XVI. ON CHRIST

1. QUERIES. -- After the entrance of sin into the world, was there no other remedy for the expiation of sin, or of rendering satisfaction to God, than through the death of the Son of God,

2. Had the human nature in Christ any other thing, than substance alone, immediately from the LOGOS, that is, without the intervention of the Holy Spirit,

3. Have the holy conception of Christ through the Holy Ghost, and his birth from the Virgin Mary, this tendency -- to cover the corruption of our nature lest it should come into the sight of God,

4. Does the holy life of Christ, in which he fulfilled all righteousness according to the prescript of the moral law concerning the love of God and of our neighbour, conduce only to this purpose -- that Christ may be a pure and innocent High Priest and an uncontaminated victim, But was it not like-wise for this purpose -- that this righteousness [of the holy life of Christ] may be our righteousness before God, and by this means performed by him for us, that is, in our name and in our stead,

5. Do those things which Christ suffered prior to his being placed before the tribunal of Pilate, concur with those which he afterwards endured, for the purging away and expiation of sins, and the redemption and reconciliation of sinners with God?

6. Was the oblation by which Christ offered himself to the Father as a victim for sin, so made on the cross that he has not offered himself and his blood to his Father in Heaven,

7. Is not the oblation by which Christ presents himself to his Father in heaven sprinkled with his own blood, a perpetual and continuous act, on which intercession rests or depends?

8. Is not the redemption which has been obtained by the blood of Christ, common to every man in particular, according to the love and affection of God by which he gave his Son for the world, though, according to the peremptory decree concerning the salvation of believers alone, it belongs only to some men?

XVII. ON THE VOCATION OF SINNERS TO COMMUNION WITH CHRIST, AND TO A PARTICIPATION OF HIS BENEFITS

1. Sinful man, after the perpetration of sin, has such a knowledge of the law as is sufficient for accusing, convicting, and condemning him; and this knowledge itself is capable of being employed by God when calling him to Christ, that he may, through it, compel man to repent and to flee to Christ.

2. An unregenerate man is capable of omitting more evil external works than he omits, and can perform more outward works which have been commanded by God than he actually performs; that is, it is possible for him to rule his inducements for abstaining in another and a better manner than that in which he does rule them; although if he were to do so, he would merit nothing by that deed.

3. The distribution of vocation into internal and external, is not the distribution of a genus into its species, or of a whole into its parts.

4. Internal vocation is granted even to those who do not comply with the call.

5. All unregenerate persons have freedom of will, and a capability of resisting the Holy Spirit, of rejecting the proffered grace of God, of despising the counsel of God against themselves, of refusing to accept the gospel of grace, and of not opening to Him who knocks at the door of the heart; and these things they can actually do, without any difference of the elect and of the reprobate.

6. Whomsoever God calls, he calls them seriously, with a will desirous of their repentance and salvation. Neither is there any volition of God about or concerning those whom he calls as being uniformly considered, that is, either affirmatively or negatively contrary to this will.

7. God is not bound to employ all the modes which are possible to him for the salvation of all men. He has performed his part, when he has employed either one or more of these possible means for saving.

8. "That man should be rendered inexcusable," is neither the proximate end, nor that which was intended by God, to the divine vocation when it is first made and has not been repulsed.

9. The doctrine which is manifested only for the purpose of rendering those who hear it inexcusable, cannot render them inexcusable either by right or by efficacy.

10. The right of God -- by which he can require faith in Christ from those who do not possess the capability of believing in him, and on whom he refuses to bestow the grace which is necessary and sufficient for believing, without any demerit on account of grace repulsed -- does not rest or depend on the fact that God gave to Adam, in his primeval state, and in him to all men, the capability of believing in Christ.

11. The right of God -- by which he can condemn those who reject the gospel of grace, and by which he actually condemns the disobedient -- does not rest or depend on this fact, that all men have, by their own fault, lost the capability of believing which they received in Adam.

