Chap.  XIII. p. 211.

To conclude, a faithful person is a new creature, a new tree.  Therefore all these speeches, which in the law are usual, belong not to this case; as to say ‘A faithful’ person must do good works.  Neither were it rightly spoken, to say the sun shall shine:  a good tree shall bring forth good fruit, &c.  For the sun ‘shall’ not shine, but it doth shine by nature unbidden, it is thereunto created.

This important paragraph is obscure by the translator’s ignorance of the true import of the German ‘soll’, which does not answer to our ‘shall;’ but rather to our ‘ought’, that is, ‘should’ do this or that,—­is under an obligation to do it.

Ib. p. 213.

And I, my loving Brentius, to the end I may better understand this case, do use to think in this manner, namely, as if in my heart were no quality or virtue at all, which is called faith, and love, (as the Sophists do speak and dream thereof), but I set all on Christ, and say, my ‘formalis justitia’, that is, my sure, my constant and complete righteousness (in which is no want nor failing, but is, as before God it ought to be) is Christ my Lord and Saviour.

Aye! this, this is indeed to the purpose.  In this doctrine my soul can find rest.  I hope to be saved by faith, not by my faith, but by the faith of Christ in me.

Ib. p. 214.

  The Scripture nameth the faithful a people of God’s saints.  But here
  one may say; the sins which daily we commit, do offend and anger God;
  how then can we be holy?

  ‘Answer’.  A mother’s love to her child is much stronger than are the
  excrements and scurf thereof.  Even so God’s love towards us is far
  stronger than our filthiness and uncleanness.

  Yea, one may say again, we sin without ceasing, and where sin is,
  there the holy Spirit is not:  therefore we are not holy, because the
  holy Spirit is not in us, who maketh holy.

‘Answer’. (John xvi. 14.) Now where Christ is, there is the holy Spirit.  The text saith plainly, ‘The holy Ghost shall glorify me, &c.’  Now Christ is in the faithful (although they have and feel sins, do confess the same, and with sorrow of heart do complain thereover); therefore sins do not separate Christ from those that believe.

All in this page is true, and necessary to be preached.  But O! what need is there of holy prudence to preach it aright, that is, at right times to the right ears!  Now this is when the doctrine is necessary and thence comfortable; but where it is not necessary, but only very comfortable, in such cases it would be a narcotic poison, killing the soul by infusing a stupor or counterfeit peace of conscience.  Where there are no sinkings of self-abasement, no griping sense of sin and worthlessness, but perhaps the contrary, reckless confidence and self-valuing for good qualities supposed an overbalance for the