The text before us therefore exactly applies to our doctrine concerning justification, that a man must be righteous before all works and be accepted of God without any works, through that grace alone which his faith believes and apprehends. Nor does even faith justify, as a work, but because it apprehends the mercy shown forth in Christ. It is in this trust in the mercy of God that the true Church walks, with a humble confession of her sins and unworthiness, while she believes that God will pardon her through Christ.
And now the works which follow upon this trust in God's mercy are as it were evidences and testimonies of the man's faith; and they please God, not on account of themselves, but on account of the faith of the person who offers them; or because he believes in the mercy of God toward him. This faith the other church, the Cainite church, not only has not, but ever persecutes it where she finds it. For she on the contrary, like Cain, sets it down for a certainty that she shall please God on account of her works. But God hates this pride; for he can not endure such contempt of his grace and mercy, etc. This passage of Scripture therefore is worthy our most careful consideration.
PART III. CAIN'S CONDUCT UPON THE REJECTION OF HIS OFFERING AND HIS PUNISHMENT.
I. V. 5b. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
This and the few following clauses will give us a little grammatical trouble. But I hope we shall make our way out of the difficulty successfully. We have heard that Cain was disappointed in his hope. He had despised his brother in comparison with himself, and had judged that on account of the right of his primogeniture he should hold the first place with God as he had done with his parents. The judgment of God however was quite different from that of men. He showed that he approved Abel, but rejected Cain.
The result was therefore that Cain was violently enraged against his brother. For he could not endure with any patience that he should be thus rejected and excommunicated, and deprived also at the same time of his rule and priesthood. Just in the same manner also we see kings and princes to be utterly impatient of the judgment of the Church. For they are not satisfied with being kings and princes, they want to be accounted also righteous and saints before God; and they will take to themselves the name of "the Church." Exactly like these, Cain was filled with indignation when he saw that the honor of righteousness and grace before God was taken from him. For what else was this than being cast out of the Church and excommunicated? And his indignation at this dishonor was the greater in proportion to the measure in which he judged himself degraded beneath his brother. For his thoughts were these: "My brother will assuredly aspire to the headship and rule, since he sees me thus despised and disregarded of God." And hence it is that Moses uses the adverb "very wroth," by which form of expression he would signify that Cain was vehemently offended because he was thus ignominiously confounded in public before his whole family; whereas he had always wished to appear the first among them.
This Cain-like wrath is just that rage which we see also in the Cain-like Church of the pope. For what is there which gives the pope, the cardinals, the kings and the princes greater offense than that I, a poor beggar, set the authority of God above the authority of them all, and that I condemn in the name of the Lord all those things which are worthy such condemnation. They themselves also acknowledge that there are many things which need rigid reformation. But that I, a poor, obscure person, coming into public out of some obscure corner, should presume to do this, is a thing which they consider to be beyond all endurance. And therefore they put forth all their authority against me and by the weight of that authority they attempt to crush us.
And most certainly there is not in the whole world a wrath more cruel than that of this Church of hypocrisy and blood. For in all political or civil rage there is some degree of humanity still left. No assassin is led to execution, however savage his nature may be, with pity for whom men are not in some measure touched. But when that false and blood-thirsting Church falls upon a poor son of the true Church, she is not satisfied with shedding his blood; she loads him also with her curses and execrations, and devotes him to every ignominy and insult, and even vents her rage upon his miserable, breathless corpse. Just like the Jews, who were not content with having nailed Christ to the cross, with the full purpose of not taking him down till he was dead, but even while he was breathing out the last breath of his soul they gave him in his thirst vinegar to drink mingled with gall. Such fury as this is never found in political wrath!
The wrath therefore and the pharasaic fury of the false Church is a fury in its very nature diabolical. This wrath began in Cain, and it continues in all Cainites to this very day. And we can most truly glory that we also have to endure with godly Abel, just such wrath as this in our day. For who entertains a doubt, that if our bishops and certain furious princes could do it, they would slaughter us all in one moment? Who doubts that, if according to the prayers of the notorious Roman emperor, we all together had but one neck, they would with the greatest delight rush upon us sword in hand and cut off our head? Only look at the councils of these later years and their designs, and you will say that my testimony is true.