A40370:175
Of free justification
Of free justification by Christ written first in Latin by John Fox, author of the Book of martyrs, against Osorius, &c. and now translated into English, for the benefit of those who love their own souls, and would not be mistaken in so great a point.Of free justification by Christ written first in Latine by John Fox, author of the Book of martyrs, against Osorius, &c. and now translated into English, for the benefit of those who love their own souls, and would not be mistaken in so great a point.
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1694
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
But now, do you your self perform all these things, which you require in us for the perfection of righteousness? Hath the great Husbandman watered the happy ground of your mind, with so great a vigour and verdure of his bounty, that no wild Vines nor Briars do any where appear in all your life? That no Lust draws you aside from your duty? No perturbation of affections throws you down from your state of constancy? No concupiscence of the eyes defiles the purity of your mind? He that seeth a Woman, 1saith he, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his Heart. What if a man is accounted unchaste before God, if so much as his Eyes are Adulterous, if he is next to a Murderer that is so much as rashly angry at his Brother; if he that calls his Brother Racha, or bespatters the name of his Neighbour 2with the smallest reproach, is in danger ⟨p. 101⟩of the Council; what shall be said to him, who hath poured forth, not only volumes of reproaches, but Cart-loads of spiteful speeches against his Brethren and fellow Servants, with so much virulency and gall of bitterness? So that I need not here go through all the Precepts of the Divine Law, as concerning loving God above all, concerning the strictest love to our Neighbour, concerning shunning offences, putting up injuries, praying for enemies, the abdication of this World, the framing the Life to a Dove-like simplicity, and other such like things. Which things, seeing they are so various in kind, and so difficult in the observation; I would know of you, not what ought to be done, but what you your self do express in deeds: Not what the Divine Grace is able to do in you, but what it does in effect: Whether he heaps you up with so many and so great gifts of his, that you are able to perform all things, that are written in the royal Law. Which if you can avouch so to be, I willingly congratulate your happiness, and I am not at all against your obtaining by way of merit, that which your works do merit, but that you may go up to the Kingdom, and may take your self Unpinioned Wings, as Arnobius saith wherewith you may go happily to Heaven, and 'may fly to the Stars, where you may reign with Christ, and you only, all other sinners being shut out, may with God overcome, when you are judged.