Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue
What the church is.
THIS word church hath divers significations. First it M. c. xcvsignifieth a place or house ; whither Christian people were ^J^™ wont in the old time to resort at times convenient, for to f”™h are hear the word of doctrine, the law of God, and the faith Mc- c( of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and how and what to pray, and whence to ask power and strength to live godly. For The ministhe officer, thereto appointed, preached the pure word of God church are only, and prayed in a tongue that all men understood : and to preach to i ill -i i • i.ii the pe°Ple the people hearkened unto his prayers, and said thereto Amen ; and prayed with him in their hearts, and of him learned to pray at home and everywhere, and to instruct every man his household.
Where now we hear but voices without significations, and buzzings, howlings, and cryings, as it were the hallooing of foxes, or baitings of bears ; and wonder at disguisings and toys, whereof we know no meaning. By reason whereof we be fallen into such ignorance, that we know of the mercy and promises, which are in Christ, nothing at all. And of the law of God we think as do the Turks, and as did the old M. c.«. heathen people ; how that it is a thing which every man may do of his own power, and in doing thereof becometh good, and waxeth righteous, and deserveth heaven ; yea, and are so holyyet more mad than that : for we imagine the same of fantasies, and vain ceremonies of our own making ; neither M. c. d. needful unto the taming of our own flesh, neither profitable unto our neighbour, neither honour unto God. And of prayer we think, that no man can pray but at church; and that it A great abuse is nothing else but to say Pater noster unto a post : whereM.pc?ycuwith yet, and with other observances of our own imagining, we believe we deserve to be sped of all that our blind hearts desire.
The church In another signification, it is abused and mistaken for a taken for the i • i » i i i M i i • i spiritualty, multitude of shaven, shorn, and oiled; which we now call the spiritualty and clergy. As when we read in the chronicles, King ‘King William was a great tyrant, and a wicked man unto King’j’ohn. holy church, and took much lands from them/ ‘King John was also a perilous man and a wicked unto holy church; and would have had them punished for theft, murder, and whatsoever mischief they did, as though they had not been people anointed, but even of the vile rascal and common layst Thomas people.’ And, ‘Thomas Becket was a blessed and an holy man; bury. w. T. for he died for the liberties (to do all mischief unpunished) and privileges of the church.’ ’ Is he a layman, or a man of the Hoiy church church?’ ’ Such is the living of holy church.’ ‘So men say of a great holy church.’ ’ Ye must believe in holy church, and do as they teach you.’ ‘Will ye not obey holy church?’ ‘Will ye not do the penance enjoined you by holy church?’ ‘Will ye not forswear obedience unto holy church?’ ‘Beware lest ye fall into the indignation of holy church, lest they curse you f and The pope and so forth. In which all, we understand but the pope, cardinals, teklnbforethe legates, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, chan cellors, archdeacons, commissaries, officials, priests, monks, friars, black, white, pied, grey, and so forth, by (I trow) a thousand names of blasphemy and of hypocrisies, and as many sundry fashions of disguisings.
The church It hath yet, or should have, another signification, little gsafionnofre~ known among the common people now-a-days. That is to peopleofall … .„ * * r … ,J sorts gatherwit, it signifieth a congregation ; a multitude or a company gathered together in one, of all degrees of people. As a man would say, ‘the church of London,’ meaning not the spi ritualty only (as they will be called for their diligent serving of God in the spirit, and so sore eschewing to meddle with temporal matters), but the whole body of the city, of all kinds, conditions, and degrees: and ‘the church of Bristow1,’ all that pertain unto that town generally. And what congre gation is meant, thou shalt alway understand by the matter that is entreated of, and by the circumstances thereof. And
The church ln ^1$ third signification is the church of God, or Christ, ftfi?t°adken°in taken in the scripture ; even for the whole multitude of all them that receive the name of Christ to believe in him, and
Gai. i. not for the clergy only. For Paul saith (Galatians i.),
Meanings of the Word Church. 13
” I persecuted the church of God above measure :” which was not the preachers only, but all that believed generally: as it is to see Acts xxii. where he saith : ” I persecuted this Acts xxn.
way even unto the death, binding and putting in prison both men and women.” And (Galatians i.), ” I was unknown conGUI. i.
cerning my person unto the congregations of the Jews which were in Christ.” And (Rom. xvi.), ” I commend unto you Rom. xvi
Phoebe, the deaconess of the church of Cenchris.” And, ” The i cor. xvi churches of Asia salute you.” (1 Cor. the last.) And, ” If a i T™. m.
man cannot rule his own house, how shall he take the care of the church of God T’ ” If any faithful man or woman have widows, let them find them, that the church be not charged.” And, “If thy brother hear thee not, tell the church or congregation;” and so forth. In which places, and throughtheyrbe°ev( out all the scripture, the church is taken for the whole multitude of them that believe in Christ in that place, in that parish, town, city, province, land, or throughout all the world, and not for the spiritualty only.
Notwithstanding yet it is sometimes taken generally for all them that embrace the name of Christ, though their faiths be naught, or though they have no faith at all. And sometimes it is taken specially for the elect only; in whose hearts God hath written his law with his holy Spirit, and given them a feeling faith of the mercy that is in Christ Jesu our Lord.
Why Tyndale used this word congregation, rather than church, in the translation of the new Testament.
Wherefore, inasmuch as the clergy (as the nature of those hard and indurate adamant stones is, to draw all to them) had appropriate unto themselves the term that of right is common unto all the whole congregation of them that believe in Christ ; and with their false and subtle wiles had beguiled and mocked the people, and brought them into the ignorance of the word ; making them understand by this word church nothing but the shaven flock of them that shore the whole world; therefore in the translation of the The cause new Testament, where I found this word ecclesia, I interpreted tWransiTatenddaIe it by this word congregation. Even therefore did I it, and dAShato f, … . . this word not ot any mischievous mind or purpose to stablish heresy, congregation.
as Master More untruly reporteth of me in his dialogue, where he raileth on the translation of the new Testament1.
And when M. More saith, that this word church is known well enough, I report me unto the consciences of all the land, whether he say truth or otherwise ; or whether the lay-people understand by church the whole multitude of all
[! Chapter viii. of Book m. of More’s Dialogue is headed, ” The author sheweth why the new Testament of Tyndale’s translation was burned. And sheweth for a sample certain words evil, and of evil purpose changed.” And it begins as follows :
” But now I pray you let me know your mind concerning the burn ing of the new Testament in English, which Tyndale lately translated, and (as men say) right well, which maketh men much marvel of the burning. It is, quoth I, to me great marvel that any good Christian man, having any drop of wit in his head, should any thing marvel or complain of the burning of that book, if he knew the matter : which whoso calleth the new Testament, calleth it by a wrong name, except they would call it Tyndale’s Testament, or Luther’s Testament. For so had Tyndale, after Luther’s counsel, corrupted and changed it from the good and wholesome doctrine of Christ to the devilish heresies of their own, that it was clean a contrary thing. That were marvel, quoth your friend, that it should be so clean contrary ; for to some that read it, it seemed very like. It is, quoth I, nevertheless contrary, and yet the more perilous. For like as to a true silver groat a false copper groat is nevertheless contrary, though it be quicksilvered over, but so much the more false, in how much it is counterfeited the more like to the truth, and so much the more perilous in how much it was, to folk unlearned, more hard to be discerned. Why, quoth your friend, what faults were there in it ? To tell you all that, quoth I, were in a manner to rehearse you all the whole book, wherein there were found and noted, wrong and falsely translated, above a thousand texts by tale. I would, quoth he, fain hear some one. He that shoul.fi, quoth I, study for that, should study where to find water in the sea. But I will shew you, for ensample, two or three such as every one of the three is more than thrice three in one. That were, quoth he, very strange ; except ye mean more in weight : for one can be but one, in number. Surely, quoth I, as weighty be they as any lightly can be. But I mean that every one of them is more than thrice three in number. These were, quoth he, somewhat like a riddle. This riddle, quoth I, will soon be read. For he hath mistranslated three words of great weight, and every one of them is, as I suppose, more than thrice three times repeated and rehearsed in the books. Ah, that may well be, quoth he ; but that was not well done. But, I pray you, what words be these ? The one is, quoth I, this word Priests ; the other, the Church ; the third, Charity”]
THE CHURCH A CONGREGATION. 15 that profess Christ, or the juggling spirits only. And when M. c. cxvihe saith that congregation is a more general term ; if it were, it hurteth not : for the circumstance doth ever tell what congregation is meant. Nevertheless yet saith he not the truth. For wheresoever I may say a congregation, there may I say a church also ; as the church of the devil, the church of Satan, the church of wretches, the church of wicked men, the church of liars, and a church of Turks thereto. For M. More must grant (if he will have ecclesia trans lated throughout all the new Testament by this word church] that church is as common as ecclesia. Now is ecclesia a
Greek word, and was in use before the time of the apostles, and signifie and taken for a congregation among the heathen, where was tion. no congregation of God or of Christ. And also Lucas him self useth ecclesia for a church, or congregation, of heathen people thrice in one chapter, even in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts2, where Demetrius the goldsmith, or silversmith, Actsxix. had gathered a company against Paul for preaching against images.
Howbeit, M. More hath so long used his figures of poetry, JJ^jfore^ that (I suppose) when he erreth most, he now, by the reason ^ poetry. of a long custom, belie veth himself that he saith most true. Or else, as the wise people, which when they dance naked in nets, believe that no man seeth them ; even so M. More thinketh that his errors be so subtilly couched that no man can espy them. So blind he counteth all other men, in com parison of his great understanding. But charitably I exhort him in Christ to take heed ; for though Judas were wilier Judas. than his fellows to get lucre, yet he proved not most wise at the last end. Neither though Baalam, the false prophet, Baaiam. had a clear sight to bring the curse of God upon the children of Israel for honour’s sake ; yet his covetousness did so blind his prophecy, that he could not see his own end. Let, A good adtherefore, M. More and his company awake by times, ere £?M(Jre! c ever their sin be ripe ; lest the voice of their wickedness ascend up, and awake God out of his sleep, to look upon them, and to bow his ears unto their cursed blasphemies against the open truth, and to send his harvestmen and mowers of vengeance to reap it.
