthew 18:18
Yet all who openly profess themselves servants of Jesus Christ are cast out and excommunicated by them. It follows, therefore, either that the promise of Jesus Christ is frivolous and vain or that they are not Churches—at least in this respect.
Finally, instead of the ministry of the word, there are only schools of impiety and every kind of error. Therefore, either they are not Churches according to the present consideration, or no mark will remain by which we may distinguish between the assemblies of believers and the synagogues of the Turks.
Nevertheless, we leave to them the remnants and appearances of the Church that our Lord has preserved there since they were scattered.
First, there is the covenant of God, which is inviolable, and baptism, which is its sacrament. Having been consecrated by the mouth of the Lord, baptism retains its power despite human impiety.
In short, we neither deny altogether that the Church exists there nor grant it without qualification. They are Churches insofar as our Lord preserves there remnants of his people, although miserably scattered, and insofar as certain marks of the Church still remain— especially those whose efficacy can be destroyed neither by the cunning of the devil nor by the wickedness of men.
On the other hand, because the marks required in the Church, as we are presently considering it, have been effaced there, I say that if we seek a properly ordered Church, no legitimate form of the Church exists there.
Antichrist has so disturbed and overturned everything that it more closely resembles Babylon than the holy city of God.
Now, if it is evident that Antichrist reigns there, we must infer from this that they are Churches of God, since Scripture foretells:
“He shall sit in the temple of God.”
But we must understand that they are Churches contaminated and polluted by his abominations.
The forgiveness of sins.
The forgiveness of sins is appropriately joined to the Church, since it can be obtained only by those who are members of the Church, as the Prophet says:
“The people who dwell there shall have their iniquity forgiven.”
This heavenly Jerusalem must therefore first be built, and then this grace has its place within her: that the iniquity of all her citizens shall be blotted out.
I say that she must first be built, not because the Church can ever exist without the forgiveness of sins, but because the Lord has promised his mercy only within the communion of saints.
The forgiveness of sins, therefore, is our first entrance into the Church and the kingdom of God, for without it we possess no covenant or fellowship with God, as the Prophet Hosea shows:
“On that day, says the Lord, I will make a covenant with the beasts of the earth and the birds of heaven. I will break the bow and the sword and cause all warfare to cease from the earth, and I will make them lie down without fear. I will make an everlasting covenant with them in righteousness, judgment, mercy, and compassion.”
We see how our Lord reconciles us to himself through his mercy.
Likewise, in another passage, when he foretells that he will gather the people whom he had scattered in his wrath, he says:
“I will cleanse them from all the iniquity by which they have sinned against me.”
Therefore, at our first entrance we are received into the fellowship of the Church through the sign of washing. By this we are shown that we possess no access to God’s household unless our defilements are first cleansed by his goodness.
What this forgiveness of sins is and how it is accomplished will be explained more carefully elsewhere. Nevertheless, we must note here what is shown by the order of the Creed: forgiveness is not given to us because of our merit, but solely through God’s grace.
For it has first been declared that through the righteousness of Christ God is made gracious toward us and wills to be our good Father. The Holy Spirit has also been treated, through whom we are sanctified so that we may have communion with Christ. Finally, the Church has been considered, which is brought forth through these things.
The forgiveness of sins is then mentioned, through which we are made members of the Church. By this order it is signified that such forgiveness depends upon and consists in nothing other than Christ alone, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Nor should we understand that through this forgiveness our Lord merely receives us into his Church once, but also that by it he maintains and preserves us there.
For what benefit would there be if our Lord granted us a pardon that brought us no lasting advantage? God’s mercy would be vain and ineffectual if it were granted to us only once.
Every believer can bear witness to this, for there is no one who does not feel himself guilty throughout his life of many infirmities requiring the mercy of God.
Therefore, since we remain burdened with the remnants of sin for as long as we live, it is certain that we could not remain in the Church for a single moment unless God’s grace continually came to our aid by forgiving our faults.
