The works of the reverend and faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…The workes of the reuerend and faithfull seruant af Iesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…

The third treatise teacheth us what be the special marks of a righteous man. Here first he showeth that true righteousness doth not consist of any inherent quality, be it never so excellent, but is only by imputation: for the obtaining whereof a man must feel and find himself naked, and void of all righteousness, and full of all unrighteousness, by reason of that sin which dwelleth in us. 2. A man must desire to leave his sins, and to escape the punishment due unto them. 3. To commit himself by faith unto Christ, and trusting in him and in his all-sufficient merits for his full reconciliation with God. 4. A man thus justified and reconciled, is also sanctified to walk with an upright heart before the Lord. 5. This uprightness is tried by four special notes. First, we must love all good things as well as one, and hate all sins as well as one: having respect to all Gods commandments: Yet this rule may have some exceptions (saith he) for we do not at the first know all good, nor all evil, much less love the one and hate the other as we ought: yet let every man walk according to that measure of grace and light received. For of this be assured, in that measure we like of sin▪ in that measure is hypocrisy in us. Secondly, we must have a single care to approve our selves unto God himself, and to set forth his glory in well-doing without hope of reward, albeit trouble come upon us for it. And here (saith he) where as Pharisaical Papists which never knew the the true efficient, nor matter, nor form, nor end of a good work, have in elder ages far past many of our cold Gospellers, it is a sign there be but a few righteous men on earth. And if here we shall find in our selves much rebellion and hypocrisy, yet mark ever our chiefest drift in all our actions: for it is one thing to do a thing for hypocrisy, and another thing mixed with hypocrisy. The third ⟨image 61⟩marks is even to proceed on, in every good grace and in all obedience▪ not to stay in the beginning, or to •ide back, when we are gone somewhat forward. And here yet Go•s children may both linger and f•ll: but they mislike and mourn for their lingering; and if they fall, they take better hold of Christ in a new repentance: and because by their fall they have lost much ground, they run the faster and cheerfuller in the rest of their rae.