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moralist of the perfection of virtues, in which they place their chief good; or as a pharisee, sitting in the chair of Moses, would dispute about the righteousness of the law.

But there will be another occasion of treating of these things, if opportunity be granted.

Though you teach us many things in your reasoning about righteousness, yet you scarcely teach any thing to the purpose, and nothing that is profitable for salvation; but on the contrary, that which is very hurtful. For what assurance can there be of salvation, if you shut out mercy, and send us to our own righteousness, as the only way which conveys us to heaven? For all your doctrine of divinity looks that way.

It would take up a long time to rake together out of all your books, those wonderful sayings, which are more than paradoxes, whereby you plead that all the safeguard of our salvation, should be placed in nothing but in the observance and care of righteousness, which if you could as well perform in reality, as you set forth in words magnificently, none were more happy, none more worthy of heaven than you. But now let us suppose that which you would so fain have granted, that heaven is only due to perfect men upon the account of righteousness, and that there is no other way of coming to those blessed mansions, but that which is trodden by the most pure footsteps of good men, and settled in the perfect integrity of works. Now we are not against the deserved praises of righteousness, neither do we withhold from it its rewards. Be it so indeed. But where shall we find this righteousness? Tell me in what country this man of righteous life dwells, who will so direct the course of his life according to this idea of virtue proposed by you, that he fails no where ?* Who roots out all manner of wickedness? who refrains himself from railing with his tongue, suppresses the haughtiness, insolence, and madness of an ambitious spirit, and the rashness of a headstrong mind? who crucifies the flesh with its lusts? who, suppressing ungodly lustings, by frequent meditation upon death, brings himself over from all impurity and impiety to the resemblance of Christ? who, separating his mind from the contagion of the body, applies it wholly to the imitation of Christ? who resembles the humility and meekness of Christ, his bounty and benevolence, and his excellent holiness in all respects; and also cuts off all * All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Rom. iii. 23,

defilements of the mind, and all the roots of filthiness and impurity? Where will that man be found, who perform.s these and all other duties of true piety, and so performs them, that nothing in his life seems superfluous, nothing is unequal in his duties, nor defective in his manners? He may be found in the books of Osorio; but not in the life, in the daily confessions, or in the holy absolutions of Osorio.

There was of old, I confess, the image of this most perfect righteousness seen and known upon the earth. But that Phoenix hath long since left the earth, and departed hence to heaven, and now sits at the right hand of Majesty, drawing all to Himself;* and I wish that at length he may draw Osorio also to himself. What if the Lord himself, looking down from heaven upon the sons of men, is affirmed in the prophetical psalm, to have ound all their ways to be corrupted and depraved-if the mystical and royal holy psalmist durst not in confidence of his own righteousness enter into judgment with his God, or present himself to be tried by him, and condemns all other mortal men of unrighteousness, without excepting so much as one. Or, if Paul, writing to the Romans, very seriously confirms the same, and stops the mouths of all men, that having called them away from a vain trust in their own works, and convinced them of the vanity thereof, he may bring men over, to the help of the Son of God only, which is placed in the faith of him. If John the apostle, yea and if James, that powerful proclaimer and defender of human righteousness, could not himself deny but that in many things we offend all; will you now rise up after them, being a mortal and sinful man, and dare to affirm to others, that which you cannot perform yourself; after this manner, "That it is either righteousness or nothing, which obtains us the favour of God, and makes us acceptable and like unto him?"+

Is there nothing else, I beseech you? What then? Is faith nothing? Is grace nothing? Is the mercy and promise of God nothing? Do the merits of Christ profit nothing to salvation? so that now there is nothing which reconciles us to God, but the righteousness of works? What! Do you so place all righteousness in works, that you think there is no righteousness of faith?

You think perhaps that the righteousness of faith and works is one and the same, and you make no difference *The Son of God only was perfectly holy, Ps. xiv Osorio, 1. v. p. 21.

between the law and the gospel, whereas Paul teaches far otherwise, who openly and with great fervency of spirit deprecates that other righteousness, which is of works, that he may be found in Him, not having the righteousness which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ, which is of God, righteousness by faith, Phil. iii. Do you not perceive here a manifest opposition between these two: to be justified by the law, and to be justified by faith, yea, and by those very things which Paul removed far away from him, as dung in respect of obtaining salvation-will you pave that only way for us to heaven? And in the mean while, disputing about works, I discourse of these things with you, as if there were any such strength of so great virtues in this life, as could deserve not only the reward of righteousness, but also the name thereof. What will you say, if the most holy performances and endeavours, undertaken in whatsoever manner, by the most perfect men, in this corrupted nature, are so unprofitable to the immortality of life, that they are rejected by Christ as without profit; yea that they are despised and utterly contemned in the sight of God, like a filthy cloth, as the prophet Isaiah witnesses, unless they are underpropped with better grace, and the commendation of faith? What if, in Isaiah, we all are said, and that truly, to have gone astray like sheep every one in his own way, from whom even so great a prophet does not separate himself? What do you suppose should be judged of our virtues and righteousness? You will say, this complaint of the prophet belongs not to all, but only to the Jews who in those times wickedly forsook their duty. But by the same reason you may affirm, that all the diseases, of all men and times, were not healed by the death of Christ, but theirs only, who in those times had gone astray out of the way as lost sheep. But how frivolous this cavilling is, appears evidently by the context of this prophetical prediction.

