our own lot, we seek no gain but in an honest and lawful way; if we
neither desire to enrich ourselves by injustice, nor attempt to ruin the
fortune of our neighbour, in order to increase our own; if we do not
labour to accumulate wealth by cruelty, and at the expense of the blood of
others; if we do not greedily scrape together from every quarter,
regardless of right or wrong, whatever may conduce to satiate our avarice
or support our prodigality. On the contrary, it should be our constant
aim, as far as possible, faithfully to assist all by our advice and our
property in preserving what belongs to them; but if we are concerned with
perfidious and fallacious men, let us be prepared rather to recede a
little from our just right than to contend with them. Moreover, let us
communicate to the necessities, and according to our ability alleviate the
poverty, of those whom we perceive to be pressed by any embarrassment of
their circumstances. Lastly, let every man examine what obligations his
duty lays him under to others, and let him faithfully discharge the duties
which he owes them. For this reason the people should honour their
governors, patiently submit to their authority, obey their laws and
mandates, and resist nothing, to which they can submit consistently with
the Divine will. On the other hand, let governors take care of their
people, preserve the public peace, protect the good, punish the wicked,
and administer all things in such a manner, as becomes those who must
render an account of their office to God the supreme Judge. Let the
ministers of churches faithfully devote themselves to the ministry of the
word, and let them never adulterate the doctrine of salvation, but deliver
it pure and uncontaminated to the people of God. Let them teach, not only
by their doctrine, but by the example of their lives; in a word, let them
preside as good shepherds over the sheep. Let the people, on their part,
receive them as the messengers and apostles of God, render to them that
honour to which the supreme Master has exalted them, and furnish them with
the necessaries of life. Let parents undertake the support, government,
and instruction of their children, as committed by God to their care; nor
let them exasperate their minds and alienate their affections from them by
cruelty, but cherish and embrace them with the lenity and indulgence
becoming their character. And that obedience is due to them from their
children has been before observed. Let juniors revere old age, since the
Lord has designed that age to be honourable. Let old men, by their
prudence and superior experience, guide the imbecility of youth; not
teasing them with sharp and clamorous invectives, but tempering severity
with mildness and affability. Let servants show themselves obedient and
diligent in the service of their masters; and that not only in appearance,
but from the heart, as serving God himself. Neither let masters behave
morosely and perversely to their servants, harassing them with excessive
asperity, or treating them with contempt; but rather acknowledge them as
their brethren and companions in the service of the heavenly Master,
entitled to be regarded with mutual affection, and to receive kind
treatment. In this manner, I say, let every man consider what duties he
owes to his neighbours, according to the relations he sustains; and those
duties let him discharge. Moreover, our attention should always be
directed to the Legislator; to remind us that this law is ordained for our
hearts as much as for our hands, in order that men may study both to
protect the property and to promote the interests of others.
The Ninth Commandment.
_Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour._
XLVII. The end of this precept is, that because God, who is truth itself,
execrates a lie, we ought to preserve the truth without the least
disguise. The sum of it therefore is, that we neither violate the
character of any man, either by calumnies or by false accusations, nor
distress him in his property by falsehood, nor injure him by detraction or
impertinence. This prohibition is connected with an injunction to do all
the service we can to every man, by affirming the truth for the protection
of his reputation and his property. The Lord seems to have intended the
following words as an exposition of this command: “Thou shalt not raise a
false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous
witness.” Again: “Keep thee far from a false matter.”(895) In another
place also he not only forbids us to practise backbiting and tale‐bearing
among the people, but prohibits every man from deceiving his brother;(896)
for he cautions us against both in distinct commandments. Indeed there is
no doubt but that, as, in the preceding precepts, he has prohibited
cruelty, impurity, and avarice, so in this he forbids falsehood; of which
there are two branches, as we have before observed. For either we
transgress against the reputation of our neighbours by malignity and
perverse detraction, or by falsehood and sometimes by obloquy we injure
their interests. It is immaterial whether we suppose the testimony here
designed to be solemn and judicial, or a common one, which is delivered in
private conversations. For we must always recur to this maxim—that, of
each of the separate kinds of vices, one species is proposed as an
example, to which the rest may be referred; and that, in general, the
species selected is that in which the turpitude of the vice is most
conspicuous. It is proper, however, to extend it more generally to
calumnies and detraction, by which our neighbours are unjustly harassed;
because falsehood in a forensic testimony is always attended with perjury.
But perjury, being a profanation and violation of the name of God, has
already been sufficiently condemned in the third commandment. Wherefore
the legitimate observance of this precept is, that our tongue, by
asserting the truth, ought to serve both the reputation and the profit of
our neighbours. The equity of this is self‐evident. For if a good name be
more precious than any treasures whatever, a man sustains as great an
injury when he is deprived of the integrity of his character, as when he
is despoiled of his wealth. And in plundering his substance, there is
sometimes as much effected by false testimony, as by the hands of
violence.
XLVIII. Nevertheless, it is wonderful with what supine security this
precept is generally transgressed, so that few persons can be found, who
are not notoriously subject to this malady; we are so fascinated with the
malignant pleasure of examining and detecting the faults of others. Nor
should we suppose it to be a sufficient excuse, that in many cases we
cannot be charged with falsehood. For he who forbids the character of our
brother to be bespattered with falsehood, wills also that as far as the
truth will permit, it be preserved immaculate. For although he only guards
it against falsehood, he thereby suggests that it is committed to his
charge. But this should be sufficient to induce us to defend the fair
character of our neighbour—that God concerns himself in its protection.
Wherefore detraction is, without doubt, universally condemned. Now, by
detraction we mean, not reproof, which is given from a motive of
correction; not accusation or judicial denunciation, by which recompense
is demanded for an injury; not public reprehension, which tends to strike
terror into other offenders; not a discovery to them whose safety depends
on their being previously warned, that they may not be endangered through
ignorance; but odious crimination, which arises from malice, and a violent
propensity to detraction. This commandment also extends so far as to
forbid us to affect a pleasantry tinctured with scurrilous and bitter
sarcasms, severely lashing the faults of others under the appearance of
sport; which is the practice of some who aim at the praise of raillery, to
the prejudice of the modesty and feelings of others; for such wantonness
sometimes fixes a lasting stigma on the characters of our brethren. Now,
if we turn our eyes to the Legislator whose proper right it is to rule our
ears and our minds, as much as our tongues, it will certainly appear that
an avidity of hearing detraction, and an unreasonable propensity to
unfavourable opinions respecting others, are equally prohibited. For it
would be ridiculous for any one to suppose that God hates slander in the
tongue, and does not reprobate malice in the heart. Wherefore, if we
possess the true fear and love of God, let us make it our study, that as
far as is practicable and expedient, and consistent with charity, we
devote neither our tongues nor our ears to opprobrious and malicious
raillery, nor inadvertently attend to unfavourable suspicions; but that,
putting fair constructions on every man’s words and actions, we regulate
our hearts, our ears, and our tongues, with a view to preserve the
reputation of all around us.
The Tenth Commandment.
_Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet
thy neighbour’s wife, nor his man‐servant, nor his maid‐servant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s._
XLIX. The end of this precept is, that, since it is the will of God that
our whole soul should be under the influence of love, every desire
inconsistent with charity ought to be expelled from our minds. The sum,
then, will be, that no thought should obtrude itself upon us, which would
excite in our minds any desire that is noxious, and tends to the detriment
of another. To which corresponds the affirmative precept, that all our
conceptions, deliberations, resolutions, and undertakings, ought to be
consistent with the benefit and advantage of our neighbours. But here we
meet with what appears to be a great and perplexing difficulty. For if our
previous assertions be true, that the terms _adultery_ and _theft_
comprehend the licentious desire, and the injurious and criminal
intention, this may be thought to have superseded the necessity of a
separate command being afterwards introduced, forbidding us to covet the
possessions of others. But we shall easily solve this difficulty by a
distinction between intention and concupiscence. For an intention, as we
have before observed in explaining the former commandments, is a
deliberate consent of the will, when the mind has been enslaved by any
unlawful desire. Concupiscence may exist without such deliberation or
consent, when the mind is only attracted and stimulated by vain and
corrupt objects. As the Lord, therefore, has hitherto commanded our wills,
efforts, and actions to be subject to the law of love, so now he directs
that the conceptions of our minds be subject to the same regulation, lest
any of them be corrupt and perverted, and give our hearts an improper
impulse. As he has forbidden our minds to be inclined and persuaded to
anger, hatred, adultery, rapine, and falsehood, so now he prohibits them
from being instigated to these vices.
L. Nor is it without cause that he requires such consummate rectitude. For
who can deny that it is reasonable for all the powers of our souls to be
under the influence of love? But if any one deviate from the path of love,
who can deny that that soul is in an unhealthy state? Now, whence is it,
that your mind conceives desires prejudicial to your neighbour, but that,
neglecting his interest, you consult nothing but your own? For if your
heart were full of love, there would be no part of it exposed to such
imaginations. It must therefore be destitute of love, so far as it is the
seat of concupiscence. Some one will object, that it is unreasonable, that
imaginations, which without reflection flutter about in the mind, and then
vanish away, should be condemned as symptoms of concupiscence, which has
its seat in the heart. I reply, that the present question relates to that
kind of imaginations, which, when they are presented to our
understandings, at the same time strike our hearts, and inflame them with
cupidity; since the mind never entertains a wish for any thing after which
the heart is not excited to pant. Therefore God enjoins a wonderful ardour
of love, which he will not allow to be interrupted even by the smallest
degree of concupiscence. He requires a heart admirably well regulated,
which he permits not to be disturbed with the least emotion contrary to
the law of love. Do not imagine that this doctrine is unsupported by any
great authority; for I derived the first idea of it from Augustine. Now,
though the design of the Lord was to prohibit us from all corrupt desires,
yet he has exhibited, as examples, those objects which most generally
deceive us with a fallacious appearance of pleasure; that he might not
leave any thing to concupiscence, after having driven it from those
objects towards which it is most violently inclined. Behold, then, the
second table of the law, which sufficiently instructs us in the duties we
owe to men for the sake of God, on regard to whom the whole rule of love
depends. The duties taught in this second table, therefore, we shall
inculcate in vain, unless our instruction be founded on the fear and
reverence of God. To divide the prohibition of concupiscence into two
precepts, the discerning reader, without any comment of mine, will
pronounce to be a corrupt and violent separation of what is but one. Nor
is the repetition of this phrase, “Thou shalt not covet,” any objection
against us; because, having mentioned the house or family, God enumerates
the different parts of it, beginning with the wife. Hence it clearly
appears that it ought to be read, as it is correctly read by the Hebrews,
in one continued connection; and in short, that God commands, that all
that every man possesses remain safe and entire, not only from any actual
injury or fraudulent intention, but even from the least emotion of
cupidity that can solicit our hearts.
LI. But what is the tendency of the whole law, will not now be difficult
to judge: it is to a perfection of righteousness, that it may form the
life of man after the example of the Divine purity. For God has so
delineated his own character in it, that the man who exemplifies in his
actions the precepts it contains, will exhibit in his life, as it were, an
image of God. Wherefore, when Moses would recall the substance of it to
the remembrance of the Israelites, he said, “And now, Israel, what doth
the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in
all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord?”(897)
Nor did he cease to reiterate the same things to them, whenever he
intended to point out the end of the law. The tendency of the doctrine of
the law is to connect man with his God, and, as Moses elsewhere expresses
it, to make him cleave to the Lord in sanctity of life.(898) Now, the
perfection of this sanctity consists in two principal points, already
recited—“that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all
our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our
neighbour as ourselves.”(899) And the first is, that our souls be
completely filled with the love of God. From this the love of our
neighbour will naturally follow; as the Apostle signifies, when he says,
that “the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a
good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”(900) Here we find a good
conscience and faith unfeigned, that is, in a word, true piety, stated to
be the grand source from which charity is derived. He is deceived,
therefore, who supposes that the law teaches nothing but certain rudiments
and first principles of righteousness, by which men are introduced to the
commencement, but are not directed to the true goal of good works; since
beyond the former sentence of Moses, and the latter of Paul, nothing
further can be wanted to the highest perfection. For how far will he wish
to proceed, who will not be content with this instruction, by which man is
directed to the fear of God, to the spiritual worship of him, to the
observance of his commands, to persevering rectitude in the way of the
Lord, to purity of conscience, and sincere faith and love? Hence we derive
a confirmation of the foregoing exposition of the law, which traces and
finds in its precepts all the duties of piety and love. For they who
attend merely to dry and barren elements, as though it taught them but
half of the Divine will, are declared by the Apostle to have no knowledge
of its end.
