HKB
the love of righteousness. This doctrine, as it is the most simple of all, so also it appears to me to be most consistent with the truth of the Scripture.
XXI. That repentance is a peculiar gift of God, must, I think, be so evident from the doctrine just stated, as to preclude the necessity of a long discourse to prove it. Therefore the Church praises and admires the goodness of God, that he “hath granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life;”(1669) and Paul, when he enjoins Timothy to be patient and gentle towards unbelievers, says, “If God, peradventure, will give them repentance, that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil.”(1670) God affirms, indeed, that he wills the conversion of all men, and directs his exhortations promiscuously to all; but the efficacy of these exhortations depends on the Spirit of regeneration. For it were more easy to make ourselves men, than by our own power to endue ourselves with a more excellent nature. Therefore, in the whole course of regeneration, we are justly styled God’s “workmanship, created unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”(1671) Whomsoever God chooses to rescue from destruction, them he vivifies by the Spirit of regeneration: not that repentance is properly the cause of salvation, but because, as we have already seen, it is inseparable from faith and the mercy of God; since, according to the testimony of Isaiah, “the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob.”(1672) It remains an unshaken truth, that wherever the fear of God prevails in the heart, the Spirit has operated to the salvation of that individual. Therefore, in Isaiah, where believers are bewailing and deploring their being deserted by God, they mention this as a sign of reprobation, that their hearts are hardened by him.(1673) The apostle also, intending to exclude apostates from all hope of salvation, asserts, as a reason, that “it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance;”(1674) because God, in the renewal of those whom he will not suffer to perish, discovers an evidence of his paternal favour, and attracts them to himself with the radiance of his serene and joyful countenance; whilst, on the contrary, he displays his wrath in hardening the reprobate, whose impiety is never to be forgiven.(1675) This kind of vengeance the apostle denounces against wilful apostates, who, when they depart from the faith of the gospel, deride God, contumeliously reject his grace, profane and trample on the blood of Christ, and do all in their power to crucify him again. For he does not, as is pretended by some preposterously severe persons, preclude all voluntary sinners from a hope of pardon. His design is to show that apostasy is unworthy of every excuse, and therefore it is not strange that God punishes such a sacrilegious contempt of himself with inexorable rigour. “For it is impossible (he tells us) for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”(1676) Again: “If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking‐for of judgment.”(1677) These are the passages, from a misinterpretation of which the Novatians formerly derived a pretence for their extravagant opinions; and the apparent harshness of which has offended some good men, and induced them to believe that this Epistle is supposititious, though every part of it contains unequivocal evidences of the apostolic spirit. But as we are contending only with those who receive it, it is easy to show that these passages afford not the least countenance to their error. In the first place, the apostle must necessarily be in unison with his Master, who affirms that “all sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”(1678) The apostle, I say, must certainly have been content with this exception, unless we wish to make him an enemy to the grace of Christ. Whence it follows, that pardon is denied to no particular sins, except one, which proceeds from desperate fury, and cannot be attributed to infirmity, but clearly proves a man to be possessed by the devil.