XXVII. And here two things demand our consideration—that the honour, which belongs to Christ, should be preserved to him entire and undiminished; and that consciences assured of the pardon of their sins, should have peace with God. Isaiah says, “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,” and “With his stripes we are healed.”[1738] Peter, repeating the same truth in different words, says, that Christ “bare our sins in his own body on the tree.”[1739] Paul informs us, that “sin was condemned in the flesh,”[1740] when “Christ was made sin for us;”[1741] that is, that the power and curse of sin were destroyed in his flesh, when he was given as a victim, to sustain the whole load of our sins, with their curse and execrations, with the dreadful judgment of God, and the condemnation of death. We cannot here listen to those foolish fictions; that after the initial purgation or baptism, none of us can have any further experience of the efficacy of the sufferings of [pg 587] Christ, than in proportion to a satisfactory repentance. But whenever we have fallen, the Scripture recalls us to the satisfaction of Christ alone. Now, review their pestilent follies; “that the grace of God operates alone in the first remission of sins; but that if we afterwards fall, our works coöperate with it in the impetration of a second pardon.” If these things be admitted, does Christ remain exclusively possessed of what we have before attributed to him? How immensely wide is the difference between these positions—that our iniquities are laid on Christ to be expiated by him, and that they are expiated by our own works! that Christ is the propitiation for our sins, and that God must be propitiated by works! But with respect to pacifying the conscience, what peace will it afford any one, to hear that sins are redeemed by satisfactions? When will he be assured of the accomplishment of satisfaction? Therefore he will always doubt whether God be propitious to him, he will always be in a state of fluctuation and terror. For those who content themselves with trivial satisfactions, have too contemptuous sentiments of the judgment of God, and reflect very little on the vast evil of sin, as we shall elsewhere observe. But though we should allow them to expiate some sins by a proper satisfaction, yet what will they do when they are overwhelmed with so many sins, that to make adequate satisfactions for them, even a hundred lives entirely devoted to it could not possibly be sufficient? Besides, all the passages in which remission of sins is declared, are not addressed to catechumens, [or persons not yet baptized,] but to the regenerated sons of God, and those who have been long nurtured in the bosom of the Church. That embassy which Paul so splendidly extols, “We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God,”[1742] is directed not to strangers, but to those who had already been regenerated. But, dismissing all satisfactions, he sends them to the cross of Christ. Thus, when he writes to the Colossians, that “Christ had made peace by the blood of his cross, and reconciled all things both in earth and in heaven,”[1743] he restricts not this to the moment of our reception into the Church, but extends it through our whole course; as is evident from the context, where he says that believers “have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” But it is unnecessary to accumulate more passages, which are frequently occurring.
XXVIII. Here they take refuge in a foolish distinction, that some sins are venial, and some mortal; that a great satisfaction is due for mortal sins; but that those which are venial are purged away by easier remedies, by the Lord's prayer, the [pg 588] aspersion of holy water, and the absolution of the mass. Thus they sport and trifle with God. But though they are incessantly talking of venial and mortal sins, yet they have never been able to discriminate one from the other, except by making impiety and impurity of heart a venial sin. But we maintain, according to the doctrine of the Scripture, the only standard of righteousness and sin, that “the wages of sin is death,” and “the soul that sinneth, it shall die;”[1744] but that the sins of believers are venial, not because they are not deserving of death, but because, through the mercy of God, “there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus;”[1745] because they are not imputed to them, but obliterated by a pardon. I know their unjust calumnies against this doctrine of ours; they assert it to be the Stoical paradox concerning the equality of sins; but they will easily be refuted out of their own lips. For I ask, whether among those very sins which they confess to be mortal, they do not acknowledge one to be greater or less than another? It does not, therefore, immediately follow, that sins are equal because they are alike mortal. Since the Scripture declares that the wages of sin is death, that obedience to the law is the way of life, and the transgression of it death, they cannot evade this decision. What end, then, will they find to satisfactions in so great an accumulation of sins? If it be the business of one day to satisfy for one sin, while they are employed in that, they involve themselves in more; for the most righteous man cannot pass a single day without falling several times. While they shall be preparing themselves to make satisfaction for these, they will accumulate a numerous, or rather an innumerable multitude. Now, all confidence in satisfaction is cut off: on what do they depend? How do they still presume to think of making satisfaction?
