Chapter IX — THE IMAGE of Christian justification, depicted with the lineaments of the holy Scriptures

I. There are two heresies concerning justification. The Calvinists blurt out that it is unlosable. The Novatians denied pardon to the lapsed, and asserted that some crimes were irremissible. Both heresies the Church condemned.

I. Christian penitents who validly receive the sacrament of Penance are adorned with the gift of justification, and their soul becomes a temple of the Holy Ghost indwelling, and of the whole Trinity. Of old, Jews and pagans, the servitude of the devil and the idolatry of false deities being cast off, the faith of Christ being received, forthwith descended into the arena for Christ, and undaunted despised tigers, lions, and fiercer beasts, and by no means dreaded to become their banquet; they burned with a mighty desire of the rack, of stripes, and of the Cross of Christ; they feared not fires, not burning gridirons, not furnaces, not wounds; but with a strong and unconquered soul they underwent the most atrocious torments and infinite storms. We Christians, suffused with the same faith as they, imbued with the same disciplines, nourished with the same divine food, given to drink of the same most precious Blood, are sanctified by the same justification. Justification betrays itself by its effects, when we conform our whole life to the will of God and to the exemplar of Jesus Christ, on the Apostle's testimony: I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me; and again: Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son.

II. This new covenant between Christ and penitents rightly confessed is by its own nature firm, stable, and perpetual. Hence John 14, Christ says: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our ABODE with him. Christ does not say, if any man dread, and if any man is terrified, but if any man love, and after the manner of sons, not of servants, also fear — he will keep the words and laws of Christ. And Christ, with the whole Trinity, will establish an abode in his soul.

III. But let us hear Paul the Apostle, who describes the firmness and stability of penance, 2 Corinthians 7, in these words: For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, STEADFAST unto salvation. That penance, I say, which is according to God — that is, formed according to the rules which God prescribed — works a stable sanctity, as St. Paul subjoins there, chapter 15: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye STEADFAST and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Hence he inculcates upon the Colossians, chapter 1, the very firmness, stability, and constancy of the reconciliation entered upon through the death of the Son of God: And you, whereas you were sometime alienated and enemies in mind in evil works, yet now he hath reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unspotted and blameless before him: if so ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and immoveable from the hope of the gospel which you have heard.

IV. Everywhere the Apostle thunders, and more deeply commends and urges this stability and perseverance in the divine covenant entered upon, that we may attain the crown. But the effects and triumphs of this firm and stable justification he sets forth, addressing the Romans, chapter 8, with this grave and vehement discourse: Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? (As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

V. The prerogatives of Christian justification being set before our eyes, St. Paul manifests the most sad ruin which threatens those who violate and break this most sacred covenant. He himself, bound here at Rome with chains, received tidings that the Church of Jerusalem, made up of Jews alone, was languishing, was shaken by persecutions, and was subject to the grave danger of losing the justification received. Fifty years had already elapsed from the death of Christ, and the Hebrews of Jerusalem converted to Christ saw no event of the prediction made by Christ. The Temple, the Sanctuary, the Altar, the Candlestick, the multitude of priests, the high priesthood, the sacred rites celebrated with great pomp, the solemnity of the Mosaic rites, so great a symphony, and the remaining mysteries and ceremonies of the ancient Religion, which with milk they had drunk in, glittered on every side. But the Jewish Christians themselves, forming a little handful, having for a temple a small chamber, for an altar a table, for a candlestick a lamp, for golden and silver vessels a wooden cup, harassed on this side by the perfidious Jews who dominated, on that by the gentiles, straitened and oppressed, could scarcely celebrate the divine praises in private. Amid so many tempests and storms they in a certain manner wavered. What should we do, pressed by such straits, though strengthened by so immense a multitude of miracles? St. Paul in the epistle inscribed to the Hebrews brings a safeguard to the brethren. He describes with incredible eloquence the excellence and pre-eminence of the New Testament above the Old. Come, brethren, he says, what do you dread? The temple of Christ is not material, as the Mosaic, but living, adorned with every precious stone, which you are. But Christ as the Son in his own house: which house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and glory of hope unto the end, FIRM. Chapter 3.

VI. After he has raised up his brethren and animated them to place their trust in Christ Jesus, he passes to manifesting the wretched and mournful unhappiness of those who fall back from the lofty state of justice into sin, and the extreme difficulty of rising again, in these words, chapter 6: For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated (through the Baptism of faith), have tasted also the heavenly gift (namely the most sacred body of Christ), and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost (through the sacrament of Confirmation), have moreover tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and are fallen away, to be renewed again to penance, crucifying again to themselves the Son of God, and making him a mockery. Which truth, that he may accommodate it to their grasp and imprint it more deeply in their hearts, he offers them a likeness fetched from the very nature of things: For the earth that drinketh in the rain which cometh often upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God. But that which bringeth forth thorns and briers is reprobate, and very near unto a curse, whose end is to be burnt. But, my dearly beloved, we trust better things of you, and nearer to salvation; though we speak thus.

