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266 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
pardon,
unless he is also certain of contrition ? Luther himself
had previously said (2) :
" No
one can be sure of the truth of his
contrition, and much less of pardon." This is the way with all
heretics ; they are continually contradicting themselves. Besides,
in this passage the Apostle is not speaking of justification, but of
the miracles which the Corinthians should believe were wrought
by God.
38. The Council of Trent (Sess. vi, cap. 9), teaches, that
although every one ought to be certain of the Divine Mercy, of
the merits of Christ, and of the power of the Sacraments, still
no one can bo certain of the remission of his sins as a matter of
Faith, and in the 13th Canon condemns all who assert the con
trary :
"
Si quis dixerit, omni homini ad remissionem peccatorum
assequendam necessarium esse, ut credat certo, et absque ulla
haisitatione propriae intirmitatis, et indispositionis peccata sibi
esse remissa : anathema sit." And this is proved by the Scrip
tures likewise :
" Man
knoweth not whether he be worthy of
love or hatred, but all things are kept uncertain for the time to
come" (Eccles. ix, 1, 2). Calvin (3) objects
that this text does not
allude to the state of a soul in grace or anger with God, but to
the prosperous or adverse circumstances which happen in this
life, as by those temporal accidents we cannot know whether God
loves or hates us, since prosperity and adversity are the portions
of good and bad alike ; but, on the other hand, he says man can
very well know whether he is just or unjust,
if he knows that he
has or has not Faith. But we answer, that this text does
not speak of temporal things, but of the love or hatred with
which God looks on the state of the soul, and, therefore, it says,
"
all things are kept uncertain for the time to come." If, there
fore, in this life all things are
"
kept uncertain," then what our
adversaries say cannot be the fact, that man, by the knowledge
of his Faith, can be certain that he is in a state of Grace.
39. God, besides, admonishes us that we should be afraid even
of the sin forgiven already : "Bo not without fear about sin for
given" (Eccles. v, 5). The Innovators quote the Greek text here,
which says not forgiven, but forgiveness, and that, they say,
means that we should not presume that the sins not yet com-
(2) Luther Serm. de Iiululg. t. 1, (3) Calvin, Instit, /. 3, c. 2, s. 38.
p. 30.