heaven, the true knowledge of Christ, and have made. their own bellies the door. For through their bellies must thou creep, and there leave all that fall behind thee.

And such blind reasons as ours make against us, made John ii. they against Christ, saying: Abraham is our father; we be Moses' disciples; how knoweth he the understanding of the Scripture, seeing he never learned of any of us? only the cursed unlearned people that know not the Scripture believe in him. Look whether any of the rulers or pharisees do believe in him!

As

witness

The Scriptures bear who are the right church.

Wherefore, the Scripture, truly understood after the plain places and general articles of the faith, which thou findest in the Scripture, and the ensamples that are gone before, will alway testify who is the church. Though the pharisees succeeded the patriarchs and prophets, and had the Scripture of them, yet they were heretics, and fallen from the faith of them, and from their living. And Christ and his disciples, and John the Baptist, departed Christ. from the pharisees which were heretics, unto the right John Bapsense of the Scripture, and unto the faith and living of the tist. patriarchs and prophets, and rebuked the pharisees. thou seest how Christ calleth them hypocrites, dissimulers, blind guides, and painted sepulchres. And John called them the generation of vipers and serpents. Of John, the angel said unto his father (Luke i.) he shall turn many Luke i. of the children of Israel unto their Lord God, which yet before John believed after a fleshly understanding in God, and thought themselves in the right way. And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children. That is, he shall, with his preaching and true interpreting of the Scripture, make such a spiritual heart in the children, as was in their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he shall turn the disobedient unto the obedience of the righteous, and prepare the Lord a perfect people. That is, them that had set up a righteousness of their own, and were therefore disobedient unto the righteousness of faith, shall he convert from their blindness, unto the wisdom of

The doc

trine of

John brought the heart

of the Jews

unto the

right way.

Our popish hypocrites have need of a John Baptist

to convert them.

Those

which depart from the faith of hypocrites are the true

church.

them that believed in God, to be made righteous; and with those fathers, shall he give the children eagles' eyes to spy out Christ and his righteousness, and to forsake their own, and so to become perfect.

And after the same manner, though our popish hypocrites succeed Christ and his apostles, and have their Scripture, yet they be fallen from the faith and living of them, and are heretics, and had need of a John Baptist to convert them. And we depart from them unto the true Scripture, and unto the faith and living thereof, and rebuke them in like manner. And as they which depart from the faith of the true church are heretics, even so they that depart from the church of heretics and false feigned faith of hypocrites, are the true church; which thou shalt alway know by their faith examined by the Scripture and by their profession, and consent to live according unto the laws of God.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT.

Their second

reason.

us.

ANOTHER like blind reason they have, wherein is all their trust. As we come out of them and they not of us, so we receive the Scripture of them, and they not of How know we that it is the Scripture of God, and true, but because they teach us so? how can we believe, except we first believe that they be the church, and cannot err in any thing that pertaineth unto our soul's health? For if a man tell me of a marvellous thing, whereof I can this popish have no other knowledge than by his mouth only, how should I give credence except I believe that the man were so honest that he could not lie, or would not lie? Wherefore, we must believe that they be the right church that cannot err, or else we can believe nought at all.

Note here

argument.

This wise reason is their sheet anchor, and all their hold,

their refuge to fly unto, and chief stone in their foundation; whereon they have built all their lies, and all the mischief that they have wrought this eight hundred years. And this reason do the Jews lay unto our charge this day; and this reason doth chiefly blind them, and hold them still in obstinacy. Our spirits first falsify the Scripture to stablish their lies. And when the Scripture cometh to light, and is restored unto the true understanding, and their juggling spied, and they like to suffer shipwreck, then they cast out this anchor, they be the church and cannot err, their authority is greater than the Scripture, and the Scripture is not true, but because they say so and admit it. And therefore, whatsoever they affirm, is of as great authority as the Scripture.

The pope

and his sect say they are the

church, and cannot err.

tion.

John Baptist was a

true expo

sitor of the

law.

