Thread by @_matthewpearson

Vermigli on the inability of the natural man to please God:

“Let us also consider the natural purpose which philosophers have discerned, that people should live according to reason and excellent virtue; let us see how few have attained it, and so learn the weakness of human

virtue even in what is within the capacity of human reason. Consider still another necessity to which those in this state are subject, namely sin. For whatever they do without the grace of God and faith, they necessarily sin. They are children of wrath, and since they do not

believe in Christ, the wrath of God remains on them. Thus they cannot do anything good that may please God, because he has regard to men rather than to their gifts. They are evil trees; therefore, they can bear no fruit that is not evil. Paul called his Jewish good works not

only dung but ruin, because they were offensive to him; further, what is of the flesh cannot but be flesh. That the unregenerate are flesh needs no proof. Moreover, the book of Genesis, chapters 6 and 8, declares that the imaginations of men's own devising are evil, even from

their infancy. What is done by the unregenerate lacks the proper goal because it is not referred to God. So they cannot love God above all, which is nothing else than to refer all things to him; all their works are corrupt and therefore sins, since they are without faith. For

whatever is not of Faith is sin. What God requires of us is impossible compared to that state of which we speak, although it may be performed by the regenerate through an imperfect obedience.”
-Peter Martyr Vermigli