which hath a great recompense.[1] And, for this cause, unto them who work well unto the end,[2] and hoping in God, life eternal is to be proposed, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus Christ, and as a recompense which is to be faithfully rendered to their good works and merits according to the promise of God Himself. For this is that crowm of righteousness which the Apostle asserted was, after his fight and course, laid up for him, to be given to him by the righteous judge, and not only to him, but unto all that love his coming.[3] For, whereas Jesus Christ Himself, as the head into the members, and the vine into the branches, continually causes his virtue to flow into the said justified, which virtue always precedes and accompanies and follows after their good works, and without which it could not in anywise be pleasing and meritorious before God, we must needs believe that to the justified nothing further is wanting, but that they be accounted to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and truly to have merited eternal life, to be obtained also in its due time; if so be, however, that they shall have departed in grace: forasmuch as Christ, our Saviour, saith: If any one shall drink of the water that I shall give him, he shall not thirst for ever; but it shall become in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.[4] Thus, neither is our own righteousness established as our own[5] as from ourselves; nor is the righteousness of God denied or repudiated: for that righteousness which is called ours, because we are justified from its being inherent in us, that same is [the righteousness] of God, because it is infused into us of God, through the merit of Christ. Nor is this to be omitted, that, although, in the sacred writings, so much is attributed to good works, that Christ promises, that even he that shall give a drink of cold water to one of his least ones, shall not lose his reward;[6] and the Apostle bears witness that, That which is at present but for a moment and light of our tribulation, worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory;[7] nevertheless far be it that a Christian man should either trust or glory in
