Protestant theology represents not so much a new departure as an emphasis on and a reinterpretation of certain ideas that were always present in Christian thought but not always stressed. Luther and Calvin evolved their theology largely from two sources, the writings of St Paul and St Augustine. In doing so they turned away from the rational theology of medieval Catholicism, especially as represented in the thirteenth century by St Thomas Aquinas, who had tried to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy and theology, reason and faith, man and God, in a harmonious, hierarchically ordered system. Instead they emphasised, as Augustine and some fourteenth-century Augustinians had done, the basic paradoxes of Christianity, the limitations of human reason, the great gap between man’s sin and God’s grace. Important sources were Paul’s Epistles, especially Romans and Galatians, Augustine’s City of God, his later writings against the Pelagians (see below), for example On the Spirit and the Letter and On Grace and Free Will, and the Enchiridion (handbook) in which he summarised his teaching. Luther and Calvin propagated and popularised their reinterpretation of Paul and Augustine in a large number of works written in Latin for ecclesiastical readers and in German and French for laymen; of these the most important are Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian (1520), On the Bondage of the Will (1525), his many commentaries on the books of the Bible, especially the Preface to Romans (1522); and Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (several editions both Latin and French, 1536–60). Lutheran and Calvinist ideas were diffused in England both directly through translation, for example, Tyndale’s versions of Luther’s commentaries (15, 26), and, indirectly but more widely, through incorporation in other men’s books. England produced no comparable original theologian, yet the vast religious literature of all kinds and purposes—sermons, controversial writings, catechisms, handbooks of devotion and practical piety, theological textbooks—made every reading Protestant familiar with the ideas and terminology of the continental reformers.
The Protestant view of the relationship between man and God is based on a series of antitheses defined in St Paul’s Epistles: between law and gospel, flesh and spirit, works and faith, nature and grace, bondage and freedom, the first and the second Adam. It can be set out in a simplified form as follows. God created the first man, Adam, in his own image, a being in whom reason and will were perfectly integrated, who was free to exercise his reason and will as he chose, and capable of perfect obedience to God. God knew that Adam would exercise his choice wrongly, that he would fail the test of obedience, yet he allowed him full responsibility. Adam’s original sin, his disobedience to God represented by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, has had calamitous consequences for the human race. Fallen man’s nature has become utterly depraved and corrupt. He is a mass of sin. He retains some vestiges of his original reason, but whereas Adam could freely and of his own efforts follow the dictates of his reason, the reason and will of fallen man are so vitiated that he can of his own efforts only choose to sin. Because of his sin man is condemned by God to a double death, the mortality of the body and the eternal damnation of the soul. Unaided, man is incapable of righteousness; he is in bondage to the law which demands righteousness but which he cannot fulfil. Hence he is justly condemned by God, since the corruption of his nature which makes righteousness impossible is the responsibility of the first man who freely disobeyed God (1–4).
God’s justice, which punishes man for the sin of disobedience, is matched by his mercy, which forgives man. Yet his justice demands satisfaction. This is achieved through the mediation of God’s greatest gift to man, his Son, the second Adam, whose perfect obedience cancels the disobedience of the first Adam, and who gives himself as a sacrifice, thereby taking on himself man’s sin and redeeming him from damnation. The disobedience of the first Adam brought man death; the obedience of the second Adam brings man eternal life. Just as Christ takes on man’s sin, though he is himself sinless, so he imputes to man his righteousness, though fallen man is himself incapable of righteousness. God accepts Christ’s imputed righteousness or merits as man’s, and thus grants man salvation (5–9). This process of redemption, whereby man is released from sin and death and the impossible demands of the law, is the promise of the gospel.
