First, to commit ourselves to God above all is the first of all precepts; and the first stone in the foundation of our faith, that we believe and put our trust in one God, one all true, one almighty, all good, and all merciful, cleaving fast to his truth, might, mercy, and goodness, surely certified and fully persuaded that he is our God, yea ours, and to us all true, without all falsehood and guile, and cannot fail in his promises; and to us almighty, that his will cannot be let, to fulfil all the truth that he hath promised us; and to us all good, and all merciful, whatsoever we have done, and howsoever grievously we have trespassed, so that we come to him the way that he hath appointed; which way is Jesus Christ [> The twenty-second of Henry VIII, began with April 21, 1530, and ended April 20, 1531.]
[TYNDALE, 111] is
only, as we shall see followingly. This first clause, then, is the first commandment, or at the least the first sentence in the first commandment, and the first article of our ereed.
And that this trust and confidence in the merey of God is ihrough Jesus Christ, is the second artiele of our ereed, confirmed and testified throughout all scripture. That Christ bringeth us into this grace, Paul proveth, (Rom. v.) saying, Justified by faith we are at peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom we have an entering in unto this grace in which we stand.” And, (Eph. iii.) “By whom,” saith Paul, “we have a bold entering in through the faith that is in him:” and in the second of the said epistle, By him we have an entering in unto the Father;” and a little before in the same chapter, He is our peace.” And John, in the first chapter, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world:” which sin was the bush that stopped the entering in, and kept us out; and the sword wherewith was kept the entering unto the tree of life from Adam and all his offspring. And in the second of the first of Peter, Which bare our sins in his body,” and, by whose stripes we are made whole.” “By whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of our sins” (Colos. i, and Ephes. i). And, (Rom. iv.) He was delivered for our sins, and rose again for our justifying.” of And concerning the resurrection, it is an article of our — faith, and proved there sufficiently; and that it shall be by the 5power of Christ, is also the open scripture (John vi): “This is the will of my Father which sent me, that I lose nothing of all that he hath given me, but that I raise it up again in the last day.” And again, “I am the resurrection” (John xi.). That this lively faith is sufficient to justification, without us. adding to of any more help, is this wise proved: The promiser is God; of whom Paul saith, (Rom. viii.) “If God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us?” He is thereto all good, all merciful, all true, and almighty; wherefore sufficient to be believed by his oath: moreover Christ, in whom the promise is made, hath received all power in heaven and in earth (Matt. the last) He hath also a perpetual priesthood, and therefore able perpetually to save (Heb. vii.). And that “there is but one mediator, Christ,” as saith
Paul (1 Tim. ii.). And by that word understand an atonemaker, a peacemaker, and bringer into grace and favour, having full power so to do. And that Christ is so, is proved at the full. It is written, (John iii.) The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all into his hand.” And he that believeth the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him.” “All things are given me of my Father” (Luke x. And “all whosoever call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts i). Of his fulness have we all received” (John i.). “There is no other name given to man in which we must be saved” (Acts iv.) And again, Unto his name bear all the prophets record, that by his name shall all that believe in him receive remission” (Acts x.). “In him dwelleth all the fulness of God bodily” (Col. ii) ^ All whatsoever my Father hath are mine” (John xvi) Whatsoever ye ask in my name, that will I do for you” (John xiv.). One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, which is above all, through all, and in you all” (Ephes. iv.). There is but one whose servant I am, to do his will; but one that shall pay me my wages. There is but one to whom I am bound; ergo, but one that hath power over me to damn or save me. I will add to this Paul’s argument, (Gal. iii). God sware unto Abraham four hundred years before the law was given, that we should be saved by Christ. Ergo, the law given four hundred years after cannot disannul that covenant. So dispute I. Christ, when he had suffered his passion, and was risen again and entered into his glory, was sufficient for his apostles, without any other means or help; ergo, the holiness of no saint since hath diminished aught of that his power, but that he is as full sufficient now: for the promise is as deeply made to us as to them. Moreover, the treasure of his mercy was laid up in Christ for all that should believe, before the world was made; ergo, nothing that hath happened since hath changed the purpose of the invariable God.
