The papists have that

own works

which they

should have in Jesus Christ.

for we cannot but sin without resistance.' The second are the hypocrites; which will deserve all with their own imagined works only. And of faith they have no other experience, save that it is a little meritorious where it is painful to be believed: as that Christ was born of a virgin, and that he came not out the way that other children do ;—fie, no, that were a great inconvenience: but above, under her arm, and yet made no hole, though he had a very natural body, and as other men have;-and that there is no bread in the sacrament, nor wine, though the five wits say all yea. And the meritorious pain of this belief is so heavy to them, that except they had feigned them a thousand wise similitudes and lousy likenesses, and as many mad reasons to stay them withal, and to help to captivate their understanding, they were like to cast all off their backs. And the only refuge of a great many, to keep in that faith, is to cast it out of their minds, and not to think upon it: as though they forgive not, yet if they put the displeasure out of their minds, and think not of it till a good occasion be given to avenge it, they think they love their neighbour well enough all the while, and be in good charity.

And the faith of the best of them is but like their faith faith in their in other worldly stories. But the faith, which is trust and confidence to be saved, and to have their sins forgiven by Christ, which was so born, have they not at all: that faith have they in their own works only. But the true hearers understand the law as Christ interpreteth it here, and feel thereby their righteous damnation; and run to Christ for succour, and for remission of all their sins that are past, and for all the sin which chance, through infirmities, shall compel them to do, and for remission of that the law is too strong for their weak nature.

And upon that they consent to the law, love it, and profess it, to fulfil it to the uttermost of their power, and Faith, what then go to and work. Faith, or confidence in Christ's blood,

it breedeth.

Love.

without help, and before the works of the law, bringeth all manner of remission of sins, and satisfaction. Faith is mother of love; faith accompanieth love in all her works, to fulfil as much as there lacketh, in our doing the law, of that perfect love which Christ had to his Father and us, in his fulfilling

of the law for us. Now, when we be reconciled, then is love and faith together our righteousness, our keeping the law, our continuing, our proceeding forward in the grace which we stand in, and our bringing to the everlasting saving and everlasting life. And the works be esteemed of God according to the love of the heart. If the works be great, and love little and cold, then the works be regarded thereafter of God. If the works be small, and love much and fervent, the works be taken for great of God.

And it came to pass, that when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having power, and not as the scribes.

The scribes and Pharisees had thrust up the sword of the word of God into a scabbard or sheath of glosses, and therein had knit it fast, that it could neither stick1 nor cut; teaching dead works without faith and love, which are the life and the whole goodness of all works, and the only thing why they please God. And therefore their audience abode ever carnal and fleshly-minded, without faith to God and love to their neighbours.

Christ's words were spirit and life: that is to say, they John vi. ministered spirit and life, and entered into the heart, and grated on the conscience; and, through preaching the law, made the hearers perceive their duties; even what love they owed to God, and what to man, and the right damnation of all them that had not the love of God and man written in their hearts; and, through preaching of faith, made all that consented to the law of God feel the mercy of God in Christ, and certified them of their salvation. For "the word of God Heb. iv. is a two-edged sword, that pierceth and divideth the spirit and soul of man asunder." A man before the preaching of God's word is but one man, all flesh; the soul consenting unto the lusts of the flesh, to follow them. But the sword The word of of the word of God, where it taketh effect, divideth a man it taketh in two, and setteth him at variance against his own self; flesh haling one way, and the spirit drawing another; flesh raging to follow lusts, and the spirit calling back again, to follow the law and will of God. A man, all the while

[1 Old English for pierce.]

the

God, where

effect,

man into two

the divideth a parts; that is, desh to hold and the spirit

causeth the

one way,

to draw another.

he consenteth to the flesh, and before he be born again in Christ, is called soul1 or carnal: but when he is renewed in Christ through the word of life, and hath the love of God and of his neighbour, and the faith of Christ written in his heart, he is called spirit or spiritual2. The Lord of all mercy send us preachers with power; that is to say, true expounders of the word of God, and speakers to the heart of man; and deliver us from scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, and all false prophets! Amen.

[1 ψυχικόν. 1 Cor. xv. 46.]

[2 πνευματικόν. Id. ibid.]

THE

EXPOSITION

OF THE

FIRST EPISTLE OF SAINT JOHN,

SET FORTH BY

M. WILLIAM TYNDALE,

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1531. SEPTEMB.

OF

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF SAINT JOHN.

[AN ancient edition of the following exposition is preserved in the library of St Paul's Cathedral, and has been collated for the present editor by George Offor, Esq. Its peculiar readings will be distinguished by the letters P. C. L.; whilst those found in Day's less ancient edition of Tyndale's works will be denoted by the letter D. In the former, Tyndale is found to have systematically avoided giving the Roman pontiff the title of pope; but in Day's reprint his editor John Foxe has with like regularity substituted pope for the words 'bishop of Rome,' or for any other periphrasis to the same purport. Another difference is, that in the older copy the relative pronoun which is frequently found with the prefixed; whilst Day has modernised this idiom by omitting the. In the present edition Tyndale's manner of designating the pope will be restored; but the obsolete idiom connected with which will be relinquished, after Day's example; and these two repeatedly recurring variations will not be farther noticed at the foot of the page.

But, besides these unimportant differences, the volume in the cathedral library contains an exposition of the second and third epistles of St John, printed on the same paper and in the same type, and followed by a table, or index, with references to the expositions of all the three, as to one work; whilst the want of a title-page prevents us from knowing whether its editor announced the whole as Tyndale's, or informed the public that the exposition of the two less epistles had been added by another hand.' Tyndale himself has said in his prologue, 'I have taken in hand to interpret this epistle,' as though he was not intending to expound the other two; and Sir Thomas More, in the preface to his 'Confutacyon' (date 1532), has said, 'Then have we from Tyndale the first epistle of St John, in such wise expounded that I dare say that blessed apostle, rather than his holy words were in such a sense believed of all Christian people, had lever his epistle had never been put in writing.' Day's edition of Tyndale was compiled rather more than 40 years after he and More had spoken thus; and in it the reprint of the exposition of the first epistle is unaccompanied by any notice of the existence of an exposition of the other two by Tyndale: so that Foxe either did not know of its existence, or did not believe it to be Tyndale's. Indeed every known averment of his having composed an exposition of all St John's epistles is traceable to bishop Bale's introducing the words In epistolas Joannis into his enumeration of Tyndale's works, in the Scriptorum illustr. Maj. Britannic Catalogus.

As however Tyndale might have composed a continuation of his exposition of the first epistle, between 1531 and his death, though he had not contemplated so doing; and as Bale's frequent inaccuracy