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and fear of damnation invaded our consciences, we were utterly lost, if faith were not by, to help us up again, in that we are promised that whensoever we repent of evil and come to the right way again, it shall be forgiven for Christ's sake. For when we be fallen, there is no testament made in works to come, that they shall save us. And therefore the works of repentance, or of the sacraments, can never quiet our consciences, and deliver us from fear of damnation.

And last of all, in temptation, tribulation, and adversities, we perished daily, except faith went with us to deliver us, in that we have promises, that God will assist us, clothe us, feed us, and fight for us, and rid us out of the hands of our enemies. And thus the righteous liveth ever by faith, even from faith to faith, that is, as soon as he is delivered out of one temptation another is set before him, to fight against, and to overcome through faith. The Scripture saith, Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, and his sins hid, and unto whom the Lord reckoneth not unrighteousness. So that the only righteousness of him that can but sin, and hath nought of himself to make amends, is the forgiveness of sin, which faith only bringeth. And as farforth as we be unrighteous, faith only justifieth us actively, and else nothing on our part. And as farforth as we have sinned, be in sin, or do sin, or shall sin, so farforth must faith in Christ's blood justify us only, and else nothing. To love, is to be righteous, so farforth as thou lovest, but not to make righteous, nor to make peace. To believe in Christ's blood with a repenting heart, is to make righteous, and the only making of peace and satisfaction to Godward. And thus because terms be dark to them that be not expert and exercised, we alway set our meaning with clear ensamples, reporting ourselves unto the hearts and consciences of all

men.

The righte

ous liveth by faith.

Faith in blood doth only justify

Christ's

us.

MORE. The blasphemous words of Luther seem to More. signify, that both John Baptist and our Lady were sinners.

Tyndale.

John Baptist and our Lady also were sinners, and

looked for

the redemption in Christ.

Chrisosto

mus.

There was

never any but Christ that was without sin.

TYNDALE. Jeroun Baptist said to Christ, (Mat. iii.) 1 had need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? whereof did John confess that he had need to be washed and purged by Christ, of his holiness and good deeds? When John said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, he was not of that sort, nor had any sins to be taken away at any time, nor any part in Christ's blood, which died for sinners only. John came to restore all thing, saith Christ. That is, he came to interpret the law of God truly, and to prove all flesh sinners, to send them to Christ, as Paul doth in the beginning of the Romans. Which law, if M. More could understand how spiritual it is, and what it requireth of us, he would not so dispute. And if there were no imperfectness in our Lady's deeds, why did Christ rebuke her, (John ii.) when he ought rather to have honoured his mother, and why did he make her seek him three days? Chrisostomus dare say that our lady was now and then taken with a little vain glory. She looked for the promises of Him that should come and bless her, from what? She believed to be saved by Christ, from what? This I grant, that our Lady, John Baptist, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and many like, did never consent to sin, to follow it; but had the Holy Ghost from the beginning. Neverthelater, while they followed the Spirit and wrought their best, yet chances met them by the way, and temptations, that made their works come sometimes unperfectly to pass, as a potter that hath his craft never so well, meeteth a chance now and then, that maketh him fashion a pot amiss. So that I think the perfectest of them all, as we have ensamples of some, were compelled to say with Paul, That good that I would, I do not, and that evil that I would not, that I do. I would not swear on a book, that if our Lady had been let slip as we other were, and as hard apposed with as present death before her eyes, that she would not have denied some things that she knew true, yea but she was preserved by grace that she was not. No, but though she

were kept by grace from the outward deed, yet if there were such wickedness in her flesh, she had sin. And the grace was, that she knew it, and was meek to believe in Christ, to have it forgiven her, and to be preserved that it should not bud forth. John the Evangelist, when he was as holy as ever was John the Baptist, said, If we say we 1 Johu '. have no sin, we deceive ourselves.

Works are

law.

Faith is un

Then he compareth faith and deeds together, and will that faith should stand in no better service of right than under the deeds. Yes, for the deeds be examined by the law, and therefore it is not enough to do them only, or to do them with love but I must do them with as great love as Christ did for me, and as I receive a good deed at my need. But faith is under no law, and therefore be she never so feeble, she shall receive according to the truth of the promiser.

der no law.

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Tyndale.

MORE. What thing could we ask God of right be- More. cause we believe him?

