10. Following Christ
10. Following Christ
Secondarily, after that we be overcome with love and kindness, and now seek to do the will of God (which is a Christian man’s nature), then have we Christ an example to counterfeit,34 as says Christ Himself in John: “I have given you an example” (Joh 13:15). And in another evangelist, He says, “He that will be great among you, shall be your servant and minister, as the Son of Man came to minister and not to be ministered unto” (Mat 20:26-28). And Paul says, “Counterfeit Christ.’’ And Peter says, “Christ died for you, and left you an example to follow his steps” (1Pe 2:21). Whatsoever therefore faith has received of God through Christ’s blood and deserving, that same must love shed out every whit and bestow it on our neighbors unto their profit, yea, and that though they be our enemies. By faith we receive of God, and by love we shed out again. And that must we do freely, after the example of Christ, without any other respect, save our neighbor’s wealth35 only: and neither look for reward in the earth, nor yet in heaven, for the deserving and merits of our deeds (as friars preach), though we know that good deeds are rewarded, both in this life and in the life to come. But of pure love must we bestow ourselves, all that we have, and all that we are able to do, even on our enemies, to bring them to God, considering nothing but their wealth, as Christ did ours. Christ did not His deeds to obtain heaven thereby (that had been a madness). Heaven was His already, He was heir thereof, it was His by inheritance; but [He] did them freely for our sakes, considering nothing but our wealth, and to bring the favor of God to us again, and us to God. As no natural son that is his father’s heir does his father’s will because he would be heir. He already is that by birth. His father gave him that ere36 he was born, and is loather that he should go without it than he himself has wit to be; but of pure love does he what he does. And ask him why he does anything that he does, he answers, “My father bade; it is my father’s will, it pleases my father.” Bondservants work for hire, children for love; for their father, with all he has, is theirs already. So does a Christian man freely all that he does, considering nothing but the will of God and his neighbor’s wealth only. If I live chaste, I do it not to obtain heaven thereby, for then should I do wrong to the blood of Christ. Christ’s blood has obtained me that. Christ’s merits have made me heir thereof. He is both door and way thitherwards. Neither that I look for an higher room in heaven than they shall have which live in wedlock, or than a whore of the stews (if she repent); for that were the pride of Lucifer. But [I do it] freely to wait on the evangelion, and to avoid the trouble of the world, and occasions that might pluck me therefrom, and to serve my brother withal—even as one hand helps another, or one member another, because one feels another’s grief, and the pain of the one is the pain of the other. Whatsoever is done to the least of us (whether it be good or bad), it is done to Christ. And whatsoever is done to my brother (if I be a Christian man), that same is done to me. Neither does my brother’s pain grieve me less than mine own; neither rejoice I less at his wealth than at mine own, if I love him as well and as much as myself, as the law commands me. If it were not so, how says Paul, “Let him that rejoiceth, rejoice in the Lord” (2Co 10:17)? That is to say, Christ, Who is Lord over all creatures. If my merits obtained me heaven, or a higher place there, then had I wherein I might rejoice besides the Lord.