Cap. 5 second member Scripture: Remission and peace wait on faith — even for the elect

First, that remission of sins does not flow immediately from the passion of Christ itself to all human beings without any intervening act of ours is proved by all those testimonies of the Scriptures which expressly prerequire an act of penitence. Such are Ezekiel 18:21: If the impious man has done penitence from all his sins, he will live with life and will not die. Luke 24:46, 47: It was necessary that Christ suffer and rise from the dead, and that penitence and remission of sins be preached in his name. 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to remit our sins to us and to cleanse us from every iniquity. From which it is plain that although Christ died for all, yet not all immediately live through this death of Christ, but all live as soon as they have come to their senses; although remission of sins is offered in the name of Christ, yet not all promiscuously become partakers of this benefit, but only the penitent; by the same law, that penitence precede remission; Finally, although by the virtue of the death of Christ God is obligated to remit sins, yet so that neither the faithfulness nor the justice of God demands that this remission be indulged to anyone except under this condition, If he confess his sins.

Second, the same is shown from those places which, before we can be justified or reconciled to God, prerequire faith from us, as an instrument by which we apprehend the grace of justification, and as a condition of obtaining reconciliation, commanded to us in the Evangelical pact itself. Of this sort are Acts 16:31: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. John 6:40: This is the will of my Father who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. John 20:31: These things have been written that you may believe, and that believing you may have life in his name. Romans 3:22: The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all who believe; and verse 25: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith, etc. Galatians 2:16: We know that a human being is not justified except through faith in Jesus Christ; and we believe in Christ Jesus that we may be justified from the faith of Christ. I pass over innumerable others. From these it abundantly appears that Remission of sins, and Justification, or our reconciliation with God, is not such a benefit as overflows from the passion of Christ itself, without all media, to any human being; but that those for whom Christ died, whether sufficiently or efficaciously, cannot have the saving fruit of the same death applied to themselves except through faith going before.

Third, this can also be gathered from those sayings of the Scriptures in which, the death of Christ presupposed, it is nonetheless expressly affirmed that any human beings lie under the guilt of death and Divine wrath so long as they have not apprehended the Mediator by true faith. To this those look: Mark 16:16: Preach the Gospel to every creature. He who has believed will be saved; but he who has not believed will be condemned. And John 3:36: He who is unbelieving toward the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. John 8:24: If you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Finally, notwithstanding that Christ died for us, the Apostle said Ephesians 2:3 that we are all born children of wrath. Vain therefore are those who dream that by the death of Christ itself all human beings, without any intervening act from our side, have been restored into the bosom of Divine grace and the state of salvation.

Fourth, lest anyone say that the aforesaid testimonies pertain only to the non-elect, but that all the elect by the very merit of the death of Christ stand justified and reconciled to God before they believed, let these clear testimonies of the Scriptures be heard to the contrary, Ephesians 2:11, 12, 13: Remember that you were once without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ, etc. He addresses those whom chapter 1, verse 4, he presupposes elect before the foundations of the world were cast; yet he teaches that they remained strangers from the covenants of promise and alienated from God until by faith, as a spiritual hand, they had drawn to themselves the riches of Divine grace heaped up in Christ, as it is ready to gather from verses 7 and 8 of this second chapter. In the same sense sound those words of the same Apostle, Romans 5:1: Justified by faith we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The death of Christ therefore, considered in itself, until faith has acceded from our side, neither justifies this or that singular person nor places him in the bosom of grace. Finally, the Apostle Paul beyond all controversy was one of the elect, yet was not therefore either justified or restored into the state of grace and salvation while he remained a blasphemer against Christ and a persecutor of the Church, but then at last, after he acknowledged Christ and wholly leaned upon Christ, 1 Timothy 1:16: Jesus Christ had mercy on me, that in me he might show all clemency, that I might be an example to those who would believe in him unto eternal life. Remission of sins in the blood of Christ therefore does not anticipate faith and penitence, not even in the elect. Thus far we have fought with the express testimonies of the Scriptures; now we will attach some reasons founded in the same Scriptures.