ever within him but mere corruption
and contagion. What does this lead up to? That they who mean to
seize glory by faith alone may wallow in the filth of every
turpitude, may accuse nature, despair of virtue, and discharge
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