On the other hand, the Lord has called his people to eternal salvation. They must therefore believe that his grace is always ready to show mercy toward their offenses.
We are therefore admonished here to believe that, through God’s clemency, by the merit of Jesus Christ and the sanctification of his Spirit, the forgiveness of our sins has been granted to us and is granted to us daily insofar as we are united to the body of the Church.
Since there are some who endeavor to deprive the Church of this sole refuge of salvation, we must further strengthen consciences against so pestilent an error.
The Novatians troubled the ancient Church with this false doctrine, and in our present age there are certain Anabaptists who closely resemble them in this fantasy. For they imagine that through baptism God’s people are regenerated into a pure and angelic life that must never be contaminated by the stains of the flesh. If they fall after baptism, these teachers leave them no expectation except the inexorable severity of God.
In short, they give no hope of pardon or mercy to a sinner who falls after receiving God’s grace, for they acknowledge no forgiveness of sins except that by which we are first regenerated.
Although no falsehood is more clearly refuted in Scripture than this one, nevertheless, because such people find simple persons to deceive—as Novatus anciently gained many followers—let us show briefly how dangerous their error is both to themselves and to others.
First, since all the saints, by God’s command, daily make this request:
“Forgive us our debts,”
they thereby confess that they are sinners.
Nor do they ask in vain, for the Lord Jesus did not command us to ask for something he is unwilling to give. Indeed, having promised generally that the whole prayer he gave us would be heard by the Father, he attached a particular promise to this request.
What more do we desire? The Lord wills that all his saints confess themselves sinners every day throughout their lives, and he promises them pardon. What audacity is it, then, either to deny that they are sinners or, when they have fallen, to exclude them from every grace?
Moreover, whom does he command us to forgive seventy times seven —that is, as often as necessary? Is it not our brothers?
“I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” —Matthew 18:22
And why does he command this except that we should imitate his clemency?
He therefore forgives not merely once or twice, but whenever a poor sinner, cast down and wounded by the recognition of his faults, sighs after him.
To begin at the very origin of the Church, the Patriarchs were circumcised and received into God’s covenant. There is no doubt that they had also been taught by their father to pursue righteousness and integrity. Yet they conspired to kill their brother—a crime abominable even among the most desperate criminals in the world.
Eventually, being softened by Judah’s admonition, they sold him. But this was still intolerable cruelty.
Simeon and Levi murdered the entire population of Shechem to avenge their sister, although they had no right to do so. Indeed, their action was condemned by their father.
Reuben committed execrable incest with his father’s wife. Judah, intending to commit fornication, violated even natural decency by having relations with his daughter-in-law.
Yet so far were they from being erased from among the elect people that they were instead appointed its heads.
What shall we say of David? As the one responsible for administering justice, how grievously did he offend when he attempted to satisfy his adultery by shedding innocent blood? He had already been regenerated and had received an exceptional testimony above the other children of God. Nevertheless, he committed a wickedness from which even the Gentiles would have recoiled in horror. Yet this did not prevent him from obtaining mercy.
And so that we do not spend too long upon particular examples, how many promises do we possess concerning God’s mercy toward the Israelites? How frequently is it shown that the Lord was always gracious toward them?
For what does Moses promise the people when, after declining into idolatry and forsaking the living God, they return to him?
“The Lord will bring you back from captivity and have compassion upon you. He will gather you from among the peoples where you have been scattered. Even if you were dispersed to the ends of the world, he will gather you from there.”
But I do not wish to begin a recital that would have no end. For the Prophets are filled with such promises, in which they offer mercy to a people who had committed countless crimes.
What iniquity is more grievous than rebellion? For this reason, it is called a divorce between God and his Church. Nevertheless, even this is pardoned through God’s goodness.
Through the mouth of Jeremiah he says:
“What man, if his wife abandoned herself to adultery, would afterward receive her again? Yet all your ways are polluted by your adulteries, people of Judah, and the whole land is filled with them. Nevertheless, return to me, and I will receive you. Return to me, rebellious and obstinate people. I will not turn my face from you, for I am holy, and my wrath shall not endure forever.”
