them obstinate and indurate therein, for they have been oft rebuked with God's word, but in vain. And of such the text is plain that they cannot understand the Scripture. And yet M. More will receive rewards, to dispute against the heresies of some such as be cast out of Christ's churches, by such holy patriarchs, whose images he himself cannot praise. As holy Judas, though the prelates of Judas. his church, that is the pharisees, were never so abominable, yet because Christ's doctrine was condemned of them, as of God's church that could not err, and all that believed on him excommunicate, he was bold to say, Quid vultis mihi dare et ego tradam cum vobis. That is, what will ye give me and I will deliver him unto you? THE TWELFTH CHAPTER. Prayers of priest profit In the twelfth he has one conclusion, that the prayers of an evil priest profit not. Which though it be true, yet the contrary is believed among a great many, in all quarters of England, so blind be the people and wot not what prayer meaneth. I have heard men of no small reputation say, ere this, in great audience, that it maketh no matter saying. whether the priest were good or bad, so he took money to pray, as they seldom pray without, for he could not hurt the prayer were he never so naughty. And when he saith that the evil priest hurteth us not so much with his living as he profiteth us with ministering the sacraments. O worldly wisdom, if a man lead me through a jeopardous place by day, he cannot hurt me so greatly as by night! The Turk seeth that murder, theft, extortion, oppression, and adultery be sin. But when he leadeth me by the darkness of sacraments without signification, I cannot but catch harm and put my trust and confidence in that which is neither God nor his word. As for an ensample, what trust put the people in anoiling and how cry they for it, with no other knowledge than that the A fond To minister Sacraments without signification, is to be led in darkness. Sacrifice. Heb. x. Christ's Sacrament is not carnal, but spiritual. oil saveth them, unto their damnation, and denying of Christ's blood. And when he saith the priest offereth or sacrificeth Christ's body. I answer, Christ was offered once for all, as it is to see in the Epistle to the Hebrews. As the priest slayeth Christ, breaketh his body, and sheddeth his blood, so he sacrificeth him and offereth him. Now the body in the priest slayeth him not actually, nor breaketh his body actually, nor sheddeth his blood actually, neither scourgeth him, and so forth, throughout all his passion; but representeth his slaying, his body breaking, and blood-shedding for my sins, and all the rest of his passion, and playeth it before mine eyes only. Which signification of the mass, because the people understand not, therefore they receive no forgiveness of their sins thereby, and thereto cannot but catch hurt in their souls, through a false faith as it well appeareth, how every man cometh thereto for a sundry imagination, all ignorant of the true way. Christ was sacrificed Let no man beguile you with his juggling sophistry. Our offering of Christ is to believe in him, and to come with a repenting heart unto the remembrance of his passion, and to desire God the Father for the breaking of Christ's body on the cross, and shedding of his blood, and on the cross for his death, and all his passions, to be merciful unto us, and to forgive us according to his Testament and promise. And so we receive forgiveness of our sins. And other offering or sacrificing of Christ is there now none. Walk in the open light and feeling, and let not yourselves be led with juggling words, as mules and asses in which there is none understanding. once for all. More. MORE. Deacons were had in price in the old time. TYNDALE. For the deacons then took the care of all the poor, and suffered none to go a begging, but provided a living for every one of them. Where now, they that should be deacons, make themselves priests and rob the poor of lands, rents, offerings and all that was given them, cons differ devouring all themselves, and the poor dying for hunger. Christ's deacons, and the pope's dea much. MORE. Priests be despised because of the multitude. More. TYNDALE. If there were but one in the world, as men Priests. say of the phoenix, yet if he lived abominably, he could Tyndale. not but be despised. MORE. A man may have a good faith coupled with More. all manner [of] sin. say, But By 1. John iv. M. More's faith was a common faith. may TYNDALE. A good faith putteth away all sin, how Tyndale. then can all manner of sin dwell with a good faith? I dare that M. More durst affirm, that a man might love God and hate his neighbour both at once, and yet St. John in his Epistle will say that he saith untruly. M. More meaneth of the best faith that ever he felt. all likelihood he knoweth of no other but such as stand with all wickedness, neither in himself nor in his prelates, wherefore inasmuch as their faith may stand with all that Christ hateth, I am sure he looketh not for small thanks of God for his defending of them. And therefore he playeth surely, to take his reward here