Man’s salvation is thus achieved not by his own efforts but by God’s grace. He is justified (i.e. accepted by God as righteous through Christ although in himself he is unrighteous) by faith alone, sola fide (10–13). (This is the crucial doctrine of Protestantism; Luther’s conversion depended on his understanding of the phrase ‘The just shall live by faith’, Romans 1:17 (12).) Faith does not mean simply intellectual assent to the Christian creed, but trust that God will fulfil his promises. The man who is justified by faith is chosen by God for salvation: he is one of the elect. His faith is a gift of God. He is now adopted by God and regenerate, freed from his corrupt nature; through this change in his nature he has assurance that he is one of the elect. He is granted perseverance by God so that he can continue in a state of grace. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper are signs of God’s promise of salvation to him. The justified man through God’s grace cannot help producing good works and living a sanctified life, and hence he has evidence that he is of the elect. However, good works are the result not the cause of justification. Works contribute nothing to justification; works without faith do not justify, but faith without works is an impossibility (15).
This state in which a man lives by faith, assured of the fulfilment of God’s promises and of his own election and ultimate salvation, free from the burden of the law, is that of Christian liberty. The law, the covenant of works of the Old Testament which demanded that man should be justified by his observance of the moral and ceremonial and civil code, but which his corrupt nature prevented him from fulfilling, has been abrogated by the gospel, the covenant of grace of the New Testament which promises that man shall be justified by faith in the redeeming sacrifice of Christ (22–27). Christian liberty does not mean that man is free from observance of the moral or civil law, though he is free from Jewish ceremonial law; it means that his justification does not depend on his observance of the law, though he will observe it in so far as he can, not coerced into obedience through fear of God’ s wrath, but obeying freely through love. The justified man is not morally perfect; only Christ as man was capable of moral perfection. Sanctification in this life is incomplete. The justified man, though liable to occasional sin, does not thereby fall from a state of grace. (Antinomianism, the doctrine that defines Christian liberty as meaning man’s freedom from any obligation to observe the moral law, was characteristic of some extreme Protestant sects but was repudiated by orthodox Protestantism.)
Who are the elect, and why does God choose them? These were among the most difficult questions put by Protestant theologians. Only a few (known variously as the elect, the remnant, the saints, the godly) are to be saved. Augustine, following Paul (17–18), elaborated the doctrine of predestination that was to be given a sterner emphasis by Calvin. The whole of mankind, because of sin, merits damnation; God predestinates a few to salvation, not because of their merit but out of his free grace (City of God XIV xxvi, Enchiridion xxv). Man does not deserve grace; it is freely given by God. Although God has foreknowledge of man’s acts, his predestination of the few is not governed by this foreknowledge. All men are responsible for their sins (28), though it is only God’s free gift of grace to the predestined that makes their good works possible. Calvin carried the doctrine further, and supposed a system of double predestination (Institutes of the Christian Religion III xxi—xxiv). Not only has God from all eternity predestinated the few to salvation, he has also reprobated the many to damnation (20). This decree admittedly seems horrible to man; it is incomprehensible, yet it is also just. The decree is final. The elect cannot resist God’s grace, nor can the reprobate avoid damnation. However, Calvin denied that this took away human responsibility or made God the author of evil. God can bring good out of evil, and use the reprobate as instruments of his good, but they are fully responsible for their sin.
The problem of reconciling God’s grace with man’s free will was the basis of some important controversies. Those who stressed the magnitude of God’s grace, his free gifts to man, and man’s nothingness, tended to limit man’s freedom of choice; those who stressed man’s freedom to work out his own salvation in co-operation with grace tended to diminish the part played by grace and to limit God’s power. It was on this issue that the humanist Erasmus, after a period of sympathy with the cause of reform, finally condemned Luther. In On the Freedom of the Will (1524) Erasmus argues that man may co-operate with or turn away from grace (29); Luther in his reply, On the Bondage of the Will (1525), argues that man is only free to choose sin: the faith which justifies is a gift of grace (30). A similar controversy with more far-reaching consequences was that between Arminians and Calvinists in the early seventeenth century. Arminius argued that God wills the salvation of all, that Christ died for all, not just for the elect, that grace is freely offered to all, but that man may resist or co-operate with grace as he chooses. These views were put forward after Arminius’ death in the Five Articles of the Remonstrants (1610) and condemned by the Synod of Dort (see Chapter 7).