Notwithstanding, as I said, the kingdom of heaven The solustandeth not in words of man's wisdom, but in power and spirit. And therefore, look unto the ensamples of the Scripture, and so shalt thou understand. And of an hundred ensamples between Moses and Christ, where the Israelites fell from God, and were ever restored by one prophet or other, let us take one: even John the Baptist. John went before Christ to prepare his way, that is, to bring men unto the knowledge of their sins, and unto repentance, through true expounding of the law, which is the only way unto Christ. For except a man knowledge his sins, and repent of them, he can have no part in Christ. Of John, Christ saith, (Matt. xvii.) that he was Elias that should come, and restore all things. That is, he should restore the Scripture unto the right sense again, which the pharisees had corrupted with the leaven of their false glosses and vain fleshly traditions. He made crooked things straight, as it is written, and rough smooth. Which is also to be understood of the Scripture, which the pharisees had made crooked, wresting them unto a false sense with The phariwicked glosses, and so rough that no man could walk in the way of them. For when God said, Honour father and mother, meaning, that we should obey them, and also help

Matt. xvii.

sees added false

glosses to the Scripture.

them at their need, the pharisees put this gloss thereto, out of their own leaven, saying: God is thy father and mother. Wherefore, whatsoever need thy father and mother have, if thou offer to God, thou art held excused. For it is better to offer to God, than to thy father and mother, and so much more meritorious, as God is greater than they yea, and God hath done more for thee than they, and is more thy father and mother than they. As ours now affirm, That it is more meritorious to offer to God and his holy dead saints, than unto the poor living saints. And when God had promised the people a Saviour, to come and bless them, and save them from their sins; the pharisees taught to believe in holy works to be saved by, as if they offered and gave to be prayed for. As ours, as oft as we have a promise to be forgiven at the repentance of the heart through Christ's blood shedding, put to, Thou must first shrive thyself to us of every syllaThe papis. ble, and we must lay our hands on thine head and whistle out thy sins, and enjoin thee penance to make satisfaction. And yet art thou but loosed from the sin only that thou shalt not come into hell, but thou must yet suffer for every Purgatory. sin seven years in purgatory, which is as hot as hell, except thou buy it out of the pope. And if thou ask By what means the pope giveth such pardon? They answer, Out of the merits of Christ. And thus at the last they grant against themselves, that Christ hath not only deserved for us, the remission of our sins, but also the forgiveness of that gross and fleshly imagined purgatory, save thou must buy it out of the pope. And with such traditions they took away the key of knowledge, and stopped up the kingdom of heaven that no man could enter in.

tical doc

trine.

And as I said, they taught the people to believe in the deeds of the ceremonies which God ordained, not to The phari- justify, but to be signs of promises, by which they that pists agree believed were justified. But the pharisees put out the significations, and quenched the faith, and taught to be ing of the justified by the work, as ours have served us.

sees and pa

in the false

interpret

Scriptures.

ments are

For our sacraments were once but signs, partly of what The sacrawe should believe, to stir us up unto faith, and partly signs to what we should do, to stir us up to do the law of God, and were not works to justify.

answer.

Now make this reason unto John, and unto many prophets that went before him and did as he did; yea, and unto Christ himself and his apostles, and thou shalt find them all heretics, and the scribes and pharisees good men, if that reason be good. Therefore, thiswise thou inayest No thanks unto the heads of the church, that the Scripture was kept, but unto the mercy of God. For as they had destroyed the right sense of it for their lucre sake, even so would they have destroyed it also, if they could, rather than the people should have come unto the right understanding of it, as they slew the true interpreters and preachers of it. And even so, no thanks unto our hypocrites that the Scripture is kept, but unto the bottomless mercy of God.

For as they have destroyed the right sense of it with their leaven; and as they destroy daily the true preachers of it; and as they keep it from the lay-people, that they should not see how they juggle with it; even so would they destroy it also, could they bring it about, rather than we should come by the true understanding of it, were it not that God provided otherwise for us. For they have put the stories, that should in many things help us, clean out of the way, as nigh as they could. They have corrupt the legend and lives almost of all saints. They have feigned false books, and put them forth; some in the name of St. Jerome, some in the name of St. Augustine, in the name of St. Cyprian, St. Dionisia, and other holy mien. Which are proved none of theirs, partly by the style and Latin, and partly by authentic stories. And as the Jews have set up a book of traditions called Talmud, to destroy the sense of the Scripture, unto which they give faith, and unto the Scripture none at all, be it never so plain, but say it cannot be understood, save by the

faith.