- Si enim veritas Dei per meum mendacium
excelluit in ejus gloriam; quid etiammum et ego
velut peccator judicor; - For if the truth of God hath more abounded
through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also
judged as a sinner? - Et non (quemadmodum exprobratur nobis,
et quemadmodum aiunt quidam nos dicere) - And not rather, (as we be slanderously
reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us
Faciamus mala, ut veniant bona? quorum
judicium justum est.
do evil, that good may come? whose damnation
is just.
5 But if our unrighteousness,etc. Though this is a digression from the main subject, it was yet
necessary for the Apostle to introduce it, lest he should seem to give to the ill-disposed an occasion
to speak evil, which he knew would be readily laid hold on by them. For since they were watching
for every opportunity to defame the gospel, they had, in the testimony of David, what they might
have taken for the purpose of founding a calumny, — “If God seeks nothing else, but to be glorified
by men, why does he punish them, when they offend, since by offending they glorify him? Without
cause then surely is he offended, if he derives the reason of his displeasure from that by which he
is glorified.” There is, indeed, no doubt, but that this was an ordinary, and everywhere a common
calumny, as it will presently appear. Hence Paul could not have covertly passed it by; but that no
one should think that he expressed the sentiments of his own mind, he premises that he assumes
the person of the ungodly; and at the same time, he sharply, touches, by a single expression, on
human reason; whose work, as he intimates, is ever to bark against the wisdom of God; for he says
not, “according to the ungodly,” but “according to man,” or as man. And thus indeed it is, for all
the mysteries of God are paradoxes to the flesh: and at the same tine it possesses so much audacity,
that it fears not to oppose them and insolently to assail what it cannot comprehend. We are hence
reminded, that if we desire to become capable of understanding them, we must especially labor to
become freed from our own reason, (proprio sensu) and to give up ourselves, and unreservedly to
submit to his word. — The word wrath, taken here for judgment, refers to punishment; as though
he said, “Is God unjust, who punishes those sins which set forth his righteousness?”
6.By no means,etc. In checking this blasphemy he gives not a direct reply to the objection, but
begins with expressing his abhorrence of it, lest the Christian religion should even appear to include
absurdities so great. And this is more weighty than if he adopted a simple denial; for he implies,
that this impious expression deserved to be regarded with horror, and not to be heard. He presently
subjoins what may be called an indirect refutation; for he does not distinctly refute the calumny,
but gives only this reply, — that the objection was absurd. Moreover, he takes an argument from
an office which belongs to God, by which he proves it to be impossible, — God shall judge the
world; he cannot then be unjust.
This argument is not derived, so to speak, from the mere power of God, but from his exercised
power, which shines forth in the whole arrangement and order of his works; as though he said, —
“It is God’s work to judge the world, that is, to rectify it by his own righteousness, and to reduce
to the best order whatever there is in it out of order: he cannot then determine any thing unjustly.”
And he seems to allude to a passage recorded by Moses, in Genesis 18:25, where it is said, that
when Abraham prayed God not to deliver Sodom wholly to destruction, he spoke to this purpose,
—
“It is not meet, that thou who art to judge the earth, shouldest destroy the just with the ungodly:
for this is not thy work nor can it be done by thee.”