Awake thou that sleepest, and stand up from death, and Christ shall give thee light. Eph. v.
THE grace of our Lord, the light of his Spirit to see and M. c. to judge, true repentance towards God’s law, a fast faith in the merciful promises that are in our Saviour Christ, fervent love toward thy neighbour after the ensample of Christ and his saints, be with thee, 0 reader, and with all that love the truth, and long for the redemption of God’s elect2. Amen.
Our Saviour Jesus in the sixteenth of John at his last John xvi. supper, when he took his leave of his disciples, warned them, saying, “The Holy Ghost shall come and rebuke the world of xheHoiy judgment.” That is, he shall rebuke the world for lack of true rebuke the
Jo … world for judgment, and discretion to judge ; and shall prove that the legmen™6 taste of their mouths is corrupt, so that they judge sweet to M. c. iv-vi. be sour, and sour to be sweet ; and the3 eyes to be blind, so that they think that to be the very service of God, which is
[! The letters M. C. in the margin will indicate the passages which Sir Thomas More has commented upon in his Confutation.]
[2 More begins his Confutation with a comment on this prayer, in the following terms. ” Tyndale here beginneth with an holy salutation, and so doth Luther too, and so doth friar Huskyne [CEcolampadius] too, and so doth every fond fellow of any of their sects. But when men consider that where he prayeth ‘God send them a fast faith,’ him self teacheth a false faith against the sacraments, and meaneth that they should be fast in the same, there will no good Christian man can thank him for that holy prayer. And where he prayeth here so holily for the love of the neighbour, if men look on the love that is used among all the masters of that holy sect, and consider their livings, and look upon friar Luther, the very father of their holy sect, and see him run out of religion” [that is, quit a monastery], “and fallen to flesh and carrion, and live in letchery with a nun under name of wedlock, and all the chief heads of them, late monks and friars, and now apostates and living with harlots under the name of wives ; he that looketh on this, and then seeth them and their scholars, as Tyndale here &c.”J
[3 So D. but Sir T. More prints it tlieir in his Confutation.]
6 ANSWER TO SIR THOMAS MORE’s DIALOGUE.
but a blind superstition, for zeal of which yet they persecute the true service of God ; and that they judge to be the law of God, which is but a false imagination of a corrupt judgment, for blind affection of which yet they persecute the true law of God, and them that keep it.
And this same it is that Paul saith in the second of the i cor. ii. first epistle to the Corinthians, how that .the natural man that is not born again, and created anew with the Spirit of God,
M.c.vi-viii. be he never so great a philosopher, never so well seen in the law, never so sore studied in the scripture, as we have
The spiritual ensamples in the Pharisees, yet he cannot understand the
Sings things of the Spirit of God. But saith he, ” The spiritual judgeth all things, and his spirit searcheth the deep secrets of
God;” so that whatsoever God commandeth him to do, he never leaveth searching till he come at the bottom, the pith, the quick, the life, the spirit, the marrow, and very cause
Matt’ Sif3*’ wky) an(^ judgeth all thing. Take an ensample in the great
M. c.x— xiv. commandment, ” Love God with all thine heart :” the spiritual searcheth the cause, and looketh on the benefits of God, and
Rom. xiii. so conceiveth love in heart. And when he is commanded to
M. c. xiv-xv. obey the powers and rulers of the world, he looketh on the
M. c. xv. benefits which God sheweth the world through them, and
Matt. xxii. therefore doth it gladly. And when he is commanded to love
The spiritual m .-I/.T
Shnouetathe~ nis neighbour as himself, he searcheth that his neighbour ought To Lvl is created of God, and bought with Christ’s blood; and so bourse.lgh forth : and therefore he loveth him out of his heart ; and if he be evil, forbeareth him, and with all love and patience draweth him to good : as elder brethren wait on the younger, and serve them and suffer them ; and when they will not come, they speak fair, and flatter, and give some gay thing, and promise fair, and so draw them and smite them not; but, if they may in no wise be holp, refer the punishment to the father and mother ; and so forth. And by these judgeth he all other laws of God, and understandeth the true use and meaning of them. And by these understandeth he, in the laws Jx’x0’ xix~~ °f manJ which are right and which tyranny.
