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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 269
Such, then, is the gratitude these Reformers show to Jesus
Christ. They avail themselves for the death he suffered for love
of us, to involve themselves more and more in crime, trusting
that, through his merits, God will not impute their sins to them.
So Jesus Christ, then, has died, that men may have leave to do
whatever they please, without fear of punishment. If such,
however, was the fact, why did God promulgate his laws make
so many promises to those who observe them and threaten
those who violate them ? God, however, never deceives us when
he speaks to us ; he wishes that the commandments he imposes
on us should be exactly observed
" Thou
hast commanded thy
commandments to be kept most diligently" (Psalm cxviii, 4)
and condemns those who offend against his laws
" Thou
hast
despised all those that fall off from thy judgments (Psalm cxviii,
118). It is thus that fear is useful : the fear of losing the Divine
Grace, which makes us cautiously avoid the occasions of sin, and
adopt the means of perseverance in a good life, such as frequent
ing the Sacraments, and praying continually.
44. Calvin says that, according to St. Paul, the gifts of God
are irrevocable, and given to us without : penance
" The gifts
and calling of God are without repentance" (Romans, xi, 29).
Whosoever, therefore, he says, has received the Faith, and,
with the Faith, Grace, to which eternal salvation is united, as
these are perpetual gifts, they never can be lost ; and thus the
faithful man, though he may fall into sin, will always be in pos
session of that justice, which is given him by Faith. Here,
had Faith he fell
however, we ask a question. David, surely,
into the sins of murder and adultery ; now, I ask, when David
was in sin, before his repentance, was he a sinner or a just man?
if he died in that state would he be damned or not ? No one, I
believe, will be bold enough to assert, that he could be saved in
that state. In that state, then, he was no longer just, as he him
self, after his conversion, confessed
therefore, he prayed to God, to cancel his sins
"
I know ;" my iniquity and,
"
Blot out my
iniquity" (Psalm 1, 2). It will not do to say that he who is
predestined may consider himself just in the meantime, since he
will do penance for his sins before he dies; that will not do, I
assert, because future penance cannot make the sinner just, when