Part 33 (2/2)

Froment on all works and laws and make a trustworthy distinction between thenorant pastors and who are the good and true For any work that is not done solely for the purpose of keeping under the body or of serving one's neighbor, so long as he asks nothing contrary to God, is not good nor Christian And for this reason I es, monasteries, altars and offices of the Church are really Christian in our day: no, nor the special fasts and prayers on certain saints' days[16] either I fear, I say, that in all these we seek only our own profit, thinking that through theed away and that we ind salvation in theether And this conorance of Christian faith and of liberty

[Sidenote: Ignorance of Liberty]

This ignorance and suppression of liberty very e: they stir up and urge on their people in these practices by praising such works, puffing the faith But I would counsel you, if you wish to pray, fast or establish some foundation in the Church, take heed not to do it in order to obtain some benefit, whether temporal or eternal For you would do injury to your faith, which alone offers you all things, Your one care should be that faith s Give your gifts freely and for nothing, that others oodness In this way you shall be truly good and Christian For of what benefit to you are the good works which you do not need for the keeping under of your body? Your faith is sufficient for you, through which God has given you all things

See, according to this rule the good things we have from God should flow from one to the other and be cohbor, and so conduct himself toward him as if he himself were in the other's place Fro into us: He has so ”put on” us and acted for us as if He had been e are From us they flow on to those who have need of thehteousness that they hbor, which I take upon myself and so labor and serve in them as if they were my very own For that is what Christ did for us This is true love and the genuine rule of a Christian life The love is true and genuine where there is true and genuine faith Hence, the Apostle says of love in I Cor xiii, that it seeketh not its own [1 Cor 13:5]

[Sidenote: Conclusion]

We conclude, therefore, that a Christian hbor Otherwise he is not a Christian He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love; by faith he is caught up beyond himself into God, by love he sinks down beneath hihbor; yet he always remains in God and in His love, as Christ says in John i, ”Verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of h now of liberty As you see, it is a spiritual and true liberty, and makes our hearts free from all sins, laws and mandates, as Paul says, I Tihteous man” [1 Tim

1:9] It is more excellent than all other liberty which is external, as heaven is rant us both to understand and to preserve Amen

[Sidenote: Liberty]

[Sidenote: Neither License]

[Sidenote: Nor Necessity]

Finally, so can be so well said that they will not spoil it by h it is a question whether they will understand even what shall here be said There are very many hen they hear of this liberty of faith, immediately turn it into an occasion for the flesh, and think that now all things are allowed them They want to show that they are freefault with ceremonies, traditions and human laws; as if they were Christians because on stated days they do not fast or eat meat when others fast, or because they do not use the accustomed prayers, and with upturned nose scoff at the precepts of ard all else that pertains to the Christian religion The extreme opposite of these are those who rely for their salvation solely on their reverent observance of ceremonies, as if they would be saved because on certain days they fast or abstain from meats, or pray certain prayers; these make a boast of the precepts of the Church and of the Fathers, and care not a fig or the things which are of the essence of our faith Plainly, both are in error, because they neglect the weightier things which are necessary to salvation, and quarrel so noisily about those trifling and unnecessaryof the Apostle Paul, who bids us take a middle course, and condemns both sides when he says, ”Let not him that eateth despise hie hilect and disparage ceremonies, not out of piety, but out of mere contempt, are reproved, since the Apostle teaches us not to despise thee On the other hand, he teaches those who insist on the ceree the others, or neither party acts toward the other according to the love that edifies Wherefore, we ought here to listen to the Scriptures, which teach that we should not go aside to the right nor to the left [Deut

28:14], but follow the statutes of the Lord which are right, rejoicing the heart [Ps 19:8] For as a s to the works and forhteous lects and despises them

[Sidenote: freedom from False Opinions]

Our faith in Christ does not free us fro works, that is, from the foolish presumption that justification is acquired by works For faith redeems, corrects and preserves our consciences, so that we know that righteousness does not consist in works, although works neither can nor ought to be wanting; just as we cannot be without food and drink and all the works of this hteousness is not in them, but in faith; and yet those works of the body are not to be despised or neglected on that account In this world we are bound by the needs of our bodily life, but we are not righteous because of thedom is not of this world,” [John 18:36] says Christ, but He does not say, ”My kingdoh alk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh,” [2 Cor 10:3]

and in Galatians ii, ”The life which I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God” [Gal 2:20] Thus e do, live, and are in works and in ceremonies, we do because of the necessities of this life and of the effort to rule our body; nevertheless we are righteous not in these, but in the faith of the Son of God

[Sidenote: Opponents]

[Sidenote: Cerenorant Men]

Hence, the Christian must take a middle course and face those two classes of , stubborn cere to hear the truth of liberty, but, having no faith, boast of, prescribe and insist upon their ceremonies as means of justification Such were the Jews of old, ere unwilling to learn how to do good These he must resist, do the very opposite and offend the ood to eat meat, to break the fasts and for the sake of the liberty of faith to do other things which they regard the greatest of sins Of them we must say, ”Let them alone, they are blind and leaders of the blind” [Matt 15:14] For on this principle Paul would not circumcise titus when the Jews insisted that he should [Gal 2:3], and Christ excused the Apostles when they plucked ears of corn on the sabbath [Matt 12:1 ff]; and there are many similar instances The other class of norant men, weak in the faith, as the Apostle calls therasp the liberty of faith, even if they illing to do so These he must take care not to offend; he must yield to their weakness until they are more fully instructed

For since these do and think as they do, not because they are stubbornly wicked, but only because their faith is weak, the fasts and other things which they think necessarythem offence For so love demands, which would harm no one, but would serve all men It is not by their fault that they are weak, but their pastors have taken them captive with the snares of their traditions and have wickedly used these traditions as rods hich to beat them From these pastors they should have been delivered by the teaching of faith and liberty So the Apostle teaches us, Romans xiv, ”If my meat cause my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth” [Ro is unclean, except to hi to be unclean; but it is evil or the h we should boldly resist those teachers of traditions and sharply censure the laws of the popes by means of which they plunder the people of God, yet we must spare the timid multitude whom those impious tyrants hold captive by ht strenuously therefore against the wolves, but for the sheep, and not also against the sheep This you will do if you inveigh against the laws and the law-givers, and at the same time observe the laith the weak, so that they will not be offended, until they also recognize the tyranny and understand their liberty

But if you wish to use your liberty, do so in secret, as Paul says, Romans xiv, ”Hast thou the faith? have it to thyself before God” [Rom

14:22]; but take care not to use your liberty in the sight of the weak On the other hand, use your liberty constantly and consistently in the sight of the tyrants and the stubborn, in despite of them, that they also may learn that they are ihteousness, and that they had no right to set them up

[Sidenote: Ceremonies]

Now, since we cannot live our life without ceremonies and works, and the froward and untrained youth need to be restrained and saved from harm by such bonds; and since each one should keep his body under by means of such works, there is need that the ht so to govern and teach the people of Christ in all these matters that their conscience and faith be not offended, and that there spring not up in them a suspicion and a root of bitterness, and many be defiled thereby [Heb 12:15], as Paul admonishes the Hebrews; that is, that they may not lose faith and become defiled by the false estimate of the value of works, and think that they must be justified by works This happens easily and defiles very ht; it is impossible to avoid it when faith is not ht, as has been done until now through the pestilent, i traditions of our popes and the opinions of our theologians By these snares nued down to hell, so that you ht see in this the work of Antichrist

[Sidenote: The Test of Faith]

[Sidenote: Temporary Helps]