LII. But because Christ and his Apostles, in reciting the substance of the
law, sometimes omit the first table,(901) many persons are deceived in
this point, who wish to extend their expressions to both tables. In the
Gospel of Matthew, Christ calls judgment, mercy, and faith, “the weightier
matters of the law.” By the word faith it is evident to me that he intends
truth or fidelity towards men. Some, however, in order to extend the
passage to the whole law, take the word faith to mean religion towards
God. But for this there is no foundation; for Christ is treating of those
works by which man ought to prove himself to be righteous. If we attend to
this observation, we shall cease also to wonder, why, in another place, to
the inquiry of a young man, what those commandments are by the observance
of which we enter into life, he only returns the following answer: “Thou
shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal,
Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother; and,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”(902) For obedience to the first
table consisted chiefly either in the disposition of the heart, or in
ceremonies. The disposition of the heart was not visible, and the
ceremonies were diligently performed by hypocrites; but the works of
charity are such as enable us to give a certain evidence of righteousness.
But the same occurs in the Prophets so frequently, that it must be
familiar to the reader who is but tolerably conversant with them. For in
almost all cases when they exhort to repentance, they omit the first
table, and insist on faith, judgment, mercy, and equity. Nor do they by
this method neglect the fear of God, but require substantial proof of it
from those marks. It is well known that when they treat of the observation
of the law, they generally insist on the second table; because it is in it
that the love of righteousness and integrity is principally discovered. It
is unnecessary to quote the passages, as every person will of himself
easily remark what I have stated.
LIII. Is it, then, it will be asked, of more importance towards the
attainment of righteousness to live innocently with men, than piously
towards God? By no means. But because no man fulfils all the duties of
charity, unless he really fear God, we derive from those duties a proof of
his piety. Besides, the Lord, well knowing that he can receive no benefit
from us, which he also declares by the Psalmist,(903) requires not our
services for himself, but employs us in good works towards our neighbour.
It is not without reason, then, that the Apostle makes all the perfection
of the saints to consist in love;(904) which in another place he very
justly styles “the fulfilling of the law;” adding, that “he that loveth
another hath fulfilled the law.”(905) Again: that “all the law is
fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.”(906) For he teaches nothing different from what is taught by
Christ himself, when he says, “All things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the
prophets.”(907) It is certain that in the law and the prophets, faith, and
all that pertains to the legitimate worship of God, hold the principal
place, and that love occupies an inferior station; but our Lord intends
that the observance of justice and equity among men is only prescribed to
us in the law, that our pious fear of him, if we really possess any, may
be proved by our actions.
LIV. Here, then, we must rest, that our life will then be governed
according to the will of God, and the prescriptions of his law, when it is
in all respects most beneficial to our brethren. But we do not find in the
whole law one syllable, that lays down any rule for a man respecting those
things which he should practise or omit for his carnal convenience. And
surely, since men are born in such a state, that they are entirely
governed by an immoderate self‐love,—a passion which, how great soever
their departure from the truth, they always retain,—there was no need of a
law which would inflame that love, already of itself too violent. Whence
it plainly appears, that the observance of the commandments consists not
in the love of ourselves, but in the love of God and of our neighbour;
that his is the best and most holy life, who lives as little as possible
to himself; and that no man leads a worse or more iniquitous life, than he
who lives exclusively to himself, and makes his own interest the sole
object of his thoughts and pursuits. Moreover, the Lord, in order to give
us the best expression of the strength of that love which we ought to
exercise towards our neighbours, has regulated it by the standard of our
self‐love, because there was no stronger or more vehement affection. And
the force of the expression must be carefully examined; for he does not,
according to the foolish dreams of some sophists, concede the first place
to self‐love, and assign the second to the love of our neighbour; but
rather transfers to others that affection of love which we naturally
restrict to ourselves. Whence the Apostle asserts that “charity seeketh
not her own.”(908) Nor is their argument, that every thing regulated by
any standard is inferior to the standard by which it is regulated, worthy
of the least attention. For God does not appoint our self‐love as the
rule, to which our love to others should be subordinate; but whereas,
through our natural depravity, our love used to terminate in ourselves, he
shows that it ought now to be diffused abroad; that we may be ready to do
any service to our neighbour with as much alacrity, ardour, and
solicitude, as to ourselves.
LV. Now, since Christ has demonstrated, in the parable of the Samaritan,
that the word “neighbour” comprehends every man, even the greatest
stranger, we have no reason to limit the commandment of love to our own
relations or friends. I do not deny, that the more closely any person is
united to us, the greater claim he has to the assistance of our kind
offices. For the condition of humanity requires, that men should perform
more acts of kindness to each other, in proportion to the closeness of the
bonds by which they are connected, whether of relationship, or
acquaintance, or vicinity; and this without any offence to God, by whose
providence we are constrained to it. But I assert, that the whole human
race, without any exception, should be comprehended in the same affection
of love, and that in this respect there is no difference between the
barbarian and the Grecian, the worthy and unworthy, the friend and the
foe; for they are to be considered in God, and not in themselves, and
whenever we deviate from this view of the subject, it is no wonder if we
fall into many errors. Wherefore, if we wish to adhere to the true law of
love, our eyes must chiefly be directed, not to man, the prospect of whom
would impress us with hatred more frequently than with love, but to God,
who commands that our love to him be diffused among all mankind; so that
this must always be a fundamental maxim with us, that whatever be the
character of a man, yet we ought to love him because we love God.
LVI. Wherefore the schoolmen have discovered either their ignorance or
their wickedness in a most pestilent manner, when, treating of the
precepts prohibiting the desire of revenge, and enjoining the love of our
enemies, which were anciently delivered to all the Jews, and afterwards
equally to all Christians, they have made them to be counsels which we are
at liberty to obey or not to obey, and have confined the necessary
observance of them to the monks, who, on account of this very
circumstance, would be more righteous than plain Christians, because they
voluntarily bound themselves to observe these counsels. The reason which
they assign for not receiving them as laws, is, that they appear too
burdensome and grievous, especially to Christians who are under the law of
grace. Do they presume in this manner to disannul the eternal law of God
respecting the love of our neighbour? Is such a distinction to be found in
any page of the law? On the contrary, does it not abound with commandments
most strictly enjoining the love of our enemies? For what is the meaning
of the injunction to feed our neighbour when he is hungry?(909) to direct
into the right way his oxen or his asses when they are going astray, and
to help them when sinking under a burden?(910) Shall we do good to his
cattle for his sake, and feel no benevolence to his person? What! is not
the word of the Lord eternal? “Vengeance is mine, I will repay:”(911)
which is expressed in another passage still more explicitly: “Thou shalt
not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people.”(912)
Let them either obliterate these passages from the law, or acknowledge
that the Lord was a Legislator, and no longer falsely pretend that he was
only a counsellor.
LVII. And what is the meaning of the following expressions, which they
have presumed to abuse by the absurdity of their comment? “Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may
be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”(913) Here, who would
not argue with Chrysostom, that the allegation of such a necessary cause
clearly proves these to be, not exhortations, but commandments? What have
we left us, after being expunged from the number of the children of God?
But according to them, the monks will be the only sons of the heavenly
Father; they alone will venture to invoke God as their Father. What will
now become of the Church? Upon the same principle it will be confined to
heathen and publicans. For Christ says, “If ye love them which love you,
what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?”(914) Shall not
we be in a happy situation, if they leave us the title of Christians, but
deprive us of the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven? The argument of
Augustine is equally strong. When the Lord, says he, prohibits adultery,
he forbids you to violate the wife of your enemy no less than of your
friend: when he prohibits theft, he permits you not to steal from any one,
whether he be a friend or an enemy. Now, Paul reduces these two
prohibitions of theft and adultery to the rule of love, and even teaches
that they are “briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself.”(915) Either, then, Paul must have been an
erroneous expositor of the law, or it necessarily follows from this, that
we are commanded to love, not only our friends, but also our enemies.
Those, therefore, who so licentiously shake off the yoke common to the
children of God, evidently betray themselves to be the sons of Satan. It
is doubtful whether they have discovered greater stupidity or impudence in
the publication of this dogma. For all the fathers decidedly pronounce
that these are mere precepts. That no doubt was entertained on the subject
in the time of Gregory, appears from his positive assertions; for he
treats them as precepts, as though it had never been controverted. And how
foolishly do they argue! They would be a burden, say they, too grievous
for Christians; as though truly any thing could be conceived more
difficult, than to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and
with all our strength. Compared with this law, every thing must be
accounted easy, whether it be to love an enemy, or to banish from the mind
all desire of revenge. To our imbecility, indeed, every thing is arduous
and difficult, even the smallest point in the law. It is the Lord in whom
we find strength: let him give what he commands, and let him command what
he pleases. The being Christians under the law of grace consists not in
unbounded license uncontrolled by any law, but in being ingrafted into
Christ, by whose grace they are delivered from the curse of the law, and
by whose Spirit they have the law inscribed on their hearts. This grace
Paul has figuratively denominated a law, in allusion to the law of God, to
which he was comparing and contrasting it. Their dispute concerning the
word law is a dispute about nothing.
LVIII. Of the same nature is what they have called venial sin—a term which
they apply to secret impiety, which is a breach of the first table, and to
the direct transgression of the last commandment. For this is their
definition, that “it is evil desire without any deliberate assent, and
without any long continuance in the heart.” Now, I assert that evil desire
cannot enter the heart, except through a deficiency of those things which
the law requires. We are forbidden to have any strange gods. When the
mind, assaulted by mistrust, looks around to some other quarter; when it
is stimulated by a sudden desire of transferring its happiness from God to
some other being; whence proceed these emotions, however transient, but
from the existence of some vacant space in the soul to receive such
temptations? And not to protract this argument to greater length, we are
commanded to love God with all our heart, with all our mind, and with all
our soul: therefore, unless all the powers of our soul be intensely
engaged in the love of God, we have already departed from the obedience
required by the law; for that the dominion of God is not well established
in our conscience, is evident, from the enemies that there rebel against
his government, and interrupt the execution of his commands. That the last
commandment properly belongs to this point, has been already demonstrated.
Have we felt any evil desire in our heart? we are already guilty of
concupiscence, and are become at once transgressors of the law; because
the Lord forbids us, not only to plan and attempt any thing that would
prove detrimental to another, but even to be stimulated and agitated with
concupiscence. Now, the curse of God always rests on the transgression of
the law. We have no reason, therefore, to exempt even the most trivial
emotions of concupiscence from the sentence of death. “In determining the
nature of different sins,” says Augustine, “let us not use deceitful
balances, to weigh what we please and how we please, according to our own
humour, saying, This is heavy,—This is light; but let us borrow the Divine
balance from the Holy Scriptures, as from the treasury of the Lord, and
therein weigh what is heavy; or rather let us weigh nothing ourselves, but
acknowledge the weights already determined by the Lord.” And what says the
Scripture? The assertion of Paul, that “the wages of sin is death,”(916)
sufficiently demonstrates this groundless distinction to have been unknown
to him. As we have already too strong a propensity to hypocrisy, this
opiate ought by no means to have been added, to lull our consciences into
greater insensibility.
LIX. I wish these persons would consider the meaning of this declaration
of Christ: “Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and
shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of
heaven.”(917) Are not they of this number, who thus presume to extenuate
the transgression of the law, as though it were not worthy of death? But
they ought to consider, not merely what is commanded, but who it is that
gives the commands; because the smallest transgression of the law, which
he has given, is a derogation from his authority. Is the violation of the
Divine majesty in any case a trivial thing in their estimation? Lastly, if
God has declared his will in the law, whatever is contrary to the law
displeases him. Will they pretend that the wrath of God is so debilitated
and disarmed, that the punishment of death cannot immediately follow? He
has unequivocally declared, if they could induce themselves to listen to
his voice, rather than obscure the plain truth with their frivolous
subtleties, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die;”(918) and, which I have
before cited, “The wages of sin is death.”(919) They acknowledge it to be
sin, because it is impossible to deny it; yet they contend that it is not
_mortal_ sin. But, as they have hitherto too much resigned themselves to
infatuation, they should at length learn to return to the exercise of
their reason. If they persevere in their dreams, we will take our leave of
them. Let the children of God know that all sin is _mortal_; because it is
a rebellion against the will of God, which necessarily provokes his wrath;
because it is a transgression of the law, against which the Divine
judgment is universally denounced; and that the offences of the saints are
_venial_, not of their own nature, but because they obtain pardon through
the mercy of God.
Chapter IX. Christ, Though Known To The Jews Under The Law, Yet Clearly
Revealed Only In The Gospel.
