On the Twelve Abuses of the World

The tunic itself was woven from the top throughout. This signifies the discipline of the church, which is granted and integrated by the Lord from heaven. Regarding this, the Lord, after he had ascended to the Father and risen from the dead, spoke to his apostles: "But you, sit here in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." The tunic of the body of Christ, therefore, is the discipline of the church; whoever is outside of discipline is an alien to the body of Christ. Let us not rend it, therefore, but let us cast lots for it—that is, let us not dissolve what has been commanded by the Lord, but let each one remain in that in which he was called before God.

The Twelfth Degree of Abuse

A People without Law

The twelfth degree of abuse is a people without law, who, while they despise the dictates and the decrees of the laws, fall into the snare of prevarication through the diverse paths of errors. Concerning them, the prophet deplores the human race under the persona of the prevaricating people: "We have all wandered; each one has declined into his own way." Regarding whom, the same wisdom also speaks through Solomon: "Many ways seem right to men, and their end leads to death." These ways of perdition are certainly followed when the one royal way—the law of God, which declines neither to the right nor to the left—is described out of negligence. Concerning this way, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the end of the law for justice to every believer, declares: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me." He invites all together to this way, saying: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you." For there is no acceptance of persons before God; where there is no Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free, barbarian and Scythian, but Christ is all in all. For all are one in Christ Jesus. Therefore, since Christ is the end of the law, those who are without law are without Christ. Therefore, a people without law is a people without Christ. It is an abuse, therefore, in the time of the Gospel, for a people to be without law, when permission for preaching was given to the apostles among all nations, when the thunder of the Gospel roared through the parts of the world, when nations that did not seek justice apprehended justice, when those who had been far off were made near in the blood of Christ—those who were once not a people are now the people of God in Christ—when it is the acceptable time and the day of salvation, so that there may be times of refreshment in the sight of the Most High, which every nation has as a witness of the resurrection, when he himself testifies, saying: "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world." Let us not, therefore, do anything without Christ in this transitory time, lest Christ begin to be without us in the future.