These controversies, which turn on the question of how far human nature has been corrupted by the fall, themselves echo one of the most important controversies in the history of the formation of Christian theology: that between Augustine and Pelagius in the early fifth century. Pelagius denied that man inherits original sin and that his nature is corrupt, and deplored Augustine’s stress on the weakness and helplessness of man’s will. Man is capable of freely choosing good or evil, of moving towards or away from God, of perfecting himself morally. Here there are some connections between Pelagianism and a classical philosophy such as Stoicism (see Chapter 4) which envisages man as a free, self-sufficient being capable of living a life governed by reason. In response to Pelagius Augustine elaborated his teaching on original sin, prevenient grace (which ‘comes before’ or precedes repentance and makes it possible), predestination, and the perseverance of the elect.
Strict Protestantism argues that man’s reason is corrupt and cannot save him; it is antithetical to faith, which is God’s gift (36). However, many Protestants, especially those with humanist sympathies, were reluctant to allow that reason had been so weakened or that man was totally depraved as a result of the fall. Instead of the depravity of man they upheld the dignity of man, and while granting that man’s reason had been impaired by the fall they insisted that it could guide his conduct and lead him to knowledge of God. Here they drew both on the classical concept of right reason (recta ratio) as expounded by Cicero (Republic III xxii) and on Paul’s acknowledgement (Romans 2:14) that the gentiles or pagans without the benefit of revelation are capable of acting morally, because knowledge of the law is written in their hearts (37). Right reason, which can also be designated conscience, is as much a gift of God as faith. Its functioning is explained by Hooker in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity I v—x (32, 38). Man is endowed with a natural faculty of reason which prescribes to the will what it should choose as good. By the light of reason man is able to discern what is good without the help of revelation; the good is what men have generally and perpetually agreed to be so. This is the law of nature. However, since man’s nature is corrupt he cannot fulfil the law of nature (although he can discern it) without supernatural help, the revelation of the gospel. Thus for Hooker reason and faith, law and gospel are complementary, not antithetical. Hooker’s tradition of rational theology was continued in the seventeenth century by men such as Hales, Chillingworth and the Cambridge Platonists (More, Cudworth, Whichcote and Smith); it was this tradition that by the end of the seventeenth century came to dominate the Church of England as Latitudinarianism and largely superseded Lutheran and Calvinist theology.
This attempt to fuse classical ethics with Christian faith is characteristic of Christian humanism (see Chapter 9). Milton fully explored the complexities and contradictions inherent in such a fusion, though he was unable to resolve them satisfactorily. He produced an idiosyncratic work of systematic theology for his own use, Christian Doctrine, before embarking on Paradise Lost. Milton rejects Calvinist double predestination and adopts instead the Arminian doctrine of salvation offered to all (21, 33). However, his rationalist approach to theology leaves him open to criticism of a kind that Luther and Calvin avoid through their fideism (their reliance on faith for knowledge of God and their denigration of reason). Where Calvin admits the mysteriousness of God’s decrees, Milton sets out to explain them, and here most readers have found the chief weakness of Paradise Lost. Milton’s emphasis on reason may damage his portrait of God, yet it leads also to his particular definition of Christian liberty, which is the core of the poem. Liberty lies in obeying the dictates of right reason; to obey nature is the same as to obey God (39–41). The man who understands and completes this process is of the elect; the choice is his as much as God’s. Yet against this rational statement of man’s capacity to choose good Milton sets an Augustinian sense of history as a record of man’s sinfulness, of voluntary servitude.
It is important to realise that although there might have been general agreement among Protestants as to the meaning of terms such as faith, works, reason and law, in practice these could be very differently emphasised. A doctrine baldly stated is very different from a doctrine lived or a doctrine explored in poetry. Belief in an elect or in predestination is not in itself pessimistic, though it may appear so in its outlines: to Luther it was a joyful liberation from the appalling burden of a religion of works and merit (12). The same doctrine provokes different responses in different poets: for Greville, the contrast between God’s grace and man’s insignificance leads almost to despair and disgust at his own condition; for Donne and Herbert, it leads to faith in redemption and a certainty that God’s wrath is subsumed in his mercy.