[2 Viz. in verses 32, 39, and 41 ; where Tyndale has rendered the word congregation, whilst our Auth. Vers. renders it assembly. 1
But how happeth it that M. More hath not contended in
M. More did like wise against his darling Erasmus all this long while ?
£rasmi» Doth he not change this word ecclesia into congregation, and that not seldom in the new Testament1? Peradventure he oweth him favour, because he made Moria in his house2 :
which book, if it were in English, then should every man see how that he then was far otherwise minded than he now writeth. But, verily, I think that as Judas betrayed not
Christ for any love that he had unto the high priests, scribes and Pharisees, but only to come by that wherefore was^°dreeeP ^e thi1*8^ ; even so M. More (as there are tokens evident) dissembler. wrote not these books for any affection that he bare unto the spiritualty, or unto the opinions which he so barely defendeth, but to obtain only that which he was an hungred for. I pray God that he eat not too hastily, lest he be choked at the latter end ; but that he repent, and resist not the Spirit of God, which openeth light unto the world.
Why he useth this word elder, and not priest. M. More is Another thins: which he rebuketh is, that I interpret captious.
cxxxiii ^S Greek word presbyteros by this word senior. Of a truth senior is no very good English, though senior and junior be used in the universities ; but there came no better in my mind at that time. Howbeit, I spied my fault since, long ere M. More told it me3, and have mended it in all the M. More works which I since made, and call it an elder. And in the i!a7ineth that he maketh heresy of it, to call presbyteros an elder, he ™‘v*iv condemneth their own old Latin text of heresy, which only they use yet daily in the church, and have used, I suppose, this fourteen hundred years : for that text doth call it an i Pet. v. elder likewise. In the 1 Pet. v. thus standeth it in the Latin
[! Erasmus has rendered it congregation in his version of Acts ii. 47 ; v. 11 ; xi. 26. Rom. xvi. 5. 1 Cor. xiv. 4. Col. iv. 15. Philemon, 2. And in Acts xix. 4 and Heb. xii. 23 he has rendered eKK\r)o-ia, concio.]
L2 Erasmus’ celebrated sarcastic production, the Encomium Morice ; in which he held up to ridicule the ignorance frequent among the popish clergy and the friars.]
[3 In the chapter just quoted More had said, “In our English tongue this word seniour signifieth nothing at all ; but is a French word, used in English more than half in mockage, when one will call another my lord in scorn/’]
PRESBYTER AN ELDER RATHER THAN A PRIEST. 17 text : Seniores ergo qui in vobis sunt obsecro consenior, pascite qui in vobis est gregem Christi : ” The elders that M^C. cxxxv are among you, I beseech, which am an elder also, that ye feed the flock of Christ, which is among you.” There is presbyteros called an elder. And in that he saith, ” Feed JJ-XJ Christ’s flock,” he meaneth even the ministers that were chosen to teach the people, and to inform them in God’s word, and no lay persons. And in the second epistle of John saith 2 John. the text, Senior electee domince et filiis ejus : ” The elder unto the elect lady and to her children.” And in the third B John. epistle of John, Senior Gaio dilecto : ” The elder unto the beloved Gaius.” In these two epistles presbyteros is called an elder. And in Acts, chap, xx., the text saith : ” Paul sent Actsxx. for majores natu ecclesice, the elders in birth of the con gregation or church, and said unto them, Take heed unto yourselves, and unto the whole flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you episcopos ad regendum ecclesiam Dei,” bishops, or4 overseers, to govern the church of God. Bishops are rru • 7 -MI 7 7 • 7 • 7 i • i ordained to
Inere is presbyteros called an elder in birth ; wmcn same be overseers immediately is called a bishop or overseer, to declare what ££usr°hf the persons are meant. Hereof ye see that I have no more erred than their own text, which they have used since the scripture was first in the Latin tongue, and that their own text understandeth by presbyteros nothing save an elder. And they were called elders, because of their age, gravity The and sadness, as thou may est see by the text ; and bishops, church, or overseers, by the reason of their offices. And all that were called elders (or priests, if they so will) were called bishops also, though they have divided the names now : which thing thou may est evidently see by the first chapter of Titus, Titus i. and Acts xx., and other places more.
And when he layeth Timothy unto my charge, how he was young, then he weeneth that he hath won his gilden spurs5. But I would pray him to shew me where he readeth that Paul calleth him presbyteros, priest or elder. I durst not then call him episcopus properly : for those overseers, Bishops which we now call bishops after the Greek word, were bufers in one place.
[4 So C. U. L. ed. D. omits or.]
[6 A person capable of receiving knighthood was said to have won his spurs, when he had made himself so conspicuous in the field of battle as to ensure his being knighted.] mns-
alway biding in one place, to govern the congregation there. Now was Timothy an apostle. And Paul also writeth that he came shortly again. Well, will he say, it cometh yet all to one; for if it becometh the lower minister to be of a sad and discreet age, much more it becometh the higher. It
Note. W.T. is truth. But two things are without law, God and neces sity. If God, to shew his power, shall shed out his grace more upon youth than upon age at a time, who shall let him?
women. Women be no meet vessels to rule or to preach, for both
Godpoureth are forbidden them; yet hath God endowed them with his spirited Spirit at sundry times, and shewed his power and goodness endoweth « J . r & with wisdom upon them, and wrought wonderful things by them, because and learning, r ’ » «/ mermen “e would no^ have them despised. We read that women have judged all Israel, and have been great prophetesses, and have done mighty deeds. Yea, and if stories be true, women have preached since the opening of the new testa ment. Do not our women now christen and minister the sa crament of baptism in time of need? Might they not, by as good reason, preach also, if necessity required ? If a woman were driven into some island, where Christ was never preached, might she there not preach him, if she had the gift thereto ? Might she not also baptize ? And why might she not, by the same reason, minister the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, and teach them how to choose officers and ministers? 0 poor women, how despise ye them!
M. c. cxii. The viler the better welcome unto you. An whore had ye lever than an honest wife. If only shaven and anointed may do these things, then Christ did them not, nor any of his apostles, nor any man in long time after : for they used no such ceremonies.
God is under Notwithstanding, though God be under no law, and no law; ne- &) ° * cessity lawnecessity lawless ; yet be we under a law, and ought to prefer the men before the women, and age before youth, as nigh as we can. For it is against the law of nature that young men should rule the elder, and as uncomely as that women should rule the men, but when need requireth. And therefore, if Paul had had other shift, and a man of age as meet for the room, he would not have put Timothy in the office; he should no doubt have been kept back until a fuller age, and have learned in the meantime in silence. And what soever thou be that readest this, I exhort thee in our Lord,
PRESBYTER AN ELDER RATHER THAN A PRIEST. 19 that thou read both the epistles of Paul to Timothy ; that The cause thou mayest see how diligently (as a mother careth for her child, if it be in peril) Paul writeth unto Timothy, to instruct byiSft
him, to teach him, to exhort, to courage him, to stir him up to be wise, sober, diligent, circumspect, sad l, humble and Paul was a meek, saying : ” These I write that thou mayest know how jgJ™J°r to to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church”
or congregation. Avoid lusts of youth, beware of ungodly fables and old wives’ tales; and avoid the company of men of corrupt minds, which waste their brains about wrangling questions. “Let no man despise thine youth.” As who shall say, ’ Youth is a despised thing of itself ; whereunto men give none obedience naturally or reverence 2. See, therefore, that st Paul was
• i (• 11 a worthy and thy virtue exceed, to recompense thy lack of age ; and that thou so behave thyself that no fault be found with thee.’ And again, “Rebuke not an elder sharply, but exhort him as thy father, and young men as thy brethren, and the elder women as thy mothers, and the young women as thy sisters;” and such like in every chapter. ” Admit none accusation against an elder, under less than two witnesses.” And Paul chargeth him “in the sight of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of his elect angels, to do nothing rashly,” or of affection. And shortly, whereunto youth is most prone and ready to fall, thereof warneth he him with all diligence, even almost or altogether half a dozen times of some one thing. And finally, as a man would teach a child that had never before gone to school, so tenderly and so carefully doth Paul difference teach him. It is another thing to teach the people, and to teach the preacher. Here Paul teacheth the preacher, young f Timothy. preacher-
And when he affirmeth that I say, how that the oiling and omng nor shaving is no part of the priesthood3, that improveth he not, anyvthfn|or nor can do. And therefore I say it yet. And when he hath pr^sthood. insearched the uttermost that he can, this is all that he can M. c. cxivi lay against me, that of an hundred there be not ten that have the properties which Paul requireth to be in them. Where fore, if oiling and shaving be no part of their priesthood, then
[i Sad: grave.] p So C.U. L. ed.]
[3 ” The name of priest which to us, in our own tongue, hath always signified an anointed person, and with holy orders consecrated unto
God, he hath changed.” More’s Dial.]
2—2 evermore of a thousand nine hundred at the least should be no priests at all. And ” Quoth your friend1” would confirm it with an oath, and swear deeply, that it would follow, and that it must needs so be : which argument yet, if there were no other shift, I would solve after an Oxford fashion, with Concedo consequentiam et consequens2. And I say moreover, that their anointing is but a ceremony borrowed of the Jews, though they have somewhat altered the manner ; and their shaving borrowed of the heathen priests ; and that they be on, salt, and no more of their priesthood, than the oil, salt, spittle, taper spittle are no tint PI • —iri • -\ i • a cnrisom-cl°th, of the substance of baptism. Which things, no doubt, because they be of their conjuring, they would have preached of necessity unto the salvation of the child, except necessity had driven them unto the contrary. And seeing M. c. cxiv— that the oil is not of necessity, let M. More tell me what more virtue is in the oil of confirmation, inasmuch as the bishop oil hath in sacreth the one as well as the other ; yea, and let him tell the at an, though reason why there should be more virtue in the oil wherewith the bishop • hallow it. . the bishop anointeth his priests. Let him tell you from whence the oil cometh, how it is made, and why he selleth it to the curates wherewith they anoint the sick, or whether this be of less virtue than the other.
And finally, why used not the apostles this Greek word hiereus, or the interpreter this Latin word sacerdos, but alway this word presbyteros and senior, by which was at that ^me notnmg signified but3 an elder ? And it was no doubt taken of the custom of the Hebrews, where the officers were ever elderly men, as nature requireth : as it appeareth in the old Testament, and also in the new. ” The scribes, Pharisees, and the elders of the people,” saith the text; which were the officers and rulers, so called by the reason of their age.
Why he useth love, rather than chanty.
^e re^uketh me also that I translate this Greek word t£wordh (*)gape) into love, and not rather into charity, so holy and so thin Sari ty. known a term. Verily, charity is no known English, in that t1 Tyndale’s ironical name for a speaker in More’s Dialogue.] [2 I concede the consequence and whatever is deducible.J [« So D. The C. U. L. ed. has then, i. e. than.]
