Mark 7: 4. None knows the
many dangers that an ungodly fear of God will drive a man into.
How has it racked and tortured the papists for hundreds of years
together! for what else is the cause but this ungodly fear, at least
in the most simple and harmless of them, of their penances--as
creeping to the cross, going barefoot on pilgrimage, whipping
themselves, wearing of sackcloth, saying so many pater-nosters, so
many Ave-Marias, making so many confessions to the priest, giving so
much money for pardons, and abundance of other the like---but this
ungodly fear of God? For could they be brought to believe this
doctrine, that Christ was delivered for our offences and raised
again for our justification, and to apply it by faith with godly
boldness to their own souls, this fear Would vanish, and so
consequently all those things with which they so needlessly and
unprofitably afflict themselves, offend God, and grieve his people.
THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
Thou must have salvation either at the door of the law or at the
door of grace. "But," sayest thou, "I am for having it at the hands
of both. I will trust solely to neither. I love to have two strings
to my bow. If one of them, as you think, can help me by itself, my
reason tells me that both can help me better; therefore will I be
righteous and good, and will seek by my goodness to be commended to
the mercy of God; for surely he that hath something of his own to
ingratiate himself into the favor of his prince withal, shall sooner
obtain his mercy and favor than one that comes to him stripped of
all good.
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