For here without doubt they either understand 'judgment' as put for eternal punishment, or they will dare to say that even unbelievers shall be saved through fire, since 'he who does not believe,' he says, 'is already judged' — that is, already destined for judgment; and there will be nothing which they may promise as a great benefit to believers who live wickedly, when even those who do not believe shall not be for perishing but for being judged. But if they do not dare to say this, let them not dare to promise anything milder to those of whom it was said: 'they shall be judged by the law,' since it is established that judgment too is wont to be named for eternal damnation. What of this — that we find those who sin knowingly to be not only by no means of a milder, but even of a worse condition?
For these are especially they who received the law; for, as it is written, 'where there is no law, neither is there transgression.' Hence too is that saying: 'I did not know concupiscence, unless the law said, You shall not covet. Occasion therefore being taken, sin through the commandment wrought in me all concupiscence' — and many other things which the same Apostle says on this matter. From this graver guilt the grace of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord sets us free, which, charity being poured abroad in our hearts, grants the delight of righteousness, by which the immoderateness of concupiscence may be overcome. Hence therefore it is confirmed that not only nothing milder, but something graver is to be understood concerning those of whom it was said:
'those who sinned in the law shall be judged by the law' — than concerning those who, sinning without the law, shall perish without the law; nor is 'judgment' in this passage said for a transitory punishment, but for that by which even non-believers shall be judged. For those who use this sentence to promise salvation through fire to those who, while believing, live most wickedly, so that they say to them: 'Those who have sinned without the law shall perish without the law;
but those who have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law' — as though it were said, 'they shall not perish, but shall be saved through fire' — could not attend to this, that the Apostle said this of those who sinned without the law and those who sinned in the law when he was treating of Gentiles and Jews, in order to show that not only to the Gentiles, but to both, the grace of Christ, by which they are set free, is necessary: which the whole of that epistle to the Romans evidently shows. Now therefore let them promise, if it please them, salvation through fire even to the Jews sinning in the law — of whom it was said, 'they shall be judged by the law' — the grace of Christ not setting them free, since of these it was said, 'they shall be judged by the law.'
But if they do not do this, lest they come against their very selves who say that these are bound by the most grievous crime of unbelief, why do they transfer to unbelievers and believers, in that which pertains to the faith of Christ, that which was said of those who sinned without the law and those who sinned in the law, when the matter concerned Jews and Gentiles, that both might be invited to the grace of Christ? For it was not said, 'those who have sinned without faith shall perish without faith; but those who have sinned in faith shall be judged by faith,' but 'without the law' was said and 'in the law,' so that it might sufficiently appear that the matter being touched upon was that which was debated between Gentiles and Jews, not that between good and bad Christians.
And yet, if in that passage they wish 'law' to be taken for 'faith' — which is exceedingly inapt and absurd — even from this they can read a most manifest sentence of the apostle Peter, who, when he was speaking of those who had received the fact that we, belonging to the New Testament, are not the sons of a bondwoman but of the free — by which liberty Christ has freed us — as an occasion for the flesh and a cloak for malice, as it is written, and had thought this to be living freely, namely that, as though secure concerning so great a redemption, they should judge whatever pleased them to be lawful for them, not observing what was said: 'You have been called into liberty, brethren; only give not liberty for an occasion to the flesh.' Whence Peter himself also says:
'as free, yet not having liberty as a cloak for malice,' he says of them also in his second epistle: 'These are wells without water, and mists driven by a whirlwind, for whom the gloom of darkness is reserved. For, speaking proud words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, in wantonness, those who a little while ago escaped from those who live in error, promising them liberty, whereas they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by whom a man is overcome, to him also is he assigned as a slave. For if, fleeing the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in these and overcome, their last state has become worse for them than the first.'
For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. For that which the true proverb says has befallen them: 'The dog is returned to his own vomit,' and, 'The sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.' What better condition, then, is still promised, against this most manifest truth, to those who have known the way of righteousness — that is, the Lord Christ — and yet live in ruin, than if they had not known it at all, when it is said most openly: 'It were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them'?
