exerted against them cannot but be confounded with an extreme and deadly horror. How much he observes this lenity in chastising his Israel, he shows by the prophet: “I have refined thee, (says he,) but not with silver;(1771) for thou wouldst have been wholly consumed.” Though he teaches him that chastisements serve to purify him, yet he adds that he so far moderates them, that they may not exceed what he is able to bear. And this is highly necessary; for the more a man reveres God and devotes himself to the cultivation of piety, he is so much the more tender to bear his wrath. For though the reprobate groan under his scourges, yet because they consider not the cause, but rather turn their backs both on their sins and on the Divine judgments, from this carelessness they contract an insensibility; or because they murmur and resist, and rebel against their judge, that furious impetuosity stupefies them with madness and rage. But believers, admonished by the Divine corrections, immediately descend to the consideration of their sins, and, stricken with fear and dread, resort to a suppliant deprecation of punishment. If God did not mitigate these sorrows, with which wretched souls torment themselves, they would be continually fainting, even under slight tokens of his wrath.
XXXIII. The second distinction is, that when the reprobate are lashed by the scourges of God in this world, they already begin to suffer his vindictive punishments; and though they will not escape with impunity for having disregarded such indications of the Divine wrath, yet they are not punished in order to their repentance, but only that, from their great misery, they may prove God to be a judge who will inflict vengeance according to their crimes. On the contrary, the children of God are chastised, not to make satisfaction to him for their sins, but that they may thereby be benefited and brought to repentance. Wherefore we see, that such chastisements relate to the future rather than the past. To express this, I would prefer Chrysostom’s language to my own. “For this reason (says he) God punishes us, not to take vengeance for our sins, but to correct us for the future.” Thus also Augustine: “That which you suffer, and which causes you to mourn, is a medicine to you, not a punishment; a chastisement, and not damnation. Reject not the scourge, if you desire not to be rejected from the inheritance. All this misery of mankind, under which the world groans, know, brethren, that it is a medicinal sorrow, not a penal sentence.” These passages I have therefore thought proper to quote, that no one might consider the phraseology which I have adopted to be novel or unusual. And to the same purpose are the indignant complaints in which the Lord frequently expostulates on account of the ingratitude of the people, and their obstinate contempt of all their punishments. In Isaiah: “Why should ye be stricken any more? From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness.”(1772) But as the prophets abound in such passages, it will be sufficient briefly to have suggested, that God punishes his Church with no other design than to subdue it to repentance. Therefore, when he rejected Saul from the kingdom, he punished him in a vindictive manner;(1773) when he deprived David of his infant son, he corrected him in order to his reformation.(1774) In this sense we must understand the observation of Paul: “When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.”(1775) That is, when we, the children of God, are afflicted by the hand of our heavenly Father, this is not a punishment to confound us, but only a chastisement to instruct us. In which Augustine evidently coincides with us; for he teaches that the punishments with which men are equally chastised by God, are to be considered in different points of view; because to the saints, after the remission of their sins, they are conflicts and exercises, but to the reprobate, whose sins are not forgiven, they are the penalties due to their iniquity. He also mentions the punishments inflicted on David and other pious persons, and says, that those chastisements tended to promote their humility, and thereby to exercise and prove their piety. And the declaration of Isaiah, that Jerusalem’s “iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins,”(1776) proves not the pardon of transgressions to depend on the suffering of the punishment, but is just as though he had said, “Punishments enough have now been inflicted on you; and as the severity and multitude of them have harassed you with a long continuance of grief and sorrow, it is time for you to receive the message of complete mercy, that your hearts may be expanded with joy, and experience me to be your Father.” For God there assumes the character of a Father, who repents even of his righteous severity, when he has been constrained to chastise his son with any degree of rigour.