ATAIIH MORE FITLY RENDERED LOVE THAN CHARITY. 21 sense which agape requireth. For when we say, ’ Give your alms in the worship of God, and sweet St Charity ; ’ and when the father teacheth his son to say, ‘Blessing, father, for St Charity;’ what mean they? In good faith they wot not. Moreover, when we say, ’ God help you, I have done my charity for this day/ do we not take it for alms? and, ’ The charity hath
• i • T i c i • » i , T i i divers signi-man is ever chiding and out ot charity ; and, 1 besnrew ficatkms. him, saving my charity;’ there we take it for patience. And when I say, ‘A charitable man/ it is taken for merciful. And though mercifulness be a good love, or rather spring of a good love, yet is not every good love mercifulness. As when a woman loveth her husband godly, or a man his wife or his friend that is in none adversity, it is not always mercifulness. Also we say not, This man hath a great charity to God ; but Love is also a great love. Wherefore I must have used this general term understood. love in spite of mine heart oftentimes. And agape and caritas were words used among the heathen, ere Christ came; M. c.ci, cii. and signified therefore more than a godly love. And we may say well enough, and have heard it spoken, that the Turks be charitable one to another among themselves, and some of them unto the Christians too. Besides all this, agape is common unto all loves.
And when M. More saith, “Every love is not charity4;” Every love is
, ’ . . J , i not charity, no more is every apostle Christ s apostle; nor every angel
God’s angel ; nor every hope Christian hope ; nor every faith, not loveor belief, Christ’s belief; and so by an hundred thousand words : so that if I should always use but a word that were no more general than the word I interpret, I should interpret nothing at all. But the matter itself and the circumstances do declare what love, what hope, and what faith is spoken of. And, M. c. cii. finally, I say not, charity God, or charity your neighbour; but, love God, and love your neighbour; yea, and though we say a man ought to love his neighbour’s wife and his daughter, a Christian man doth not5 understand that he is commanded to defile his neighbour’s wife or his neighbour’s daughter6. M c. cm.
[4 “Charity signifieth, in Englishmen’s ears, not every common love, but a good, virtuous, and well ordered love.” More’s Dial.]
[6 So C. U. L. ed. and More’s Conf. In D. not is omitted, but doubtless only by an error of the press.]
[6 In More’s quotation neighbour’s daughter; but in the collated editions of Tyndale neighbour’s is omitted.]
Answer to Sir Thomas More S Dialogue
Why Tyndale saith favour, and not grace. M. C. cliii.
Knowledge and not confession, repentance and not penance.
The papists may not forbear to have their juggling terms.
Why favour, and not grace.
And with like reasons rageth he, because I turn charis inio favour, and not into grace: saying that “every favour is not grace, and that in some favour there is but little grace.” I can say also, ’ in some grace there is little goodness ;’ and when we say ‘he standeth well in my lady’s grace/ we understand no great godly favour. And in universities many ungracious graces there be1 gotten.
Why knowledge, and not confession ; repentance, and not penance.
And that I use this word knowledge, and not confes sion ; and this word repentance, and not penance2. In which all he cannot prove that I give not the right English unto the Greek word. But it is a far other thing that paineth them, and biteth them by the breasts. There be secret pangs that pinch the very hearts of them, whereof they dare not com plain. The sickness, that maketh them so impatient, is that they have lost their juggling terms. For the doctors and preachers were wont to make many divisions, distinctions, and sorts of grace; gratis data, gratum faciens, prceveniens, and subsequens3. And with confession they juggled; and so made the people, as oft as they spake of it, understand shrift in the ear ; whereof the scripture maketh no mention : no, it is clean against the scripture, as they use it and preach it; and unto God an abomination, and a foul stinking sacrifice unto the filthy idol Priapus. The loss of those juggling terms is the matter whereof all these bots breed; that gnaw them by the bellies, and make them so unquiet.
And in like manner, by this word penance they make the people understand holy deeds of their enjoining ; with t1 So in More’s quotation; but the collated editions of Tyndale omit there be. — More says, “He should have made it more plain and better perceived, if he had said, as for ensample, when his own grace was there granted, to be made master of arts.” Confut. The passing of any resolution by the ruling body for the conferring of a degree is called passing a grace, in the university of Cambridge.]
[2 ” Confession he translateth into knowledge : penance into re pentance ; a contrite heart he changeth into a troubled heart.” More’s Dial. B. in. chap. viii. The reader has seen that Tyndale frequently uses knowledge for acknowledge.]
[3 Freely given: making acceptable; going before; and following after.]
REPENTANCE NOT PENANCE. 23 which they must make satisfaction unto God-ward for their Penance
» t was ro ginS : when all the scripture preacheth that Christ hath made full satisfaction for our sins to God-ward ; and we must now be thankful to God again, and kill the lusts of our flesh with holy works of God’s enjoining. And I am bound to take patiently all that God layeth on my back ; and, if I have hurt my neighbour, to shrive myself unto him, and to w make him amends, if I have wherewith ; or if not, then to ask him forgiveness, and he is bound to forgive me. And J^c. cixas for their penance, the scripture knoweth not of [it]. The Greek hath Metanoia, and Metanoite, repentance and repent; or forethinking and forethink. As we say in English, ’ It forethinketh me, or I forethink4;’ and ‘I repent, or it re-Faithin penteth me ;’ and ’ I am sorry that I did it/ So now the SmJ* scripture saith, ’ Repent, or let it forethink you ; and come rq and believe the gospel, or glad tidings, that is brought you in Christ, and so shall all be forgiven you ; and henceforth live a new life/ And it will follow, if I repent in the heart, that I shall do no more so, willingly and of purpose. And M. c. cixiv if I believed the gospel, what God hath done for me in M.c.cixvu Christ, I should surely love him again, and of love prepare clj myself unto his commandments.
These things to be even so, M. More knoweth well enough : for he understandeth the Greek, and he knew them long ere I. But so blind is covetousness and drunken desire of honour. ” Gifts blind the eyes of the seeing, and pervert the words of the righteous.” (Deut. xvi.) When Deut. XVL covetousness findeth vantage in serving falsehood, it riseth up into an obstinate malice against the truth, and seeketh all means to resist it and to quench it : as Balaam the false Balaam. prophet, though he wist that God loved Israel, and had blessed them, and promised them great things, and that he would fulfil his promises ; yet for covetousness and desire of honour he fell into such malice against the truth of God, that he sought how to resist it and to curse the people : which when God would not let him do, he turned himself another way, and gave pestilent counsel to make the people sin against God ; whereby the wrath of God fell upon them, and many thousands perished. Notwithstanding God’s truth abode fast, and was fulfilled in the rest. And Balaam, as he [4 Sec Vol. I. p. 260, n. 2.] was the cause that many perished, so escaped he not himself. No more did any that maliciously resisted the open truth against his own conscience, since the world began, that ever The sin I read. For it is sin against the Holy Ghost, which Christ WoiyGholt. saith shall neither be forgiven here, nor in the world to come : which text may thiswise be understood, that as that sin shall be punished with everlasting damnation in the life to come, even so shall it not escape vengeance here ; as thou seest in Judas, in Pharaoh, in Balaam, and in all other tyrants, which against their consciences resisted the open truth of God.
So now the cause why our prelates thus rage, and that moveth them to call M. More to help, is not that they find j ust causes in the translation, but because they have lost their
2 Pet. ii. juggling and feigned terms ; wherewith Peter prophesied they should make merchandise of the people.
M. c. cixxiii. Whether the church were before the gospel, or the gospel before the church.
M. c. cixxv Another doubt there is ; whether the church or congrebefore th? Sa^on ^e before the gospel, or the gospel before the church : fhesgeosp0ei which question is as hard to solve, as whether the father be chu°rceh!he elder than the son, or the son elder than his father. For the whole scripture, and all believing hearts, testify that we are begotten through the word. Wherefore, if the word beget the congregation, and he that begetteth is before him Bom. x. that is begotten, then is the gospel before the church. Paul also (Rom. x.) saith, “How shall they call on him whom they believe not ? And how shall they believe without a preacher ?” That is, Christ must first be preached, ere men can believe in him. And then it followeth, that the word of the preacher The word, must be before the faith of the believer. And therefore, masmucn as *ne word is before the faith, and faith maketh
Muahcixxvii *^e congregation, therefore is the word or gospel before the congregation. And again, as the air is dark of itself, and receiveth all her light of the sun ; even so are all men’s hearts of themselves dark with lies, and receive all their truth of God’s word, in that they consent thereto. And, moreover, as the dark air giveth the sun no light, but con trariwise the light of the sun in respect of the air is of itself,
THE CHURCH NOT BEFORE THE GOSPEL. 25 and lighteneth the air, and purgeth it from darkness : even so, the lying heart of man can give the word of God no truth ; but, contrariwise, the truth of God’s word is of herself, and lighteneth the hearts of the believers, and maketh them true, and cleanseth them from lies, as thou readest, John xv : ” Ye be clean by reason of the word.” Which is to be unJohn xvderstood, in that the word had purged their hearts from lies, from false opinions, and from thinking evil good, and therefore from consenting to sin. And (John xvii.) ” Sanctify Johnxvii. them, 0 Father, through thy truth : and thy word is truth.” And thus thou seest that God’s truth dependeth not of man. It is not true because man so saith, or admitteth it for true : M. c.cixx but man is true, because he believeth it, testifieth and giveth witness in his heart that it is true. And Christ also saith himself, (John v.) “I receive no witness of man1.” For if JJ*e wel1
[*• To this More objects that Tyndale has translated this clause: ” I receive no recorde of man ;” whereas he should have preserved the force of the Greek article, and have rendered it, ” I receive not the recorde of man.” He objects that there is the like inaccuracy in Tyndale’s translation of John i. 21, ” Art thou a prophet ? And he answered, No.” ” Tyndale,” says he, ” by the Greek tongue, perceiving the article, saw well enough that he should not have translated it into the English, Art thou a prophet, but Art thou THAT prophet ? — to wit, the great prophet of whom Moses prophesied.” To this remark More sub joins a curious criticism, to which we shall find Tyndale afterwards adverting, on the distinction between the use of the particles Nay and No.
“I would not here note by the way,” says he, “that Tyndale here translateth no for nay, for it is but a trifle, and mistaking of the English word ; saving that ye should see that he which in two so plain English words, and so common as is nay and no, cannot tell when he should take the tone, and when the tother, is not for translating into English a man very meet. For the use of those two words, in answering to a question, is this. No answereth the question framed by the affirmative : as for ensample, if a man should ask Tyndale himself, Is an heretic meet to translate holy scripture into English ? Lo, to this question, if he will answer true English, he must answer nay ; and not, no. But and if the question be asked him thus, Lo, is not an heretic meet to translate holy scripture into English? To this question, lo, if he will answer true English, he must answer no ; and not nay. And a like difference is there between these two adverbs, Yea and Yes. For if the question be framed unto Tyndale by the affirmative, in this fashion: If an heretic falsely translate the new Testament into English, to make his false heresies seem the word of God, be his books worthy to be
the multitude of man’s witness might make aught true, then were the doctrine of Mahomet truer than Christ’s.
