Beware, oh sinner, whoever you are, for God is just! Do not imagine that you will be able to satisfy God by praying, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” or by doing your utmost to refrain from evil and to practice virtue. To imagine such is to be on the broad way to eternal destruction, and causes millions, who live under the ministry of the gospel, to perish. If you could be delivered from this foolish imagination, there would still be hope for you. As long as you foster such an imagination, however, you are in a hopeless condition. Please consider that there can be no hope of grace and salvation without satisfaction of the justice of God, that is, by the enduring of punishment.
You have heard that God is gracious, which is true. You are guilty, however, of distorting the essential meaning of the grace of God by interpreting it to refer to remission of sin and absolution from punishment apart from satisfaction. Such, however, is not grace. There is no contradiction in God. The justice of God, which cannot be compromised to the least degree, of necessity demands the punishment of the sinner. God cannot deny Himself, and thus grace does not negate His justice. Grace is not incompatible with justice, but confirms it. This is the grace of God so highly exalted in His Word—that God, without finding anything in man, yes, contrary to his desert, gave His Son as a Surety. He transferred the sins of the elect from their account to His and by bearing the punishment justly due upon their sin, satisfied the justice of God on their behalf. This is grace, namely, that God offers Jesus as Surety in the gospel. It is grace when God grants faith to a sinner to receive Jesus and to entrust his soul to Jesus. It is grace when God converts a sinner, granting him spiritual life. It is grace when God permits a sinner to sensibly experience His favor. It is grace when God sanctifies a sinner, leading him in the way of holiness to salvation.
Please note how much the grace of God differs from your conception of grace. Put your erroneous conception aside and cease from trying to make all things well in the way of prayer and self-reformation.
~Wilhelmus à Brakel~
The Christian’s Reasonable Service, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992), 129-130.
The Old Guys 
John Calvin – Sheerly by the Grace of God
25 SepAfter Adam had ruined himself and all his posterity by his deadly fall, this is the basis of our salvation, this the origin of the church: that we have been uprooted from the deepest darkness and have obtained a new life sheerly by the grace of God; that the patriarchs have by faith been made partakers of this life (just as it was offered to them by God’s word); that this word, in turn, was founded upon Christ; and that all the pious who have lived since then have, in fact, been sustained by the very same promise of salvation by which Adam was revived in the beginning.
~John Calvin~
Genesis 1-11: The Reformation Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL; IVP Academic; 2012) p. 6.
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