νόμενα ἐκκαθαίρεται: “Sins committed before baptism are pardoned, but sins after it must be purged," that is, by a severe repentance, which the others needed not; and yet without repentance, baptism would nothing avail vicious. persons. So we say concerning those sins which we have forgotten, they may be pardoned without repentance, meaning, without a special repentance, but yet not without a general. Thus we find it in the imperial law, that they that had fallen into heresy or strange superstitions, they were to be pardoned, if they did repent: but if they did relapse, they should not be pardoned; but they mean, "Venia eodem modo præstari non potest :" so Gratian, Valens, and Valentinian, expressed it. So that, by denying pardon, they only mean, that it shall be harder with such persons; their pardon shall not be so easily obtained; but as they repeat their sins, so their punishment shall increase; and at last, if no warning will serve, it shall destroy them. --- 59. For it is remarkable, that, in Scripture, pardonable and unpardonable signify no more than mortal and venial in the writings of the church; of which I have given accounts in its proper place. But when a sin is declared deadly, or killing, and damnation threatened to such persons, we are not therefore, if we have committed any such, to lie down under the load, and die; but with the more earnestness depart from it, lest that which is of a killing, damning nature, prove so to us in the event. For the sin of adultery is a damning sin, and murder is a killing sin, and the sin against the Holy Ghost is worse; and they are all unpardonable, that is, condemning; they are such in their cause, or in themselves; but if they prove so to us in the event, or effect, it is because we will not repent. "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself";" that is as high an expression as any; and yet there are several degrees and kinds of eating and drinking unworthily, and some are more unpardonable than others; but yet the Corinthians, who did eat unworthily, some of them coming to the holy supper drunk, and others schismatically, were by St. Paul admitted to repentance. Some sins are like deadly potions, they kill the man, unless * Vid. etiam Cæsar. Arelat. hom. 42. quædam ad hanc rem spectantia. y L. 4. Cod. Theod. ne Sacrum Baptisma iteretur. z 1 Cor. xi. 27. he speedily take an antidote; or unless, by strength of nature, he work out the poison and overcome it; and others are like a desperate disease, or a deadly wound, the iliack passions, the physicians give him over; it is a 'Miserere mei, Deus;' of which though men despair, yet some have been cured. Thus also in the capital and great sins, many of them are such, which the church will not absolve, or dare not promise cure. Non est in medico semper relevetur ut æger; Interdum doctâ plus valet arte malum. But then these persons are sent to God, and are bid to hope for favour from thence, and may find it. But others there are, whom the church will not meddle withal, and sends them. to God; and God will not absolve them, that is, they shall be pardoned neither by God nor the church, "neither in this world nor in the world to come." But the reason is not, because their sin is, in all its periods, of an unpardonable nature, but because they have persisted in it too long, and God in the secret economy of his mercies hath shut the everlasting doors; the olive doors of mercy shall not be opened to them. And this is the case of too many miserable persons. They who repent timely, and holily, are not in this number, whatsoever sins they be, which they have committed. But this is the case of them, whom God hath given over to a reprobate mind,—and of them who sin against God's Holy Spirit, when their sin is grown to its full measure: so we find it expressed in the Proverbs "; " Turn ye at my reproof, I will pour out my Spirit unto you:" and then it follows," Because I have called and ye refused, I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh."-But this is not in all the periods of our refusing to hear God calling by his Spirit; but when the sin of the Amalekites is full, then it is unpardonable, not in the thing, but to that man, at that time. And besides all the promises, this is highly verified in the words of our blessed Saviour taken out of the prophet Isaiah; where it is affirmed, that when people are so obstinate and wilfully blind, that God then leaves to give them clearer testimony and a mighty grace, lest they should hear and see and understand; it follows, " and should be converted, and I a Prov. i. 23. 26. 28. b." should heal them ";" plainly telling us, that if even then they should repent, God could not but forgive them; and therefore, because he hath now no love left to them by reason of their former obstinacy, yet wherever you can suppose repentance, there you may more than suppose a pardon. But if a man cannot, or will not repent, then it is another consideration in the meantime, nothing hinders but that every sin is pardonable to him that repents. 60. But thus we find that the style of Scripture, and the expressions of the holy persons, is otherwise in the threatening and the edict, otherwise in the accidents of persons and practice. It is necessary that it be severe, when duty is demanded; but of lapsed persons it uses not to be exacted in the same dialect, It is as all laws are. In the general they are decretory, in the use and application they are easier. In the sanction they are absolute and infinite, but yet capable of interpretations, of dispensations and relaxation in particular cases. And so it is in the present article; impossible,' and 'unpardonable,' and ' damnation,' and' shall be cut off,' and nothing remains but fearful expectation of judgment,' are exterminating words and phrases in the law, but they do not effect all that they there signify, to any but the impenitent; according to the saying of Mark the hermit : Οὐδεὶς κατεκρίθη εἰ μὴ μετανοίας κατεφρόνησε, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐδικαιώθη εἰ μὴ ταύτης μEA. "No man is ever justified but he that carefully repents; and no man is condemned, but he that despises repentance.”