M. c. ecu— Whether the apostles left aught unwritten, that is of necessity to be believed.
M.c.cdvBut did not the apostles teach aught by mouth, that whether the they wrote not ? I answer, because that many taught one apostles . * l j taughtany thing, and every man the same m divers places, and unto writedidnot divers people, and confirmed every sermon with a sundry miracle ; therefore Christ and his apostles preached an hun dred thousand sermons, and did as many miracles, which had M. c. ccviibeen superfluous to have been all written. But the pith and substance in general of every thing necessary unto our souls1 so much is health, both of what we ought to believe, and what we ought necessary for to do, was written ; and of the miracles done to confirm it, our salvation.
as many as were needful : so that whatsoever we ought to believe or do, that same is written expressly, or drawn out of that which is written. M. c. ccxi- ]?or jf i were bound to do or believe, under pain of the loss of my soul, anything that were not1 written, nor deThe scripture pended of that which is written, what holp me the scripture written must r … ™ • in unwritten the ^“a* 1S wriMen ? And thereto, inasmuch as Christ and all Mrc!ecscxiiihls Apostles warned us that false prophets should come with false miracles, even to deceive the elect if it were possible ; wherewith should the true preacher confound the false, ex cept he brought true miracles to confound the false, or else authentic scripture, of full authority already among the people ?
Some man would ask, How did God continue his congre gation from Adam to Noe, and from Noe to Abraham, and burned? To this question, asked in this wise, if he will answer true English, he must answer Yea ; and not, Yes. But now if the question be asked him thus, lo, by the negative : If an heretic falsely translate the new Testament into English, to make his false heresies seem the word of God, be not his books well worthy to be burned ? To this question, in this fashion framed, if he will answer true English, he may not answer Yea; but he must answer Yes; and say, yes, marry, be they, both the translation and the translator, and all that will hold with them.” Conf. of Tyndale’s Answer, clxxx.]
[l So C. U. L. ed. and so More quotes this passage ; but D. has were writtenJ]
EVERY THING NECESSARY WAS WRITTEN. 27 so to Moses, without writing, but with teaching from mouth to mouth ? I answer, first, that there was no scripture all the while, they shall prove when our lady hath a new son.
God taught Adam greater things than to write. And that JJ:
there was writing in the world long ere Abraham, yea and ere Noe, do stories testify2. Notwithstanding, though there had been no writing, the preachers were ever prophets, glo- ^c rious in doing of miracles, wherewith they confirmed their preaching. And beyond that, God wrote his testament unto them alway, both what to do and to believe, even in sacraerf to elect ments. For the sacrifices which God gave Adam’s sons were no dumb popetry3 or superstitious mahometry, but signs of the testament of God. And in them they read the word of God, as we do in books ; and as we should do in our sacraments, if the wicked pope had not taken the significations away from The pope
••• * hath taken us, as he hath robbed us of the true sense of all the scripture. SSJHS^Sg The testament which God made with Noe, that he would cLments. no more drown the world with water, he wrote in the sacra_;£’ ccxxv ment of the rainbow. And the appointment made between him and Abraham he wrote in the sacrament of circumcision. And therefore said Stephen, (Acts vii.) ” He gave them the testament4 of circumcision :” not that the outward circumActs vu, cision was the whole testament, but the sacrament or sign thereof. For circumcision preached God’s word unto them, as I have in other places declared.
But in the time of Moses, when the congregation was inJJ^Ui creased, that they must have many preachers, and also rulers temporal, then all was received in scripture ; insomuch that Christ and his apostles might not have been believed without Mc- ccxxixscripture, for all their miracles. Wherefore, inasmuch as There can no Chrises congregation is spread abroad into all the world, much JhS co broader than Moses’ ; and inasmuch as we have not the old Testament only, but also the new, wherein all things are opened so richly, and all fulfilled that before was promised ; and inasmuch as there is no promise behind of aught to be shewed more, save the resurrection ; yea, and seeing that Mc-cc*xx Christ and all the apostles, with all the angels of heaven, if ~’
[2 He was doubtless led to say this by believing Josephus’ tale about the pillars of Seth. Hist. Jud. L. i. c. 2.] [3 Popetrie, or puppetry.] [4 So Tynd. translation; and see Vol. i. p. 409.] con
they were here, could preach no more than is preached, of necessity unto our souls: how then should we receive a new article of the faith, without scripture, as profitable unto my soul, when I had believed it, as smoke for sore
M.C. ccxxxii eyes ? What holp it me to believe that our lady’s body is in
Furgaxtwy. heaven ? What am I the better for the belief of purgatory ? To fear * men, thou wilt say. Christ and his apostles thought
M. c. hell enough. And yet (besides that the fleshly imagination may not stand with God’s word) what great fear can there be of that terrible fire, which thou mayest quench almost for three
M.C. half-pence2? And that the apostles should teach aught by mouth which they would not write, I pray you for what pur pose ? Because they should not come into the hands of the
M a heathen for mocking, saith M. More3. I pray you, what thing L more to be mocked of the heathen could they teach, than the
M.C. ccxii. resurrection; and that Christ was God and man, and died
1 he heathen n^thfngmore between two thieves ’, and that for his death’s sake all that thfdStffne11 repent, and believe therein, should have their sins forgiven
°urrection. them ? Yea, and if the apostles understood thereby as we do, what madder thing unto heathen people could they have taught than that bread is Christ’s body, and wine his blood ?
And yet all these things they wrote. And again, purgatory,
[! To make men fear. See Vol. i. p. xxvii.J
[2 To this More replies, “Likewise as though the sacrament of penance be able to put away the eternality of the pain, yet hath the party, for all that, cause to fear both purgatory and hell too, least some default upon his own part letted God in the sacrament to work such grace in him as should serve therefore ; so though the pardon be able to discharge a man of purgatory, yet may there be such default in the party, to whom the pardon is granted, that though he give for three-halfpence three hundred pound, yet shall he receive no pardon at all. And therefore can he not be, for three-halfpence, out of fear of purgatory ; but ever hath cause to fear it. For no man, except revelation, can be sure whether he be partner of the pardon or not.” Conf. p. ccxxxvii.]
[3 « For my part I would little doubt, but that the evangelists and apostles both of many great and secret mysteries spake much more openly, and much more plainly, by mouth among the people, than ever they put it in writing ; forasmuch as their writings were likely enough, at that time, to come into the hands of pagans and paynims, such hogs and dogs, as were not meetly to have those precious pearls put upon their nose, nor that holy food to be dashed in their teeth.” More’s Dialogue, B. i. ch. 25. fol. 159. col. 1.]
EVERY THING NECESSARY WAS WRITTEN. 29 confession in the ear, penance and satisfaction for sin to Godward, with holy deeds, and praying to saints, with such like, as dumb sacraments and ceremonies, are marvellous agreeable unto the superstition of the heathen people ; so that they needed not to abstain from writing of them, for fear lest the heathen should have mocked them.
Moreover, what is it that the apostles taught by mouth, ^Ccx-Hcxcxlii and durst not write ? The sacraments ? As for baptism, and the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, they wrote, and it is expressed what is signified by them. And also all wfr?tedt°
• 1 , l / /• A 1 MC- the ceremonies and sacraments that were from Adam to -cci.
n • Sacraments
Christ had significations ; and all that are made mention of in have signifi-
the new Testament. Wherefore, inasmuch as the sacraments w- £.
of the old Testament have significations ; and inasmuch as the sacraments of the new Testament (of which mention is made that they were delivered unto us by the very apostles, at
Christ’s commandment) have also significations ; and inasmuch as the office of an apostle is to edify in Christ ; and inasmuch as a dumb ceremony edifieth not, but hurteth altogether (for AH the sa- if it preach not unto me, then I cannot but put confidence taught either r m the old therein that the deed itself justifieth me, which is the denying J^^etor of Christ’s blood); and inasmuch as no mention is made of significations( them, as well as of other, nor is known what is meant by them ; therefore it appeareth that the apostles taught them not, but that they be the false merchandise of wily hypo crites. And thereto, priesthood was, in the time of the M. c ccm. apostles, an office, which if they would do truly, it would more sacraments
» » ’ strive one profit than all the sacraments in the world. And again, God’s {*£j£jr holinesses strive not one against another, nor defile one another. JJj ccclii~~ Their sacraments defile one another : for wedlock defileth priesthood more than whoredom, theft, murder, or any sin against nature4.
They will haply demand where it is written, that women should baptize ? Verily, in this commandment, ” Love thy neighbour as thyself,” it is written that they may and ought
[4 More says in his Conf., ” Syth the marriage is no marriage, it is but whoredom itself. And I am sure also that it defileth the priest more than double and treble whoredom ; syth that his marriage being, as it is, unlawful, and thereby none other but whoredom, doth openly rebuke and shame two sacraments thereat once, that is, both priesthood and matrimony.” p. ccliiii.]
to minister not only baptism, but all other sacraments also1 in time of need, if they be so necessary as they preach them. Sthoutents And finally, though we were sure that God himself had given us a sacrament, whatsoever it were, yet if the signification were once lost, we must of necessity either seek up the cciuisignification, or put some2 signification of God’s word thereto, what we ought to do or believe thereby, or else put it down. For it is impossible to observe a sacrament, without signifi cation, but unto our damnation. If we keep the faith purely and the law of love undefiled, which are the significations of all ceremonies, there is no jeopardy to alter or change the fashion of the ceremony, or to put it down, if need require3.
Whether the church can err.
There is another question, whether the church may err. err, or not. which if ye understand of the pope and his generation, it is verily as hard a question as to ask whether he which had both his eyes out be blind or no ; or whether it be possible what the for him that hath one leg shorter than another to halt. But iTand what I said that Christ’s elect church is the whole multitude of all faith saveth. .
wT-repenting sinners that believe in Christ, and put all their trust and confidence in the mercy of God ; feeling in their hearts that God for Christ’s sake loveth them, and will be, or rather is, merciful unto them, and forgiveth them their sins of which they repent ; and that he forgiveth them also all the motions unto sin, of which they fear lest they should thereby be drawn into sin again. And this faith they have without all respect of their own deservings, yea, and for none other cause than that the merciful truth of God the Father, which cannot lie, hath so promised and so sworn.