1 God created man aright, for God is the author of natures, though he is certainly not responsible for their defects. But man was willingly perverted and justly condemned, and so begot perverted and condemned offspring. For we were all in that one man, seeing that we all were that one man who fell into sin through the woman who was made from him before the first sin. We did not yet possess forms individually created and assigned to us for us to live in them as individuals; but there already existed the seminal nature from which we were to be begotten. And of course, when this was vitiated through sin, and bound with death’s fetters in its just condemnation, man could not be born of man in any other condition. Hence from the misuse of free will there started a chain of disasters: mankind is led from that original perversion, a kind of corruption at the root, right up to the disaster of the second death, which has no end. Only those who are set free through God’s grace escape from this calamitous sequence.
Augustine City of God XIII xiv
2 We must, therefore, distinctly note these two things. First, we are so vitiated and perverted in every part of our nature that by this great corruption we stand justly condemned and convicted before God, to whom nothing is acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity… Then comes the second consideration: that this perversity never ceases in us, but continually bears new fruits…just as a burning furnace gives forth flames and sparks, or water ceaselessly bubbles up from a spring… Those who have said that original sin is ‘concupiscence’ [i.e. Augustine] have used an appropriate word, if only it be added—something that most will by no means concede—that whatever is in man, from the understanding to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, has been defiled and crammed with this concupiscence. Or, to put it more briefly, the whole man is of himself nothing but concupiscence.
Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion II i 8
3 My God, my God, what am I put to when I am put to consider and put off the root, the fuel, the occasion of my sickness? What Hippocrates, what Galen, could show me that in my body? It lies deeper than so, it lies in my soul; and deeper than so, for we may well consider the body before the soul came, before inanimation, to be without sin; and the soul, before it comes to the body, before that infection, to be without sin: sin is the root and the fuel of all sickness, and yet that which destroys body and soul is in neither, but in both together. It is the union of the body and soul, and, O my God, could I prevent that, or can I dissolve that? The root and the fuel of my sickness is my sin, my actual sin; but even that sin hath another root, another fuel, original sin; and can I divest that? Wilt thou bid me to separate the leaven that a lump of dough hath received, or the salt, that the water hath contracted, from the sea? Dost thou look, that I should so look to the fuel or embers of sin, that I never take fire? The whole world is a pile of faggots, upon which we are laid, and (as though there were no other) we are the bellows.
Donne Devotions Expostulation xxii
4 Wrapped up, O Lord, in man’s degeneration;
The glories of thy truth, thy joys eternal,
Reflect upon my soul dark desolation,
And ugly prospects o’ er the sprites infernal.
Lord, I have sinned, and mine iniquity.
Deserves this hell; yet Lord deliver me.
Thy power and mercy never comprehended,
Rest lively-imaged in my conscience wounded;
Mercy to grace, and power to fear extended,
Both infinite, and I in both confounded;
Lord, I have sinned, and mine iniquity,
Deserves this hell, yet Lord deliver me.
If from this depth of sin, this hellish grave,
And fatal absence from my Saviour’s glory,
I could implore his mercy, who can save,
And for my sins, not pains of sins, be sorry:
Lord, from this horror of iniquity,
And hellish grave, thou would’st deliver me.
Greville Caelica xcviii
5 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:19–21
6 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1 Corinthians 15:21–2
7 When Adam was made—being made an upright man—there was no need for a mediator. Once sin, however, had widely separated the human race from God, it was necessary for a mediator, who alone was born, lived, and was put to death without sin, to reconcile us to God, and provide even for our bodies a resurrection to life eternal—and all this in order that man’s pride might be exposed and healed through God’s humility. Thus it might be shown man how far he had departed from God, when by the incarnate God he is recalled to God; that man in his contumacy might be furnished an example of obedience by the God-Man; that the fount of grace might be opened up; that even the resurrection of the body—itself promised to the redeemed—might be previewed in the resurrection of the Redeemer himself; that the devil might be vanquished by that very nature he was rejoicing over having deceived—all this, however, without giving man ground for glory in himself, lest pride spring up anew.
