Christ was his sanctification: Liberty? Christ
was his redemption: Temperance? Christ was his ruler: Wisdom? Christ was
his light: Truthfulness? Christ was the truth: Charity? Christ was love.

Sec. XLVI. Now, exactly in proportion as the Christian religion became
less vital, and as the various corruptions which time and Satan brought
into it were able to manifest themselves, the person and offices of Christ
were less dwelt upon, and the virtues of Christians more. The Life of
the Believer became in some degree separated from the Life of Christ;
and his virtue, instead of being a stream flowing forth from the throne
of God, and descending upon the earth, began to be regarded by him as a
pyramid upon earth, which he had to build up, step by step, that from
the top of it he might reach the Heavens. It was not possible to measure
the waves of the water of life, but it was perfectly possible to measure
the bricks of the Tower of Babel; and gradually, as the thoughts of men
were withdrawn from their Redeemer, and fixed upon themselves, the
virtues began to be squared, and counted, and classified, and put into
separate heaps of firsts and seconds; some things being virtuous
cardinally, and other things virtuous only north-north-west. It is very
curious to put in close juxtaposition the words of the Apostles and of
some of the writers of the fifteenth century touching sanctification.
For instance, hear first St. Paul to the Thessalonians: "The very God of
peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and
body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it." And then the
following part of a prayer which I translate from a MS. of the fifteenth
century: "May He (the Holy Spirit) govern the five Senses of my body;
may He cause me to embrace the Seven Works of Mercy, and firmly to
believe and observe the Twelve Articles of the Faith and the Ten
Commandments of the Law, and defend me from the Seven Mortal Sins, even
to the end."

Sec. XLVII. I do not mean that this quaint passage is generally
characteristic of the devotion of the fifteenth century: the very prayer
out of which it is taken is in other parts exceedingly beautiful:[141]
but the passage is strikingly illustrative of the tendency of the later
Romish Church, more especially in its most corrupt condition, just
before the Reformation, to throw all religion into forms and ciphers;