Calvin's Institutes

Section: 2.1.8-11

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:40:10 +0800

(Original sin defined as a depravity of nature, which deserves punishment, but which is not from nature as created, 8-11)

8. The nature of original sin

So that these remarks may not be made concerning an uncertain and unknown matter, let us define original sin. It is not my intention to investigate the several definitions proposed by various writers, but simply to bring forward the one that appears to me most in accordance with truth. Original sin, therefore, seems to be a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God’s wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls “works of the flesh” [Gal. 5:19]. And that is properly what Paul often calls sin. The works that come forth from it-such as adulteries, fornications, thefts, hatreds, murders, carousings-he accordingly calls “fruits of sin” [Gal. 5:19-21], although they are also commonly called “sins” in Scripture, and even by Paul himself.

We must, therefore, distinctly note these two things. First, we are so vitiated and perverted in every part of our nature that by this great corruption we stand justly condemned and convicted before God, to whom nothing is acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity. And this is not liability for another’s transgression. For, since it is said that we became subject to God’s judgment through Adam’s sin, we are to understand it not as if we, guiltless and undeserving, bore the guilt of his offense but in the sense that, since we through his transgression have become entangled in the curse, he is said to have made us guilty. Yet not only has punishment fallen upon us from Adam, but a contagion imparted by him resides in us, which justly deserves punishment. For this reason, Augustine, though he often calls sin “another’s” to show more clearly that it is distributed among us through propagation, nevertheless declares at the same time that it is peculiar to each. And the apostle himself most eloquently testifies that “death has spread to all because all have sinned” [Rom. 5:12]. That is, they have been enveloped in original sin and defiled by its stains. For that reason, even infants themselves, while they carry their condemnation along with them from the mother’s womb, are guilty not of another’s fault but of their own. For, even though the fruits of their iniquity have not yet come forth, they have the seed enclosed within them. Indeed, their whole nature is a seed of sin; hence it can be only hateful and abhorrent to God. From this it follows that it is rightly considered sin in God’s sight, for without guilt there would be no accusation.

Then comes the second consideration: that this perversity never ceases in us, but continually bears new fruits-the works of the flesh that we have already described-just as a burning furnace gives forth flame and sparks, or water ceaselessly bubbles up from a spring. “Thus those who have defined original sin as “the lack of the original righteousness, which ought to reside in us,” although they comprehend in this definition the whole meaning of the term, have still not expressed effectively enough its power and energy. For our nature is not only destitute and empty of good, but so fertile and fruitful of every evil that it cannot be idle. Those who have said that original sin is “concupiscence” have used an appropriate word, if only it be added-something that most will by no means concede-that whatever is in man, from the understanding to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, has been denied and crammed with this concupiscence. Or, to put it more briefly, the whole man is of himself nothing but concupiscence.

9. Sin overturns the whole man

For this reason, I have said that all parts of the soul were possessed by sin after Adam deserted the fountain of righteousness. For not only did a lower appetite seduce him, but unspeakable impiety occupied the very citadel of his mind, and pride penetrated to the depths of his heart. Thus it is pointless and foolish to restrict the corruption that arises thence only to what are called the impulses of the senses; or to call it the “kindling wood” that attracts, arouses, and drags into sin only that part which they term “sensuality.” In this matter Peter Lombard has betrayed his complete ignorance. For, in seeking and searching out its seat, he says that it lies in the flesh, as Paul testifies; yet not intrinsically, but because it appears more in the flesh. As if Paul were indicating that only a part of the soul, and not its entire nature, is opposed to supernatural grace! Paul removes all doubt when he teaches that corruption subsists not in one part only, but that none of the soul remains pure or untouched by that mortal disease. For in his discussion of a corrupt nature Paul not only condemns the inordinate impulses of the appetites that are seen, but especially contends the mind is given over to blindness and the heart to depravity.

The whole third chapter of Romans is nothing but a description of original sin [vs. 1-20]. From the “renewal” that fact appears more clearly. For the Spirit, who is opposed to the old man and to the flesh, not only marks the grace whereby the lower or sensual part of the soul is corrected, but embraces the full reformation of all the parts. Consequently, Paul not only enjoins that brute appetites be brought to nought but bids us “be renewed in the spirit of our mind” [Eph. 4:23]; in another passage he similarly urges us to “be transformed in newness of mind” [Rom. 12: 2]. From this it follows that that part in which the excellence and nobility of the soul especially shine has not only been wounded, but so corrupted that it needs to be healed and to put on a new nature as well. We shall soon see to what extent sin occupies both mind and heart. Here I only want to suggest briefly that the whole man is overwhelmed-as by a deluge-from head to foot, so that no part is immune from sin and all that proceeds from him is to be imputed to sin. As Paul says, all turnings of the thoughts to the flesh are enmities against God [Rom. 8:7], and are therefore death [Rom. 8:6].

10. Sin is not our nature, but its derangement

Now away with those persons who dare write God’s name upon their faults, because we declare that men are vicious by nature! They perversely search out God’s handiwork in their own pollution, when they ought rather to have sought it in that unimpaired and uncorrupted nature of Adam. Our destruction, therefore, comes from the guilt of our flesh, not from God, inasmuch as we have perished solely because we have degenerated from our original condition.

Let no one grumble here that God could have provided better for our salvation if he had forestalled Adam’s fall. Pious minds ought to loathe this objection, because it manifests inordinate curiosity. Furthermore, the matter has to do with the secret of predestination, which will be discussed later in its proper place. Let us accordingly remember to impute our ruin to depravity of nature, in order that we may not accuse God himself, the Author of nature. True, this deadly wound clings to nature, but it is a very important question whether the wound has been inflicted from outside or has been present from the beginning. Yet it is evident that the wound was inflicted through sin. We have, therefore, no reason to complain except against ourselves. Scripture has diligently noted this fact. For Ecclesiastes says: “This I know, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many devices.” [Ch. 7:29.] Obviously, man’s ruin is to be ascribed to man alone; for he, having acquired righteousness by God’s kindness, has by his own folly sunk into vanity.

11. “Natural” corruption of the “nature” created by God

Therefore we declare that man is corrupted through natural vitiation, but a vitiation that did not flow from nature. We deny that it has flowed from nature in order to indicate that it is an adventitious quality which comes upon man rather than a substantial property which has been implanted from the beginning. Yet we call it “natural” in order that no man may think that anyone obtains it through bad conduct, since it holds all men fast by hereditary right. Our usage of the term is not without authority. The apostle states: “We are all by nature children of wrath.” [Eph. 2:3.] How could God, who is pleased by the least of his works, have been hostile to the noblest of all his creatures? But he is hostile toward the corruption of his work rather than toward the work itself. Therefore if it is right to declare that man, because of his vitiated nature, is naturally abominable to God, it is also proper to say that man is naturally depraved and faulty. Hence Augustine, in view of man’s corrupted nature, is not afraid to call “natural” those sins which necessarily reign in our flesh wherever God’s grace is absent. Thus vanishes the foolish trifling of the Manichees, who, when they imagined wickedness of substance in man, dared fashion another creator for him in order that they might not seem to assign the cause and beginning of evil to the righteous God.

Section: 2.1.5-7

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:00:00 +0800

5. The first sin as original sin

As it was the spiritual life of Adam to remain united and bound to his Maker, so estrangement from him was the death of his soul. Nor is it any wonder that he consigned his race to ruin by his rebellion when he perverted the whole order of nature in heaven and on earth. “All creatures,” says Paul, “are groaning” [Rom. 8:22], “subject to corruption, not of their own will” [Rom. 8:20]. If the cause is sought, there is no doubt that they are bearing part of the punishment deserved by man, for whose use they were created. Since, therefore, the curse, which goes about through all the regions of the world, flowed hither and yon from Adam’s guilt, it is not unreasonable if it is spread to all his offspring. Therefore, after the heavenly image was obliterated in him, he was not the only one to suffer this punishment-that, in place of wisdom, virtue, holiness, truth, and justice, with which adornments he had been clad, there came forth the most filthy plagues, blindness, impotence, impurity, vanity, and injustice-but he also entangled and immersed his offspring in the same miseries.

This is the inherited corruption, which the church fathers termed “original sin,” meaning by the word “sin” the depravation of a nature previously good and pure. There was much contention over this matter, inasmuch as nothing is farther from the usual view than for all to be made guilty by the guilt of one, and thus for sin to be made common. This seems to be the reason why the most ancient doctors of the church touched upon this subject so obscurely. At least they explained it less clearly than was fitting. Yet this timidity could not prevent Pelagius from rising up with the profane fiction that Adam sinned only to his own loss without harming his posterity. Through this subtlety Satan attempted to cover up the disease and thus to render it incurable. But when it was shown by the clear testimony of Scripture that sin was transmitted from the first man to all his posterity [Rom. 5:12], Pelagius quibbled that it was transmitted through imitation, not propagation. Therefore, good men (and Augustine above the rest) labored to show us that we are corrupted not by derived wickedness, but that we bear inborn defect from our mother’s womb. To deny this was the height of shamelessness. But no man will wonder at the temerity of the Pelagians and Coelestians when he perceived from that holy man’s warnings what shameless beasts they were in all other respects. Surely there is no doubt that David confesses himself to have been “begotten in iniquities, and conceived by his mother in sin” [Ps. 51:5 p.]. There he does not reprove his father and mother for their sins; but, that he may better commend God’s goodness toward himself, from his very conception he carries the confession of his own perversity. Since it is clear that this was not peculiar to David, it follows that the common lot of mankind is exemplified in him. Therefore all of us, who have descended from impure seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God’s sight. “For who can bring a clean thing from an unclean? There is not one”-as The Book of Job says [Job 14:4, cf. Vg.].

6. Original sin does not rest upon imitation

We hear that the uncleanness of the parents is so transmitted to the children that all without any exception are defiled at their begetting. But we will not find the beginning of this pollution unless we go back to the first parent of all, as its source. “We must surely hold that Adam was not only the progenitor but, as it were, the root of human nature; and that therefore in his corruption mankind deserved to be vitiated. This the apostle makes clear from a comparison of Adam with Christ. “As through one man sin came into the world and through sin death, which spread among all men when all sinned” [Rom. 5:12], thus through Christ’s grace righteousness and life are restored to us [Rom. 5:17]. What nonsense will the Pelagians chatter here? That Adam’s sin was propagated by imitation? Then does Christ’s righteousness benefit us only as an example set before us to imitate? Who can bear such sacrilege! But if it is beyond controversy that Christ’s righteousness, and thereby life, are ours by communication, it immediately follows that both were lost in Adam, only to be recovered in Christ; and that sin and death crept in through Adam, only to be abolished through Christ. “These are no obscure words: “Many are made righteous by Christ’s obedience as by Adam’s disobedience they had been made sinners” [Rom. 5:19 p.]. Here, then, is the relationship between the two: Adam, implicating us in his ruin, destroyed us with himself; but Christ restores us to salvation by his grace.

In such clear light of truth, I think that there is no need for longer or more laborious proof. In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wishes to strengthen the faith of the godly in the resurrection. Here he accordingly shows that the life lost in Adam is recovered in Christ [I Cor. 15:22]. Declaring that all of us died in Adam, Paul at the same time plainly testifies that we are infected with the disease of sin. For condemnation could not reach those untouched by the guilt of iniquity. The clearest explanation of his meaning lies in the other part of the statement, in which he declares that the hope of life is restored in Christ. But it is well known that this occurs in no other way than that wonderful communication whereby Christ transfuses into us the power of his righteousness. As it is written elsewhere, “The Spirit is life to us because of righteousness” [Rom. 8:10 p.]. There is consequently but one way for us to interpret the statement, “We have died in Adam”: Adam, by sinning, not only took upon himself misfortune and ruin but also plunged our nature into like destruction. This was not due to the guilt of himself alone, which would not pertain to us at all, but was because he infected all his posterity with that corruption into which he had fallen.

Paul’s statement that “by nature all are children of wrath” [Eph. 2:3] could not stand, unless they had already been cursed in the womb itself. Obviously, Paul does not mean “nature” as it was established by God, but as it was vitiated in Adam. For it would be most unfitting for God to be made the author of death. Therefore, Adam so corrupted himself that infection spread from him to all his descendants. Christ himself, our heavenly judge, clearly enough proclaims that all men are born wicked and depraved when he says that “whatever is born of flesh is flesh” [John 3:6], and therefore the door of life is closed to all until they have been reborn [John 3:5].

7. The transmission of sin from one generation to another

No anxious discussion is needed to understand this question, which troubled the fathers not a little-whether the son’s soul proceeds by derivation from the father’s soul-because the contagion chiefly lies in it. With this we ought to be content: that the Lord entrusted to Adam those gifts which he willed to be conferred upon human nature. Hence Adam, when he lost the gifts received, lost them not only for himself but for us all. Who should worry about the derivation of the soul when he hears that Adam had received for us no less than for himself those gifts which he lost, and that they had not been given to one man but had been assigned to the whole human race? There is nothing absurd, then, in supposing that, when Adam was despoiled, human nature was left naked and destitute, or that when he was infected with sin, contagion crept into human nature. Hence, rotten branches came forth from a rotten root, which transmitted their rottenness to the other twigs sprouting from them. For thus were the children corrupted in the parent, so that they brought disease upon their children’s children. That is, the beginning of corruption in Adam was such that it was conveyed in a perpetual stream from the ancestors into their descendants. For the contagion does not take its origin from the substance of the flesh or soul, but because it had been so ordained by God that the first man should at one and the same time have and lose, both for himself and for his descendants, the gifts that God had bestowed upon him.

But it is easy to refute the quibble of the Pelagians, who hold it unlikely that children should derive corruption from godly parents, inasmuch as the offspring ought rather to be sanctified by their parents’ purity [cf. I Cor. 7:14]. For they descend not from their parents’ spiritual regeneration but from their carnal generation. Hence, as Augustine says, whether a man is a guilty unbeliever or an innocent believer, he begets not innocent but guilty children, for he begets them from a corrupted nature. “Now, it is a special blessing of God’s people that they partake in some degree of their parents’ holiness. This does not gainsay the fact that the universal curse of the human race preceded. For guilt is of nature, but sanctification, of supernatural grace.

Section: 2.1.1-4

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:31:58 +0800

BOOK TWO

The Knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ, First Disclosed to the Fathers Under the Law, and Then to Us in the Gospel

CHAPTER I

BY THE FALL AND REVOLT OF ADAM THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE WAS DELIVERED TO THE CURSE, AND DEGENERATED FROM ITS ORIGINAL CONDITION; THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN

(A true knowledge of ourselves destroys self-confidence, 1-3)

1. Wrong and right knowledge of self

With good reason the ancient proverb strongly recommended knowledge of self to man. For if it is considered disgraceful for us not to know all that pertains to the business of human life, even more detestable is our ignorance of ourselves, by which, when making decisions in necessary matters, we miserably deceive and even blind ourselves!

But since this precept is so valuable, we ought more diligently to avoid applying it perversely. This, we observe, has happened to certain philosophers, who, while urging man to know himself, propose the goal of recognizing his own worth and excellence. And they would have him contemplate in himself nothing but what swells him with empty assurance and puffs him up with pride [Gen. 1:27].

But knowledge of ourselves lies first in considering what we were given at creation and how generously God continues his favor toward us, in order to know how great our natural excellence would be if only it had remained unblemished; yet at the same time to bear in mind that there is in us nothing of our own, but that we hold on sufferance whatever God has bestowed upon us. Hence we are ever dependent on him. Secondly, to call to mind our miserable condition after Adam’s fall; the awareness of which, when all our boasting and self-assurance are laid low, should truly humble us and overwhelm us with shame. In the beginning God fashioned us after his image [Gen. 1:27] that he might arouse our minds both to zeal for virtue and to meditation upon eternal life. Thus, in order that the great nobility of our race (which distinguishes us from brute beasts) may not be buried beneath our own dullness of wit, it behooves us to recognize that we have been endowed with reason and understanding so that, by leading a holy and upright life, we may press on to the appointed goal of blessed immortality.

But that primal worthiness cannot come to mind without the sorry spectacle of our foulness and dishonor presenting itself by way of contrast, since in the person of the first man we have fallen from our original condition. From this source arise abhorrence and displeasure with ourselves, as well as true humility; and thence is kindled a new zeal to seek God, in whom each of us may recover those good things which we have utterly and completely lost.

2. Man by nature inclines to deluded self-admiration

Here, then, is what God’s truth requires us to seek in examining ourselves: it requires the kind of knowledge that will strip us of all confidence in our own ability, deprive us of all occasion for boasting, and lead us to submission. We ought to keep this rule if we wish to reach the true goal of both wisdom and action. I am quite aware how much more pleasing is that principle whichinvites us to weigh our good traits rather than to look upon our miserable want and dishonor, which ought to overwhelm us with shame. There is, indeed, nothing that man’s nature seeks more eagerly than to be flattered. Accordingly, when his nature becomes aware that its gifts are highly esteemed, it tends to be unduly credulous about them. It is thus no wonder that the majority of men have erred so perniciously in this respect. For, since blind self-love is innate in all mortals, they are most freely persuaded that nothing inheres in themselves that deserves to be considered hateful. Thus even with no outside support the utterly vain opinion generally obtains credence that man is abundantly sufficient of himself to lead a good and blessed life. But if any take a more modest attitude and concede something to God, so as not to appear to claim everything for themselves, they so divide the credit that the chief basis for boasting and confidence remains in themselves.

Nothing pleases man more than the sort of alluring talk that tickles the pride that itches in his very marrow. Therefore, in nearly every age, when anyone publicly extolled human nature in most favorable terms, he was listened to with applause. But however great such commendation of human excellence is that teaches man to be satisfied with himself, it does nothing but delight in its own sweetness; indeed, it so deceives as to drive those who assent to it into utter ruin. For what do we accomplish when, relying upon every vain assurance, we consider, plan, try, and undertake what we think is fitting; then-while in our very first efforts we are actually forsaken by and destitute of sane understanding as well as true virtue-we nonetheless rashly press on until we hurtle to destruction? Yet for those confident they can do anything by their own power, things cannot happen otherwise. Whoever, then, heeds such teachers as hold us back with thought only of our good traits will not advance in self-knowledge, but will be plunged into the worst ignorance.

3. The two chief problems of self-knowledge

God’s truth, therefore, agrees with the common judgment of all mortals, that the second part of wisdom consists in the knowledge of ourselves; yet there is much disagreement as to how we acquire that knowledge. According to carnal judgment, man seems to know himself very well, when, confident in his understanding and uprightness, he becomes bold and urges himself to the duties of virtue and, declaring war on vices, endeavors to exert himself with all his ardor toward the excellent and the honorable. But he who scrutinizes and examines himself according to the standard of divine judgment finds nothing to lift his heart to self-confidence. And the more deeply he examines himself, the more dejected he becomes, until, utterly deprived of all such assurance, he leaves nothing to himself with which to direct his life aright.

Yet God would not have us forget our original nobility, which he had bestowed upon our father Adam, and which ought truly to arouse in us a zeal for righteousness and goodness. For we cannot think upon either our first condition or to what purpose we were formed without being prompted to meditate upon immortality, and to yearn after the Kingdom of God. That recognition, however, far from encouraging pride in us, discourages us and casts us into humility. For what is that origin? It is that from which we have fallen. What is that end of our creation? It is that from which we have been completely estranged, so that sick of our miserable lot we groan, and in groaning we sigh for that lost worthiness. But when we say that man ought to see nothing in himself to cause elation, we mean that he has nothing to rely on to make him proud.

Therefore, if it is agreeable, let us divide the knowledge that man ought to have of himself. First, he should consider for what purpose he was created and endowed with no mean gifts. By this knowledge he should arouse himself to meditation upon divine worship and the future life. Secondly, he should weigh his own abilities-or rather, lack of abilities. When he perceives this lack, he should lie prostrate in extreme confusion, so to speak, reduced to nought. The first consideration tends to make him recognize the nature of his duty; the second, the extent of his ability to carry it out. We shall discuss each as the order of teaching demands.

(Adam’s sin entailed loss of man’s original endowment and ruin of the whole human race, 4-7)

4. The history of the Fall shows us what sin is [Gen., ch. 3]:unfaithfulness

Because what God so severely punished must have been no light sin but a detestable crime, we must consider what kind of sin there was in Adam’s desertion that enkindled God’s fearful vengeance against the whole of mankind. To regard Adam’s sin as gluttonous intemperance (a common notion) is childish. As if the sum and head of all virtues lay in abstaining solely from one fruit, when all sorts of desirable delights abounded everywhere; and not only abundance but also magnificent variety was at hand in that blessed fruitfulness of earth!

We ought therefore to look more deeply. Adam was denied the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to test his obedience and prove that he was willingly under God’s command. The very name of the tree shows the sole purpose of the precept was to keep him content with his lot and to prevent him from becoming puffed up with wicked lust. But the promise by which he was bidden to hope for eternal life so long as he ate from the tree of life, and, conversely, the terrible threat of death once he tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, served to prove and exercise his faith. Hence it is not hard to deduce by what means Adam provoked God’s wrath upon himself. Indeed, Augustine speaks rightly when he declares that pride was the beginning of all evils. For if ambition had not raised man higher than was meet and right, he could have remained in his original state.

But we must take a fuller definition from the nature of the temptation which Moses describes. Since the woman through unfaithfulness was led away from God’s Word by the serpent’s deceit, it is already clear that disobedience was the beginning of the Fall. This Paul also confirms, teaching that all were lost through the disobedience of one man. [Rom. 5:19.] Yet it is at the same time to be noted that the first man revolted from God’s authority, not only because he was seized by Satan’s blandishments, but also because, contemptuous of truth, he turned aside to falsehood. And surely, once we hold God’s Word in contempt, we shake off all reverence for him. For, unless we listen attentively to him, his majesty will not dwell among us, nor his worship remain perfect. Unfaithfulness, then, was the root of the Fall. But thereafter ambition and pride, together with ungratefulness, arose, because Adam by seeking more than was granted him shamefully spurned God’s great bounty, which had been lavished upon him. To have been made in the likeness of God seemed a small matter to a son of earth unless he also attained equality with God -a monstrous wickedness! If apostasy, by which man withdraws from the authority of his Maker-indeed insolently shakes off his yoke-is a foul and detestable offense, it is vain to extenuate Adam’s sin. Yet it was not simple apostasy, but was joined with vile reproaches against God. These assented to Satan’s slanders, which accused God of falsehood and envy and ill will. Lastly, faithlessness opened the door to ambition, and ambition was indeed the mother of obstinate disobedience; as a result, men, having cast off the fear of God, threw themselves wherever lust carried them. Hence Bernard rightly teaches that the door of salvation is opened to us when we receive the gospel today with our ears, even as death was then admitted by those same windows when they were opened to Satan [cf. Jer. 9:21]. For Adam would never have dared oppose God’s authority unless he had disbelieved in God’s Word. Here, indeed, was the best bridle to control all passions: the thought that nothing is better than to practice righteousness by obeying God’s commandments; then, that the ultimate goal of the happy life is to be loved by him. Therefore Adam, carried away by the devil’s blasphemies, as far as he was able extinguished the whole glory of God.