VII. The exposition of the Fathers upon this word impossible is twofold. Some interpret it difficult and most difficult. Others take this word in its obvious and literal sense, saying that it is impossible that those who have fallen after Baptism should be renewed again to that pristine innocence which they once received infused in the sacred laver. For although through penance sin is blotted out, yet there commonly remain traces of scars and wounds, and malignant remnants; there remain the fattened and thickened impressions and roots of desires and lusts, which weaken the strength and open a broader way to relapse.

VIII. But let us hear Paul again pursuing his discourse, chapter 10, and in this fashion more deeply enlarging upon the same truth: Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. … For if we sin wilfully after having the knowledge of the truth, there is now left no sacrifice for sins, but a certain dreadful expectation of judgment, and the rage of a fire which shall consume the adversaries. A man making void the law of Moses dieth without any mercy under two or three witnesses: how much more, do you think, he deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said: Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay. And again: The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But call to mind the former days, wherein, being illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions. And on the one hand indeed, by reproaches and tribulations, were made a gazingstock; and on the other, became companions of them that were used in such sort. For you both had compassion on them that were in bands, and took with joy the being stripped of your own goods, knowing that you have a better and a lasting substance. Do not therefore lose your confidence, which hath a great reward. For patience is necessary for you, that, doing the will of God, you may receive the promise. For yet a little and a very little while, and he that is to come will come, and will not delay. By these last words the Apostle foretells the imminent destruction, desolation, and most mournful overthrow of the city of Jerusalem, of the temple, and of the altar, which befell about five years after this epistle was written. By which horrible catastrophe the predictions made by Christ were more deeply imprinted upon their minds, and confirmed that Church gathered from the first-fruits of the elect people.

I. This Christian justification, which draws the strength of its firmness from the passion of Christ, makes the evangelical yoke — which is hard from hard — sweet in itself, and renders men just, holy, happy, quiet, and constant in the observation of God's commandments.

II. Let us consult the common sense and practice of Christians. You see a man outwardly bearing the appearance of virtue and piety. You see him at the same time fallen into manifest crimes, and, no vehement occasion urging, rolling again in the mire of lust. Do you not straightway disapprove him as a hypocrite, a crafty and cunning man, a whited sepulchre? Whence this? From nothing but the inmost sense of the stability and firmness of Christian justification. You have a friend whose most chaste morals, uprightness, sincerity, equity, and justice you have certainly known over an interval of several years. He sets out to a distance. After some years an occasion offers itself of hearing something about your friend. You ask how he is, what is his manner of living. You hear that the man has become crafty, lustful, fraudulent. You refuse to believe. You accuse the reporter of calumny. He replies that the matter certainly stands so. What then? Alas, you exclaim, alas how tremendous, how fearful are the judgments of God! Truly God is terrible in his counsels over the sons of men. Whence, I pray, so great an astonishment and so great a repugnance to believing a change in a just man? Assuredly from nowhere else than from that inmost instinct and more deeply imprinted persuasion by which you judge Christian justification, infused through the Holy Ghost, sealed with the blood of Christ, and nourished by the food of his most sacred body, to be stable and difficult to move. For those things which are from God are firm and stable.

III. I confess that occasions can occur, and such calamities of the times and persecutions, in which the very firmer columns tremble. Justification is by its own nature stable; but the weakness of human nature is great: therefore it can be lost. But the gifts which accompany this justification restore human strength, cure infirmity, and pour fortitude into souls. Let the manner of living of Christians and Religious themselves be consulted. Those who are truly converted and just rarely fall, flee the occasions of sinning, detest the prestiges of the world, and by prayers and fasts implore divine grace. If by some sudden chance of an urgent occasion they fall, forthwith they rise again, and busy themselves to wash away the stain with most bitter tears. Just as a true and sincere friendship, which is rare among men, is frequently not violated, so a sincere friendship entered upon between God and men through sacramental justification, while it is true, is not so easily broken.

I. The characters of Christian justification, as we have seen, constitute a man just, a son of God, holy, liberal, chaste, sincere, tolerant of injuries, praying for his persecutors, meek, humble, merciful, a father of the poor, and adorned with the remaining Christian virtues. This is the image of Christian justification which the holy Scriptures depict for us, as has been shown above.

