“Truly, that cannot I tell you, for I took not but little note. I was but a maidling, scarce past my childhood. My mother was well pleased therewith. I mind her to have said, divers times, when she lay of her last sickness, that she would fain have shriven her of the friar in the frieze habit. Wherefore, cannot I say.”
“Then perchance I can say it for you:—for I reckon it was because he brought her gladder tidings than she had heard of other.”
Amphillis looked surprised. “Why, whatso? Sermons be all alike, so far as ever I could tell.”
“Be they so? No, verily, Amphillis. Is there no difference betwixt preaching of the law—‘Do this, and thou shalt live,’ and preaching of the glad gospel of the grace of God—‘I give unto them everlasting life?’”
“But we must merit Heaven!” exclaimed Amphillis.
“Our Lord, then, paid not the full price, but left at the least a few marks over for us to pay? Nay, He bought Heaven for us, Amphillis: and only He could do it. We have nothing to pay; and if we had, how should our poor hands reach to such a purchase as that? It took God to save the world. Ay, and it took God, too, to love the world enough to save it.”
“Why, but if so be, we are saved—not shall be.”
“We are, if we ever shall be.”
“But is that true Catholic doctrine?”
“It is the true doctrine of God’s love. Either, therefore, it is Catholic doctrine, or Catholic doctrine hath erred from it.”