12. Sufficient grace must necessarily be laid down; yet this sufficient grace, through the fault of him to whom it is granted, does not [always] obtain its effect. Were the fact otherwise, the justice of God could not be defended in his condemning those who do not believe.

13. The efficacy of saving grace is not consistent with that omnipotent act of God, by which he so inwardly acts in the heart and mind of man, that he on whom that act is impressed cannot do otherwise than consent to God who calls him; or, which is the same thing, grace is not an irresistible force.

14. QUERY. -- Are efficacious and sufficient grace correctly distinguished according to a congruous or suitable vocation and one that is incongruous, so that it may be called efficacious grace, which God employs according to his purpose of absolutely saving some particular man, as he knows it to be congruous or suitable that this man should be moved and persuaded to obedience; and so that it may be called sufficient grace which he employs, not for such a purpose, though, from his general love towards all mankind, some are affected or moved by it, on whom, by a peremptory decree, he had resolved not to have mercy?

15. The efficacy which is distinguished from efficiency itself, seems not to differ at all from sufficiency.

16. Those who are obedient to the vocation or call of God, freely yield their assent to grace; yet they are previously excited, impelled, drawn and assisted by grace; and in the very moment in which they actually assent, they possess the capability of not assenting.

17. In the very commencement of his conversion, man conducts himself in a purely passive manner; that is, though, by a vital act, that is, by feeling, he has a perception of the grace which calls him, yet he can do no other than receive it and feel it. But, when he feels grace affecting or inclining his mind and heart, he freely assents to it, so that he is able at the same time to withhold his assent.

XVIII. ON PENITENCE

1. The doctrine concerning repentance is not legal but evangelical; that is, it appertains to the gospel and not to the law, although the law solicits and impels to repentance.

2. The knowledge or confession of sins, sorrow on account of sin and a desire for deliverance, with a resolution to avoid sin, are pleasing to God as the very beginnings of conversion.

3. In propriety of speech, these things are not the mortification itself of the flesh or of sin but necessarily precede it.

4. Repentance is prior to faith in Christ; but it is posterior to that faith by which we believe that God is willing to receive into his favour the penitent sinner.

5. QUERIES. -- Is the repentance of Judas properly called legal?

6. Was the penitence or repentance of the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, of which Christ speaks in Matt. xi, 21, dissembled and feigned, or true repentance?

XIX. ON FAITH

1. Justifying faith is not that by which any one believes that his sins are remitted to him for the sake of Christ; for the latter faith follows justification itself or remission of sins, which is the effect of justifying faith.

2. Justifying faith is not that by which any one believes himself to be elected.

3. All men are not bound to believe themselves to be elected.

4. The knowledge and faith by which any one knows and believes that he is in possession of faith, is prior by nature to that knowledge and faith by which any one knows and believes himself to be elected.

5. From these remarks, some judgment may be formed concerning that which is sometimes asserted, "A believing and elect person is bound to believe that he is elected."

6. Justifying faith is that by which men believe in Jesus Christ, as in the saviour of those universally who believe, and of each of them in particular, even the saviour of him who, through Christ, believes in God, who justifies the ungodly.

7. Evangelical and saving faith is of such vast excellency as to exceed the entire nature of man, and all his understanding, even that of Adam, when placed in a state of innocence.

8. God cannot of right require faith in Christ from that man whom, by an absolute will, he has reprobated, either without consideration of any sin, or as fallen in Adam; therefore, it was not his will that Christ should be of the least advantage to this man; or, rather, he willed that Christ should not profit him.

9. Faith is a gracious and gratuitous gift of God, bestowed according to the administration of the means necessary to conduce to the end, that is, according to such an administration as the justice of God requires, either towards the side of mercy or towards that of severity. It is a gift which is not bestowed according to an absolute will of saving some particular men; for it is a condition required in the object to be saved, and it is in fact a condition before it is the means for obtaining salvation.