to say so. For it is plain, we are not saved by anything of ours, even when wrought in us by God’s Spirit. As one of our Articles says, they are in grievous error “who say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law and the light of nature,” for that “Jesus Christ is the only Name whereby men must be saved;” {153b} so, truly, no one may affirm that we are saved, except instrumentally or conditionally, either by good works, (even if they were good, in the sense of being blameless, which none of ours are,) or by knowledge, or by the priesthood, or by sacraments, or by the Church, or by the Bible, or by prayer, or even by faith itself, for it is manifest that we are saved by Christ only, and by none else, either thing or person. He may have set forth, as He has done, certain conditions of salvation; He may have appointed, as He has done, certain means of applying to Him for mercy, and of obtaining mercy from Him; He may have ordained, as He has done, certain channels of help by which His grace flows to us, and enables us to receive His favour, and the reconciliation with God, which He has purchased for us; but it is HE, and He only, Who is the sole meritorious cause of all we have, and all we are, and all we hope for. So, truly, again we may repeat in the words of the Apostle, that it is “Christ Jesus, Who, of God, is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption;” not as if He could be this to us (God forbid the thought!) if we persist in sin, or in neglect of His way of life; but, as if (which is the truth), even if we had done all, we should be but unprofitable servants; as if (which is the truth) we are very far from having done all; as if (which is the truth) anything we have done to please God has been only of Him and through the purchased gift of His Spirit, and the communication to us of Himself. So that, indeed, we owe all to Him, and without Him are and must be lost indeed.