If God should command him to drink no wine, as he com manded in the old Testament that the priests should not, when they ministered in the temple, and forbade divers meats ; Man is lord the spiritual (because he knoweth that man is lord over all over all the r thlaeturtehof otner creatures, and they his servants, made to be at his
PREFACE TO THE READER. 7 pleasure, and that it is not commanded for the wine or meat itself, that man should be in bondage unto his own servant, the inferior creature) ceaseth not to search the cause : and when he findeth it, that it is to tame the flesh and that he be alway sober, he obeyeth gladly ; and yet not so superstitiously, that the time of his disease he would not drink wine in the way of a medicine to recover his health ; as David ate of the hallowed bread ; and as Moses for necessity i sam. XXL left the children of Israel uncircumcised forty years, where of circumcision likelihood some died uncircumcised, and were yet thought to be in no worse case than they that were circumcised ; as the children that died within the eighth day were counted in as good case as they that were circumcised : which ensamples M. c. might teach us many things, if there were spirit in us. And likewise of the holy-day : he knoweth that the day is servant to man; and therefore, when he findeth that it is done because he should not be let from hearing the word of God, he obey-eth gladly ; and yet not so superstitiously, that he would not help his neighbour on the holy-day, and let the sermon alone for one day ; or that he would not work on the holy-day, need requiring it, at such time as men be not wont to be at church: and so throughout all laws. And even likewise in The si all ceremonies and sacraments, he searcheth the significations, and will not serve the visible things. It is as good to him, that the priest say mass in his gown as in his other apparel, jfg; xxxiii if they teach him not somewhat, and that his soul be edified ~xlL thereby. And as soon will he gape while thou puttest sand ceremonies as holy salt in his mouth, if thou shew him no reason thereof. £(*)& docHe had as lief be smeared with unhallowed butter as anointed with charmed oil, if his soul be not taught to understand somewhat thereby ; and so forth1.
But the world captivateth his wit2, and about the law of M. c. God maketh him wonderful imaginations, unto which he so V1’ fast cleaveth that ten John Baptists were not able to dispute them out of his head. He believeth that he loveth God, because he is ready to kill a Turk for his sake, that believeth M. c. better in God than he; whom God also commandeth us
[* In p. xli. of his Confutation, More turns away from this preface to quote and controvert different passages in The Obedience, and so proceeds to p. Ixxiv.]
[2 That is, the natural man’s.]
8 Answer to Sir Thomas Morels Dialogue
Turks are to love, and to leave nothing unsought to win him unto the lamented for knowledge of the truth, though with the loss of our lives. He their igno-supposeth that he loveth his neighbour as much as he is bound, trine and if he be not actually angry with him ; whom yet he will not help gSSTife,0* freely with an half-penny, but for a vantage, or vain glory, or hatedand6 for a worldly purpose. If any man have displeased him, he £“cle£xviii. keepeth his malice in, and will not chafe himself about it, till he see an occasion to avenge it craftily ; and thinketh that well enough. And the rulers of the world he obeyeth, think eth he, when he flattereth them, and blindeth them with gifts, and corrupteth the officers with rewards, and beguileth the law with cautels and subtilties.
we do noAnd because the love of God and of his neighbour, excneptwwe’do which is the spirit and the life of all laws, and wherefore frornapure all laws are made, is not written in his heart, therefore in all inferior laws and in all wordly ordinances is he beetle blind. If he be commanded to abstain from wine, that will observe unto the death too ; as the Charterhouse monks lever die than eat flesh. And as for the soberness and chastising of the members, will he not look for; but will pour in ale and beer of the strongest, without measure, and heat them with spices, and so forth. And the holy-day will M.C. ixxix. he keep so strait, that if he meet a flea in his bed, he dare not kill her ; and not once regard wherefore the holy-day was ordained, to seek for God^s word : and so forth in all laws. And in ceremonies and sacraments, there he cap- in. c. ixxx. tivateth his wit and understanding to obey holy church, without asking what they mean, or desiring to know ; but only careth for the keeping, and looketh ever with a pair of narrow eyes, and with all his spectacles upon them, lest aught be left out. For if the priest should say mass, baptize, or hear confession, without a stole about his neck, he would think all were marred, and doubt whether he had power to
M. c. ixxxi. consecrate, and think that the virtue of the mass were lost, and the child not well baptized, or not baptized at all, and
M c. ixxxi that his absolution were not worth a mite. He had lever that the bishops should wag two fingers over him, than that another man should say, ” God save him ;” and so forth.
