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Devilish doctrine.

Matt. xv.

Christ's natural body is not

in the sacrament.

The sacrament of

the body and blood of Christ

how it must be received.

mandments, and to serve a man's neighbour, there it is better to be unmarried than married; and where a wife helpeth to keep the commandments better than to be without, there it is better to have a wife than to be without. That heart only which is ready to do, or let undone, all things for his neighbour's sake, is a pleasant thing in the sight of God.

And when he will have the priests to live chaste, for reverence of the sacraments; it is devilish doctrine, having the similitude of godliness, but the pith and marrow is away. If he mean water, oil, salt, and such like, then is the wife with her body and all her uses in the laws of God, incomparably purer and holier. If he mean the sacrament of Christ's body, I answer, that the hands defile not the man, nor aught that goeth through the hands, be they never so unwashed, by the testimony of Christ; and much less can they then defile Christ.

Moreover, the priest toucheth not Christ's natural body with his hands, by your own doctrine, nor seeth it with his eyes, nor breaketh it with his fingers, nor eateth it with his mouth, nor chammeth it with his teeth, nor drinketh his blood with his lips, for Christ is impassable. But he that repenteth toward the law of God, and at the sight of the sacrament, or of the breaking, feeling, eating, chamming, or drinking, calleth to remembrance the death of Christ, his body breaking and blood shedding for our sins, and all his passion, the same eateth our Saviour's body and drinketh his blood through faith only, and receiveth forgiveness of all his sins thereby, and other not. And all that have not this doctrine of the sacrament come thereto in vain. And therefore there is no more cause that he which saith the mass should live chaste, than he that heareth it; or he that ministereth the sacrament, than he that receiveth it. It is to me great marvel that unlawful whoredom, covetousness, and extortion, cannot defile their hands, as well as lawful matrimony. Cursed therefore be their devilish doctrine with false appearing godliness, the fruit and power away out of the hearts of all Christian men.

St. Michael weigheth

the souls.

And when he bringeth the ensample of the heathen, I praise him. For the heathen because they could not understand God spiritually, to serve him in the Spirit, to believe in him, and to love his laws, therefore they turned his glory unto an image; and served him after their own imagination with bodily service, as the whole kingdom of the pope doth, having less power to serve him in spirit than the Turks. For when the heathen made an image of the axes or fevers, and sacrificed thereto, they knew that the image was not the fevers; but, under the similitude of the image, they worshipped the power of God which plagued them with the fevers, with bodily service, as the pope doth above all the idolaters that ever were in the world. As when we paint Saint Michael weighing the souls, and stick up a candle to flatter him, and to make him favourable unto us, and regard not the testament of Christ, nor the laws of God, because we have no power to believe nor to love truth. And even so, to refer virginity unto the person of God, to please him therewith, is false sacrifice and heathenish idolatry. the only service of God is to believe in Christ and to love The true the law. Wherefore thou must refer thy wedlock, thy virginity, and all thy other deeds unto the keeping of the it is. law, and serving thy neighbour only. And then when thou lookest with a loving heart on the law that saith, Break not wedlock, keep no whore, and so forth, and findest thy body weak, and thine office such that thou must have conversation with men's wives, daughters and servants, then it is better to have a wife than to be without. And again, if thou see service to be done that thou canst not so well do with a wife as without, then if thou have power to be without, it is best so to be, and in such like. And else the one is as good as the other, and no difference. And to take a wife for pleasure, is as good as to abstain for pleasure.

For

And when M. More seeth no other cause, why it is not best that our spiritualty were all gelded, than for loss of

service of God. Wh.

Whether it that priests

were best

were

gelded.

Lev. x.

More. Tyndale.

For

merit in resisting, besides that that imagination is plain ido-
latry, I hold M. More beguiled, if all we read of gelded men
be true, and the experience we see in other beasts.
then the gelded lust in their flesh as much as the ungelded.
Which if it be true, then the gelded, in that he taketh
such great pain in gelding, not to minish his lusts, but if
lusts overcome him, yet that he have not wherewith to
hurt his neighbour; deserveth more than the ungelded.
And then it were best that we did eat and drink, and
make our flesh strong that we burned, to deserve in re-
sisting, as some of your holy saints have laid virgius in
their beds, to kindle their courage, that they might after
quench their heat in cold water, to deserve the merit of
holy martyrs.

