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CHAPTER XVI.
OF GOOD WORKS.
"Albeit that good works which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sin, and endure the severity of God's Judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit."—Article XII.
§ 1. "Physicians heal the sick with medicines, but the priests cure the sinner with the words of Scripture; and by tears, fasting, prayers, and almsgiving, we reconcile Christ to us. And there is joy in heaven among the angels when sinners turn away from their sins." From the service in the Khudhra for the eve of the commemoration of the Greek Doctors.
§ 2. In the foregoing part of the poem the author had adduced the case of the Ninevites, and therefrom deduces the doctrine that all affliction is sent on account of sin, and that by the austerities and mortifications which they imposed upon themselves, the Ninevites had put away the wrath of the Almighty. He then goes on to say: "Henceforth our condition requires that by fasting and prayer, and almsgiving, by contrition, and repentance, and sorrow, and tears, and earnestness, for sin, we should reconcile the Lord, and say all of us, 'O Lord, accept our supplication.'" From the Khâmees, "on Repentance."
§ 3. "Know thou assuredly, my soul, that there is no salvation from the hell prepared, but through the labour of soul and body. Therefore multiply and increase thy labour that thou mayest inherit the blessedness which passeth not away." From the Khâmees, from a different poem "on Repentance."
§ 4. "Let us 'please' [Heb. xi. 6] Christ the King by our