Moreover, to exclude the blind imagination, falsely called faith, of them that give themselves to vice without resistance, (affirming that they have no power to do otherwise, but that God hath so made them, and therefore must save them, they not intending or purposing to mend their living, but sinning with whole consent and full lust,) he declareth what faith he 18—2
meaneth, two manner of ways. First, by that he saith, whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved:” by which words he declareth evidently, that he meaneth that faith that is in the promise made upon the appointment between God and us, that we should keep his law to the uttermost of our power; that is, he that believeth in Christ for the remission of sin, and is baptized to do the will of Christ, and to keep his law of love, and to mortify the flesh, that man shall be saved: and so is the imagination of these swine, that will not leave wallowing themselves in every mire and puddle, clean excluded; for God never made promise, but anta” upon an appointment or covenant, under which whosoever will not come can be no partaker of the promise. True faith in Christ giveth power to love the law of God: for it is written, — (John, the first,) He gave them power to be the sons of God, in that they believe in his name.” Now, to be the son of God is to love righteousness, and hate unrighteousness, and so to be like thy Father. Hast thou then no power to love the law? so hast thou no faith in Christ’s blood. And, (Rom. ii.) We set up and maintain the law through faith.” Why so? For the preaching of faith ministereth the Spirit (Gal. ii, and 2 Cor. ii). And the Spirit looseth the bands of Satan, and giveth power to love the law, and also to do it. For saith Paul, (Rom. viii) If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus dwell in you, then will he that raised up Jesus quicken your mortal bodies by the means of his Spirit dwelling in you.”
Ah well (wilt thou say), if I must profess the law, and work; ergo, faith alone saveth me not. Be not deceived with sophistry; but withdraw thy cares from words, and consider the thing in thine heart. Faith justifieth thee; that is, bringeth remission of all sins, and setteth thee in the state of grace before all works, and getteth thee power to work before thou couldst work. But if thou wilt not go back again, but continue in grace, and come to that salvation and glorious resurrection of Christ, thou must work and join works to thy faith, in will and deed too, if thou have time and leisure; and, as oft as thou fallest, set thee on thy faith again, without help. of works. And although, when thou art reconciled and restored to grace, works be required, yet is not that reconciling and grace the benefit of the works that follow; but
clean eontrary, that forgiveness of thy sins, and restoring to favour, deserve the works that follow. Though when the king, after that sentence of death is given upon a murderer, hath pardoned him at the request of some of his. friends, works be required of him that he henceforth keep the king’s laws, if he will continue in his grace’s favour, in which he now standeth; yet the benefit of his life proceedeth not of the deserving of the works that follow, but of the king’s goodness and favour of his friends; yea, and that benefit, and gift of his life, deserve the works that follow. Though the father chastise the child, yet is the child no less bound to obey, and to do the will of the father. If when the father pardoneth it, the works that follow deserve that favour, then must the works that the correction followed have deserved favour also; and then was the father unrighteous to chastise it. All whatsoever thou art able to do, to please God withal, is thy duty to do, though thou hadst never sinned. If it be thy duty, how can it then be the deserving of the mercy and grace that went before? Now, that mercy was the benefit of God thy Father through the deserving of the Lord Christ, which hath bought thee with the price of his blood.
And again, when he saith that he purposeth to bestow his goods, to be accepted as fruits of faith,” it is evident that he meaneth that living faith which professeth the law of Godand is the mother of all good works, yea, and nurse thereto. Another cavillation which they might make in the second part, where he admitteth no other mediator but Christ only, nor will give of his goods to bind any man to any feigned observance for the help of his soul, when he were whole in the kingdom of Christ, clean delivered, both body and soul, from the dominion of Satan (as the scripture testifieth all that die in Christ to be), is this: they will say, that he held that none should pray for him save Christ, and that we be not bound to pray one for another, nor ought to desire the prayers of another man. That he excludeth, in that he saith all others be but petitioners: by which words he plainly confesseth, that of other may and ought for to pray, and that we may and ought to desire other to pray for us; but meaneth that we may not put our trust and confidence in their prayer, as though they gave of themselves that which they desire for us in their petitions, and so give them the thanks, and ascribe to their merits
that which is given us in the name of our master Christ, as the deservings of his blood. Christ is my Lord, and hath deserved and also obtained power, to give me all that can be desired for me; and all that other desire for me, is desired in Christ’s name, and given at the merits of his blood. All the honour then, trust, confidence, and thanks, pertain to him also. Some will haply say, How should I desire another to pray for me, and not trust to his prayer? Verily, even as I desire my neighbour to help me at my need, and yet trust not to him. Christ has commanded us to love each other. Now when I can- go or desire help, I put my trust in God, and complain to God first, and say, Lo, Father! I go to my brother, to ask help in thy name. Prepare the heart of him against I come, that he may pity me, and help me, for thy sake, &c. Now if my brother remember his duty and help me, I received it of Godand give God the thanks, which moved the heart of my brother, and gave my brother a corage! to help me, and wherewith to do it, and so hath helped me by my brother. And I love my brother again, and say, Lo, Father! I went to my brother in thy name, and he hath helped me for thy sake: wherefore, O Father! be thou as mereiful to him at his need, as he hath been to me, for thy sake, at my need.” Lo! now, as my brother did his duty when he helped me, so do I my duty when I pray for him again: and as I might not have put my trust and confidence in my brother’s help, so may he notin my prayers. I am sure that God will help me by his promise; but am not sure that my brother will help me, though it be his duty. So am I sure that God will hear me, whatsoever I ask in Christ’s name, by his promise; but am not sure that my brother will pray for me, or that he hath a good heart to God.
