Institutes of the Christian Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)

X. Now, to come to the principal point on which this controversy turns, let us examine, whether the faithful themselves were not so instructed by the Lord, as to be sensible that they had a better life in another world, and to meditate on that to the neglect of the present. In the first place, the course of life which was divinely enjoined them was a perpetual exercise, by which they were reminded that they were the most miserable of all mankind, if they had no happiness but in the present life. Adam, rendered most unhappy by the mere remembrance of his lost felicity, finds great difficulty in supplying his wants by anxious toils.⁹⁷⁴ Nor does the Divine malediction confine itself to his manual labours; he experiences the bitterest sorrow from that which was his only remaining consolation. Of his two sons, he is deprived of one by the parricidal hands of his brother; the survivor is deservedly the object of his detestation and abhorrence.⁹⁷⁵ Abel, cruelly assassinated in the flower of his age, exhibits an example of human calamity. Noah, while the whole world securely abandons itself to sensual delights, consumes a valuable part of his life with excessive fatigue in building the ark.⁹⁷⁶ His escape from death was attended with greater distress than if he had died a hundred times. For besides that the ark was, as it were, a sepulchre to him for ten months,⁹⁷⁷ nothing could be more disagreeable than to be detained for so long a period almost immersed in the ordure of animals. After having escaped from such great difficulties, he meets with a fresh occasion of grief. He sees himself ridiculed by his own son, and is constrained to pronounce a curse with his own mouth upon him, whom by the great goodness of God he had received safe from the deluge.⁹⁷⁸

XI. Abraham is one who ought to be deemed equal to a host, if we consider his faith, which is proposed to us as the best standard of believing, so that we must be numbered in his family, in order to be the children of God. Now, what would be more absurd, than that Abraham should be the father of all the faithful, and not possess even the lowest place among them? But he cannot be excluded from the number, nor even from the most honourable station, without the destruction of the whole Church. Now, with respect to the circumstances of his life; – when he is first called, he is torn by the Divine command from his country, his parents, and his friends, the enjoyment of whom is supposed to give life its principal relish; as though God positively intended to deprive him of all the pleasures of life.⁹⁷⁹ As soon as he has entered the land in which he is commanded to reside, he is driven from it by a famine. He removes, in search of relief, to a place where, for the preservation of his own safety, he finds it necessary to disown his wife, which would probably be more afflictive to him than many deaths.⁹⁸⁰ After having returned to the country of his residence, he is again expelled from it by famine. What kind of felicity is it to dwell in such a country, where he must so frequently experience hunger, and even perish for want of sustenance, unless he leaves it? In the country of Abimelech, he is again driven to the same necessity of purchasing his own personal safety with the loss of his wife.⁹⁸¹ While he wanders hither and thither for many years in an unsettled state, he is compelled, by the continual quarrels of his servants, to send away his nephew, whom he regarded as a son.⁹⁸² There is no doubt that he bore this separation just as he would the amputation of one of his limbs. Soon after he is informed that enemies have carried him away captive.⁹⁸³ Whithersoever he directs his course, he finds himself surrounded by savage barbarians, who will not even permit him to drink the water of wells which with immense labour he has himself digged. For he could not have bought the use of them from the king of Gerar, if it had not been previously prohibited.⁹⁸⁴ When he arrives to old age, beyond the time of having children, he experiences the most disagreeable and painful circumstance with which that age is attended.⁹⁸⁵ He sees himself destitute of posterity, till, beyond all expectation, he begets Ishmael; whose birth he purchases at a dear rate, while he is wearied with the reproaches of Sarah, just as if he encouraged the contumacy of his maid-servant, and so were himself the cause of the domestic disturbance.⁹⁸⁶ At length Isaac is born; but his birth is attended with this condition, that Ishmael the first-born must be banished from the family, and abandoned like an enemy.⁹⁸⁷ When Isaac is left alone to solace the good man in his declining years, he is soon after commanded to sacrifice him.⁹⁸⁸ What can the human mind imagine more calamitous, than for a father to become the executioner of his own son? If he had been taken away by sickness, every one would have thought the aged parent unhappy in the extreme, as having had a son given him in mockery, at the loss of whom, his former grief on account of his being destitute of children would certainly be redoubled. If he had been massacred by some stranger, the calamity would have been greatly increased by the horrible nature of his end; but to be slain by his father's own hand exceeds all the other instances of distress. In short, through the whole course of his life, Abraham was so driven about and afflicted, that if any one wished to give an example of a life full of calamity, he could not find one more suitable. Nor let it be objected, that he was not entirely miserable, because he had at length a prosperous deliverance from such numerous and extreme dangers. For we cannot pronounce his to be a happy life, who for a long period struggles through an infinity of difficulties; but his, who is exempted from afflictions, and favoured with the peaceful enjoyment of present blessings.