As it was not without reason, or without effect, that God was pleased, in
ancient times, to manifest himself as a Father by means of expiations and
sacrifices, and that he consecrated to himself a chosen people, there is
no doubt that he was known, even then, in the same image in which he now
appears to us with meridian splendour. Therefore Malachi, after having
enjoined the Jews to attend to the law of Moses, and to persevere in the
observance of it, (because after his death there was to be an interruption
of the prophetical office,) immediately announces, that “the Sun of
righteousness shall arise.”(920) In this language he suggests, that the
law tended to excite in the pious an expectation of the Messiah that was
to come, and that at his advent there was reason to hope for a much
greater degree of light. For this reason Peter says that “the Prophets
have inquired and searched diligently concerning the salvation,” which is
now manifested in the gospel; and that “it was revealed to them, that not
unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which are now
reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you.”(921)
Not that their instructions were useless to the ancient people, or
unprofitable to themselves, but because they did not enjoy the treasure,
which God through their hands has transmitted to us. For in the present
day, the grace, which was the subject of their testimony, is familiarly
exhibited before our eyes; and whereas they had but a small taste, we have
offered to us a more copious fruition of it. Therefore Christ, who asserts
that “Moses wrote of him,”(922) nevertheless extols that measure of grace
in which we excel the Jews. Addressing his disciples, he says, “Blessed
are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.”(923) “For I
tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things
which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye
hear, and have not heard them.”(924) This is no small recommendation of
the evangelical revelation, that God has preferred us to those holy
fathers who were eminent for singular piety. To this declaration that
other passage is not at all repugnant, where Christ says, “Abraham saw my
day, and was glad.”(925) For though his prospect of a thing so very remote
was attended with much obscurity, yet there was nothing wanting to the
certainty of a well founded hope; and hence that joy which accompanied the
holy patriarch even to his death. Neither does this assertion of John the
Baptist, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,”(926) exclude the
pious, who had died before his time, from a participation of the
understanding and light which shine in the person of Christ; but,
comparing their condition with ours, it teaches us that we have a clear
manifestation of those mysteries, of which they had only an obscure
prospect through the medium of shadows; as the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews more copiously and excellently shows, that “God, who at sundry
times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.”(927)
Therefore, though the only begotten Son, who is now to us “the brightness
of the glory, and the express image of the person,”(928) of God the
Father, was formerly known to the Jews, as we have elsewhere shown by a
quotation from Paul, that he was the leader of their ancient deliverance
from Egypt; yet this also is a truth, which is asserted by the same Paul
in another place, that “God, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”(929) For when he appeared
in this his image, he made himself visible, as it were, in comparison with
the obscure and shadowy representation of him which had been given before.
This renders the ingratitude and obstinacy of those, who shut their eyes
amid this meridian blaze, so much the more vile and detestable. And
therefore Paul says that Satan, “the god of this world, hath blinded their
minds, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto
them.”(930)
II. Now, I understand the gospel to be a clear manifestation of the
mystery of Christ. I grant indeed, since Paul styles the gospel _the
doctrine of faith_,(931) that whatever promises we find in the law
concerning the gracious remission of sins, by which God reconciles men to
himself, are accounted parts of it. For he opposes faith to those terrors
which torment and harass the conscience, if salvation is to be sought by
works. Whence it follows, that taking the word _gospel_ in a large sense,
it comprehends all those testimonies, which God formerly gave to the
fathers, of his mercy and paternal favour; but it is more eminently
applicable to the promulgation of the grace exhibited in Christ. This
acceptation is not only sanctioned by common use, but supported by the
authority of Christ and the Apostles. Whence it is properly said of him,
that he “preached the gospel of the kingdom.”(932) And Mark introduces
himself with this preface: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
But it is needless to collect more passages to prove a thing sufficiently
known. Christ, then, by his advent, “hath brought life and immortality to
light through the gospel.”(933) By these expressions Paul means, not that
the fathers were immerged in the shades of death, till the Son of God
became incarnate; but, claiming for the gospel this honourable
prerogative, he teaches that it is a new and unusual kind of legation, in
which God has performed those things that he had promised, that the truth
of the promises might appear in the person of his Son. For though the
faithful have always experienced the truth of the assertion of Paul, that
“all the promises of God in him are Yea, and in him Amen,”(934) because
they have been sealed in their hearts, yet, since he has completed in his
body all the parts of our salvation, the lively exhibition of those things
has justly obtained new and singular praise. Hence this declaration of
Christ: “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”(935) For though he seems to
allude to the ladder which the patriarch Jacob saw in a vision, yet he
displays the superior excellence of his advent by this character—that he
has opened the gate of heaven to give us free admittance into it.
III. Nevertheless, we must beware of the diabolical imagination of
Servetus, who, while he designs to extol the magnitude of the grace of
Christ, or at least professes such a design, totally abolishes all the
promises, as though they were terminated together with the law. He
pretends, that by faith in the gospel we receive the completion of all the
promises; as though there were no distinction between us and Christ. I
have just observed, that Christ left nothing incomplete of all that was
essential to our salvation; but it is not a fair inference, that we
already enjoy the benefits procured by him; for this would contradict the
declaration of Paul, that “hope is laid up for us.”(936) I grant, indeed,
that when we believe in Christ, we at the same time pass from death to
life; but we should also remember the observation of John, that though “we
are now the sons of God, it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we
know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see
him as he is.”(937) Though Christ, therefore, offers us in the gospel a
present plenitude of spiritual blessings, yet the fruition of them is
concealed under the custody of hope, till we are divested of our
corruptible body, and transfigured into the glory of him who has gone
before us. In the mean time, the Holy Spirit commands us to rely on the
promises; and his authority we ought to consider sufficient to silence all
the clamours of Servetus. For according to the testimony of Paul,
“godliness hath promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
come;”(938) and therefore he boasts of being an Apostle of Christ;
“according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.”(939) In
another place he apprizes us that we have the same promises which were
given to the saints in former times.(940) Finally, he represents it as the
summit of felicity, that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of
promise.(941) Nor, indeed, have we otherwise any enjoyment of Christ, any
further than as we embrace him invested with his promises. Hence it is,
that he dwells in our hearts, and yet we live like pilgrims at a distance
from him; because “we walk by faith, and not by sight.” Nor is there any
contrariety in these two positions, that we possess in Christ all that
belongs to the perfection of the life of heaven, and yet that faith is a
vision of invisible blessings. Only there is a difference to be observed
in the nature or quality of the promises; because the gospel affords a
clear discovery of that which the law has represented in shadows and
types.
IV. This likewise evinces the error of those who never make any other
comparison between the Law and the Gospel, than between the merit of works
and the gratuitous imputation of righteousness. This antithesis, I grant,
is by no means to be rejected; because Paul by the word _law_ frequently
intends the rule of a righteous life, in which God requires of us what we
owe to him, affording us no hope of life, unless we fulfil every part of
it, and, on the contrary, annexing a curse if we are guilty of the
smallest transgression. This is the sense in which he uses it in those
passages, where he argues that we are accepted by God through grace, and
are accounted righteous through his pardon of our sins, because the
observance of the law, to which the reward is promised, is not to be found
in any man. Paul, therefore, justly represents the righteousness of the
law and that of the gospel as opposed to each other. But the gospel has
not succeeded the whole law, so as to introduce a different way of
salvation; but rather to confirm and ratify the promises of the law, and
to connect the body with the shadows. For when Christ says that “the law
and the prophets were until John,” he does not abandon the fathers to the
curse which the slaves of the law cannot escape; he rather implies that
they were only initiated in the rudiments of religion, so that they
remained far below the sublimity of the evangelical doctrine. Wherefore,
when Paul calls the gospel “the power of God unto salvation to every one
that believeth,” he afterwards adds that it is “witnessed by the law and
the prophets.”(942) But at the end of the same Epistle, although he
asserts that the preaching of Jesus Christ is “the revelation of the
mystery which was kept secret since the world began,” he qualifies this
sentiment with the following explication—that it “is now made manifest,
and by the Scriptures of the prophets made known to all nations.”(943)
Hence we conclude, that when mention is made of the whole law, the gospel
differs from it only with respect to a clear manifestation; but on account
of the inestimable plenitude of grace, which has been displayed to us in
Christ, the celestial kingdom of God is justly said to have been erected
in the earth at his advent.
V. Now, John was placed between the Law and the Gospel, holding an
intermediate office connected with both. For though, in calling Christ
“the Lamb of God” and “the victim for the expiation of sins,”(944) he
preached the substance of the gospel; yet, because he did not clearly
express that incomparable power and glory which afterwards appeared in his
resurrection, Christ affirms that he is not equal to the Apostles. This is
his meaning in the following words: “Among them that are born of women,
there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding, he
that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”(945) For he is
not there commending the persons of men, but after having preferred John
to all the prophets, he allots the highest degree of honour to the
preaching of the gospel, which we have elsewhere seen is signified by “the
kingdom of heaven.” When John himself said that he was only a
“voice,”(946) as though he were inferior to the prophets, this declaration
proceeded not from a pretended humility; he meant to signify that he was
not intrusted with a proper embassy, but acted merely in the capacity of a
herald, according to the prediction of Malachi: “Behold, I will send you
Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the
Lord.”(947) Nor indeed, through the whole course of his ministry, did he
aim at any thing but procuring disciples for Christ, which he also proves
from Isaiah to have been the commission given him by God. In this sense he
was called by Christ “a burning and a shining light,”(948) because the
full day had not yet arrived. Yet this is no reason why he should not be
numbered among the preachers of the gospel, as he used the same baptism
which was afterwards delivered to the apostles. But it was not till after
Christ was received into the celestial glory, that the more free and rapid
progress of the apostles completed what John had begun.
Chapter X. The Similarity Of The Old And New Testaments.
From the preceding observations it may now be evident, that all those
persons, from the beginning of the world, whom God has adopted into the
society of his people, have been federally connected with him by the same
law and the same doctrine which are in force among us: but because it is
of no small importance that this point be established, I shall show, by
way of appendix, since the fathers were partakers with us of the same
inheritance, and hoped for the same salvation through the grace of our
common Mediator, how far their condition in this connection was different
from ours. For though the testimonies we have collected from the law and
the prophets in proof of this, render it sufficiently evident that the
people of God have never had any other rule of religion and piety, yet
because some writers have raised many disputes concerning the difference
of the Old and New Testaments, which may occasion doubts in the mind of an
undiscerning reader, we shall assign a particular chapter for the better
and more accurate discussion of this subject. Moreover, what would
otherwise have been very useful, has now been rendered necessary for us by
Servetus and some madmen of the sect of the Anabaptists, who entertain no
other ideas of the Israelitish nation, than of a herd of swine, whom they
pretend to have been pampered by the Lord in this world, without the least
hope of a future immortality in heaven. To defend the pious mind,
therefore, from this pestilent error, and at the same time to remove all
difficulties which may arise from the mention of a diversity between the
Old and New Testaments, let us, as we proceed, examine what similarity
there is between them, and what difference; what covenant the Lord made
with the Israelites, in ancient times, before the advent of Christ, and
what he has entered into with us since his manifestation in the flesh.
II. And, indeed, both these topics may be despatched in one word. The
covenant of all the fathers is so far from differing substantially from
ours, that it is the very same; it only varies in the administration. But
as such extreme brevity would not convey to any man a clear understanding
of the subject, it is necessary, if we would do any good, to proceed to a
more diffuse explication of it. But in showing their similarity, or rather
unity, it will be needless to recapitulate all the particulars which have
already been mentioned, and unseasonable to introduce those things which
remain to be discussed in some other place. We must here insist chiefly on
three principal points. We have to maintain, First, that carnal opulence
and felicity were not proposed to the Jews as the mark towards which they
should ultimately aspire, but that they were adopted to the hope of
immortality, and that the truth of this adoption was certified to them by
oracles, by the law, and by the prophets. Secondly, that the covenant, by
which they were united to the Lord, was founded, not on any merits of
theirs, but on the mere mercy of God who called them. Thirdly, that they
both possessed and knew Christ as the Mediator, by whom they were united
to God, and became partakers of his promises. The second of these points,
as perhaps it is not yet sufficiently known, shall be demonstrated at
large in its proper place. For we shall prove by numerous and explicit
testimonies of the prophets, that whatever blessing the Lord ever gave or
promised to his people, proceeded from his indulgent goodness. The third
point has been clearly demonstrated in several places. And we have not
wholly neglected the first.
III. In discussing the first point, therefore, because it principally
belongs to the present argument, and is the grand subject of their
controversy against us, we will use the more diligent application; yet in
such a manner, that if any thing be wanting to the explication of the
others, it may be supplied as we proceed, or added afterwards in a
suitable place. Indeed, the apostle removes every doubt respecting all
these points, when he says, that God the Father “promised afore by his
prophets in the holy Scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son,”(949)
which he promulgated in the appointed time: and again, that the
righteousness of faith, which is revealed in the gospel, is “witnessed by
the law and the prophets.”(950) For the gospel does not detain men in the
joy of the present life, but elevates them to the hope of immortality;
does not fasten them to terrestrial delights, but announcing to them a
hope reserved in heaven, does as it were transport them thither. For this
is the description which he gives in another place: “In whom also after
that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which
is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession.”(951) Again: “We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of
the love which ye have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up
for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the
gospel.”(952) Again: “He called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”(953) Whence it is called “the word of
salvation,” and “the power of God to the salvation of believers,” and “the
kingdom of heaven.” Now, if the doctrine of the gospel be spiritual, and
open a way to the possession of an immortal life, let us not suppose that
they, to whom it was promised and announced, were totally negligent and
careless of their souls, and stupefied in the pursuit of corporeal
pleasures. Nor let any one here cavil, that the promises which are
recorded in the law and the prophets, respecting the gospel, were not
designed for the Jews. For just after having spoken of the gospel being
promised in the law, he adds, “that what things soever the law saith, it
saith to them who are under the law.”(954) This was in another argument, I
grant; but when he said that whatever the law inculcates truly belonged to
the Jews, he was not so forgetful as not to remember what he had affirmed,
a few verses before, concerning the gospel promised in the law. By
declaring that the Old Testament contained evangelical promises,
therefore, the apostle most clearly demonstrates that it principally
related to a future life.