XXXIV. It is necessary that the faithful should be provided with these reflections in the anguish of afflictions. “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, upon which his name is called.”(1777) What would the children of God do, if they believed the severity which they feel to be the vengeance of God upon them? For he who, under the strokes of the Divine hand, considers God as an avenging Judge, cannot but conceive of Him as incensed against him, and hostile to him, and will therefore detest his scourge itself as a curse and condemnation; in a word, he who thinks that God is still determined to punish him, can never be persuaded to believe himself an object of the Divine love. The only one who receives any benefit from the Divine chastisements, is he who considers God as angry with his crimes, but propitious and benevolent towards his person. For otherwise the case must necessarily be similar to what the Psalmist complains of having experienced: “Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.”(1778) And what Moses also speaks of: “For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.”(1779) On the contrary, David, speaking of his paternal chastisements, in order to show that believers are rather assisted than oppressed by them, sings: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law; that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.”(1780) It is certainly a severe temptation, when the Lord spares unbelievers, and conceals their crimes, while he appears more rigorous towards his own children. For their consolation, therefore, he adds the admonition of the law, whence they may learn, that it is for the promotion of their salvation when they are recalled into the way, but that the impious are precipitated into their errors, which end in the pit. Nor is it of any importance whether the punishment be eternal or temporal. For wars, famines, plagues, and diseases are curses from God, as well as the judgment of eternal death itself, when they are inflicted as the instruments of the Lord’s wrath and vengeance against the reprobate.
XXXV. Every one, I presume, now perceives the design of the Lord’s correction of David, that it was to be a proof of God’s extreme displeasure against murder and adultery, with which he declared himself to be so greatly offended in his beloved and faithful servant, and to teach David never again to be guilty of such crimes; but not as a punishment, by which he was to render God a satisfaction for his offence. And we ought to form the same judgment concerning the other correction, in which the Lord afflicted the people with a violent pestilence, on account of the disobedience of David in numbering them. For he freely forgave David the guilt of his sin; but because it was necessary, as a public example to all ages, and also to the humiliation of David, that such an offence should not remain unpunished, he chastised him with extreme severity. This end we should keep in view also in the universal curse of mankind. For since we all, even after having obtained pardon, still suffer the miseries which were inflicted on our first parent as the punishment of sin, we consider such afflictions as admonitions how grievously God is displeased with the transgression of his law; that being thus dejected and humbled with a consciousness of our miserable condition, we may aspire with greater ardour after true blessedness. Now, he is very unwise, who imagines that the calamities of the present life are inflicted upon us as satisfactions for the guilt of sin. This appears to me to have been the meaning of Chrysostom, when he said, “If God therefore inflicts punishments on us, that while we are persisting in sins he may call us to repentance,—after a discovery of repentance, the punishment will be unnecessary.” Wherefore he treats one person with greater severity, and another with more tender indulgence, as he knows to be suitable to every man’s particular disposition. Therefore, when he means to suggest that he is not excessively severe in the infliction of punishment, he reproaches an obdurate and obstinate people, that though they have been corrected, they have not forsaken their sins.(1781) In this sense he complains, that “Ephraim is a cake not turned,”(1782) that is, scorched on one side, unbaked on the other; because his corrections did not penetrate the hearts of the people, so as to expel their vices and render them proper objects of pardon. By expressing himself in this manner, he certainly gives us to understand, that as soon as they shall have repented, he will be immediately appeased, and that the rigour which he exercises in chastising offences is extorted from him by our obstinacy, but would be prevented by a voluntary reformation. Yet since our obduracy and ignorance are such as universally to need castigation, our most wise Father is pleased to exercise all his children, without exception, with the strokes of his rod, as long as they live. It is astonishing why they fix their eyes thus on the example of David alone, and are unaffected by so many instances in which they might behold a gratuitous remission of sins. The publican is said to have gone down from the temple justified;(1783) no punishment follows. Peter obtained the pardon of his sins. “We read,” says Ambrose, “of his tears, but not of his satisfaction.”(1784) And a paralytic hears the following address: “Be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee;”(1785) no punishment is inflicted. All the absolutions which are mentioned in the Scripture, are described as gratuitous. A general rule ought rather to be deduced from these numerous examples, than from that single case which is attended with peculiar circumstances.
