suffer.

But this is not to know God, that you should believe as the Turks,
Jews, and devils believe, that God has created all things, or even
that Christ was born of a virgin, suffered, died, and rose again; but
this is the true knowledge, whereby you hold and know that God is thy
God and Christ is thy Christ, which the devil and the false
christians could not believe. So that this knowledge is nothing else
but a true christian faith; for if you thus know God and Christ, you
will then confide in them with your whole heart, and trust them in
good and ill, in life and death. Such trust evil consciences cannot
possess. For they know no more of God, except that He is a God of St.
Peter and all the saints in heaven. But as their own God they know
Him not, but hold Him as their task-master and angry judge. To have
God, is to have all grace, all mercy, and all that man can well
receive; to have Christ, is to have the Saviour and Mediator, who has
brought us to say that God is ours, and has obtained all grace for us
with Him. This also must be implied, that Christ is yours and you are
His, then have you a true knowledge. A woman that lives unmarried can
well say that a man is a husband, but this can she not say, that he
is her husband. So may we all well say, this is _a_ God, but this we
cannot say all of us, that He is _our_ God, for we cannot all trust
upon Him nor comfort ourselves as His. To this knowledge belongs also
that which the Scripture calls _faciem et vultum domini_, the face of
the Lord, whereof the prophets speak much; who ever sees not the face
of the Lord knows Him not, but sees only His back,--that is, an angry
and ungracious God.

And here you perceive, that St. Peter does not set himself
particularly to write of faith, since he had already done that
sufficiently in the First Epistle, but would admonish believers that
they should prove their faith by good works; for he would not have a
faith without good works, nor works without faith, but faith first
and good works on and from faith. Therefore, he says, now, also:

V. 3. _According as His divine power (whatever serves for life and
godliness) is abundantly given us._ This is the first point, where
Peter essays to describe what sort of blessings we have received
through faith from God, even that to us (since we have known God by
faith) there is given every kind of divine power. But what sort of
power is it? It is such power as serves us toward life and