Section: 1.18.3-4

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:31:00 +0800

3. God’s will is a unity

While hitherto I have recounted only those things which are openly and unambiguously related in Scripture, let those who do not hesitate to brand the heavenly oracles with sinister marks of ignominy see what kind of censure they use. For if they seek from pretending ignorance to be praised for moderation, what haughtier thing can be imagined than to oppose God’s authority with one little word such as “To me it seems otherwise,” or, “I do not want to touch upon this”? But if they openly curse, what will they gain by spitting at the sky? Indeed, an example of such petulance is not new, for in every age there have been impious and profane men, who have frothed and snarled against this portion of doctrine. But they shall surely feel to be true what the Spirit declared of old through David’s mouth, that God may overcome when he is judged [Ps. 50:6, Vg.; 51:4, EV]. David indirectly reproves the madness of men in the very unbridled license with which, out of their own filthiness, they not only argue against God, but claim for themselves the power to condemn him. Meanwhile, he briefly warns that the blasphemies they spew out against heaven do not reach God, but that he, dispelling their clouds of calumnies, makes his own righteousness shine forth. Even our faith (because, founded upon God’s Sacred Word, it is above the whole world [cf. I John 5:4]) from its lofty height despises these clouds.

For it is easy to dispose of their first objection, that if nothing happens apart from God’s will, there are in him two contrary wills, because by his secret plan he decrees what he has openly forbidden by his law. Yet before I answer, I should like my readers again to be warned that this cavil is not hurled against me but against the Holy Spirit, who surely put this confession in the mouth of the holy man Job, “As it pleased God, so was it done” [Job 1:21, cf. Vg.]. When he had been robbed by thieves, in their unjust acts and evil-doing toward him he recognized God’s just scourge. What does Scripture say elsewhere? Eli’s sons did not obey their father because God willed to slay them [I Sam. 2:25]. Another prophet also proclaims that “God, who resides in heaven, does whatever he pleases” [Ps. 115:3]. And now I have already shown plainly enough that God is called the Author of all the things that these faultfinders would have happen only by his indolent permission. He declares that he creates light and darkness, that he forms good and bad [Isa. 45:7 p.]; that nothing evil happens that he himself has not done [Amos 3:6]. Let them tell me, I pray, whether he exercises his judgments willingly or unwillingly. Yet, as Moses teaches, he who is killed by a chance slip of the ax has been divinely given over to the striker’s hand. [Deut. 19:5; cf. Ex. 21:13.]

Thus, according to Luke, the whole church says that Herod and Pilate conspired to do what God’s hand and plan had decreed. [Acts 4:28.] And indeed, unless Christ had been crucified according to God’s will, whence would we have redemption? Yet God’s will is not therefore at war with itself, nor does it change, nor does it pretend not to will what he wills. But even though his will is one and simple in him, it appears manifold to us because, on account of our mental incapacity, we do not grasp how in divers ways it wills and does not will something to take place. When Paul said that the calling of the Gentiles was “a mystery hidden” [Eph. 3:9], he added shortly thereafter that in it was shown forth “God’s manifold wisdom” [Eph. 3:10]. Because God’s wisdom appears manifold (or “multiform” as the old translator renders it), ought we therefore, on account of the sluggishness of our understanding, to dream that there is any variation in God himself, as if he either may change his plan or disagree with himself? Rather, when we do not grasp how God wills to take place what he forbids to be done, let us recall our mental incapacity, and at the same time consider that the light in which God dwells is not without reason called unapproachable [I Tim. 6: 16], because it is overspread with darkness. Therefore all godly and modest folk readily agree with this saying of Augustine: “Sometimes with a good will a man wills something which God does not will… . For example, a good son wills that his father live, whom God wills to die. Again, it can happen that the same man wills with a bad will what God wills with a good will. For example, a bad son wills that his father die; God also wills this. That is, the former wills what God does not will; but the latter wills what God also wills. And yet the filial piety of the former, even though he wills something other than God wills, is more consonant with God’s good will than the impiety of the latter, who wills the same thing as God does. There is a great difference between what is fitting for man to will and what is fitting for God, and to what end the will of each is directed, so that it be either approved or disapproved. For through the bad wills of evil men God fulfills what he righteously wills.” A little before he had said that by their defection the apostate angels and all the wicked, from their point of view, had done what God did not will, but from the point of view of God’s omnipotence they could in no way have done this, because while they act against God’s will, his will is done upon them. Whence he exclaims: “Great are God’s works, sought out in all his wills” [Ps. 111:2; cf. Ps. 110:2, Vg.]; so that in a wonderful and ineffable manner nothing is done without God’s will, not even that which is against his will. For it would not be done if he did not permit it; yet he does not unwillingly permit it, but willingly; nor would he, being good, allow evil to be done, unless being also almighty he could make good even out of evil.”

4. Even when God uses the deeds of the godless for his purposes, he does not suffer reproach

In this way, also, the other objection is solved, or rather vanishes by itself: if God not only uses the work of the ungodly, but also governs their plans and intentions, he is the author of all wickednesses; and therefore men are undeservedly damned if they carry out what God has decreed because they obey his will. His will is wrongly confused with his precept: innumerable examples clearly show how utterly different these two are. For even though, when Absalom committed adultery with his father’s wives [II Sam. 16:22], God willed to punish David’s adultery with this shameful act, yet he did not for this reason bid the wicked son commit incest, unless perhaps with regard to David, as he speaks concerning Shimei’s railings. For when he confesses that Shimei curses him at God’s command [II Sam. 16:10-11], he does not at all commend his obedience, as if that impudent dog were obeying God’s authority. But recognizing his tongue to be a scourge of God, he patiently bears the chastisement. We ought, indeed, to hold fast by this: while God accomplishes through the wicked what he has decreed by his secret judgment, they are not excusable, as if they had obeyed his precept which out of their own lust they deliberately break.

Now the choice of King Jeroboam [I Kings 12:20] shows clearly that what men do perversely is of God, and ruled by his hidden providence. In this choice the rashness and insanity of the people is condemned for having perverted the order sanctioned by God, and having faithlessly fallen away from the house of David. And yet we know that he willed him to be anointed. Accordingly in Hosea’s statements there likewise occurs a certain appearance of contradiction: for God complained in one place that that kingdom had been established without his knowledge and against his will [Hos. 8:4]; yet elsewhere he proclaims that in his anger he had given King Jeroboam [Hos. 13:11]. How will these statements agree: that Jeroboam did not reign by God’s will and yet was appointed king by the same God? The answer is obviously that the people could neither revolt from the house of David without shaking off the divinely imposed yoke, nor was God himself deprived of the freedom to punish Solomon thus for his ungratefulness. Therefore we see how God does not will a breach of faith, yet with another end in view, justly wills defection. Hence likewise, contrary to expectation, he compelled Jeroboam with sacred anointing to become king. In this way the Sacred History says that an enemy was raised up by God [I Kings 11:23] to divest Solomon’s son of part of his kingdom.

Let my readers weigh both these things with care. Because it had pleased God that his people be governed under the hand of one king, when the nation is split into two parts, it is done against his will. And yet the beginning of the separation came from the will of the same God. For surely when the prophet both by word of mouth and by the token of anointing stirred Jeroboam, who was thinking of no such thing, to the expectation of the kingdom, this was not done without the knowledge or against the will of God, who so commanded it to be done. And yet the rebellion of the people is rightly condemned because against God’s will they revolted from David’s descendants. For this reason, also, it is afterward added that Rehoboam haughtily despised the petitions of the people and that this was done by God to establish the Word which he had proclaimed through the hand of Ahijah his servant [I Kings 12:15]. Note how it is against God’s will that the sacred unity is broken, and yet how by his same will the ten tribes are estranged from Solomon’s son. Besides this, there is another similar example, where with the people’s consent-indeed, with them lending a hand-the sons of King Ahab are murdered, and all his posterity exterminated [II Kings 10:7]. Indeed, Jehu rightly reports that “nothing of God’s words has fallen to the ground, but he has done what he said by the hand of his servant Elijah” [II Kings 10:10 p.]. And yet not without cause did he rebuke the citizens of Samaria because they had given assistance. “Are you righteous?” he asks; “if I conspired against my master, who killed all these?” [II Kings 10:9; IV Kings 10:9, Vg.] I have, unless I am mistaken, already clearly explained how in the same act as man’s evil deed shows itself, so God’s justice shines forth.

And for modest minds this answer of Augustine will always be enough: “Since the Father delivered up the Son, and Christ, his body, and Judas, his Lord, why in this delivering up is God just and man guilty, unless because in the one thing they have done, the cause of their doing it is not one?” But if some people find difficulty in what we are now saying-namely, that there is no agreement between God and man, where man does by God’s just impulsion what he ought not to do-let them recall what the same Augustine points out in another passage: “Who does not tremble at these judgments, where God works even in evil men’s hearts whatever he wills, yet renders to them according to their deserts?” And surely in Judas’ betrayal it will be no more right, because God himself both willed that his Son be delivered up and delivered him up to death, to ascribe the guilt of the crime to God than to transfer the credit for redemption to Judas. Therefore the same writer correctly points out, elsewhere, that in this examination God does not inquire into what men have been able to do, or what they have done, but what they have willed to do, so that purpose and will may be taken into account.

Let those for whom this seems harsh consider for a little while how bearable their squeamishness is in refusing a thing attested by clear Scriptural proofs because it exceeds their mental capacity, and find fault that things are put forth publicly, which if God had not judged useful for men to know, he would never have bidden his prophets and apostles to teach. For our wisdom ought to be nothing else than to embrace with humble teachableness, and at least without finding fault, whatever is taught in Sacred Scripture. Those who too insolently scoff, even though it is clear enough that they are prating against God, are not worthy of a longer refutation.

Section: 1.18.1-2

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:30:00 +0800

CHAPTER XVIII

GOD SO USES THE WORKS OF THE UNGODLY, AND SO BENDS THEIR MINDS TO CARRY OUT HIS JUDGMENTS, THAT HE REMAINS PURE FROM EVERY STAIN

1. No mere “permission”!

From other passages, where God is said to bend or draw Satan himself and all the wicked to his will, there emerges a more difficult question. For carnal sense can hardly comprehend how in acting through them he does not contract some defilement from their transgression, and even in a common undertaking can be free of all blame, and indeed can justly condemn his ministers. Hence the distinction was devised between doing and permitting because to many this difficulty seemed inexplicable, that Satan and all the impious are so under God’s hand and power that he directs their malice to whatever end seems good to him, and uses their wicked deeds to carry out his judgments. And perhaps the moderation of those whom the appearance of absurdity alarms would be excusable, except that they wrongly try to clear God’s justice of every sinister mark by upholding a falsehood. It seems absurd to them for man, who will soon be punished for his blindness, to be blinded by God’s will and command. Therefore they escape by the shift that this is done only with God’s permission, not also by his will; but he, openly declaring that he is the doer, repudiates that evasion. However, that men can accomplish nothing except by God’s secret command, that they cannot by deliberating accomplish anything except what he has already decreed with himself and determines by his secret direction, is proved by innumerable and clear testimonies. What we have cited before from the psalm, that God does whatever he wills [Ps. 115:3], certainly pertains to all the actions of men. If, as is here said, God is the true Arbiter of wars and of peace, and this without any exception, who, then, will dare say that men are borne headlong by blind motion unbeknown to God or with his acquiescence?

But particular examples will shed more light. From the first chapter of Job we know that Satan, no less than the angels who willingly obey, presents himself before God [Job 1:6; 2:1] to receive his commands. He does so, indeed, in a different way and with a different end; but he still cannot undertake anything unless God so wills. However, even though a bare permission to afflict the holy man seems then to be added, yet we gather that God was the author of that trial of which Satan and his wicked thieves were the ministers, because this statement is true: “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it has pleased God, so is it done” [Job 1:21, Vg. (p.)]. Satan desperately tries to drive the holy man insane; the Sabaeans cruelly and impiously pillage and make off with another’s possessions. Job recognizes that he was divinely stripped of all his property, and made a poor man, because it so pleased God. Therefore, whatever men or Satan himself may instigate, God nevertheless holds the key, so that he turns their efforts to carry out his judgments. God wills that the false King Ahab be deceived; the devil offers his services to this end; he is sent, with a definite command, to be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets [I Kings 22:20, 22]. If the blinding and insanity of Ahab be God’s judgment, the figment of bare permission vanishes: because it would be ridiculous for the Judge only to permit what he wills to be done, and not also to decree it and to command its execution by his ministers.

The Jews intended to destroy Christ; Pilate and his soldiers complied with their mad desire; yet in solemn prayer the disciples confess that all the impious ones had done nothing except what “the hand and plan” of God had decreed [Acts 4:28, cf. Vg.]. So Peter had already preached that “by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, Christ had been given over” to be killed [Acts 2:23, cf. Vg.]. It is as if he were to say that God, to whom from the beginning nothing was hidden, wittingly and willingly determined what the Jews carried out. As he elsewhere states: “God, who has foretold through all his prophets that Christ is going to suffer, has thus fulfilled it” [Acts 3:18, cf. Vg.]. Absalom, polluting his father’s bed by an incestuous union, commits a detestable crime [II Sam. 16:22]; yet God declares this work to be his own; for the words are: “You did it secretly; but I will do this thing openly, and in broad daylight” [II Sam. 12:12 p.]. Jeremiah declared that every cruelty the Chaldeans exercised against Judah was God’s work [Jer. 1:15; 7:14; 50:25, and passim]. For this reason Nebuchadnezzar is called God’s servant [Jer. 25:9; cf. ch. 27:6]. God proclaims in many places that by his hissing [Isa. 7:18 or 5:26], by the sound of his trumpet [Hos. 8:1], by his authority and command, the impious are aroused to war [cf. Zeph. 2:1]. The Assyrian he calls the rod of his anger [Isa. 10:5 p.], and the ax that he wields with his hand [cf. Matt. 3:10]. The destruction of the Holy City and the ruin of the Temple he calls his own work [Isa. 28:21]. David, not murmuring against God, but recognizing him as the just judge, yet confesses that the curses of Shimei proceeded from His command [II Sam. 16:10]. “The Lord,” he says, “commanded him to curse.” [II Sam. 16:11.] We very often find in the Sacred History that whatever happens proceeds from the Lord, as for instance the defection of the ten tribes [I Kings 11:31], the death of Eli’s sons [I Sam. 2:34], and very many examples of this sort. Those who are moderately versed in the Scriptures see that for the sake of brevity I have put forward only a few of many testimonies. Yet from these it is more than evident that they babble and talk absurdly who, in place of God’s providence, substitute bare permission-as if God sat in a watchtower awaiting chance events, and his judgments thus depended upon human will.

2. How does God’s impulse come to pass in men?

As far as pertains to those secret promptings we are discussing, Solomon’s statement that the heart of a king is turned about hither and thither at God’s pleasure [Prov. 21:1] certainly extends to all the human race, and carries as much weight as if he had said: “Whatever we conceive of in our minds is directed to his own end by God’s secret inspiration.” And surely unless he worked inwardly in men’s minds, it would not rightly have been said that he removes speech from the truthful, and prudence from the old men [Ezek. 7:26]; that he takes away the heart of the princes of the earth so they may wander in trackless wastes [Job 12:24; cf. Ps. 107:40; 106:40, Vg.]. To this pertains what one often reads: that men are fearful according as dread of him takes possession of their minds [Lev. 26:36]. So David went forth from Saul’s camp without anyone’s knowing it, because the sleep of God had overtaken them all. [I Sam. 26:12.] But one can desire nothing clearer than where he so often declares that he blinds men’s minds [Isa. 29:14], smites them with dizziness [cf. Deut. 28:28; Zech. 12:4], makes them drunk with the spirit of drowsiness [Isa. 29:10], casts madness upon them [Rom. 1:28], hardens their hearts [Ex. 14:17 and passim]. These instances may refer, also, to divine permission, as if by forsaking the wicked he allowed them to be blinded by Satan. But since the Spirit clearly expresses the fact that blindness and insanity are inflicted by God’s just judgment [Rom. 1:20-24], such a solution is too absurd. It is said that he hardened Pharaoh’s heart [Ex. 9:12], also that he made it heavy [ch. 10:1] and stiffened it [chs. 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:8]. By this foolish cavil certain ones get around these expressions, for while it is said elsewhere that Pharaoh himself made heavy his own heart [Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34], God’s will is posited as the cause of hardening. As if these two statements did not perfectly agree, although in divers ways, that man, while he is acted upon by God, yet at the same time himself acts! Moreover, I throw their objection back upon them: for if “to harden” denotes bare permission, the very prompting to obstinacy will not properly exist in Pharaoh. Indeed, how weak and foolish would it be to interpret this as if Pharaoh only suffered himself to be hardened! Besides, Scripture cuts off any occasion for such cavils. “I will restrain,” says God, “his heart.” [Ex. 4:21.] Thus, also, concerning the dwellers in the Land of Canaan, Moses said they had come forth to battle because God stiffened their hearts [Josh. 11:20; cf. Deut. 2:30]. The same thing is repeated by another prophet, “He turns their hearts to hate his people” [Ps. 105:25]. Likewise in Isaiah, He declares that he will send the Assyrians against the deceitful nation and will command them “to take spoil and seize plunder” [Isa. 10:6]-not because he would teach impious and obstinate men to obey him willingly, but because he will bend them to execute his judgments, as if they bore his commandments graven upon their hearts; from this it appears that they had been impelled by God’s sure determination.

I confess, indeed, that it is often by means of Satan’s intervention that God acts in the wicked, but in such a way that Satan performs his part by God’s impulsion and advances as far as he is allowed. An evil spirit troubles Saul; but it is said to have come from God [I Sam. 16:14], that we may know that Saul’s madness proceeds from God’s just vengeance. Also, it is said that the same Satan “blinds the minds of unbelievers” [II Cor. 4:4]; but whence does this come, unless the working of error flows from God himself [II Thess. 2:11], to make those believe lies who refuse to obey the truth? According to the former reason it is said, “If any prophet should speak in lies, I, God, have deceived him” [Ezek. 14:9]. According to the second reason, he himself is indeed said to “give men up to an evil mind” [Rom. 1:28, cf. Vg.] and cast them into base desires [cf. Rom. 1:29]; because he is the chief author of his own just vengeance, while Satan is but the minister of it. But because we must discuss this matter again when we discourse in the Second Book concerning man’s free or unfree choice, it seems to me that I have now briefly said as much as the occasion calls for. To sum up, since God’s will is said to be the cause of all things, I have made his providence the determinative principle for all human plans and works, not only in order to display its force in the elect, who are ruled by the Holy Spirit, but also to compel the reprobate to obedience.

Section: 1.17.11-14

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:29:00 +0800

11. Certainty about God’s providence puts joyous trust toward

God in our hearts

“Yet, when that light of divine providence has once shone upon a godly man, he is then relieved and set free not only from the extreme anxiety and fear that were pressing him before, but from every care. For as he justly dreads fortune, so he fearlessly dares commit himself to God. His solace, I say, is to know that his Heavenly Father so holds all things in his power, so rules by his authority and will, so governs by his wisdom, that nothing can befall except he determine it. Moreover, it comforts him to know that he has been received into God’s safekeeping and entrusted to the care of his angels, and that neither water, nor fire, nor iron can harm him, except in so far as it pleases God as governor to give them occasion. Thus indeed the psalm sings: “For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. Under his wings will he protect you, and in his pinions you will have assurance; his truth will be your shield. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the flying arrow by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at midday” [Ps. 91:3-6; cf. Ps. 90:3-6, Vg.; cf. Comm.].

From this, also, arises in the saints the assurance that they may glory. “The Lord is my helper” [Ps. 118:6; 117:6, Vg.]; “I will not fear what flesh can do against me” [Ps. 56:4; 55:5, Vg.]. “The Lord is my protector; what shall I fear?” [Ps. 27:1; cf. Ps. 26:1, Vg.] “If armies should stand together against me” [Ps. 27:3; cf. Ps. 26:3, Vg.], “if I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death” [Ps. 22:4, Vg.; 23:4, EV], “I will not cease to have good hope” [Ps. 56:5; 55:4, Vg.; 71:14; 70:14, Vg.]. Whence, I pray you, do they have this never-failing assurance but from knowing that, when the world appears to be aimlessly tumbled about, the Lord is everywhere at work, and from trusting that his work will be for their welfare? Now if their welfare is assailed either by the devil or by wicked men, then indeed, unless strengthened through remembering and meditating upon providence, they must needs quickly faint away. But let them recall that the devil and the whole cohort of the wicked are completely restrained by God’s hand as by a bridle, so that they are unable either to hatch any plot against us or, having hatched it, to make preparations or, if they have fully planned it, to stir a finger toward carrying it out, except so far as he has permitted, indeed commanded. Let them, also, recall that the devil and his crew are not only fettered, but also curbed and compelled to do service. “Such thoughts will provide them abundant comfort. For as it belongs to the Lord to arouse their fury and turn and direct it whither he pleases; so, also, is it his to set a measure and limit, lest they licentiously exult in their own lust.

Paul, supported by this conviction, after saying in one passage that his journey had been hindered by Satan [I Thess. 2:18], states elsewhere that with God’s permission he determined to set out [I Cor. 16:7]. If he had said only that the obstacle was from Satan, he would have seemed to give too much power to him, as if it were in his power to overthrow even the very plans of God; but now when he declares God the Ruler upon whose permission all his journeys depend, he at the same time shows that Satan cannot carry out anything that he may contrive except with God’s assent. For the same reason, David, on account of the various changes by which the life of men is continually turned, and as it were, whirled about, betakes himself to this refuge: that his “times are in God’s hand” [Ps. 31:15]. He could have put here either “course of life” or “time” in the singular, but he chose to express by using the plural “times” that however unstable the condition of men may be, whatever changes take place from time to time, they are governed by God. “For this reason, although Rezin and the King of Israel, having joined forces to destroy Judah, seemed firebrands kindled to destroy and consume the land, they are called by the prophet “smoking firebrands,” that can do nothing but breathe out a little smoke [Isa. 7:4]. Thus Pharaoh, although to all he was fearsome both on account of his riches and strength, and the size of his armies, is himself compared to a sea monster, and his troops to fish [Ezek. 29:4]. God therefore announces that he is going to seize the leader and the army with his hook and drag them where He pleases. In short, not to tarry any longer over this, if you pay attention, you will easily perceive that ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries; the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it.

