er an oral proclamation and living word, and a voice which echoes
through the whole world, and is publicly uttered that it may
universally be heard. Neither is it a book of laws, containing in
itself many excellent doctrines, as has hitherto been held. For it
does not bid us do works whereby we may become righteous, but
proclaims to us the grace of God, bestowed freely, and apart from any
merit of our own; and it tells how Christ has taken our place, and
rendered satisfaction for our sins, and canceled them, and by His own
works justifies and saves us.

[Footnote 2: Count.]

Whoever sets forth this, by preaching or writing, _he_ teaches the
true Gospel, as all the Apostles did, especially St. Paul and St.
Peter, in their Epistles. So that all, whatever it be, that sets
forth Christ, is one and the same Gospel, although one may use a
different method, and speak of it in different language from another,
for it may perhaps be a brief or extended address, or a brief or
extended writing. But yet, if it tends to this point, that Christ is
our Saviour, and we through faith on Him, apart from works of our
own, are justified and saved, it is still the same Word, and but one
Gospel, just as there is also but one faith and one baptism in the
whole Christian world.

So, also, one Apostle has written the same [Gospel] that is contained
in another's writings; but they who insist most largely and
emphatically on this, that faith on Christ alone justifies, are the
best Evangelists. Therefore St. Paul's Epistles are more a Gospel
than Matthew, Mark and Luke, for the latter give little more than the
history of the works and miracles of Christ; but of the grace which
we have through Christ, none write so emphatically as St. Paul,
especially in his Epistle to the Romans. And yet, since more
importance by far belongs to the word than to the works and deeds of
Christ, and where we are to be deprived of one it were better that we
should want the works and the history than the word and the doctrine;
those books are to be most highly esteemed which most largely treat
of the doctrine and words of the Lord Christ; for though the miracles
of Christ had never been, and we had no knowledge of them, we should
yet have had enough in the _word_, without which we could not have
had life.

Thus this Epistle of St. Peter is one of the noblest books in the New
Testament, and contains indeed the pure Gospel; for he takes the same
course as St. Paul an