PREFACE TO THE READER.

Awake thou that sleepest, and stand up from death, and Christ shall give thee light. Eph. v.

THE grace of our Lord, the light of his Spirit to see and to judge, true repentance towards God's law, a fast faith in the merciful promises that are in our Saviour Christ, fervent love toward thy neighbour after the ensample of Christ and his saints, be with thee, (O reader) and with all that love the truth, and long for the redemption of God's elect. Amen.

The Holy rebuke the

Ghost shall

world for

lack of true judgment.

Our Saviour Jesus in the xvith of John at his John xvi. last supper, when he took his leave of his disciples, warned them, saying, The Holy Ghost shall come and rebuke the world of judgment. That is, he shall rebuke the world for lack of true judgment, and discretion to judge; and shall prove that the taste of their mouths is corrupt, so that they judge sweet to be sour, and sour to be sweet; and the eyes to be blind; so that they think that to be the very service of God, which is but a blind superstition, for zeal of which yet they persecute the true service of God: and

1 Cor. ii.

that they judge to be the law of God which is but a false imagination of a corrupt judgment, for blind affection of which yet they persecute the true law of God, and them that keep it.

And this same it is that Paul saith, (1 Cor. ii.) how that the natural man that is not born again, and created anew with the Spirit of God, be he never so great a philosopher, never so well seen in the law, never so sore studied in the Scripture, as we have ensamples in the pharisees, yet he cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God; but saith he, The spiritual judgeth all things, and his Spirit teacheth the deep secrets of spiritually. God, so that whatsoever God commandeth him

The spiritual judg

eth all things

Rom xiii.

to do, he never leaveth searching till he come at the bottom, the pith, the quick, the life, the spirit, the marrow, and very cause why, and judgeth all thing. Take an ensample, in the great commandment, Love God with all thine Matt. xxii. heart: the spiritual searcheth the cause and looketh on the benefits of God, and so conceiveth love in his heart. And when he is commanded to obey the powers and rulers of the world, he looketh on the benefits which God sheweth the world through them, and therefore doth it gladly. Matt. xxii. And when he is commanded to love his neighbour as himself, he searcheth that his neighbour is created of God, and bought with Christ's blood and so forth; and therefore, he loveth him out of his heart, and if he be evil forbeareth him, he ought to and with all love and patience draweth him to good: as elder brethren wait on the younger,

The spiritual man searcheth

out the

cause why

love his

neighbours.

and serve them and suffer them, and when they will not come, they speak fair, and flatter, and give some gay thing, and promise fair, and so draw them and smite them not; but if they may in no wise be holp, refer the punishment to the father and mother, and so forth. And by these judgeth he all other laws of God, and understandeth the true use and meaning of them. And by these understandeth he in the laws of man, which are right, and which tyranny.

And

Man is lord creatures of

over all the

the earth.

If God should command him to drink no wine, as he commanded in the Old Testament that the priests should not, when they ministered in the temple; and forbad divers meats; the spiritual (because he knoweth that man is lord over all other creatures, and they his servants, made to be at his pleasure, and that it is not commanded for the wine or meat itself, that man should be in bondage unto his own servant the inferior creature) ceaseth not to search the cause. when he findeth it, that it is to tame the flesh and that he be alway sober, he obeyeth gladly; and yet not so superstitiously, that the time of his disease he would not drink wine in the way of a medicine to recover his health; as David ate of the hallowed bread; and as Moses for neces- 1 Reg. xxi. sity left the children of Israel uncircumcised forty years, whereof likelihood some died uncircumcised, and were yet thought to be in no worse case than they that were circumcised, as the children that died within the viiith day were counted in as good case as they that were

Circumfrequented

cision not

in forty

years.

Holy-days are ordain

ed for man,

and not

man for the holy-days.

circumcised: which ensamples might teach us many things, if there were spirit in us.

And likewise of the holy-day: he knoweth that the day is servant to man, and therefore, when he findeth that it is done because he should not be let from hearing the word of God, he obeyeth gladly; and yet not so superstitiously that he would not help his neighbour on the holy day, and let the sermon alone for one day; or that he would not work on the holy-day, need requiring it, at such time as men be not wont to be at church; and so throughout all laws. And even likewise in all ceremonies and sacraments, he searcheth the significations, and will not serve the visible things. It is as good to him, that not to serve the priest say mass in his gown as in his other apparel, if they teach him not somewhat, and that his soul be edified thereby. And as soon will he gape while thou puttest sand as holy salt in his mouth, if thou shew him no reason thereof. He had as lief be smeared with unhallowed butter as anointed with charmed oil, if his soul be not taught to understand somewhat thereby; and so forth.

The signi fication of things are to be

sought, and

the visible

signs.

Ceremo

nies without some good doc

trine, are to

be rejected.

But the world captivateth his wit, and about the law of God maketh him wonderful imaginations, unto which he so fast cleaveth that ten John Baptists were not able to dispute them out of his head. He believeth that he loveth God, because he is ready to kill a Turk for his sake that believeth better in God than he; whom God also cominandeth us to love, and to leave nothing

unsought to win him unto the knowledge of the truth, though with the loss of our lives. He supposeth that he loveth his neighbour as much he is bound, if he be not actually angry with him; whom yet he will not help freely with an halfpenny but for a vantage, or vain-glory, or for a worldly purpose. If any man have displeased him, he keepeth his malice in, and will not chafe himself about it, till he see an occasion to avenge it craftily, and thinketh that well enough. And the rulers of the world he obeyeth, thinketh he, when he flattereth them, and blindeth them with gifts, and corrupteth the officers with rewards, and beguileth the law with cautels and subtilties.

And because the love of God and of his neighbour, which is the spirit and the life of all laws, and wherefore all laws are made, is not written in his heart, therefore in all inferior laws, and in all worldly ordinances is he beetle blind. If he be commanded to abstain from wine, that will he observe unto the death too, as the charterhouse monks had lever die than eat flesh: and as for the soberness and chastising of the members will he not look for, but will pour in ale and beer of the strongest without measure, and heat them with spices, and so forth. And the holy-day will he keep so straight, that if he meet a flea in his bed, he dare not kill her, and not once regard wherefore the holy-day was ordained to seek for God's word: and so forth in all laws. And in ceremonies and sacraments, there he captivateth his wit and