ich justified them, they fell back into the very same mistake as
the Papists against whom they were so bitter, namely, that it is
something in a man's self which justifies him, and not simply
Christ's merits and God's free grace.

But our old Reformers were of a different mind; and everlasting
thanks be to Almighty God that they were so. For by being so they
have made the Church of England (as I always have said, and always
will say) almost the only Church in Europe, Protestant or other,
which thoroughly and fully stands up for free grace, and
justification by faith alone. For these old Reformers were
practical men, and took the practical way. They knew, perhaps, the
old proverb, 'A man need not be a builder to live in a house.' At
least they acted on it, and instead of trying to make the children
understand what faith was made up of, they tried to make them live
in faith itself. Instead of saying, 'How shall we make the children
have faith in God by telling them what faith is?' they said, 'How
shall we make them have faith in God by telling them what God is?'
And therefore, instead of puzzling and fretting the children's minds
with any of the controversies which were then going on between
Papists and Protestants, or afterwards between Calvinists and
Arminians, they taught the children simply about God; who He was,
and what He had done for them and all mankind; that so they might
learn to love Him, and look up to Him in faith, and trust utterly to
Him, and so remain justified and right, saved and safe for ever.

By doing which, my friends, they showed that they knew more about
faith and about God than if they had written books on books of
doctrinal arguments (though they wrote those too, and wrote them
nobly and well); they showed that they had true faith in God, such
trust in Him, and in the beauty and goodness, justice and love,
which He had shown, that they only needed to tell the children of
it, and they would trust Him too, and at once have faith in so good
a God. They showed that they had such trust in the excellencies,
and reasonableness, and fitness of His Gospel, that they were sure
that it would come home at once to the children's hearts. They
showed that they had such trust in the power of His grace, in His
love for the children, in the working of His Spirit in the children,
that He would bring His Gospel home to their hearts, and stir them
up by the spirit of adoption to feel that they were indeed t