Page:Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol 1.djvu/130

8 and works meritorious of eternal salvation, with their own supererogations also; because they cannot bear that the entire praise and glory of all goodness, virtue, justice, and wisdom, should remain with God. But we read not of any having been blamed for drinking too much of the fountain of living water; on the contrary, those are severely reprimanded who " have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water," (Jer. ii. 13.) Again, what more agreeable to faith than to feel assured that God is a propitious Father when Christ is acknowledged as a brother and propitiator? than confidently to expect all prosperity and gladness from Him, whose ineffable love towards us was such that He " spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all"? (Rom. viii. 32,) than to rest in the sure hope of salvation and eternal life whenever Christ, in whom such treasures are hid, is conceived to have been given by the Father? Here they attack us, and loudly maintain, that this sure confidence is not free from arrogance and presumption. But as nothing is to be presumed of ourselves, so all things are to be presumed of God; nor are we stript of vain-glory for any other reason than that we may learn to glory in the Lord. Why go farther? Take but a cursory view, most valiant King, of all the parts of our cause, and count us of all wicked men the most iniquitous, if you do not discover plainly, that " therefore we both labour and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God," (1 Tim. iv. 10;) because we believe it to be " life eternal " to know " the only true God, and Jesus Christ," whom he has sent, (John xvii. 3.) For this hope some of us are in bonds, some beaten with rods, some made a gazing-stock, some proscribed, some most cruelly tortured, some obliged to flee; we are all pressed with straits, loaded with dire execrations, lacerated by slanders, and treated with the greatest indignity.

Look now to our adversaries, (I mean the priesthood, at whose beck and pleasure others ply their enmity against us,) and consider with me for a little by what zeal they are