IV. For the same reason it follows, that it was founded on the free mercy
of God, and confirmed by the mediation of Christ. For even the preaching
of the gospel only announces, that sinners are justified by the paternal
goodness of God, independently of any merit of their own; and the whole
substance of it terminates in Christ. Who, then, dares to represent the
Jews as destitute of Christ,—them with whom we are informed the
evangelical covenant was made, of which Christ is the sole foundation? Who
dares to represent them as strangers to the benefit of a free salvation,
to whom we are informed the doctrine of the righteousness of faith was
communicated? But not to be prolix in disputing on a clear point, we have
a remarkable expression of the Lord: “Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and
he saw it, and was glad.”(955) And what Christ there declares concerning
Abraham, the apostle shows to have been universal among the faithful, when
he says that Christ remains “the same yesterday, and to‐day, and for
ever.”(956) For he there speaks, not only of the eternal Divinity of
Christ, but of his power, which has been perpetually manifested to the
faithful. Wherefore both the blessed Virgin and Zachariah declare, in
their songs, that the salvation revealed in Christ is a performance of the
promises which the Lord had made to Abraham and the patriarchs.(957) If
the Lord, in the manifestation of Christ, faithfully performed his ancient
oath, it cannot be denied that the end of the Old Testament was always in
Christ and eternal life.
V. Moreover the apostle makes the Israelites equal to us, not only in the
grace of the covenant, but also in the signification of the sacraments.
For when he means to adduce examples of the punishments with which the
Scripture states them to have been formerly chastised, in order to deter
the Corinthians from running into similar crimes, he begins by premising,
that we have no reason to arrogate any preëminence to ourselves, which can
deliver us from the Divine vengeance inflicted on them; since the Lord not
only favoured them with the same benefits, but illustrated his grace among
them by the same symbols;(958) as though he had said, If ye confide in
being beyond the reach of danger, because both baptism by which you have
been sealed, and the supper which you daily receive, have excellent
promises, while at the same time you despise the Divine goodness, and live
licentious lives,—know ye, that the Jews also were not destitute of such
symbols, though the Lord inflicted on them his severest judgments. They
were baptized in their passage through the sea, and in the cloud by which
they were protected from the fervour of the sun. Our opponents maintain
that passage to have been a carnal baptism, corresponding in some degree
to our spiritual one. But if that were admitted, the apostle’s argument
would not proceed; for his design here is to prevent Christians from
supposing that they excel the Jews in the privilege of baptism. Nor is
what immediately follows, that they “did all eat the same spiritual meat,
and did all drink the same spiritual drink,” which he interprets of
Christ, liable to this cavil.
VI. To invalidate this declaration of Paul, they object the assertion of
Christ, “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. If
any man eat of this bread, (that is, my flesh,) he shall live for
ever.”(959) But the two passages are reconciled without any difficulty.
The Lord, because he was addressing auditors who only sought to be
satisfied with corporeal sustenance, but were unconcerned about food for
the soul, accommodates his discourse in some measure to their capacity,
and institutes a comparison between manna and his own body, particularly
to strike their senses. They demand that in order to acquire authority to
himself, he should prove his power by some miracle, such as Moses
performed in the desert, when he obtained manna from heaven. In the manna,
however, they had no idea of any thing but a remedy for corporeal hunger,
with which the people were then afflicted. They did not penetrate to that
sublimer mystery of which Paul treats. Christ, therefore, to demonstrate
the superiority of the blessing they ought to expect from him, to that
which they said their fathers had received from Moses, makes this
comparison: If it be in your opinion a great and memorable miracle, that
the Lord, to prevent his people from perishing in the wilderness, supplied
them, by means of Moses, with heavenly food, which served them as a
temporary sustenance,—hence conclude how much more excellent that food
must be, which communicates immortality. We see, then, why the Lord
omitted the principal thing designed by the manna, and only remarked the
lowest advantage that resulted from it. It was because the Jews, as if
with an intention of reproaching him, contrasted him with Moses, who had
supplied the necessities of the people with manna. He replies, that he is
the dispenser of a far superior favour, in comparison with which the
corporeal sustenance of the people, the sole object of their great
admiration, deserves to be considered as nothing. Knowing that the Lord,
when he rained manna from heaven, not only poured it down for the support
of their bodies, but likewise dispersed it as a spiritual mystery, to
typify that spiritual vivification which is experienced in Christ, Paul
does not neglect that view of the subject which is most deserving of
consideration. Wherefore it is certainly and clearly proved, that the same
promises of an eternal and heavenly life, with which the Lord now favours
us, were not only communicated to the Jews, but even sealed and confirmed
by sacraments truly spiritual. This subject is argued at length by
Augustine against Faustus the Manichæan.
VII. But if the reader would prefer a recital of testimonies from the law
and the prophets, to show him that the spiritual covenant was common also
to the fathers, as we have heard from Christ and his apostles,—I will
attend to this wish, and that with the greater readiness, because our
adversaries will thereby be more decisively confuted, and will have no
pretence for any future cavil. I will begin with that demonstration,
which, though I know the Anabaptists will superciliously deem it futile
and almost ridiculous, yet will have considerable weight with persons of
docility and good understanding. And I take it for granted, that there is
such a vital efficacy in the Divine word as to quicken the souls of all
those whom God favours with a participation of it. For the assertion of
Peter has ever been true, that it is “an incorruptible seed, which abideth
for ever;”(960) as he also concludes from the words of Isaiah.(961) Now,
when God anciently united the Jews with himself in this sacred bond, there
is no doubt that he separated them to the hope of eternal life. For when I
say, that they embraced the word which was to connect them more closely
with God, I advert not to that general species of communication with him,
which is diffused through heaven and earth, and all the creatures in the
universe, which although it animates all things according to their
respective natures, yet does not deliver from the necessity of corruption.
I refer to that particular species of communication, by which the minds of
the pious are enlightened into the knowledge of God, and in some measure
united to him. Since Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs,
were attached to God by such an illumination of his word, I maintain,
there can be no doubt that they had an entrance into his immortal kingdom.
For it was a real participation of God, which cannot be separated from the
blessing of eternal life.
VIII. If the subject still appear involved in any obscurity, let us
proceed to the very form of the covenant; which will not only satisfy
sober minds, but will abundantly prove the ignorance of those who
endeavour to oppose it. For the Lord has always made this covenant with
his servants: “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.”(962) These
expressions, according to the common explanation of the prophets,
comprehend life, and salvation, and consummate felicity. For it is not
without reason that David frequently pronounces, how “blessed is the
nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his
own inheritance;”(963) and that not on account of any earthly felicity,
but because he delivers from death, perpetually preserves, and attends
with everlasting mercy, those whom he has taken for his people. As it is
expressed in the other prophets, “Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my
God, mine Holy One? we shall not die.”(964) “The Lord is our Lawgiver, the
Lord is our King; he will save us.”(965) “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is
like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord?”(966) But not to labour much
on a point which does not require it, we are frequently reminded, in
reading the prophets, that we shall have a plenitude of all blessings, and
even a certainty of salvation, provided the Lord be our God. And that on
good ground; for if his face, as soon as it has begun to shine, be a
present pledge of salvation, will God manifest himself to any man without
opening the treasures of salvation to him? For God is our God, on the
express condition of his “walking in the midst of us,” as he declared by
Moses.(967) But this presence of his cannot be obtained without the
possession of life. And though nothing further had been expressed, they
had a promise of spiritual life sufficiently clear in these words: “I am
the Lord your God.”(968) For he announced that he would be a God, not only
to their bodies, but chiefly to their souls; for the soul, unless united
to God by righteousness, remains alienated from him at death. But let that
union take place, and it will be attended with eternal salvation.
IX. Moreover, he not only declared himself to be their God, but promised
to continue so for ever; in order that their hope, not contented with
present blessings, might be extended to eternity. And that the use of the
future tense conveyed this idea to them, appears from many expressions,
where the faithful console themselves not only amidst present evils, but
for futurity, that God will never desert them. But in regard to the second
part of the promise, he still more plainly encouraged them concerning the
extension of the Divine blessing to them beyond the limits of the present
life: “I will be a God to thy seed after thee.”(969) For if he intended to
declare his benevolence to them after they were dead, by blessing their
posterity, much more would he not fail of manifesting his favour towards
themselves. For God is not like men, who transfer their love to the
children of their friends, because death takes away their opportunity of
performing kind offices to those who were objects of their regard. But
God, whose beneficence is not interrupted by death, deprives not the dead
of the blessings of his mercy, which for their sakes he diffuses through a
thousand generations. The design of the Lord, therefore, was to show them,
by a clear proof, the magnitude and abundance of his goodness which they
should experience after death, when he described its exuberance as
reaching to all their posterity.(970) Now, the Lord sealed the truth, and,
as it were, exhibited the completion of this promise, when he called
himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, long after they were
dead.(971) For what is implied in it? Would it not have been a ridiculous
appellation, if they had perished? It would have been just as if he had
said, I am the God of those who have no existence. Wherefore, the
evangelists relate, that with this single argument the Sadducees were so
embarrassed by Christ,(972) as to be unable to deny that Moses had given a
testimony in favour of the resurrection of the dead; for they had learned
from Moses himself, that “all his saints are in his hand.”(973) Whence it
was easy to infer, that death had not annihilated those whom he, who is
the arbiter of life and death, had received into his guardianship and
protection.
X. Now, to come to the principal point on which this controversy turns,
let us examine, whether the faithful themselves were not so instructed by
the Lord, as to be sensible that they had a better life in another world,
and to meditate on that to the neglect of the present. In the first place,
the course of life which was divinely enjoined them was a perpetual
exercise, by which they were reminded that they were the most miserable of
all mankind, if they had no happiness but in the present life. Adam,
rendered most unhappy by the mere remembrance of his lost felicity, finds
great difficulty in supplying his wants by anxious toils.(974) Nor does
the Divine malediction confine itself to his manual labours; he
experiences the bitterest sorrow from that which was his only remaining
consolation. Of his two sons, he is deprived of one by the parricidal
hands of his brother; the survivor is deservedly the object of his
detestation and abhorrence.(975) Abel, cruelly assassinated in the flower
of his age, exhibits an example of human calamity. Noah, while the whole
world securely abandons itself to sensual delights, consumes a valuable
part of his life with excessive fatigue in building the ark.(976) His
escape from death was attended with greater distress than if he had died a
hundred times. For besides that the ark was, as it were, a sepulchre to
him for ten months,(977) nothing could be more disagreeable than to be
detained for so long a period almost immersed in the ordure of animals.