of our holy patriarchs. MORE. Few durst be priests in the old time. TYNDALE. Then they knew the charge, and feared God. But now they know the vantage, and dread him not. More. Tyndale. MORE. If the laws of the church were executed Morc. which Tyndale and Luther would have burnt, it would be better. TYNDALE. If the Testament of our Saviour might be Tyndale. known for blind wretches and covetous tyrants, it would write the law of God in all men's hearts that believed it ; and then should men naturally and without compulsion keep all honesty. And again though the pope's law could help, yet is no law as good as a law unexecuted. IN the thirteenth he rageth, and fareth exceeding foul with himself. There he biteth, sucketh, gnaweth, towseth and mowseth Tyndale. There he weneth that he hath As good no law, as a law not executed. Age is to be preferred before youth. The chaste unchastity won his spurs, and that it is not possible to answer him. And yet there, because he there most standeth in his own conceit, I doubt not unto them that be learned in Christ to prove him most ignorant of all, and clean without understanding of godly things. And I say yet, that as no woman ought to rule a man's office where a man is present, by the order of nature; and as a young man ought not to be chosen to minister in the church, where an old meet for the room may be had by the order of nature; even so it was Paul's meaning to prefer the married before the unmarried, for the inconveniences that might chance by the reason of unchastity, which inconveniences M. More might see with sorrow of heart, (if he had as great love to Christ as to other things) abominable to happen daily unto the shame of Christ's doctrine among priests, friars, and monks, partly with open whores, partly with their sodomy, whereof they cast each other in the teeth daily in every abbey, for the least displeasure that one doth to another. M. More might see what occasions of unchastity be given unto the curates every where by the reason of their office and daily conversation with the married. of the papists is both to God and man. St. Jerom. And when he saith, never man could find that exposition till now there he saith untrue. For St. Jerom himself saith that he knew them that so expounded the text, and rebuked them of Rome because they would not admit into the clergy them that had had two wives, the one before baptism, and the other after, saying: If a man had killed judgeth no twenty men before his baptism, they would not have forbidden him, and why then should that which is no sin at all be a let unto him? But the god of Rome would not hear him. For Satan began then to work his mysteries of wickedness. The pope sin to be sin, and sin to be no sin. And when he saith, he that hath ten wives hath one wife. I say that one is taken by the use of speaking for one only. As when I say, I am content to give thee one, meaning one only. And unto him that hath no help, is there one help, to look for no [other] help; where one help is taken for one only, and many places else. A priest by the pope's order may have a whore, but not a wife. Rom. xiv. And when M. More saith, he that hath had two wives one after another may not be priest, and that if a priest's wife die, he may not have another; or that if he were made priest having no wife, he might not after marry if he burnt. I desire a reason of him: If he say, it hath been so the use then say I, an whore is better than a wife, for that hath been the use of our holy father many hundred years. But I affirm unto M. More the contrary. And I say first with Paul, that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, and by the same reason neither husband or wife, but the keeping of the commandments, and to love every man his neighbour as himself. And therefore as meat and drink were ordained for man's necessity, and as a man may eat and drink at all needs in all degrees, so far as it letteth him not to keep the commandments and to love his neighbour as himself; even so was the wife created for the man's necessity, and therefore may a man use her at all his need in all degrees, as far as she letteth him not to keep God's law, which is nothing else by Paul's learning, than that a man love his neighbour as himself. Now I desire a reason of M. More's doctrine, what doth More's my second wife, or my third, hinder me to love my neighbour as myself, and to do him service against I come to be priest? What let is your second wife to you to serve our holy father the pope, more than your first would have been? And in like manner if my first wife die, when I am a priest, why may I not love my neighbour, and do him as good service with the second as with the first? And again, if I be made priest, having no wife, and after burn, and therefore marry, why may I not love my neighbour and serve him with that wife, as well as he that brought a wife with him? It was not for nought that Paul prophesied that some should depart from the faith, and attend unto deceivable spirits, and devilish doctrine; forbidding to marry and to doctrine is supersti tious. 1 Tim. iv. The pope forbiddeth marriage. |