XXIX. They endeavour to extricate themselves from this difficulty, but without success. They invent a distinction between the guilt and the punishment; and acknowledge that the guilt is forgiven by the Divine mercy, but maintain, that after the remission of the guilt, there still remains the punishment, which the Divine justice requires to be suffered; and, therefore, that satisfactions properly relate to the remission of the punishment. What desultory levity is this! Now, they confess that remission of guilt is proposed as gratuitous, which they are continually teaching men to merit by prayers and tears, and other preparations of various kinds. But every thing delivered in the Scripture concerning remission of sins is diametrically opposite to this distinction. And though I think I have fully established this point already, I will subjoin some [pg 589] additional testimonies, by which our opponents will be so much embarrassed, as, notwithstanding all their serpentine lubricity, to be totally unable ever to extricate themselves. “This is the new covenant,” which God has made with us in Christ, “that he will not remember our iniquities.”[1746] The import of these expressions we learn from another prophet, by whom the Lord says, “When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned. When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”[1747] “Not to mention righteousness,” signifies, not to notice it so as to reward it; and “not to remember sins,” is, not to inflict punishment for them. This is expressed in other passages by the following phrases: to “cast behind the back,” to “blot out as a cloud,” to “cast into the depths of the sea,” “not to impute,” to “cover.”[1748] These forms of expression would clearly convey to us the sense of the Holy Spirit, if we attended to them with docility. If God punishes sins, he certainly imputes them; if he avenges them, he remembers them; if he cites them to judgment, he does not cover them; if he examines them, he has not cast them behind his back; if he inspects them, he has not blotted them out as a cloud; if he scrutinizes them, he has not cast them into the depths of the sea. And in this manner the subject is clearly explained by Augustine. “If God has covered sins, he would not look at them; if he would not look at them, he would not take cognizance of them; if he would not take cognizance of them, he would not punish them; he would not know them, he would rather forgive them. Why, then, has he said that sins are covered? That they might not be seen. For what is meant by God's seeing sin, but his punishing it?” Let us also hear from another passage of the prophet, on what conditions God remits sins. “Though your sins be as scarlet, (says he,) they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”[1749] And in Jeremiah we find this declaration: “In that time the iniquities of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found; for I will pardon them whom I reserve.”[1750] Would you briefly know what is the meaning of these words? Consider, on the contrary, the import of the following expressions: “the Lord seweth up iniquity in a bag;” “iniquity is bound up;” “sin is hid;” to “write sins with a pen of iron, and engrave them with the point of a diamond.”[1751] If they signify [pg 590] that God will execute vengeance, as they undoubtedly do, neither can it be doubted but that, by the contrary declaration, the Lord proclaims his remission of all vindictive punishment. Here I must conjure my readers not to listen to my expositions, but only to pay some deference to the word of God.
XXX. What would Christ have done for us, if punishment for sins were still inflicted on us? For when we say, that he “bare all our sins in his own body on the tree,”[1752] we intend only, that he sustained the vindictive punishment which was due to our sins. This sentiment is more significantly expressed by Isaiah, when he says that the “chastisement (or correction) of our peace was upon him.”[1753] Now, what is the correction of our peace, but the punishment due to sins, and which we must have suffered before we could be reconciled to God, if he had not become our substitute? Thus we see clearly, that Christ bore the punishment of sins, that he might deliver his people from it. And whenever Paul mentions the redemption accomplished by him, he generally calls it ἀπολυτρωσις,[1754] which signifies not simply redemption, as it is commonly understood, but the price and satisfaction of redemption. Thus he says that Christ “gave himself a ransom” (αντιλυτρον) for us.[1755] “What propitiation is there with the Lord (says Augustine) but sacrifice? And what sacrifice is there, but that which has been offered for us in the death of Christ?” But the institutions of the law of Moses, respecting expiations for sins, furnish us with a most powerful argument. For there the Lord prescribes not this or the other method of satisfying, but requires the whole compensation in sacrifices; though he specifies all the rites of expiation with the most particular care, and in the most exact order. How is it that he commands the expiation of sins without any works at all, requiring no other atonement than by sacrifices, but because he intends in this way to declare, that there is only one kind of satisfaction by which his justice is appeased? For the sacrifices then immolated by the Israelites were not considered as the works of men, but were estimated according to their antitype, that is, the one sacrifice of Christ alone. The nature of the compensation which the Lord receives from us is concisely and beautifully expressed by Hosea: “Take away (saith he) all iniquity, O Lord;” here is remission of sins; “so will we render the calves of our lips;”[1756] here is satisfaction, [which is no other than thanksgiving.] I am aware of another still more subtle evasion to which they resort, by distinguishing between eternal punishments and those which are temporal. But when [pg 591] they assert that temporal punishment is any suffering inflicted by God on the body or the soul, eternal death only excepted, this limitation affords them but little assistance. For the passages which we have cited above, expressly signify, that God receives us into favour on this condition, that in forgiving our guilt, he remits all the punishment that we had deserved. And whenever David or the other prophets implore the pardon of their sins, they at the same time deprecate the punishment; and to this they are impelled by an apprehension of the Divine judgment. Again: when they promise mercy from the Lord, they almost always professedly speak of punishments, and of the remission of them. Certainly when the Lord announces by Ezekiel, that he will put an end to the Babylonian captivity, and that for his own sake, not for the sake of the Jews, he sufficiently shows this deliverance to be gratuitous. Finally, if Christ delivers us from guilt, the punishments consequent upon it must necessarily cease.