After having escaped from such great difficulties, he meets with a fresh
occasion of grief. He sees himself ridiculed by his own son, and is
constrained to pronounce a curse with his own mouth upon him, whom by the
great goodness of God he had received safe from the deluge.(978)
XI. Abraham is one who ought to be deemed equal to a host, if we consider
his faith, which is proposed to us as the best standard of believing, so
that we must be numbered in his family, in order to be the children of
God. Now, what would be more absurd, than that Abraham should be the
father of all the faithful, and not possess even the lowest place among
them? But he cannot be excluded from the number, nor even from the most
honourable station, without the destruction of the whole Church. Now, with
respect to the circumstances of his life;—when he is first called, he is
torn by the Divine command from his country, his parents, and his friends,
the enjoyment of whom is supposed to give life its principal relish; as
though God positively intended to deprive him of all the pleasures of
life.(979) As soon as he has entered the land in which he is commanded to
reside, he is driven from it by a famine. He removes, in search of relief,
to a place where, for the preservation of his own safety, he finds it
necessary to disown his wife, which would probably be more afflictive to
him than many deaths.(980) After having returned to the country of his
residence, he is again expelled from it by famine. What kind of felicity
is it to dwell in such a country, where he must so frequently experience
hunger, and even perish for want of sustenance, unless he leaves it? In
the country of Abimelech, he is again driven to the same necessity of
purchasing his own personal safety with the loss of his wife.(981) While
he wanders hither and thither for many years in an unsettled state, he is
compelled, by the continual quarrels of his servants, to send away his
nephew, whom he regarded as a son.(982) There is no doubt that he bore
this separation just as he would the amputation of one of his limbs. Soon
after he is informed that enemies have carried him away captive.(983)
Whithersoever he directs his course, he finds himself surrounded by savage
barbarians, who will not even permit him to drink the water of wells which
with immense labour he has himself digged. For he could not have bought
the use of them from the king of Gerar, if it had not been previously
prohibited.(984) When he arrives to old age, beyond the time of having
children, he experiences the most disagreeable and painful circumstance
with which that age is attended.(985) He sees himself destitute of
posterity, till, beyond all expectation, he begets Ishmael; whose birth he
purchases at a dear rate, while he is wearied with the reproaches of
Sarah, just as if he encouraged the contumacy of his maid‐servant, and so
were himself the cause of the domestic disturbance.(986) At length Isaac
is born; but his birth is attended with this condition, that Ishmael the
first‐born must be banished from the family, and abandoned like an
enemy.(987) When Isaac is left alone to solace the good man in his
declining years, he is soon after commanded to sacrifice him.(988) What
can the human mind imagine more calamitous, than for a father to become
the executioner of his own son? If he had been taken away by sickness,
every one would have thought the aged parent unhappy in the extreme, as
having had a son given him in mockery, at the loss of whom, his former
grief on account of his being destitute of children would certainly be
redoubled. If he had been massacred by some stranger, the calamity would
have been greatly increased by the horrible nature of his end; but to be
slain by his father’s own hand exceeds all the other instances of
distress. In short, through the whole course of his life, Abraham was so
driven about and afflicted, that if any one wished to give an example of a
life full of calamity, he could not find one more suitable. Nor let it be
objected, that he was not entirely miserable, because he had at length a
prosperous deliverance from such numerous and extreme dangers. For we
cannot pronounce his to be a happy life, who for a long period struggles
through an infinity of difficulties; but his, who is exempted from
afflictions, and favoured with the peaceful enjoyment of present
blessings.
XII. Isaac, though afflicted with fewer calamities, yet scarcely ever
enjoys the smallest taste of pleasure. He also experiences those vexations
which permit not a man to be happy in the world. Famine drives him from
the land of Canaan; his wife is torn from his bosom; his neighbours
frequently harass him, and take every method of distressing him, so that
he also is constrained to contend with them about water.(989) In his own
family he suffers much uneasiness from Esau’s wives;(990) he is distressed
by the discord of his sons, and unable to remedy that great evil, but by
the exile of him to whom he had given the blessing.(991) With respect to
Jacob, he is an eminent example of nothing but extreme infelicity. He
passes his childhood at home, amidst the menaces and terrors of his elder
brother, to which he is at length constrained to give way.(992) A fugitive
from his parents and his native soil, in addition to the bitterness of
exile, he is treated with unkindness by his uncle Laban. It is not
sufficient for him to endure a most hard and severe servitude of seven
years, but he is fraudulently deceived in a wife.(993) For the sake of
another wife he must enter on a new servitude,(994) in which, as he
himself complains, he is scorched all the day by the fervid rays of the
sun, and through the wakeful night benumbed by the icy cold.(995) During
twenty years, which he spends in such extreme hardships, he is daily
afflicted with fresh injuries from his father‐in‐law. Nor does he enjoy
tranquillity in his own family, which he sees distracted and almost torn
asunder by the animosities, contentions, and rivalship of his wives.(996)
When he is commanded to return to his own country, he is obliged to depart
in a manner resembling an ignominious flight. Nor even then can he escape
the iniquity of his father‐in‐law, but is harassed with his reproaches and
insults in the midst of his journey.(997) Immediately after, he falls into
a much greater difficulty. For as he advances towards his brother, he has
death before his eyes in as many forms as a cruel and inveterate enemy can
possibly contrive. He is exceedingly tormented and distracted with
dreadful terrors, while he is expecting the approach of his brother; when
he sees him, he falls at his feet like a person half dead, till he finds
him more reconciled than he could have ventured to hope.(998) Moreover, on
his first entrance into the land, he is deprived of Rachel, his dearly
beloved wife.(999) Afterwards he hears that the son whom he had by her,
and whom, therefore, he loved above the rest, is torn asunder by wild
beasts. The severity of his grief on account of his death is expressed by
himself, when, after many days of mourning, he obstinately refuses all
consolation, saying, “I will go down into the grave unto my son
mourning.”(1000) In the mean time, the rape and violation of his daughter,
and the rashness of his sons in revenging it, which not only made him an
object of abhorrence to all the inhabitants of the country, but put him in
immediate danger of being massacred; what abundant sources were these of
anxiety, grief, and vexation!(1001) Then follows the horrible crime of
Reuben, his first‐born, than which no greater affliction could befall him.
For if the pollution of a man’s wife be numbered among the greatest
miseries, what shall we say of it, when the crime is perpetrated by his
own son?(1002) Not long after, his family is contaminated with
incest;(1003) so that such a number of disgraceful occurrences may be
expected to break a heart otherwise very firm and unbroken by calamities.
Towards the end of life, when he is seeking sustenance for himself and
family in a season of famine, his ears are wounded by the report of a new
calamity, which informs him that one of his sons is detained in prison;
and in order to recover him he is obliged to intrust his darling Benjamin
to the care of the rest.(1004) Who can suppose that in such an
accumulation of distresses he had a single moment of respite? He himself,
who is best able to give a testimony respecting himself, declares to
Pharaoh, that his days on the earth have been few and evil.(1005) By
affirming that he has lived in continual miseries, he denies that he has
enjoyed that prosperity which the Lord had promised him. Therefore either
Jacob formed an improper and ungrateful estimate of the favour of God, or
he spake the truth in asserting that he had been miserable on the earth.
If his affirmation was true, it follows that his hope was not fixed on
terrestrial things.
XIII. If these holy fathers expected, as undoubtedly they did expect, a
life of happiness from the hand of God, they both knew and contemplated a
different kind of blessedness from that of this terrestrial life. This the
apostle very beautifully shows, when he says, “By faith Abraham sojourned
in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he
looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen
them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them and confessed
that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such
things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly if they had
been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have
had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country,
that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God;
for he hath prepared for them a city.”(1006) For they would have been
stupid beyond all comparison, so steadily to follow promises, of which
there appeared no hope on earth, unless they had expected the completion
of them in another world. But the apostle, with great force, principally
insists on this—that they called the present life a _pilgrimage_, as is
also stated by Moses.(1007) For if they were strangers and sojourners in
the land of Canaan, what became of the Divine promise, by which they had
been appointed heirs of it? This manifestly implies, therefore, that the
promise, which the Lord had given them concerning the possession of it,
related to something more remote. Wherefore they never acquired a foot of
land in Canaan, except for a sepulchre; by which they testified that they
had no hope of enjoying the benefit of the promise till after death. And
this is the reason why Jacob thought it so exceedingly desirable to be
buried there, that he made his son Joseph promise it to him by oath;(1008)
and why Joseph commanded that his bones should be removed thither, even
several ages after his death, when they would have been long reduced to
ashes.(1009)
XIV. In short, it evidently appears, that in all the pursuits of life they
kept in view the blessedness of the future state. For why should Jacob
have so eagerly desired, and exposed himself to such danger in
endeavouring to obtain, the primogeniture, which would occasion his exile,
and almost his rejection from his family, but from which he could derive
no possible benefit, unless he had his views fixed on a nobler blessing?
And that such was his view he declared in these words, which he uttered
with his expiring breath: “I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.”(1010)
What salvation could he expect, when he felt himself about to expire,
unless he had seen in death the commencement of a new life? But why do we
argue concerning the saints and children of God, when even one, who in
other respects endeavoured to oppose the truth, was not entirely destitute
of such a knowledge? For what was the meaning of Balaam, when he said,
“Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like
his,”(1011) but the same which David afterwards expressed in the following
words? “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his
saints.”(1012) “Evil shall slay the wicked.”(1013) If death were the
ultimate bound of human existence, no difference could be observed in it
between the righteous and the impious; the distinction between them
consists in the different destinies which await them after death.
XV. We have not yet proceeded beyond Moses; whose only office, our
opponents allege, was to persuade a carnal people to the worship of God by
the fertility of the land, and an abundance of all things: and yet, unless
any one wilfully rejects the evidence presented to him, we already
discover a clear declaration of a spiritual covenant. But if we come down
to the prophets, there we have the fullest revelation both of eternal life
and of the kingdom of Christ. And first, with what perspicuity and
certainty does David direct all his writings to this end; though, as he
was prior to the rest in point of time, so, according to the order of the
Divine dispensation, he shadowed forth the heavenly mysteries more
obscurely than they did! What estimate he formed of his terrestrial
habitation, the following passage declares: “I am a stranger with thee,
and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Verily, every man at his best
estate is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a vain show. And
now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.”(1014) He who, after
having confessed that there is nothing substantial or permanent on earth,
still retains the constancy of his hope in God, certainly contemplates the
felicity reserved for him in another world. To this contemplation he
frequently recalls the faithful, whenever he wishes to afford them true
consolation. For in another place, after having spoken of the brevity and
the transitory nature of human life, he adds, “But the mercy of the Lord
is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.”(1015) Similar
to which is the following: “Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the
earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but
thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a
vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art
the same, and thy years shall have no end. The children of thy servants
shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.”(1016)
If, notwithstanding the destruction of heaven and earth, the pious cease
not to be established before the Lord, it follows that their salvation is
connected with his eternity. But this hope cannot be at all supported,
unless it rest on the promise which we find in Isaiah: “The heavens,”
saith the Lord, “shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old
like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but
my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be
abolished;”(1017) where perpetuity is ascribed to righteousness and
salvation, considered not as resident in God, but as experienced by men.
XVI. Nor can what he frequently says concerning the prosperity of the
faithful be understood in any other sense than as referring to the
manifestation of the glory of heaven. Such are the following passages:
“The Lord preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of
the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for
the upright in heart.”(1018) Again: “The righteousness of the righteous
endureth for ever; his horn shall be exalted with honour. The desire of
the wicked shall perish.”(1019) Again: “Surely the righteous shall give
thanks unto thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence.”(1020)
Again: “The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance.”(1021)
Again: “The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants.”(1022) For the Lord
frequently leaves his servants to the rage of the impious, not only to be
harassed, but to be torn asunder and ruined; he suffers good men to
languish in obscurity and meanness, while the impious are almost as
glorious as the stars; nor does he exhilarate the faithful with the light
of his countenance, so that they can enjoy any lasting pleasure. Wherefore
David does not dissemble that, if the faithful fix their eyes on the
present state of things, they will be most grievously tempted with an
apprehension lest innocence should obtain from God neither favour nor
reward. So much does impiety in most cases prosper and flourish, while the
pious are oppressed with ignominy, poverty, contempt, and distress of
every kind. “My feet,” says he, “were almost gone; my steps had well nigh
slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked.”(1023) At length he concludes his account of them: “When I
thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the
sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.”(1024)
XVII. We may learn, then, even from this confession of David, that the
holy fathers under the Old Testament were not ignorant, that God rarely or
never in this world gives his servants those things which he promises
them, and that, therefore, they elevated their minds to the sanctuary of
God, where they had a treasure in reserve which is not visible amid the
shadows of the present life. This sanctuary was the last judgment, which,
not being discernible by their eyes, they were contented to apprehend by
faith. Relying on this confidence, whatever events might befall them in
the world, they, nevertheless, had no doubt that there would come a time
when the Divine promises would be fulfilled. This is evident from the
following passages: “I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be
satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.”(1025) Again: “I am like a
green olive‐tree in the house of God.”(1026) Again: “The righteous shall
flourish like the palm‐tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those
that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of
our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat
and flourishing.” He had just before said, “O Lord, how great are thy
works! and thy thoughts are very deep. When the wicked spring as the
grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they
shall be destroyed for ever.”(1027) Where can this beauty and gracefulness
of the faithful be found, but where the appearance of this world has been
reversed by the manifestation of the kingdom of God? When they could turn
their eyes towards that eternity, despising the momentary rigour of
present calamities, they securely broke forth into the following
expressions: “The Lord shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. But
thou, O God, shalt bring them” (wicked men) “down into the pit of
destruction.”(1028) Where, in this world, is the pit of destruction, to
absorb the wicked, as an instance of whose felicity it is mentioned in
another place that without languishing for any long time “they go down to
the grave in a moment?”(1029) Where is that great stability of the saints,
whom David himself, in the language of complaint, frequently represents as
not only troubled, but oppressed and consumed? He certainly had in view,
not any thing that results from the agitations of the world, which are
even more tumultuous than those of the sea, but what will be accomplished
by the Lord, when he shall one day sit in judgment to fix the everlasting
destiny of heaven and earth. This appears from another psalm, in which he
gives the following beautiful description: “They that trust in their
wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; none of
them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for
him. For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish
person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is,
that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling‐places to
all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless
man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. This
their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Like
sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the
upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty
shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.”(1030) In the first place,
this derision of fools, for placing their dependence on the mutable and
transitory blessings of the world, shows that the wise ought to seek a
very different felicity. But he more evidently discloses the mystery of
the resurrection, when he establishes the reign of the pious after the
ruin and destruction of the wicked. For what shall we understand by “the
morning” which he mentions, but the revelation of a new life commencing
after the conclusion of the present?