(Answer to objections, 12-14)

12. On God’s “repentance”

We should have said enough concerning God’s providence to achieve the perfect instruction and comfort of believers (for nothing whatsoever can be sufficient to satisfy the curiosity of vain men, nor ought we to wish to satisfy it) if certain passages did not stand in the way. These seem to suggest, contrary to the above exposition, that the plan of God does not stand firm and sure, but is subject to change in response to the disposition of things below. First, God’s repenting is several times mentioned, as when he repented of having created man [Gen. 6:6]; of having put Saul over the kingdom [I Sam. 15:11]; and of his going to repent of the evil that he had determined to inflict upon his people, as soon as he sensed any change of heart in them [Jer. 18:8]. Next, some abrogations of his decrees are referred to. He made known through Jonah to the Ninevites that after forty days had passed Nineveh would be destroyed, yet he was immediately persuaded by their repentance to give a more kindly sentence. [Jonah 3:4, 10.] He proclaimed the death of Hezekiah through the mouth of Isaiah; but he was moved by the king’s tears and prayers to defer this [Isa. 38:1, 5; II Kings 20:1, 5; cf. II Chron. 32:24]. Hence many contend that God has not determined the affairs of men by an eternal decree, but that, according to each man’s deserts or according as he deems him fair and just, he decrees this or that each year, each day, and each hour.

Concerning repentance, we ought so to hold that it is no more chargeable against God than is ignorance, or error, or powerlessness. For if no one wittingly and willingly puts himself under the necessity of repentance, we shall not attribute repentance to God without saying either that he is ignorant of what is going to happen, or cannot escape it, or hastily and rashly rushes into a decision of which he immediately has to repent. But that is far removed from the intention of the Holy Spirit, who in the very reference to repentance says that God is not moved by compunction because he is not a man so that he can repent [I Sam. 15:29]. And we must note that in the same chapter both are so joined together that the comparison well harmonizes the apparent disagreement. When God repents of having made Saul king, the change of mind is to be taken figuratively. A little later there is added: “The strength of Israel will not lie, nor be turned aside by repentance; for he is not a man, that he may repent” [I Sam. 15:29 p.]. By these words openly and unfiguratively God’s unchangeableness is declared. Therefore it is certain that God’s ordinance in the managing of human affairs is both everlasting and above all repentance. And lest there be doubt as to his constancy, even his adversaries are compelled to render testimony to this. For Balaam, even against his will, had to break forth into these words: “God is not like man that he should lie, nor as the son of man that he should change. It cannot be that he will not do what he has said or not fulfill what he has spoken” [Num. 23: 19 p., cf. Vg.].

13. Scripture speaks of God’s “repentance” to make allowance for our understanding

What, therefore, does the word “repentance” mean? Surely its meaning is like that of all other modes of speaking that describe God for us in human terms. For because our weakness does not attain to his exalted state, the description of him that is given to us must be accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it. Now the mode of accommodation is for him to represent himself to us not as he is in himself, but as he seems to us. Although he is beyond all disturbance of mind, yet he testifies that he is angry toward sinners. Therefore whenever we hear that God is angered, we ought not to imagine any emotion in him, but rather to consider that this expression has been taken from our own human experience; because God, whenever he is exercising judgment, exhibits the appearance of one kindled and angered. So we ought not to understand anything else under the word “repentance” than change of action, because men are wont by changing their action to testify that they are displeased with themselves. Therefore, since every change among men is a correction of what displeases them, but that correction arises out of repentance, then by the word “repentance” is meant the fact that God changes with respect to his actions. Meanwhile neither God’s plan nor his will is reversed, nor his volition altered; but what he had from eternity foreseen, approved, and decreed, he pursues in uninterrupted tenor, however sudden the variation may appear in men’s eyes.

14. God firmly executes his plan

The sacred history does not show that God’s decrees were abrogated when it relates that the destruction which had once been pronounced upon the Ninevites was remitted [Jonah 3:10]; and that Hezekiah’s life, after his death had been intimated, had been prolonged [Isa. 38:5]. Those who think so are deceived in these intimations. Even though the latter make a simple affirmation, it is to be understood from the outcome that these nonetheless contain a tacit condition. For why did the Lord send Jonah to the Ninevites to foretell the ruin of the city? Why did he through Isaiah indicate death to Hezekiah? For he could have destroyed both the Ninevites and Hezekiah without any messenger of destruction. Therefore he had in view something other than that, forewarned of their death, they might discern it coming from a distance. Indeed, he did not wish them to perish, but to be changed lest they perish. Therefore Jonah’s prophecy that after forty days Nineveh would be destroyed was made so it might not fall. Hezekiah’s hope for longer life was cut off in order that it might come to pass that he would obtain longer life. Who now does not see that it pleased the Lord by such threats to arouse to repentance those whom he was terrifying, that they might escape the judgment they deserved for their sins? If that is true, the nature of the circumstances leads us to recognize a tacit condition in the simple intimation.

This is also confirmed by like examples. The Lord, rebuking King Abimelech because he had deprived Abraham of his wife, uses these words: “Behold, you will die on account of the woman whom you have taken, for she has a husband” [Gen. 20:3, Vg.]. But after Abimelech excused himself, God spoke in this manner: “Restore the woman to her husband, for he is a prophet, and will pray for you that you may live. If not, know that you shall surely die, and all that you have” [Gen. 20:7, Vg.]. Do you see how in the first utterance, he strikes Abimelech’s mind more violently in order to render him intent upon satisfaction, but in the second sentence he clearly explains his will? Inasmuch as there is a similar meaning in other passages, do not infer from them that there was any derogation from the Lord’s first purpose because he had made void what he had proclaimed. For the Lord, when by warning of punishment he admonishes to repentance those whom he wills to spare, paves the way for his eternal ordinance, rather than varies anything of his will, or even of his Word, although he does not express syllable by syllable what is nevertheless easy to understand. That saying of Isaiah must indeed remain true: “The Lord of Hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?” [Isa. 14:27].

Section: 1.17.7-10

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:51:11 +0800

7. God’s providence in prosperity

The servant of God, strengthened both by these promises and by examples, will join thereto the testimonies which teach that all men are under his power, whether their minds are to be conciliated, or their malice to be restrained that it may not do harm. For it is the Lord who gives us favor, not alone among those who wish us well, but even “in the eyes of the Egyptians” [Ex. 3:21]; indeed, he knows how to shatter the wickedness of our enemies in various ways. For sometimes he takes away their understanding so that they are unable to comprehend anything sane or sober, as when he sends forth Satan to fill the mouths of all the prophets with falsehood in order to deceive Ahab [I Kings 22:22]. He drives Rehoboam mad by the young men’s advice that through his own folly he may be despoiled of the kingdom [I Kings 12:10, 15]. Sometimes when he grants them understanding, he so frightens and dispirits them that they do not wish, or plan, to carry out what they have conceived. Sometimes, also, when he permits them to attempt what their lust and madness has prompted, he at the right moment breaks off their violence, and does not allow their purpose to be completed. Thus Ahitophel’s advice, which would have been fatal for David, he destroyed before its time [II Sam. 17:7, 14]. Thus, also, it is his care to govern all creatures for their own good and safety; and even the devil himself, who, we see, dared not attempt anything against Job without His permission and command [Job 1:12].

Gratitude of mind for the favorable outcome of things, patience in adversity, and also incredible freedom from worry about the future all necessarily follow upon this knowledge. Therefore whatever shall happen prosperously and according to the desire of his heart, God’s servant will attribute wholly to God, whether he feels God’s beneficence through the ministry of men, or has been helped by inanimate creatures. For thus he will reason in his mind: surely it is the Lord who has inclined their hearts to me, who has so bound them to me that they should become the instruments of his kindness toward me. In abundance of fruits he will think: “It is the Lord who ‘hears’ the heaven, that the heaven may ‘hear’ the earth, that the earth also may ‘hear’ its offspring” [cf. Hos. 2:21-22, Vg.; 2:22-23, EV]. In other things he will not doubt that it is the Lord’s blessing alone by which all things prosper. Admonished by so many evidences, he will not continue to be ungrateful.

8. Certainty about God’s providence helps us in all adversities

If anything adverse happens, straightway he will raise up his heart here also unto God, whose hand can best impress patience and peaceful moderation of mind upon us. If Joseph had stopped to dwell upon his brothers’ treachery, he would never have been able to show a brotherly attitude toward them. But since he turned his thoughts to the Lord, forgetting the injustice, he inclined to gentleness and kindness, even to the point of comforting his brothers and saying: “It is not you who sold me into Egypt, but I was sent before you by God’s will, that I might save your life” [Gen. 45:5, 7-8 p.]. “Indeed you intended evil against me, but the Lord turned it into good.” [Gen. 50:20, cf. Vg.] If Job had turned his attention to the Chaldeans, by whom he was troubled, he would immediately have been aroused to revenge; but because he at once recognized it as the Lord’s work, he comforts himself with this most beautiful thought: “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” [Job 1:21]. Thus David, assailed with threats and stones by Shimei, if he had fixed his eyes upon the man, would have encouraged his men to repay the injury; but because he knows that Shimei does not act without the Lord’s prompting, he rather appeases them: “Let him alone,” he says, “because the Lord has ordered him to curse” [II Sam. 16:11]. By this same bridle he elsewhere curbs his inordinate sorrow: “I have kept silence and remained mute,” says he, “because thou hast done it, O Jehovah” [Ps. 39:9 p.]. If there is no more effective remedy for anger and impatience, he has surely benefited greatly who has so learned to meditate upon God’s providence that he can always recall his mind to this point: the Lord has willed it; therefore it must be borne, not only because one may not contend against it, but also because he wills nothing but what is just and expedient. To sum this up: when we are unjustly wounded by men, let us overlook their wickedness (which would but worsen our pain and sharpen our minds to revenge), remember to mount up to God, and learn to believe for certain that whatever our enemy has wickedly committed against us was permitted and sent by God’s just dispensation.

Paul, to restrain us from retaliation for injuries, wisely points out that our struggle “is not with flesh and blood” [Eph. 6:12], but with our spiritual enemy the devil [Eph. 6:11], in order that we may prepare ourselves for the combat. Yet a most useful admonition to still all impulses to wrath is that God arms both the devil and all the wicked for the conflict, and sits as a judge of the games to exercise our patience.

But if the destruction and misery that press upon us happen without human agency, let us recall the teaching of the law: “Whatever is prosperous flows from the fountain of God’s blessing, and all adversities are his curses” [Deut. 28:2 ff., 15 ff. p.]. Let this dreadful warning terrify us: “If you happen to walk contrary to me, I will also happen to walk contrary to you” [Lev. 26:23-24, cf. Comm.]. In these words our sluggishness is rebuked as a crime; for after the common sense of the flesh we regard as fortuitous whatever happens either way, whether good or evil, and so are neither aroused by God’s benefits to worship him, nor stimulated by lashes to repentance. It is for this same reason that Jeremiah and Amos bitterly expostulated with the Jews, for they thought both good and evil happened without God’s command [Lam. 3:38; Amos 3:6]. In the same vein is Isaiah’s declaration: “I, God, creating light and forming darkness, making peace and creating evil: I, God, do all these things” [Isa. 45:7, cf. Vg.].

9. No disregard of intermediate causes!

Meanwhile, nevertheless, a godly man will not overlook the secondary causes. And indeed, he will not, just because he thinks those from whom he has received benefit are ministers of the divine goodness, pass them over, as if they had deserved no thanks for their human kindness; but from the bottom of his heart will feel himself beholden to them, willingly confess his obligation, and earnestly try as best he can to render thanks and as occasion presents itself. In short, for benefits received he will reverence and praise the Lord as their principal author, but will honor men as his ministers; and will know what is in fact true: it is by God’s will that he is beholden to those through whose hand God willed to be beneficent. If this godly man suffers any loss because of negligence or imprudence, he will conclude that it came about by the Lord’s will, but also impute it to himself. Suppose a disease should carry off anyone whom he treated negligently, although it was his duty to take care of him. Even though he knows that this person had come to an impassable boundary, he will not on this account deem his misdeed less serious; rather, because he did not faithfully discharge his duty toward him, he will take it that through the fault of his negligence the latter had perished. Where fraud or premeditated malice enters into the committing of either murder or theft, he will even less excuse such a crime on the pretext of divine providence; but in this same evil deed he will clearly contemplate God’s righteousness and man’s wickedness, as each clearly shows itself.

But especially with reference to future events he will take into consideration inferior causes of this sort. For he will count it among the blessings of the Lord, if he is not destitute of human helps which he may use for his safety. Therefore he will neither cease to take counsel, nor be sluggish in beseeching the assistance of those whom he sees to have the means to help him; but, considering that whatever creatures are capable of furnishing anything to him are offered by the Lord into his hand, he will put them to use as lawful instruments of divine providence. And since it is uncertain what will be the outcome of the business he is undertaking (except that he knows that in all things the Lord will provide for his benefit), he will aspire with zeal to that which he deems expedient for himself, as far as it can be attained by intelligence and understanding. Yet in taking counsel he will not follow his own opinion, but will entrust and submit himself to God’s wisdom, to be directed by his leading to the right goal. But his confidence will not so rely upon outward supports as to repose with assurance in them if they are present, or, if they are lacking, to tremble as if left destitute. For he will always hold his mind fixed upon God’s providence alone, and not let preoccupation with present matters draw him away from steadfast contemplation of it. Thus Joab, though recognizing the outcome of the battle to be in God’s hand, has yielded not to idleness, but diligently carries out the duties of his calling. To the Lord, moreover, he commits the determination of the outcome: “We will stand fast,” says he, “for our people and the cities of our God; but let the Lord do what is good in his eyes” [II Sam. 10:12 p.]. This same knowledge will drive us to put off rashness and overconfidence, and will impel us continually to call upon God. Then also he will buttress our minds with good hope, that, with confidence and courage, we may not hesitate to despise those dangers which surround us.

10. Without certainty about God’s providence life would be unbearable

Hence appears the immeasurable felicity of the godly mind. Innumerable are the evils that beset human life; innumerable, too, the deaths that threaten it. We need not go beyond ourselves: since our body is the receptacle of a thousand diseases-in fact holds within itself and fosters the causes of diseases-a man cannot go about unburdened by many forms of his own destruction, and without drawing out a life enveloped, as it were, with death. For what else would you call it, when he neither freezes nor sweats without danger? Now, wherever you turn, all things around you not only are hardly to be trusted but almost openly menace, and seem to threaten immediate death. Embark upon a ship, you are one step away from death. Mount a horse, if one foot slips, your life is imperiled. Go through the city streets, you are subject to as many dangers as there are tiles on the roofs. If there is a weapon in your hand or a friend’s, harm awaits. All the fierce animals you see are armed for your destruction. But if you try to shut yourself up in a walled garden, seemingly delightful, there a serpent sometimes lies hidden. Your house, continually in danger of fire, threatens in the daytime to impoverish you, at night even to collapse upon you. Your field, since it is exposed to hail, frost, drought, and other calamities, threatens you with barrenness, and hence, famine. I pass over poisonings, ambushes, robberies, open violence, which in part besiege us at home, in part dog us abroad. Amid these tribulations must not man be most miserable, since, but half alive in life, he weakly draws his anxious and languid breath, as if he had a sword perpetually hanging over his neck?

You will say: these events rarely happen, or at least not all the time, nor to all men, and never all at once. I agree; but since we are warned by the examples of others that these can also happen to ourselves, and that our life ought not to be excepted any more than theirs, we cannot but be frightened and terrified as if such events were about to happen to us. What, therefore, more calamitous can you imagine than such trepidation? Besides that, if we say that God has exposed man, the noblest of creatures, to all sorts of blind and heedless blows of fortune, we are not guiltless of reproaching God. But here I propose to speak only of that misery which man will feel if he is brought under the sway of fortune.

Section: 1.17.4-6

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:01:00 +0800

4. God’s providence does not excuse us from due prudence

But with respect to future events, Solomon easily brings human deliberations into agreement with God’s providence. For just as he laughs at the dullness of those who boldly undertake something or other without the Lord, as though they were not ruled by his hand, so elsewhere he says: “Man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord will direct his steps” [Prov. 16:9 p.]. This means that we are not at all hindered by God’s eternal decrees either from looking ahead for ourselves or from putting all our affairs in order, but always in submission to his will. The reason is obvious. For he who has set the limits to our life has at the same time entrusted to us its care; he has provided means and helps to preserve it; he has also made us able to foresee dangers; that they may not overwhelm us unaware, he has offered precautions and remedies. Now it is very clear what our duty is: thus, if the Lord has committed to us the protection of our life, our duty is to protect it; if he offers helps, to use them; if he forewarns us of dangers, not to plunge headlong; if he makes remedies available, not to neglect them. But no danger will hurt us, say they, unless it is fatal, and in this case it is beyond remedies. But what if the dangers are not fatal, because the Lord has provided you with remedies for repulsing and overcoming them? See how your reckoning fits in with the order of divine dispensation. You conclude that we ought not to beware of any peril because, since it is not fatal, we shall escape it even without taking any precaution. But the Lord enjoins you to beware, because he would not have it fatal for you. These fools do not consider what is under their very eyes, that the Lord has inspired in men the arts of taking counsel and caution, by which to comply with his providence in the preservation of life itself. Just as, on the contrary, by neglect and slothfulness they bring upon themselves the ills that he has laid upon them. How does it happen that a provident man, while he takes care of himself, also disentangles himself from threatening evils, but a foolish man perishes from his own unconsidered rashness, unless folly and prudence are instruments of the divine dispensation in both cases? For this reason, God pleased to hide all future events from us, in order that we should resist them as doubtful, and not cease to oppose them with ready remedies, until they are either overcome or pass beyond all care. I have therefore already remarked that God’s providence does not always meet us in its naked form, but God in a sense clothes it with the means employed.

5. God’s providence does not exculpate our wickedness

The same men wrongly and rashly lay the happenings of past time to the naked providence of God. For since on it depends everything that happens, “therefore, say they, neither thefts, nor adulteries, nor murders take place without God’s will intervening. Why therefore, they ask, should a thief be punished, who has plundered someone whom the Lord would punish with poverty? Why shall a murderer be punished, who has killed one whose life the Lord had ended? If all such men are serving God’s will, why shall they be punished? On the contrary, I deny that they are serving God’s will. For we shall not say that one who is motivated by an evil inclination, by only obeying his own wicked desire, renders service to God at His bidding. A man, having learned of His will, obeys God in striving toward the goal to which he is called by that same will. From what source do we learn but from his Word? In such fashion we must in our deeds search out God’s will which he declares through his Word. God requires of us only what he commands. If we contrive anything against his commandment, it is not obedience but obstinacy and transgression. Yet, unless he willed it, we would not do it. I agree. But do we do evil things to the end that we may serve him? Yet he by no means commands us to do them; rather we rush headlong, without thinking what he requires, but so raging in our unbridled lust that we deliberately strive against him. And in this way we serve his just ordinance by doing evil, for so great and boundless is his wisdom that he knows right well how to use evil instruments to do good. And see how absurd their argument is: they would have transgressors go unpunished, on the ground that their misdeeds are committed solely by God’s dispensation.

I grant more: thieves and murderers and other evildoers are the instruments of divine providence, and the Lord himself uses these to carry out the judgments that he has determined with himself. Yet I deny that they can derive from this any excuse for their evil deeds. Why? Will they either involve God in the same iniquity with themselves, or will they cloak their own depravity with his justice? They can do neither. In their own conscience they are so convicted as to be unable to clear themselves; in themselves they so discover all evil, but in him only the lawful use of their evil intent, as to preclude laying the charge against God. Well and good, for he works through them. And whence, I ask you, comes the stench of a corpse, which is both putrefied and laid open by the heat of the sun? All men see that it is stirred up by the sun’s rays; yet no one for this reason says that the rays stink.” Thus, since the matter and guilt of evil repose in a wicked man, what reason is there to think that God contracts any defilement, if he uses his service for his own purpose? Away, therefore, with this doglike impudence, which can indeed bark at God’s justice afar off but cannot touch it.

(Meditating on the ways of God in providence: the happiness of recognizing acts of providence, 6-11)

6. God’s providence as solace of believers

But these calumnies, or rather ravings of distracted men, will be easily dispersed by pious and holy meditation on providence, which the rule of piety dictates to us, so that from this we may receive the best and sweetest fruit. “Therefore the Christian heart, since it has been thoroughly persuaded that all things happen by God’s plan, and that nothing takes place by chance, will ever look to him as the principal cause of things, yet will give attention to the secondary causes in their proper place. Then the heart will not doubt that God’s singular providence keeps watch to preserve it, and will not suffer anything to happen but what may turn out to its good and salvation. But since God’s dealings are first with man, then with the remaining creatures, the heart will have assurance that God’s providence rules over both. As far as men are concerned, whether they are good or evil, the heart of the Christian will know that their plans, wills, efforts, and abilities are under God’s hand; that it is within his choice to bend them whither he pleases and to constrain them whenever he pleases.

There are very many and very clear promises that testify that God’s singular providence watches over the welfare of believers: “Cast your care upon the Lord, and he will nourish you, and will never permit the righteous man to flounder” [Ps. 55:22 p.; cf. Ps. 54:23, Vg.]. For he takes care of us. [I Peter 5:7 p.] “He who dwells in the help of the Most High will abide in the protection of the God of heaven.” [Ps. 91:1; 90:1, Vg.] “He who touches you touches the pupil of mine eye.” [Zech. 2:8p.] “I will be your shield” [Gen. 15:1 p.], “a brazen wall” [Jer. 1:18; 15:20]; “I will contend with those who contend with you” [Isa. 49:25]. “Even though a mother may forget her children, yet will I not forget you.” [Isa. 49:15 p.] Indeed, the principal purpose of Biblical history is to teach that the Lord watches over the ways of the saints with such great diligence that they do not even stumble over a stone [cf. Ps. 91:12].

Therefore, as we rightly rejected a little above the opinion of those who imagine a universal providence of God, which does not stoop to the especial care of any particular creature, yet first of all it is important that we recognize this special care toward us. Whence Christ, when he declared that not even a tiny sparrow of little worth falls to earth without the Father’s will [Matt. 10:29], immediately applies it in this way: that since we are of greater value than sparrows, we ought to realize that God watches over us with all the closer care [Matt. 10:31]; and he extends it so far that we may trust that the hairs of our head are numbered [Matt. 10:30]. What else can we wish for ourselves, if not even one hair can fall from our head without his will? I speak not only concerning mankind; but, because God has chosen the church to be his dwelling place, there is no doubt that he shows by singular proofs his fatherly care in ruling it.

