The _Romanists_ teach that sins committed after baptism (that is, for
the immense majority of Christians having Christian parents, all their
sins from the cradle to the grave) are not so remitted for Christ's
sake, but that we must suffer that extremity of punishment which they
deserve: and therefore either we must afflict ourselves in such sort
and degree of extremity as may answer the demerit of our sins, or be
punished by God, here or in the world to come, in such degree and sort
that his Justice may be satisfied. [_As the encysted venom, or
poison-bag, beneath the Adder's fang, so does this doctrine lie
beneath the tremendous power of the Romish Hierarchy. The demoralizing
influence of this dogma, and that it curdled the very life-blood in
the veins of Christendom, it was given to Luther beyond all men since
Paul to see, feel, and promulgate. And yet in his large Treatise on
Repentance, how near to the spirit of this doctrine--even to the very
walls and gates of Babylon--was Jeremy Taylor driven, in recoiling
from the fanatical extremes of the opposite error!_] But they that are
orthodox, teach that it is injustice to require the payment of one
debt twice. * * * It is no less absurd to say, as the Papists do, that
_our_ satisfaction is required as a condition, without which
_Christ's_ satisfaction is not applicable unto us, than to say, Peter
hath paid the debt of John, and He, to whom it was due, accepteth of
the same payment on the condition that John pay it himself also. * * *
The satisfaction of Christ is communicated and applied unto us without
suffering the punishment that sin deserveth, [_and essentially_
_involveth_,] upon the condition of our faith and repentance. [To
which I would add: Without faith there is no power of repentance:
without a commencing repentance no power to faith: and that it is in
the power of the will either to repent or to have faith in the Gospel
sense of the words, is itself a consequence of the redemption of
mankind, a free gift of the Redeemer: the guilt of its rejection, the
refusing to avail ourselves of the power, being all that we can
consider as exclusively attributable to our own act.][132]