—Φιλάνθρωπον βλέμμα προσίουσαν αἰδεῖται μετάvolav, said St. Basil. "The eye of God, who is so great a lover of souls, cannot deny the intercessions and litanies of repentance." SECTION VI. The former Doctrines reduced to Practice. 61. ALTHOUGH the doors of repentance open to them, that sin after baptism, and to them that sin after repentance; yet every relapse does increase the danger, and make the sin to be less pardonable than before. For, b Matt. xii. xv. 62. I. A good man, falling into sin, does it without all necessity; he hath assistances great enough to make him conqueror, he hath reason enough to dissuade him, he hath sharp senses of the filthiness of sin,-his spirit is tender, and is crushed with the uneasy load,-he sighs and wakes, and is troubled and distracted; and if he sins, he sins with pain and shame and smart; and the less of mistake there is in his case, the more of malice is ingredient, and a greater anger is like to be his portion. 63. II. It is a particular unthankfulness, when a man that was once pardoned, shall relapse. And when obliged persons prove enemies, they are ever the most malicious; as having nothing to protect or cover their shame, but impudence. ̓Αντ ̓ εὐεργεσιῆς ̓Αγαμέμνονα τίσαν ̓Αχαῖοι. So did the Greeks treat Agamemnon ill, because he used them but too well. Such persons are like travellers, who, in a storm, running to a fig-tree, when the storm is over, they beat the branches and pluck the fruit ; and having run to an altar for sanctuary, they steal the chalice from the holy place, and rob the temple that secured them. And God does more resent it, that the lambs which he feeds at his own table, which are so many sons and daughters to him, that daily suck plenty from his two breasts of mercy and providence, that they should in his own house make a mutiny, and put on the fierceness of wolves, and rise up against their Lord and Shepherd. 64. III. Every relapse after repentance, is, directly and in its proper principle, a greater sin. Our first faults are pitiable, and we do pati humanum,' we do after the manner of men;' but when we are recovered, and then die again, we do 'facere diabolicum,' we 'do after the manner of devils.'For from ignorance to sin, from passion and youthful appetites to sin, from violent temptations and little strengths, to fall into sin, is no very great change: it is from a corrupted nature to corrupted manners: but from grace to return to sin, from knowledge and experience, and delight in goodness and wise notices, from God and his Christ, to return to sin, to foolish actions, and nonsense-principles, is a change great as was the fall of the morning stars, when they descended cheaply and foolishly into darkness; well therefore may it be pitied in a child to choose a bright dagger before a warm coat; but when he hath been refreshed by this and smarted by that, if he chooses again, he will choose better. But men that have tried both states, that have rejoiced for their deliverance from temptation, men that have given thanks to God for their safety and innocence, men that have been wearied and ashamed of the follies of sin,-that have weighed both sides and have given wise sentence for God and for religion,-if they shall choose again, and choose amiss, it must be by something, by which Lucifer did, in the face of God, choose to defy him, and desire to turn devil, and be miserable and wicked for ever and ever. 65. IV. If a man repents of his repentances and returns to his sins, all his intermedial repentance shall stand for nothing: the sins which were marked for pardon, shall break out in guilt, and be exacted of him in fearful punishments, as if he never had repented. For if good works, crucified by sins, are made alive by repentance,-by the same reason, those sins also will live again, if the repentance dies: it being equally just, that if the man repents of his repentance, God also should repent of his pardon. 66. I. For we must observe carefully, that there is a pardon of sins proper to this life, and another proper to the world to come. "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted; and what ye bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven "." That is, there are two remissions, one here, the other hereafter; that here is wrought by the ministry of the word and sacraments, by faith and obedience, by mortal instruments and the divine grace; all which are divisible and gradual, and grow or diminish, ebb or flow, change or persist and consequently grow on to effect, or else fail of the grace of God, that final grace, which alone is effective of that benefit, which we here contend for. Here, in proper speaking, our pardon is but a disposition towards the great and final pardon ; a possibility and ability to pursue that interest, to contend for that absolution: and accordingly, it is wrought by parts, and is signified and promoted by every act of grace, that puts us in order to heaven, or the state of final pardon : God gives us one degree of pardon, when he forbears to kill us in the act of sin, when he admits, when he calls, when he smites us into repentance, • Vide supra, num. 53. |