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| Why Death, the Punishment of Sin, is Not Withheld from Those Who by the Grace of Regeneration are Absolved from Sin.
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Chapter 4.—Why Death, the
Punishment of Sin, is Not Withheld from Those Who by the Grace of
Regeneration are Absolved from Sin.
If, moreover, any one is solicitous
about this point, how, if death be the very punishment of sin, they
whose guilt is cancelled by grace do yet suffer death, this
difficulty has already been handled and solved in our other work
which we have written on the baptism of infants.582
| 582 De Baptismo
Parvulorum is the second half of the
title of the book, de Peccatorum Meritis et
Remissione. | There it was said that the
parting of soul and body was left, though its connection with sin
was removed, for this reason, that if the immortality of the body
followed immediately upon the sacrament of regeneration, faith
itself would be thereby enervated. For faith is then only faith
when it waits in hope for what is not yet seen in substance. And
by the vigor and conflict of faith, at least in times past, was the
fear of death overcome. Specially was this conspicuous in the
holy martyrs, who could have had no victory, no glory, to whom
there could not even have been any conflict, if, after the layer of
regeneration, saints could not suffer bodily death.
Who would
not, then, in company with the infants presented for baptism, run
to the grace of Christ, that so he might not be dismissed from the
body? And thus faith would not be tested with an unseen reward;
and so would not even be faith, seeking and receiving an immediate
recompense of its works. But now, by the greater and more
admirable grace of the Saviour, the punishment of sin is turned to
the service of righteousness. For then it was proclaimed to man,
“If thou sinnest, thou shall die;” now it is said to the
martyr, “Die, that thou sin not.” Then it was said, “If ye
trangress the commandments, ye shall die;” now it is said, “If
ye decline death, ye transgress the commandment.” That which
was formerly set as an object of terror, that men might not sin, is
now to be undergone if we would not sin. Thus, by the unutterable
mercy of God, even the very punishment of wickedness has become the
armor of virtue, and the penalty of the sinner becomes the reward
of the righteous. For then death was incurred by sinning, now
righteousness is fulfilled by dying. In the case of the holy
martyrs it is so; for to them the persecutor proposes the
alternative, apostasy or death. For the righteous prefer by
believing to suffer what the first transgressors suffered by not
believing. For unless they had sinned, they would not have died;
but the martyrs sin if they do not die. The one died because they
sinned, the others do not sin because they die. By the guilt of
the first, punishment was incurred; by the punishment of the
second, guilt is prevented. Not that death, which was before an
evil, has become something good, but only that God has granted to
faith this grace, that death, which is the admitted opposite to
life, should become the instrument by which life is
reached.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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