XII. Isaac, though afflicted with fewer calamities, yet scarcely ever enjoys the smallest taste of pleasure. He also experiences those vexations which permit not a man to be happy in the world. Famine drives him from the land of Canaan; his wife is torn from his bosom; his neighbours frequently harass him, and take every method of distressing him, so that he also is constrained to contend with them about water.⁹⁸⁹ In his own family he suffers much uneasiness from Esau's wives;⁹⁹⁰ he is distressed by the discord of his sons, and unable to remedy that great evil, but by the exile of him to whom he had given the blessing.⁹⁹¹ With respect to Jacob, he is an eminent example of nothing but extreme infelicity. He passes his childhood at home, amidst the menaces and terrors of his elder brother, to which he is at length constrained to give way.⁹⁹² A fugitive from his parents and his native soil, in addition to the bitterness of exile, he is treated with unkindness by his uncle Laban. It is not sufficient for him to endure a most hard and severe servitude of seven years, but he is fraudulently deceived in a wife.⁹⁹³ For the sake of another wife he must enter on a new servitude,⁹⁹⁴ in which, as he himself complains, he is scorched all the day by the fervid rays of the sun, and through the wakeful night benumbed by the icy cold.⁹⁹⁵ During twenty years, which he spends in such extreme hardships, he is daily afflicted with fresh injuries from his father-in-law. Nor does he enjoy tranquillity in his own family, which he sees distracted and almost torn asunder by the animosities, contentions, and rivalship of his wives.⁹⁹⁶ When he is commanded to return to his own country, he is obliged to depart in a manner resembling an ignominious flight. Nor even then can he escape the iniquity of his father-in-law, but is harassed with his reproaches and insults in the midst of his journey.⁹⁹⁷ Immediately after, he falls into a much greater difficulty. For as he advances towards his brother, he has death before his eyes in as many forms as a cruel and inveterate enemy can possibly contrive. He is exceedingly tormented and distracted with dreadful terrors, while he is expecting the approach of his brother; when he sees him, he falls at his feet like a person half dead, till he finds him more reconciled than he could have ventured to hope.⁹⁹⁸ Moreover, on his first entrance into the land, he is deprived of Rachel, his dearly beloved wife.⁹⁹⁹ Afterwards he hears that the son whom he had by her, and whom, therefore, he loved above the rest, is torn asunder by wild beasts. The severity of his grief on account of his death is expressed by himself, when, after many days of mourning, he obstinately refuses all consolation, saying, “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”¹⁰⁰⁰ In the mean time, the rape and violation of his daughter, and the rashness of his sons in revenging it, which not only made him an object of abhorrence to all the inhabitants of the country, but put him in immediate danger of being massacred; what abundant sources were these of anxiety, grief, and vexation!¹⁰⁰¹ Then follows the horrible crime of Reuben, his first-born, than which no greater affliction could befall him. For if the pollution of a man's wife be numbered among the greatest miseries, what shall we say of it, when the crime is perpetrated by his own son?¹⁰⁰² Not long after, his family is contaminated with incest;¹⁰⁰³ so that such a number of disgraceful occurrences may be expected to break a heart otherwise very firm and unbroken by calamities. Towards the end of life, when he is seeking sustenance for himself and family in a season of famine, his ears are wounded by the report of a new calamity, which informs him that one of his sons is detained in prison; and in order to recover him he is obliged to intrust his darling Benjamin to the care of the rest.¹⁰⁰⁴ Who can suppose that in such an accumulation of distresses he had a single moment of respite? He himself, who is best able to give a testimony respecting himself, declares to Pharaoh, that his days on the earth have been few and evil.¹⁰⁰⁵ By affirming that he has lived in continual miseries, he denies that he has enjoyed that prosperity which the Lord had promised him. Therefore either Jacob formed an improper and ungrateful estimate of the favour of God, or he spake the truth in asserting that he had been miserable on the earth. If his affirmation was true, it follows that his hope was not fixed on terrestrial things.