For the holy commandment is not here to be understood as that whereby we are enjoined to believe in God — although in this alone the whole is contained, if we understand the faith of believers, which works through love — but he expressed plainly what he meant by the holy commandment, namely that whereby we are enjoined, withdrawing from the pollutions of this world, to live in chaste conduct. For thus he says: 'For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.' He does not say, 'after they have escaped ignorance of God,' or 'after they have escaped the unbelief of the world,' or anything of that kind, but:
'the pollutions of the world,' in which is assuredly every uncleanness of shameful deeds. For speaking of these above, he had said: 'feasting together with you, having eyes full of adultery and of ceaseless sin.' Therefore he also calls them dry fountains: fountains, namely, because they have received the knowledge of the Lord Christ; but dry, because they do not live consistently with it. Of such indeed the apostle Jude also speaks, saying: 'These are they who feast together, spotted, in your love-feasts, without fear, feeding themselves; clouds without water,' and the rest. For what Peter says, 'feasting together with you, having eyes full of adultery,' this Jude says: 'in your love-feasts they feast together, spotted.'
For they are mingled with the good in the feasts of the sacraments and in the love-feasts of the peoples. And what Peter calls 'dry fountains,' Jude calls 'clouds without water,' and James calls 'dead faith.' Let no transitory punishment of fire, then, be promised to those who live basely and wickedly because they have known the way of righteousness — for whom it were better not to have known it, as the most truthful Scripture testifies. For of such the Lord also says: 'And the last state of that man shall be worse than the first,' since, not receiving the Holy Spirit, the holy inhabitant of his purification, he has caused an unclean spirit, multiplied, to return into himself.
Unless perhaps these of whom we speak are to be reckoned better on this ground, that they did not return to the uncleanness of adulteries but never departed from it, nor defiled themselves anew after being purified but refused to be purified. For they do not even deign, that they might enter to baptism with a relieved conscience, so much as to vomit up their former uncleannesses which, dog-like, they would again lap up; but in the very holiness of the laver they stubbornly strive to hold fast with raw heart their undigested wickedness; nor do they conceal it by any pretended promise, but belch it forth in the shamelessness of open profession; nor do they, going out from Sodom, after the manner of Lot's wife, look back again to what lies behind, but they altogether disdain to go out from Sodom — nay rather, they attempt to enter to Christ together with Sodom.
The apostle Paul says: 'I who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious; but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.' And to these it is said: You will then rather obtain mercy, if you have lived wickedly with full knowledge, while in the very faith. It would be exceedingly long, and well-nigh endless, to seek to gather together all the testimonies of the Scriptures by which it appears that the case of those who lead a most wicked and iniquitous life with full knowledge is not only not milder than the case of those who do so in ignorance, but is by this very fact heavier. Let these, therefore, suffice.
Let us therefore diligently take heed, with the help of the Lord our God, not to make men falsely secure, telling them that if they have been baptized in Christ, however they may have lived in that faith, they will come to eternal salvation; lest we make Christians in the same manner as the Jews made proselytes, to whom the Lord says: 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, who compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when you have made him, you make him twofold more a child of hell than yourselves.' But rather let us hold in both respects the sound doctrine of God our teacher, so that the Christian life may be in harmony with holy baptism, and that eternal life be promised to no man if either of the two be lacking. For he who said:
'Unless a man be born again of the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,' the same also said: 'Unless your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' For of them he says: 'The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. What they say, do; but what they do, do not do; for they say and do not.' Their righteousness, therefore, is 'to say and not to do.' And by this he willed ours to be abundant beyond theirs, namely 'to say and to do'; and if this be lacking, the kingdom of heaven will not be entered.