And when he saith, the priests of the old law abstained from their wives when they served in the temple. Many things were forbidden them, to keep them in bond and servile fear, and for other purposes. And yet I trow he findeth it not in the text, that they were forbidden their wives. And when he imagineth so because Zacharias, when his course was out, get him home to his house, I think it was better for him to go to his house, than to send for his house to him; he was also old and his wife too. But and if they were forbidden, it was but for a time, to give them to prayer, as we might do right well and as well as they. But I read that they were forbidden to drink wine, and strong drink, when they ministered: of which our's pour in without measure.

M. MORE. Christ lived chaste and exhorted unto chastity. TYNDALE. We be not all of Christ's complexion, neither exhorteth he to other chastity than wedlock, save at a time to serve our neighbours. Now the pope's chastity is not to serve a man's neighbour, but to run to riot and to carry away with him the living of the poor, and of the true preacher; even the tithes of five or six parishes, and to go, and either dwell by a stews or to carry a stews with him, or to corrupt other men's wives.

us.

two wives and there

fore was Bigamus.

Paphnutius, a man that never proved marriage is Paphnutipraised in the stories, for resisting such doctrine with God's word, in a general council before the pope was a God. And now M. More, a man that hath proved it twice, is magnified for defending it with sophistry. And again More had me seemeth that it is a great oversight of M. More to think that Christ, though he were never married, would not more accept the service of a married man that would more say truth for him than they that abhor wedlock: inasmuch as the spiritualty accept his humble service, and reward his merits with so high honour, because he can better feign for them, than any of their unchaste (I would say own chaste) people, though he be Bigamus, and past the grace of his neck verse.

And finally, if M. More look so much on the pleasure that is in marriage, why setteth he not his eyes on the thanksgiving for that pleasure, and on the patience of other displeasures?

MORE.

THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER.

Wicliffe was the occasion of the utter subver- More. sion of the realm of Bohemia, both in faith and good living, and of the loss of many a thousand lives.

Christ's

Tyndale.

pro

The pope

And as for

TYNDALE. The rule of their faith are mises, and rule of their living God's law. loss of lives, it is truth that the pope slew, I think, an hundred thousand of them, because of their faith, and that they would no longer serve him. As he slew in England many a thousand, and slew the true king and set up a false, unto the effusion of all the noble blood and murdering up of the commonalty, because he should be his defender.

a cruel

tyrant.

MORE. The constitution of the bishops is not that the More. Scripture shall not be in English, but that no man may translate it by his own authority or read it, until they had approved it.

TYNDALE. If no translation shall be had until they Tyndale.

The spiritualty would not have the Scripture in English.

Hun.

More.
Horsey.
Tyndale.

If we be not guilty we need no pardon.

More

would excuse the

give licence or till they approve it, it shall never be had. And so it is all one in effect, to say there shall be none at all in English; and to say, till we admit it; seeing they be so malicious that they will none admit, but feign all the cavillations they can, to prove it were not expedient. So that if it be not had spite of their hearts it shall never be had. And thereto, they have done their best to have had it enacted by Parliament, that it should not be in English.

THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER.

HE jested out Hun's death with his poetry wherewith he built Utopia. Many great lords came to Baynard's Castle, (but all nameless) to examine the cause (as the credible prelates so well learned, so holy and so indifferent, which examined Bilney and Arthur be also all nameless.)

MORE. Horsey took his pardon, because it is not good to refuse God's pardon and the king's.

TYNDALE. God's pardon can no man have except he knowledge himself a sinner. And even so he that receiveth the king's yieldeth himself guilty. And moreover it is not possible that he which putteth his trust in God, should for fear of the twelve men or of his judges, receive pardon for that he never was faulty, unto the dishonouring of our Saviour Jesus, but would have denied it rather unto the death.

And thereto, if the matter were so clear as ye jest it out, then I am sure the king's grace's both courtesy and wisdom would have charged the judges to have examined the murder of evidence laid against him diligently; and so to have quit him with more honesty than to give him pardon of that he never trespassed in, and to have rid the spiritualty out of hate and all suspicion.

Hun.

Then saith he, Hun was sore suspect of heresy, and convict. And after he saith, Hun was an heretic indeed, and in peril so to be proved. And then how was he con

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