Augustine Enchiridion xxviii
8 A tree was first the instrument of strife,
Where Eve to sin her soul did prostitute,
A tree is now the instrument of life,
Though ill that trunk, and this fair body suit:
Ah, cursed tree, and yet O blessed fruit!
That death to him, this life to us doth give:
Strange is the cure, when things past cure revive,
And the physician dies, to make his patient live.
……
A man was first the author of our fall,
A man is now the author of our rise,
A garden was the place we perished all,
A garden is the place he pays our price,
And the old serpent with a new device,
Hath found a way himself for to beguile,
So he, that all men tangled in his wile,
Is now by one man caught, beguiled with his own guile.
Giles Fletcher Christ’s Triumph over Death stanzas 13, 15 (compare Herbert ‘The Sacrifice’, ‘The Agony’, and Donne ‘Hymn to God my God’)
9 God the Father addresses God the Son:
Well thou know’st how dear,
To me are all my works, nor man the least
Though last created, that for him I spare
Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save,
By losing thee awhile, the whole race lost.
Thou therefore whom thou only canst redeem,
Their nature also to thy nature join;
And be thy self man among men on earth,
Made flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed,
By wondrous birth: be thou in Adam’s room
The head of all mankind, though Adam’s son.
As in him perish all men, so in thee
As from a second root shall be restored,
As many as are restored, without thee none.
His crime makes guilty all his sons, thy merit
Imputed shall absolve them who renounce
Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds,
And live in thee transplanted, and from thee
Receive new life. So man, as is most just,
Shall satisfy for man, be judged and die,
And dying rise, and rising with him raise
His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.
Milton Paradise Lost III ll. 276–97
10 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe…
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
……
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Romans 3:19–24, 28
11 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.
And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.
Galatians 3:10–13
12 My case was this: however irreproachable my life as a monk, I felt myself in the presence of God to be a sinner with a most unquiet conscience, nor could I believe him to be appeased by the satisfaction I could offer. I did not love— nay, I hated this just God who punishes sinners, and if not with silent blasphemy, at least with huge murmuring I was indignant against God, as if it were really not enough that miserable sinners, eternally ruined by original sin, should be crushed with every kind of calamity through the law of the Ten Commandments, but that God through the gospel must add sorrow to sorrow, and even though the gospel bring his righteousness and wrath to bear on us. And so I raged with a savage and confounded conscience; yet I knocked importunely at Paul in this place [Romans 1:17], with a parched and burning desire to know what he could mean. At last, as I meditated day and night, God showed mercy and I turned my attention to the connection of the words, namely —‘For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith’—and there I began to understand that the righteousness of God is the righteousness in which a just man lives by the gift of God, in other words by faith, and that what Paul means is this: the righteousness of God, revealed in the gospel, is passive, in other words that by which the merciful God justifies us through faith, as it is written. ‘The just shall live by faith.’ At this I felt myself straightway born afresh and to have entered through the open gates into paradise itself.
Luther ‘Autobiographical Fragment’
13 But this saying, that we be justified by faith only, freely, and without works, is spoken for to take away clearly all merit of our works, as being unable to deserve our justification at God’s hands, and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of man, and the goodness of God; the great infirmity of ourselves, and the might and power of God; the imperfectness of our own works, and the most abundant grace of our saviour Christ; and therefore wholly to ascribe the merit and deserving of our justification unto Christ only, and his most precious bloodshedding. This faith the Holy Scripture teacheth us; this is the strong rock and foundation of Christian religion; this doctrine all old and ancient authors of Christ’s church do approve; this doctrine advanceth and setteth forth the true glory of Christ, and beateth down the vain-glory of man; this whosoever denieth, is not to be accounted for a Christian man, nor for a setter-forth of Christ’s glory; but for an adversary to Christ and his gospel, and for a setter-forth of men’s vain-glory.
