The Twelfth Sermon, the Fourth on the Second Chapter - Ephesians 2:11-13
so uphold us and govern us by His Holy Spirit, as our whole endeavor may be nothing else but to frame our life after His holy law; and that He may not consider the great number of our sins which we commit, never ceasing to stray away to our own undoing, but hold us back by His secret power, until He takes us away out of this world, and joins us with our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the fountain of all perfection, that we also may be perfect in Him.
And so let us say, Almighty God, heavenly Father, etc.
The Twelfth Sermon, which is the Fourth upon the Second Chapter 11. Wherefore remember that you who were sometime Gentiles in the flesh, being called uncircumcision, in respect of that which is called circumcision, made by hand in the flesh:
12. Were at that time without Christ, strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants that contain the promise, without hope, and without God in the world.
13. But now in Jesus Christ, you that were erstwhile far off, are made near by the blood of Christ.
Although the things that are preached to us generally concerning God's grace ought to move us to magnify his name and to acknowledge the benefits that we have received from him, yet if a thing is done privately to us, then ought we to be touched even more thereby. The same order is followed by Saint Paul here. For we have seen this morning how he made clear that all that is in man is nothing, so that there might be only one foundation of salvation, which is the mere goodness of God. Now he applies the same particularly to the Ephesians, willing them to reflect on the plight in which God found them: as if after speaking of all mankind, he should send every one of us to his own experience. Indeed, that which is spoken here to the Ephesians concerns us also, like as if a man, having told us of the forlornness into which we are plunged by Adam's fall, should say: "Consider also what you were, and in what sort you lived in all beastliness, before such time as God called you to the knowledge of himself."
The thing then which we have to mark is that Saint Paul, having shown how all men from the greatest to the least ought to confess that they have their salvation through God's only goodness, adds another particular declaration, wherein he shows what every one of the faithful ought to know in himself. True, the thing which he has said for that time would not agree in all points to our days, but yet Saint Paul's answer will always have its course and serve a good purpose. For although we have been baptized from our infancy, yet we come from such as were once cut off from God's Church. For the Jews were set apart from all other nations of the world as a people whom God had ordained to himself. We were then all heathen (I mean in respect of our forefathers) before the Gospel was preached
to the world. But now again we see what confusion has come upon us through the unthankfulness of such as were called to the truth of the Gospel, and how we have strayed away in such a sort that we have been as good as cut off from God's Church again. For the baptism that we received in our childhood stood us in no other stead but to make us doubly guilty before God. For they that were plunged in the superstitions of popery and in all the idolatries that are committed there had as good as renounced their baptism and were become renegades. And we cannot excuse ourselves for having been forsworn unto God, seeing we were strayed from his obedience. Therefore it is not for us to make any boasting or to seek any excuse to cover our wretchedness withal, but rather to confess freely that we were as deadly enemies to God and worthy to have been utterly given over by him because he had reached out his hand to bring us back again to the way of salvation.
So then, first we take this text as it lies to apply it to the Ephesians, and afterward look to take profit from it ourselves. Now then, let us see the contents and substance of these words: "Bethink yourselves and remember how you were once Gentiles."
First, he puts a difference between the Jews and those whom God had suffered to walk on still in their own darkness. For it was a special privilege that God gave to Abraham's offspring when he adopted them, to say to them, "You shall be my people whom I favour as though you were of my own household." Those then who came not of Abraham's line were as good as banished from God's kingdom and Church. And he adds, "in the flesh," not as he speaks in diverse other places where he uses that word in reproach, but to show that God had shown by a visible fashion how wretched their state was and that they needed not any great depth of wit to perceive it. For circumcision, he says, served as it were to rid men of their
uncleanness. Furthermore, that sacrament was ordained of God to show that all the seed of man is cursed and that we cannot be rightly made holy and pure but by the cutting off and putting away of the things that we have by nature. To be short, just as nowadays we are taught by baptism to renounce whatsoever we have by birth, so also was circumcision a token to show how all men were filthy and loathsome till they had forsaken their own kind.
Now then, Saint Paul's meaning is that the said visible sign showed well to all the heathen that they were, as it were, unworthy to approach unto God and that he did not deign to receive them into the company of the faithful. For the Jews had not invented circumcision of their own brain, but (as I have said before) God had set them apart from the rest of the world, and all was by reason of the privilege of his own mere grace and goodness.