By faith we And this faith and knowledge is everlasting life ; and by are made the .-.. ,, 111 /»^-i .
sons of God. this we be born anew, and made the sons of God, and obtain t1 The words sacraments also are supplied from More’s quotation, according to which however this short paragraph would seem to have been incorporated originally in the second paragraph of the chapter.]
[2 In More’s quotation, some other.]
[3 More, need be. By this time More must have perceived that if he continued his criticisms on the same scale, his Confutation must become an immense volume : so he passes on abruptly to Tyndale’s remarks on chap. xxv. of B. i. of the Dialogue, without taking any notice of the seventy intermediate pages.]
WHETHER THE CHURCH CAN ERR. 31 forgiveness of sins, and are translated from death to life, and from the wrath of God unto his love and favour. And this faith is the mother of all truth, and bringeth with her the Spirit of all truth ; which Spirit purgeth us, as from all sin, even so from all lies and error, noisome and hurtful. And this faith is the foundation laid of the apostles and prophets ; whereon Paul saith (Eph. ii.) that we are built, and thereby Eph. H. of the household of God. And this faith is the rock, whereon Christ built his congregation. Christ asked the apostles Matt. xvi. (Matt, xvi.) whom they took him for. And Peter answered for them all, saying, ” I say that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God, that art come into this world.” That is, We believe that thou art he that was promised unto Abraham, that should come, bless us, and deliver us. Howbeit, Peter yet wist not, by what means. But now it is opened throughJJ’g^J1* out all the world, that, through the offering of his body and ^uSdls the blood, that offering is a satisfaction for the sin of all that S^fer repent, and a purchasing of whatsoever they can ask, to keep our sms( them in favour ; and that they sin no more. And Christ answered, “Upon this rock I will build my congregation:” that is, upon this faith. And against the rock of this faith can no sin, no hell, no devil, no lies, nor error prevail.
For whatsoever any man hath committed, if he repent and come to this rock, .he is safe. And that this faith is the only way by which the church of Christ goeth unto God, and unto the inheritance of all his riches, testify all the apostles and prophets, and all the scripture, with signs and miracles, and all the blood of martyrs. And whosoever goeth unto There is no God, and unto forgiveness of sins, or salvation, by any other SSon, tat
. ’ f . * by Christ’s way than this, the same is an heretic out of the right way, d|j£Vnd and not of Christ’s church.
For this knowledge maketh a man of the church. And the church is Christ’s body (Col. i.) ; and every person of the COL L church is a member of Christ (Eph. v.). Now it is no EPh.v. member of Christ that hath not Christ’s Spirit in it (Rom. Rom. via. viii.) ; as it is no part of me, or member of my body, wherein my soul is not present and quickeneth it. And then, if a man be none of Christ’s, he is not of his church.
How a true member of Christ’s church sinneth not; and how he is yet a sinner.
Furthermore, he that hath this faith cannot sin, and therefore cannot be deceived with damnable errors. For by this faith we be (as I said) born of God. Now ” he that is born of God cannot sin, for his seed dwelleth in him, and he cannot therefore sin, because he is born of God” (1 John iii.) ; which seed is the Holy Ghost, that keepeth a man’s heart
Faith and from consenting unto sin. And therefore it is a false con- iHthT elusion that M. More holdeth, how that a man may have a right faith joined with all kinds of abomination and sin.
And yet every member of Christ’s congregation is a sinner, and sinneth daily ; some more, and some less. For i John L it is wHtten, (1 John i.) ” If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” And again, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and
Rom. vii. his word is not in us.” And Paul (Rom. vii.) saith, ” That good which I would, that do I not ; but that evil which I would not, that do I. So it is not I that do it (saith he), but sin that dwelleth in me.” Thus are we sinners, and no sinners : no sinners, if thou look unto the profession of our hearts toward the laV of God ; on our repentance and sor row that we have, both because we have sinned, and also because we be yet full of sin still ; and unto the promises of
AH flesh mercy in our Saviour Christ ; and unto our faith. Sinners are we, if thou look unto the frailty of our flesh; which is as the weakness of one that is newly recovered out of a great disease, by the reason whereof our deeds are imperfect ; and by the reason whereof also, when occasions be great, we fall into horrible deeds, and the fruit of the sin which remaineth in our members breaketh out. Notwithstanding yet the Spirit leaveth us not, but rebuketh us, and bringeth us home again unto our profession : so that we never cast off the yoke of God from our necks, neither yield up ourselves unto sin for to serve it, but fight afresh, and begin a new battle.
How a Christian man cannot err, and how he may yet err.
And as they sin not, so they err not. And on the other side as they sin, so they err : but never unto death and dam-
THE BELIEVER INFIRM, YET SAFE. 33 nation. For they never sin of purpose, nor hold any error maliciously, sinning against the Holy Ghost ; but of weakness ^j^nand and infirmity : as good obedient children, though they love weaknesstheir father’s commandments, yet break them oft by the reason of their weakness. And as they cannot yield them selves bond unto sin, to serve it, even so they cannot err in any thing that should be against the promises which are in Christ. And in other things their errors be not unto damnation, though they be never so great, because they hold them not maliciously : as now, if some, when they read in the new Testament of Christ’s brethren, would think that they were our lady’s children, after the birth of Christ, (because they know not the use of speaking of the scripture or of the Hebrews, how that nigh kinsmen be called bre thren, or haply they might be Joseph’s children by some first wife,) neither can have any to teach them for tyranny that is so great ; yet could it not hurt them, though they died therein, because it hurteth not that redemption that is in Christ’s blood : for though she had none but Christ, I am therefore never the more saved ; neither yet the less, though she had had. And in such like an hundred, that pluck not we may err and yet be a man’s faith from Christ, they might err, and yet be neversave(*- theless saved ; no, though the contrary were written in the gospel. For as in other sins, as soon as they be rebuked, they repent ; even so here, as soon as they were better taught, they should immediately knowledge their error, and not resist.
But they which maliciously maintain opinions against the scripture, or that they cannot be proved by the scripture ; or such as make no matter unto the scripture and salvation that is in Christ, whether they be true or no ; and for the blind zeal of them make sects, breaking the unity of Christ’s church, for whose sake they ought to suifer all things ; and rise against their neighbours, whom they ought to love as who they themselves, to slay them ; such men, I say, are fallen from Christ, and make an idol of their opinions. For except they put trust in such opinions, and thought them necessary unto salvation, or with a cankered conscience went about to de ceive for some filthy purpose ; they would never break the unity of faith, or yet slay their brethren. Now is this a plain conclusion, that both they that trust in their own way
works, and they also that put confidence in their own opi nions, be fallen from Christ, and err from the way of faith that is in Christ’s blood, and therefore are none of Christ’s church, because they be not built upon the rock of faith.
Faith is ever assailed and fought withal . ’
Faith is ever Moreover, this our faith which we have in Christ is ever
SeratX!1 fought against, ever assailed and beaten at with desperation :
not when we sin only, but also in all temptations of adversity, into which God bringeth us to nurture us, and to shew us our own hearts, the hypocrisy and false thoughts that there lie hid, our almost no faith at all, and as little love, even then haply when we thought ourselves most perfect of all.
For when temptations come, we cannot stand ; when we have sinned, faith is feeble ; when wrong is done us, we cannot forgive ; in sickness, in loss of goods, and in all tribulations, we be impatient ; when our neighbour needeth our help, that we must depart1 with him of ours, then love is cold.
AH power And thus we learn and feel that there is no goodness nor nefstoado yet power to do good, but of God only. And in all such
|f God?Tnd temptations our faith perisheth not utterly, neither our love selves. and consent unto the law of God ; but they be weak, sick, and wounded, and not clean dead : as a good child, whom
A very good the father and mother have taught nurture and wisdom, loveth his father and all his commandments, and perceiveth of the goodness shewed him, that his father loveth him, and that all his father’s precepts are unto his wealth and profit, and that his father commandeth him nothing for any need that his father hath thereof, but seeketh his profit only, and therefore hath a good faith unto all his father’s promises, and loveth all his commandments, and doth them with good will, and with good will goeth to school ; and by the way haply he seeth company play, and with the sight is taken and ravished of his memory, and forgetteth himself, and standeth and beholdeth, and falleth to play also, forgetting father and mother, all their kindness, all their laws, and his own profit thereto :
howbeit, the knowledge of his father’s kindness, the faith of his promises, and the love that he hath again unto his father, and the obedient mind, are not utterly quenched, but lie hid,
C1 Depart: part, divide. See Vol. i. p. 69.]
OF FAITH AND ELECTION. 35 as all things do when a man sleepeth or lieth in a trance. The faithful, And as soon as he hath played out all his lusts, or been warned sii^fet they
. ‘IT /» fall not.
in the mean season, he cometh again unto his old profession. Neverthelater, many temptations go over his heart, and the law, as a right hang-man, tormenteth his conscience, and goeth nigh to persuade him that his father will cast him away and hang him, if he catch him ; so that he is like, a great while, to run away, rather than to return unto his father again. Fear and dread of rebuke, and of loss of his father’s love, and of punishment, wrestle with the trust which he hath in his fa ther’s goodness, and as it were give his faith a fall. But it riseth again as soon as the rage of the first brunt is past, and his mind more quiet. And the goodness of his father and his old Fai thin the
. •*• goodness of kindness cometh unto remembrance, either of his own corage2, g^180”1 or by the comfort of some other. And he believeth that his father will not cast him away, or destroy him, and hopeth that he will no more do so. And upon that he getteth him home, dismayed, but not altogether faithless. The old kindnesses will not let him despair. Howbeit, all the world cannot set his heart at rest, until the pain be past, and until he have heard the voice of his father, that all is forgiven.
The manner and order of our election.
Even so goeth it with God’s elect. God chooseth them first, and they not God ; as thou readest, John xv. And then John xv. he sendeth forth and calleth them, and sheweth them his good will, which he beareth unto them, and maketh them see both their own damnation in the law, and also the mercy that is laid up for them in Christ’s blood, and thereto what he will have them do. And then, when we see his mercy, we love if we conhim again, and choose him, and submit ourselves unto his merciful God
. .is unto us, laws, to walk in them. For when we err not in wit, reason, Jf^^ and judgment of things, we cannot err in will and choice ofSRSfuS? things. The choice of a man’s will doth naturally, and of her hls laws’ own accord, follow the judgment of a man’s reason, whether he judge right or wrong : so that in teaching only resteth the pith of a man’s living. Howbeit, there be swine that receive no learning but to defile it ; and there be dogs, that
[2 See n. to p. 417, Vol. i.]
rent all good learning with their teeth. And there be popeholy, which, following a righteousness of their own feigning, resist the righteousness of God in Christ. And there be that cannot attend to hearken unto the truth, for rage of lusts, which, when lusts abate, come and obey well enough. Christian And therefore a Christian man must be patient and suffer te^Sent ionff to win his brother to Christ, that he which attendeth not to day, may receive grace and hear to-morrow. We “see some at their very latter end, when cold fear of death hath quenched the heat of their appetites, learn and consent unto the truth ; whereunto before they could give none care, for the wild rages of lusts that blinded their wits.