XXXI. But as our adversaries also, on their part, arm themselves with testimonies from the Scripture, let us examine what arguments they offer. They reason in this way: David, after having been reproved by Nathan the prophet for adultery and murder, receives the pardon of his sin; and yet is afterwards punished by the death of the son that was the fruit of his adultery.[1757] We are taught to compensate by satisfactions for such punishments as would be inflicted even after the remission of the guilt. For Daniel exhorted Nebuchadnezzar to atone for his sins by acts of mercy.[1758] And Solomon says, “By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged.”[1759] And that “charity shall cover a multitude of sins,”[1760] is a sentiment confirmed by the united testimony of Solomon and Peter. The Lord also says in Luke, concerning the woman that had been a sinner, “Her sins are forgiven; for she loved much.”[1761] How perversely and preposterously they always estimate the Divine proceedings! But if they had observed, what should by no means have been overlooked, that there are two kinds of Divine judgment, they would have seen, in this correction of David, a species of punishment very different from that which may be considered as vindictive. But since it highly concerns us all to understand the design of those chastisements with which God corrects our sins, and how greatly they differ from the examples of his indignation pursuing the impious and reprobate, I conceive it will not be unseasonable to give a summary account of them. For the sake of perspicuity, let us call one vengeance, or vindictive judgment, and the other [pg 592] chastisement, or disciplinary judgment. In vindictive judgment, God is to be contemplated as taking vengeance on his enemies, so as to exert his wrath against them, to confound, dissipate, and reduce them to nothing. We consider it, therefore, strictly speaking, to be the vengeance of God, when the punishment he inflicts is attended with his indignation. In disciplinary judgment, he is not so severe as to be angry; nor does he punish in order to destroy or precipitate into perdition. Wherefore, it is not properly punishment or vengeance, but correction and admonition. The former is the part of a judge, the latter of a father. For a judge, when he punishes an offender, attends to the crime itself, and inflicts punishment according to the nature and aggravations of it. When a father corrects his child with severity, he does it not to take vengeance or satisfaction, but rather to teach him, and render him more cautious for the future. Chrysostom somewhere uses a comparison a little different, which, nevertheless, comes to the same point. “A son (says he) is beaten; a servant also is beaten; but the latter is punished as a slave, because he has transgressed; the former is chastised as free and a son, that needs to be disciplined.” Correction serves to the latter for a probation and reformation, to the former for a scourge and a punishment.
XXXII. To obtain a clear view of the whole subject in a small compass, it is necessary to state two distinctions respecting it. The first is, that wherever there is vindictive punishment, there also is a manifestation of the curse and wrath of God, which he always withholds from believers. Chastisement, on the contrary, is, as the Scripture teaches us, both a blessing of God, and a testimony of his love. This difference is sufficiently marked in every part of the Divine word. For all the afflictions which the impious endure in the present life, are represented to us as constituting a kind of antechamber of hell, whence they already have a distant prospect of their eternal damnation; and they are so far from being reformed, or receiving any benefit from this, that they are rather prepared by such preludes for that most tremendous vengeance which finally awaits them. On the contrary, the Lord repeatedly chastises his servants, yet does not deliver them over to death;[1762] wherefore they confess that the strokes of his rod were highly beneficial and instructive to them. As we every where find that the saints bore these corrections with resignation of soul, so they always earnestly deprecated punishments of the former kind. Jeremiah says, “O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. Pour out [pg 593] thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not upon thy name.”[1763] And David: “O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.”[1764] Nor is it any objection to this, that the Lord is frequently said to be angry with his saints, when he chastises them for their sins. As in Isaiah: “O Lord, I will praise thee; though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.”[1765] Habakkuk also: “In wrath remember mercy.”[1766] And Micah: “I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him.”[1767] Which reminds us, not only that those who are justly punished, receive no advantage from murmuring, but that the faithful derive a mitigation of their sorrow from a consideration of the intention of God. For on the same account he is said to profane his own inheritance, which, however, we know, he never will profane.[1768] That relates not to the design or disposition of God in punishing, but to the vehement sense of sorrow experienced by those who suffer any of his severity. He not only distresses his believing people with no small degree of rigour, but sometimes wounds them in such a manner, that they seem to themselves to be on the brink of infernal destruction. Thus he declares, that they have deserved his wrath; and this in order that they may be displeased with themselves in their distresses, may be influenced by a greater concern to appease God, and may hasten with solicitude to implore his pardon; but in this very procedure he exhibits a brighter testimony of his clemency than of his wrath. The covenant still remains which was made with us in our true Solomon, and the validity of which he, who cannot deceive, has declared shall never be diminished: “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my commandments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him.”[1769] To assure us of this loving-kindness, he says, that the rod with which he will chastise the posterity of Solomon, and the stripes he will inflict on them, will be “the rod of men, and the stripes of the children of men.”[1770] While by these phrases he signifies moderation and lenity, he also implies that those who feel his hand 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 [pg 594] 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 [pg 595] 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 [pg 596] 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 [pg 597] 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 [pg 598] 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 [pg 599] 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]