—Jeremiah 3:1, 12
Certainly, no other disposition could exist in the one who says that he does not desire the death of the sinner, but that the sinner should turn and live:
“I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live.”
Therefore, when Solomon dedicated the temple, he appointed it for this purpose: that prayers made there for the forgiveness of sins should be heard:
“When your children sin—for there is no man who does not sin—and in your wrath you deliver them to their enemies, and afterward they repent in their hearts and turn to you, praying in their captivity and saying, ‘Lord, we have sinned and lived wickedly,’ and when in their supplication they look toward the land you gave their fathers and toward your holy temple, then you shall hear their prayers from heaven, be gracious to your people who have offended you, and forgive all the transgressions they have committed against you.”
Nor was it in vain that God ordained sacrifices for sins among his people in his law. If he had not known that his servants would continually be stained by vices, he would not have given them this remedy.
I ask, then, whether the coming of Christ, in which the whole fullness of grace was displayed, has deprived believers of the right to pray for the forgiveness of their faults and left them without mercy whenever they offend God.
What else would this mean except that Christ came for the ruin of his people rather than for their salvation, if God’s goodness—which was always ready for the saints under the Old Testament—has now been taken away entirely?
But if we believe Scripture, which proclaims loudly and clearly that God’s grace and love toward men have fully appeared in Christ, that the riches of his mercy have been displayed in him, and that reconciliation with men has been accomplished, we must not doubt that his clemency is now set forth more abundantly rather than shortened or diminished.
We also possess visible examples of this. Saint Peter had heard from the mouth of Jesus Christ that whoever refused to confess his name before men would not be acknowledged by him before the angels of heaven. Yet Peter denied him three times, even with curses. Nevertheless, he was not excluded from grace.
Those among the Thessalonians who lived disorderly lives were disciplined by Saint Paul in such a manner that he still invited them to repentance.
Saint Peter did not drive Simon Magus to despair, but instead gave him good hope by counseling him:
“Repent of this wickedness and pray to God that the thought of your heart may be forgiven.”
Indeed, have not grievous faults sometimes overtaken an entire Church? What did Saint Paul do in such cases except endeavor to restore the whole people to the right path rather than abandon them under a final curse?
The Galatians’ revolt from the Gospel was no minor fault. The Corinthians were still less excusable, since their vices were both more numerous and equally enormous.
Nevertheless, neither the Galatians nor the Corinthians were excluded from God’s goodness. On the contrary, those who had offended more grievously than others through fornication, impurity, and every kind of shamefulness were expressly called to repentance.
For the covenant our Lord made with Christ and all his members remains and shall always remain inviolable:
“If his children forsake my law and do not walk in my commandments, if they profane my statutes and do not keep my ordinances, then I will visit their iniquities with the rod and their sins with chastisements. Nevertheless, my mercy shall not depart from them.”
Finally, the order of the Creed shows us that this grace and clemency always remain and reside within the Church, because after the Church is established, the forgiveness of sins is immediately added.
It must therefore have its place among those who belong to the Church.
Some who are a little more subtle, seeing the doctrine of the Novatians so clearly refuted by Scripture, do not make every sin unpardonable, but only deliberate transgressions into which a man falls knowingly and willingly. In speaking this way, they suppose that no sin is forgiven except one committed through ignorance.
But since the Lord ordained in the law some sacrifices to blot out his people’s deliberate sins and others to purge sins of ignorance, what recklessness it is to leave no hope of pardon for a deliberate sin.
I maintain that nothing is clearer than this: the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ possesses power to forgive the deliberate sins of believers, since God testified to this through the fleshly sacrifices that prefigured it.
Moreover, who will excuse David under the pretext of ignorance, seeing that it is evident he was thoroughly instructed in the law? Did he not know the criminality of adultery and murder, when he punished these offenses daily among his subjects?
Did the Patriarchs imagine that murdering their brother was good and honorable? Had the Corinthians profited so little that they considered incontinence, fornication, hatred, and contention pleasing to God? After being so carefully warned, was Saint Peter ignorant of the sinfulness of denying his Master?