And though God’s elect cannot so fall that they rise not again, because that the mercy of God ever waiteth upon them, to deliver them from evil, as the care of a kind father waiteth upon his son, to warn him and to keep him from occasions, and to call him back again if he be gone too far ; yet they forget themselves oft-times, and sink down into trances, and fall asleep in lusts for a season : but as soon as they be awaked, they repent, and come again without resist ance. God now and then withdraweth his hand and leaveth them unto their own strength, to make them feel that there is no power to do good but of God only, lest they should be proud of that which is none of theirs. God laid so sore a David. weight of persecution upon David’s back, that passed his strength to bear ; so that he cried oft out of his psalms, saying, that he had lived well, and followed the right way of God in vain : for the more he kept himself from sin, the worse it went with him, as he thought; and the better with his enemy Saul, the worse he was. Yet God left him not there, but comforted him ; and shewed him things which Godmeustof before he wist not of, how that the saints must be patient, patience, and an(i abide God’s harvest, until the wickedness of ungodly sinners be full ripe, that God may reap it in due season.
God also suffered occasions, stronger than David, to fall upon him, and to carry him clean out of the way. Was he not ready for a churlish answer to have slain Nabal, and all the males of his house, so much as the child in the cradle ? Howbeit, God withheld him and kept him back from that evil through the wisdom of Abigail. How long slumbered he,
MERCY WAITETH EVER ON THE ELECT. 37 or rather how hard in sleep was he, in the adultery of Bathsheba, and in the murder of her husband Uriah ! But ^ at both times, as soon as he was rebuked, and his fault told jgj te him, he repented immediately, and turned again meekly. Now in all that long time, from the adultery of Bathsheba, until the prophet Nathan rebuked him, he had not lost his faith, nor yet his love unto the laws of God, no more than a man loseth his wits when he is asleep : he had forgot himself only, and had not maliciously cast off the yoke of God’s commandments from off his neck. There is no man we may commit sin, so good, but that there cometh a time upon him, when he feeleth in himself no more faith, or love unto God, than a sick man oft-times feeleth the taste of his meat which he eateth.
And in like manner the apostles of Christ at his passion were astonished and amazed, and in such a storm of temptations, for the sudden change from so great glory into so vile and shameful death, that they had forgot all the miracles, and muraclesall the words which he had told them before, how that he should be betrayed and delivered on the same manner unto death. Moreover, they never understood that saying of his death, because their hearts were alway heavy, and overladen with earthly thoughts. For though they saw him raise up other, yet who should raise him up, when he were dead, they could not comprehend. Read what thou read canst, and thou A great shalt find no temptation like unto that from the creation of the world, or so great as it, by the hundred part : so ap that the wonderful sudden change and the terrible sight of his passion, and of his most cruel and most vile death ; and the loss of whom they so greatly loved, that their hearts would fain have died with him ; and the fear of their own death; and the impossibility that a man should rise again of his own power ; so occupied their minds, and so astonished them and amazed them, that they could receive no comfort, either of the scripture, or of the miracles which they had seen Christ do ; nor of the monitions and warnings wherewith he had warned them before ; neither of the women that brought them tidings that he was risen. The sword of temptations, with fear, sorrow, mourning, and weeping, had deeply pierced their hearts, and the cruel sight had so cum bered their minds, that they could not believe death put off
The apostles and overcome, until Christ himself came : yea, and when they Xtfui.7 first saw him, they were astonished for wondering and joy together, that thoughts arose in their hearts, * Alas, is this he, or doth some spirit mock us?’ He was fain to let them feel him, and to eat with them, to strength their faiths. 1 Howbeit there was none of them that was fallen in his heart from Christ. For as soon as the women brought word, Peter and John ran into the sepulchre, and saw, and wondered, and would fain have believed that he was risen ; and longed for him, but could not believe ; the wound of temptation being greater than that it could be healed with the preaching of a woman, without any other miracle. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, which, while he yet lived, durst not be Christ, his aknowen of l him, as soon as he was dead begged his body, resurrection. * ’
and buried him boldly. And the women, as soon as it was lawful to work, prepared their anointments with all diligence.
And the hearts of the disciples, that went to Emmaus, burned in their breasts to hear him spoken of. And Thomas had not forsaken Christ, but could not believe until he saw him ;
and yet desired and longed to see him, and rejoiced when he
The disciples saw him, and for joy cried out, ” My Lord, my God !” There w?thou° was none of them that ever railed on him, and came so far faith, but yet
, veryTubt-as ™T™ to sav) ’ -^e was a deceiver, and wrought with the fui: devil’s craft all this while, and see whereto he is come in the end : we defy 2 him and all his works, false wretch that he was, and his false doctrine also.’ And thereto must they have come at the last, when fear, sorrow, and wondering had been past, if they had not been prevented and holp in the mean time.
Yea’ an(i Peter) as soon as he ha(i denied Christ, came to himself immediately, and went out and wept bitterly for sor row. And thus ye see that Peter’s faith failed not, though it were oppressed for a time : so that we need to seek no glosses for the text that Christ said to Peter, how that his faith should not fail.
’ Yes, saith M. More, it failed in himself, but was reserved in our lady3.’ But let us see the text and their gloss together.
I1 Acknowledge. See n. 3, p. 465, Vol. I.] [2 Used as in old French, for distrust.]
P “Upon Peter’s first confession of the right faith, that Christ was God’s Son, our Lord made him his universal vicar, and under him
The Disciples’ Faith Cast Down, but Not Destroyed. 39
Christ saith, ” Simon, Simon, Satan seeketh you, to sift you Luke xxii. as men sift wheat ; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith shall not fail : wherefore when thou art come unto thyself again, strength thy brethren.” Now put this wise gloss A foolish
0 J -itgloss made thereto ; and see how they agree together ! ’ Simon, Satan by MMoreseeketh to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that my mother’s faith shall not fail : wherefore when thou art come to thyself again, according as my prayer hath obtained for thee that my mother’s faith shall not fail, strength thy brethren.’ Now say ye, is not this a proper text, and well framed together ? Do ye not think there is as much wit in the head of mad Colins 4, as in the brains of such expositors ?
Whether the pope and his sect be Christ’s church or no. i.
That the pope and his spirits be not the church, may this The pope
• i i TT j i j 1 j i /»•»! i iii i Jind nis sc is sect wise be proved. He that hath no faith to be saved through are not the
A o „),,,,.«*. ~e church of
Christ, is not of Christ’s church. The pope believeth not to Christ. be saved through Christ : for he teacheth to trust in holy head of his church ; and that for his successor he should be the first upon whom, and whose firm confessed faith, he would build his church, and of any that was only man make him the first, and chief head and ruler thereof. Therefore he shewed him that his faith, i.e. to wete the faith by him confessed, should never fail in his church ; nor never did it, notwithstanding his denying. For yet stood still the light of faith in our lady ; of whom we read in the gospel, continual assistance to her sweetest son, without fleeing or flitting. And in all other we find either fleeing from him, one time or other, or else doubt of his resurrection after his death, his dear mother only except. For the signification and remembrance whereof the church yearly, in the Tenebrce lessons, leaveth her candle burning still, when all the remnant, that signifieth his apostles, be one by one put out. And sith his faith that he professed abode in our lady, the promise that God made was, as it seemeth, meant to him but as head of the church.” More’s Dial., ch. xviii. fol. 143. col. 2.]
[4 The unhappy gentleman whose derangement was thus a matter of notoriety, was burnt for a heretic, about ten years after this men tion of him, to revenge some insult against the reigning superstition, which he had perpetrated with a madman’s heedlessness of the con sequences. An account of the origin of his calamity, and of the offence for which some said that he was so cruelly treated, may be seen in Foxe’s Acts and Mon. B. VIIL; and further interesting details, describing the knowledge of the scriptures which he manifested in a lucid interval, may be seen in a letter from R. Hilles, the merchant, to Hen. Bullinger, in the Park. Soc. Orig. Letters, No. cv. pp. 200-1.]
works for the remission of sins and salvation; as in the works of penance, enjoined in vows; in pilgrimage; in chastity; in other men’s prayers and holy living; in friars and friars’ coats; in saints’ merits; and, the significations put out, he teacheth to believe in the deeds of the ceremonies and of the sacrament, ordained at the beginning to preach unto us, and to do us service, and not that we should believe in them and serve them. And a thousand such superstitiousnesses setteth he before us, instead of Christ to believe in; neither Christ nor God’s word, neither honourable to God nor serviceable unto our neighbour, nor profitable unto ourselves for the taming of the flesh; which all are the denying of Christ’s blood. 2. Another reason is this. Whosoever believeth in Christ, consenteth that God’s law is good. The pope consenteth not The pope in that God’s law is good. For he hath forbidden lawful wedlock SSiig’efo unto all his1, over whom he reigneth as a temporal tyrant priests doth . , _ * . ,. _ A t .•
“h0atcthesiai wlt^ ^aws °* ^1S own makmg, and not as a brother exhorting °LS°dis them to keep Christ’s; and he hath granted unlawful whoredom unto as many as bring money; as through Dutchland every priest, paying a gildren2 unto the archdeacon, shall freely and The Po e quietly have his whore, and put her away at his pleasure, and take another at his own lust3; as they do in Wales, in Ireland, Scotland, France, and Spain4. And in England, thereto, they
[l That is, to the whole body of ecclesiastics, and members of every monastic order.]
[2 C. U. L, ed. has golden.]
[3 By Dutchland, Tyndale means Germany ; and that licensing of sin, to which he alludes, had formed the ninety-first article in the list of a hundred grievances transmitted to pope Adrian IV. from the diet of Nuremberg, not more than eight years before Tyndale’s com posing this answer. These fv Centum gravamina nationis Germanics” were published in 4to. at Nuremberg, 1523; and may be seen in Brown’s Fasciculus rerum expetend. Lond. 1690. fol. ; where the words of Gravam. xci. are : Item in locis plerisque episcopi et eorum officiales non solum tolerant concubinatum dummodo certa persolvatur pecunia, sed et sacerdotes continentes, et qui absque concubinis degunt, concubinatus censum persolvere cogunt, asserentes episcopum pecunise indigum esse, qua soluta licere sacerdotibus ut vel ccelibes permaneant, vel concubinas alant. — Foxe has given a translation of this and of several other of these gravamina in Acts and Mon. B. VI. Vol. iv. p. 308, &c. Lond. 1837.]