The Book of Homilies III ‘Of the Salvation of Mankind’
14 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James 1:27
15 Faith is a lively thing, mighty in working, valiant, and strong, ever doing, ever fruitful; so that it is impossible that he who is endued therewith should not work always good works without ceasing. He asketh not whether good works are to be done or not, but hath done them already, ere mention be made of them; and is always doing, for such is his nature; for quick faith in his heart, and lively moving of the Spirit, drive him and stir him thereunto. Whosoever doth not good works, is an unbelieving person, and faithless, and looketh round about him, groping after faith and good works, and wotteth not what faith or good works mean, though he babble never so many things of faith and good works. Faith is, then, a lively and a steadfast trust in the favour of God, wherewith we commit ourselves altogether unto God… And such trust, wrought by the Holy Ghost through faith, maketh a man glad, lusty, cheerful, and true-hearted unto God and unto all creatures: whereof, willingly and without compulsion, he is glad and ready to do good to every man, to do service to every man, to suffer all things, that God may be loved and praised, which hath given him such grace; so that it is impossible to separate good works from faith, even as it is impossible to separate heat and burning from fire.
Tyndale Prologue upon the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans (trans. from Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans)
16 Works done before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they sprang not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace…yea rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.
The Thirty-Nine Articles XIII ‘Of Works before Justification’
17 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:28–31
18 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Romans 9:13–16, 19–21
19 Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.
The Thirty-Nine Articles XVII ‘Of Predestination and Election’
20 As Scripture, then, clearly shows, we say that God once established by his eternal and unchangeable plan those whom he long before determined once for all to receive into salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, he would devote to destruction. We assert that, with respect to the elect, this plan was founded upon his freely given mercy, without regard to human worth; but by his just and irreprehensible but incomprehensible judgement he has barred the door of life to those whom he has given over to damnation. Now among the elect we regard the call as a testimony of election. Then we hold justification another sign of its manifestation, until they come into the glory in which the fulfilment of that election lies. But as the Lord seals his elect by call and justification, so by shutting off the reprobate from knowledge of his name or from the sanctification of his Spirit, he, as it were, reveals by these marks what sort of judgement awaits them.
Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion III xxi 7
21 It is quite clear, then, that God has predestined from eternity all who would believe and persist in their belief. It follows, therefore, that there is no reprobation except for those who do not believe or do not persist, and that this is rather a matter of consequence than of an express decree by God. Thus there is no reprobation from eternity of particular men. For God has predestined to salvation all who use their free will, on one condition, which applies to all. None are predestined to destruction except through their own fault.
Milton Christian Doctrine I iv
22 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Romans 8:14–15
23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:23–9
24 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.
Colossians 2:13–14
25 A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all… A Christian has all that he needs in faith and needs no works to justify him; and if he has no need of works, he has no need of the law; and if he has no need of the law, surely he is free from the law… Faith alone is the righteousness of a Christian and the fulfilling of all the commandments, for he who fulfils the First Commandment has no difficulty in fulfilling all the rest.
Luther The Freedom of a Christian
26 The Old Testament is a book, wherein is written the law of God, and the deeds of them which fulfil them, and of them also which fulfil them not.
The New Testament is a book, wherein are contained the promises of God; and the deeds of them which believe them, or believe them not.
Evangelion (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word; and signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy: as when David had killed Goliah the giant, came glad tidings unto the Jews, that their fearful and cruel enemy was slain, and they delivered out of all danger: for gladness whereof, they sung, danced, and were joyful. In like manner is the Evangelion of God (which we call gospel, and the New Testament) joyful tidings; and, as some say, a good hearing published by the apostles throughout all the world, of Christ the right David; how that he hath fought with sin, with death, and the devil, and overcome them: whereby all men that were in bondage to sin, wounded with death, overcome of the devil, are, without their own merits or deservings, loosed, justified, restored to life and saved, brought to liberty and reconciled unto the favour of God, and set at one with him again: which tidings as many as believe laud, praise, and thank God; are glad, sing and dance for joy…
Here ye see the nature of the law, and the nature of the Evangelion; how the law is the key that bindeth and damneth all men, and the Evangelion looseth them again. The law goeth before, and the Evangelion followeth. When a preacher preacheth the law, he bindeth all consciences; and when he preacheth the gospel, he looseth them again.