Let us not, therefore, through our inhumanity close the door to God’s mercy, which so freely presents itself to us.
I am not unaware that some ancient teachers interpreted the sins forgiven daily to mean the lighter faults arising from the weakness of the flesh. Moreover, they thought that the solemn repentance then required for serious offenses ought no more to be repeated than baptism.
This opinion must not be understood as though they intended to cast into despair anyone who fell again after once being received to repentance, or as though they wished to diminish daily faults by regarding them as insignificant before God.
For they well knew that the saints frequently stumble through some failure of faith; that they sometimes swear rashly, become excessively angry, even proceed at times to open insults, and fall into other vices that our Lord holds in no small abhorrence.
Rather, they spoke in this manner to distinguish between private faults and public crimes that caused great scandals within the Church.
Moreover, the great difficulty with which they pardoned those who had committed some offense worthy of ecclesiastical correction did not arise because they thought sinners obtained pardon from God only with difficulty. By such severity, they wished to deter others from falling into offenses for which they would deserve excommunication from the Church.
Nevertheless, the word of God, which alone must serve as our rule here, requires greater moderation and compassion. For it teaches that the rigor of ecclesiastical discipline must not proceed so far that the person whose welfare ought to be sought is overwhelmed by sorrow.
Nevertheless, those who are so harsh and inexorable toward deliberate sins appeal to the authority of the Apostle, who appears to remove every hope of pardon in this matter. For he says:
“It is impossible for those who were once enlightened and received into the grace of heaven, who were made partakers of the Holy Spirit and tasted the word of God and the powers of the life to come, if they fall away again, to be restored to repentance, since this would be to crucify the Son of God a second time and expose him to mockery.” —Hebrews 6:4–6
Again, in another place he says:
“If we sin after receiving the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice remains for us, but only a dreadful expectation of judgment.”
These are the passages through whose misinterpretation the Novatians formerly troubled the Church.
Because they appear severe at first sight, some good men have judged this Epistle to be spurious. Nevertheless, it everywhere displays a truly apostolic spirit.
Since we dispute only with those who receive it, it is easy to show that these declarations do nothing to confirm their error.
First, the Apostle must agree with his Master, who declares:
“Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven, except the sin against the Holy Spirit, which shall not be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come.”
It is certain that the Apostle accepted this exception, unless we wish to make him an adversary of Christ’s grace. It follows that what he says in both passages must be understood solely of the sin against the Holy Spirit.
If this deduction is not sufficient for them, I will show further how his words apply here. To explain this properly, we must know what this abominable crime is for which there shall be no forgiveness.
Saint Augustine defines it in one place as hardness and obstinacy continuing until death, together with despair of obtaining grace. But this does not agree with Christ’s declaration that it shall not be forgiven in this age. Either that statement would be made in vain, or the sin can be committed in this world. Yet according to Saint Augustine’s definition, it is not committed unless a person persists in it until death.
As to what others say—that envying the graces of one’s neighbor is to sin against the Holy Spirit—I do not know upon what foundation it rests.
We must therefore provide the true definition, which, when established by sound testimonies, will easily overthrow the others.
I say, then, that a person sins against the Holy Spirit when he has been so touched by the light of God’s truth that he cannot plead ignorance, yet nevertheless resists it through deliberate malice merely for the sake of resisting it.
For the Lord Jesus, wishing to explain what he had said, immediately adds:
“Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man shall obtain pardon, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit shall receive no grace.”
Saint Matthew, instead of speaking merely of blasphemy against the Spirit, refers to a spirit of blasphemy.
How can someone dishonor the Son of God without that dishonor also extending to his Spirit? This occurs when a man ignorantly contradicts the truth of God that he has not known and ignorantly speaks against Christ, while nevertheless possessing such a disposition that he would never wish to extinguish God’s truth if it were revealed to him or speak one evil word against someone whom he knew to be Christ.