XIII. If these holy fathers expected, as undoubtedly they did expect, a life of happiness from the hand of God, they both knew and contemplated a different kind of blessedness from that of this terrestrial life. This the apostle very beautifully shows, when he says, “By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.”¹⁰⁰⁶ For they would have been stupid beyond all comparison, so steadily to follow promises, of which there appeared no hope on earth, unless they had expected the completion of them in another world. But the apostle, with great force, principally insists on this – that they called the present life a pilgrimage, as is also stated by Moses.¹⁰⁰⁷ For if they were strangers and sojourners in the land of Canaan, what became of the Divine promise, by which they had been appointed heirs of it? This manifestly implies, therefore, that the promise, which the Lord had given them concerning the possession of it, related to something more remote. Wherefore they never acquired a foot of land in Canaan, except for a sepulchre; by which they testified that they had no hope of enjoying the benefit of the promise till after death. And this is the reason why Jacob thought it so exceedingly desirable to be buried there, that he made his son Joseph promise it to him by oath;¹⁰⁰⁸ and why Joseph commanded that his bones should be removed thither, even several ages after his death, when they would have been long reduced to ashes.¹⁰⁰⁹

XIV. In short, it evidently appears, that in all the pursuits of life they kept in view the blessedness of the future state. For why should Jacob have so eagerly desired, and exposed himself to such danger in endeavouring to obtain, the primogeniture, which would occasion his exile, and almost his rejection from his family, but from which he could derive no possible benefit, unless he had his views fixed on a nobler blessing? And that such was his view he declared in these words, which he uttered with his expiring breath: “I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.”¹⁰¹⁰ What salvation could he expect, when he felt himself about to expire, unless he had seen in death the commencement of a new life? But why do we argue concerning the saints and children of God, when even one, who in other respects endeavoured to oppose the truth, was not entirely destitute of such a knowledge? For what was the meaning of Balaam, when he said, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his,”¹⁰¹¹ but the same which David afterwards expressed in the following words? “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”¹⁰¹² “Evil shall slay the wicked.”¹⁰¹³ If death were the ultimate bound of human existence, no difference could be observed in it between the righteous and the impious; the distinction between them consists in the different destinies which await them after death.

XV. We have not yet proceeded beyond Moses; whose only office, our opponents allege, was to persuade a carnal people to the worship of God by the fertility of the land, and an abundance of all things: and yet, unless any one wilfully rejects the evidence presented to him, we already discover a clear declaration of a spiritual covenant. But if we come down to the prophets, there we have the fullest revelation both of eternal life and of the kingdom of Christ. And first, with what perspicuity and certainty does David direct all his writings to this end; though, as he was prior to the rest in point of time, so, according to the order of the Divine dispensation, he shadowed forth the heavenly mysteries more obscurely than they did! What estimate he formed of his terrestrial habitation, the following passage declares: “I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Verily, every man at his best estate is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a vain show. And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.”¹⁰¹⁴ He who, after having confessed that there is nothing substantial or permanent on earth, still retains the constancy of his hope in God, certainly contemplates the felicity reserved for him in another world. To this contemplation he frequently recalls the faithful, whenever he wishes to afford them true consolation. For in another place, after having spoken of the brevity and the transitory nature of human life, he adds, “But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.”¹⁰¹⁵ Similar to which is the following: “Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.”¹⁰¹⁶ If, notwithstanding the destruction of heaven and earth, the pious cease not to be established before the Lord, it follows that their salvation is connected with his eternity. But this hope cannot be at all supported, unless it rest on the promise which we find in Isaiah: “The heavens,” saith the Lord, “shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished;”¹⁰¹⁷ where perpetuity is ascribed to righteousness and salvation, considered not as resident in God, but as experienced by men.

