Therefore God
must take this maul in hand (the law, I mean) to beat in pieces
and bring to nothing this beast with her vain confidence, that
she may so learn at length by her own misery that she is utterly
forlorn and damned. But here lieth the difficulty, that when a
man is terrified and cast down, he is so little able to raise
himself up again and say, 'Now I am bruised and afflicted enough;
now is the time of grace; now is the time to hear Christ.' The
foolishness of man's heart is so great that then he rather
seeketh to himself more laws to satisfy his conscience. 'If I
live,' saith he, 'I will amend my life: I will do this, I will
do that.' But here, except thou do the quite contrary, except
thou send Moses away with his law, and in these terrors and this
anguish lay hold upon Christ who died for thy sins, look for no
salvation. Thy cowl, thy shaven crown, thy chastity, thy
obedience, thy poverty, thy works, thy merits? what shall all
these do? what shall the law of Moses avail? If I, wretched and
damnable sinner, through works or merits could have loved the Son
of God, and so come to him, what needed he to deliver himself for
me? If I, being a wretch and damned sinner, could be redeemed by
any other price, what needed the Son of God to be given? But
because there was no other price, therefore he delivered neither
sheep, ox, gold, nor silver, but even God himself, entirely and
wholly 'for me,' even 'for me,' I say, a miserable, wretched
sinner.
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