And therefore let no man sin in hope of grace, for grace cometh but at God’s will, and that state of mind may be the hindrance that grace of fruitful repenting shall never after be offered him, but that he shall either graceless go linger on careless, or with a care that is fruitless shall fall into despair.

VI

Vincent:  Forsooth, uncle, in this point methinketh you say very well.  But then are there some again who say on the other hand that we shall need no heaviness for our sins at all, but need only change our intent and purpose to do better, and for all that is passed take no thought at all.  And as for fasting and other affliction of the body, they say we should not do it save only to tame the flesh when we feel it wax wanton and begin to rebel.  For fasting, they say, serveth to keep the body in temperance, but to fast for penance or to do any other good work, almsdeed or other, toward satisfaction for our own sins—­this thing they call plain injury to the passion of Christ, by which alone our sins are forgiven freely without any recompense of our own.  And they say that those who would do penance for their own sins look to be their own Christs, and pay their own ransoms, and save their souls themselves.  And with these reasons in Saxony many cast fasting off, and all other bodily affliction, save only where need requireth to bring the body to temperance.  For no other good, they say, can it do to ourselves, and then to our neighbour can it do none at all.  And therefore they condemn it for superstitious folly.  Now, heaviness of heart and weeping for our sins, this they reckon shame almost, and womanish childishness—­howbeit, God be thanked, their women wax there now so mannish that they are not so childish, nor so poor of spirit, but what they can sin on as men do and be neither afraid nor ashamed nor weep for their sins at all.

And surely, mine uncle, I have marvelled the less ever since I heard the manner of their preachers there.  For, as you remember, when I was in Saxony these matters were (in a manner) but in a mammering.  Luther was not then wedded yet, nor religious men out of their habits, but those that would be of the sect were suffered freely to preach what they would unto the people.  And forsooth I heard a religious man there myself—­one that had been reputed and taken for very good, and who, as far as the folk perceived, was of his own living somewhat austere and sharp.  But his preaching was wonderful!  Methinketh I hear him yet, his voice so loud and shrill, his learning less than mean.  But whereas his matter was much part against fasting and all affliction for any penance, which he called men’s inventions, he ever cried out upon them to keep well the laws of Christ, let go their childish penance, and purpose then to mend and seek nothing to salvation but the death of Christ.  “For he is our justice, and he is our Saviour and our whole satisfaction for all our deadly sins.