XVIII. Hence arose that reflection, which served the faithful as a
consolation under their miseries, and a remedy for their sufferings: “The
anger of the Lord endureth but a moment; in his favour is life.”(1031) How
did they limit their afflictions to a moment, who were afflicted all their
lifetime? When did they perceive so long a duration of the Divine
goodness, of which they had scarcely the smallest taste? If their views
had been confined to the earth, they could have made no such discovery;
but as they directed their eyes towards heaven, they perceived, that the
afflictions with which the Lord exercises his saints are but “for a small
moment,” and that the “mercies” with which he “gathers” them are
“everlasting.”(1032) On the other hand, they foresaw the eternal and
never‐ending perdition of the impious, who had been happy, as in a dream,
for a single day. Hence the following sentiments: “The memory of the just
is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot.”(1033) “Precious in the
sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”(1034) Also in Samuel: “The
Lord will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in
darkness.”(1035) These expressions suggest to us, that they well knew,
that whatever vicissitudes may befall the saints, yet their last end will
be life and salvation; and that the prosperity of the impious is a
pleasant path, which gradually leads to the gulf of everlasting death.
Therefore they called the death of such the “destruction of the
uncircumcised,”(1036) as of those from whom all hope of resurrection had
been cut off. Wherefore David could not conceive a more grievous
imprecation than this: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
and not be written with the righteous.”(1037)
XIX. But the following declaration of Job is remarkable beyond all others:
“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day
upon the earth; and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in
my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall
behold, and not another.”(1038) Some, who wish to display their critical
sagacity, cavil that this is not to be understood of the final
resurrection, but even of the first day on which Job expected God to be
more propitious to him. Though we partly concede this, we shall extort an
acknowledgment from them, whether they are willing or not, that Job could
never have attained to such an enlarged hope, if his thoughts had been
confined to the earth. We must, therefore, be obliged to confess that he,
who saw that his Redeemer would be present with him even when lying in the
sepulchre, must have elevated his views to a future immortality. For to
them, who think only of the present life, death is a source of extreme
despair, which, however, could not annihilate his hope. “Though he slay
me,” said he, “yet will I trust in him.”(1039) Nor let any trifler here
object, that these were the expressions of a few persons, and are far from
furnishing proof that such a doctrine was current among the Jews. I will
immediately reply, that these few persons did not in these declarations
reveal any recondite wisdom, in which only superior understandings were
separately and privately instructed; but that the Holy Spirit having
constituted them teachers of the people, they publicly promulgated the
Divine mysteries which were to be generally received, and to be the
principles of the popular religion. When we hear the public oracles of the
Holy Spirit, therefore, in which he has so clearly and evidently spoken of
the spiritual life in the Jewish church, it would be intolerable
perverseness to apply them entirely to the carnal covenant, in which no
mention is made but of the earth and earthly opulence.
XX. If we descend to the later prophets, there we may freely expatiate as
quite at home. For if it was not difficult to prove our point from David,
Job, and Samuel, we shall do it there with much greater facility. For this
is the order and economy which God observed in dispensing the covenant of
his mercy, that as the course of time accelerated the period of its full
exhibition, he illustrated it from day to day with additional revelations.
Therefore, in the beginning, when the first promise was given to Adam, it
was like the kindling of some feeble sparks. Subsequent accessions caused
a considerable enlargement of the light, which continued to increase more
and more, and diffused its splendour through a wide extent, till at
length, every cloud being dissipated, Christ, the Sun of Righteousness,
completely illuminated the whole world. There is no reason to fear,
therefore, if we want the suffrages of the prophets in support of our
cause, that they will fail us. But as I perceive it would be a very
extensive field, which would engross more of our attention than the nature
of our design will admit,—for it would furnish matter for a large
volume,—and as I also think that by what has been already said, I have
prepared the way even for a reader of small penetration to proceed without
any difficulties, I shall abstain from a prolixity which at present is not
very necessary. I shall only caution the reader to advance with the clew
which we have put into his hand; namely, that whenever the prophets
mention the blessedness of the faithful, scarcely any vestiges of which
are discernible in the present life, he should recur to this distinction;
that in order to the better elucidation of the Divine goodness, the
prophets represented it to the people in a figurative manner; but that
they gave such a representation of it as would withdraw the mind from
earth and time, and the elements of this world, all which must ere long
perish, and would necessarily excite to a contemplation of the felicity of
the future spiritual life.
XXI. We will content ourselves with one example. When the Israelites,
after being carried to Babylon, perceived how very much their dispersion
resembled a death, they could scarcely be convinced that the prophecy of
Ezekiel concerning their restitution(1040) was not a mere fable; for they
considered it in the same light, as if he had announced, that putrid
carcasses would be restored to life. The Lord, in order to show that even
that difficulty would not prevent him from displaying his beneficence,
gave the prophet a vision of a field full of dry bones, which he
instantaneously restored to life and vigour solely by the power of his
word. The vision served indeed to correct the existing incredulity; but at
the same time it reminded the Jews, how far the power of the Lord extended
beyond the restoration of the people, since the mere expression of his
will so easily reanimated the dry and dispersed bones. Wherefore you may
properly compare that passage with another of Isaiah: “Thy dead men shall
live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that
dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall
cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut
thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until
the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also
shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”(1041)
XXII. It would be absurd, however, to attempt to reduce every passage to
such a canon of interpretation. For there are some places, which show
without any disguise the future immortality which awaits the faithful in
the kingdom of God. Such are some which we have recited, and such are many
others, but particularly these two; one in Isaiah: “As the new heavens and
the new earth which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord,
so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that
from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all
flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth,
and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me;
for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched.”(1042)
And another in Daniel: “At that time shall Michael stand up, the great
prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a
time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that
same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that
shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the
dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame
and everlasting contempt.”(1043)
XXIII. Now, the two remaining points, that the fathers had Christ as the
pledge of their covenant, and that they reposed in him all their
confidence of the blessing, being less controvertible and more plain, I
shall take no pains to prove them. We may safely conclude, therefore, what
all the machinations of the devil can never subvert, that the Old
Testament, or covenant which the Lord made with the Israelitish nation,
was not limited to terrestrial things, but contained a promise of
spiritual and eternal life; the expectation of which must have been
impressed on the minds of all who truly consented to the covenant. Then
let us drive far away from us this absurd and pernicious notion, either
that the Lord proposed nothing else to the Jews, or that the Jews sought
nothing else, but an abundance of food, carnal delights, flourishing
wealth, external power, a numerous offspring, and whatever is esteemed
valuable by a natural man. For under the present dispensation, Christ
promises to his people no other kingdom of heaven, than where they may sit
down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;(1044) and Peter asserted the Jews of
his time to be heirs of the grace of the gospel, when he said that “they
were the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with
their fathers.”(1045) And that this might not only be testified in words,
the Lord also proved it by a matter of fact. For on the day in which he
rose from the dead, he honoured many of the saints with a participation of
his resurrection, and caused them to appear in the city;(1046) thus
furnishing a certain assurance that whatever he did and suffered for the
acquisition of eternal salvation, belonged to the faithful of the Old
Testament as much as to us. For, as Peter declares, they also were endued
with the same Spirit, who is the author of our regeneration to life.(1047)
When we are informed that the same Spirit, which is as it were a spark of
immortality in us, and is therefore called in one place “the earnest of
our inheritance,”(1048) dwelt in a similar manner in them, how can we dare
to deprive them of the inheritance of eternal life? It is therefore the
more surprising, that the Sadducees formerly fell into such stupidity as
to deny the resurrection, and the immortality of the soul, since they had
proofs of these points from such clear testimonies of Scripture. And the
folly of the whole nation of the Jews in the present age, in expecting an
earthly kingdom of the Messiah, would be equally extraordinary, had not
the Scriptures long before predicted that they would thus be punished for
their rejection of the gospel. For it was consistent with the righteous
judgment of God to strike with blindness the minds of those, who,
rejecting the light of heaven when presented to them, kept themselves in
voluntary darkness. Therefore they read Moses, and assiduously turn over
his pages, but are prevented by an interposing veil from perceiving the
light which beams in his countenance;(1049) and thus it will remain
covered and concealed to them, till they are converted to Christ, from
whom they now endeavour as much as they can to withdraw and divert it.
Chapter XI. The Difference Of The Two Testaments.
What, then, it will be said, will there be no difference left between the
Old Testament and the New? and what becomes of all those passages of
Scripture, where they are compared together as things that are very
different? I readily admit the differences which are mentioned in the
Scripture, but I maintain that they derogate nothing from the unity
already established; as will be seen when we have discussed them in proper
order. But the principal differences, as far as my observation or memory
extends, are four in number; to which if any one choose to add a fifth, I
shall not make the least objection. I assert, and engage to demonstrate,
that all these are such as pertain rather to the mode of administration,
than to the substance. In this view, they will not prevent the promises of
the Old and New Testament from remaining the same, and the promises of
both Testaments from having in Christ the same foundation. Now, the first
difference is, that although it was always the will of the Lord that the
minds of his people should be directed, and their hearts elevated, towards
the celestial inheritance, yet, in order that they might be the better
encouraged to hope for it, he anciently exhibited it for their
contemplation and partial enjoyment under the figures of terrestrial
blessings. Now, having by the gospel more clearly and explicitly revealed
the grace of the future life, he leaves the inferior mode of instruction
which he used with the Israelites, and directs our minds to the immediate
contemplation of it. Those who overlook this design of God, suppose that
the ancients ascended no higher than the corporeal blessings which were
promised them; they so frequently hear the land of Canaan mentioned as the
eminent, and indeed the only, reward for the observers of the Divine law.
They hear that God threatens the transgressors of this law with nothing
more severe than being expelled from the possession of that country, and
dispersed into foreign lands. They see this to be nearly the whole
substance of all the blessings and of all the curses pronounced by Moses.
Hence they confidently conclude, that the Jews were separated from other
nations, not for their own sakes, but for ours, that the Christian Church
might have an image, in whose external form they could discern examples of
spiritual things. But since the Scripture frequently shows, that God
himself appointed the terrestrial advantages with which he favoured them
for the express purpose of leading them to the hope of celestial
blessings, it argued extreme inexperience, not to say stupidity, not to
consider such a dispensation. The point of controversy between us and
these persons, is this: they maintain that the possession of the land of
Canaan was accounted by the Israelites their supreme and ultimate
blessedness, but that to us, since the revelation of Christ, it is a
figure of the heavenly inheritance. We, on the contrary, contend, that in
the earthly possession which they enjoyed, they contemplated, as in a
mirror, the future inheritance which they believed to be prepared for them
in heaven.
II. This will more fully appear from the similitude which Paul has used in
his Epistle to the Galatians.(1050) He compares the Jewish nation to a
young heir, who, being yet incapable of governing himself, follows the
dictates of a tutor or a governor, to whose charge he has been committed.
His application of this similitude chiefly to the ceremonies, is no
objection against the propriety of its application to our present purpose.
The same inheritance was destined for them as for us; but they were not of
a sufficient age to be capable of entering on the possession and
management of it. The Church among them was the same as among us; but it
was yet in a state of childhood. Therefore the Lord kept them under this
tuition, that he might give them the spiritual promises, not open and
unconcealed, but veiled under terrestrial figures. Therefore, when he
admitted Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their posterity, to the hope of
immortality, he promised them the land of Canaan as their inheritance; not
that their hopes might terminate in that land, but that in the prospect of
it they might exercise and confirm themselves in the hope of that true
inheritance which was not yet visible. And that they might not be
deceived, a superior promise was given them, which proved that country not
to be the highest blessing which God would bestow. Thus Abraham is not
permitted to grow indolent after having received a promise of the land,
but a greater promise elevates his mind to the Lord. For he hears him
saying, “Abram, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”(1051)
Here we see that the Lord proposes himself to Abraham as his ultimate
reward, that he may not seek an uncertain and transitory one in the
elements of this world, but may consider that which can never fade away.