Tyndale A Pathway into the Holy Scripture (trans. from Luther’s Preface to the New Testament)
27 O dreadful Justice, what a fright and terror Wast thou of old,
When sin and error
Did show and shape thy looks to me,
And through their glass discolour thee!
He that did but look up, was proud and bold.
The dishes of thy balance seemed to gape,
Like two great pits;
The beam and scape
Did like some torturing engine show:
Thy hand above did burn and glow,
Daunting the stoutest hearts, the proudest wits.
But now that Christ’s pure veil presents the sight,
I see no fears:
Thy hand is white,
Thy scales like buckets, which attend
And interchangeably descend,
Lifting to heaven from this well of tears.
For where before thou still didst call on me,
Now I still touch
And harp on thee.
God’s promises have made thee mine;
Why should I justice now decline?
Against me there is none, but for me much.
Herbert ‘Justice’ (II)
28 Now wherever there is the express statement not to do this or that, and whenever the performance of the will is required to do or refrain from some action, in keeping with God’s commandments, that is sufficient proof of the free choice of the will. Let no man, therefore, blame God in his heart whenever he sins, but let him impute the sin to himself. Nor does the fact that something is done in accordance with God’s will transfer such an act from one’s own will.
Augustine Grace and Free Will ii
29 I ask what merit can a man arrogate to himself if whatever, as a man, he is able to achieve by his natural intelligence and free choice, all this he owes to the one from whom he receives these powers? And yet God himself imputes this to our merit, that we do not turn our soul away from his grace, and that we apply our natural powers to simple obedience. And this surely goes to show that it is not wrong to say that man does something and yet attributes the sum of all that he does to God as its author, from whom it has come about that he was able to ally his own effort with the grace of God… Thus to those who maintain that man can do nothing without the help of the grace of God, and conclude that therefore no works of men are good—to these we shall oppose a thesis to me much more probable, that there is nothing that man cannot do with the help of the grace of God, and that therefore all the works of man can be good.
Erasmus On the Freedom of the Will III
30 For my own part, I frankly confess that even if it were possibie, I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive towards salvation. For, on the one hand, I should be unable to stand firm and keep hold of it amid so many adversities and perils and so many assaults of demons, seeing that even one demon is mightier than all men, and no man at all could be saved; and on the other hand, even if there were no perils or adversities or demons, I should nevertheless have to labour under perpetual uncertainty and to fight as one beating the air [I Cor. 9:26], since even if I lived and worked to eternity, my conscience would never be assured and certain how much it ought to do to satisfy God. For whatever work might be accomplished, there would always remain an anxious doubt whether it pleased God or whether he required something more, as the experience of all self-justifiers proves, and as I myself learned to my bitter cost through so many years. But now, since God has taken my salvation out of my hands into his, making it depend on his choice and not mine, and has promised to save me, not by my own work or exertion but by his grace and mercy, I am assured and certain both that he is faithful and will not lie to me, and also that he is too great and powerful for any demons or any adversities to be able to break him or to snatch me from him… So it comes about that, if not all, some and indeed many are saved, whereas by the power of free choice none at all would be saved, but all would perish together.
Luther On the Bondage of the Will VI
31 The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us [i.e. prevenient grace], that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.
The Thirty-Nine Articles X ‘Of Free Will’
32 Man in perfection of nature being made according to the likeness of his Maker resembleth him also in the manner of working; so that whatsoever we work as men, the same we do wittingly work and freely; neither are we according to the manner of natural agents any way so tied, but that it is in our power to leave the things we do undone To choose is to will one thing before another. And to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing of that which they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding. And the light of that eye, is reason. So that two principal fountains there are of human action, knowledge and will; which will, in things tending towards any end, is termed choice.