No; but the saints in heaven cannot but pray and be heard.” No more can the saints in earth but pray and be heard neither. Moses, Samuel, David, Noah, Elias, Elissus, Esaias, Daniel, and all the prophets, prayed and were heard; yet were none of those wicked, that would not put their trust in God according to their doctrine and preaching, partakers of their prayers in the end. And as damnable as it is for the - poor to trust in the riches of the richest upon earth, so damnable is it also to leave the covenant made in Christ’s blood,
[1 See Vol. 1. 417.]
and to trust in the saints of heaven. They that be in heaven know the elect that trust in Christ’s blood, and profess the law of God, and for them only pray; and these wicked idolaters, which have no trust in the covenant of God, nor serve God in the spirit, nor in the gospel of Christ’s blood, but after their blind imagination, choosing them every man a sundry saint to be their mediator, to trust to and to be saved by their merits, do the saints abhor and defy: and their prayers and em offerings are to the saints as acceptable and pleasant, as was the prayer and the offering of Simon Magus to Peter. Acts viii. Moreover, the saints in their most cumbrance are most comforted and most able to comfort other, as Paul testifieth (2 Cor.1.); insomuch that St Stephen and St James prayed for them that slew them. St Martin preached and comforted his desperate brethren even unto the last breath?; and likewise, as stories make mention, did innumerable more. Yea, and I have known of simple and unlearned persons, and that of some that were great sinners, which, at the hour of death, have fallen flat on the blood of Christ, and given no room to other men’s either prayers or preachings; but have as strongly trusted in Christ’s blood as ever did Peter or Paul, and have thereto preached it to others, and exhorted others so mightily that an angel of heaven could not mend them. Who then should resist God, that he might not give the same grace to M. Tracy, which was a learned man, and better seen in the works of St Austin twenty years before he died, than ever I knew doctor in England, but that he must then faint and shrink, when most need is to be strong, and fear the pope’s purgatory, and trust to the prayer of priests dearly paid for? I dare say that he prayed for the priests when he died, that God would convert a great many of them; and if he had known of any good man among them that had needed, he would have given; and if he had known of any lack of priests, he would have given to
[[? Martin, bishop of Tours, at the close of the fourth century,]
[when dying, Discipulis indicavit se jam resolvi; illis autem gregem]
[Domini desolandum flentibus, oravit ad Dominum ut, si adhue populo]
[suo necessarius esset, ipsum, laborem non recusantem, adhue in vita]
[presenti dimitteret. Oculis ac manibus in colum semper intentus in-]
[victum ab oratione spiritum non relaxabat.”—Petr. de Natalibus, Lib.]
[x. 6. 47. Compare the account of him given in Dr Gilly’s Life and]
[Times of Vigilantius, chap. v.]]
maintain more. But now, since there be more than enough; and have more than every man a sufficient living, how should he have given them, to hire their prayers, but of pure mistrust in Christ’s blood? If robbing of widows’ houses under pretence of long prayers be damnable (Matt. xxiii), then is if damnable also for widows to suffer themselves to be robbed by the long pattering of hypocrites, through mistrust in Christ’s blood. Yea, and is it not damnable to maintain such abomination? Now when this damnation is spread over all, how can we give them that have enough already? or how can they, that have enough already, take more under the name of praying, and not harden the people more in this damnable damnation? And concerning the burying of his body, he allegeth St Austin: neither is there any man, think I, so mad to affirm that the outward pomp of the body should help the soul Moreover, what greater sign of infidelity is there, than to care, at the time of death, with what pomp the carcass shall be must. carried to the grave? He denieth not but that a christian man should be honourably buried, namely for the honour and hope of the resurrection; and therefore committed that care to his dear executors, his son and his wife, which he wist would in that part do sufficient, and leave nothing of the use of the country undone, but the abuse.
