CHAPTER XXXI
How we are not to cast off the Life of Christ, but practise it
diligently, and walk in it until Death
But that other thing which they affirm, how that we ought to throw off and cast
aside the life of Christ, and all laws and commandments, customs and order and
the like, and pay no heed to them, but despise and make light of them, is
altogether false and a lie. Now some may say; "Since neither Christ nor others
can ever gain anything, either by a Christian life, or by all these exercises
and ordinances, and the like, nor turn them to any account, seeing that they
possess already all that can be had through them, what cause is there why they
should not henceforth eschew them altogether? Must they still retain and
practise them?"
Behold, ye must look narrowly into this
matter. There are two kinds of Light; the one is true and the other is false.
The true light is that Eternal Light which is God; or else it is a created
light, but yet divine, which is called grace. And these are both the true
Light. So is the false light Nature or of Nature. But why is the first true,
and the second false? This we can better perceive than say or write. To God, as
Godhead, appertain neither will, nor knowledge, nor manifestation, nor anything
that we can name, or say, or conceive. But to God as God,[39] it belongeth to express Himself, and know and love
Himself, and to reveal Himself to Himself; and all this without any creature.
And all this resteth in God as a substance but not as a working, so long as
there is no creature. And out of this expressing and revealing of Himself unto
Himself, ariseth the distinction of Persons. But when God as God is made man,
or where God dwelleth in a godly man, or one who is "made a partaker of the
divine nature," in such a man somewhat appertaineth unto God which is His own,
and belongeth to Him only and not to the creature. And without the creature,
this would lie in His own Self as a Substance or well-spring, but would not be
manifested or wrought out into deeds. Now God will have it to be exercised and
clothed in a form, for it is there only to be wrought out and executed. What
else is it for? Shall it lie idle? What then would it profit? As good were it
that it had never been; nay better, for what is of no use existeth in vain, and
that is abhorred by God and Nature. However God will have it wrought out, and
this cannot come to pass (which it ought to do) without the creature. Nay, if
there ought not to be, and were not this and that -- works, and a world full of
real things, and the like, -- what were God Himself, and what had He to do, and
whose God would He be? Here we must turn and stop, or we might follow this
matter and grope along until we knew not where we were, nor how we should find
our way out again.
[39] This is, as a Person--"God" being used
here as a proper name.--Tr.