Section: 1.17.1-3

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:06:52 +0800

CHAPTER XVII

HOW WE MAY APPLY THIS DOCTRINE TO OUR GREATEST BENEFIT

(Interpretation of divine providence with reference to the past and the future, 1-5)

1. The meaning of God’s ways

Moreover, as men’s dispositions are inclined to vain subtleties, any who do not hold fast to a good and right use of this doctrine can hardly avoid entangling themselves in inscrutable difficulties. Therefore it is expedient here to discuss briefly to what end Scripture teaches that all things are divinely ordained.

Three things, indeed, are to be noted. First, God’s providence must be considered with regard to the future as well as the past. Secondly, it is the determinative principle of all things in such a way that sometimes it works through an intermediary, sometimes without an intermediary, sometimes contrary to every intermediary. Finally, it strives to the end that God may reveal his concern for the whole human race, but especially his vigilance in ruling the church, which he deigns to watch more closely. Now this, also, ought to be added, that although either fatherly favor and beneficence or severity of judgment often shine forth in the whole course of providence, nevertheless sometimes the causes of the events are hidden. So the thought creeps in that human affairs turn and whirl at the blind urge of fortune; or the flesh incites us to contradiction, as if God were making sport of men by throwing them about like balls. It is, indeed, true that if we had quiet and composed minds ready to learn, the final outcome would show that God always has the best reason for his plan: either to instruct his own people in patience, or to correct their wicked affections and tame their lust, or to subjugate them to self-denial, or to arouse them from sluggishness; again, to bring low the proud, to shatter the cunning of the impious and to overthrow their devices. Yet however hidden and fugitive from our point of view the causes may be, we must hold that they are surely laid up with him, and hence we must exclaim with David: “Great, O God, are the wondrous deeds that thou hast done, and thy thoughts toward us cannot be reckoned; if I try to speak, they would be more than can be told” [Ps. 40:5]. For even though in our miseries our sins ought always to come to mind, that punishment itself may incite us to repentance, yet we see how Christ claims for the Father’s secret plan a broader justice than simply punishing each one as he deserves. For concerning the man born blind he says: “Neither he nor his parents sinned, but that God’s glory may be manifested in him” [John 9:3 p.]. For here our nature cries out, when calamity comes before birth itself, as if God with so little mercy thus punished the undeserving. Yet Christ testifies that in this miracle the glory of his Father shines, provided our eyes be pure.

But we must so cherish moderation that we do not try to make God render account to us, but so reverence his secret judgments as to consider his will the truly just cause of all things. When dense clouds darken the sky, and a violent tempest arises, because a gloomy mist is cast over our eyes, thunder strikes our ears and all our senses are benumbed with fright, everything seems to us to be confused and mixed up; but all the while a constant quiet and serenity ever remain in heaven. So must we infer that, while the disturbances in the world deprive us of judgment, God out of the pure light of his justice and wisdom tempers and directs these very movements in the best-conceived order to a right end. And surely on this point it is sheer folly that many dare with greater license to call God’s works to account, and to examine his secret plans, and to pass as rash a sentence on matters unknown as they would on the deeds of mortal men. For what is more absurd than to use this moderation toward our equals, that we prefer to suspend judgment rather than be charged with rashness; yet haughtily revile the hidden judgments of God, which we ought to hold in reverence?

2. God’s rule will be observed with respect!

Therefore no one will weigh God’s providence properly and profitably but him who considers that his business is with his Maker and the Framer of the universe, and with becoming humility submits himself to fear and reverence. Hence it happens that today so many dogs assail this doctrine with their venomous bitings, or at least with barking: for they wish nothing to be lawful for God beyond what their own reason prescribes for themselves. Also they rail at us with as much wantonness as they can; because we, not content with the precepts of the law, which comprise God’s will, say also that the universe is ruled by his secret plans. As if what we teach were a figment of our brain, and the Holy Spirit did not everywhere expressly declare the same thing and repeat it in innumerable forms of expression. But, because some shame restrains them from daring to vomit forth these blasphemies against heaven, they feign it is with us they are contending, that they may rave more freely.

But if they do not admit that whatever happens in the universe is governed by God’s incomprehensible plans, let them answer to what end Scripture says that his judgments are a deep abyss [Ps. 36:6]. For since Moses proclaims that the will of God is to be sought not far off in the clouds or in abysses, because it has been set forth familiarly in the law [Deut. 30:11-14], it follows that he has another hidden will which may be compared to a deep abyss; concerning which Paul also says: “O depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ” [Rom. 11:33-34; cf. Isa. 40:13-14]. And it is, indeed, true that in the law and the gospel are comprehended mysteries which tower far above the reach of our senses. But since God illumines the minds of his own with the spirit of discernment [Job 20:3 or Isa. 11:2] for the understanding of these mysteries which he has deigned to reveal by his Word, now no abyss is here; rather, a way in which we ought to walk in safety, and a lamp to guide our feet [Ps. 118:105, Vg.; 119:105, EV], the light of life [cf. John 1:4; 8:12], and the school of sure and clear truth. Yet his wonderful method of governing the universe is rightly called an abyss, because while it is hidden from us, we ought reverently to adore it.

Moses has beautifully expressed both ideas in a few words: “The secret things,” he says, “belong to the Lord our God, but what is here written, to you and your children” [Deut. 29:29 p.]. For we see how he bids us not only direct our study to meditation upon the law, but to look up to God’s secret providence with awe. Also, in The Book of Job is set forth a declaration of such sublimity as to humble our minds. For after the author, in surveying above and below the frame of the universe, has magnificently discoursed concerning God’s works, he finally adds: “Behold! These are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a thing is heard therein!” [Job 26:14]. In this way he distinguishes in another place between the wisdom that resides with God and the portion of wisdom God has prescribed for men. For when he has discoursed on the secrets of nature, he says that wisdom is known to God alone, but “eludes the eyes of all the living” [Job 28:21]. But he adds a little later that His wisdom has been published to be searched out, because it is said to man: “Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom” [Job 28:28]. To this point the saying of Augustine applies: “Because we do not know all the things which God in the best possible order does concerning us, we act solely in good will according to the law, but in other things we are acted upon according to the law, because his providence is an unchangeable law.” Therefore, since God assumes to himself the right (unknown to us) to rule the universe, let our law of soberness and moderation be to assent to his supreme authority, that his will may be for us the sole rule of righteousness, and the truly just cause of all things. Not, indeed, that absolute will of which the Sophists babble, by an impious and profane distinction separating his justice from his power-but providence, that determinative principle of all things, from which flows nothing but right, although the reasons have been hidden from us.

3. God’s providence does not relieve us from responsibility

All who will compose themselves to this moderation will not murmur against God on account of their adversities in time past, nor lay the blame for their own wickedness upon him as did the Homeric Agamemnon, saying: “I am not the cause, but Zeus and fate.” And they will not, as if carried off by the fates, out of desperation cast themselves to destruction like that youth of Plautus: “Unstable is the lot of things, the fates drive men according to their own pleasure. I will betake myself to the precipice, that there I may lose my goods with my life.” And they will not follow the example of another, and cover up their own evil deeds with the name “God.” For thus Lyconides says in another comedy: “God was the instigator; I believe the gods willed it. For I know if they had not so willed, it would not have happened.” But rather let them inquire and learn from Scripture what is pleasing to God so that they may strive toward this under the Spirit’s guidance. At the same time, being ready to follow God wherever he calls, they will show in very truth that nothing is more profitable than the knowledge of this doctrine.

Profane men with their absurdities foolishly raise an uproar, so that they almost, as the saying is, mingle heaven and earth. If the Lord has indicated the point of our death, they say, we cannot escape it. Therefore it is vain for anyone to busy himself in taking precautions. One man does not dare take a road that he hears is dangerous, lest he be murdered by thieves; another summons physicians, and wears himself out with medicines to keep himself alive; another abstains from coarser foods, lest he impair his weak health; another is afraid of living in tumble-down houses. In short, all devise ways and forge them with great purpose of mind, to attain what they desired. Now either all these remedies which attempt to correct God’s will are vain; or else there is no fixed decree of God that determines life and death, health and disease, peace and war, and other things that men, as they desire or hate them, so earnestly try by their own toil either to obtain or to avoid. Also they conclude that believers’ prayers, by which the Lord is asked to provide for things that he has already decreed from eternity, are perverse, not to say superfluous. To sum up, they cancel all those plans which have to do with the future, as militating against God’s providence, which, without their being consulted, has decreed what he would have happen. Then whatever does happen now, they so impute to God’s providence that they close their eyes to the man who clearly has done it. Does an assassin murder an upright citizen? He has carried out, they say, God’s plan. Has someone stolen, or committed adultery? Because he has done what was foreseen and ordained by the Lord, he is the minister of God’s providence. Has a son, neglecting remedies, with never a care awaited the death of a parent? He could not resist God, who had so appointed from eternity. Thus all crimes, because subject to God’s ordinance, they call virtues.

Section: 1.16.7-9

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:28:34 +0800

7. God’s providence also regulates “natural” occurrences

Also, I say that particular events are generally testimonies of the character of God’s singular providence. In the desert God stirred up the south wind, which brought to the people an abundance of birds. [Ex. 16:13; Num. 11: 31.] When he would have Jonah cast into the sea, God sent a wind by stirring up a whirlwind [Jonah 1:4]. Those who do not think that God controls the government of the universe will say that this was outside the common course. Yet from it I infer that no wind ever arises or increases except by God’s express command. Otherwise it would not be true that he makes the winds his messengers and the flaming fire his ministers, that he makes the clouds his chariots and rides upon the wings of the wind [Ps. 104:3-4; cf. Ps. 103:3-4, Vg.], unless by his decision he drove both clouds and winds about, and showed in them the singular presence of his power. So, also, we are elsewhere taught that whenever the sea boils up with the blast of winds those forces witness to the singular presence of God. “He commands and raises the stormy wind which lifts on high the waves of the sea” [Ps. 107:25; cf. Ps. 106:25, Vg.]; “then he causes the storm to become calm, so that the waves cease for the sailors” [Ps. 107:29]; just as elsewhere he declares that he “has scourged the people with burning winds” [Amos 4:9, cf. Vg.].

So too, although the power to procreate is naturally implanted in men, yet God would have it accounted to his special favor that he leaves some in barrenness, but graces others with offspring [cf. Ps. 113:9]; “for the fruit of the womb is his gift” [Ps. 127: 3 p.]. For this reason, Jacob said to his wife, “Am I God that I can give you children?” [Gen. 30:2 p.]. To end this at once: there is nothing more ordinary in nature than for us to be nourished by bread. Yet the Spirit declares not only that the produce of the earth is God’s special gift but that “men do not live by bread alone” [Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4]; because it is not plenty itself that nourishes men, but God’s secret blessing; just as conversely he threatens that he is going to “take away the stay of bread” [Isa. 3:1]. And indeed, that earnest prayer for daily bread [Matt. 6:11] could be understood only in the sense that God furnishes us with food by his fatherly hand. For this reason, the prophet, to persuade believers that God in feeding them fulfills the office of the best of all fathers of families, states that he gives food to all flesh [Ps. 136:25; cf. Ps. 135:25, Vg.]. Finally, when we hear on the one side, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears toward their prayers” [Ps. 34:15], but on the other, “The eye of the Lord is upon the impious, to destroy their memory from the earth” [Ps. 34:16 p.], let us know that all creatures above and below are ready to obey, that he may apply them to any use he pleases. From this we gather that his general providence not only flourishes among creatures so as to continue the order of nature, but is by his wonderful plan adapted to a definite and proper end.

(Discussion of fortune, chance, and seeming contingency in events, 8-9)

8. The doctrine of providence is no Stoic belief in fate!

Those who wish to cast odium upon this doctrine defame it as the Stoics’ dogma of fate. This charge was once hurled at Augustine. Even though we are unwilling to quarrel over words, yet we do not admit the word “fate,” both because it is one of those words whose profane novelties Paul teaches us to avoid [I Tim. 6:20], and because men try by the odium it incurs to oppress God’s truth. Indeed, we are falsely and maliciously charged with this very dogma. We do not, with the Stoics, contrive a necessity out of the perpetual connection and intimately related series of causes, which is contained in nature; but we make God the ruler and governor of all things, who in accordance with his wisdom has from the farthest limit of eternity decreed what he was going to do, and now by his might carries out what he has decreed. From this we declare that not only heaven and earth and the inanimate creatures, but also the plans and intentions of men, are so governed by his providence that they are borne by it straight to their appointed end.

What then? you will ask. Does nothing happen by chance, nothing by contingency? I reply: Basil the Great has truly said that “fortune” and “chance” are pagan terms, with whose significance the minds of the godly ought not to be occupied. For if every success is God’s blessing, and calamity and adversity his curse, no place now remains in human affairs for fortune or chance. And that saying of Augustine also ought to impress us: “It grieves me that in my books Against the Academics I have so often mentioned Fortune; although I did not mean some goddess or other to be understood by this name, but only a fortuitous outcome of things in outward good or evil. From fortuna also come those words which we should have no scruple about using: forte, forsan, forsitan, fortasse, fortuito [haply, perchance, mayhap, perhaps, fortuitously]; which nevertheless must be wholly referred to divine providence. And I did not pass over this in silence but said it, for perhaps what is commonly called ‘fortune’ is also ruled by a secret order, and we call a ‘chance occurrence’ only that of which the reason and cause are secret. Indeed, I said this: but I regret having thus mentioned ‘fortune’ here, since I see that men have a very bad custom, that where one ought to say ‘God willed this,’ they say, ‘fortune willed this.’ ” In fine, Augustine commonly teaches that if anything is left to fortune, the world is aimlessly whirled about. And although in another place he lays down that all things are carried on partly by man’s free choice, partly by God’s providence, yet a little after this he sufficiently demonstrates that men are under, and ruled by, providence; taking as his principle that nothing is more absurd than that anything should happen without God’s ordaining it, because it would then happen without any cause. For this reason he excludes, also, the contingency that depends upon men’s will; soon thereafter he does so more clearly, denying that we ought to seek the cause of God’s will. How the term “permission,” so frequently mentioned by him, ought to be understood will best appear from one passage, where he proves that God’s will is the highest and first cause of all things because nothing happens except from his command or permission. Surely he does not conjure up a God who reposes idly in a watchtower, willing the while to permit something or other, when an actual will not his own, so to speak, intervenes, which otherwise could not be deemed a cause.

9. The true causes of events are hidden to us

Yet since the sluggishness of our mind lies far beneath the height of God’s providence, we must employ a distinction to lift it up. Therefore I shall put it this way: however all things may be ordained by God’s plan, according to a sure dispensation, for us they are fortuitous. Not that we think that fortune rules the world and men, tumbling all things at random up and down, for it is fitting that this folly be absent from the Christian’s breast! But since the order, reason, end, and necessity of those things which happen for the most part lie hidden in God’s purpose, and are not apprehended by human opinion, those things, which it is certain take place by God’s will, are in a sense fortuitous. For they bear on the face of them no other appearance, whether they are considered in their own nature or weighed according to our knowledge and judgment. Let us imagine, for example, a merchant who, entering a wood with a company of faithful men, unwisely wanders away from his companions, and in his wandering comes upon a robber’s den, falls among thieves, and is slain. His death was not only foreseen by God’s eye, but also determined by his decree. For it is not said that he foresaw how long the life of each man would extend, but that he determined and fixed the bounds that men cannot pass [Job 14:5]. Yet as far as the capacity of our mind is concerned, all things therein seem fortuitous. What will a Christian think at this point? Just this: whatever happened in a death of this sort he will regard as fortuitous by nature, as it is; yet he will not doubt that God’s providence exercised authority over fortune in directing its end. The same reckoning applies to the contingency of future events. As all future events are uncertain to us, so we hold them in suspense, as if they might incline to one side or the other. Yet in our hearts it nonetheless remains fixed that nothing will take place that the Lord has not previously foreseen.

In this sense the term “fate” is often repeated in Ecclesiastes [chs. 2:14-15; 3:19; 9:2-3, 11], because at first glance men do not penetrate to the first cause, which is deeply hidden. And yet what is set forth in Scripture concerning God’s secret providence was never so extinguished from men’s hearts without some sparks always glowing in the darkness. Thus the soothsayers of the Philistines, although they wavered in doubt, yet attributed their adverse fate partly to God, partly to fortune. If the Ark, they say, shall pass through that way, we shall know that it is God who has struck us; but if it passes through another way, then it has happened to us by chance [I Sam. 6:9]. Foolishly indeed, where their divination deceived them, they took refuge in fortune. Meanwhile we see them constrained from daring to think simply fortuitous what had happened unfavorably to them. But how God by the bridle of his providence turns every event whatever way he wills, will be clear from this remarkable example. At the very moment of time in which David was trapped in the wilderness of Maon, the Philistines invaded the land, and Saul was compelled to depart [I Sam. 23:26-27]. If God, intending to provide for his servant’s safety, cast this hindrance in Saul’s way, surely, although the Philistines took up arms suddenly and above all human expectation, yet we will not say that this took place by chance; but what for us seems a contingency, faith recognizes to have been a secret impulse from God.

Not always does a like reason appear, but we ought undoubtedly to hold that whatever changes are discerned in the world are produced from the secret stirring of God’s hand. But what God has determined must necessarily so take place, even though it is neither unconditionally, nor of its own peculiar nature, necessary. A familiar example presents itself in the bones of Christ. When he took upon himself a body like our own, no sane man will deny that his bones were fragile; yet it was impossible to break them [John 19:33, 36]. Whence again we see that distinctions concerning relative necessity and absolute necessity, likewise of consequent and consequence, were not recklessly invented in schools, when God subjected to fragility the bones of his Son, which he had exempted from being broken, and thus restricted to the necessity of his own plan what could have happened naturally.

Section: 1.16.4-6

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:04:43 +0800

4. The nature of providence

At the outset, then, let my readers grasp that providence means not that by which God idly observes from heaven what takes place on earth, but that by which, as keeper of the keys, he governs all events. Thus it pertains no less to his hands than to his eyes. And indeed, when Abraham said to his son, “God will provide” [Gen. 22:8], he meant not only to assert God’s foreknowledge of a future event, but to cast the care of a matter unknown to him upon the will of Him who is wont to give a way out of things perplexed and confused. Whence it follows that providence is lodged in the act; for many babble too ignorantly of bare foreknowledge. Not so crass is the error of those who attribute a governance to God, but of a confused and mixed sort, as I have said, namely, one that by a general motion revolves and drives the system of the universe, with its several parts, but which does not specifically direct the action of individual creatures. Yet this error, also, is not tolerable; for by this providence which they call universal, they teach that nothing hinders all creatures from being contingently moved, or man from turning himself hither and thither by the free choice of his will. And they so apportion things between God and man that God by His power inspires in man a movement by which he can act in accordance with the nature implanted in him, but He regulates His own actions by the plan of His will. Briefly, they mean that the universe, men’s affairs, and men themselves are governed by God’s might but not by His determination. I say nothing of the Epicureans (a pestilence that has always filled the world) who imagine that God is idle and indolent; and others just as foolish, who of old fancied that God so ruled above the middle region of the air that he left the lower regions to fortune. As if the dumb creatures themselves do not sufficiently cry out against such patent madness!

(“General” and “special” providence)

For now I propose to refute the opinion (which almost universally obtains) that concedes to God some kind of blind and ambiguous motion, while taking from him the chief thing: that he directs everything by his incomprehensible wisdom and disposes it to his own end. And so in name only, not in fact, it makes God the Ruler of the universe because it deprives him of his control. What, I pray you, is it to have control but so to be in authority that you rule in a determined order those things over which you are placed? Yet I do not wholly repudiate what is said concerning universal providence, provided they in turn grant me that the universe is ruled by God, not only because he watches over the order of nature set by himself, but because he exercises especial care over each of his works. It is, indeed, true that the several kinds of things are moved by a secret impulse of nature, as if they obeyed God’s eternal command, and what God has once determined flows on by itself.

At this point we may refer to Christ’s statement that from the very beginning he and the Father were always at work [John 5:17]; and to Paul’s teaching that “in him we live, move, and have our being” [Acts 17:28]; also, what the author of The Letter to the Hebrews says, meaning to prove the divinity of Christ, that all things are sustained by his mighty command [Heb. 1:3]. But they wrongly conceal and obscure by this excuse that special providence which is so declared by sure and clear testimonies of Scripture that it is a wonder anyone can have doubts about it. And surely they who cast over it the veil of which I spoke are themselves compelled to add, by way of correction, that many things take place under God’s especial care. But they wrongly restrict this to particular acts alone. Therefore we must prove God so attends to the regulation of individual events, and they all so proceed from his set plan, that nothing takes place by chance.

(Doctrine of special providence supported by the evidence of Scripture, 5-7)

5. God’s providence also directs the individual

Suppose we grant that the beginning of motion is with God, but that all things, either of themselves or by chance, are borne whither inclination of nature impels. Then the alternation of days and nights, of winter and summer, will be God’s work, inasmuch as he, assigning to each one his part, has set before them a certain law; that is, if with even tenor they uninterruptedly maintain the same way, days following after nights, months after months, and years after years. But that sometimes immoderate heat joined with dryness burns whatever crops there are, that at other times unseasonable rains damage the grain, that sudden calamity strikes from hail and storms-this will not be God’s work, unless, perhaps because clouds or fair weather, cold or heat, take their origin from the conjunction of the stars and other natural causes. Yet in this way no place is left for God’s fatherly favor, nor for his judgments. If they say that God is beneficent enough to mankind because he sheds upon heaven and earth an ordinary power, by which they are supplied with food, this is too weak and profane a fiction. As if the fruitfulness of one year were not a singular blessing of God, and scarcity and famine were not his curse and vengeance! But because it would take too long to collect all the reasons, let the authority of God himself suffice. In the Law and in the Prophets he often declares that as often as he waters the earth with dews and rain [Lev. 26:3-4; Deut. 11:13-14; 28:12] he testifies to his favor; but when the heaven is hardened like iron at his command [Lev. 26:19], the grainfields consumed by a blight and other harmful things [Deut. 28:22], as often as the fields are struck with hail and storms [cf. Isa. 28:2; Hag. 2:18, Vg.; 2:17, EV, etc.], these are a sign of his certain and special vengeance. If we accept these things, it is certain that not one drop of rain falls without God’s sure command.