[4 In one of those national ecclesiastical councils held at Toledo, by which Spain was in a manner governed at that period, canon xvii.
OF THE POPE AND HIS SECT. 41 be not few which have licences to keep whores, some of the pope, and some of their ordinaries ; and when the parishens go to law with them, to put away their whores, the bishop’s officers mock them, poll them, and make them spend their thrifts, and the priests keep their whores still. Howbeit, in very deed, since they were rebuked by the preaching of Wicliffe, our English spiritualty have laid their snares unto men’s wives, to cover their abominations, though they bide not alway secret.
Thereto all Christian men, if they have done amiss, repent The J ish when their faults be told them. The spiritualty repent not; but, of very lust and consent to sin, persecute both the scrip ture wherewith they be rebuked, and also them that warn them to amend, and make heretics of them and burn them. And besides that, the pope hath made a plain decree, in which r . ble, wicked, he commandeth, saying, “Though the pope sm never so gnevously, and draw with him to hell by his ensample thousands innumerable, yet let no man be so hardy to rebuke him. For he is head over all ; and none over him.” Distinct. xL Si Papa5.
And Paul saith, (Rom. xiii.) “Let every soul obey the 4.
i • i „ ,T i • i , • i • mi Rom. xiii.
higher powers, that are ordained to punish sin. The pope will not, nor let any of his.
is thus given by Basnage: Qui junctus matrimonio concubinam habet communione privatur. Qui caret uxore, si una concubina contentus est, Sacramento non repellitur. (Annal. Polit. Eccles. Tom. in. p. 180. col. 2. under date of A.D. 400.) Upon this authority Gratian pro ceeded somewhat farther ; making the papal law speak as follows, in Dist. xxxiv. ca. Omnibus : Concubina autem hie intelligitur quso cessantibus legalibus instrumentis unica est : et conjugali affectu nanciscitur : hanc conjugem facit affectus : concubinam vero lex nominat. De hac dicitur in concilio Toletano, Qui non habet uxorem loco illius concubinam debet habere. Is qui rion habet uxorem, et pro uxore con cubinam habet, a communione non repellatur : tamen ut unius mulieris, aut uxoris aut concubinse sit conjunctione contentus. — The words in italics are in red ink, and form the heading to the subjoined canon Is qui, in Thielman Kerver’s edition of the Corpus Juris Canonici, dated 1516. But in editions subsequent to the reformation, as that of Lyons, 1622, unica has been altered into unita, and the scandalous heading has been tacitly suppressed ; the words Qui non habet uxorem sed loco illius concubinam, a communione non repellitur, being substi tuted.]
[5 See Vol. i. p. 328, n. 3, for this canon.]
Answer to Sir Thomas Morels Dialogue
The pope is utterly against the doctrine of Christ.
Their first reason.
A like reason.
One argu ment con futed with another of like nature.
And Paul chargeth (1 Cor. v.) : ” If he that is a brother be an whore-keeper, a drunkard, covetous, an extortioner, or a railer,” and so forth, that we ” have no fellowship with him; no, not so much as to eat in his company.” But the pope with violence compelleth us to have such in honour, to receive the sacraments of them, to hear their masses, and to believe all they say; and yet they will not let us see whether they say truth or no. And he compelleth ten parishes to pay their tithes and offerings unto one such, to go and run at riot at their cost, and to do nought therefor. And a thousand such like doth the pope, contrary unto Christ’s doctrine.
The arguments wherewith the pope would prove himself the church are solved.
Notwithstanding because, as they be all shaven, they be all shameless to affirm that they be the right church and can not err, though all the world seeth that not one of them is in the right way, and that they have with utter defiance forsaken both the doctrine and living of Christ and of all his apostles; let us see the sophistry wherewith they would persuade it. One of their high reasons is this: The church, say they, was before the heretics ; and the heretics came ever out of the church, and left it. And they were before all them which they now call heretics and Lutherans, and the Lutherans came out of them, &c. Wherefore they be the right church, and the other heretics indeed, as they be called1. Well, I will likewise dispute. First, the right church was under Moses and Aaron, and so forth; in whose rooms sat the scribes and Pharisees and high priests in the time of Christ. And they were before Christ. And Christ and his apostles came out of them, and departed from them, and left them. Wherefore the scribes, Pharisees, and high priests were the right church; and Christ, and his apostles and disciples, here tics, and a damnable sect! And so the Jews are yet in the right way, and we in error. And of truth, if their blind reason be good, then is this argument so too : for they be like, and are both one thing.
t1 The heading of ch. n. B. n. of More’s Dial, is, ” The author sheweth that no sect of such as the church taketh for heretics can be the church ; forasmuch as the church was before all them, as the tree from which all those withered branches be fallen.”]
The Pope and His Clergy Are Not the Church. 43
But inasmuch as “the kingdom of God standeth not in The solution, words,” as Paul saith, ” but in power;” therefore look unto the i cor. iv. marrow and pith of the thing’s self, and let vain words pass. Under Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the church great in faith, and small in number. And as it increased in number, so it decreased in faith, until the time of Moses. And out of those unbelievers God stirred up Moses, and brought them unto the faith right again. And Moses left a glorious church, both in faith and the cleaving unto the word of God ; and de livered them unto Joshua, Eleazar, Phineas, and Caleb.
But as soon as the generation of them that saw the mi racles of God were dead, they fell to idolatry immediately ; as thou seest in the bible. And God, when he had delivered them into captivity for to chastise their wickedness, stirred them up a prophet evermore, to call them unto his testament again. And so he did well nigh an hundred times, I suppose, The right ere Christ came; for they never bode any space in the right J^Jf^gj faith. And against the coming of Christ, the scribes, Phari- ^f^fof sees, Caiphas, Annas, and the elders, were crept up into the the churchseat of Moses, Aaron, and the holy prophets and patriarchs, and succeeded them lineally, and had the scripture of God; but even in captivity, to make merchandise of it, and to abuse it unto their own glory and profit. And though they kept the people from outward idolatry of worshipping of images with the heathen, yet they brought them into a worse inward idolatry, of a false faith and trust in their own deeds, and in vain traditions of their own feigning ; and had put out the significations of all the ceremonies and sacraments of the old Testament ; and taught the people to believe in the work’s self, and had corrupted the scripture with false glosses : as thou mayest see in the gospel, how Christ warneth his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which was their false doctrine and glosses. And in another place he rebuked Matt. xvi. the scribes and the Pharisees, saying: “Wo be to them,” beMatt. xxm. cause they had taken away the key of knowledge, and had shut up the kingdom of heaven, and neither would enter in themselves nor suffer them that would. How had they shut it up? Verily with their traditions and false glosses; which they had sewed to the scripture in plain places; and in the taking away the meaning of the ceremonies and sacrifices, and teaching to believe in the work.
Hypocrites And our hypocrites are in like manner crept up into the
S’chrutsand seat °^ Christ and of his apostles, by succession; not to do the ins apostles. (jee(}s Of Christ and his apostles, but for lucre only, (as the nature of the wily fox is, to get him an hole made with another beast’s labour,) and to make merchandise of the people with
2 Pet. ii. feigned words, as Peter warned us before ; and to do according as Christ and all his apostles prophesied, how they should beguile, and lead out of the right way, all them that had no love to follow and live after the truth.
The pope and And in like manner have they corrupt the scripture, have corand blinded the right way with their own constitutions, with ruptedthe ° J . .
GolcfSof traditions of dumb ceremonies; with taking away the sigmficat!ons.tradi~ ti°ns °f ti16 sacraments, to make us believe in the work of the sacraments first, whereby they might the better make us be lieve in works of their setting up afterward; and with false glosses which they have patched to the scripture in plain places, to destroy the literal sense, for to set up a false feigned sense of allegories, when there is none such. And thereby they have stopt up the gates of heaven, the true knowledge of Christ, and have made their own bellies the door. For through their bellies must thou creep, and there leave all that1 fall behind thee.
John vii. viii. And such blind reasons as ours make against us, made they against Christ, saying, Abraham is our father ; we be Moses’ disciples : how knoweth he the understanding of the scripture, seeing he never learned of any of us? Only the cursed, unlearned people, that know not the scripture, believe in him. Look whether any of the rulers or Pharisees do believe in him !
The scripWherefore, the scripture truly understood, after the plain
SessTho places and general articles of the faith, which thou findest in chtirch.ngl the scripture, and the ensamples that are gone before, will alway testify who is the right church. Though the Pharisees succeeded the patriarchs and prophets, and had the scripture of them ; yet they were heretics, and fallen from the faith of
Christ. them and from their living. And Christ and his disciples,
John Baptist and John the Baptist, departed from the Pharisees, which were heretics, unto the right sense of the scripture, and unto the faith and living of the patriarchs and prophets, and rebuked the Pharisees : as thou seest how Christ calleth them hypo- t1 C.U. L. ed. has%.]
POPE AND HIS CLERGY MAKE SCRIPTURE OF NONE EFFECT. 45 crites, dissimulers, blind guides, and painted sepulchres. And John called them the generation of vipers and serpents. Of John the angel said unto his father, ” He shall turn many of Luke i. the children of Israel unto their Lord God ;” which yet, before John, believed after a fleshly understanding in God, and thought themselves in the right way. And, ” He shall turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children :” that is, he shall, with his preaching and true interpreting of the scripture, make such a spiritual heart in the children, as was in their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And, “He shall turn the The doctrine disobedient unto the obedience of the righteous, and prepare brought the the Lord a perfect people :” that is, them that had set up a J^“^0righteousness of their own, and were therefore disobedient wayunto the righteousness of faith, shall he convert from their blindness unto the wisdom of them that believed in God, to be made righteous ; and with those fathers shall he give the children eagles’ eyes, to spy out Christ and his righteousness, and to forsake their own, and so to become perfect.
And after the same manner, though our popish hypocrites our popish succeed Christ and his apostles, and have their scripture, yet haTe nreedsof
- a J ohn Bap- they be fallen from the faith and living of them, and are tist’ to. con-
• ( o vert them.
heretics, and had need of a John Baptist to convert them.
And we depart from them unto the true scripture, and unto the faith and living thereof, and rebuke them in like manner.