XXXVI. When Daniel exhorted Nebuchadnezzar to “break off his sins by righteousness, and his iniquities by showing mercy to the poor,”(1786) he meant not to intimate that righteousness and mercy propitiate God and atone for sins; for God forbid that there should ever be any other redemption than the blood of Christ. But he used the term _break off_ with reference to men, rather than to God; as though he had said, “Thou hast exercised, O king, an unrighteous and violent despotism; thou hast oppressed the weak; thou hast plundered the poor; thou hast treated thy people with harshness and iniquity; instead of unjust exactions, instead of violence and oppression, now substitute mercy and righteousness.” In a similar sense Solomon says, that “love covereth all sins;” not with reference to God, but among men. For the whole verse is as follows: “Hatred stirreth up strifes; but love covereth all sins.”(1787) In which verse, he, according to his usual custom, contrasts the evils arising from hatred with the fruits of love; signifying, that they who hate each other, reciprocally harass, criminate, reproach, revile, and convert every thing into a fault; but that they who love one another, mutually conceal, connive at, and reciprocally forgive, many things among themselves; not that they approve each other’s faults, but bear with them, and heal them by admonition, rather than aggravate them by invectives. Nor can we doubt that Peter intended the same in his citation of this passage,(1788) unless we mean to accuse him of corrupting, and craftily perverting the Scriptures. When Solomon says, that “by mercy and truth iniquity is purged,”(1789) he intends not a compensation in the Divine view, so that God, being appeased with such a satisfaction, remits the punishment which he would otherwise have inflicted; but, in the familiar manner of Scripture, he signifies, that they shall find him propitious to them who have forsaken their former vices and iniquities, and are converted to him in piety and truth; as though he had said, that the wrath of God subsides, and his judgment ceases, when we cease from our sins. He describes not the cause of pardon, but the mode of true conversion. Just as the prophets frequently declare that it is in vain for hypocrites to offer to God ostentatious ceremonies instead of repentance, since he is only pleased with integrity and the duties of charity; and as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he recommends us “to do good and to communicate,” informs us that “with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”(1790) And when Christ ridicules the Pharisees for having attended only to the cleansing of dishes, and neglected all purity of heart, and commands them to give alms that all might be clean,(1791) he is not exhorting them to make a satisfaction, but only teaching them what kind of purity obtains the Divine approbation. But of this expression we have treated in another work.(1792) XXXVII. With respect to the passage of Luke,(1793) no one, who has read with a sound judgment the parable the Lord there proposes, will enter into any controversy with us concerning it. The Pharisee thought within himself, that the Lord did not know the woman, whom he had so easily admitted to his presence. For he imagined that Christ would not have admitted her, if he had known what kind of a sinner she was. And thence he inferred that Christ, who was capable of being so deceived, was not a prophet. To show that she was not a sinner, her sins having already been forgiven, the Lord proposed this parable: “There was a certain creditor, which had two debtors; the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. He frankly forgave them both. Which of them will love him most?” The Pharisee answered, “He to whom he forgave most.” The Lord rejoins, Hence know that “this woman’s sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.” In these words, you see, he makes her love, not the cause of the remission of her sins, but the proof of it. For they are taken from a comparison of that debtor to whom five hundred pence had been forgiven, of whom it is said, not that his debt was forgiven, because he had loved much, but that he loved much because his debt had been forgiven. And this similitude may be applied to the case of the woman in the following manner: “You suppose this woman to be a sinner; but you ought to know that she is not such, since her sins are forgiven her. And her love ought to convince you of the remission of her sins, by the grateful return she makes for this blessing.” It is an argumentum _a posteriori_, by which any thing is proved from its consequences. By what means she obtained remission of sins, the Lord plainly declares: “Thy faith,” says he, “hath saved thee.” By faith therefore we obtain remission, by love we give thanks and declare the goodness of the Lord.
