themselves of the commandments (Calvin, Instit. ii. 3).  To this, Illyricus, the standard-bearer of the Magdeburg company, has added his own monstrous teaching about original sin, which he makes out to be the innermost substance of souls, whom, since Adam’s fall, the devil himself engenders and transforms into himself.  This also is a received maxim in this scum of evil doctrine, that all sins are equal, yet with this qualification (not to revive the Stoics), “if sins are weighed in the judgment of God.”  As if God, the most equitable judge, were to add to our burden rather than lighten it; and, for all His justice, were to exaggerate and make it what it is not in itself.  By this estimation, as heavy an offence would be committed against God, judging in all severity, by the innkeeper who has killed a barn-door cock, when he should not have done, as by that infamous assassin who, his head full of Beza, stealthily slew by the shot of a musket the French hero, the Duke of Guise, a Prince of admirable virtue, than which crime our world has seen in our age nothing more deadly, nothing more lamentable.

But perchance they who are so severe in the matter of sin philosophise magnificently on divine grace, as able to bring succour and remedy to this evil.  Fine indeed is the function which they assign to grace, which their ranting preachers say is neither infused into our hearts, nor strong enough to resist sin, but lies wholly outside of us, and consists in the mere favour of God,—­a favour which does not amend the wicked, nor cleanse, nor illuminate, nor enrich them, but, leaving still the old stinking ordure of their sin, dissembles it by God’s connivance, that it be not counted unsightly and hateful.  And with this their invention they are so delighted that, with them, even Christ is not otherwise called full of grace and truth than inasmuch as God the Father has borne wonderful favour to Him (Bucer on John i:  Brent hom. 12 on John).

What sort of thing then is righteousness?  A relation.  It is not made up of faith, hope and charity, vesting the soul in their splendour; it is only a hiding away of guilt, such that, whoever has seized upon this righteousness by faith alone, he is as sure of salvation as though he were already enjoying the unending joy of heaven.  Well, let this dream pass:  but how can one be sure of future perseverance, in the absence of which a man’s exit would be most miserable, though for a time he had observed righteousness purely and piously?  Nay, says Calvin (Instit. iii. 2), unless this your faith foretells you your perseverance assuredly, without possibility of hallucination, it must be cast aside as vain and feeble.  I recognise the disciple of Luther.  A Christian, said Luther (De captivitate Babylonis), cannot lose his salvation, even if he wanted, except by refusing to believe.