Hereupon Saint Paul adds further that they were at that time without Christ. This serves to show yet better that men are horribly scattered and can do nothing but run astray until God has knit them together in the body of his Son and adopted them to be his children. For we know that Jesus Christ is the light of the world and that all righteousness dwells in him, and that he is our redemption and life.
So long, then, as we have no acquaintance with him, we must needs be like poor blind men in the dark; we must needs be as good as dead; we must needs be naked of all holiness, righteousness, power, and all goodness. And forasmuch as our freedom depends upon him, we must needs be held under the tyranny of the devil and of sin until he has ransomed us from them. For this cause, therefore, does Saint
Paul send us here, under the person of the Ephesians, to Jesus Christ, to the end that those who are not partakers of God's Son should know that it were better for them to be drowned a hundred times than to continue always in that state. And why? For since we
can have neither life nor soul health nor righteousness nor ought else that is allowable but in Jesus Christ, it is all one as if he said that we have nothing but utter naughtiness and destruction in ourselves.
He adds thereto the commonwealth of Israel, showing thereby that all the promises made to the Jews were grounded upon Jesus Christ.
And therefore they that do not belong to his body are forthwith deprived of all God's promises and cannot conceive any hope of life but only by imagination, wherein they beguile themselves. And verily, he adds the instruments (or covenants and conveyances) of the promises, as if he should say that God had not called the Jews as it were in a hidden manner but had passed a solemn conveyance or evidence which served to leave all the world in condemnation.
Therefore, forasmuch as God had advanced Abraham's lineage, it must needs be that the rest of the world was so much the more confounded, like as if some princes or some cities should make a league, all others that are not comprehended in it are as good as deprived of the benefit that is contained in it. And when God declared that he took the Jews to be his flock and that he would be their Father and Saviour, he declared also that no part thereof could come to the Gentiles, whom he had, after a sort, forsaken, and to whom he had not vouchsafed to show the like mercy. Finally, he says that they had been without God, which is the full measure of all mischief. For what shall become of man when his God has so shaken him off that there is no access for him nor no coming to him again?
And that not only is he forsaken of his God, but also he cannot but plunge himself deeper and deeper into the bottom of hell and make war against God, as though he were in defiance with him, because he is stubborn and rebellious against all goodness? Thus you see that the thing which Saint Paul sets forth here, to the intent that the Ephesians should profit themselves by the things that he had said
this morning concerning the only cause of our salvation, is that there is none other thing for us to trust unto but only God's mere grace.
But now let us come to ourselves. I have already declared briefly that our fathers were in the same state that Saint Paul sets down here.
And therefore we have no cause to brag of, as oft as we think of what root and origin we spring. For if the very Jews be at this day a record of God's wrath and horrible vengeance, which he lays upon them for their unbelief, is there not much more cause for us to cast down our eyes, who are but as things born out of time? For the Jews are of the holy root that God had chosen, and we are but grafted into it in their stead. If God has not spared the natural branches, what will he do to us that have been brought in as it were against nature? Lo, how Saint
Paul exhorts us to lowliness, to the end that we should learn to submit ourselves always to God's mere goodness and frankly and freely confess that our welfare consists therein. Also, I told you secondly, not only that our fathers were strangers to the hope of salvation because they were not adopted as well as the Jews, but also that the horrible scattering which came upon the whole world, and which reigns in it still at this day, ought to beat down all pride and presumption, that God's grace may shine the brighter upon us. Now then (as I said), although we are baptized and have the badge of God's goodness and free adoption, yet, notwithstanding, we have been wretched idolaters and were gone away from our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the things that we had in greatest estimation turned to our greater damnation instead of being for our welfare. Therefore, we have good cause here to bethink ourselves.
Furthermore, for as much as we are short-witted in magnifying God's grace, let us weigh well this word which Saint Paul uses here to bring us to remembrance of the things which we might forget. For when we are endowed with God's grace, and it has pleased Him to give us
some good desire to walk in His fear, and He has worked so in us by His Holy Spirit, as men may perceive that there is some goodness in us, it may make us forget by and by what we were before, by means whereof God's grace is as good as buried. To the intent, therefore, that our present plight hinders not our continual praising of God and our esteeming of His goodness and grace as it deserves, let no length of time darken the benefits that we have received of God, but let us as it were enter into an examination of them every day. And although
God has changed our state at this day so that we are no more the men that we were before, yet notwithstanding let us bear in mind that before God had pity upon us, we were as silly sheep that went astray, and as beasts that are utterly lost, and that without the same small beginning, we had been damned ten hundred thousand times before, had not God prevented us and given us a remedy for the cursed state wherein we were. You see then, that the thing which we have to consider upon the said speech, whereby Saint Paul puts the Ephesians in mind of what they were before, is that although God had put away the thing that should have made them ashamed, and marked them beforehand with His Holy Spirit, so as they were become as precious pearls, yet notwithstanding He will have them to bethink themselves, (like as indeed it is, the fruits of repentance which the scripture sets down), that when God has reached us His hand, and brought us home again from our straying, we cease not to bethink ourselves of our former sins, even in such wise as we may be sorry, abashed, and ashamed of them.