Not that anyone ought to be so exalted that he should dare — I will not say to boast before others, but even to think within himself — that he is in this life without sin; but yet, unless there were certain sins so grievous that they must be punished even with excommunication, the apostle would not say: 'When you are gathered together, and my spirit, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.' Whence also he says: 'Lest I should mourn many who have sinned before and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication which they have committed.' Again, unless there were certain sins to be healed not by that humility of penitence such as is granted in the church to those who are properly called penitents, but by certain medicines of correction, the Lord himself would not say:
'Rebuke him between you and him alone; if he hear you, you have gained your brother.' Finally, unless there were certain sins without which this life is not passed, he would not have set a daily remedy in the prayer which he taught, that we should say: 'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.' Now I have, as I think, sufficiently set forth what seemed to me concerning that whole opinion, in which three questions were raised: one concerning the intermingling in the church of the good and the bad, as of wheat and tares.
Here we must beware lest we think these similitudes — whether this one, or that of the clean and unclean animals in the ark, or whatever others signify the same thing — have been set forth in order that the discipline of the church should sleep, of which it is said, under the figure of that woman: 'Grave are the ways of her house'; but rather that the rashness of madness rather than the severity of diligence should not proceed so far as to presume to separate, as it were, the good from the bad by wicked schisms. For by these similitudes and foretellings no counsel of sloth has been given to the good, whereby they should neglect what they ought to forbid, but of patience, whereby they should endure, with the doctrine of truth kept safe, what they are not able to amend.
Nor, because it is written that even unclean animals entered into the ark to Noah, ought those set in authority therefore not to forbid, if certain most unclean persons should wish to enter to baptism as dancers — which is certainly milder than as adulterers; but by this figure of the deed done it was foretold that there would be unclean persons in the church, for the sake of the principle of toleration, not for the sake of the corruption of doctrine or the dissolution of discipline. For the unclean animals did not enter into the ark by any way they pleased, with its structure broken open, but entered it whole through one and the same door which the maker had made. The other question is that in which it seemed to them that faith alone should be delivered to those to be baptized, but that those already baptized should afterwards be taught concerning morals.
But it has been sufficiently shown, unless I am mistaken, that it pertains rather to the care of the watchman, precisely when all who seek the sacrament of the faithful hear all that is said more attentively and more anxiously, not to be silent concerning the punishment which the Lord threatens against those who live evilly, lest in the very baptism, whereby they come that the guilt of all sins may be remitted, they be guilty of the gravest crimes.
The third question is the most dangerous, from which — being too little considered and not handled according to the divine word — that whole opinion seems to me to have arisen, in which it is promised to those living most wickedly and most basely that, even if they persevere in living that way and only believe in Christ and receive his sacraments, they will come to salvation and eternal life — against the most manifest sentence of the Lord, who answered him that desired eternal life: 'If you will come to life, keep the commandments,' and recounted which commandments, namely those wherein are avoided the sins which, by faith without works, dead, salvation eternal is somehow promised.
Concerning these three questions I have, as I judge, sufficiently disputed and shown: that the bad are so to be tolerated in the church that ecclesiastical discipline be not neglected; that those who seek baptism are so to be catechized that they not only hear and receive what they ought to believe, but also how they ought to live; that eternal life is so to be promised to the faithful that no one should think he can arrive at it even through dead faith, which cannot save without works, but through that faith of grace which works through love.
Let not the faithful stewards, therefore, be blamed — not for their own negligence or sloth, but rather for the obstinacy of certain persons, who refuse to receive the Lord's money and compel the Lord's servants to disburse their own counterfeit coin, while they are unwilling to be even such evil men as holy Cyprian recounts — those renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds — seeing that they are unwilling to renounce the works of the devil even in words, since they profess with most open voice that they will continue in adultery. If there be anything they are wont to say, which perhaps in disputing I have not touched upon, I have judged it to be of such a kind that my answer to it was not necessary — either because it did not pertain to the matter in hand, or because it was so trifling that it could most easily be refuted by anyone whatever.