The Institution of Christian Religion

Daniel in his exhortation wherein he counselleth Nebuchadnezzar to redeem his sins with righteousness,¹ and his iniquities with pitying of the poor: his meaning was not to say, that righteousness & mercy are satisfactory appeasements of God, & redemption of pains (for God forbid that there were ever any redemption saving only the blood of Christ) but to refer this word Redeeming rather to men than to God as if he had said: O king, thou hast used an unrighteous and violent government, thou hast oppressed the humble, thou haste spoiled the poor, thou haste hardly and unjustly handled thy people: for thy unjust exactions, for thy violence and oppression, now render to them mercy and righteousness.² Likewise Solomon saith, that with charity the multitude of sins is covered: not before God, but among men themselves. For thus is the whole verse: Hatred raiseth up contentions: but charity covereth all iniquities. In which verse, as his manner is, he doth by way of comparison of contraries, compare the evils that grow of hatreds, with the fruits of charity: in this meaning, they that ha•e together do one byte, bark at, reproach and rail at an other, and turn all things to the worst: but they that love together, do dissemble many things among themselves, do wink at many things, and pardon many things one to the other: not that the one alloweth the others faults, but beareth with them, and helpeth them with admonishing, rather than galleth them with reproaching them.³ And it is not to be doubted that Peter allegeth this place in the same sense, unless we will accuse him of depraving and wrongfully wresting the Scripture. But whereas he teacheth that sin is purged with mercifulness and liberality, he doth not mean that recompense is therewith made for sin before the face of the Lord, so that God being appeased by such satisfaction doth release the pain that otherwise he would have laid upon them, but after the accustomed manner of the Scripture he declareth that they shall find him merciful unto them that leaving their former vices & iniquities, do turn to him by godliness and truth: as if he should say, that the wrath of God doth cease and his judgement rest, when we cease from our evil doings. Neither doth he there describe the cause of pardon, but rather the manner of true conversion.