XXXVIII. To those things which frequently occur in the works of the fathers concerning _satisfaction_, I pay little regard. I see, indeed, that some of them, or, to speak plainly, almost all whose writings are extant, have either erred on this point, or expressed themselves too harshly. But I shall not admit that they were so ignorant and inexperienced, as to write those things in the sense in which they are understood by the modern advocates for satisfaction. Chrysostom somewhere expresses himself thus: “Where mercy is requested, examination ceases; where mercy is implored, judgment is not severe; where mercy is sought, there is no room for punishment; where there is mercy, there is no inquiry; where mercy is, an answer is freely given.” These expressions, however they may be distorted, can never be reconciled with the dogmas of the schools. In the treatise On Ecclesiastical Doctrines, which is ascribed to Augustine, we read the following passage: “The satisfaction of repentance is to cut off the causes of sins, and not to indulge an entrance to their suggestions.” Whence it appears, that even in those times the doctrine of satisfaction, as a compensation for sins committed, was universally rejected, since he refers all satisfaction to a cautious abstinence from sins in future. I will not quote what is further asserted by Chrysostom, that the Lord requires of us nothing more than to confess our sins before him with tears; for passages of this kind frequently occur in his writings, and in those of other fathers. Augustine somewhere calls works of mercy “remedies for obtaining remission of sins;” but lest any one should stumble at that expression, he explains himself more fully in another place. “The flesh of Christ,” says he, “is the true and sole sacrifice for sins, not only for those which are all obliterated in baptism, but also for those which afterwards creep in through infirmity; on account of which the whole Church at present exclaims, Forgive us our debts;(1794) and they are forgiven through that single sacrifice.”
XXXIX. But they most commonly used the word “satisfaction” to signify, not a compensation rendered to God, but a public testification, by which those who had been punished with excommunication, when they wished to be readmitted to communion, gave the Church an assurance of their repentance. For there were enjoined on those penitents certain fastings, and other observances, by which they might prove themselves truly and cordially weary of their former life, or rather obliterate the memory of their past actions; and thus they were said to make satisfaction, not to God, but to the Church. This is also expressed by Augustine in these very words, in his Enchiridion ad Laurentium. From that ancient custom have originated the confessions and satisfactions which are used in the present age; a viperous brood which retain not even the shadow of that original form. I know that the fathers sometimes express themselves rather harshly; nor do I deny, what I have just asserted, that perhaps they have erred. But their writings, which were only besprinkled with a few spots, after they have been handled by such foul hands, became thoroughly soiled. And if we must contend with the authority of fathers, what fathers do they obtrude upon us? Most of those passages, of which Lombard, their champion, has compiled his heterogeneous collection, are extracted from the insipid reveries of some monks, which are circulated under the names of Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom. Thus, on the present argument, he borrows almost every thing from a Treatise on Repentance, which is a ridiculous selection from various authors, good and bad; it bears the name of Augustine indeed, but no man even of moderate learning can deign to admit it as really his. For not entering into a more particular examination of their absurdities, I request the pardon of the reader, whom I wish to spare that trouble. It would be both easy and plausible for me to expose to the greatest contempt, what they have heretofore celebrated as mysteries; but I forbear, as my object is to write what may tend to edification.
Chapter V. Indulgences And Purgatory. The Supplements To Their Doctrine Of Satisfactions.