Hooker Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity I vi
33 By virtue of his wisdom God decreed the creation of angels and men as beings gifted with reason and thus with free will. At the same time he foresaw the direction in which they would tend when they used this absolutely unimpaired freedom. What then? Shall we say that God’s providence or foreknowledge imposes any necessity upon them? Certainly not… Nothing happens because God has foreseen it, but rather he has foreseen each event because each is the result of particular causes which, by his decree, work quite freely and with which he is thoroughly familiar. So the outcome does not rest with God who forsees it, but only with the man whose action God foresees… Divine foreknowledge definitely cannot itself impose any necessity, nor can it be set up as a cause, in any sense, of free actions. If it is set up in this way, then liberty will be an empty word, and will have to be banished utterly not only from religion but also from morality and even from indifferent matters. Nothing will happen except by necessity, since there is nothing God does not foresee.
Milton Christian Doctrine I iii
34 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greek foolishness;
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
I Corinthians 1:20–5
35 What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic? Our principles come from the Porch of Solomon [i.e. not from the Stoic Porch], who had himself taught that the Lord is to be sought in simplicity of heart. I have no use for a Stoic or a Platonic or a dialectic Christianity. After Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation, after the Gospel no need of research. When we come to believe, we have no desire to believe anything else; for we begin by believing that there is nothing else which we have to believe.
Tertullian The Prescriptions against the Heretics vii
36 O false and treacherous probability,
Enemy of truth, and friend to wickedness;
With whose blear eyes opinion learns to see
Truth’s feeble party here, and barrenness.
When thou hast thus misled humanity,
And lost obedience in the pride of wit,
With reason dar’st thou judge the deity,
And in thy flesh make bold to fashion it.
Vain thought, the Word of power a riddle is,
And till the veils be rent, the flesh new-born,
Reveals no wonders of that inward bliss,
Which but where faith is, everywhere finds scorn;
Who therefore censures God with fleshly sprite,
As well in time may wrap up infinite.
Greville Caelica ciii
37 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.
Romans 2:14–15
38 The general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God himself. For that which all men have at all times learned, Nature herself must needs have taught; and God being the author of Nature, her voice is but his instrument. By her from him we receive whatsoever in such sort we learn. Infinite duties there are, the goodness whereof is by this rule sufficiently manifested, although we had no other warrant besides to approve them. The apostle St Paul having speech concerning the heathen saith of them, ‘They are a law unto themselves.’ His meaning is, that by force of the light of reason, wherewith God illuminateth every one which cometh into the world, men being enabled to know truth from falsehood, and good from evil, do thereby learn in many things what the will of God is; which will himself not revealing by any extraordinary means unto them, but they by natural discourse attaining the knowledge thereof, seem the makers of those laws which indeed are his, and they but only the finders of them out.
Hooker Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity I viii
39 Further evidence for the existence of God is provided by the phenomenon of conscience, or right reason. This cannot be altogether asleep, even in the most evil men. If there were no God, there would be no dividing line between right and wrong. What was to be called virtue, and what vice, would depend upon mere arbitrary opinion. No one would try to be virtuous, no one would refrain from sin because he felt ashamed of it or feared the law, if the voice of conscience or right reason did not speak from time to time in the heart of every man, reminding him, however unwilling he may be to remember it, that a God does exist, that he rules and governs all things, and that everyone must one day render to him an account of his actions, good and bad alike.
Milton Christian Doctrine I ii
40 Abdiel rebukes Satan:
Unjustly thou deprav’st it with the name
Of servitude to serve whom God ordains,
Or nature; God and nature bid the same,
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels
Them whom he governs. This is servitude,
To serve the unwise, or him who hath rebelled
Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee,
Thy self not free, but to thy self enthralled.
Paradise Lost VI ll. 174–81
41 Michael to Adam:
Yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being:
Reason in man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart passions catch the government
From reason, and to servitude reduce
Man till then free. Therefore since he permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God in judgement just
Subjects him from without to violent lords.
Paradise Lost XII ll. 82–93