Whereas he says, that the Gentiles have good cause to hold down their heads, because they were sometime without assurance of God's goodness and love, thereby we are put in mind that we receive a singular benefit at God's hand when we have the use of His sacraments, which are as warrants that He takes and avows us to be of His household and Church. True it is that if we abuse them, we
shall pay dearly for it, but yet whatsoever comes of it, when the sacraments are put to the end whereunto they were ordained, it is certain that they are as it were inestimable treasures, as I said before.
For although we have God's promise that He takes us for His children even from our coming out of our mother's womb, yet there is nothing but uncleanness in our flesh. Now then, have we baptism?
There it is shown us that God washes and cleanses us from all our uncleanness, that He pulls us out of the confusion wherein we were with our father Adam, and that He will have us clothed with Jesus
Christ to be partakers of all His goods, as though they were our own.
We see then what baptism imports, and consequently how much we ought to esteem this grace of God's coming unto us in such wise, and of His showing of Himself to be our Father in such a homely manner.
As much is to be said of the Supper. For there it is shown visibly that Jesus Christ is the true food of our souls, that like as our bodies are sustained and nourished with the bread and wine, so we have our spiritual life of the very substance of God's Son. Seeing then that our
Lord Jesus does as it were from hand to hand show us that He gives us His body and blood to be our spiritual meat and drink, is it not a thing much more worth than all things that are to be found in this world? And herein we see how malicious and froward most men are, for as touching the Lord's Supper, many come to it who rush thither like wretched beasts, not knowing why it was ordained. Some again make but a custom and ordinary use of it, and although they have been taught to what purpose it avails us, yet they do but wring their mouths at it, and all is one to them when it is once past with them.
And some others defile it even wilfully. And as touching baptism, we see how the world goes with it. For whereas we ought to think daily, and not only once a day, but every hour of the day, both upon Baptism and also upon the Lord's Supper, to confirm ourselves the better in God's grace, so little does any man set his mind that way,
that if baptism be administered in the Church, men make none account of it. Scarcely can one be found among a hundred that can fitly tell and utter what that sign of our adoption betokens. And yet you see what disdain is matched with that ignorance. Must not God after His long suffering of us, and His patient waiting for us, be revenged of such dishonour, when His grace is so lightly esteemed among us? So much the more, therefore, does it stand us in hand to mark well what Saint Paul tells us here when he says that the Gentiles being deprived of the sacraments which God gives to His children for a warrant of His goodness and love, are in miserable taking, to the end we may learn to make much of the privilege which He has given us, not to boast foolishly of it, as hypocrites do, who abuse God's name continually, but to make us to fare the better by a thing of so great price and value, and to make us know that we are no whit better than those who are as poor hunger-starved souls against whom God shuts the gate still, and to whom He does not vouchsafe to impart those pledges of His, wherein He shows and witnesses that He will be our Father. You see the Turks have circumcision as well as the Jews, and yet it is nothing worth, because there is no more any promise of God going with it, and yet notwithstanding we come of Adam's race as well as they. Wherefore have we Baptism but because
God intended to show Himself the more pitiful towards us and to utter the riches of His goodness? Again, the Papists will need to be called Christians, and have Baptism as well as we. And yet in the meantime, they are bereft of the Holy Supper, yea, and they have the abominable Mass, wherein they renounce the death and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. And what cause is there why we should be so preferred before them, saving that God would have us to be as mirrors of His infinite mercy? So much the more, therefore, it behooves us to walk in awe and wariness, and to set store by the things which God shows us to be of such worthiness and excellency, that we may fare the better by them. Wherefore mark it for a special
point when Saint Paul speaks here of Circumcision and uncircumcision. For although he says in other places that Circumcision is nothing, (albeit that was but because it was abolished, and the use thereof ceased, as of all other figures of the Law), yet notwithstanding, at such time as God ordained it, and so long as the Jews used it holily, it was a sure warrant to them of God's adoption, as if He had cleansed them from all the filthiness that is in Adam's race and appropriated them unto Himself.
