The King's Most Excellent Majesty, by the prudent advice of his most dearly beloved uncle Edward Duke of Somerset (Governor of His Majesty's person and Protector of all His Highness's realms, dominions, and subjects), together with the rest of his most honourable council, has graciously considered the many evils that have until now crept into His Grace's realm through the false, usurped power of the Bishop of Rome and the ungodly doctrine of his followers. These evils have brought not only the great decay of the Christian religion, but also (had God's mercy not prevented it) the utter destruction of countless souls; for through hypocrisy and harmful doctrine those souls were seduced and led away: from honouring the only true, living, and eternal God to the worship of creatures, yes, of stocks and stones; from doing the commandments of God to voluntary works[2] and fantasies invented by men; from true religion to popish superstition.

For a Christian there can be nothing more necessary or more profitable than the knowledge of holy Scripture, because in it is contained God's true word, setting forth his glory and also our duty. And there is no truth or doctrine necessary for our justification and everlasting salvation that is not, or may not be, drawn out of that fountain and well of truth. Therefore all who desire to enter the right and perfect way to God must apply their minds to know holy Scripture, without which they can neither sufficiently know God and his will, nor their own calling and duty. And as drink is pleasant to those who are thirsty, and food to those who are hungry, so is the reading, hearing, searching, and studying of holy Scripture to those who desire to know God or themselves, and to do his will. Only those loathe and abhor the heavenly knowledge and food of God's word whose appetites are so drowned in worldly vanities that they have no taste for God or for any godliness; and that is why they desire such vanities rather than the true knowledge of God.

The Holy Spirit, in writing the holy Scripture, is more diligent at nothing than at pulling down man's vainglory and pride. Of all vices this is the one most universally grafted into all mankind, ever since the first infection of our first father Adam. And so we read in many places of Scripture many notable lessons against this old, deep-rooted vice, lessons that teach us the most commendable virtue of humility: how to know ourselves, and to remember what we are of ourselves.

Because all men are sinners and offenders against God, breakers of his law and commandments, no one can by his own acts, works, and deeds — however good they may seem — be justified and made righteous before God. Every man is of necessity compelled to seek another righteousness or justification, to be received at God's own hands: that is, the remission, pardon, and forgiveness of his sins and trespasses in whatever he has 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 by God for our perfect and full justification.

Our first coming to God, good Christian people, is through faith, by which—as was declared in the last Sermon—we are justified before God. And so that no one may be deceived for want of rightly understanding this, it must be carefully noted that faith is taken in Scripture in two ways.

In the last sermon it was declared to you what the lively faith[1] of a Christian is: that it does not make a man idle, but busy in bringing forth good works, as occasion arises. Now, by God's grace, the second thing that was noted before about faith shall be declared — that without it no good work can be done that is acceptable and pleasing to God. For, as our Saviour Christ says, just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me: I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, brings forth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing.

Almighty God, so that his most holy name should be held in honour and forever magnified among the people, commands that no one should take his name in vain upon his lips, and he threatens punishment against anyone who irreverently abuses it by swearing, false swearing, and blasphemy.

Of all the things that are good to teach Christian people, there is nothing more necessary to speak of and to call upon daily than charity[1]; both because every kind of work of righteousness is contained in it, and because its decay is the ruin (or fall) of the world, the banishment of virtue, and the cause of all vice. And because almost everyone makes and shapes charity for himself after his own appetite — and however detestable his life may be, both to God and to man, he still persuades himself that he has charity — you shall now hear a true and plain description (or setting forth) of charity, not from men's imagination, but from the very words and example of our Saviour Jesus Christ. In this description (or setting forth) every man, as if in a mirror, may consider himself, and see plainly and without error whether he is in true charity or not.

About our going away from God, the Wise Man says that pride was the first beginning, for by it the heart of man was turned away from God his Maker. "For pride," he says, "is the fountain of all sin: whoever has it will be full of cursings, and in the end it will overthrow him." (Sirach 10:13) And as by pride and sin we go from God, so will God, and all goodness with him, go from us.

It is no wonder that worldly men are afraid to die. For death deprives them of all worldly honours, riches, and possessions, in the enjoyment of which the worldly man counts himself happy, so long as he may enjoy them at his own pleasure; and otherwise, if he is dispossessed of them without hope of recovery, then he can think nothing else of himself but that he is unhappy, because he has lost his worldly joy and pleasure.