see today: but have patience. For if their joy is converted into gnashing of teeth,
CHAPTER 5: Persecution Reproach and the Worlds Praise
see today: but have patience. For if their joy is converted into gnashing of teeth, if their wealth returns to them in poverty, because they are cursed by God, if the honor they have is to put them into confusion before God and before his angels, if all this is, must you envy them? In short, we see how our Lord Jesus Christ wants to elevate us above all these earthly things, and rise above this transitory life, and show us that if we do not have our reward here, this should not make us lose courage, because it is in heaven. Now in saying that our reward is in heaven, he does not mean a reward earned by our merit: as the Papists misuse these words, whenever this reward comes forward. For immediately they say, it follows then that our works are meritorious to eternal life, and that when we have failed, we have the satisfactions by which to acquit ourselves: and although the grace of God assists us, if there is any dignity in us, when we work on our side. And although this dignity is not equal to this infinite good of eternal life, if it is nevertheless that there is some dignity and propriety: for God would be unjust, if not he rewarded those who served him.
Thus therefore as if under the shadow of this word of Rent, the Papists will not only seek to diminish the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also to annihilate it if it were possible. Now for our part, let us know that our Lord Jesus Christ did not come here to fill us with pride and presumption, that he did not want us to be the authors of our salvation, having this false persuasion, that if we commit faults, we have the means to reward them. For he shows us enough in many other passages, that it is in him alone that we must seek all this, and that it is in the gratuitous goodness of God his Father that even our works find acceptance: and that God finds them good (for they are defective in themselves and deserve rejection) is from his pure grace and liberality, and from the paternal love which he bears to us. So our Lord Jesus Christ did not want to put us here in dispute about the cause of our salvation, to know what value there is in all the services that we will do to God his Father: but he wanted to show us that if it seems that it is wasted time to employ ourselves in doing good, seeing that all the more we will seek to conform to the will of God his Father, we will be hated by the world, we will be rejected, and even persecuted: these temptations should not prevent us from continuing our course. And why? For although we will live here on earth, we must serve God through many battles. And where is our victory? In heaven, let's look there. And so let us think, not to merit, but only to persevere in the service of God: for we have the reward which was acquired for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, and which we obtain by the merit of his death and passion, which cannot fail us. And let us boldly despise all these