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| Chapter XXIX. How those who are perfect go beyond the fixed rule of Lent.
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Chapter XXIX.
How those who are perfect go beyond the fixed rule of
Lent.
By this law of Lent then
the man who is upright and perfect is not restrained nor is he content
with merely submitting to that paltry rule which the heads of the
church have established for those who all the year round are involved
in pleasure or business, that they may be bound by this legal
requirement and forced at any rate during these days to find time for
the Lord, and dedicate to Him the tithe of the days of their life, all
of which they would have consumed as their profits. But the righteous,
for whom the law is not appointed, and who devote to spiritual duties
not a small part; viz., the tenth, but the whole time of their life,
because they are free from the burden of tithes according to law, for
this reason, if any worthy and pious occasion happening to them
constrains them, are ready to relax their station fast2212
| 2212 Statio. Cf.
note on the Institutes V. xxiv. | without any hesitation. For in their case
it is no paltry tithe that is diminished, as they offer all that they
have to the Lord equally with themselves. And this certainly a man
could not do without being guilty of a grievous wrong, who, offering
nothing of his own free will to God, is forced to pay his tithes by the
stern compulsion of the law which takes no excuse. Wherefore it is
clearly established that the servant of the law cannot be perfect, who
only shuns those things which are forbidden and does those things which
are commanded, but that those are really perfect who do not take
advantage even of those things which the law allows. And in this way,
though it is said of the Mosaic law that “the law brought nothing
to perfection,”2213
we read that
some of the saints in the Old Testament were perfect because they went
beyond the commands of the law and lived under the perfection of the
Gospel: “Knowing that the law is not appointed for the righteous
but for the unrighteous and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners,
for the wicked and defiled, etc.”2214
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