But then it so happed that long ere
he was old his horse once stumbled upon a broken bridge. And as he
laboured to recover him, when he saw that it would not be, but
that down into the flood headlong he must go, in sudden dismay he
cried out in the falling, "Have all to the devil!" And there was
he drowned with his three words ere he died, whereon his hope hung
all his wretched life.
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.
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