II. Utterly diverse is the image which is seen in the morals of very many Christians. We see in our age the avaricious, usurers, the lustful, prodigals, little lovers and mistresses, mimes, mime-women, dancing-women, singing-women, gamesters, perjurers, the fraudulent, the effeminate, adulterers, frequenting the sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist twice or four times a year. What amendment of morals? None. Apostolic ministers run through the provinces, exercising what are called sacred missions. Great crowds of every state run together in multitudes: struck with fear of the hellish furnace, they lay down the bundle of their outrages, they confess, they are absolved, they communicate. The missionaries have set out on their way, and they resume the course of their past life, and heap up crimes anew for the coming year. The same habits, lusts, usuries, frauds, lies, adulteries, perjuries, injustices. And this circle of confessions and relapses comprehends almost the whole of life. Out of so great a multitude of penitents scarcely five in a thousand give signs of true Christian justification and bring forth its fruits. This is visible and known to all.

III. But whence, you say, comes it that spectres of feigned justifications of this kind bring in no terror? Whence, that confessors administer the sacraments to those feigned Christians? Whence, that the Christians themselves, conscious of their own affairs, do not recognize their confessions to be sacrilegious? Do they not themselves hold it well understood that covenants of friendship sincerely and constantly entered upon are not easily violated? Whence therefore so horrid a hallucination? Whence so monstrous a deception?

IV. From that torrent of human custom, replies St. Augustine; from that universal prevailing habit which carries away with it sometimes even the wise, unless they diligently watch and strenuously fight. From that, finally, MIDDLE WAY which has been brought in for the forming of morals, as also for the loving of the divine decrees, says the most learned Bishop of Palmi. Two ways only did Christ lay open: one narrow and strait, the other broad and spacious. Of the former way the walkers are few, on Christ's own testimony; of the latter, many. A new middle way, devised by men and assuredly not by God, comprehends an immense multitude of Christians. The Christians of this way nourish the body sumptuously, soothe the senses, indulge in pleasure and enticements, dances, theatres, comedies, and the delights of the world: they wish to have their own little matrons and their honourable-seeming mistresses, with whom they may converse, feast, and jest. Fasts, disciplines, and hair-shirts they shudder at. They utterly refuse to restrain the impulses of concupiscence, of ambition, and of pride, and to press down the goads of the flesh. Yet, that they may distinguish themselves from wicked, dishonest, and obstinate sinners, who with loosened reins and mask laid aside run through the broad and spacious way, they recite their little prayers, read pious books, frequent the churches, and approach the sacraments on the more solemn feasts of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin. This middle way encloses in our age a greater multitude of sinners than of old the broad and spacious way described by the Gospel. Since this broad way leads to perdition. But the new middle way joins in one pagan morals and the reward of the eternal kingdom; the sacraments of Christ and the pleasures of the world; mire and darkness; good and evil. But this middle way is more seductive than the broad way. Those who tread the latter know that they are sinners, and do not approach the sacraments unless they first forsake it. But in very truth the walkers of the middle way reckon themselves happy, and think that by this way lovers, mistresses, mimes, mime-women, dancing-women and harp-players, and all the rest who frequent the sacraments, can arrive at the eternal kingdom.

V. The most learned John Morinus, Book 9, chapter 34, declares that these three ways obtained among the Jews also, in these words: “It is a celebrated saying of the Jews, more recent and ancient, that there are three kinds of men: the perfectly just, the perfectly wicked, and the intermediate; that God has three books: in the first the perfectly just are described; in the second the perfectly wicked; in the last the intermediate. That God at the beginning of the year examines the actions of all men in a solemn judgment; that the perfectly just are then at once inscribed in the first book, the evil in the second, but that the judgment of the intermediate is suspended to the tenth day of the month: if they shall have performed a perfect penance, they are to be numbered with the just; if not, with the wicked.”

VI. Moreover, as their way is a middle one, so their justification is a middle one. The middle way is new, therefore not evangelical but worldly. Similarly their justification is a middle one, is new, is not infused by Christ Jesus, not by God, but feigned by men. To the fashioning of a fictitious justification the malice of men has compelled. Certain ministers of the sacraments, burning with zeal for the salvation of men, with a pious and holy intention, as it becomes us to think, since they could not bring men to an exact observance of the Gospel and to the reforming of morals according to the norm of the baptismal profession, busied themselves to lighten the yoke of Christ, to soften the rigour of the law, and to accommodate the evangelical norm to human appetitions, says St. Augustine on Psalm 98. For this is in men a great and most usual perversity: that whereas they themselves ought to live according to the will of God, they will that God should live according to their own will. And whereas they will not that they themselves be corrected, they will that he be depraved; reckoning right not what he wills, but what they themselves will.