TYNDALE. Verily, all that he promiseth may we be Tyndale. bold to ask of right, and duty, and by good obligation.

MORE. Ferman said, that all works be good enough in More. them that God hath chosen.

TYNDALE. I am sure it is untrue, for their best be Tyndale. not good enough, though God forgiveth them their evil of his mercy, at the repentance of their hearts.

Then he endeth in his school doctrine contrary unto all the Scripture, that God remitteth not the sin of his chosen people, because that he hath chosen them not of his but of a towardness that is more in one than mercy, in another saying, God saw before that Peter should repent, and Judas would despair, and therefore chose Peter. If God chose Peter because he did repent, why chose he not Judas too, which repented as much as he, and knowledged his sin, and brought the money again? O this blindness, as [if] God had wrought nothing in the repentance of Peter! Said not Christ before, that Peter should fall? And said he not that he had prayed for him

The blind

and fond

reasoning of More.

Luke xxii.

John xvii.

The difference between Peter's fall, and

the fall of Judas.

Judas.

Judas perished in despera

tion.

By Adam

we are all made the

children of the wrath of God.

that he should be holp up again? Christ prayed a strong prayer for Peter to help him up again, and suffered a strong death thereto. And before his death he committed them unto his Father, saying, I have kept them in thy name and I depart, keep them now from evil. Peter had a good heart to God, and loved his law, and believed in Christ, and had the Spirit of God in him which never left him for all his fall. Peter sinned of no malice, but of frailty and sudden fear of death. And the goodness of God wrought his repentance and all the means by which he was brought up again at Christ's request. And Judas was never good, nor came to Christ for love of his doctrine, but of covetousness, nor did ever believe in Christ.

Judas was by nature and birth, (as we all be) heir of the wrath of God, in whom the devil wrought his will and blinded his heart with ignorance. In which ignorance and blindness he grew, as he grew in age, and fell deeper and deeper therein, and thereby wrought all his wickedness, and the devil's will, and perished therein. From which ignorance God purged Peter of his mercy, and gave him light, and his Spirit to govern him, and not of any towardness that was in Peter of his own birth: but for the mercy that we have in the birth of Christ's death.

And how will M. More prove that God chooseth not of his goodness but of our towardness? What good towardness can he have and endeavour, that is altogether blind, and carried away at the will of the devil, till the devil be cast out? Are we not robbed of all towardness in Adam, and be by nature made the children of sin, so that we sin naturally, and to sin is our nature? So that as now, though we would do well, the flesh yet sinneth naturally, neither ceaseth to sin, but so farforth as it is kept under with violence: even so once our hearts sinned as naturally, with full lust and consent unto the flesh; the devil possessing our hearts, and keeping

out the light of grace. What good towardness and endeavour can we have to hate sin, as long as we love it? What good towardness can we have unto the will of God while we hate it and be ignorant thereof. Can the will desire that the wit seeth not? Can the will long for, and sigh for, that the wit knoweth not of? Can a man take thought for that loss that he wotteth not of? What good endeavour can the Turks' children, the Jews' children, and the pope's infants have, when they be taught all falsehood only, with like persuasions of worldly reason, to be all justified with works? It is not therefore as Paul saith of the running or willing, but of the mercy of God, Rom. ix. that a man is called and chosen to grace.

The first grace, the first faith, and the first justifying is given us freely saith M. More, which, I would fain wete how it will stand with his other doctrine; and whether he mean any other thing, by choosing them to have God's Spirit given me, and faith to see the mercy that is laid up for me; and to have my sins forgiven without all deserving, and preparing of myself. God did not see only that the thief that was saved at Christ's death should come thither, but God chose him, to shew his mercy unto us that should after believe; and provided actually, and wrought for the bringing of him thither that day, to make him see and to receive the mercy that was laid up for him in store, before the world was made.

THE TWELFTH CHAPTER.

God work

eth by di-
make us to
call upon
in his

vers to

and to trust

mercy.

In the twelfth, in chafing himself to heap lie upon lie, he uttereth his feelable blindness. For he asketh this question, Wherefore serveth exhortations unto faith, if the hearers have not liberty of their free-will, by which, together Freewill. with God's grace, a man may labour to submit the rebellion of reason unto the obedience of faith and credence of the word of God? Whereof ye see, that besides his grant that reason rebelleth against faith, contrary to the

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