[176] Ecc. Biog. i. 176.
[177] In one particular, this peculiarity of the Lollard must have administered a very wholesome rebuke to a sin of the times. He would not swear by any of the members of Christ’s body, which was the heedless fashion of the day, but would content himself with such an affirmation, as “I am syker it is soth.” (See the Rev. H. Baber’s Memoirs of Wickliffe, prefixed to his Translation of the New Testament, p. 35.) May not the phrase a “yea-forsooth knave,” used by Falstaff (2 Hen. IV, ii. sc. 2,) have been a popular term of obloquy, originally applied to the Lollards by the dissolute and profane? See also Chaucer, “The Shipmanne’s Prologue.”
[178] Neal’s Hist. of Puritans, i. 6.
[179] Fox, i. 740.
[180] Isaiah, lv. 10, 11.
[181] Ecc. Biog. i. 290; where Fox and others attest these things.
[182] Nevertheless Luther is careful to maintain good works as the fruits of faith, though not as the meritorious cause of salvation. “Having so taught of faith in Christ,” says he, “we now teach touching good works also. Seeing that by faith thou hast apprehended Christ, by whom thou art justified, go now, love God and thy neighbours; pray to God, give him thanks; preach him, praise him, confess him; be good to thy neighbour, help him, do thy duty by him. These are truly good works, flowing as they do from that faith and joy conceived in the heart by reason of our forgiveness of sins through Christ.”—Comment. on the Galatians, ii. 16. And again, “After that Christ has been apprehended by faith, and that I am become dead to the law, justified from sin, freed from death, the devil, and hell, through Christ, I do good works, I love God, I give him thanks, I exercise charity towards my neighbour. But this charity, and the works consequent upon it, neither inform my faith, nor adorn it; but my faith informs and adorns my charity. This is my theology; these my paradoxes.”—ii. 18.
[183] Latimer, Serm. i. 188.
[184] Milner’s Church History, iv. 404.
[185] Id. iv. 406. 443.