The Fourth Dialogue

Lode. Nothing less. Vred. Furthermore, in enduring excess, what power Mark 5. 39. do you have? If someone struck you on the right cheek, would you offer him the left also? Would you also be able to bless him who curses you? Wish good to those who slander you and pray for them who persecute you? Strive to preserve those who seek to kill you? Lod. In that I am truly very far away. Vred. So you do not believe in Christum Christ either, for if you believed, you would obey His commands. Lod. I truly did not attribute such obedience to Faith. Vred. What kind of faith did you then imagine? Lod. A trust in the mercy of God freely given to us in Christo Christ. Vred. To what end did you then think the commands of Christi Christ extended? Lod. To admonish us of our weakness, which cannot fulfill the same, so that we would hang only on Christum Christ, who had kept the same commands for us and made us partakers with Him. Vred. The Apostles also, O Lodewyck, trusted in the freely given grace, and were nonetheless also obedient to the commands of Christi Christ. I am also not one who places salvation in obedience or in our works, but in the freely given mercy of God; but this I say: that whoever truly believes the freely given mercy of God, that he is also obedient to the commands of Christi Christ; so also if someone only believes the freely given mercy of God, and therewith does not also believe His commands and Heb. 11. 33.