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a justified soul :
"
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 261
Behold the lamb of God, behold him who
" Be penitent,
taketh away the sins of the world" (John, i, 29) ;
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out"
(Acts,
iii, 19) ;
" He
will cast all our sing into the bottom of the
sea" (Micheas, vii, 19) ; "So also Christ was offered once, to
exhaust the sins of many" (Heb. ix, 28). Now that which is
taken away, which is blotted out, which is annihilated, we
cannot say exists any longer. We are also taught that the
justified
soul is cleansed and delivered from its sins :
" Thou
shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed, thou shalt
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" (Psalm 1, 9) ;
" You
shall be cleansed from all your filthiness" (Ezech. xxxvi, 25) ;
" And
such some of you were, but you are washed, but you are
sanctified, but you are justified" (I. Cor. vi, 11) ;
" But
now being
made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your
fruit unto sanctification" (Rom. vi, 22). It is on this account
that Baptism, by which sin is remitted, is called regeneration and
renovation :
" He
saved us by the laws of regeneration and re
novation of the Holy Ghost" (Tit. iii, 5) ;
"
Unless a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John, iii, 3). The
sinner, therefore, when he is justified, is generated again, and
re-born to Grace, so that he is changed in all, and renovated from
what he was before.
"
31. How is it, then, that David says our sins are covered?
Blessed are they whose sins are covered." St. Augustin, ex
plaining this Psalm says, that wounds may be covered both by
the sufferer and the physician ; the sufferer himself only covers
them, but the physician both covers them with a plaister and heals
them : "Si tu tegere volueris erabescens (says the Saint) Medicus
non sanabit ; Medicus tegat, et curet." Our sins, by
the infusion
of Grace, are covered at the same time and healed, but the here
tical opinion is, that they are covered, but not healed ; they
are covered only inasmuch as God does not impute them to the
sinner. If sins remained in the soul as far as the fault was
concerned should not God impute them to us ? God judges ac
cording
to truth :
" For
we know the judgment of God is ac
cording to truth" (Rom. ii, 2) ; but how could God judge according
to the truth, judging that man not to be culpable, who is in reality
culpable ? These are truly some of Calvin s mysteries which