The world Wherefore, beloved reader, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost for^S of rebuketh the world for lack of judgment; and inasmuch judgment. ^Q as faQfr jgnorance js without excuse, before whose faces
PREFACE TO THE READER. 9 enough is set to judge by, if they would open their eyes to see, and not captivate their understanding to believe lies;
and inasmuch as the spiritual judgeth all thing, even the M. c. ixxxm very bottom of God’s secrets ; that is to say, the causes of ~~ the things which God commandeth ; how much more ought we to judge our holy father’s secrets1, and not to be as an ox or an ass, without understanding !
Judge, therefore, reader, whether the pope with his be Judge by
. . these things, the church ; whether their authority be above the scripture ; wl”^jj™ whether all they teach without scripture be equal with the ^c.°ixxxiv scripture ; whether they have erred, and not only whether ~vl1* they can. And against the mist of their sophistry take the ensamples that are past, in the old Testament and authentic M.C.IXXXVU. stories, and the present practice which thou seest before thine eyes. Judge whether it be possible that any good should M. c. come out of their dumb ceremonies and sacraments into thy soul. Judge their penance, pilgrimages, pardons, purgatory, Judge what praying to posts, dumb blessings, dumb absolutions, their ?hf fopVs5 m dumb pattering, and howling, their dumb strange holy gesa tures, with all their dumb disguisings, their satisfactions and m justifyings. And because thou findest them false in so many things, trust them in nothing ; but judge them in all things2. Mark at the last the practice of our fleshly spiritualty and Note the their ways, by which they have walked above eight hundred years; how they stablish their lies, first, with falsifying the scripture ; then through corrupting with their riches, whereof they have infinite treasure in store; and last of all, with the sword. Have they not compelled the emperors of the earth, and the great lords and high officers to be obedient M. c.
p Meaning the pope ; styled our holy father by papists in serious ness, but here ironically.]
[2 Sir Thomas More has the credit of being a more polished writer than Tyndale ; and his confutation of the above three sentences is as follows : ” Judge, good Christian reader, whether it be possible that he be any better than a beast, out of whose brutish beastly mouth cometh such a filthy foam of blasphemies against Christ’s holy ceremonies and blessed sacraments, sent into his church out of his own blessed body side. And for because ye find this fellow so frantic and so false in the railing and jesting against the sacraments of Christ, ye may well judge that whoso can delight or be content with his blasphemous ribaldry, hath great cause in himself to fear that his Christian faith beginneth to fail and to faint.” Conf. p. Ixxxviii.]
10 Preface to the Reader
unto them, to dispute for them, and to be their tormentors ; and the Samsumims1 themselves do but imagine mischief, and inspire them ?
The papists Mark whether it were ever truer than now, the scribes, fogSrered Pharisees, Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas and Anna2, are gathered fflt together against God and Christ : but yet, I trust, in vain ; and he that brake the counsel of Achitophel shall scatter outstay theirs. Mark whether it be not true in the highest degree, crfte?ST *hat for the sin of the people hypocrites shall reign over M. c. xci. them. What shews, what faces and contrary pretences are made, and all to stablish them in their theft, falsehood, and damnable lies, and to gather them together for to contrive subtilty, to oppress the truth, and to stop the light, and to keep all still in darkness ! Wherefore it is time to awake, M.C. xdiand to see every man with his own eyes, and to judge; if we will not be judged of Christ, when he cometh to judge. And remember that he which is warned hath none excuse, if he take no heed. Herewith farewell in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose Spirit be thy guide, and doctrine thy light3, to judge withal. Amen.
[i See Deut. ii. 20.] [2 Annas.]
[3 The collated editions of Tyndalehave thy guide, and doctrine, and the light ; but Sir Thomas More’s Confutation gives the reading intro duced into our text.]
← 1. Introductory Notice to the Answer to · Contents · 3. An Answer unto Sir Thomas More’s →