do than any man can do? If a man were a thousand men, or all men,
or all creatures, this Commandment would yet ask enough of him,
and more than enough, since he is commanded to live and walk at
all times in faith and confidence toward God, to place such faith
in no one else, and so to have only one, the true God, and none
other.

Now, since the being and nature of man cannot for an instant be
without doing or not doing something, enduring or running away
from something (for, as we see, life never rests), let him who
will be pious and filled with good works, begin and in all his
life and works at all times exercise himself in this faith; let
him learn to do and to leave undone all things in such continual
faith; then will he find how much work he has to do, and how
completely all things are included in faith; how he dare never
grow idle, because his very idling must be the exercise and work
of faith. In brief, nothing can be in or about us and nothing can
happen to us but that it must be good and meritorious, if we
believe (as we ought) that all things please God. So says St.
Paul: "Dear brethren, all that ye do, whether ye eat or drink,
do all in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord." Now it cannot be
done in this Name except it be done in this faith. Likewise,
Romans vii: "We know that all things work together for good to
the saints of God."

Therefore, when some say that good works are forbidden when we
preach faith alone, it is as if I said to a sick man: "If you had
health, you would have the use of all your limbs; but without
health, the works of all your limbs are nothing"; and he wanted
to infer that I had forbidden the works of all his limbs;