VII. Behold the cause unlocked and laid open why today men do not marvel when they see Christians in this week approaching the tribunal of penance and the eucharistic table, and in the next — if not in the same — approaching also the gaming table with their little mistresses and little matrons, and dances, theatres, and comedies, and even fornicating and committing adultery, either by ear, or by eye, or by touch, and frequenting all the prestiges of the world; and again the tribunals of penance; and again the company of lovers and mistresses, where they woo and are wooed, love and are loved, touch and are touched, look and are looked upon, gape and are gaped at, sigh and are sighed for. Are these the fruits of divine justification? Are these the sons of God? Do these conform their life and morals to the exemplar of Christ? Christians are not moved by this spectre of justification, by this covenant of sacraments and sacrileges. Why? Because from infancy they have been accustomed to see this perpetual circle of sacraments and relapses: because they reckon it enough to confess their sins with the least penances, although no amendment follow, although they perpetually roll and roll again in the mire of lust, like swine. They are confirmed in this persuasion by the authority of not a few casuists and confessors. These cry out with voice and writings that in our age the golden centuries flourish again. When, they say, was there so great a frequenting of the sacraments, so great a concourse to the temples, so splendid a worship, so magnificent an apparatus, so great a multitude of Sacrifices, so great a variety of song, of melody, of devotions?

VIII. But if it be replied: When were morals more dissolute? When so many profanations of temples? When were the patrimonies of the poor and of Christ more prodigally squandered upon dogs, upon horses, upon pomps and luxury? When at last have impiety and incredulity more boldly assailed Religion? — if this be cried out, straightway they retort: so croak the Rigorists, cruel, savage, unmerciful, gloomy, always murmuring against the most flourishing discipline of our age.

IX. Behold one of the causes why Christians are not moved by the unstable and fluid justification of the morals of very many Christians of our age. Very many moral doctors inveigh against theologians who inculcate upon penitents that they should chiefly grieve for that sin to which they are greatly addicted, and that they should conceive a firm and constant purpose of not sinning thereafter, as we shall presently see more clearly. And that I may reduce you to a standstill, reader, turn over very many books of the casuists which are chiefly worn by all men's hands: search severely where the true image of Christian justification is depicted according to the exemplar which the holy Scriptures propose. Inquire where its lofty effects, its characters, its most splendid prerogatives are described. In the books of which casuists will you find these things? In Gobat, in Tamburini, in Diana, in Viva, in La Croix, in Caramuel, in Leander, in Sporer, in Burgaber, in Bonacina? You will find on the contrary innumerable little distinctions, sophisms, and disagreements by which the true image of Christian justification is obscured. So it seems to my weakness. Whether I myself am deceived and deluded, let the wise be judges. For I do not set myself up as a censor, but what seem true to my littleness I submit to the judgment of the wise.

X. What wonder therefore if Christians, and still less if confessors themselves, brought up in these prejudices, should reckon that divine justification, by its own nature stable and firm, is set in this perpetual circle of confessions and relapses, in this succession of dinners and of sacraments? They see from their very cradles not a few ministers of God admitting to the sacraments Christians who, though they confess several times a year, nevertheless, as if they did not confess, indulge in luxury, immodest pomps, games, usury, ambition, and the pleasures of a raving world. They cry out besides: What? Shall the ministers of God deceive us? Is this discipline of confederating a frequenting of the sacraments with the recounted solaces and enticements of the world, propped by the authority of so many pious, grave, and upright men, to be reputed vicious and corrupt? Great, cries St. Augustine, will be the temptation. By this very temptation the Christians of the Church of Jerusalem were harassed and wavered; but St. Paul confirmed and strengthened them. St. Augustine testifies that he suffered most grave persecutions, that he might snatch the Christians of his time from error, because our adversaries, opining otherwise, kept them firm and constant in a sweet and kindly habit of living. Nor on that account did the most holy Doctor cease to cry out: On account of the morals of men who by their crooked seductions and depraved customs cease not to bring troublesome care upon us for you, we cannot keep silence. Sermon 157. Even from that time the possession of one's own liberty was opposed to the controverted mandates of the divine law, although not curled with the paint of Probabilism. There are some, says St. Augustine, or the author of sermon 4 to the Brethren in the Wilderness, who will to live by the spirit of liberty; and if they be reproved by anyone, they bark like dogs, they bite like serpents, they grieve like women in travail, calling evil good and good evil, false true and true false.

XI. Paul, I ask and beseech you, Paul the trumpet of the Holy Ghost hear; Paul read; the Gospel of Christ seriously meditate, if you love your inward salvation. Prick up your ears, that the doctrine of Paul concerning justification may cleave engraven in your hearts. The justification which Paul teaches is constant, firm, and stable. But to new Doctors, if dissenting from Paul they glory in the frequenting of the sacraments and in a painted splendour of devotion, answer with St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 5: Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened. … Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. … But now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of idols, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such an one not so much as to eat. Will certain new casuists perchance say: The common opinion of the Doctors teaches the opposite? This discipline has grown obsolete, and other things of that kind?