After he has said so, he adds that they were without Christ and without promises. Here he shows that the sacraments take and borrow their force from God's word. For if there were no more than the bare signs, it would be no matter of great importance. If circumcision had been given to the Jews without any doctrine or instruction, to what purpose would it have served? Surely they would have been none the better for it. But when God says, "I am the God who sanctifies you, you shall be my children, I will receive you, and take you for my inheritance; and on the other side also I give myself to you, and will be your life": for as much as circumcision had such promises, it was an inestimable treasure to the Jews because the foundation (that is to say, our Lord Jesus Christ) was laid sure, whereon the promises were settled and, as you would say, confirmed.
That then is the cause why Saint Paul joins here the commonwealth of Israel, the instruments of God's promises, and our Lord Jesus
Christ all together.
However, in speaking of the commonwealth of Israel, he shows that God had chosen one certain lineage which he would have to be holy, and so it was to be concluded that all the rest were unholy. In speaking of the instruments of the promises, he shows (as I have touched already) that we must not look upon circumcision in itself, but we must direct it to the right end of it. It behooves us to know
why God would have it used among the Jews, for otherwise, it is but an ape's toy, like the number of foolish devotions which the Gentiles had, whereby they hoped to have had holiness, but all of it was but abuse and trickery because they had no promise of God. Likewise, they say nowadays in the papacy that they have many sacraments and, with them, as many mummeries and baubles as can be, but all that God disallows is but trivial trash. And why? Because there is no word that sanctifies them.
So then let us mark well that to profit ourselves by the sacraments, we must always be taught them by God's doctrine. And thereby we may judge that many are cut off from the Church of God who are now thought to be the highest in it. For in the meantime, where is the instruction, which they should have to be partakers of the benefits that God offers them? They will allege their baptism, and they will say they receive the Lord's Supper. If a man asks them to what end, they understand nothing at all, and that is as an utter abolishing of the power of the sacraments. So much the more, therefore, does it stand us in hand to come back to this point, namely to learn from the Gospel, to what end baptism was ordained, what fruit it yields us, and which is the right and lawful use of it, and also to consider what the holy Supper avails us. For if we have not God's word, our Lord himself tells us that the sacraments which we receive are as it were debased, and there is nothing but falsehood in them. And like as if a man should set a prince's seal to a letter that had nothing therein, or which had but imaginations and dreams contrived in it, it were an offense worthy of death: so also for as much as the sacraments are as seals to warrant God's promises to us, and to make them of authority among us, if we separate them from his word, it is certain that we are falsifiers before God and his angels. That, therefore, is one thing more which we have to mark upon this strain.
And we must mark also that Jesus Christ is set down with the commonwealth of Israel, and with the sacraments and promises, to show that it is he on whom all of us depend. For it is certain that God never comes at men without the mediator. For since he hates unrighteousness, and all men are cursed in Adam, it was necessary that our Lord Jesus Christ should step in so that we might have some entrance and access to God. And that is the cause why Saint Paul says also that he is the "yea" and the "Amen" of all God's promises.
For there shall never be any certainty of God's promises without Jesus Christ. And for the same cause also all things were dedicated in the Law with blood, yea, and even the book of the Law itself. When the covenant was read openly, and published solemnly to the people, the book was sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice, to show that all the doctrine contained in the Law, and all the promises whereby
God adopts those to be his children whom he has admitted into his Church, must be confirmed by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, do we want the promises to be sure and infallible? Do we want to be assured of them so that we may freely call upon God and fight against all temptations? We must always resort to Jesus Christ. It is much when God tells us with his own holy mouth that he will reserve us for his own, but yet we must tremble continually at his majesty until we have cast our eyes upon our Lord Jesus Christ and know that God likes us for his sake so that our sins are buried and shall never come to account. Thus you see how the promises, the sacraments, and all that we have, must be ratified by Jesus Christ. To be brief, (if I may make a human comparison, and speak grossly), he is the true sauce to make all things savory that belong to our salvation. For without him, we should continue evermore as men in a swoon, and (as I have said already) we could conceive no hope at all, nor have our minds so settled that we might resort to God for refuge.
Not without cause, therefore, does Saint Paul say that such as have
no circumcision, nor other sacraments whereby to be consecrated unto God, nor any promises of salvation, are without Christ.
