sed. For since faith
knows no distinction among works, such exaltation and urging of one
work above another cannot exist beside faith. For faith desires to be
the only service of God, and will grant this name and honor to no other
work, except in so far as faith imparts it, as it does when the work is
done in faith and by faith. This perversion is indicated in the Old
Testament, when the Jews left the Temple and sacrificed at other
places, in the green parks and on the mountains. This is what these men
also do: they are zealous to do all works, but this chief work of faith
they regard not at all.

XIII. Where now are they who ask, what works are good; what they shall
do; how they shall be religious? Yes, and where are they who say that
when we preach of faith, we shall neither teach nor do works? Does not
this First Commandment give us more work to do than any man can do? If
a man were a thousand men, or all men, or all creatures, this
Commandment would yet ask enough of him, and more than enough, since he
is commanded to live and walk at all times in faith and confidence
toward God, to place such faith in no one else, and so to have only
one, the true God, and none other.

Now, since the being and nature of man cannot for an instant be without
doing or not doing something, enduring or running away from something
(for, as we see, life never rests), let him who will be pious and
filled with good works, begin and in all his life and works at all
times exercise himself in this faith; let him learn to do and to leave
undone all things in such continual faith; then will he find how much
work he has to do, and how completely all things are included in faith;
how he dare never grow idle, because his very idling must be the
exercise and work of faith. In brief, nothing can be in or about us and
nothing can happen to us but that it must be good and meritorious, if
we believe (as we ought) that all things please God. So says St. Paul:
"Dear brethren, all that ye do, whether ye eat or drink, do all in the
Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord." Now it cannot be done in this Name
except it be done in this faith. Likewise, Romans vii: "We know that
all things work together for good to the saints of God."

Therefore, when some say that good works are forbidden when we preach
faith alone, it is as if I said to a sick man: "If you had health, you
would have the use of all your limbs; but without health, the works of
all your limbs are not