And that bestowing of a great part of his goods (while he yet lived) upon the poor, to be thankful for the mercy received, without buying and selling with God; that is, without binding those poor unto any other appointed prayers than God hath — bound us already, one to pray for another, one to help another, as he hath helped us; but patiently abiding for the blessings — that God hath appointed unto all manner good works, trusting faithfully to his promise; thanking, as ye may see by his words, the blood of Christ for the reward promised to his works, and not the goodness of the works, as though he had done more than his duty, or all that; and assigning by writing, unto whom another part should be distributed, and giving the rest to his executors, that no strife should be; which executors were by right the heirs of all that was left to them: these things, I say, are signs evident, not only of a good - christian man, but also of a perfect christian man, and of such a one as needed not to be aghast and desperate for fear of the painful pains of purgatory, which whoso feareth as they feign 1 1 1 1
it, cannot but utterly abhor death; seeing that Christ is there no longer thy Lord, after he hath brought thee thither, but thou art excluded from his satisfaction, and must satisfy for thyself alone; and that with suffering pain only, or else tarrying the satisfying of them that shall never satisfy enough for themselves; or gaping for the pope’s pardons, which have so great doubts and dangers, what in the mind and intent of the granter, and what in the purchaser, ere they can be truly obtained with all due circumstances, and much less certitude that they have any authority at all. Paul thirsted to be dissolved and to be with Christ; Stephen desired Christ to take his spirit; the prophets also desired God to take their souls from them; and all the saints went with a lusty courage to death, neither fearing or teaching us to fear any such cruelty. Where hath the church then gotten authority to bind us from being so perfect, from having any such faith in the goodness of God our Father and Lord Christ, and to make such perfectness and faith of all heresies the greatest?
Solomon saith in the thirtieth of his proverbs, Three things are insatiable, and the fourth saith never, It is enough.” But there is a fifth, called dame Avarice, with as greedy a gut, as melting a maw, as wide a throat, as gaping a mouth, and with as ravening teeth, as the best; which the more she eateth, the hungrier she is: an unquiet evil, never at rest; a blind monster and a surmising beast, fearing at the fall of every leaf. Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, Auri sacra James!? What doth not that holy hunger compel them that love this world inordinately to commit? Might that devil’s belly be once full, truth should have audience; and words be construeted aright, and taken in the same sense as they be meant. Though it seem not impossible haply, that there might be & place where the souls might be kept for a space, to be taught and instructed; yet that there should be such a jail as they jangle, and such fashions as they feign, is plainly impossible, and repugnant to the scripture. For when a man is translated utterly out of the kingdom of Satan, and so confirmed in grace that he cannot sin, so burning in love that his lust cannot be plucked from God’s will, and being partaker with us of all the promises of God, and under the commandments;
[1 O cursed hunger for gold, to what dost thou not compel the]
[heart of man?]]
what could be denied him in that deep innocency, of his most ing Father, that hath left no mercy unpromised; and asking it thereto in the name of his son Jesus, the child of his heart’s lust, which is our Lord, and hath left no mercy undeserved for us; namely when God hath sworn that he will put off righteousness, and be to us a father, and that of all mercy, and hath slain his most dear son Jesus, to confirm his oath?
Finally, seeing that Christ’s love taketh all to the best, and nothing is here that may not be well understood (the circumstances declaring in what sense all was meant), they ought to have interpreted it charitably, if aught had been found doubtful or seeming to sound amiss. Moreover, if any thing had been therein that could not have been taken well, yet their part had been to have interpreted it as spoken of idleness! of the head, by the reason of sickness; forasmuch as the man was virtuous, wise, and well learned, and of good fame and report, and sound in the faith while he was alive. But if they say he was suspect when he was alive, then is their doing so much the worse, and to be thought that they feared his doctrine when he was alive, and mistrusted their own part, their consciences testifying to them that he held no other doctrine than that was true; seeing they then neither spake nor wrote against him, nor brought him to any examination. Besides that, some merry fellows will think that they ought first to have sent to him, to wit whether he would have revoked, ere they had so despitefully burned the dead body, that could not answer for itself, nor interpret his words, how he meant them; namely the man being of so worshipful and ancient a blood.
But here will I make an end, desiring the reader to look on this thing with indifferent eyes, and judge whether I have expounded the words of this testament as they should seem to signify or not; judge also whether the maker thereof seem not by this work both virtuous and godly: which if it so be, think not that he was the worse, because the dead body was burnt to ashes; but rather learn to know the great desire that hypocrites have to find one craft or other to dash the truth with, and cause it to be counted for heresy of the simple and unlearned people, which are so ignorant they cannot spy their
[1 That is, illness, disorder.]
subtlety. It must needs be heresy, that toucheth any thing. their rotten bile; they will have it so, whosoever say nay. Only the eternal God must be prayed to, night and day, to amend them, in whose power it only lieth: who also grant.. them once earnestly to thirst? his true doctrine, contained in the sweet and pure fountains of his scriptures, and in his paths to direct their ways. Amen.
[ἱ [3 See Vol. 1. p. 37. n.]]
Specimens of
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