God afterwards annexes a promise of the land, merely as a symbol of his
benevolence, and a type of the heavenly inheritance. And that this was the
opinion of the saints, is plain from their own language. Thus David rises
from temporary blessings to that consummate and ultimate felicity. “My
soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord.”(1052) “God
is my portion for ever.”(1053) Again: “The Lord is the portion of mine
inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.”(1054) Again: “I cried
unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land
of the living.”(1055) Persons who venture to express themselves thus,
certainly profess that in their hopes they rise above the world and all
present blessings. Nevertheless the prophets frequently describe this
blessedness of the future world under the type which the Lord had given
them. In this sense we must understand the following passages: “The
righteous shall inherit the land;”(1056) “But the wicked shall be cut off
from the earth;”(1057) and various predictions of Isaiah, which foretell
the future prosperity of Jerusalem, and the abundance that will be enjoyed
in Zion. We see that all these things are inapplicable to the land of our
pilgrimage, or to the earthly Jerusalem, but that they belong to the true
country of the faithful, and to that celestial city, where “the Lord
commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.”(1058)
III. This is the reason why the saints, under the Old Testament, are
represented as holding this mortal life with its blessings in higher
estimation than becomes us now. For although they well knew that they
ought not to rest in it as the end of their course, yet when they
recollected what characters of his grace the Lord had impressed on it, in
order to instruct them in a manner suitable to their tender state, they
felt a greater degree of pleasure in it than if they had considered it
merely in itself. But as the Lord, in declaring his benevolence to the
faithful by present blessings, gave them, under these types and symbols, a
figurative exhibition of spiritual felicity, so, on the other hand, in
corporal punishments he exemplified his judgment against the reprobate.
Therefore, as the favours of God were more conspicuous in earthly things,
so also were his punishments. Injudicious persons, not considering this
analogy and harmony (so to speak) between the punishments and rewards,
wonder at so great a variety in God, that in ancient times he was ready to
avenge all the transgressions of men by the immediate infliction of severe
and dreadful punishments, but now, as if he had laid aside his ancient
wrath, punishes with far less severity and frequency; and on this account
they almost adopt the notion of the Manichæans, that the God of the Old
Testament is a different being from the God of the New. But we shall
easily get rid of such difficulties, if we direct our attention to that
dispensation of God, which I have observed; namely, that during that
period, in which he gave the Israelites his covenant involved in some
degree of obscurity, he intended to signify and prefigure the grace of
future and eternal felicity by terrestrial blessings, and the grievousness
of spiritual death by corporal punishments.
IV. Another difference between the Old Testament and the New consists in
figures, because the former, in the absence of the truth, displayed merely
an image and shadow instead of the body; but the latter exhibits the
present truth and the substantial body.(1059) And this is generally
mentioned wherever the New Testament is opposed to the Old, but is treated
more at large in the Epistle to the Hebrews than in any other place.(1060)
The apostle is there disputing against those who supposed that the
observance of the Mosaic law could not be abolished, without being
followed by the total ruin of religion. To refute this error, he adduces
the prediction of the psalmist concerning the priesthood of Christ;(1061)
for since he has an eternal priesthood committed to him, we may argue the
certain abolition of that priesthood, in which new priests daily succeeded
each other.(1062) But he proves the superiority of the appointment of this
new Priest, because it is confirmed with an oath.(1063) He afterwards adds
that this transfer of the priesthood implies also a change of the
covenant.(1064) And he proves that this change was necessary, because such
was the imbecility of the law, that it could bring nothing to
perfection.(1065) Then he proceeds to state the nature of this imbecility;
namely, that the law prescribed external righteousnesses, consisting in
carnal ordinances, which could not make the observers of them “perfect as
pertaining to the conscience,” that by animal victims it could neither
expiate sins nor procure true holiness.(1066) He concludes, therefore,
that it contained “a shadow of good things to come, but not the very image
of the things;”(1067) and that consequently it had no other office, but to
serve as an introduction to “a better hope,”(1068) which is exhibited in
the gospel. Here we have to inquire in what respect the Legal covenant is
compared with the Evangelical, the ministry of Christ with the ministry of
Moses. For if the comparison related to the substance of the promises,
there would be a great discordance between the two testaments; but as the
state of the question leads us to a different point, we must attend to the
scope of the apostle, in order to discover the truth. Let us, then, bring
forward the covenant, which God has once made, which is eternal, and never
to be abolished. The accomplishment, whence it derives its establishment
and ratification, is Christ. While such a confirmation was waited for, the
Lord by Moses prescribed ceremonies, to serve as solemn symbols of the
confirmation. It came to be a subject of contention, whether the
ceremonies ordained in the law ought to cease and give place to Christ.
Now, though these ceremonies were only accidents or concomitants of the
covenant, yet being the instruments of its administration, they bear the
name of the covenant; as it is common to give to other sacraments the
names of the things they represent. In a word, therefore, what is here
called the Old Testament is a solemn method of confirming the covenant,
consisting of ceremonies and sacrifices. Since it contains nothing
substantial, unless we proceed further, the apostle contends that it ought
to be repealed and abrogated, in order to make way for Christ, the Surety
and Mediator of a better testament,(1069) by whom eternal sanctification
has been at once procured for the elect, and those transgressions
obliterated, which remained under the law. Or, if you prefer it, take the
following statement of it; that the Old Testament of the Lord was that
which was delivered to the Jews, involved in a shadowy and inefficacious
observance of ceremonies, and that it was therefore temporary, because it
remained as it were in suspense, till it was supported by a firm and
substantial confirmation; but that it was made new and eternal, when it
was consecrated and established by the blood of Christ. Whence Christ
calls the cup which he gives to his disciples in the supper, “the cup of
the New Testament in his blood;”(1070) to signify that when the testament
of God is sealed with his blood, the truth of it is then accomplished, and
thus it is made new and eternal.
V. Hence it appears in what sense the apostle said, that the Jews were
conducted to Christ by the tuition of the law, before he was manifested in
the flesh.(1071) He confesses also that they were children and heirs of
God, but such as, on account of their age, required to be kept under the
care of a tutor.(1072) For it was reasonable that before the Sun of
Righteousness was risen, there should be neither such a full blaze of
revelation, nor such great clearness of understanding. Therefore the Lord
dispensed the light of his word to them in such a manner, that they had
yet only a distant and obscure prospect of it. Paul describes this
slenderness of understanding as a state of childhood, which it was the
Lord’s will to exercise in the elements of this world and in external
observances, as rules of puerile discipline, till the manifestation of
Christ, by whom the knowledge of the faithful was to grow to maturity.
Christ himself alluded to this distinction, when he said, “The law and the
prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is
preached.”(1073) What discoveries did Moses and the prophets make to their
contemporaries? They afforded them some taste of that wisdom which was in
after times to be clearly manifested, and gave them a distant prospect of
its future splendour. But when Christ could be plainly pointed out, the
kingdom of God was revealed. For in him are discovered “all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge,”(1074) by which we penetrate almost into the
furthest recesses of heaven.
VI. Nor is it any objection to our argument, that scarcely a person can be
found in the Christian Church, who is to be compared with Abraham in the
excellency of his faith; or that the prophets were distinguished by such
energy of the Spirit as, even at this day, is sufficient to illuminate the
whole world. For our present inquiry is, not what grace the Lord has
conferred on a few, but what is the ordinary method which he has pursued
in the instruction of his people; such as is found even among the prophets
themselves, who were endued with peculiar knowledge above others. For
their preaching is obscure, as relating to things very distant, and is
comprehended in types. Besides, notwithstanding their wonderful eminence
in knowledge, yet because they were under a necessity of submitting to the
same tuition as the rest of the people, they are considered as sustaining
the character of children as well as others. Finally, none of them
possessed knowledge so clear as not to partake more or less of the
obscurity of the age. Whence this observation of Christ: “Many prophets
and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen
them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard
them.”(1075) “Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they
hear.”(1076) And, indeed, it is reasonable that the presence of Christ
should be distinguished by the prerogative of introducing a clearer
revelation of the mysteries of heaven. To the same purpose also is the
passage, which we have before cited from the First Epistle of Peter, that
it was revealed to them, that the principal advantage of their labours
would be experienced in our times.(1077)
VII. I come now to the third difference, which is taken from Jeremiah,
whose words are these: “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;
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day
that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which
my covenant they brake, although I was a husband to them, saith the Lord;
but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.
After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts,
and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my
people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from
the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will
forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”(1078) From
this passage the apostle took occasion to institute the following
comparison between the law and the gospel: he calls the former a literal,
the latter a spiritual doctrine; the former, he says, was engraven on
tables of stone, but the latter is inscribed on the heart;(1079) the
former was the preaching of death, but the latter of life; the former was
the ministration of condemnation, but the latter of righteousness; the
former is abolished, but the latter remains. As the design of the apostle
was to express the sense of the prophet, it will be sufficient for us to
consider the language of one of them, in order to discover the meaning of
both. There is, however, some difference between them. For the apostle
speaks of the law in less honourable terms than the prophet does; and that
not simply with respect to the law itself, but, because there were some
disturbers, who were full of improper zeal for the law, and by their
perverse attachment to the ceremonies obscured the glory of the gospel, he
disputes concerning the nature of the law with reference to their error
and foolish affection for it. This peculiarity in Paul, therefore, will be
worthy of our observation. Both of them, as they contrast the Old and New
Testaments with each other, consider nothing in the law, but what properly
belongs to it. For example, the law contains frequent promises of mercy;
but as they are borrowed from another dispensation, they are not
considered as part of the law, when the mere nature of the law is the
subject of discussion. All that they attribute to it is, that it enjoins
what is right, and prohibits crimes; that it proclaims a reward for the
followers of righteousness, and denounces punishments against
transgressors; but that it neither changes nor corrects the depravity of
heart which is natural to all men.
VIII. Now, let us explain the comparison of the apostle in all its
branches. In the first place, the Old Testament is literal, because it was
promulgated without the efficacy of the Spirit; the New is spiritual,
because the Lord has engraven it in a spiritual manner on the hearts of
men. The second contrast, therefore, serves as an elucidation of the
first. The Old Testament is the revelation of death, because it can only
involve all mankind in a curse; the New is the instrument of life, because
it delivers us from the curse, and restores us to favour with God. The
former is the ministry of condemnation, because it convicts all the
children of Adam of unrighteousness; the latter is the ministry of
righteousness, because it reveals the mercy of God, by which we are made
righteous. The last contrast must be referred to the legal ceremonies. The
law having an image of things that were at a distance, it was necessary
that in time it should be abolished and disappear. The gospel, exhibiting
the body itself, retains a firm and perpetual stability. Jeremiah calls
even the moral law a weak and frail covenant, but for another reason;
namely, because it was soon broken by the sudden defection of an
ungrateful people. But as such a violation arises from the fault of the
people, it cannot be properly attributed to the Testament. The ceremonies,
however, which at the advent of Christ were abolished by their own
weakness, contained in themselves the cause of their abrogation. Now, this
difference between the “letter” and the “spirit” is not to be understood
as if the Lord had given his law to the Jews without any beneficial
result, without one of them being converted to him; but it is used in a
way of comparison, to display the plenitude of grace with which the same
Legislator, assuming as it were a new character, has honoured the
preaching of the gospel. For if we survey the multitude of those, from
among all nations, whom, by the influence of his Spirit in the preaching
of the gospel, the Lord has regenerated and gathered into communion with
his Church, we shall say that those of the ancient Israelites, who
cordially and sincerely embraced the covenant of the Lord, were extremely
few; though, if estimated by themselves without any comparison, they
amounted to a considerable number.
IX. The fourth difference arises out of the third. For the Scripture calls
the Old Testament a covenant of bondage, because it produces fear in the
mind; but the New it describes as a covenant of liberty, because it leads
the heart to confidence and security. Thus Paul, in the eighth chapter of
his Epistle to the Romans, says, “Ye have not received the spirit of
bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”(1080) To the same purpose is that passage
in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the faithful now “are not come unto
the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto
blackness, and darkness, and tempest,” where nothing can be either heard
or seen, but what must strike terror into the mind; so that even Moses
himself is exceedingly afraid at the sound of the terrible voice, which
they all pray that they may hear no more; but that now the faithful “are
come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem,”(1081) &c. What Paul briefly touches in the passage which we
have adduced from the Epistle to the Romans, he explains more at large in
his Epistle to the Galatians, when he allegorizes the two sons of Abraham
in the following manner—that Agar, the bond‐woman, is a type of mount
Sinai, where the people of Israel received the law; that Sarah, the free‐
woman, is a figure of the celestial Jerusalem, whence proceeds the gospel.