This doctrine of _satisfaction_ has given rise to _indulgences_. For by indulgences they pretend, that the deficiency of our abilities to make satisfaction is supplied, and even proceed to the extravagance of defining them to be the dispensation of the merits of Christ and of the martyrs, which the Pope distributes in his bulls. Now, though such persons are fitter subjects for a mad‐house than for arguments, so that it would be of little use to engage in refuting errors so frivolous, which have been shaken by many attacks, and begin of themselves to grow obsolete, and totter towards a fall, yet, as a brief refutation will be useful to some minds hitherto uninformed on the subject, I shall not altogether omit it. And indeed the establishment and long continuance of indulgences, with the unlimited influence retained by them amidst such outrageous and furious licentiousness, may serve to convince us in what a deep night of errors men were immersed for several ages. They saw, that they were themselves objects of the public and undissembled ridicule of the Pope and the dispensers of his bulls; that lucrative bargains were made concerning the salvation of their souls; that the price of salvation was fixed at a trifling sum of money, and nothing presented gratuitously; that under this pretext, contributions were extorted from them, which were vilely consumed on brothels, pimps, and revellings; that the greatest advocates of indulgences were the greatest despisers of them; that this monster was daily making longer strides in licentious power and luxury, and that there was no end, that more trash was continually produced, and more money continually extorted. Yet they received indulgences with the greatest veneration, adored them and purchased them; and those who had more discernment than others, yet considered them as pious frauds, by which they might be deceived with some advantage. At length, since the world has permitted itself to recover a little the exercise of reason, indulgences become more and more discredited, till they altogether disappear.
II. But since many, who see the pollution, imposture, robbery, and rapacity, with which the dispensers of indulgences have hitherto amused themselves and cajoled us, do not perceive the fountain of all this impiety,—it will be necessary to show, not only the nature of indulgences as commonly used, but what they are in themselves when abstracted from every adventitious blemish. The merits of Christ and of the holy apostles and martyrs, they style “the treasury of the Church.” The principal custody of this repository they pretend to have been delivered, as I have already hinted, to the bishop of Rome, who has the dispensation of such great benefits, so that he can both bestow them himself, and delegate the power of bestowing them to others. Hence from the Pope are received sometimes plenary indulgences, sometimes indulgences for a certain number of years; from Cardinals, for a hundred days; from Bishops, for forty days. But to describe them correctly, they are a profanation of the blood of Christ and a delusion of Satan, by which they seduce Christians from the grace of God and the life which is in Christ, and turn them aside from the right way of salvation. For how could the blood of Christ be more basely profaned, than when it is denied to be sufficient for the remission of sins, for reconciliation and satisfaction, unless its deficiency be supplied from some other quarter? “To him,” says Peter, “give all the prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of sins.”(1795) Indulgences dispense remission of sins through Peter, and Paul, and the martyrs. “The blood of Jesus Christ,” says John, “cleanseth us from all sin.”(1796) Indulgences make the blood of the martyrs the ablution of sins. Paul says, that Christ, “who knew no sin, was made sin for us;” that is, a satisfaction for sin, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”(1797) Indulgences place satisfaction for sins in the blood of the martyrs. Paul declared to the Corinthians, that Christ alone was crucified and died for them.(1798) Indulgences pronounce that Paul and others died for us. In another place he says, that Christ “hath purchased the Church with his own blood.”(1799) Indulgences assign another price of this purchase, in the blood of the martyrs. The apostle says, that “by one offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”(1800) Indulgences, on the contrary, proclaim that sanctification, which were otherwise insufficient, receives its perfection from the martyrs. John declares that all saints “have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.”(1801) Indulgences teach us to wash our robes in the blood of the saints.