Indeed, David praises God’s general providence, that he gives food to the young of the ravens which call upon him [Ps. 147:9; cf. Ps. 146:9, Vg.]; but when God himself threatens the animals with famine, does he not sufficiently declare that he feeds all living things sometimes with a meager, at other times with a fuller, portion as seems best? It is childish, as I have already said, to restrict this to particular acts, since Christ says, without exception, that not even a tiny and insignificant sparrow falls to the ground without the Father’s will [Matt. 10:29]. Surely if the flight of birds is governed by God’s definite plan, we must confess with the prophet that he so dwells on high as to humble himself to behold whatever happens in heaven and on earth [Ps. 113:5-6].

6. God’s providence especially relates to men

But because we know that the universe was established especially for the sake of mankind, we ought to look for this purpose in his governance also. The prophet Jeremiah exclaims, “I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not his own, nor is it given to man to direct his own steps” [Jer. 10:23, cf. Vg.]. Moreover, Solomon says, “Man’s steps are from the Lord [Prov. 20:24 p.] and how may man dispose his way?” [Prov. 16:9 p., cf. Vg.]. Let them now say that man is moved by God according to the inclination of his nature, but that he himself turns that motion whither he pleases. Nay, if that were truly said, the free choice of his ways would be in man’s control. Perhaps they will deny this because he can do nothing without God’s power. Yet they cannot really get by with that, since it is clear that the prophet and Solomon ascribe to God not only might but also choice and determination. Elsewhere Solomon elegantly rebukes this rashness of men, who set up for themselves a goal without regard to God, as if they were not led by his hand. “The disposition of the heart is man’s, but the preparation of the tongue is the Lord’s.” [Prov. 16:1, 9, conflated.] It is an absurd folly that miserable men take it upon themselves to act without God, when they cannot even speak except as he wills!

Indeed, Scripture, to express more plainly that nothing at all in the world is undertaken without his determination, shows that things seemingly most fortuitous are subject to him. For what can you attribute more to chance than when a branch breaking off from a tree kills a passing traveler? But the Lord speaks far differently, acknowledging that he has delivered him to the hand of the slayer [Ex. 21:13]. Likewise, who does not attribute lots to the blindness of fortune? But the Lord does not allow this, claiming for himself the determining of them. He teaches that it is not by their own power that pebbles are cast into the lap and drawn out, but the one thing that could have been attributed to chance he testifies to come from himself [Prov. 16:33]. In the same vein is that saying of Solomon, “The poor man and the usurer meet together; God illumines the eyes of both” [Prov. 29:13; cf. ch. 22:2]. He points out that, even though the rich are mingled with the poor in the world, while to each his condition is divinely assigned, God, who lights all men, is not at all blind. And so he urges the poor to patience; because those who are not content with their own lot try to shake off the burden laid upon them by God. Thus, also, another prophet rebukes the impious who ascribe to men’s toil, or to fortune, the fact that some lie in squalor and others rise up to honors. “For not from the east, nor from the west, nor from the wilderness comes lifting up; because God is judge, he humbles one and lifts up another.” [Ps. 75:6-7.] Because God cannot put off the office of judge, hence he reasons that it is by His secret plan that some distinguish themselves, while others remain contemptible.

Section: 1.15.8-1.16.3

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:02:28 +0800

8. Free choice and Adam’s responsibility

Therefore God provided man’s soul with a mind, by which to distinguish good from evil, right from wrong; and, with the light of reason as guide, to distinguish what should be followed from what should be avoided. For this reason, the philosophers called this directing part. To this he joined the will, under whose control is choice. Man in his first condition excelled in these pre-eminent endowments, so that his reason, understanding, prudence, and judgment not only sufficed for the direction of his earthly life, but by them men mounted up even to God and eternal bliss. Then was choice added, to direct the appetites and control all the organic motions, and thus make the will completely amenable to the guidance of the reason.

In this integrity man by free will had the power, if he so willed, to attain eternal life. Here it would be out of place to raise the question of God’s secret predestination because our present subject is not what can happen or not, but what man’s nature was like. Therefore Adam could have stood if he wished, seeing that he fell solely by his own will. But it was because his will was capable of being bent to one side or the other, and was not given the constancy to persevere, that he fell so easily. Yet his choice of good and evil was free, and not that alone, but the highest rectitude was in his mind and will, and all the organic parts were rightly composed to obedience, until in destroying himself he corrupted his own blessings.

Hence the great obscurity faced by the philosophers, for they were seeking in a ruin for a building, and in scattered fragments for a well-knit structure. They held this principle, that man would not be a rational animal unless he possessed free choice of good and evil; also it entered their minds that the distinction between virtues and vices would be obliterated if man did not order his life by his own planning. Well reasoned so far-if there had been no change in man. But since this was hidden from them, it is no wonder they mix up heaven and earth! They, as professed disciples of Christ, are obviously playing the fool when, by compromising between the opinions of the philosophers and heavenly doctrine, so that these touch neither heaven nor earth, in man-who is lost and sunk down into spiritual destruction-they still seek after free choice. But these matters will be better dealt with in their proper place. Now we need bear only this in mind: man was far different at the first creation from his whole posterity, who, deriving their origin from him in his corrupted state, have contracted from him a hereditary taint. For, the individual parts of his soul were formed to uprightness, the soundness of his mind stood firm, and his will was free to choose the good. If anyone objects that his will was placed in an insecure position because its power was weak, his status should have availed to remove any excuse; nor was it reasonable for God to be constrained by the necessity of making a man who either could not or would not sin at all. Such a nature would, indeed, have been more excellent. But to quarrel with God on this precise point, as if he ought to have conferred this upon man, is more than iniquitous, inasmuch as it was in his own choice to give whatever he pleased. But the reason he did not sustain man by the virtue of perseverance lies hidden in his plan; sobriety is for us the part of wisdom. Man, indeed, received the ability provided he exercised the will; but he did not have the will to use his ability, for this exercising of the will would have been followed by perseverance. Yet he is not excusable, for he received so much that he voluntarily brought about his own destruction; indeed, no necessity was imposed upon God of giving man other than a mediocre and even transitory will, that from man’s Fall he might gather occasion for his own glory.

CHAPTER XVI

GOD BY HIS POWER NOURISHES AND MAINTAINS THE WORLD CREATED BY HIM, AND RULES ITS SEVERAL PARTS BY HIS PROVIDENCE

(God’s special providence asserted, against the opinions of philosophers, 1-4)

1. Creation and providence inseparably joined

Moreover, to make God a momentary Creator, who once for all finished his work, would be cold and barren, and we must differ from profane men especially in that we see the presence of divine power shining as much in the continuing state of the universe as in its inception. For even though the minds of the impious too are compelled by merely looking upon earth and heaven to rise up to the Creator, yet faith has its own peculiar way of assigning the whole credit for Creation to God. To this pertains that saying of the apostle’s to which we have referred before, that only “by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God” [Heb. 11:3]. For unless we pass on to his providence-however we may seem both to comprehend with the mind and to confess with the tongue-we do not yet properly grasp what it means to say: “God is Creator.” Carnal sense, once confronted with the power of God in the very Creation, stops there, and at most weighs and contemplates only the wisdom, power, and goodness of the author in accomplishing such handiwork. (These matters are self-evident, and even force themselves upon the unwilling.) It contemplates, moreover, some general preserving and governing activity, from which the force of motion derives. In short, carnal sense thinks there is an energy divinely bestowed from the beginning, sufficient to sustain all things.

But faith ought to penetrate more deeply, namely, having found him Creator of all, forthwith to conclude he is also everlasting Governor and Preserver-not only in that he drives the celestial frame as well as its several parts by a universal motion, but also in that he sustains, nourishes, and cares for, everything he has made, even to the least sparrow [cf. Matt. 10:29]. Thus David, having briefly stated that the universe was created by God, immediately descends to the uninterrupted course of His providence, “By the word of Jehovah the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth” [Ps. 33:6; cf. Ps. 32:6, Vg.]. Soon thereafter he adds, “Jehovah has looked down upon the sons of men” [Ps. 33:13; cf. Ps. 32:13-14, Vg.], and what follows is in the same vein. For although all men do not reason so clearly, yet, because it would not be believable that human affairs are cared for by God unless he were the Maker of the universe, and nobody seriously believes the universe was made by God without being persuaded that he takes care of his works, David not inappropriately leads us in the best order from the one to the other. In general, philosophers teach and human minds conceive that all parts of the universe are quickened by God’s secret inspiration. Yet they do not reach as far as David is carried, bearing with him all the godly, when he says: “These all look to thee, to give them their food in due season; when thou givest to them, they gather it up; when thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good things; when thou hidest thy face, they are dismayed; when thou takest away their breath, they die and return to the earth. If thou sendest forth thy spirit again, they are created, and thou re-newest the face of the earth” [Ps. 104:27-30 p.]. Indeed, although they subscribe to Paul’s statement that we have our being and move and live in God [Acts 17:28], yet they are far from that earnest feeling of grace which he commends, because they do not at all taste God’s special care, by which alone his fatherly favor is known.

2. There is no such thing as fortune or chance

That this difference may better appear, we must know that God’s providence, as it is taught in Scripture, is opposed to fortune and fortuitous happenings. Now it has been commonly accepted in all ages, and almost all mortals hold the same opinion today, that all things come about through chance. What we ought to believe concerning providence is by this depraved opinion most certainly not only beclouded, but almost buried. Suppose a man falls among thieves, or wild beasts; is shipwrecked at sea by a sudden gale; is killed by a falling house or tree. Suppose another man wandering through the desert finds help in his straits; having been tossed by the waves, reaches harbor; miraculously escapes death by a finger’s breadth. Carnal reason ascribes all such happenings, whether prosperous or adverse, to fortune. But anyone who has been taught by Christ’s lips that all the hairs of his head are numbered [Matt. 10:30] will look farther afield for a cause, and will consider that all events are governed by God’s secret plan. And concerning inanimate objects we ought to hold that, although each one has by nature been endowed with its own property, yet it does not exercise its own power except in so far as it is directed by God’s ever-present hand. These are, thus, nothing but instruments to which God continually imparts as much effectiveness as he wills, and according to his own purpose bends and turns them to either one action or another.

No creature has a force more wondrous or glorious than that of the sun. For besides lighting the whole earth with its brightness, how great a thing is it that by its heat it nourishes and quickens all living things! That with its rays it breathes fruitfulness into the earth! That it warms the seeds in the bosom of the earth, draws them forth with budding greenness, increases and strengthens them, nourishes them anew, until they rise up into stalks! That it feeds the plant with continual warmth, until it grows into flower, and from flower into fruit! That then, also, with baking heat it brings the fruit to maturity! That in like manner trees and vines warmed by the sun first put forth buds and leaves, then put forth a flower, and from the flower produce fruit! Yet the Lord, to claim the whole credit for all these things, willed that, before he created the sun, light should come to be and earth be filled with all manner of herbs and fruits [Gen. 1:3, 11, 14]. Therefore a godly man will not make the sun either the principal or the necessary cause of these things which existed before the creation of the sun, but merely the instrument that God uses because he so wills; for with no more difficulty he might abandon it, and act through himself. Then when we read that at Joshua’s prayers the sun stood still in one degree for two days [Josh. 10:13], and that its shadow went back ten degrees for the sake of King Hezekiah [II Kings 20:11 or Isa. 38:8], God has witnessed by those few miracles that the sun does not daily rise and set by a blind instinct of nature but that he himself, to renew our remembrance of his fatherly favor toward us, governs its course. Nothing is more natural than for spring to follow winter; summer, spring; and fall, summer-each in turn. Yet in this series one sees such great and uneven diversity that it readily appears each year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God.

3. God’s providence governs all

And truly God claims, and would have us grant him, omnipotence-not the empty, idle, and almost unconscious sort that the Sophists imagine, but a watchful, effective, active sort, engaged in ceaseless activity. Not, indeed, an omnipotence that is only a general principle of confused motion, as if he were to command a river to flow through its once-appointed channels, but one that is directed toward individual and particular motions. For he is deemed omnipotent, not because he can indeed act, yet sometimes ceases and sits in idleness, or continues by a general impulse that order of nature which he previously appointed; but because, governing heaven and earth by his providence, he so regulates all things that nothing takes place without his deliberation. For when, in The Psalms, it is said that “he does whatever he wills” [Ps. 115:3; cf. Ps. 1:3], a certain and deliberate will is meant. For it would be senseless to interpret the words of the prophet after the manner of the philosophers, that God is the first agent because he is the beginning and cause of all motion; for in times of adversity believers comfort themselves with the solace that they suffer nothing except by God’s ordinance and command, for they are under his hand.

But if God’s governance is so extended to all his works, it is a childish cavil to enclose it within the stream of nature. Indeed, those as much defraud God of his glory as themselves of a most profitable doctrine who confine God’s providence to such narrow limits as though he allowed all things by a free course to be borne along according to a universal law of nature. For nothing would be more miserable than man if he were exposed to every movement of the sky, air, earth, and waters. Besides, in this way God’s particular goodness toward each one would be too unworthily reduced. David exclaims that infants still nursing at their mothers’ breasts are eloquent enough to celebrate God’s glory [Ps. 8:2], for immediately on coming forth from the womb, they find food prepared for them by his heavenly care. Indeed, this is in general true, provided what experience plainly demonstrates does not escape our eyes and senses, that some mothers have full and abundant breasts, but others’ are almost dry, as God wills to feed one more liberally, but another more meagerly.

Those who ascribe just praise to God’s omnipotence doubly benefit thereby. First, power ample enough to do good there is in him in whose possession are heaven and earth, and to whose beck all creatures are so attentive as to put themselves in obedience to him. Secondly, they may safely rest in the protection of him to whose will are subject all the harmful things which, whatever their source, we may fear; whose authority curbs Satan with all his furies and his whole equipage; and upon whose nod depends whatever opposes our welfare. And we cannot otherwise correct or allay these uncontrolled and superstitious fears, which we repeatedly conceive at the onset of dangers. We are superstitiously timid, I say, if whenever creatures threaten us or forcibly terrorize us we become as fearful as if they had some intrinsic power to harm us, or might wound us inadvertently and accidentally, or there were not enough help in God against their harmful acts.

For example, the prophet forbids God’s children “to fear the stars and signs of heaven, as disbelievers commonly do” [Jer.10:2 p.]. Surely he does not condemn every sort of fear. But when unbelievers transfer the government of the universe from God to the stars, they fancy that their bliss or their misery depends upon the decrees and indications of the stars, not upon God’s will; so it comes about that their fear is transferred from him, toward whom alone they ought to direct it, to stars and comets. Let him, therefore, who would beware of this infidelity ever remember that there is no erratic power, or action, or motion in creatures, but that they are governed by God’s secret plan in such a way that nothing happens except what is knowingly and willingly decreed by him.

Section: 1.15.4-7

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:01:00 +0800

4. The true nature of the image of God is to be derived from what Scripture says of its renewal through Christ

Nevertheless, it seems that we do not have a full definition of “image” if we do not see more plainly those faculties in which man excels, and in which he ought to be thought the reflection of God’s glory. That, indeed, can be nowhere better recognized than from the restoration of his corrupted nature. There is no doubt that Adam, when he fell from his state, was by this defection alienated from God. Therefore, even though we grant that God’s image was not totally annihilated and destroyed in him, yet it was so corrupted that whatever remains is frightful deformity. Consequently, the beginning of our recovery of salvation is in that restoration which we obtain through Christ, who also is called the Second Adam for the reason that he restores us to true and complete integrity. For even though Paul, contrasting the life-giving spirit that the believers receive from Christ with the living soul in which Adam was created [I Cor. 15:45], commends the richer measure of grace in regeneration, yet he does not remove that other principal point, that the end of regeneration is that Christ should reform us to God’s image. Therefore elsewhere he teaches that “the new man is renewed … according to the image of his Creator” [Col. 3:10 p.]. With this agrees the saying, “Put on the new man, who has been created according to God” [Eph. 4:24, Vg.].

Now we are to see what Paul chiefly comprehends under this renewal. In the first place he posits knowledge, then pure righteousness and holiness. From this we infer that, to begin with, God’s image was visible in the light of the mind, in the uprightness of the heart, and in the soundness of all the parts. For although I confess that these forms of speaking are synecdoches, yet this principle cannot be overthrown, that what was primary in the renewing of God’s image also held the highest place in the creation itself. To the same pertains what he teaches elsewhere, that “we … with unveiled face beholding the glory of Christ are being transformed into his very image” [II Cor. 3:18]. Now we see how Christ is the most perfect image of God; if we are conformed to it, we are so restored that with true piety, righteousness, purity, and intelligence we bear God’s image.

When this has been established, Osiander’s fancy concerning the shape of the body readily vanishes of itself. But the statement in which man alone is called by Paul “the image and glory of God” [I Cor. 11:7, Vg.] and woman excluded from this place of honor is clearly to be restricted, as the context shows, to the political order. Yet I now consider it sufficiently proved that whatever has to do with spiritual and eternal life is included under “image,” mention of which has been made. John confirms this same point in other words, declaring that “the life” which was from the beginning in God’s Eternal Word “was the light of men” [John 1:4]. It was his intent to praise God’s singular grace, wherein man excels the remaining living creatures, in order to separate him from the multitude because he attained no common life, but one joined with the light of understanding. Accordingly, he shows at the same time how man was created in God’s image. Now God’s image is the perfect excellence of human nature which shone in Adam before his defection, but was subsequently so vitiated and almost blotted out that nothing remains after the ruin except what is confused, mutilated, and disease-ridden. Therefore in some part it now is manifest in the elect, in so far as they have been reborn in the spirit; but it will attain its full splendor in heaven.

Yet in order that we may know of what parts this image consists, it is of value to discuss the faculties of the soul. For that speculation of Augustine, that the soul is the reflection of the Trinity because in it reside the understanding, will, and memory, is by no means sound. Nor is there any probability in the opinion of those who locate God’s likeness in the dominion given to man, as if in this mark alone he resembled God, that he was established as heir and possessor of all things; whereas God’s image is properly to be sought within him, not outside him, indeed, it is an inner good of the soul.

5. Manichaean error of the soul’s emanation

But before we go farther, we must confront the delusion of the Manichees, which Servetus has tried to introduce once more in this age. Because it is said that God breathed the breath of life upon man’s face [Gen. 2:7], they thought the soul to be a derivative of God’s substance, as if some portion of immeasurable divinity had flowed into man. Yet it is easy to point out quickly what crass and foul absurdities this devilish error drags in its train. For if man’s soul be from the essence of God through derivation, it will follow that God’s nature is subject not only to change and passions, but also to ignorance, wicked desires, infirmity, and all manner of vices. Nothing is more inconstant than man. Contrary motions stir up and variously distract his soul. Repeatedly he is led astray by ignorance. He yields, overcome by the slightest temptation. We know his mind to be a sink and lurking place for every sort of filth. All these things one must attribute to God’s nature, if we understand the soul to be from God’s essence, or to be a secret inflowing of divinity. Who would not shudder at this monstrous thing? Indeed, Paul truly quotes Aratus that we are God’s offspring [Acts 17:28], but in quality, not in essence, inasmuch as he, indeed, adorned us with divine gifts. Meanwhile, to tear apart the essence of the Creator so that everyone may possess a part of it is utter folly. Therefore we must take it to be a fact that souls, although the image of God be engraved upon them, are just as much created as angels are. But creation is not inpouring, but the beginning of essence out of nothing. Indeed, if the spirit has been given by God, and in departing from the flesh returns to him [cf. Eccl. 12:7], we must not forthwith say that it was plucked from his substance. And Osiander, while carried away with his own delusions, as in this matter entangled himself in an impious error; he does not recognize the image of God in man apart from essential righteousness, as if God were unable to make us conform to himself by the inestimable power of his Spirit, apart from Christ’s pouring his own substance into us! However some persons may try to camouflage these deceptions, they will never prevent well-balanced readers from seeing that such savor of the error of the Manichaeans. And when Paul discusses the restoration of the image, it is clear that we should infer from his words that man is made to conform to God, not by an inflowing of substance, but by the grace and power of the Spirit. For he says that by “beholding Christ’s glory, we are being transformed into his very image … as through the Spirit of the Lord” [II Cor. 3:18], who surely works in us without rendering us consubstantial with God.

6. The soul and its faculties

It would be foolish to seek a definition of “soul” from the philosophers. Of them hardly one, except Plato, has rightly affirmed its immortal substance. Indeed, other Socratics also touch upon it, but in a way that shows how nobody teaches clearly a thing of which he has not been persuaded. Hence Plato’s opinion is more correct, because he considers the image of God in the soul. Others so attach the soul’s powers and faculties to the present life that they leave nothing to it outside the body.

Indeed, from Scripture we have already taught that the soul is an incorporeal substance; now we must add that, although properly it is not spatially limited, still, set in the body, it dwells there as in a house; not only that it may animate all its parts and render its organs fit and useful for their actions, but also that it may hold the first place in ruling man’s life, not alone with respect to the duties of his earthly life, but at the same time to arouse him to honor God. Even though in man’s corruption this last point is not clearly perceived, yet some vestige remains imprinted in his very vices. For whence comes such concern to men about their good name but from shame? And whence comes shame but from regard for what is honorable? The beginning and cause of this is that they understand themselves to have been born to cultivate righteousness, in which the seed of religion is enclosed. But, without controversy, just as man was made for meditation upon the heavenly life, so it is certain that the knowledge of it was engraved upon his soul. And if human happiness, whose perfection it is to be united with God, were hidden from man, he would in fact be bereft of the principal use of his understanding. Thus, also, the chief activity of the soul is to aspire thither. Hence the more anyone endeavors to approach to God, the more he proves himself endowed with reason.

We ought to repudiate those persons who would affirm more than one soul in man, that is, a sensitive and a rational soul, because there is nothing firm in their reasonings, even though they seem to be asserting something probable, unless we want to torture ourselves in trivial and useless matters. They say that there is great disagreement between organic motions and the soul’s rational part. As if reason itself did not also disagree with itself and were not at cross-purposes with itself, just like armies at war. But since this disturbance arises out of depravity of nature, it is wrong to conclude from this that there are two souls, just because the faculties do not agree among themselves in befitting proportion.

But I leave it to the philosophers to discuss these faculties in their subtle way. For the upbuilding of godliness a simple definition will be enough for us. I, indeed, agree that the things they teach are true, not only enjoyable, but also profitable to learn, and skillfully assembled by them. And I do not forbid those who are desirous of learning to study them. Therefore I admit in the first place that there are five senses, which Plato preferred to call organs, by which all objects are presented to common sense, as a sort of receptacle. There follows fantasy, which distinguishes those things which have been apprehended by common sense; then reason, which embraces universal judgment; finally understanding, which in intent and quiet study contemplates what reason discursively ponders. Similarly, to understanding, reason, and fantasy (the three cognitive faculties of the soul) correspond three appetitive faculties: will, whose functions consist in striving after what understanding and reason present; the capacity for anger, which seizes upon what is offered to it by reason and fantasy; the capacity to desire inordinately, which apprehends what is set before it by fantasy and sense.