Whereby, being convinced by sacred testimonies, you see that those merits of our greatest virtues, if they are looked upon in themselves, are far from the perfection of that righteousness, which you clothe with such beautiful colours. Which yet I would not have to be so said by me, nor understood by you, as if those that live virtuously, did nothing aright and praiseworthy in this life. Or, as if the godly works of the saints were not acceptable to God, which God himself hath commanded to be done; for thus you reason

concerning works-that they come not indeed without faith, and the grace of God, but yet so, that when they come, you affirm, that the kingdom of eternal salvation is due to them by the best right; not only as a recompense and reward, but also as a lawful patrimony; as if the promise of salvation depended not on evangelical faith, but on the righteousness of the law; and not on Christ's merits only, unless a covenant of works be joined together with it; or as if faith itself profited nothing for the obtaining of life upon any other account, but that it may procure grace, which may stir us up to the praiseworthy performances of works, by which works we attain unto eternal life.

4. Faith justifies no otherwise, but upon the account of good works according to the opinion of Osorio.

For so your words manifestly signify, where treating of faith, and inquiring why we are said to be saved by it, you add, "Because we obtain the divine protection only by faith, and so very easily observe the precepts of the law, and obey divine institutions.'

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And again, in the same place discoursing of the salvation of christians, "Do you ask how a man is saved? Is there another way prepared for salvation, but what is contained in the law of God? none at all."+

Suppose these things were granted which you affirm, that this way which you show is the only way, and the most firmly founded, and also that the same is the most easy, and likewise that there is no other way by which we can come to heaven. Suppose we grant this, yet how canst thou know that thou dost as many good works as are sufficient for a complete obedience to the law? Of old, our first father Adam received but one command, and failed in the performance, and that in paradise, being placed in the highest degree of innocency. What! and thou a miserable mortal man, banished out of paradise, compassed about with so much infirmity of the flesh, having received the Jaw of God, in which so many and so great things are imposed to be performed, and they are so imposed, that he is liable to a curse, whosoever doth not most constantly con tinue in them all, dost thou stand so firmly, that no storm of temptation can throw thee down at any time?

But what if, having observed all other commands of God exactly, so much as one tittle of the law is neglected by • Lib. ix. page 233. + Lib. ix. page 232.

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thee? Do you not see, that the sentence of the law being pronounced, you are as much in the fault, as if you were guilty of all unrighteousness? And yet you talk to us of no other way to the kingdom of life, but that which is defined by the ministry of the law, and the exercise of charity.

By what scriptures, by what masters shall this appear evident to us which you assert? By Paul? What says he? "This is the mind and opinion of Paul," say you, "that he asserts that all manner of destroying and suppressing of lust is placed in the grace of God, which must be obtained by faith, and teaches that there is no other way of extinguishing and destroying it."* And again elsewhere↑ "Paul was never the man that disapproved the offices of bounty, as if they were little profitable for salvation, but taught that the only right way to heaven was that which was fixed in the continual exercise of charity, &c."

I know indeed, and confess that all proceeds from the grace of God alone, whatsoever is done by us aright, and commendably, whether in suppressing the allurements of vices, or in observing the discipline of virtue. Moreover that should not be denied, which you well assume according to the mind of Paul, that we obtain this grace from God by faith. Likewise that is not ill said, which you add concerning Paul, that he was never the man that disapproved pious endeavours of exercising charity; seeing he every where extols those very things with wonderful praises. For who knows not, that the excellent discourses of Paul are exceedingly full of very serious precepts and instructions for governing the life; and that they are not in any matter more affectionate than in this, than that all, every where, who profess the name of Christ, should, together with a sincere profession of faith, join holiness of life" for necessary uses."

Suppose this to be most true, as it is indeed; yet it never was the meaning of the apostle, to place our salvation principally in the law, as if he thought that the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof, should be measured by our worthy deeds and charity; or proposed heaven to us as fit to be paid for, or sold for the commodities of our works. Yea, when I read Paul's epistles of a far different sense, this seems to me to be the only scope and mind of the apostle-that he transfers all this righteousness, which you attribute to the law, unto faith, and sc • Osor. de justit. lib. iv. page 90. + Lib. iii. page 63.

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