And now he adds a thing which may seem hard and strange at first sight when he says that the Ephesians were without God. For it is certain that although they were wretched idolaters, yet they had a certain opinion that the world was not made of itself. For we know that all men have continually held some seed of religion, and even they who overshoot themselves so far as to wipe out all knowledge of God are first most ugly monsters. Secondly, although they strive to thrust all knowledge of God underfoot, yet must they need to have heart-throbbings that sting them in spite of their teeth, and they be driven to feel that they cannot escape the hand of God.
However the case stands, we are naturally inclined to know that there is a God. And the heathen men have always had their devotions and divine services (as they termed them) to show that they worshipped some Godhead. How then does St. Paul say here that they were without God? We have to note that it is not enough for men to confess that there is some certain Godhead and to endeavour to discharge themselves of their duty by serving a God, but they must also have a certain settled belief, that they wander not to and fro after the manner that is spoken of in the first chapter to the Romans, where it is said that such as devise strange shapes of God do vanish away in their own foolish imaginations. Now it is certain that all such as are not taught by God's word, by the law, by the prophets, and by the gospel, are out of the right way, and after a sort, at their wit's end, so as they be tossed to and fro like wavering reeds that yield to every wind, and thereupon make sundry shapes of God. For every man builds and forges crooked conceits in his own brain, and we know that man's wit is as a shop of idolatry and superstition, in so much that if a man believes his own conceit, it is certain that he shall
forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain. Lo, what we be.
And it may right well be said that we be without God when we wander away after that fashion in our own imaginations and in our false opinions. And that is the cause why St. Paul says that such as have had a mind to worship some unknown gods have worshipped nothing but idols and fantastical imaginations, and that God belongs not at all unto them, and so consequently, that they were utterly forsaken by him, like as they had become renegades and had renounced him before. So much the more then behooves it us to travel and take pain to know which is the God whom we ought to worship.
I have told you already that it is not enough for a man to allege that he has a good intent and that he meant to worship God: that will go for no payment, for God likes not the liberty that men take to make themselves believe this or that. Since it is so, we must present ourselves before God with all wariness, that he may show us the way to come unto him. For else we shall but go astray, and he that runs swiftest shall be furthest off from him, yea, and in the end, break his neck. Lo in what case we be till God has reached us his hand and set us in the right way, that we may not be as poor wandering beasts all the time of our life.
Again, for as much as he has given us a record of his majesty in the holy scripture, it becomes us to hold ourselves short thereunto and not to covet to know anything which is not shown us there. What must then be our lodestar to know God by? To suffer ourselves to be taught by his word and to be so discreet as to receive whatsoever is contained there without gainsaying and not to presume to add anything at all thereto. And we ought so much the more to have that care, since we know how St. John avows that he who has not the Son has not the Father. Then like as I have told you, that because God
reveals himself in this word, it behooves us to seek him there; so also for as much as our Lord Jesus Christ is his lively image, let us not enter into over high speculations, to know what God is: but let us repair to Jesus Christ, acknowledging that it is his office to bring us to God his Father, and that it is he by whom we must be guided, and so shall we be sure that we shall not be without God in this world.
Now if they that take so much pain, and trot up and down to serve God, be condemned here to be without God because they have not held the true rule, but have been beguiled in their superstitions: what shall become of the dogs and swine that have no awe at all of God, especially since they bereave themselves of all knowledge and degenerate into beasts, after they have had some understanding of the truth, by having their ears beaten with the holy scripture? Of which sort we see a great number nowadays, who to take the advantage of the time, and to make good cheer at their pleasure, could find in their hearts to quench, or to darken the light that God had caused to shine upon them, yea, even to the utter defying of God's majesty, as though there were no more instruction at all.
We see how this cursed seed is dispersed abroad at this day through all the whole world. But (as I said before) if the poor ignorant sort, which never had any certain way, but have been as blind wretches wandering here and there to seek God, and yet he has not showed himself unto them, have none excuse at all, but are condemned at God's hand because they had not a true root, what shall become of the unhappy wretches that despise God in that wise, and are set against him, saying, we know no more what the true doctrine and religion mean. So much the more then ought we to humble ourselves and to know that since God has revealed himself unto us, now that he is joined to us with an inseparable bond, and has shown himself a Father to us, and has vouchsafed to make us members of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and made us one with him, with the condition
that whatsoever he has belongs now unto us: we ought to learn to magnify that grace, and to acknowledge what we have been, and what we should be still, if God had not shown himself merciful towards us.