Although these things are true, or at least are probable, yet since I fear that they may involve us in their own obscurity rather than help us, I think they ought to be passed over. I shall not strongly oppose anyone who wants to classify the powers of the soul in some other way: to call one appetitive, which, even though without reason, if directed elsewhere, yet obeys reason; to call the other intellective, which is through itself participant in reason. Nor would I refute the view that there are three principles of action: sense, understanding, appetite.

But let us rather choose a division within the capacity of all, which cannot be successfully sought from the philosophers. For they, while they want to speak with utter simplicity, divide the soul into appetite and understanding, but make both double. They say the latter is sometimes contemplative because, content with knowledge alone, it has no active motion (a thing that Cicero thought to be designated by the term “genius”); sometimes practical because by the apprehension of good or evil it variously moves the will. In this division is included the knowledge of how to live well and justly. The former part (I mean the appetitive) they also divide, into will and concupiscence; and as often as appetite, which they call ????????, obeys reason, it is ‘????; but it becomes ????? when the appetite, having thrown off the yoke of reason, rushes off to intemperance. Thus they always imagine reason in man as that faculty whereby he may govern himself aright.

7. Understanding and will as the truly fundamental faculties

We are forced to part somewhat from this way of teaching because the philosophers, ignorant of the corruption of nature that originated from the penalty for man’s defection, mistakenly confuse two very diverse states of man. Thus let us, therefore, hold-as indeed is suitable to our present purpose-that the human soul consists of two faculties, understanding and will. Let the office, moreover, of understanding be to distinguish between objects, as each seems worthy of approval or disapproval; while that of the will, to choose and follow what the understanding pronounces good, but to reject and flee what it disapproves. Let not those minutiae of Aristotle delay us here, that the mind has no motion in itself, but is moved by choice. This choice he calls the appetitive understanding. Not to entangle ourselves in useless questions, let it be enough for us that the understanding is, as it were, the leader and governor of the soul; and that the will is always mindful of the bidding of the understanding, and in its own desires awaits the judgment of the understanding. For this reason, Aristotle himself truly teaches the same: that shunning or seeking out in the appetite corresponds to affirming or denying in the mind. Indeed, in another place we shall see how firmly the understanding now governs the direction of the will; here we wish to say only this, that no power can be found in the soul that does not duly have reference to one or the other of these members. And in this way we include sense under understanding. The philosophers, on the other hand, make this distinction: that sense inclines to pleasure, while understanding follows the good; thence it comes about that sensual appetite becomes inordinate desire and lust; the inclination of the understanding, will. Again, for the term “appetite,” which they prefer, I substitute the word “will,” which is more common.

Section: 1.15.1-3

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:02:12 +0800

DISCUSSION OF HUMAN NATURE AS CREATED, OF THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL, OF THE IMAGE OF GOD, OF FREE WILL, AND OF THE ORIGINAL INTEGRITY OF MAN’S NATURE

1. Man proceeded spotless from God’s hand; therefore he may not shift the blame for his sins to the Creator

We must now speak of the creation of man: not only because among all God’s works here is the noblest and most remarkable example of his justice, wisdom, and goodness; but because, as we said at the beginning, we cannot have a clear and complete knowledge of God unless it is accompanied by a corresponding knowledge of ourselves. This knowledge of ourselves is twofold: namely, to know what we were like when we were first created and what our condition became after the fall of Adam. While it would be of little benefit to understand our creation unless we recognized in this sad ruin what our nature in its corruption and deformity is like, we shall nevertheless be content for the moment with the description of our originally upright nature. And to be sure, before we come to the miserable condition of man to which he is now subjected, it is worth-while to know what he was like when first created. Now we must guard against singling out only those natural evils of man, lest we seem to attribute them to the Author of nature. For in this excuse, impiety thinks it has sufficient defense, if it is able to claim that whatever defects it possesses have in some way proceeded from God. It does not hesitate, if it is reproved, to contend with God himself, and to impute to him the fault of which it is deservedly accused. And those who wish to seem to speak more reverently of the Godhead still willingly blame their depravity on nature, not realizing that they also, although more obscurely, insult God. For if any defect were proved to inhere in nature, this would bring reproach upon him.

Since, then, we see the flesh panting for every subterfuge by which it thinks that the blame for its own evils may in any way be diverted from itself to another, we must diligently oppose this evil intent. Therefore we must so deal with the calamity of mankind that we may cut off every shift, and may vindicate God’s justice from every accusation. Afterward, in the proper place, we shall see how far away men are from the purity that was bestowed upon Adam.And first we must realize that when he was taken from earth and clay [Gen. 2:7; 18:27], his pride was bridled. For nothing is more absurd than for those who not only “dwell in houses of clay” [Job 4:19], but who are themselves in part earth and dust, to boast of their own excellence. But since God not only deigned to give life to an earthen vessel, but also willed it to be the abode of an immortal spirit, Adam could rightly glory in the great liberality of his Maker.

2. Diversity of body and soul

Furthermore, that man consists of a soul and a body ought to be beyond controversy. Now I understand by the term “soul” an immortal yet created essence, which is his nobler part. Sometimes it is called “spirit.” For even when these terms are joined together, they differ from one another in meaning; yet when the word “spirit” is used by itself, it means the same thing as soul; as when Solomon, speaking of death, says that then “the spirit returns to God who gave it” [Eccl. 12:7]. And when Christ commended his spirit to the Father [Luke 23:46] and Stephen his to Christ [Acts 7:59] they meant only that when the soul is freed from the prison house of the body, God is its perpetual guardian. Some imagine the soul to be called “spirit” for the reason that it is breath, or a force divinely infused into bodies, but that it nevertheless is without essence; both the thing itself and all Scripture show them to be stupidly blundering in this opinion. It is of course true that while men are tied to earth more than they should be they grow dull; indeed, because they have been estranged from the Father of Lights [James 1:17], they become blinded by darkness, so that they do not think they will survive death; yet in the meantime the light has not been so extinguished in the darkness that they remain untouched by a sense of their own immortality. Surely the conscience, which, discerning between good and evil, responds to God’s judgment, is an undoubted sign of the immortal spirit. For how could a motion without essence penetrate to God’s judgment seat, and inflict itself with dread at its own guilt? For the body is not affected by the fear of spiritual punishment, which falls upon the soul only; from this it follows that the soul is endowed with essence. Now the very knowledge of God sufficiently proves that souls, which transcend the world, are immortal, for no transient energy could penetrate to the fountain of life.

In short, the many pre-eminent gifts with which the human mind is endowed proclaim that something divine has been engraved upon it; all these are testimonies of an immortal essence. For the sense perception inhering in brute animals does not go beyond the body, or at least extends no farther than to material things presented to it. But the nimbleness of the human mind in searching out heaven and earth and the secrets of nature, and when all ages have been compassed by its understanding and memory, in arranging each thing in its proper order, and in inferring future events from past, clearly shows that there lies hidden in man something separate from the body. With our intelligence we conceive the invisible God and the angels, something the body can by no means do. We grasp things that are right, just, and honorable, which are hidden to the bodily senses. Therefore the spirit must be the seat of this intelligence. Indeed, sleep itself, which benumbs man, seeming even to deprive him of life, is no obscure witness of immortality, since it suggests not only thoughts of things that have never happened, but also presentiments of the future. I have briefly touched upon these things which secular writers grandly extol and depict in more brilliant language; but among godly readers this simple reminder will be enough.

Now, unless the soul were something essential, separate from the body, Scripture would not teach that we dwell in houses of clay [Job 4:19] and at death leave the tabernacle of the flesh, putting off what is corruptible so that at the Last Day we may finally receive our reward, according as each of us has done in the body. For surely these passages and similar ones that occur repeatedly not only clearly distinguish the soul from the body, but by transferring to it the name “man” indicate it to be the principal part. Now when Paul urges believers to cleanse themselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit [II Cor. 7:1], he points out the two parts in which the filth of sin resides. Peter, also, calling Christ “shepherd and bishop of .. . souls” [I Peter 2:25], would have spoken wrongly if there had not been souls on whose behalf he might fulfill this office. If souls did not have their own proper essence, there would be no point in Peter’s statement about the eternal “salvation of .. .souls” [I Peter 1:9], or in his injunction to purify our souls and ascertain that “wicked lusts … war against the soul” [I Peter 2:11 p.]. The same applies to the statement of the author of Hebrews, that the pastors “stand watch .. .to render account for our souls” [Heb. 13:17 p.]. The fact that Paul, upon his soul, calls God to witness [II Cor. 1:23, Vg.] points to the same conclusion, because it would not become guilty before God unless it were liable for punishment. This is expressed even more clearly in Christ’s words, when he bids us be afraid of him who, after he has killed the body, can send the soul into the Gehenna of fire [Matt. 10:28; Luke 12:5]. Now when the author of The Letter to the Hebrews distinguishes the fathers of our flesh from God, who is the one “Father of spirits” [Heb. 12:9], he could not assert more clearly the essence of souls. Besides, unless souls survive when freed from the prison houses of their bodies, it would be absurd for Christ to induce the soul of Lazarus as enjoying bliss in Abraham’s bosom, and again, the soul of the rich man sentenced to terrible torments [Luke 16:22-23]. Paul confirms this same thing, teaching us that we journey away from God so long as we dwell in the flesh, but that we enjoy his presence outside the flesh [II Cor. 5:6, 8]. Lest I go any farther in a topic of no great difficulty, I shall add only this word from Luke, that among the errors of the Sadducees it is mentioned that they did not believe in spirits and angels [Acts 23:8].

3. God’s image and likeness in man

Also, a reliable proof of this matter may be gathered from the fact that man was created in God’s image [Gen. 1:27]. For although God’s glory shines forth in the outer man, yet there is no doubt that the proper seat of his image is in the soul. I do not deny, indeed, that our outward form, in so far as it distinguishes and separates us from brute animals, at the same time more closely joins us to God. And if anyone wishes to include under “image of God” the fact that, “while all other living things being bent over look earthward, man has been given a face uplifted, bidden to gaze heavenward and to raise his countenance to the stars,” I shall not contend too strongly-provided it be regarded as a settled principle that the image of God, which is seen or glows in these outward marks, is spiritual. For Osiander, whose writings prove him to have been perversely ingenious in futile inventions, indiscriminately extending God’s image both to the body and to the soul, mingles heaven and earth. He says that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit place their image in man, because however upright Adam might have remained, yet Christ would have to become man. Thus, according to them, the body that was destined for Christ was the exemplar and type of that corporeal figure which was then formed. But where will he find that Christ is the image of the Spirit? I admit that in the person of the Mediator the glory of the whole divinity surely shines, but how will the Eternal Word be called the image of the Spirit, whom he precedes in order? In short, the distinction between Son and Spirit is overthrown if the latter calls the former the image of himself. Furthermore, I should like to know from him how in the flesh that he took upon himself Christ resembles the Holy Spirit, and by what marks or lineaments he expresses his likeness. And since that saying, “Let us make man,” etc. [Gen. 1:26], is common also to the person of the Son, it would follow that he is the image of himself. This is repugnant to all reason. Besides this, if Osiander’s fabrication is accepted, man was formed only after the type and exemplar of Christ as man; and thus the pattern from which Adam was taken was Christ in so far as he was to be clothed with flesh. But Scripture teaches in a far other sense that he was created in God’s image. There is more color to the cleverness of those who explain that Adam was created in God’s image because he conformed to Christ, who is the sole image of God; but in that, also, there is nothing sound.

Also, there is no slight quarrel over “image” and “likeness” when interpreters seek a nonexistent difference between these two words, except that “likeness” has been added by way of explanation. First, we know that repetitions were common among the Hebrews, in which they express one thing twice; then in the thing itself there is no ambiguity, simply man is called God’s image because he is like God. Accordingly, those who thus philosophize more subtly over these terms appear to be ridiculous: they either apply zelem, that is, image, to the substance of the soul, and demuth, that is, likeness, to its qualities; or they adduce something different. For, when God determined to create man in his image, which was a rather obscure expression, he for explanation repeats it in this phrase, “According to his likeness,” as if he were saying that he was going to make man, in whom he would represent himself as in an image, by means of engraved marks of likeness. Therefore Moses, a little after, reciting the same thing, repeats “image of God” twice, without mentioning “likeness.” Osiander’s objection is trivial, that not a part of man say, the soul with its endowments-is called God’s image, but the whole Adam, whose name was given him from the earth whence he was taken. Trivial, I say, all readers of sound mind will deem it. For, while the whole man is called mortal, the soul is not thereby subjected to death; nor does reason or intelligence belong to the body merely because man is called a “rational animal.” Therefore, although the soul is not man, yet it is not absurd for man, in respect to his soul, to be called God’s image; even though I retain the principle I just now set forward, that the likeness of God extends to the whole excellence by which man’s nature towers over all the kinds of living creatures. Accordingly, the integrity with which Adam was endowed is expressed by this word, when he had full possession of right understanding, when he had his affections kept within the bounds of reason, all his senses tempered in right order, and he truly referred his excellence to exceptional gifts bestowed upon him by his Maker. And although the primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and heart, or in the soul and its powers, yet there was no part of man, not even the body itself, in which some sparks did not glow. It is sure that even in the several parts of the world some traces of God’s glory shine. From this we may gather that when his image is placed in man a tacit antithesis is introduced which raises man above all other creatures and, as it were, separates him from the common mass. And indeed, we ought not to deny that angels were created according to God’s likeness, inasmuch as our highest perfection, as Christ testifies, will be to become like them [Matt. 22:30]. But by this particular title Moses rightly commends God’s grace toward us, especially when he compares only the visible creatures with man.

Section: 1.14.18-22

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:03:16 +0800

18. Assurance of victory!

Now, because God bends the unclean spirits hither and thither at will, he so governs their activity that they exercise believers in combat, ambush them, invade their peace, beset them in combat, and also often weary them, rout them, terrify them, and sometimes wound them; yet they never vanquish or crush them. But the wicked they subdue and drag away; they exercise power over their minds and bodies, and misuse them as if they were slaves for every shameful act. As far as believers are concerned, because they are disquieted by enemies of this sort, they heed these exhortations: “Give no place to the devil” [Eph. 4:27, Vg.]. “The devil your enemy goes about as a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour; resist him, be firm in your faith” [I Peter 5:8-9 p.], and the like. Paul admits that he was not free from this sort of strife when he writes that, as a remedy to tame his pride, he was given an angel of Satan to humble him [II Cor. 12:7]. Therefore this exercise is common to all the children of God. But because that promise to crush Satan’s head [Gen. 3:15] pertains to Christ and all his members in common, I deny that believers can ever be conquered or overwhelmed by him. Often, indeed, are they distressed, but not so deprived of life as not to recover; they fall under violent blows, but afterward they are raised up; they are wounded, but not fatally; in short, they so toil throughout life that at the last they obtain the victory.

Yet I do not confine this to individual acts. For we know that by God’s just vengeance David was for a time given over to Satan, that at his prompting he should take a census of the people [II Sam. 24:1]. And Paul does not abandon hope of pardon as impossible, even if men are ensnared in the devil’s net [II Tim. 2:2526]. In another passage Paul shows that the promise mentioned above begins to have effect in this life, wherein we must struggle; and that after the struggle it is fulfilled. As he puts it, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” [Rom. 16:20.] In our Head, indeed, this victory always fully existed, for the prince of the world had nothing in him [John 14:30]. Moreover, it now appears in part in us, who are his members; it will be completed when we shall have put off our flesh, in respect to which we are as yet subject to infirmity, and will be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

To the extent that Christ’s Kingdom is upbuilt, Satan with his power falls; as the Lord himself says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” [Luke 10:18]. For, by this answer he confirms what the apostles had related concerning the power of their preaching. Likewise: “When a prince occupies his own palace, all his possessions are undisturbed. But when one stronger than he overcomes him, he is cast out,” etc. [Luke 11:21-22 p.]. And Christ, by dying, conquered Satan, who had “the power of death” [Heb. 2:14], and triumphed over all his forces, to the end that they might not harm the church. Otherwise, at every moment they would do away with it a hundred times over. For, such is our weakness and such is the power of his fury, how could we stand even in the slightest against his manifold and continuous attacks, unless we relied upon the victory of our leader? “Therefore God does not allow Satan to rule over the souls of believers, but gives over only the impious and unbelievers, whom he deigns not to regard as members of his own flock, to be governed by him. For the devil is said to occupy this world unchallenged until he is cast out by Christ [cf. Luke 11:21]. Likewise, he is said to blind all those who do not believe in the gospel [II Cor. 4:4]. Again, to carry out his “work in the sons of disobedience” [Eph. 2:2], and rightly, for all the impious are vessels of wrath. Hence, to whom would they be subjected but to the minister of divine vengeance? Finally, they are said to be of their father the devil [John 8:44]; for, as believers are recognized as the children of God because they bear his image, so are those rightly recognized to be the children of Satan from his image, into which they have degenerated [I John 3:8-10].

19. Devils are not thoughts, but actualities

Inasmuch as we have before refuted that trifling philosophy about the holy angels which teaches that they are nothing but good inspirations or impulses which God arouses in men’s minds, so also in this place ought those men to be refuted who babble of devils as nothing else than evil emotions or perturbations which come upon us from our flesh. We shall be able to do this briefly because there are not a few testimonies of Scripture clear enough on this matter. First, when those who have degenerated from their original state [Jude 6] are called unclean spirits and apostate angels [Matt. 12:43], the names themselves sufficiently express, not impulses or affections of minds, but rather what are called minds or spirits endowed with sense perception and understanding. Likewise, when the children of God are compared with the children of the devil both by Christ and by John [John 8:44; I John 3:10], would this comparison not be pointless if the name “devil” signified nothing but evil inspirations? And John adds something even clearer, that “the devil has sinned from the beginning” [I John 3:8]. So, also, when Jude introduces “the archangel Michael, as contending with the devil” [Jude 9], he surely sets against the good angel an evil and rebellious one. What we read in the history of Job agrees with this, that Satan appeared with the holy angels in God’s presence [Job 1:6; 2:1]. Moreover, clearest of all are those passages which make mention of the punishment, which the devils have begun to feel from God’s judgment, and will especially feel at the resurrection. “O Son” of David, why “have you come to torment us before the time?” [Matt. 8:29.] Likewise: “Depart, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” [Matt. 25:41.] Also: “If he spared not his own angels, but cast them bound with chains into darkness to be kept for eternal damnation,” etc. [II Peter 2:4.]

How meaningless would these expressions be, that the devils are destined for eternal judgment, that fire has been prepared for them, that they are now tormented and tortured by Christ’s glory, if devils were nonexistent! But this matter does not require discussion among those who have faith in the Lord’s Word, while among these empty speculators, indeed, to whom nothing is pleasing unless it be new, there is little profit in the testimonies of Scripture. It seems to me, therefore, that I have accomplished what I meant to do, namely, to equip godly minds against such delusions, with which uneasy men confound themselves and others more simple-minded than they. But it was worth-while to touch upon this point, also, lest any persons, entangled in that error, while thinking themselves without an enemy, become more slack and heedless about resisting.

20. Greatness and abundance of Creation

Meanwhile let us not be ashamed to take pious delight in the works of God open, and manifest in this most beautiful theater. For, as I have elsewhere said, although it is not the chief evidence for faith, yet it is the first evidence in the order of nature, to be mindful that wherever we cast our eyes, all things they meet are works of God, and at the same time to ponder with pious meditation to what end God created them. Therefore, that we may apprehend with true faith what it profits us to know of God, it is important for us to grasp first the history of the creation of the universe, as it has been set forth briefly by Moses [Gen., chs. 1 and 2], and then has been more fully illustrated by saintly men, especially by Basil and Ambrose. From this history we shall learn that God by the power of his Word and Spirit created heaven and earth out of nothing; that thereupon he brought forth living beings and inanimate things of every kind, that in a wonderful series he distinguished an innumerable variety of things, that he endowed each kind with its own nature, assigned functions, appointed places and stations; and that, although all were subject to corruption, he nevertheless provided for the preservation of each species until the Last Day. We shall likewise learn that he nourishes some in secret ways, and, as it were, from time to time instills new vigor into them; on others he has conferred the power of propagating, lest by their death the entire species perish; that he has so wonderfully adorned heaven and earth with as unlimited abundance, variety, and beauty of all things as could possibly be, quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and at the same time most abundant furnishings. Finally, we shall learn that in forming man and in adorning him with such goodly beauty, and with such great and numerous gifts, he put him forth as the most excellent example of his works. But since it is not my purpose to recount the creation of the universe, let it be enough for me to have touched upon these few matters again in passing. For it is better, as I have already warned my readers, to seek a fuller understanding of this passage from Moses and from those others who have faithfully and diligently recorded the narrative of Creation [Gen., chs. 1 and 2].

21. How should we view God’s works?

Nothing is to be gained by further discussing what direction the contemplation of God’s works should take and to what goal such contemplation ought to be applied, inasmuch as the greater part of this topic has been disposed of in another place, and it is possible to accomplish in a few words whatever concerns our present purpose. Indeed, if we chose to explain in a fitting manner how God’s inestimable wisdom, power, justice, and goodness shine forth in the fashioning of the universe, no splendor, no ornament of speech, would be equal to an act of such great magnitude. There is no doubt that the Lord would have us uninterruptedly occupied in this holy meditation; that, while we contemplate in all creatures, as in mirrors, those immense riches of his wisdom, justice, goodness, and power, we should not merely run over them cursorily, and, so to speak, with a fleeting glance; but we should ponder them at length, turn them over in our minds seriously and faithfully, and recollect them repeatedly. But because our purpose here is to teach, it is proper for us to omit those matters which require long harangue. Therefore, to be brief, let all readers know that they have with true faith apprehended what it is for God to be Creator of heaven and earth, if they first of all follow the universal rule, not to pass over in ungrateful thoughtlessness or forgetfulness those conspicious powers which God shows forth in his creatures, and then learn so to apply it to themselves that their very hearts are touched. The first part of the rule is exemplified when we reflect upon the greatness of the Artificer who stationed, arranged, and fitted together the starry host of heaven in such wonderful order that nothing more beautiful in appearance can be imagined; who so set and fixed some in their stations that they cannot move; who granted to others a freer course, but so as not to wander outside their appointed course; who so adjusted the motion of all that days and nights, months, years, and seasons of the year are measured off; who so proportioned the inequality of days, which we daily observe, that no confusion occurs. It is so too when we observe his power in sustaining so great a mass, in governing the swiftly revolving heavenly system, and the like. For these few examples make sufficiently clear what it is to recognize God’s powers in the creation of the universe. Otherwise, as I have said, if I decide to set forth the whole matter in my discourse, there will be no end. For there are as many miracles of divine power, as many tokens of goodness, and as many proofs of wisdom, as there are kinds of things in the universe, indeed, as there are things either great or small.