Such persons sin against the Father and the Son. There are many today who hate and reject the doctrine of the Gospel, yet would greatly honor it and reverence it with all their hearts if they believed it truly to be the Gospel.
But those who are convicted in their consciences that the doctrine they oppose comes from God, yet nevertheless continue to resist it and endeavor to destroy it, blaspheme against the Spirit. For they fight against the light presented to them through the power of the Holy Spirit.
There were such persons among the Jews. Although they could not withstand the Spirit speaking through the mouth of Saint Stephen, they nevertheless endeavored to resist him:
“They were unable to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.”
There is no doubt that some were moved by an inconsiderate zeal for the law. But it is evident that there were others who, from deliberate malice and impiety, raged against God—that is, against the doctrine they could not be ignorant had proceeded from God.
Such were the Pharisees whom Jesus Christ rebuked. In order to overthrow the power of the Holy Spirit, they slandered it as though it came from Beelzebub:
“He casts out devils only through Beelzebub, the prince of devils.”
This, then, is the spirit of blasphemy: when human audacity deliberately endeavors to annihilate the glory of God.
Saint Paul signifies this when he says that he obtained mercy because he had acted unbelievingly through inadvertence and ignorance:
“I obtained mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.” —1 Timothy 1:13
If ignorance joined with unbelief caused him to obtain pardon, it follows that there is no mercy when unbelief proceeds from knowledge and deliberate malice.
It will be evident that the Apostle speaks in this sense if his meaning is carefully considered. For he directs his words against those who imagined that they could return to Christianity after having once renounced it.
To draw them away from this fantasy and pernicious opinion, he declares something entirely true: those who have once knowingly and willingly renounced Jesus Christ can never again have any part in him.
Christ is not renounced by those who merely transgress his word through a disordered life, but by those who deliberately reject it altogether.
The Novatians and their followers therefore misunderstand the words fall away. They suppose that a person falls away when, although taught by God’s law not to steal, he nevertheless fails to abstain from theft.
But I say that we must understand here a comparison of contrary things. When the Apostle speaks of those who fall away after being enlightened, tasting the word of God, his heavenly grace, and the powers of the life to come, and being illuminated by the Holy Spirit, he means those who through deliberate malice extinguish the Spirit’s light, reject God’s word and the taste of his grace, and alienate themselves from his Spirit.
Indeed, to express still more clearly that he was speaking of malicious and deliberate impiety, in one passage he expressly adds the word willingly:
“If we sin willingly after receiving the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins remains.”
He does not deny that Christ is a perpetual sacrifice for blotting out the iniquities of believers. He had treated this truth throughout almost the whole Epistle when explaining Christ’s priesthood.
Rather, he means that no other sacrifice remains when this one is rejected. And it is rejected when someone deliberately tramples underfoot the truth of the Gospel.
Some object that it is excessively cruel and incompatible with God’s clemency to exclude any sinner from the forgiveness of sins when he seeks mercy. The answer is easy.
The Apostle does not say that God will deny them pardon if they turn to him. Rather, he expressly says that they will never return to repentance, because God in his righteous judgment will strike them with eternal blindness on account of their ingratitude.
The example of Esau, which the Apostle applies to this matter, does not contradict this:
“He found no place for repentance, although he sought it carefully with tears.”
For Esau attempted in vain, with tears and cries, to recover the birthright he had lost.
Nor does the Prophet’s declaration contradict it:
“Then they shall cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them.”
By such expressions, Scripture does not signify true repentance or a sincere calling upon God. Rather, it signifies the distress by which the wicked, when pressed by extreme calamity, are compelled to acknowledge what they had previously regarded as mockery and fable: that their entire good rests in God’s help.
Yet they cannot sincerely invoke or seek that help. They merely groan because it has been taken from them.
Therefore, by the word crying, the Prophet, and by the word tears, the Apostle, signify nothing other than the horrible torment by which the wicked are agitated in despair and anguish when they see that they possess no remedy for their misery except the goodness of God, in which they are altogether unable to trust.