Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
Ver. 7. Let no man deceive you] As if you might pass e coeno in coelum; fly to heaven with dragon's wings; dance with the devil all day, and sup with Christ at night; live all your lives long in Delilah's lap, and then go to Abraham's bosom when you die. These are the devil's dirt daubers that teach such doctrine, his upholsterers that sew such pillows,Ezekiel 13:18 .
He that doth righteousness is righteous] Provided that he do it from a right principle. For otherwise men may naturally perform the outward act of righteousness, and yet not be righteous persons; as Ahab humbled himself. Alexander the Great, when he had killed Clitus, was troubled in conscience, and sent to all kinds of philosophers (as it were to so many ministers) to know what he might do to appease his conscience and satisfy for that sin. Uriah, that brought in the altar of Damascus, is called "a faithful witness," Isaiah 8:2, true to his word; yet no man looketh upon him as righteous. It is not, saith a reverend man, in divinity as in moral philosophy, where iusta et iuste agendo simus iusti, by doing righteous things and righteously we are made righteous; but we have esse to be first, and then the operari, &c., the work, the habit, and then the act.