A treatise of faith divided into two parts. The first showing the nature, the…A treatise of faith diuided into two parts. The first shewing the nature, the…

Our Adversaries teach, that these Virgins had aspired to more then ordinary perfection in the Church: and had they gotten this without good works? It is a strange perfection that can be attained without all good deeds spiritual or corporal. But they continued not (they will say) in their former charity, when yet they presumed strongly on the assurance of their salvation, as is apparent, by their confident demanding to be let in: for they said, Lord, Lord, open unto us. Indeed they never had either true faith or love, and therefore could not continue therein. For if ever they had been partakers of either in truth, they would have persevered in both unto the end: and where the one is utterly wanting, the other never was. Their earnest demanding to be let in, shows rather their desire, then their hope; and yet how many hope presumptuously without true faith in Christ? Faith is grounded upon the Word of God, and the thing which it believeth, is that which the Lord hath said.¹ Whatsoever we conceive of God besides his Word, it is imagination, opinion, presumption, but faith it is not. But the Word of God denounceth destruction to the workers of iniquity, to the fruitless and barren fig-tree, how can it then be said, that they that work iniquity, that bring forth no good fruit, have faith to believe assuredly, that they shall be saved. The Apostle makes mention of some, who professed that they knew God, ²but were indeed unbelievers, as the vulgar reads it. And we know it is often threatened in the Prophets, that the wicked shall cry, ³and not be heard: call in fear, but not in faith: for they that in faith call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved. ⟨p. 56⟩⁴But the Apostle James (as they object) supposeth plainly, that a man may have faith without good works, that is,⁵ without charity, saying: What shall it profit, if a man say he hath faith, and hath no works? Can faith save him? Wherein they take for granted, what can never be proved, that the Apostle takes wo•kes for charity. Do they think, that they against whom the Apostle writes would grant, that they were without the love of God? The Gnostics were never so absurd. But the question was, whether a man that professed Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world, was not by this saved, how lewdly soever he demeaned himself?