THE SIXTH CHAPTER. In the beginning of the sixth he describeth Martin after the example of his own nature, as in other places he describeth God after the complexion of popes, cardinals, and worldly tyrants. More. Martin, MORE. Martin will abide but by the Scripture only. TYNDALE. And ye will come at no Scripture only. Tyndale. And as for the old doctors ye will hear as little, save where it pleaseth you, for all your crying, Old holy fathers. For tell me this, why have ye in England condemned the union of doctors, but because ye would not have your Union. falsehood disclosed by the doctrine of them? MORE. They say, that a Christian man is discharged More. of all laws spiritual and temporal, save the gospel. Christian man is TYNDALE. Ye juggle: we say that no Christian man Tyndale. ought to bind his brother violently, unto any law whereof he could not give a reason out of Christ's doctrine, and out of the law of love. And on the other side we say, How far a that a Christian man is called to suffer wrong and tyranny (though no man ought to bind him) until God rid us thereof; so far yet as the tyranny is not directly against the law of God and faith of Christ, and no farther. MORE. Martin was the cause of the destruction of the More. uplandish people of Germany. bound to suffer. TYNDALE. That is false, for then he could not have Tyndale. escaped himself. Martin was as much the cause of their confusion, as Christ of the destruction of Jerusalem. The duke elector of Saxony came from the war of those uplandish people, and other dukes with him, into Wirtemburg, where Martin is, with fifteen hundred men of arms, so that Martin if he had been guilty, could not have gone quit. And thereto all the dukes and lords that cleave unto the word of God this day, were no less cumbered with their common people than other men. Then after the loudest manner he setteth out the cruel02 More. Tyndale. Tyndale. Tyndale. More. Tyndale. More. Tyndale. ness of the emperor's soldiers which they used at Rome; but he maketh no mention of the treason which holy church wrought secretly, wherewith the men of war were so set on fire. THE EIGHTH CHAPTER. MORE. WHAT good deed will he do, that believeth Martin, how that we have no freewill to do any good with the help of grace? TYNDALE. O poet, without shame! MORE. What harm shall he care to forbear, that believeth Luther, how God alone, without our will, worketh all the mischief that they do? TYNDALE. O natural son of the father of all lies! MORE. What shall he care, how long he live in sin that believeth Luther, that he shall after this life feel neither good nor evil in body nor soul until the day of doom? TYNDALE. Christ and his apostles taught no other, but warned to look for Christ's coming again every hour. Which coming again, because ye believe will never be, therefore have ye feigned that other merchandise. us. MORE. Martin's books be open, if ye will not believe TYNDALE. Nay, ye have shut them up, and therefore be bold to say what ye lust. MORE. They live as they teach, and teach as they live. TYNDALE. But neither teach nor live as other lie on them. More. THE NINTH CHAPTER. MORE. Though the Turk offer pleasures unto the receivers, and death unto the refusers of his sect (as the pope doth) yet he suffereth none to break their promises of chastity dedicated to God (though haply they use no such vows, and as the pope will not, except it be for money) but Luther teacheth to break holy Vow's. Unlawful rows are TYNDALE. Luther teacheth that unlawful vows, Tyndale. grounded on a false faith unto the dishonouring of God, are to be broken, and no other. And again, constrained not to be service pleaseth not God. And thirdly, your pope giveth licence and his blessing to break all lawful vows, but with the most unlawful of all will ye not dispense. observed. Then he bringeth forth the ensample of the heathen, to confirm the pope's chastity. And no wrong, for the same false immagination that the heathen had in theirs, hath the pope in his. Understand therefore, if thou vow any in- Vows. different thing to please God in his own person, he receiveth not thine idolatry; for his pleasure and honour is that thou shouldest be as he hath made thee, and should receive all such things of his hand and use them so far forth as they were needful, and give him thanks, and be bound to him; and not that thou shouldest be as thou hadst made thyself: and that he should receive such things of thee, to be bound to thee to thank thee, and reward thee. And again, thou must give me a reason of thy vow out of the word of God. Moreover when thou vowest lawfully, thou mayest not do it precisely, but alway, except if thine own or thy neighbour's necessity required the contrary. As if thou hadst vowed never to eat flesh, or drink wine, or strong drink, to tame thy flesh, and thou afterward fellest in disease, so that thy body in that behalf were too tame, or that there