22. The contemplation of God’s goodness in his creation will lead us to thankfulness and trust

There remains the second part of the rule, more closely related to faith. It is to recognize that God has destined all things for our good and salvation but at the same time to feel his power and grace in ourselves and in the great benefits he has conferred upon us, and so bestir ourselves to trust, invoke, praise, and love him. Indeed, as I pointed out a little before, God himself has shown by the order of Creation that he created all things for man’s sake. For it is not without significance that he divided the making of the universe into six days [Gen. 1:31], even though it would have been no more difficult for him to have completed in one moment the whole work together in all its details than to arrive at its completion gradually by a progression of this sort. But he willed to commend his providence and fatherly solicitude toward us in that, before he fashioned man, he prepared everything he foresaw would be useful and salutary for him. How great ingratitude would it be now to doubt whether this most gracious Father has us in his care, who we see was concerned for us even before we were born! How impious would it be to tremble for fear that his kindness might at any time fail us in our need, when we see that it was shown, with the greatest abundance of every good thing, when we were yet unborn! Besides, from Moses we hear that, through His liberality, all things on earth are subject to us [Gen. 1:28; 9:2]. It is certain that He did not do this to mock us with the empty title to a gift. Therefore nothing that is needful for our welfare will ever be lacking to us.

To conclude once for all, whenever we call God the Creator of heaven and earth, let us at the same time bear in mind that the dispensation of all those things which he has made is in his own hand and power and that we are indeed his children, whom he has received into his faithful protection to nourish and educate. We are therefore to await the fullness of all good things from him alone and to trust completely that he will never leave us destitute of what we need for salvation, and to hang our hopes on none but him! We are therefore, also, to petition him for whatever we desire; and we are to recognize as a blessing from him, and thankfully to acknowledge, every benefit that falls to our share. So, invited by the great sweetness of his beneficence and goodness, let us study to love and serve him with all our heart.

Section: 1.14.14-17

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:00:00 +0800

14. The realm of wickedness

Moreover, in order that we may be aroused and exhorted all the more to carry this out, Scripture makes known that there are not one, not two, nor a few foes, but great armies, which wage war against us. For Mary Magdalene is said to have been freed from seven demons by which she was possessed [Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2], and Christ bears witness that usually after a demon has once been cast out, if you make room for him again, he will take with him seven spirits more wicked than he and return to his empty possession [Matt. 12:43-45]. Indeed, a whole legion is said to have assailed one man [Luke 8:30]. We are therefore taught by these examples that we have to wage war against an infinite number of enemies, lest, despising their fewness, we should be too remiss to give battle, or, thinking that we are sometimes afforded some respite, we should yield to idleness.

But the frequent mention of Satan or the devil in the singular denotes the empire of wickedness opposed to the Kingdom of Righteousness. For as the church and fellowship of the saints has Christ as Head, so the faction of the impious and impiety itself are depicted for us together with their prince who holds supreme sway over them. For this reason, it was said: “Depart, … you cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” [Matt. 25:41].

15. An irreconcilable struggle

The fact that the devil is everywhere called God’s adversary and ours also ought to fire us to an unceasing struggle against him. For if we have God’s glory at heart, as we should have, we ought with all our strength to contend against him who is trying to extinguish it. If we are minded to affirm Christ’s Kingdom as we ought, we must wage irreconcilable war with him who is plotting its ruin. Again, if we care about our salvation at all, we ought to have neither peace nor truce with him who continually lays traps to destroy it. So, indeed, is he described in Gen., ch. 3, where he seduces man from the obedience owed to God, that he may simultaneously deprive God of his due honor and hurl man himself into ruin [vs. 1-5]. So, also, in the Evangelists, where he is called “an enemy” [Matt. 13:28, 39], and is said to sow weeds in order to corrupt the seed of eternal life [Matt. 13:25]. In sum, we experience in all of Satan’s deeds what Christ testifies concerning him, that “from the beginning he was a murderer … and a liar” [John 8:44]. For he opposes the truth of God with falsehoods, he obscures the light with darkness, he entangles men’s minds in errors, he stirs up hatred, he kindles contentions and combats, everything to the end that he may overturn God’s Kingdom and plunge men with himself into eternal death. From this it appears that he is in nature depraved, evil, and malicious. For there must be consummate depravity in that disposition which devotes itself to assailing God’s glory and man’s salvation. This, also, is what John means in his letter, when he writes that “the devil has sinned from the beginning” [I John 3:8]. Indeed, he considers him as the author, leader, and architect of all malice and iniquity.

16. The devil is a degenerate creation of God

Yet, since the devil was created by God, let us remember that this malice, which we attribute to his nature, came not from his creation but from his perversion. For, whatever he has that is to be condemned he has derived from his revolt and fall. For this reason, Scripture warns us lest, believing that he has come forth in his present condition from God, we should ascribe to God himself what is utterly alien to him. For this reason, Christ declares that “when Satan lies, he speaks according to his own nature” and states the reason, because “he abode not in the truth” [John 8:44 p.]. Indeed, when Christ states that Satan “abode not in the truth,” he hints that he was once in it, and when he makes him “the father of lies,” he deprives him of imputing to God the fault which he brought upon himself.

But although these things are briefly and not very clearly stated, they are more than enough to clear God’s majesty of all slander. And what concern is it to us to know anything more about devils or to know it for another purpose? Some persons grumble that Scripture does not in numerous passages set forth systematically and clearly that fall of the devils, its cause, manner, time, and character. But because this has nothing to do with us, it was better not to say anything, or at least to touch upon it lightly, because it did not befit the Holy Spirit to feed our curiosity with empty histories to no effect. And we see that the Lord’s purpose was to teach nothing in his sacred oracles except what we should learn to our edification. Therefore, lest we ourselves linger over superfluous matters, let us be content with this brief summary of the nature of devils: they were when first created angels of God, but by degeneration they ruined themselves, and became the instruments of ruin for others. Because this is profitable to know, it is plainly taught in Peter and Jude. God did not spare those angels who sinned [II Peter 2:4] and kept not their original nature, but left their abode [Jude 6]. And Paul, in speaking of the “elect angels” [I Tim. 5:21], is no doubt tacitly contrasting them with the reprobate angels.

17. The devil stands under God’s power

As for the discord and strife that we say exists between Satan and God, we ought to accept as a fixed certainty the fact that he can do nothing unless God wills and assents to it. For we read in the history of Job that he presented himself before God to receive his commands [Job 1:6; 2:1], and did not dare undertake any evil act without first having obtained permission [chs. 1:12;

2:6]. Thus, also, when Ahab was to be deceived, Satan took upon himself to become a spirit of falsehood in the mouths of all the prophets; and commissioned by God, he carried out his task [I Kings 22:20-22]. For this reason, too, the spirit of the Lord that troubled Saul is called “evil” because the sins of the impious king were punished by it as by a lash [I Sam. 16:14; 18:10]. And elsewhere it is written that the plagues were inflicted upon the Egyptians by God “through evil angels” [Ps. 78:49]. According to these particular examples Paul generally testifies that the blinding of unbelievers is God’s work [II Thess. 2:11], although he had before called it the activity of Satan [II Thess. 2:9; cf. II Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:2]. Therefore Satan is clearly under God’s power, and is so ruled by his bidding as to be compelled to render him service. Indeed, when we say that Satan resists God, and that Satan’s works disagree with God’s works, we at the same time assert that this resistance and this opposition are dependent upon God’s sufferance. I am not now speaking of Satan’s will, nor even of his effort, but only of his effect. For inasmuch as the devil is by nature wicked, he is not at all inclined to obedience to the divine will, but utterly intent upon contumacy and rebellion. From himself and his own wickedness, therefore, arises his passionate and deliberate opposition to God. By this wickedness he is urged on to attempt courses of action which he believes to be most hostile to God. But because with the bridle of his power God holds him bound and restrained, he carries out only those things which have been divinely permitted to him; and so he obeys his Creator, whether he will or not, because he is compelled to yield him service wherever God impels him.

Section: 1.14.8-13

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:19:04 +0800

8. The hierarchy, number, and form of the angels

Let those who dare determine the number and orders of angels see what sort of foundation they have. Michael, I admit, is called “the great prince” in The Book of Daniel [ch. 12:1], and “the archangel” in Jude [v. 9]. And Paul teaches that it will be the archangel who will call men to judgment with a trumpet [I Thess. 4:16; cf. Ezek. 10:5]. But who could on this basis determine the degrees of honor among the angels, distinguish each by his insignia, assign to each his place and station? For the two names that exist in Scripture, Michael [Dan. 10:21] and Gabriel [Dan. 8:16; Luke 1:19, 26], and a third [Raphael] if you wish to add the one from the history of Tobit [Tobit 12:15], could seem from their meaning to have been applied to angels on account of the feebleness of our capacity, although I prefer to leave that an open question.

As to number, we hear from Christ’s mouth “many legions” [Matt. 26:53], from Daniel “many myriads” [Dan. 7:10]; Eiisha’s servant saw full chariots [II Kings 6:17]; and that the angels are said to “camp round about those who fear God” indicates a huge multitude [Ps. 34:7 p.].

It is certain that spirits lack bodily form, and yet Scripture, matching the measure of our comprehension, usefully depicts for us winged angels under the names of cherubim and seraphim, that we may not doubt that they are ever ready to bring help to us with incredible swiftness, should circumstance require it, even as lightning sent forth from heaven flies to us with its usual speed. Whatever besides can be sought of both their number and order, let us hold it among those mysteries whose full revelation is delayed until the Last Day. Therefore let us remember not to probe too curiously or talk too confidently.

9. The angels are not mere ideas, but actuality

Yet this point, which some restless men call in question, ought to be held certain: that angels are”ministering spirits” [Heb. 1:14], whose service God uses for the protection of his own, and through whom he both dispenses his benefits among men and also carries out his remaining works. Indeed, it was the opinion of the Sadducees of old [Acts 23:8] that by angels nothing was meant but either the impulses that God inspires in men or those examples of his power which he puts forth. But so many testimonies of Scripture cry out against this nonsense that it is a wonder such crass ignorance could be borne with in that people. For, to omit those passages which I have referred to above, where thousands [Rev. 5:11] and legions [Matt. 26:53] of angels are mentioned, where joy is attributed to them [Luke 15:10], where they are said to lift up believers by their hands [Ps. 91:11; Matt. 4:6; Luke 4:10-11], and to carry their souls to rest [Luke 16:22], to see the face of the Father [Matt. 18:10], and the like-there are other passages from which it is clearly demonstrated that they are, indeed, spirits having a real existence. For we must so understand, however much it may be twisted, what Stephen and Paul say, that the law was given by the hand of the angels [Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19]. We must in like manner understand Christ’s statement that after the resurrection the elect will be like the angels [Matt. 22:30], that the Day of Judgment is not known even to the angels [Matt. 24:36], and that then he will come with the holy angels [Matt. 25:31; Luke 9:26]. Similarly, when Paul charged Timothy before Christ and his chosen angels to keep his commandments [I Tim. 5:21], he meant not qualities or inspirations without substance, but true spirits. And what one reads in The Letter to the Hebrews does not otherwise make sense: that Christ was made more excellent than the angels [Heb. 1:4], that the world was not subjected to them [Heb. 2:5], and that Christ assumed the nature not of them but of men [Heb. 2:16], unless we mean that they are blessed spirits, to whom these comparisons may apply. And the author of the letter makes himself clear when he assembles the souls of believers and the holy angels at the same time in the Kingdom of God [Heb. 12:22].

Let us add what we have already referred to, that the angels or children ever see God’s face [Matt. 18:10], that we are defended by their guard [Luke 4:10-11], that they rejoice over our salvation [Luke 15:10], that they marvel at the manifold grace of God in the church, and that they are under Christ the Head.21 This is related to their numerous appearances to the holy patriarchs under the form of men, their speaking and receiving hospitality [Gen. 18:2]. And Christ himself, because of the primacy that he holds in the person of the Mediator, is called an angel [Mai. 3:1]. It seemed good to me to touch on this by the way, to fortify the simple against those foolish and absurd opinions which, raised by Satan many ages ago, from time to time break out afresh.

10. The divine glory does not belong to the angels

It remains for us to cope with that superstition which frequently creeps in, to the effect that angels are the ministers and dispensers of all good things to us. For at once, man’s reason so lapses that he thinks that no honor ought to be withheld from them. Thus it happens that what belongs to God and Christ alone is transferred to them. Thus we see that Christ’s glory was for some ages past obscured in many ways, when contrary to God’s Word unmeasured honors were lavished upon angels. And among those vices which we are today combating, there is hardly any more ancient. For it appears that Paul had a great struggle with certain persons who so elevated angels that they well-nigh degraded Christ to the same level. Hence he urges with very great solicitude in the letter to the Colossians that not only is Christ to be preferred before all angels but that he is the author of all good things that they have [Col. 1:16, 20]. This he does that we may not depart from Christ and go over to those who are not self-sufficient but draw from the same well as we. Surely, since the splendor of the divine majesty shines in them, nothing is easier for us than to fall down, stupefied, in adoration of them, and then to attribute to them everything that is owed to God alone. Even John in Revelation confesses that this happened to him, but at the same time he adds that this answer came to him [chs. 19:10,” 22:8-9]: “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you… . Worship God.

11. God makes use of the angels, not for his own sake, but for ours

Yet we shall well avoid this peril if we inquire why it is through them rather than through himself without their service that God is wont to declare his power, to provide for the safety of believers, and to communicate the gifts of his beneficence to them. Surely he does not do this out of necessity as if he could not do without them, for as often as he pleases, he disregards them and carries out his work through his will alone, so far are they from being to him a means of lightening difficulty. Therefore he makes use of angels to comfort our weakness, that we may lack nothing at all that can raise up our minds to good hope, or confirm them in security. One thing, indeed, ought to be quite enough for us: that the Lord declares himself to be our protector. But when we see ourselves beset by so many perils, so many harmful things, so many kinds of enemies-such is our softness and frailty-we would sometimes be filled with trepidation or yield to despair if the Lord did not make us realize the presence of his grace according to our capacity. For this reason, he not only promises to take care of us, but tells us he has innumerable guardians whom he has bidden to look after our safety; that so long as we are hedged about by their defense and keeping, whatever perils may threaten, we have been placed beyond all chance of evil. I confess that we act wrongly when, after that simple promise of the protection of the one God, we still seek whence our help may come [cf. Ps. 121:1; 120:1, Vg.]. But because the Lord, out of his immeasurable kindness and gentleness, wishes to remedy this fault of ours, we have no reason to disregard his great benefit. We have an example of this thing in Elisha’s servant, who, when he saw the mountain besieged by the Syrian army and that there was no escape, was overwhelmed with fear, as if all was over for himself and his master. Here Elisha prayed to God that He might open his servant’s eyes. Straightway the servant saw the mountain filled with fiery horses and chariots, that is, with a host of angels, who were to protect him as well as the prophet [II Kings 6:17]. Strengthened by this vision, he recovered himself and was able with undaunted courage to look down upon his enemies, at sight of whom he had almost expired.

12. The angels must not divert us from directing our gaze to the Lord alone

So, then, whatever is said concerning the ministry of angels, let us direct it to the end that, having banished all lack of trust, our hope in God may be more firmly established. Indeed, these helps have been prepared for us by the Lord that we may not be frightened by the multitude of the enemy, as if they might prevail against His assistance, but that we may take refuge in that utterance of Elisha that “there are more for us than against us” [II Kings

6:16 p.]. How preposterous, then, it is for us to be led away from God by the angels, who have been established to testify that his help is all the closer to us! But they do lead us away unless they lead us by the hand straight to him, that we may look upon him, call upon him, and proclaim him as our sole helper; unless we regard them as his hands that are moved to no work without his direction; unless they keep us in the one Mediator, Christ, that we may wholly depend upon him, lean upon him, be brought to him, and rest in him. For what is described in the vision of Jacob ought to stick and be deeply fixed within our minds: that angels descend to the earth, to men, and ascend from men to heaven by a ladder upon which the Lord of Hosts stands [Gen. 28:12]. This indicates that only through Christ’s intercession is it brought about that the angels’ ministrations come to us, as he himself affirms: “Hereafter you will see the heavens opened and angels … descending upon the Son of Man” [John 1:51]. Therefore the servant of Abraham, though entrusted to the angel’s charge [Gen. 24:7], does not for that reason call upon him to help him, but, relying on that commitment, pours out his prayers unto the Lord, and beseeches him to show his mercy to Abraham [Gen. 24:12]. For as God does not make them ministers of his power and goodness to share his glory with them, so he does not promise us his help through their ministry in order that we should divide our trust between them and him. Farewell, then, to that Platonic philosophy of seeking access to God through angels, and of worshiping them with intent to render God more approachable to us. This is what superstitious and curious men have tried to drag into our religion from the beginning and persevere in trying even to this day.

13. Scripture forearms us against the adversary

All that Scripture teaches concerning devils aims at arousing us to take precaution against their stratagems and contrivances, and also to make us equip ourselves with those weapons which are strong and powerful enough to vanquish these most powerful foes. For when Satan is called the god [II Cor. 4:4] and prince [John 12:31] of this world, when he is spoken of as a strong armed man [Luke 11:21; cf. Matt. 12:29], the spirit who holds power over the air [Eph. 2:2], a roaring lion [I Peter 5:8], these descriptions serve only to make us more cautious and watchful, and thus more prepared to take up the struggle. This also sometimes is noted explicitly: for Peter, after he has said that the devil “prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” [I Peter 5:8], immediately subjoins the exhortation that with faith we steadfastly resist him [I Peter 5:9]. And Paul, after he has warned us that our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with the princes of the air, with the powers of darkness, and spiritual wickedness [Eph. 6:12], forthwith bids us put on that armor capable of sustaining so great and dangerous a contest [Eph. 6:13 ft.]. We have been forewarned that an enemy relentlessly threatens us, an enemy who is the very embodiment of rash boldness, of military prowess, of crafty wiles, of untiring zeal and haste, of every conceivable weapon and of skill in the science of warfare. We must, then, bend our every effort to this goal: that we should not let ourselves be overwhelmed by carelessness or faintheartedness, but on the contrary, with courage rekindled stand our ground in combat. Since this military service ends only at death, let us urge ourselves to perseverance. Indeed, conscious of our weakness and ignorance, let us especially call upon God’s help, relying upon him alone in whatever we attempt, since it is he alone who can supply us with counsel and strength, courage and armor.

Section: 1.14.4-7

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:08:27 +0800

4. Also we should not indulge in speculations concerning the angels, but search out the witness of Scripture

Since the angels are God’s ministers, ordained to carry out his commands, there should be no question that they are also his creatures [Ps. 103:20-21]. Is it not evidence of stubbornness rather than of diligence to raise strife over the time and order in which they were created? Moses tells that the earth was finished and that the heavens with all their host were finished [Gen. 2:1]. What point, then, is there in anxiously investigating on what day, apart from the stars and planets, the other more remote heavenly hosts began also to exist? Not to take too long, let us remember here, as in all religious doctrine, that we ought to hold to one rule of modesty and sobriety: not to speak, or guess, or even to seek to know, concerning obscure matters anything except what has been imparted to us by God’s Word. Furthermore, in the reading of Scripture we ought ceaselessly to endeavor to seek out and meditate upon those things which make for edification. Let us not indulge in curiosity or in the investigation of unprofitable things. And because the Lord willed to instruct us, not in fruitless questions, but in sound godliness, in the fear of his name, in true trust, and in the duties of holiness, let us be satisfied with this knowledge. For this reason, if we would be duly wise, we must leave those empty speculations which idle men have taught apart from God’s Word concerning the nature, orders, and number of angels. I know that many persons more greedily seize upon and take more delight in them than in such things as have been put to daily use. But, if we are not ashamed of being Christ’s disciples, let us not be ashamed to follow that method which he has prescribed. Thus it will come to pass that, content with his teaching, we shall not only abandon but also abhor those utterly empty speculations from which he calls us back.

No one will deny that Dionysius, whoever he was, subtly and skillfully discussed many matters in his Celestial Hierarchy. But if anyone examine it more closely, he will find it for the most part nothing but talk. The theologian’s task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen consciences by teaching things true, sure, and profitable. If you read that book, you would think a man fallen from heaven recounted, not what he had learned, but what he had seen with his own eyes. Yet Paul, who had been caught up beyond the third heaven [II Cor. 12:2], not only said nothing about it, but also testified that it is unlawful for any man to speak of the secret things that he has seen [II Cor. 12:4]. Therefore, bidding farewell to that foolish wisdom, let us examine in the simple teaching of Scripture what the Lord would have us know of his angels.

5. The designation of the angels in Scripture

One reads here and there in Scripture that angels are celestial spirits whose ministry and service God uses to carry out all things he has decreed [e.g., Ps. 103:20-21]. Hence, likewise, this name has been applied to them because God employs them as intermediary messengers to manifest himself to men. The other names by which they are called have also been taken for a like reason. They are called “hosts” [Luke 2:13] because, as bodyguards surround their prince, they adorn his majesty and render it conspicuous; like soldiers they are ever intent upon their leader’s standard, and thus are ready and able to carry out his commands. As soon as he beckons, they gird themselves for the work, or rather are already at work. The other prophets describe the image of God’s throne so as to declare his magnificence, but Daniel especially does this where he says that a thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand stood when God ascended his tribunal [Dan. 7:10]. Indeed, since the Lord through them wonderfully sets forth and declares the power and strength of his hand, for this reason they are called virtues [Eph. 1:21; I Cor. 15:24]. Because he exercises and administers his authority in the world through them, they are sometimes called principalities, sometimes powers, sometimes dominions [Col. 1:16; Eph. 1:21; I Cor. 15:24]. Finally, because in a sense the glory of God resides in them, they are for this reason also called thrones [Col. 1:16]. Still, of this last I would rather say nothing; because a different interpretation fits equally well or even better. But, to pass over this name, the Holy Spirit often uses those previous names to commend the dignity of the angelic ministry. And is he not reasonable to pass over without honor those instruments through which God particularly shows forth the presence of his divine majesty? Likewise, on this account they are more than once called gods [e.g., Ps. 138:1], because in their ministry as in a mirror they in some respect exhibit his divinity to us. For even though I am not displeased that the ancient writers, when Scripture relates that the angel of God appeared to Abraham [Gen. 18:1], Jacob [Gen. 32:2, 28], Moses, and others [Josh. 5:14; Judg. 6:14; 13:10, 22], interpret that angel to have been Christ, yet more often when mention is made of all angels, the designation “gods” is applied to them [cf. Vg.; e.g., Gen. 22:1112]. That ought not to seem anything marvelous; for if the honor is given to princes and governors [Ps. 82:6] because they are vicegerents of God, who is the highest King and Judge, there is far greater reason why it should be conferred upon the angels, in whom the brightness of the divine glory shines forth much more richly.

