Whether mortification and vivification are parts of repentance.
Whether mortification and vivification are parts of repentance.
§ 56. Bellarmine’s fourth proposition regarding the parts of repentance is this: “Mortification and vivification are not rightly posited as parts of repentance in the same sense as Calvin and Beza understand them.”
We respond. If mortification is understood to mean contrition or sorrow stemming from an admission of sins and from the perception of God’s wrath, and if vivification is understood to mean the consolation and peace of conscience which comes from faith, then this listing of parts coincides with ours. But if mortification is taken to mean a cessation from wickedness and evil, and vivification is taken to mean the pursuit of a new life, then we say that these are assigned to the fruits of repentance. For the new obedience consists of these parts, with the result that the repentant truly “ceases from evil and does good” (Ps. 34:[14]) and “ceases to do wrongly and learns to do well” (Isa. 1:[16–]17). This division is used in the latter sense by Calvin (Instit., bk. 3, ch. 1, § 8), Bucanus (locus 30, De poenit., p. 293), and Polanus (Partit. theol., bk. 1, p. 183). Therefore here we part ways with them, because the daily mortification of the old man and the renewal of the new are fruits of faith, as we explained earlier (§ 51).
** Piscator himself writes (Volum. disp. 1, locus 14, thesis 48): “But it does not seem very logical to assign the mortification of the flesh and the vivification of the spirit, or (as the Scripture says elsewhere) the mortification of the old man and the vivification of the new man, or, finally, the flight from evil and the pursuit of good to the parts of repentance. For these are not parts of repentance but of the new obedience. Thus they are the effects of repentance and follow both repentance and justification.” Keckermann admits this (Syst. theol., bk. 3, toward the end of ch. 8 and the beginning of ch. 9). (See vol. 3, Disp. Gissens. 5, thesis 13). **