Because all men be sinners and
offenders against God, and breakers of his law and commandments, therefore can
no man by his own acts, works and deeds (seem they never so good) be justified
and made righteous before God; but ever man of necessity is constrained
to seek for another righteousness, or justification, to be received and
trespasses in such things as he hath offended. And this justification or
righteousness, which we so receive by God’s mercy and Christ’s merits, embraced
by faith, is taken, accepted, and allowed of God for our perfect and full
justification. (Thomas Cranmer, “Homily of Salvation,” in Miscellaneous
Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, ed. John Edmund [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1846], 128)
