True Christian Religion (Chadwick) n. 645

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645. It is astonishing that although the Word is from beginning to end full of evidences and proofs that everyone has his good or evil imputed to him, the theologians of the Christian religion have stopped their ears as if with wax, and plastered their eyes as if with ointment, so that they have not heard or seen, nor do they now hear or see, any kind of imputation other than that of their faith as described above. Yet that faith can properly be compared with the eye-disease called gutta serena; indeed it might well be so named, since it is total blindness in the eye resulting from the obstruction of the optic nerve, though the eye appears to be capable of full vision. Likewise those whose faith is of this kind walk as if with their eyes open, appearing to others to see everything, though they see nothing, since a person is completely unaware of that faith entering into him, being then like a block of wood. Nor does he subsequently know whether that faith is in him, nor whether it has anything in it. Afterwards the same people see as if with clear eyesight that faith giving birth and bringing forth the noble offspring of justification, namely, the forgiveness of sins, quickening, renewal, regeneration and sanctification, when in fact they have not seen a sign of any of these, nor could they do so.


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