WHICH THREE CHAPTERS ARE THE KEY AND THE DOOR OF THE SCRIPTURE,

AND THE RESTORING AGAIN OF MOSES' LAW, CORRUPT BY THE

SCRIBES AND PHARISEES. AND THE EXPOSITION IS THE
RESTORING AGAIN OF CHRIST'S LAW CORRUPT

BY THE PAPISTS.

VOL. 111.

¶ Item, before the book, thou hast a Prologue very necessary, containing the whole sum of the covenant made between God and us, upon which we be baptized to keep it.

THE PROLOGUE

HERE hast thou, dear reader, an exposition upon the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh chapters of Matthew, wherein Christ, our spiritual Isaac, diggeth again the wells of Abraham: which wells the scribes and pharisees, those wicked and spiteful Philistines, had stopped and filled up with the earth of their false expositions. He openeth the kingdom of heaven, which they had shut up that other men should not enter, as they themselves had no lust to go in. He restoreth the key of knowledge which they had taken away, and broken the wards with wresting the text contrary to his due and natural course with their false glosses. He plucketh away from the face of Moses, the veil which the scribes and pharisees had spread thereon, that no man might perceive the brightness of his countenance. He weedeth out the thorns and bushes of their pharisaical glosses, wherewith they had stopped up the narrow way and strait gate, that few could find them.

The wells of Abraham are the Scripture. And the Scripture may well be called the kingdom of heaven, which is eternal life, and no

The key, what it is.

the way

that lead

eth to Christ.

thing save the knowledge of God the Father, Moses' face. and of his Son Jesus Christ. (John xvii.) Moses' face is the law in her right understanding; and the law in her right understanding is the key, or at the leastway, the first and principal key to The law is open the door of the Scripture. And the law is the very way that bringeth unto the door Christ, as it is written Gal. iii. The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. And (Rom. x.) The end of the law; that is to say, the thing, or cause why the law was given, is Christ, to justify all that believe. That is to say: the law was given to prove us unrighteous and to drive us to Christ, to be made righteous through her office is forgiveness of sin by him. The law was given to make the sin known, saith St. Paul, (Rom. iv.) and that sin committed under the law might be the more sinful. (Rom. vii.) The law is that thing which Paul, in his inward man granted to be good, but was yet compelled ofttimes of his members to do those things which that good law condemned for evil. (Rom. vii.)

Law, what

The law detecteth sin, condemneth our deeds and

driveth us to Christ.

The law maketh no man to love the law, or less to do or commit sin: but gendereth more lust, (Rom. vii.) and increaseth sin. (Rom. v.) For I cannot but hate the law, in as much as I find no power to do it, and it nevertheless condemneth me because I do it not. The law setteth not at one with God, but causeth wrath. (Rom. iii.)

The law was given by Moses, but grace and

verity by Jesus Christ. (John i.) Behold, though Moses gave the law, yet he gave no man grace to do it or to understand it aright, or wrote it in any man's heart, to consent that it was good, and to wish after power to fulfil it. But Christ giveth grace to do it, and to understand it aright, and writeth it with his holy Spirit in the tables of the hearts of men, and maketh it a true thing there, and none hypocrisy.

The law, truly understood, is those fiery serpents that stung the children of Israel with present death. But Christ is the brazen serpent,

The brazen serpent.

on whom whosoever, being stung with conscience Num, xxi. of sin, and looketh with a sure faith, is healed immediately of that stinging, and saved from the pains and sorrows of hell.

It is one thing to condemn and pronounce the sentence of death, and to sting the conscience with fear of everlasting pain. And it is another thing to justify from sin: that is to say, to forgive and remit sin, and to heal the conscience, and certify a man, not only that he is delivered from eternal death, but also that he is made the son of God, and heir to everlasting life. The first is the office of the law. The second pertaineth unto Christ only, through faith.

do of

The law

and faith be

of contrary operations.

The Scrip ture, how it

up.

Now if thou give the law a false gloss, and say is locked that the law is a thing which a man may his own strength, even out of the power of his free-will; and that by the deeds of the law, thou mayest deserve forgiveness of thy fore sins; then died Christ in vain, (Gal. ii.) and is made almost of no stead, seeing thou art become thine