A work entitled of the old god & the new of the old faith & the new, of the old doctrine and the new/ or original beginning of idolatry.  
Read most gentel reader, for many & divers causes this most goodly book, excellent and notable in doctrine & learning: that thou mayst know, whereunto thou oughtest to torn thee/ what to behold, what to believe in this so great dissension of all christendom, and in this so unquiet & troublous estate of comen weals/ Far well in our lord.   

Look how peevish a fool I am, most gentle reader (but what can I be else, but a fool) I do am bycyously set my name before the book, unto which the author himself and maker of it through humility and meekness did not put his name: for if I were the very father of this book, as I am but only the instructor and teacher to it, in as moche as I have taught it to speak latin: lord with how goodly and glorious titles (so greedy of glory and renown am I) would I garnish it and set it forth? entitling it either The golden chain, or else the mine of heaven, or else the flower of flowers, or else the rose of roses, of the most cunning man Hartmamnꝰ dulichius, maysted of the seven liberal sciences and an excellent doctor of divinity, (& then to show mine hublenes & lowliness, I would add these words though unworthy) But to take this business, and labour of translating this work into latin, I was moved, because of the exceeding great goodness and utility of the book itself: to th'intent that it, being taught to speak latin, might in what so ever places it should walk abroad in the world: be so much the better welcome, and might the sooner wind itself in to the familiarity and favour of all men. For there are some men, which have more delight and pleasure in latin works: and as for the works made in the vulgar tongue they do little set by, as things being of less weight and value, And this I dare be bold to say, that scantly hath there been any better book than this put forth & sent abroad in these troublous times & in this great unquietness of comen weals, which is, no doubt, most worthy to be red of all men. And to th'intent that it may in the front and beginning appear, what is contained in the innermost parts of the same I will couch within a narrow room this large and long treasure, which lieth hid, and as it were buryde in this book. The sum & effect of this work is this, 
The sum and effect of this work.  It declareth that the beginning of idolatry did springe and rise of the philosophers, which through manifold dissensions have covered the scriptures, & through the frauds of Satan have brought forth new gods. It showeth in the mean season the ruin & decay of the flourishing Empire of the romans, and how the city of Rome, the lady and master over all the world, was made a pray to all nations, And how at the last by Justinian it was restored from ruin and decay, from whence came also the riches of the church, at the commygne of which riches forth with the book of the gospel was closed and shoot up, And the bishops of Rome in stead of evangelical poverty began to put forth their heads garnished with three crowns, After that it followeth forth with, by what beginnings the primacy and pre-eminence of the pope of Rome came first up, and how by his power & might the noble empire of the world was brought from the Romans to the frenshe men/ & last of all, how and after what manner, by the crafty and subtle means of a certain pope being of the family and kindred of the most noble dukes of saxony, it was translated from the frenshe men to the germans/ where began first the form & manner of electing of the king of Romans by the seven Princes of germany, which are called the electors. Then after the Rome had withdrawn their necks from under the yoke & dominion of the emperor, which the pope's did fear, forthwith the pope's being instruted & well armed and made mighty & strong with the riches of the Chryche, did break in violently in to the kyndomes of the world takynke in to both their hands the material sword, the sheder of blood, in stead of the spiritual sword, whereof cometh the cursed nativity & birth of the law called canonical, which (Oh good lord) how little canonical that is to say how unruly is it. what needeth me to make many words? thou shalt here perceive very plainly the beginning, the ꝓgresse, & increase, & the dominion of that strumpet clad in purple, which holdeth in her hands even yet still a golden bowl full of blasphemies against almighty god, with the which she maketh all men drunken. Thou shalt see, also how under the title & name of holy fathers, those religious persons have gotten & occupied the tyranny of the world, whom with great injury & wrong doubtless, we do call Monachos either because they are not in the world, 
Monachi, solitari & religious men.  when in very deed the world, that is to wite Envy, Covetousness, & such other monstrous vices are in no place more violent and strong than in Monasteries and the houses of religeouse persons, either else because they be solitary, when in very deed they have so mightily & strongly wound in themselves, (as it were pestilent and mischievous veins) in to all the membres & limbs of the world, that they are dread & feared both of all emperors & Princes, yea and also of the pope of Rome being yet more mighty than all the said Emperors & Princes, which said pope hath set round about himself a guard of these stout chaumpyons, to th'intent that he would be taken of us even for Chryst himself. Thou shalt also find here & perceive the cursed & ungracious crafts of religious persons, their monstrous habits, & also fro whence came so many thousands of