That as the son of Agar is born in bondage, and can never attain to the
inheritance, and the son of Sarah is born free, and has a right to the
inheritance,(1082) so by the law we were devoted to slavery, but by the
gospel alone are regenerated to liberty. Now, the whole may be summed up
thus—that the Old Testament filled men’s consciences with fear and
trembling; but that by the benefit of the New Testament, they are
delivered, and enabled to rejoice. The former kept their consciences under
a yoke of severe bondage; but by the liberality of the latter they are
emancipated and admitted to liberty. If any one object to us the case of
the holy fathers of the Israelitish people, that as they were clearly
possessed of the same spirit of faith as we are, they must consequently
have been partakers of the same liberty and joy, we reply, that neither of
these originated from the law; but that, when they felt themselves, by
means of the law, oppressed with their servile condition, and wearied with
disquietude of conscience, they fled for refuge to the gospel; and that
therefore it was a peculiar advantage of the New Testament, that they
enjoyed an exception from the common law of the Old Testament, and were
exempted from those evils. Besides, we shall deny that they were favoured
with the spirit of liberty and security, to such a degree as not to
experience from the law some measure both of fear and of servitude. For
notwithstanding their enjoyment of that privilege, which they obtained by
the grace of the gospel, yet they were subject to the same observances and
burdens as the people in general. As they were obliged, therefore, to a
diligent observance of these ceremonies, which were emblems of the state
of pupilage similar to bondage, and the hand‐writing, by which they
confessed themselves guilty of sin, did not release them from the
obligation, they may justly be said, in comparison with us, to have been
under a testament of bondage and fear, when we consider the common mode of
procedure which the Lord then pursued with the Israelitish nation.
X. The three last comparisons which we have mentioned are between the law
and the gospel. In these, therefore, “the Old Testament” denotes _the
law_; and “the New Testament,” _the gospel_. The first comparison extends
further, for it comprehends also the promises, which were given before the
law. When Augustine denied that they ought to be considered as part of the
Old Testament, he gave a very proper opinion, and intended the same that
we now teach; for he had in view those passages of Jeremiah and Paul, in
which the Old Testament is distinguished from the word of grace and mercy.
He very judiciously adds also in the same place, that the children of the
promise, from the beginning of the world, who have been regenerated by
God, and, under the influence of faith working by love, have obeyed his
commands, belong to the New Testament; and _that_, in hope, not of carnal,
terrestrial, and temporal things, but of spiritual, celestial, and eternal
blessings; especially believing in the Mediator, through whom they doubted
not that the Spirit was dispensed to them to enable them to do their duty,
and that whenever they sinned they were pardoned. For this is the very
same thing which I meant to assert: That all the saints, whom, from the
beginning of the world, the Scripture mentions as having been peculiarly
chosen by God, have been partakers of the same blessing with us to eternal
salvation. Between our distinction and that of Augustine there is this
difference—that ours (according to this declaration of Christ, “the law
and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is
preached;”)(1083) distinguishes between the clearness of the gospel and
the more obscure dispensation of the word which preceded it; whilst the
other merely discriminates the weakness of the law from the stability of
the gospel. Here it must also be remarked concerning the holy fathers,
that though they lived under the Old Testament, they did not rest
satisfied with it, but always aspired after the New, and thus enjoyed a
certain participation of it. For all those who contented themselves with
present shadows, and did not extend their views to Christ, are condemned
by the apostle as blind and under the curse. For, to say nothing on other
points, what greater ignorance can be imagined than to hope for an
expiation of sin by the sacrifice of an animal? than to seek for the
purification of the soul by an external ablution with water? than to wish
to appease God with frigid ceremonies, as though they afforded him great
pleasure? For all these absurdities are chargeable on those who adhere to
the observances of the law, without any reference to Christ.
XI. The fifth difference, which we may add, consists in this—that till the
advent of Christ, the Lord selected one nation, to which he would limit
the covenant of his grace. Moses says, “When the Most High divided to the
nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam,—the Lord’s
portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”(1084) In
another place he thus addresses the people: “Behold, the heaven, and the
heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that
therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and
he chose their seed after them, even you above all people.”(1085)
Therefore he favoured that people with the exclusive knowledge of his
name, as though they alone of all mankind belonged to him; he deposited
his covenant as it were in their bosom; to them he manifested the presence
of his power; he honoured them with every privilege. But to omit the rest
of his benefits, the only one that relates to our present argument is,
that he united them to himself by the communication of his word, in order
that he might be denominated and esteemed their God. In the mean time he
suffered other nations, as though they had no business or intercourse with
him, to walk in vanity;(1086) nor did he employ means to prevent their
destruction by sending them the only remedy—the preaching of his word. The
Israelitish nation, therefore, were then as darling sons; others were
strangers: they were known to him, and received under his faithful
protection; others were left to their own darkness: they were sanctified
by God; others were profane: they were honoured with the Divine presence;
others were excluded from approaching it. But when the fulness of the time
was come,(1087) appointed for the restoration of all things,(1088) and the
Reconciler of God and men was manifested,(1089) the barrier was
demolished, which had so long confined the Divine mercy within the limits
of the Jewish church, and peace was announced to them who were at a
distance, and to them who were near, that being both reconciled to God,
they might coalesce into one people. Wherefore “there is neither Greek nor
Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, but Christ is all and in all;”(1090)
“to whom the heathen are given for his inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth for his possession;”(1091) that he may have a universal
“dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the
earth.”(1092)
XII. The vocation of the Gentiles, therefore, is an eminent illustration
of the superior excellence of the New Testament above the Old. It had,
indeed, before been most explicitly announced in numerous predictions of
the prophets; but so as that the completion of it was deferred to the
kingdom of the Messiah. And even Christ himself made no advances towards
it at the first commencement of his preaching, but deferred it till he
should have completed all the parts of our redemption, finished the time
of his humiliation, and received from the Father “a name which is above
every name, before which every knee shall bow.”(1093) Wherefore, when this
season was not yet arrived, he said to a Canaanitish woman, “I am not sent
but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel:”(1094) nor did he permit
the apostles, in his first mission of them, to exceed these limits. “Go
not,” says he, “into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the
Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.”(1095) And though this calling of the Gentiles was announced by so
many testimonies, yet when the apostles were about to enter upon it, it
appeared to them so novel and strange, that they dreaded it, as if it had
been a prodigy: indeed it was with trepidation and reluctance that they at
length engaged in it. Nor is this surprising; for it seemed not at all
reasonable, that the Lord, who for so many ages had separated the
Israelites from the rest of the nations, should, as it were, suddenly
change his design, and annihilate this distinction. It had indeed been
predicted in the prophecies; but they could not pay such great attention
to the prophecies, as to be wholly unmoved with the novelty of the
circumstance, which forced itself on their observation. Nor were the
specimens, which the Lord had formerly given, of the future vocation of
the Gentiles, sufficient to influence them. For besides his having called
only very few of them, he had even incorporated them into the family of
Abraham, that they might be added to his people; but by that public
vocation, the Gentiles were not only raised to an equality with the Jews,
but appeared to succeed to their places as though they had been dead.
Besides, of all the strangers whom God had before incorporated into the
Church, none were ever placed on an equality with the Jews. Therefore it
is not without reason that Paul so celebrates this “mystery which was
hidden from ages and from generations,”(1096) and which he represents as
an object of admiration even to angels.(1097)
XIII. In these four or five points, I think I have given a correct and
faithful statement of the whole of the difference between the Old and the
New Testament, as far as is sufficient for a simple system of doctrine.
But because some persons represent this variety in the government of the
Church, these different modes of instruction, and such a considerable
alteration of rites and ceremonies, as a great absurdity, we must reply to
them, before we proceed to other subjects. And this may be done in a brief
manner, since the objections are not so strong as to require a laborious
refutation. It is not reasonable, they say, that God, who is perpetually
consistent with himself, should undergo so great a change as afterwards to
disallow what he had once enjoined and commanded. I reply, that God ought
not therefore to be deemed mutable, because he has accommodated different
forms to different ages, as he knew would be suitable for each. If the
husbandman prescribes different employments to his family in the winter,
from those which he allots them in the summer, we must not therefore
accuse him of inconstancy, or impute to him a deviation from the proper
rules of agriculture, which are connected with the perpetual course of
nature. Thus, also, if a father instructs, governs, and manages his
children one way in infancy, another in childhood, and another in youth,
we must not therefore charge him with being inconstant, or forsaking his
own designs. Why, then, do we stigmatize God with the character of
inconstancy, because he has made an apt and suitable distinction between
different times? The last similitude ought fully to satisfy us. Paul
compares the Jews to children, and Christians to youths.(1098) What
impropriety is there in this part of the government of God, that he
detained them in the rudiments which were suitable to them on account of
their age, but has placed us under a stronger and more manly discipline?
It is a proof, therefore, of the constancy of God, that he has delivered
the same doctrine in all ages, and perseveres in requiring the same
worship of his name which he commanded from the beginning. By changing the
external form and mode, he has discovered no mutability in himself, but
has so far accommodated himself to the capacity of men, which is various
and mutable.
XIV. But they inquire whence this diversity proceeded, except from the
will of God. Could he not, as well from the beginning as since the advent
of Christ, give a revelation of eternal life in clear language without any
figures, instruct his people by a few plain sacraments, bestow his Holy
Spirit, and diffuse his grace through all the world? This is just the same
as if they were to quarrel with God, because he created the world at so
late a period, whereas he might have done it before; or because he has
appointed the alternate vicissitudes of summer and winter, of day and
night. But let us not doubt what ought to be believed by all pious men,
that whatever is done by God is done wisely and righteously; although we
frequently know nothing of the causes which render such transactions
necessary. For it would be arrogating too much to ourselves, not to permit
God to keep the reasons of his decrees concealed from us. But it is
surprising, say they, that he now rejects and abominates the sacrifices of
cattle, and all the apparatus of the Levitical priesthood, with which he
used to be delighted; as though truly these external and transitory things
could afford pleasure to God, or affect him in any way whatever. It has
already been observed, that he did none of these things on his own
account, but appointed them all for the salvation of men. If a physician
cure a young man of any disease by a very excellent method, and afterwards
adopt a different mode of cure with the same person when advanced in
years, shall we therefore say that he rejects the method of cure which he
before approved? We will rather say, that he perseveres in the same
system, and considers the difference of age. Thus it was necessary, before
the appearance of Christ, that he should be prefigured, and his future
advent announced by one kind of emblems; since he has been manifested, it
is right that he should be represented by others. But with respect to the
Divine vocation, now more widely extended among all nations since the
advent of Christ than it was before, and with regard to the more copious
effusion of the graces of the Spirit, who can deny, that it is reasonable
and just for God to retain under his own power and will the free
dispensation of his favours; that he may illuminate what nations he
pleases; that wherever he pleases he may introduce the preaching of his
word; that he may give to his instruction whatever kind and degree of
profit and success he pleases; that wherever he pleases, in any age, he
may punish the ingratitude of the world by depriving them of the knowledge
of his name, and when he pleases restore it on account of his mercy? We
see, therefore, the absurdity of the cavils with which impious men disturb
the minds of the simple on this subject, to call in question either the
righteousness of God or the truth of the Scripture.
Chapter XII. The Necessity Of Christ Becoming Man In Order To Fulfil The
Office Of Mediator.
It was of great importance to our interests, that he, who was to be our
Mediator, should be both true God and true man. If an inquiry be made
concerning the necessity of this, it was not indeed a simple, or, as we
commonly say, an absolute necessity, but such as arose from the heavenly
decree, on which the salvation of men depended. But our most merciful
Father has appointed that which was best for us. For since our iniquities,
like a cloud intervening between us and him, had entirely alienated us
from the kingdom of heaven, no one that could not approach to God could be
a mediator for the restoration of peace. But who could have approached to
him? Could any one of the children of Adam? They, with their parent, all
dreaded the Divine presence. Could any one of the angels? They also stood
in need of a head, by a connection with whom they might be confirmed in a
perfect and unvarying adherence to their God. What, then, could be done?
Our situation was truly deplorable, unless the Divine majesty itself would
descend to us; for we could not ascend to it. Thus it was necessary that
the Son of God should become Immanuel, that is, God with us; and this in
order that there might be a mutual union and coalition between his
Divinity and the nature of man; for otherwise the proximity could not be
sufficiently near, nor could the affinity be sufficiently strong, to
authorize us to hope that God would dwell with us. So great was the
discordance between our pollution and the perfect purity of God. Although
man had remained immaculately innocent, yet his condition would have been
too mean for him to approach to God without a Mediator. What, then, can he
do, after having been plunged by his fatal fall into death and hell,
defiled with so many blemishes, putrefying in his own corruption, and, in
a word, overwhelmed with every curse? It is not without reason, therefore,
that Paul, when about to exhibit Christ in the character of a Mediator,
expressly speaks of him as a man. “There is one Mediator,” he says,
“between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”(1099) He might have called
him God, or might indeed have omitted the appellation of man, as well as
that of God; but because the Spirit, who spake by him, knew our infirmity,
he has provided a very suitable remedy against it, by placing the Son of
God familiarly among us, as though he were one of us. Therefore, that no
one may distress himself where he is to seek the Mediator, or in what way
he may approach him, the apostle, by denominating him a man, apprizes us
that he is near, and even close to us, since he is our own flesh. He
certainly intends the same as is stated in another place more at
large—“that we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin.”(1100)