could no other sustenance be gotten; that thou must interpret such cases except, though thou madest no mention of them at the making of thy vow. Some man would say, other shift might be made: What then? If other drink as hot as wine and of the same operation, We must and other meat of the same power and virtue as flesh is must be had, why shouldest thou forswear wine or flesh, seeing it is now no longer for the taming of thy body? And so forth of all other, as I have above declared. And when he bringeth in the apostles, martyrs, confes-. All vows made with great ad are to be visement. use God's. creatures for our ne cessity. stinence sors, and fifteen hundred years, it is clean contrary. For they had no such false imagination of chastity, or of any All our ab- other work; but they used it to serve their neighbour, and to avoid trouble in time of persecution; and to be eased of that burden that was too heavy for their weak shoulders, and not to compel God to thank them for that liberty for which they be bound to thank him. and chastising of ourselves is to our own profit. Freewill. More blasphemeth God. THE TENTH CHAPTER. In the tenth he inveigheth and raileth against that which neither he, nor any fleshly minded papist can understand; as they have no power to consent unto the laws of God, which herein appeareth, that they compel their brethren which be as good as they, to do and believe what they lust, and not what God commandeth. He affirmeth that Martin saith, how that we do no sin ourselves with our own will, but that God sinneth in us, and uses us as a dead instrument, and forceth us thereunto, and damneth us, not for our own deeds, but for his, and for his own pleasure, as he compelleth unto sin for his pleasure, or rather he for his pleasure sinneth in us. I say, that a man sinneth voluntarily, but the power of the will and of the deed is of God, and every will and deed are good in the nature of the deed, and the evilness is a lack that there is, as the eye though it be blind is good in nature, in that it is such a member, created for such a good use; but it is are evil be- called evil for lack of sight. And so are our deeds evil because we lack knowledge and love to refer then unto ledge to re- the glory of God. Which lack cometh of the devil that blindeth us with lusts, and occasions that we cannot see the goodness and righteousness of the law of God, and the means how to fulfil it. For could we see it, and the way to do it, we should love it naturally as a child doth a fair apple. For as a child, when a man sheweth him a fair apple, and will not give it him, weepeth; so should we naturally mourn when the members would not come Our deeds cause we lack know fer them unto the glory of God. The devil is forward to fulfil the law according to the desire of our hearts. For Paul saith, (2 Cor. iv.) If our gospel be 2 Cor. iv. hid, it is hid unto them that perish, among which the God of this world hath blinded the wits of the unbelievers, that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should not shine to them. And Christ saith that the birds eat up the seed sown upon the way, and interpreteth by the seed, the word, and by the fowls, the devil. So that the devil blindeth us with falsehood and lies, which is our worldly wisdom, and therewith stoppeth out the true light of God's wisdom, which blindness is the evilness of all our deeds. the blinder and keeper of us from the underGod's will. standing of We may not be cu rious to search God's se crets. And on the other side, that another man loveth the laws of God, and useth the power that he hath of God well, and referreth his will and his deeds unto the honour of God, cometh of the mercy of God which hath opened his wits, and shewed him light to see the goodness and righteousness of the law of God, and the way that is in Christ to fulfil it, whereby he loveth it naturally and trusteth to do it. Why doth God open one man's eyes and not another's? Paul (Rom. x.) forbiddeth to ask why. For it is too deep for man's capacity. God we see is honoured thereby, and his mercy set out, and the more seen in the vessels of mercy. But the popish can suffer God to have no secret hid to himself. They have searched to come to the bottom of his bottomless wisdom, and because they cannot attain to that secret, and be too proud to let it alone, and to grant themselves ignorant, with the apostle, that knew no other than God's glory in the elect, A papistical they go and set up free-will with the heathen philosophers, opinion. and say, that a man's free-will is the cause why God chooseth one and not another, contrary unto all the Scripture. Paul saith it cometh not of the will, nor of the deed, but of the mercy of God. And they say that every man hath at the least way power in his free-will, to deserve that power should be given him of God to keep the law. But the Scripture testifieth that Christ hath deserved for |