XVI. Nor can what he frequently says concerning the prosperity of the faithful be understood in any other sense than as referring to the manifestation of the glory of heaven. Such are the following passages: “The Lord preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.”¹⁰¹⁸ Again: “The righteousness of the righteous endureth for ever; his horn shall be exalted with honour. The desire of the wicked shall perish.”¹⁰¹⁹ Again: “Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence.”¹⁰²⁰ Again: “The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance.”¹⁰²¹ Again: “The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants.”¹⁰²² For the Lord frequently leaves his servants to the rage of the impious, not only to be harassed, but to be torn asunder and ruined; he suffers good men to languish in obscurity and meanness, while the impious are almost as glorious as the stars; nor does he exhilarate the faithful with the light of his countenance, so that they can enjoy any lasting pleasure. Wherefore David does not dissemble that, if the faithful fix their eyes on the present state of things, they will be most grievously tempted with an apprehension lest innocence should obtain from God neither favour nor reward. So much does impiety in most cases prosper and flourish, while the pious are oppressed with ignominy, poverty, contempt, and distress of every kind. “My feet,” says he, “were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”¹⁰²³ At length he concludes his account of them: “When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.”¹⁰²⁴

XVII. We may learn, then, even from this confession of David, that the holy fathers under the Old Testament were not ignorant, that God rarely or never in this world gives his servants those things which he promises them, and that, therefore, they elevated their minds to the sanctuary of God, where they had a treasure in reserve which is not visible amid the shadows of the present life. This sanctuary was the last judgment, which, not being discernible by their eyes, they were contented to apprehend by faith. Relying on this confidence, whatever events might befall them in the world, they, nevertheless, had no doubt that there would come a time when the Divine promises would be fulfilled. This is evident from the following passages: “I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.”¹⁰²⁵ Again: “I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God.”¹⁰²⁶ Again: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.” He had just before said, “O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep. When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed for ever.”¹⁰²⁷ Where can this beauty and gracefulness of the faithful be found, but where the appearance of this world has been reversed by the manifestation of the kingdom of God? When they could turn their eyes towards that eternity, despising the momentary rigour of present calamities, they securely broke forth into the following expressions: “The Lord shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. But thou, O God, shalt bring them” (wicked men) “down into the pit of destruction.”¹⁰²⁸ Where, in this world, is the pit of destruction, to absorb the wicked, as an instance of whose felicity it is mentioned in another place that without languishing for any long time “they go down to the grave in a moment?”¹⁰²⁹ Where is that great stability of the saints, whom David himself, in the language of complaint, frequently represents as not only troubled, but oppressed and consumed? He certainly had in view, not any thing that results from the agitations of the world, which are even more tumultuous than those of the sea, but what will be accomplished by the Lord, when he shall one day sit in judgment to fix the everlasting destiny of heaven and earth. This appears from another psalm, in which he gives the following beautiful description: “They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him. For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.”¹⁰³⁰ In the first place, this derision of fools, for placing their dependence on the mutable and transitory blessings of the world, shows that the wise ought to seek a very different felicity. But he more evidently discloses the mystery of the resurrection, when he establishes the reign of the pious after the ruin and destruction of the wicked. For what shall we understand by “the morning” which he mentions, but the revelation of a new life commencing after the conclusion of the present?

XVIII. Hence arose that reflection, which served the faithful as a consolation under their miseries, and a remedy for their sufferings: “The anger of the Lord endureth but a moment; in his favour is life.”¹⁰³¹ How did they limit their afflictions to a moment, who were afflicted all their lifetime? When did they perceive so long a duration of the Divine goodness, of which they had scarcely the smallest taste? If their views had been confined to the earth, they could have made no such discovery; but as they directed their eyes towards heaven, they perceived, that the afflictions with which the Lord exercises his saints are but “for a small moment,” and that the “mercies” with which he “gathers” them are “everlasting.”¹⁰³² On the other hand, they foresaw the eternal and never-ending perdition of the impious, who had been happy, as in a dream, for a single day. Hence the following sentiments: “The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot.”¹⁰³³ “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”¹⁰³⁴ Also in Samuel: “The Lord will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness.”¹⁰³⁵ These expressions suggest to us, that they well knew, that whatever vicissitudes may befall the saints, yet their last end will be life and salvation; and that the prosperity of the impious is a pleasant path, which gradually leads to the gulf of everlasting death. Therefore they called the death of such the “destruction of the uncircumcised,”¹⁰³⁶ as of those from whom all hope of resurrection had been cut off. Wherefore David could not conceive a more grievous imprecation than this: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.”¹⁰³⁷

