The Institution of Christian Religion

The .xvii. Chapter. ¶ That it is truly and properly said, that Christ hath deserved Gods favour and salvation for us.

The .xvii. Chapter. ¶ That it is truely and properly sayde, that Christ hath deserued Gods fauour and saluation for vs.

This question is also to be assoiled for an addition. For there are some subtle men after a wrong manner, which, although they confess that we obtain salvation by Christ, yet can not abide to hear the name of deserving, by which they think the grace of God to be obscured: & so they will have Christ to be only the instrument or minister, not the author, guide, or Prince of life,¹ as Peter calleth him. In deed I confess, that if a man will set Christ simply and by himself against the judgement of God, then there shall be no room for deserving: because there can not be found in man any worthiness that may deserve the favour of God: But, as Augustine most truly writeth,² the most clear light of predestination and grace is our Saviour himself, the man Christ Jesus, which hath obtained so to be, by the nature of man, which is in him, without any deservings of works or of faith going before. ⟨p. 104⟩I beseech you let me be answered, whereby that same Man deserved to be taken up by the Word that is coeternal with the father into one person, and so to be the only begotten son of God. Let therefore appear in our head the very fountain of grace, from whom according to the measure of every one, it floweth abroad into all his members. By that grace every one from the beginning of his faith is made a Christian. by which that same man from his beginning was made Christ.³ Again in an other place: there is no plainer example of predestination than the Mediator himself. For he that made of the seed of David a man righteous that never should be unrighteous, without any deserving of his will going before, even the same he doth of unrighteous make them righteous that are the members of that head: and so forth as there followeth. Therefore when we speak of Christs deserving, we do not say that in him is the beginning of deserving, but we climb up to the ordinance of God, which is the first cause thereof: because God of his own mere good will appointed him Mediator, to purchase salvation for us. And so is the deserving of Christ unfitly set against the mercy of God. For it is a common rule, that things orderly one under an other do not disagree. And therefore it may well stand together, that mans justification is free by the mere mercy of God, and that there also the deserving of Christ come between, which is contained under the mercy of God.