lift up; that every one which believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Now Moses did hang up the brasen serpent for the health and recovery of them that were poisoned! by the bitings of the serpents. For they died presently that were stung with the serpents? unless they did immediately look up to the brasen serpent; for at the very sight thereof the poisoned sting did lose all force, and the person envenomed was out of hand restored and cured again. Neither was there in the host of the Israelites any other medicine but that alone, which whosoever despised he died without remedy. For the force of the poison was not expelled, and the life of the infected was not preserved, either by the power of prayers, or the multitude of sacrifices, or medicinable herbs, or any kind of physic, or other means of man’s invention: if any would escape the peril of death, it behoved him to behold the brasen serpent aloft. Now that brasen serpent was a type or figure of Christ our Lord; who, being lift up upon the cross, is ordained of God to be the only salvation. But now to whom doth that saving health befall? To them, forsooth, that do behold him being so lift up. The Lord himself telleth us what “to behold” doth signify, and instead thereof doth put to believe.” Therefore no works, none other means, nor merits of ours do save us from eternal death and from the force of sin, that is, the poison wherewith we are all infected by the old serpent, our adversary Satan. Faith alone, whereby we believe in Christ, who was lift up for the remission of our sins, and in whom alone our life and sure salvation doth assuredly consist, is the only thing that quickeneth us which are already dying by the envenomed sting of Satan, which is sin, Hear, moreover, what the Lord doth add, instructing Nicodemus yet more fully in the true faith, and making the only cause of our salvation to be the mere and only grace of God, which is received by faith in Christ. For so” (saith he) “God loved the world, that he gave his onlybegotten Son, that every one which believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not his Son
[1 morientum e veneno, Lat.; that were dying of the poison. ] [2 dipsades, Lat.] [3 See The Old Faith, p. 44.] [4 which are—sin; an addition of the translator’s. [5 in mundum, Lat.; into the world. ]]
to condemn the world; but that the world might be saved by him. He that believeth in him is not condemned: but he that believeth not in him is already condemned, because he believeth not in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” Lo, what could be spoken more plainly? By faith we are made partakers of Christ. By repeating faith so often his meaning was so to beat it into our heads, that no man should hereafter do once so much as doubt of so manifest and evident a piece of doctrine. But if here now thou dost little set by the authority of Christ, then whose authority wilt thou esteem Ὁ But thou wilt not, I know, reject his testimony. Yet albeit that his warrant is sufficient, give ear notwithstanding to that disciple whom the Lord loved, who in his epistle expounding as it were the words of the Lord, and by the way of exposition repeating and beating them into all men’s minds, doth strongly cry out: “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he testified of his Son. He that believeth in the Son hath the testimony in himself: he that believeth not God doth make him a liar, because he believed not the record that he gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” But what else is it to have the Son of God than to believe in him? For this sense is gathered by that which went before, being of itself so evident, that for me to add anything unto it, is to do nothing else but as it were to go about with a tallowcandle to help or adlight the sun at his rising.
Now are we come to the place of St Paul, which is to be seen in the third and fourth chapters of his epistle to the Romans. “The righteousness of God,” saith he, “without _ the law is made manifest, being witnessed by the testimony of the law and the prophets.” Paul in this place doth preach the gospel most evidently; for I know not any other place wherein he doth it more plainly. He teacheth herein how we are justified before God, what is the true righteousness and salvation of mankind, and by what means it cometh unto us. He saith, that the righteousness of God, that is to say, the righteousness which God bestoweth, or which doth
[6 Deus, Lat.; God.]
prevail! before God, is revealed without the law; that is to say, doth come unto us without the help of the law, to wit, without the aid and merits of the works of the law. For touching the testimony of the law and the prophets, they witness both together, that they which believe are justified by the righteousness of God. Now what that righteousness is, he doth immediately declare, saying: “The righteousness of God cometh by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” The righteousness, saith he, whereof we speak 5, is not human or of mortal man, but altogether divine, or of God himself. For as God alone is only just, so the righteousness of God is the true and only righteousness of God? that saveth us: which righteousness God maketh us to be partakers of by that faith of Jesus Christ, to wit, if we believe in Christ, and hope in him for to be saved Neither is there here any man excluded from righteousness and salvation; for Paul doth plainly say, “Unto all and upon all that do believe.” Wherefore God doth repute and esteem all them to be righteous, which do believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord and Saviour. Now he doth presently annex the cause why he attributeth salvation unto the righteousness of God, and not of man, or why the gospel commendeth to us the righteousness of God, saying: “For there is no difference; all have sinned and have need of the glory of God.” For because all men of their own nature are destitute of the glory of God, that is, since they are without the true image of God, to the likeness whereof they were created in the beginning; therefore all men, verily, are unrighteous and sinners: whereupon it followeth, that in them there is no righteousness, and that they have nothing wherein to boast before the righteous God. For what else, I beseech you, do sinners carry from the judgment-seat of God, but confusion and ignominy? And for because all men are such and in that case, therefore the apostle doth very wisely add: “But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, or reconciliation, through faith in his blood.”