suffer hell or regard your human righteousness as loss and filth and
endeavor not to be found relying on it at your last hour, in the
presence of God and judgment, but rather stand in the righteousness
of Christ. In the garment of Christ's righteousness and reared in him
you may, in the resurrection from sin and death, meet Christ and
exclaim: "Hail, beloved Lord and Saviour, thou who hast redeemed me
from the wretched body of sin and death, and fashioned me like unto
thy holy, pure and glorious body!"

GOD'S PATIENCE WITH HUMAN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

25. Meantime, while we walk in the faith of his righteousness, he has
patience with the poor, frail righteousness of this earthly life,
which otherwise is but filth in his sight. He honors our human
holiness by supporting and protecting it during the time we live on
earth; just as we honor our corrupt, filthy bodies, adorning them
with beautiful, costly garments and golden ornaments, and reposing
them on cushions and beds of luxury. Though but stench and filth
encased in flesh, they are honored above everything else on earth.
For their sake are all things performed--the ordering and ruling,
building and laboring; and God himself permits sun and moon to shine
that they may receive light and heat, and everything to grow on earth
for their benefit. What is the human body but a beautiful pyx
containing that filthy, repulsive object of reverence, the digestive
organs, which the body must always patiently carry about; yes, which
we must even nourish and minister to, glad if only they perform their
functions properly?

26. Similarly God deals with us. Because he would confer eternal life
upon man, he patiently endures the filthy righteousness of this life
wherein we must dwell until the last day, for the sake of his chosen
people and until the number is complete. For so long as the final day
is deferred, not all to have eternal life are yet born. When the time
shall be fulfilled, the number completed, God will suddenly bring to
an end the world with its governments, its jurists and authorities,
its conditions of life; in short, he will utterly abolish earthly
righteousness, destroying physical appetites and all else together.
For every form of human holiness is condemned to destruction; yet for
the sake of Christians, to whom eternal life is appointed, and for
their sake only, all these must be perpetuated until the last saint
is born and has attained life everlasting. Were there b