6. The angels as protectors and helpers of believers

But Scripture strongly insists upon teaching us what could most effectively make for our consolation and the strengthening of our faith: namely, that angels are dispensers and administrators of God’s beneficence toward us. For this reason, Scripture recalls that they keep vigil for our safety, take upon themselves our defense, direct our ways, and take care that some harm may not befall us. Universal are the statements that apply first of all to Christ, the Head of the church, then to all believers. “He has commanded his angels to guard you in all your ways. They shall bear you in their hands, that you may not stumble upon a stone.” [Ps. 90:1112, vg.; 91:11-12, EV.] Likewise: “The angel of the Lord abides round about those who fear him, and rescues them.” [Ps. 34:7 p.] God hereby shows that he delegates to the angels the protection of those whom he has undertaken to guard. According to this reckoning, the angel of the Lord consoles the fleeing Hagar and commands her to be reconciled to her mistress [Gen. 16:9]. He promises to Abraham, his servant, an angel to be his guide for the journey. [Gen. 24:7.] Jacob in blessing Ephraim and Manasses prays that the angel of the Lord, through whom he has been delivered from all evil, will cause them to prosper. [Gen. 48:16.] Thus an angel was appointed to protect the camps of the Israelites [Ex. 14:19; 23:20]; and as often as God would have Israel rescued from the hand of the enemy, he raised up avengers by the ministry of angels [Judg. 2:1; 6:11; 13:3-20]. In short (there is no need to recite other instances), the angels ministered to Christ [Matt. 4:11] and were present with him in all his tribulations [Luke 22:43]. They announced his resurrection to the women [Matt. 28:5, 7; Luke 24:5], his glorious coming to the disciples [Acts 1:10]. Thus, to fulfill the task of protecting us the angels fight against the devil and all our enemies, and carry out God’s vengeance against those who harm us. As we read, the angel of God, to lift the siege of Jerusalem, slew 185,000 in the camp of the King of Assyria in a single night [II Kings 19:35; Isa. 37:36].

7. Guardian angels?

But whether individual angels have been assigned to individual believers for their protection, I dare not affirm with confidence. Certainly, when Daniel introduces the angel of the Persians and the angel of the Greeks [Dan. 10:13, 20; 12:1] he signifies that specific angels have been appointed as guardians over kingdoms and provinces. Christ also, when he says that the children’s angels always behold the Father’s face [Matt. 18:10], hints that there are certain angels to whom their safety has been committed. But from this I do not know whether one ought to infer that each individual has the protection of his own angel. We ought to hold as a fact that the care of each one of us is not the task of one angel only, but all with one consent watch over our salvation. For it is said of all the angels together that they rejoice more over the turning of one sinner to repentance than over ninety-nine righteous men who have stood fast in righteousness [Luke 15:7]. Also, it is said of a number of angels that “they bore Lazarus’ soul to Abraham’s bosom” [Luke 16:22 p.]. And Elisha does not in vain show to his servant so many fiery chariots which had been destined especially for him [II Kings 6:17].

There is one passage that seems to confirm this a little more clearly than the rest. For when Peter, led out of the prison, knocked at the gates of the house in which the brethren were gathered, since they could not imagine it was he, “they said, ‘It is his angel’ ” [Acts 12:15]. This seems to have entered their minds from the common notion that each believer has been assigned his own guardian angel. Although here, also, it can be answered that nothing prevents us from understanding this of any angel at all to whom the Lord had then given over the care of Peter; yet he would not on that account be Peter’s perpetual guardian. Similarly the common folk imagine two angels, good and bad-as it were different geniuses-attached to each person. Yet it is not worth-while anxiously to investigate what it does not much concern us to know. For if the fact that all the heavenly host are keeping watch for his safety will not satisfy a man, I do not see what benefit he could derive from knowing that one angel has been given to him as his especial guardian. Indeed, those who confine to one angel the care that God takes of each one of us are doing a great injustice both to themselves and to all the members of the church; as if it were an idle promise that we should fight more valiantly with these hosts supporting and protecting us round about!

Section: 1.14.1-3

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:03:00 +0800

CHAPTER XIV

EVEN IN THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE AND OF ALL THINGS, SCRIPTURE BY UNMISTAKABLE MARKS DISTINGUISHES THE TRUE GOD FROM FALSE GODS

1. We cannot and should not go behind God’s act of creation in our speculation

Isaiah rightly charges the worshipers of false gods with obtuseness, because they have not learned from the foundations of the earth and the circle of the heavens who is the true God [Isa. 40: 21; cf. v. 22; see Comm.]. Despite this, such is the slowness and dullness of our wit that, to prevent believers from deserting to the fabrications of the heathen, we must depict the true God more distinctly than they do. Since the notion of God as the mind of the universe (in the philosophers’ eyes, a most acceptable description) is ephemeral, it is important for us to know him more intimately, lest we always waver in doubt. Therefore it was his will that the history of Creation be made manifest, in order that the faith of the church, resting upon this, might seek no other God but him who was put forth by Moses as the Maker and Founder of the universe.

Therein time was first marked so that by a continuing succession of years believers might arrive at the primal source of the human race and of all things. This knowledge is especially useful not only to resist the monstrous fables that formerly were in vogue in Egypt and in other regions of the earth, but also that, once the beginning of the universe is known, God’s eternity may shine forth more clearly, and we may be more rapt in wonder at it. And indeed, that impious scoff ought not to move us: that it is a wonder how it did not enter God’s mind sooner to found heaven and earth, but that he idly permitted an immeasurable time to pass away, since he could have made it very many millenniums earlier, albeit the duration of the world, now declining to its ultimate end, has not yet attained six thousand years. For it is neither lawful nor expedient for us to inquire why God delayed so long, because if the human mind strives to penetrate thus far, it will fail a hundred times on the way. And it would not even be useful for us to know what God himself, to test our moderation of faith, on purpose willed to be hidden. When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world, the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious.

Let this admonition, no less grave than severe, restrain the wantonness that tickles many and even drives them to wicked and hurtful speculations. In short, let us remember that that invisible God, whose wisdom, power, and righteousness are incomprehensible, sets before us Moses’ history as a mirror in which his living likeness glows. For just as eyes, when dimmed with age or weakness or by some other defect, unless aided by spectacles, discern nothing distinctly; so, such is our feebleness, unless Scripture guides us in seeking God, we are immediately confused. They who, indeed, indulge their own wantonness, since they are now warned in vain, will feel too late by a dreadful ruin how much better it would have been for them reverently to accept God’s secret purposes than to belch forth blasphemies by which to obscure heaven. And Augustine rightly complains that wrong is done to God when a higher cause of things than his will is demanded. Elsewhere the same man wisely warns that it is no less wrong to raise questions concerning immeasurable stretches of time than of space. Indeed, however widely the circuit of the heavens extends, it still has some limit. Now if anyone should expostulate with God that the void exceeds the heavens a hundredfold, would not this impudence be detestable to all the godly? Into such madness leap those who carp at God’s idleness because he did not in accord with their judgment establish the universe innumerable ages before. To gratify their curiosity, they strive to go forth outside the world. As if in the vast circle of heaven and earth enough things do not present themselves to engross all our senses with their incomprehensible brightness! As if within six thousand years God has not shown evidences enough on which to exercise our minds in earnest meditation! Therefore let us willingly remain enclosed within these bounds to which God has willed to confine us, and as it were, to pen up our minds that they may not, through their very freedom to wander, go astray.

2. The work of the six days shows God’s goodness toward men

With the same intent Moses relates that God’s work was completed not in a moment but in six days [Gen. 2:2]. For by this circumstance we are drawn away from all fictions to the one God who distributed his work into six days that we might not find it irksome to occupy our whole life in contemplating it. For even though our eyes, in whatever direction they may turn, are compelled to gaze upon God’s works, yet we see how changeable is our attention, and how swiftly are dissipated any godly thoughts that may touch us. Here also, until human reason is subjected to the obedience of faith and learns to cultivate that quiet to which the sanctification of the seventh day invites us, it grumbles, as if such proceedings were foreign to God’s power. But we ought in the very order of things diligently to contemplate God’s love toward mankind, in that he did not create Adam until he had lavished upon the universe all manner of good things. For if he had put him in an earth as yet sterile and empty, if he had given him life before light, he would have seemed to provide insufficiently for his welfare. Now when he disposed the movements of the sun and stars to human uses, filled the earth, waters, and air with living things, and brought forth an abundance of fruits to suffice as foods, in thus assuming the responsibility of a foreseeing and diligent father of the family he shows his wonderful goodness toward us. If anyone should more attentively ponder what I only briefly touch upon, it will be clear that Moses was a sure witness and herald of the one God, the Creator. I pass over what I have already explained, that he there not only speaks of the bare essence of God, but also sets forth for us His eternal Wisdom and Spirit; that we may not conjure up some other god than him who would have himself recognized in that clear image.

3. God is Lord over all!

But before I begin more fully to discuss man’s nature, I ought to insert something concerning angels. To be sure, Moses, accommodating himself to the rudeness of the common folk, mentions in the history of the Creation no other works of God than those which show themselves to our own eyes. Yet afterward when he introduces angels as ministers of God, one may easily infer that he, to whom they devote their effort and functions, is their Creator. Although Moses, speaking after the manner of the common people, did not in laying down basic principles immediately reckon the angels among God’s creatures, yet nothing prevents us from conveying plainly and explicitly what Scripture elsewhere repeatedly teaches concerning them. For if we desire to recognize God from his works, we ought by no means to overlook such an illustrious and noble example. Besides, this part of doctrine is very necessary to refute many errors. The pre-eminence of the angelic nature has so overwhelmed the minds of many that they think the angels wronged if, subjected to the authority of the one God, they are, as it were, forced into their own rank. For this reason, divinity was falsely attributed to them.

Also, Mani, with his sect, arose, fashioning for himself two principles: God and the devil. To God he attributed the origin of good things, but evil natures he referred to the devil as their author. If this madness held our minds ensnared, God’s glory in the creation of the universe would not abide with him. For, since nothing is more characteristic of God than eternity and self-existence-that is, existence of himself, so to speak-do not those who attribute this to the devil in a sense adorn him with the title of divinity? Now where is God’s omnipotence, if such sovereignty is conceded to the devil that he carries out whatever he wishes, against God’s will and resistance? The Manichees have only one foundation: that it is wrong to ascribe to the good God the creation of any evil thing. This does not in the slightest degree harm the orthodox faith, which does not admit that any evil nature exists in the whole universe. For the depravity and malice both of man and of the devil, or the sins that arise therefrom, do not spring from nature, but rather from the corruption of nature. And from the beginning nothing at all has existed in which God has not put forth” an example both of his wisdom and of his righteousness. Therefore, in order to meet these perverse falsehoods it is necessary to lift up our minds higher than our eyes can reach. It is probably for this purpose that in the Nicene Creed, where God is called the Creator of all things, invisible things are expressly mentioned. Nevertheless, we will take care to keep to the measure which the rule of godliness prescribes, that our readers may not, by speculating more deeply than is expedient, wander away from simplicity of faith. And in fact, while the Spirit ever teaches us to our profit, he either remains absolutely silent upon those things of little value for edification, or only lightly and cursorily touches them. It is also our duty willingly to renounce those things which are unprofitable.

Section: 1.13.25-29

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:02:00 +0800

25. The divine nature is common to all three Persons

But they are obviously deceived in this connection, for they dream of individuals, each having its own separate part of the essence. Yet we teach from the Scriptures that God is one in essence, and hence that the essence both of the Son and of the Spirit is unbegotten; but inasmuch as the Father is first in order, and from himself begot his wisdom, as has just been said, he is rightly deemed the beginning and fountainhead of the whole of divinity. Thus God without particularization is unbegotten; and the Father also in respect to his person is unbegotten. They also foolishly think they may conclude from our statement that we have set up a quaternity, for they falsely and calumniously ascribe this fiction of their own brain to us, as if we pretended that three persons came forth by derivation from one essence. On the contrary, it is clear from our writings that we do not separate the persons from the essence, but we distinguish among them while they remain within it. If the persons had been separate from the essence, the reasoning of these men might have been probable; but in this way there would have been a trinity of gods, not of persons whom the one God contains in himself.

Thus is their useless question answered: whether or not the essence co-operates in producing the Trinity, as if we imagined that three gods descend from it. Their rejoinder that if not, the Trinity would therefore be without God, is born of the same foolishness. For although the essence does not enter into the distinction as a part or a member of the Trinity, nevertheless the persons are not without it, or outside it; because the Father, unless he were God, could not have been the Father; and the Son could not have been the Son, unless he were God. Therefore we say that deity in an absolute sense exists of itself; whence likewise we confess that the Son since he is God, exists of himself, but not in respect of his Person; indeed, since he is the Son, we say that he exists from the Father. Thus his essence is without beginning; while the beginning of his person is God himself. Those orthodox writers who formerly spoke concerning the Trinity applied this name only to the persons, since it would have been not only an absurd error but even the sheerest impiety to embrace the essence in this distinction. For those who want to make a Trinity of these three-Essence, Son, and Spirit-are plainly annihilating the essence of the Son and the Spirit; otherwise the parts joined together would fall apart, and this is faulty in any distinction. Finally, if Father and God were synonymous, thus would the Father be the deifier; nothing would be left in the Son but a shadow; and the Trinity would be nothing else but the conjunction of the one God with two created things.

26. The subordination of the incarnate Word to the Father is no counter evidence

They object that Christ, if he be properly God, is wrongly called Son. To this I have replied that when a comparison of one person is made with another, the name of God is not to be taken without particularization, but restricted to the Father, seeing that he is the beginning of deity, not in the bestowing of essence, as fanatics babble, but by reason of order. In this sense is to be understood that saying of Christ to the Father, “This is eternal life, that they believe thee to be the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” [John 17:3 p.]. For speaking in the person of the Mediator, he holds a middle rank between God and man; yet his majesty is not on this account diminished. For even though he emptied himself [Phil. 2:7], he lost not his glory with the Father which was hidden to the world. Thus the apostle in Heb., ch. 2, although he admits that Christ was for a short time abased beneath the angels [vs. 7, 9], does not hesitate at the same time to declare him to be the everlasting God who founded the earth [ch. 1:10].

Therefore we must hold that, as often as Christ in this person of Mediator addresses God, under this name of God is included his deity, which is also Christ’s. Thus when he said to the apostles, “It is expedient that I go up to the Father” [John 16:7; cf. ch. 20:17] “because the Father is greater than I” [ch. 14:28, Vg.], he does not attribute to himself merely a secondary deity so that he is inferior to the Father with respect to eternal essence; but because endowed with heavenly glory he gathers believers into participation in the Father. He places the Father in the higher rank, seeing that the bright perfection of splendor that appears in heaven differs from that measure of glory which was seen in him when he was clothed with flesh. With the same intent, Paul elsewhere says that Christ “shall deliver up the Kingdom to the God and Father” [I Cor.15: 24], “that God may be all in all” [I Cor. 15:28]. Nothing is more absurd than to deny that Christ’s deity is everlasting. But if he will never cease to be the Son of God, but will ever remain the same as he was from the beginning, it follows that there is comprehended under the name of “Father” the unique essence of God which is common to both. And certainly for this reason Christ descended to us, to bear us up to the Father, and at the same time to bear us up to himself, inasmuch as he is one with the Father. Therefore to restrict the name “God” to the Father, to the exclusion of the Son, is neither lawful nor right. On this account, also, John indeed declares him to be the true God [John 1:1; I John 5:20] lest anyone think of placing him in a second rank of deity beneath the Father. Moreover, I wonder what these makers of new gods mean when, having confessed Christ as true God, they immediately exclude him from the deity of the Father. As if he could be true God and not be one God, and as if a divinity transfused were anything but a newfangled fiction!

27. Our adversaries falsely appeal to Irenaeus

They pile up many passages from Irenaeus, where he declares the Father of Christ to be the sole and eternal God of Israel. This is either shameful ignorance or consummate depravity. For they ought to have considered that that saintly man was dealing and contending with fanatics who denied that the Father of Christ was that same God who had of old spoken through Moses and the prophets, but fancied a sort of specter produced from the corruption of the world. Therefore he is wholly concerned with this point: to make it plain that no other God is proclaimed in Scripture than the Father of Christ, and that it is wrong to imagine another. Hence it is no wonder he so often concludes that there was no other God of Israel than he who is celebrated by Christ and the apostles. So also now, when we must resist another sort of error, we shall truly say: the God who of old appeared to the patriarchs was no other than Christ. Indeed, if anyone objects that it was in fact the Father, our reply will be ready: while we contend for the divinity of the Son, we do not at all exclude the Father. If the readers were to pay attention to this advice of Irenaeus, all contention would cease. In Chapter 6 of Book 3 all strife is easily brought to naught, where the godly man insists on this one thing, “that he who in Scripture is called God in an absolute and undifferentiated sense is in truth the only God, and that Christ indeed is called God in an absolute sense.” Let us remember that this was the basis of his argument, as is clear from the whole drift, and especially in Book 2, Chapter 46: that he is not called Father enigmatically and parabolically.

Besides this, he elsewhere contends that both the Son and the Father were jointly declared to be God by the prophets and the apostles [Book 3, Chapter 9]. Afterward he defines how Christ, who is Lord over all things, and King, and God, and Judge, received power from him who is God of all things, namely, in respect to subjection in that he was humbled even to death on the cross [Book 3, Chapter 12]. Moreover, a little later he affirms that the Son was the Maker of heaven and earth, who gave the law through the hand of Moses, and appeared to the patriarchs. Now if anyone prates that for Irenaeus the Father alone was the God of Israel, I shall turn back upon him what the same writer openly teaches, that Christ is one and the same, just as the prophecy of Habakkuk also refers to him: “God will come from the south” [Hab. 3:3, Vg.] [Book 3, Chapters 18 and 23]. To the same end pertains what is read in Book 4, Chapter 9. Christ himself, therefore, is God with the Father of the living. And in Chapter 12 of the same book he explains that Abraham believed in God, because the Maker of heaven and earth, and the sole God, is Christ.

28. The appeal to Tertullian also is of no avail

Not a whit more truthfully do they adopt Tertullian as their advocate; for even if he is sometimes rough and thorny in his mode of speech, yet he not ambiguously hands on the sum of the doctrine that we defend. In his view, although God is one, his Word exists by dispensation or economy; God is one in unity of substance, and nonetheless the unity is disposed into a trinity by the mystery of dispensation. There are thus three, not in status, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in its manifestation. He says, indeed, that he retains the Son as second to the Father, but he understands him to be not different except by way of distinction. Elsewhere he speaks of the Son as visible; but after he has argued both sides of the question, he decides that he is invisible in so far as he is the Word. Finally, affirming that the Father is determined by his own person, Tertullian proves himself far removed from that fabrication which we are refuting. And although he recognizes no other God than the Father, nevertheless, explaining himself in the next passage, he shows that he is not speaking exclusively with respect to the Son, because he denies that there is another God than the Father, and thus his monarchy is not broken by distinction of person. And from his unwavering purpose one can readily gather the meaning of his words. For he contends against Praxeas that although God is distinguished into three persons, yet this does not make more than one God, nor is his unity sundered. And because according to Praxeas’ fabrication Christ could not be God without being the same as the Father, he therefore toils mightily over this distinction. That he, indeed, calls the Word and the Spirit a portion of the whole, even though it is a hard saying, is yet excusable, seeing that it is not applied to substance, but merely marks the disposition and economy that has to do with the persons alone, as Tertullian himself testifies. Upon this also hangs his statement: “How many persons, O most wicked Praxeas, do you think there are, unless there be as many as there are names?” Thus, also, a little later: “That they may believe the Father and the Son each in their names and persons.” By these references I think I have been able sufficiently to refute the impudence of those who try from Tertullian’s authority to deceive the simple.

29. All acknowledged doctors of the church confirm the doctrine of the Trinity

And certainly anyone who diligently compares the writings of the ancients among themselves will find in Irenaeus nothing else than what his successors set forth. Justin is one of the earliest, yet he supports us at every point. They will object that both by him and by the rest the Father of Christ is called the one God. Hilary also teaches the same thing, indeed speaks more sharply, that eternity is in the Father. Is that to deprive the Son of the divine essence? Yet he is wholly concerned with the defense of the very faith to which we adhere. Our enemies, however, are not ashamed to pluck out any kind of mutilated utterances, from which they would have us believe that Hilary is the patron of their error!

With regard to their citation of Ignatius, if they want it to have any weight, let them prove that the apostles made a law concerning Lent and like corruptions. Nothing is more disgusting than those vile absurdities which have been put forth under the name of Ignatius. Even less tolerable is the shamelessness of those who cover themselves with such masks in order to deceive. Indeed, the agreement of the ancients is clearly seen here, that in the Council of Nicaea, Arius dared not make a pretense on the basis of the authority of any proved writer; and no one of the Greeks or the Latins excuses himself for disagreeing with those before him. We need say nothing of how carefully Augustine (toward whom these rascals are most hostile) searched the writings of all, and how reverently he embraced them. To be sure, in some small details he was accustomed to show why he was compelled to depart from them. Even in this argument, if he read anything ambiguous or obscure among other writers, he does not hide it. Nevertheless, he takes for granted the doctrine these men are attacking, as received without controversy from the earliest times.Yet from a single word it is clear that what others had taught before was not unknown to him, when in Book 1, Christian Doctrine, he says that unity is in the Father. Will they chatter about his then forgetting himself? Yet elsewhere he clears himself of this calumny, where he calls the Father the beginning of all deity because he is from no one; and wisely considers that the name of God is especially ascribed to the Father because if the beginning comes not from him, the simple unity of God cannot be conceived.

Now, the godly reader will, I hope, recognize that these words refute all the chicaneries by which Satan has heretofore tried to pervert or darken the pure faith of doctrine. Finally, I trust that the whole sum of this doctrine has been faithfully explained, if my readers will impose a limit upon their curiosity, and not seek out for themselves more eagerly than is proper troublesome and perplexed disputations. For I suspect that those who intemperately delight in speculation will not be at all satisfied. Certainly I have not shrewdly omitted anything that I might think to be against me: but while I am zealous for the edification of the church, I felt that I would be better advised not to touch upon many things that would profit but little, and would burden my readers with useless trouble. For what is the point in disputing whether the Father always begets? Indeed, it is foolish to imagine a continuous act of begetting, since it is clear that three persons have subsisted in God from eternity.