Hereupon a man might demand what St. Paul meant by the word "world": for it should seem that out of the world they were not without God. However, that was to aggravate the matter so much the more, by saying that the Ephesians had enjoyed the light of the sun, all the elements had served them, and they had received so many commodities of God's gift in all his creatures, and yet had not known him. For what else is the world but an open stage whereon God will have his majesty seen? Let us lift up our eyes: do not the sun, the moon, and the stars, lead us to him that gave them the virtues which we perceive in them? For behold, the sun is far off from us, and yet he gives us light. Again, he causes the earth to bring forth fruits, also we see the double course that he keeps: and although he wanders now on one side, and now on the other, yet notwithstanding he keeps his compass continually, and never forgets how far he ought to go on the one side or the other, as huge a mass as he is. If a ball or a bowl were to be held up, it would need some help: but behold, the sun has nothing to hold it up, but the secret power of God: and yet notwithstanding he is so huge and infinite a mass, as exceeds all the whole earth. Mount he up, or go he low, turn he, or return he, on the one side or the other: yet keeps he his course still every day through the whole world, and every year also on the contrary part, and yet for all this he misses not in any of all those things.
To be short, when we behold the skies, we ought to be ravished with a desire to go unto God. Again, when we behold the things that are nearer us, namely the variety of the good things that God bestows upon us, we have cause to do the like. Finally, without going any
further, let us but enter into ourselves. If a man looks but upon one of his fingers, what workmanship and what goodness of God is there?
We then are in the world where God utters such abundance of miracles, whereby it is his meaning, to be known and worshipped: and yet notwithstanding we play the beasts, and go on like blockheads without any understanding, not knowing the God that made us and fashioned us, even him that utters and shows himself in all his creatures both above and beneath. Is not this enough then to bereave them of all excuse, who play the beasts in their ignorance, living here but only to devour God's benefits, and in the meantime repair not to him, to do him honour, or to offer him their service?
Then is it not without cause, that Saint Paul adds yet further this saying, that such as were so destitute of the knowledge of the Gospel, were without God in the world.
Now thereupon on the other side, he sets down the grace of God, which they had received, to the end, they should know that it was not of their own purchase, nor obtained by their own policy and ability, but that they ought to consider well how greatly they are bound unto
God, for raising them up to heaven from the deep dungeons of hell. If God had but lent us his hand to lift us up when we were fallen but to the ground, and so let us alone in our own state, we should be beholden to him for it. For when we are fallen, and somebody helps to lift us up again, we will thank him, and so ought we to do. Behold now, God has not only lifted us up from the ground but also drawn us out of the gulf of hell. And his doing so is not to make us creep here beneath upon the earth or to make us to enjoy the benefits that he offers us here presently: but to advance us to the kingdom of heaven, as we have seen heretofore, how we are put in possession of it already by faith, and are set in the person of Jesus Christ in the glory that he has purchased for us, for he has entered into it on our behalf. Seeing it is so, have we not cause to magnify God's grace so
much the more? So have you Saint Paul's meaning, in that he says, that now by Jesus Christ you become near unto God, even you (says he) which were far off before. Therefore at a word (for as much as the whole, cannot be laid forth at this time) let us understand, that whereas men seem to have some worthiness in themselves, they cannot but stray away to their own destruction, so long as they be separated from God because by nature they are strangers unto him, yea and quite cut off from him.
Moreover, let every one of us know for his own part, how we had forgotten God, and were quite turned away from him until he called us again unto him. When we know this, let us learn to magnify his grace for vouchsafing to reconcile us to himself, and to put away all the enmity that was betwixt him and us, and to make us his children of his deadly enemies, assuring ourselves, that all this is done by means of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the intent we should out of that fountain draw all that belongs to our salvation. And furthermore let us consider also, what furtherance we have by the helps that God has given us to come to Jesus Christ by, and to confirm us in him, to the end we may have a resolute and sure doctrine. As for example, when the Gospel is daily preached unto us, Jesus Christ is offered there unto us, and he on his side calls us unto him. To be short, he has his arms stretched out to embrace us. Let us understand that: and afterward let us add the Sacraments thereunto, and seeing that Jesus
Christ has not only commanded the open preaching of the Gospel, that he shows himself to be our Shepherd, and that he will have us to be his flock, but also confirms the same by Baptism, and by his last
Supper: let us take good heed that we make not those signs unavailing through our own malice and unthankfulness: but let us
(rather) consider to what end God has ordained them, and let us so use them, as we may grow more and more in faith, and be thereby inflamed with such zeal, as we may endeavour to give ourselves