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Peter's faith failed

not.

sorrow, and wondering had been past, if they had not been prevented and holp in the mean time.

Yea, and Peter, as soon as he had denied Christ, came to himself immediately, and went out and wept bitterly for sorrow. 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 faileth in himself, but was reserved in our lady.

But let us see the text and their gloss together. Christ Luke xxii. saith (Luke xxii.) Simon, Simon, Satan seeketh you to sift you as men sift wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith shall not fail: wherefore when thou art come unto thyself again strengthen thy brethren. Now put this wise gloss thereto, and see how they agree together! Simon, gloss made Satan seeketh to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for by M. More.

A foolish

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, strengthen 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, as in the brains of such expositors?

WHETHER THE POPE AND HIS SECT BE
CHRIST'S CHURCH OR NO.

1.

Pope.

The pope

and his sect are not the

church of Christ.

THAT the pope and his spirits be not the church may
thiswise be proved. He that hath no faith to be saved
through Christ, is not of Christ's church.
The pope
believeth not to be saved through Christ. For he teacheth
to trust in holy works, for the remission of sins and sal-
vation; 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 sacraments 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; hich all are the denying of Christ's blood.

Another reason is this. Whosoever believeth in Christ, consenteth that God's law is good. The pope consenteth ot that God's law is good. For he hath forbidden lawful wedlock unto all his, over whom he reigneth as a temporal yrant with laws of his own making, and not as a brother exorting them to keep Christ's. And he hath granted unlawful whoredom unto as many as bring money. As through Dutchland, every priest, paying a gildren unto the archdea Con, shall freely and quietly have his whore, and put her away at his pleasure, and take another at his own lust. As they do n Wales, in Ireland, Scotland, France, and Spain. And n England, thereto, they be not few which have licences to <eep whores, some of the pope, and some of their ordinaries. And when the parishes 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 Wickliffe, 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, re

2.

The pope

in forbidding marriage to priests doth not

consent that the law

of God is good.

The pope whoredom which God

licenseth

forbiddeth.

3.

persecu

pent, when their faults be told them. The spiritualty The popish repent not, but, of very lust and consent to sin, persecute clergy are both the Scripture, wherewith they be rebuked, and also tors. 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 he commandeth, saying, Though the pope sin never so grieviously, and draw with him to hell

An abominable, wicked, and devilish

decree.

4.

Rom. xiii.

5.

1 Cor. v.

The pope is utterly against the

doctrine of Christ.

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 Papa.

And Paul saith (Rom. xiii.) Let every soul obey the higher powers that are ordained to punish sin. The pope will not, nor let any of his.

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 But the company. 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 therefore. 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.

Their first

reason.

NOTWITHSTANDING, because, as they be all

shaven, they be all shameless to affirm that they be the right church and cannot 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 called. Well, I will likewise dispute.

S

First, the right church was under Moses and Aaron, and

And

apos

son.

One argument con

futed with

another of

like nature.

so forth, in whose rooms sat the scribes and phari- A like reasees and high priests in the time of Christ. they were before Christ. And Christ and his tles came out of them, and departed from them, and left them. Wherefore the scribes, pharisees, and high priests were the right church, aud Christ and his apostles and disciples, heretics, 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 their argument too. For they be like, and are both one thing. But inasmuch as the kingdom of God standeth not in The solu ords, as Paul saith, (1 Cor. iv.) but in power, therefore 10ok unto the marrow and pith of the things 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 U p Moses, and brought them unto the faith right again. P nd Moses left a glorious church, both in faith and leaving unto the word of God, and delivered them unto oshua, Eleazer, Phineas, and Caleb.

in

But as soon as the generation of them that saw the micles of God were dead, they fell to idolatry immediately, as thou seest in the Bible. And God, when he had delivered hem into captivity, for to chastise their wickedness, stirred hem up a prophet evermore, to call them unto his testament again. And so he did well nigh an hundred times, I uppose, ere Christ came, for they never bode any space he right faith. And against the coming of Christ, the cribes, pharisees, Caiaphas, Annas, and the elders, were Crept up into the seat 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 merchandize 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

tion.

The right

faith did never long

continue in the greater number of

the church.

Matt. xvi.
Matt. xxiii.

Hypocrites are crept up into the seat of Christ and

2 Pet. ii.

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 works 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 the scribes and the pharisees, saying: Wo be to them, because 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.

into

And our hypocrites are in like manner crept up the seat of Christ and of his apostles, by succession; not to do the deeds of Christ and his apostles, but for lucre his apostles. 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 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 his

clergy have corrupted the Scriptures of God with

their traditions.

And in like manner have they corrupted the Scripture, and blinded the right way with their own constitutions, with traditions of dumb ceremonies; with taking away the significations of the Sacraments, to make us believe in the work of the Sacraments first, whereby they might the better make us believe 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

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