III. Leo, bishop of Rome, excellently opposes these sacrilegious pretensions in his epistle to the Bishops of Palestine. “Although the death of many saints,” he says, “has been precious in the sight of the Lord, yet the murder of no innocent person has been the propitiation of the world. The righteous have received, not bestowed, crowns; and from the fortitude of the faithful have arisen examples of patience, not gifts of righteousness. For their deaths have been all singular, nor has any one by his death discharged the debt of another; for it is the Lord Christ alone, in whom all are crucified, dead, buried, and raised from the dead.” This passage being worthy of remembrance, he repeats it in another place. Surely nothing clearer can be desired, in confutation of this impious doctrine of indulgences. And Augustine expresses himself with equal propriety to the same purpose. He says, “Although we die, brethren for brethren, yet the blood of no martyr is ever shed for the remission of sins. Christ has done this for us; and in doing it has not given an example in which we should imitate him, but conferred a favour for which we should thank him.” Again, in another place: “As the Son of God alone became the Son of man, to make us with himself sons of God, so he alone, without any demerits, sustained the punishment for us, that we, without any merits, might through him obtain undeserved grace.” Indeed, whilst their whole doctrine is a compound of horrible sacrilege and blasphemies, yet this is a blasphemy more monstrous than the rest. Let them acknowledge whether these be not their opinions, that the martyrs have by their death performed for God, and merited from him, more than was necessary for themselves; that they had so great a redundance of merits, as to superabound to others; that therefore, lest so great a blessing should be superfluous, their blood is commingled with the blood of Christ, and that of both these is formed the treasury of the Church for the remission and expiation of sins; and that in this sense we ought to understand the declaration of Paul, “I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the Church.”(1802) What is this but leaving Christ a mere name, and in other respects making him an inferior saint of the common order, scarcely distinguishable among the multitude? He alone ought to have been preached, he alone exhibited, he alone mentioned, he alone regarded, in all discourses on the procurement of remission of sins, expiation, and sanctification. But let us hear their grand argument: That the blood of the martyrs may not be shed in vain, let it be applied to the common benefit of the Church. Indeed? Was it no advantage to glorify God by their death? to subscribe to his truth with their blood? to testify by their contempt of the present life, that they sought a better one? by their constancy, to confirm the faith of the Church, and vanquish the obstinacy of their enemies? But this is the fact: they acknowledge no benefit, if Christ alone be the propitiator, if he alone died for our sins, if he alone was offered for our redemption. Peter and Paul, they say, might nevertheless have obtained the crown of victory, if they had expired in their beds. But since they contended even to blood, it would be incompatible with the justice of God to leave this _barren_ or _unfruitful_. As if God knew not how to augment the glory of his servants according to the extent of his gifts. But the Church in general receives an advantage sufficiently great, when by their triumphs it is inflamed with the same zeal for similar exertions and conflicts.
IV. But how maliciously they pervert that passage of Paul, where he says, “that he fills up in his own flesh that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ!”(1803) For he refers that deficiency and supplement, not to the work of redemption, satisfaction, or expiation, but to those afflictions, with which the members of Christ, even all the faithful, must necessarily be exercised as long as they live in the present state. He says, therefore, that this remains of the afflictions of Christ, that having once suffered in himself, he daily suffers in his members. Christ honors us so far as to consider our afflictions as his. When Paul adds that he suffered “for the Church,” he means not for the redemption, reconciliation, or atonement of the Church, but for its edification and profit. As in another place he says, “I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.”(1804) He writes to the Corinthians, that whatever tribulations he endured, he was “afflicted for their consolation and salvation.”(1805) And he immediately proceeds to explain himself, by adding, that he was made a minister of the Church, not for its redemption, but according to the dispensation which had been committed to him, to preach the gospel of Christ.(1806) But if they require also another expositor, let them attend to Augustine: “The sufferings of Christ,” says he, “are in Christ alone, as in the head; in Christ and the Church, as in the whole body. Whence Paul, one of the members, says, I fill up in my flesh that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. If you, therefore, whoever you are that read this, are one of the members of Christ, all that you suffer from such as are not members of Christ, was behind in the afflictions of Christ.” But the tendency of the sufferings of the apostles, sustained on account of the Church, is stated by him in another place: “Christ is my door to you; because you are the sheep of Christ, purchased with his blood: acknowledge your price, which is not given by me, but preached by me.” Then he adds, “As he has laid down his life, so we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren, for the establishment of peace and the confirmation of faith.” This is the language of Augustine. But let it not be imagined, that Paul thought there was any deficiency in the sufferings of Christ, with respect to all the plenitude of righteousness, salvation, and life; or that any addition to them was intended by him, who so clearly and magnificently proclaims, that the “abundance of grace by Christ” was