And those laws were the laws of Nature, and the civil laws of the state, whereto every Christian man had by pact submitted himself. And therefore by the burden which the apostles might lay on such as they had converted are not to be understood laws, but conditions proposed to those that sought salvation; which they might accept or refuse at their own peril, without a new sin, though not without the hazard of being condemned and excluded out of the kingdom of God for their sins past. And therefore of infidels,

St. John saith not, the wrath of God shall “come” upon them, but (John 3:36) “the wrath of God remaineth upon them”; and not that they shall be condemned, but that (John 3:18) “they are condemned already.” Nor can it be conceived that the benefit of faith “is remission of sins,” unless we conceive withal that the damage of infidelity “is the retention of the same sins.”