What They Said

"The Spirit and his fruits wherewith the heart is purified, as faith, hope, love, patience, longsuffering and obedience, could never be seen without outward experience.  For if you were not brought sometime into cumbrance [difficulty], when God only could deliver you, you would never see your faith.  Yea, except you fought sometime against desperation, hell, death, sin, and the powers of this world for your faith's sake, you would never know true faith from a dream.  Except your brother now and then offend you, you could not know whether your love were godly.  An unbeliever is not angry until he is hurt and offended: but if you love him that does the evil, then is your love of God.  And when you hurt not your neighbors, then you are sure that God's Spirit works in you and that your faith in no dream nor false imagination."

William Tyndale