And as they which depart from the faith of the true church Those which are heretics, even so they that depart from the church of heretics and false feigned faith of hypocrites, are the true church ; which thou shalt alway know by their faith, examined by the scripture, and by their profession and consent to live according unto the laws of God.
Another argument.
Another like blind reason they have, wherein is all their trust. As we come out of them and they not of us, so we Their second receive the scripture of them, and they not of us. How know re we that it is the scripture of God, and true, but because they teach us so ? How can we believe, except we first believe that they be the church, and cannot err in any thing that pertaineth unto our soul’s health ? For if a man tell me of a marNote here vellous thing, whereof I can have no other knowledge than by
his mouth only ; how should I give credence, except I believe that the man were so honest that he could not lie, or would not lie ? Wherefore, we must believe that they be the right church that cannot err, or else we can believe nought at all1.
This wise reason is their shot anchor, and all their hold, their refuge to fly unto, and chief stone in their foundation ;
whereon they have built all their lies, and all their mischief that they have wrought this eight hundred years. And this reason do the Jews lay unto our charge this day ; and this reason doth chiefly blind them, and hold them still in obsti-
Thepope nacy. Our spirits first falsify the scripture to stablish their the Surah* ^es ’ anc^ wnen *ne scripture cometh to light, and is restored and cannot Unt0 the true understanding, and their juggling spied, and they like to suffer shipwreck, then they cast out this anchor :
They be the church and cannot err ; their authority is greater than the scripture ; and the scripture is not true, but because they say so and admit it. And therefore, whatsoever they affirm, is of as great authority as the scripture.
The^oiution Notwithstanding, as I said, the kingdom of heaven standeth not in words of man’s wisdom, but in power and spirit. And therefore look unto the examples of the scripture, and so shalt thou understand. And of an hundred examples be tween Moses and Christ, where the Israelites fell from God, and were ever restored by one prophet or other, let us take John Baptist one, even John the Baptist. John went before Christ to prepare his way, that is, to bring men unto the knowledge of their sins, and unto repentance, through true expounding of the law, which is the only way unto Christ : for except a man knowledge his sins, and repent of them, he can have no Matt xvii. part in Christ. Of John Christ saith (Matt, xvii.), that ” he was Elias that should come, and restore all things :” that is,
[! ” Finally, to put out of question which is Christ’s very church, sith it is agreed between us, and granted through Christendom, and a con clusion very true, that by the church we know the scripture, which church is that by which we know the scripture ? Is it not this company and congregation of all these nations, that without factions taken, and precision from the remnant, profess the name and faith of Christ? By this church know we the scripture, and this is the very church ; and this hath begun at Christ, and hath had him for their head, and St Peter his vicar after him, the head under him, and alway since the successors of him continually.”— More’s Dialogue, B. n. ch. v. p. 185. col. 2.]
POPE AND HIS CLERGY MAKE SCRIPTURE OF NONE EFFECT. 47 he should restore the scripture unto the right sense again; which the Pharisees had corrupted with the leaven of their false glosses, and vain fleshly traditions. He made crooked things straight, as it is written, and rough smooth. Which is also to be understood of the scripture, which the Pharisees had The Pharisees
, ,, ,-, n i • i • t i added false made crooked, wresting them unto a false sense with wicked glosses to the scripture.
glosses ; and so rough that no man could walk in the way of them. For when God said, ” Honour father and mother,” meaning, that we should obey them, and also help them at their need, the Pharisees put this gloss thereto, out of their own leaven, saying : ’ God is thy father and mother. Where fore, whatsoever need thy father and mother have, if thou offer to God, thou art held excused. For it is better to offer to God, than to thy father and mother ; and so much more meritorious, as God is greater than they : yea, and God hath done more for thee than they, and is more thy father and mother than they.’ As ours now affirm, * That it is more meritorious to offer to God and his holy dead saints, than unto the poor living saints.’ And when God had promised the people a Saviour, to come and bless them, and save them from their sins ; the Pharisees taught to believe in holy works to be saved by, as, if they offered and gave to be prayed for : as ours, as oft as we have a promise to be forgiven at the repentance of the heart through Christ’s blood-shedding, put to, ’ Thou must first shrive thyself to us of every syllable, Th1edpapriin1c” and we must lay our hands on thine head, and whistle out thy sins, and enjoin thee penance to make satisfaction. And yet art thou but loosed from the sin only that thou shalt not come into hell ; but thou must yet suffer for every sin seven Purgatory. years in purgatory, which is as hot as hell, except thou buy it out of the pope.’ And if thou ask, * By what means the pope giveth such pardon ? ’ they answer, ’ Out of the merits of Christ.’ And thus at the last they grant, against them selves, that Christ hath not only deserved for us the remission of our sins, but also the forgiveness of that gross and fleshly imagined purgatory, save thou must buy it out of the pope. And with such traditions they took away the key of know ledge, and stopped up the kingdom of heaven, that no man could enter in.
And as I said, they taught the people to believe in the The Pharisees deeds of the ceremonies, which God ordained, not to justify, agree in the
raise interbut to be signs of promises, by which they that believed were justified. But the Pharisees put out the significations, and quenched the faith, and taught to be justified by the work, as ours have served us.
The sacraFor our sacraments were once but signs ; partly of what we should believe, to stir us up unto faith ; and partly what we should do, to stir us up to do the law of God ; and were not works to justify.
The pope Now make this reason unto John, and unto many pro-
SSlfan Piets ^at went Before ^m anc did as he did ; yea, and unto hereuesstles Christ himself and his apostles ; and thou shalt find them all heretics, and the scribes and Pharisees good men, if that reason be good. Therefore, this-wise thou mayest answer. No thanks unto the heads of the church, that the scripture was kept, but unto the mercy of God. For as they had destroyed the right sense of it, for their lucre sake, even so would they have destroyed it also, if they could, rather than the people should have come unto the right understanding of it ; as they slew the true interpreters and preachers of it. And even so, no thanks unto our hypocrites, that the scrip ture is kept, but unto the bottomless mercy of God.
The pope For as they have destroyed the right sense of it with their leaven ; and as they destroy daily the true preachers of ^ » an(^ as ^ey keep it from the lay-people, that they should no^ see ^ow ^GJ jugg^e vr^ ^ 5 even so would they destroy thereoffehers it also, could they bring it about, rather than we should come by the true understanding of it, were it not that God provided otherwise for us. For they have put the stories, that should in many things help us, clean out of the way, as nigh as they could. They have corrupt the legend and lives almost of all saints. They have feigned false books, and put them forth ; some in the name of St Jerome, some in the name of St Au gustine, in the name of St Cyprian, St Dionyse, and other holy men ; which are proved none of theirs, partly by the style and Latin, and partly by authentic stories. And as the
Talmud. Jews have set up a book of traditions called Talmud, to destroy the sense of the scripture ; unto which they give faith, and unto the scripture none at all, be it never so plain, but say it cannot be understood, save by the Talmud : even so have ours
Duns. set up their Duns, their Thomas, and a thousand like draff, to stablish their lies through falsifying the scripture ; and say
HOW SCRIPTURE IS KNOWN TO BE FROM GOD. 49 that it cannot be understood without them, be it never so plain. And if a man allege an holy doctor against them, they glose him out as they do the scripture ; or will not hear ; or say the church hath otherwise determined.
Now therefore, when they ask us how we know it is the Question scripture of God ; ask them how John Baptist knew, and other A good anprophets, which God stirred up in all such times as the scripmaede °o the ture was in like captivity under hypocrites ? Did John bepa lieve that the scribes, Pharisees, and high priests, were the true church of God, and had his Spirit, and could not err ? Who taught the eagles to spy out their prey? Even so the children of God spy out their Father ; and Christ’s elect spy out their Lord, and trace out the paths of his feet, and follow ; yea, though he go upon the plain and liquid water, which will receive no step, and yet there they find out his foot : his elect know him, but the world knoweth him not (John i.). If Johni. the world know him not, and thou call the world pride, wrath, envy, covetousness, sloth, gluttony, and lechery, then our spiritualty know him not. Christ’s sheep hear the voice of Christ (John x.) ; where the world of hypocrites, as they know Joimx. him not, even so the wolves hear not his voice, but compel the scripture to hear them, and to speak what they lust. And therefore, except the Lord of sabaoth had left us seed, we had been all as Sodom and Gomorrah, said Esay in his isaiah . first chapter. And even so said Paul in his time. And even Rom. ix. so say we in our time, that the Lord of the hosts hath saved him seed, and hath gathered him a flock, to whom he hath given ears to hear that the hypocritish wolves cannot hear, and eyes to see that the blind leaders of the blind cannot see, and an heart to understand that the generation of poisoned vipers can neither understand nor know.
If they allege St Augustine, which saith, ” I had not believed the gospel, except the authority of the church had moved me1 :” I answer, as they abuse that saying of the holy
1 This expression occurs in a controversial treatise, which Augus tine wrote to expose the folly of the Manichseans, in giving faith to what they called Epistola Fundamenti, which began as follows : Manichseus, apostolus Jesu Christ! providentia Dei Patris. Hscc sunt salubria verba, de perenni ac vivo fonte. And Augustine, having transcribed these words, says, Non credo istum esse apostolum Christi. Quseso ne succenseatis, et maledicere incipiatis. Nostis enim me statuisse r i 4
man, even so they allege all the scripture, and all that they bring for them, even in a false sense. St Augustine, before l6’ he was converted, was an heathen man, and a philosopher, full of worldly wisdom, unto whom the preaching of Christ is i cor. i. but foolishness, saith Paul (1 Cor. i.). And he disputed with blind reasons of worldly wisdom against the Christen. Never theless, the earnest living of the Christen, according unto their doctrine, and the constant suffering of persecution and adversity for their doctrine’s sake, moved him, and stirred him to believe that it was no vain doctrine ; but that it must needs be of God, in that it had such power with it. For it happeneth that they which will not hear the word at the be ginning, are afterward moved by the holy conversation of them that believe : as Peter warneth Christian wives that i Pet. Hi. had heathen husbands, that would not hear the truth preached, to live so godly that they might win their heathen husbands i cor. vii. with holy conversation. And Paul saith, ” How knowest thou, Christian wife, whether thou shalt win thine heathen husband?” With holy conversation, meant he: for many are won with godly living, which at the first either will not hear, or cannot believe. And that is the authority that St Augustine meant. But if we shall not believe till the living of the spiritualty convert us, we be like to bide long enough in unbelief.
And when they ask, whether we received the scripture of them ? I answer, ’ That they which come after receive the scripture of them that go before/ And when they ask,
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