XIX. But the following declaration of Job is remarkable beyond all others: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.”¹⁰³⁸ Some, who wish to display their critical sagacity, cavil that this is not to be understood of the final resurrection, but even of the first day on which Job expected God to be more propitious to him. Though we partly concede this, we shall extort an acknowledgment from them, whether they are willing or not, that Job could never have attained to such an enlarged hope, if his thoughts had been confined to the earth. We must, therefore, be obliged to confess that he, who saw that his Redeemer would be present with him even when lying in the sepulchre, must have elevated his views to a future immortality. For to them, who think only of the present life, death is a source of extreme despair, which, however, could not annihilate his hope. “Though he slay me,” said he, “yet will I trust in him.”¹⁰³⁹ Nor let any trifler here object, that these were the expressions of a few persons, and are far from furnishing proof that such a doctrine was current among the Jews. I will immediately reply, that these few persons did not in these declarations reveal any recondite wisdom, in which only superior understandings were separately and privately instructed; but that the Holy Spirit having constituted them teachers of the people, they publicly promulgated the Divine mysteries which were to be generally received, and to be the principles of the popular religion. When we hear the public oracles of the Holy Spirit, therefore, in which he has so clearly and evidently spoken of the spiritual life in the Jewish church, it would be intolerable perverseness to apply them entirely to the carnal covenant, in which no mention is made but of the earth and earthly opulence.

XX. If we descend to the later prophets, there we may freely expatiate as quite at home. For if it was not difficult to prove our point from David, Job, and Samuel, we shall do it there with much greater facility. For this is the order and economy which God observed in dispensing the covenant of his mercy, that as the course of time accelerated the period of its full exhibition, he illustrated it from day to day with additional revelations. Therefore, in the beginning, when the first promise was given to Adam, it was like the kindling of some feeble sparks. Subsequent accessions caused a considerable enlargement of the light, which continued to increase more and more, and diffused its splendour through a wide extent, till at length, every cloud being dissipated, Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, completely illuminated the whole world. There is no reason to fear, therefore, if we want the suffrages of the prophets in support of our cause, that they will fail us. But as I perceive it would be a very extensive field, which would engross more of our attention than the nature of our design will admit, – for it would furnish matter for a large volume, – and as I also think that by what has been already said, I have prepared the way even for a reader of small penetration to proceed without any difficulties, I shall abstain from a prolixity which at present is not very necessary. I shall only caution the reader to advance with the clew which we have put into his hand; namely, that whenever the prophets mention the blessedness of the faithful, scarcely any vestiges of which are discernible in the present life, he should recur to this distinction; that in order to the better elucidation of the Divine goodness, the prophets represented it to the people in a figurative manner; but that they gave such a representation of it as would withdraw the mind from earth and time, and the elements of this world, all which must ere long perish, and would necessarily excite to a contemplation of the felicity of the future spiritual life.

XXI. We will content ourselves with one example. When the Israelites, after being carried to Babylon, perceived how very much their dispersion resembled a death, they could scarcely be convinced that the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning their restitution¹⁰⁴⁰ was not a mere fable; for they considered it in the same light, as if he had announced, that putrid carcasses would be restored to life. The Lord, in order to show that even that difficulty would not prevent him from displaying his beneficence, gave the prophet a vision of a field full of dry bones, which he instantaneously restored to life and vigour solely by the power of his word. The vision served indeed to correct the existing incredulity; but at the same time it reminded the Jews, how far the power of the Lord extended beyond the restoration of the people, since the mere expression of his will so easily reanimated the dry and dispersed bones. Wherefore you may properly compare that passage with another of Isaiah: “Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”¹⁰⁴¹

XXII. It would be absurd, however, to attempt to reduce every passage to such a canon of interpretation. For there are some places, which show without any disguise the future immortality which awaits the faithful in the kingdom of God. Such are some which we have recited, and such are many others, but particularly these two; one in Isaiah: “As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched.”¹⁰⁴² And another in Daniel: “At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”¹⁰⁴³