names/ what is mente by Thomasys dove, by domynykes star, by France's wounds, the diversities and vices of ordres are here dispraised and rebuked/ there is aso set forth here the offices of bishops, and of abbots/ and the pomps, the manners, and the abuses of priests, namely of great prebendaries & canon's. Besides this the ceremonies are here judged and set forth: and the hurt that is in them, is picked out/ and what good is in them, here it is showed. Briefly religious and this our christian life are here so tried that thou mayst perceive the deceit clokede under them. Here I do wittingly pass over many things, lest I should make such a prologue, where by some might find the default, that it were longer then is the hole work, for as much as in this work the hole narration is marvelous compendious, being derived out of the very own proper fountains, deducing all things by a very godly order of histories, so freely, wisely, & so plainly that the Author himself of this work (who ever he be) may be accounted & taken as another Brute, which did rescue & deliver the christian liberty being besieged round about by tyrannous laws & brought out of the right shape in to a certain Judaical superstition & bondage. In the second part of this book (for all the afore rehearsed things are in the first part) the Author doth show, what god is, & his word: that men might come to the knowledge of them both, what faith is, & what hope & charity are, whence we should seche & desire our health & salvation, and in the mean season he putteth forth and showeth marvelous goodly counsels, by which the christen relygeon may be suckered and helped, which is sore sick and accumbered with superstitions. He uttreth & setteth forth before us the troth, as it is, most simple & plain/ and therefore I thought it best, to use in this my translation semblable manner of oration and speech, & not any such which should set forth itself gaily to the sale, with craft & colours deeply sought. I have translated it well near word for word/ to th'intent that the oration should keep itself within the dams of his original ronnyge nothing at all out of the banks & that I would neither add neither put to any piece of mine owen cloth to the naked truth/ nor yet deminyshe & break away any piece of the same. Thou hast no cause therefore/ reader/ to be offended/ though some things here do not rightly fall in to their own meet clauses and sentences/ or though some things do gape wide/ and do not join very closely together: saying that I did not regard nor had respect/ how eloquently I could translate this book: but how faith fully & truly I could do it: for as much as it is a work so excellently virtuous & godly/ and also erudite and clerkly that never a one of the pillars of the church (as they call them) who ever he be/ need to be a shamed of it/ the contents whereof would to god that the hole world not only would read: but also would in their minds emprynte/ and that they according to the councils of it/ would order the public state/ so that there were nothing whereof we might repent us greatly of this our time/ both learned men/ yea & also unlearned persons do every where make works being moved with sundry affections/ but to speak of a work/ which did so wisely/ & so plainly and boldly/ say the troth at large/ that even the very adversaries are constrained & compelled to confess & grant all things to be very so/ and none otherwise/ I never saw any as yet hitherto. The world is all out of quiet/ and sore brosed & troubled with great dissensions and strives/ that a man in a manner/ can not know/ whether he may torn himself/ by the reason hereof that in the steed of Idols: Christ himself is restored again unto us/ and in the stead of the law: is restored grace/ & for the flesh is restored the spirit/ & in stead of ceremonies: the true honour and worshipping of god/ & in stead of gross & carnal works/ are restored the very works of god: which are to believe in him whom the father hath sent/ as it is written in the sixth chapiter of john. All which things we are nota/ of us able to take and perceive▪ and hereof are risen so great discords and debates. But by that time that thou haste one's red this book/ thou shalt without doubt understand & perceive/ what thou oughtest to regard/ & what to believe/ & whereunto to leave and trust: so that it may be plainly & utterly to the in that stead of a certain squire or rule/ according to which thou mayst direct thy mind in these so great troubles and unquietness. For it showeth unto thee/ christ & his word: unto the glory and victory of whom I pray god it may turn what so ever is written: for all other works/ what thing else are they but foolish vanities and very trifles be they never so eloquently and connyngely made. The study of many men which do write & make works now a days I do commend & allow/ but the ambition of them and their greedy desire of glory and praise I do hate & abhor, namely of them which do so directly fight against the gospel/ which vndoubtedli have through the grace & favour of god: very valiant & stout captains & as it were certain Annyballes/ whereupon the side & part of the pope of Rome/ there are many such as were in old time/ Semproniꝰ Flamynius & varro yea & far exceeding & passing all these said persons in temeryte & ignorance/ let christ be judge. Far well good reader & look well upon this work: for to thy profit and behoof it is made/ the xxiiij day of february in the year of our lord god. A thousand five. C. twenty and three   

The preface in to the work entitled of the old god, & the new god/ of the old faith & doctrine, and of the new faith & doctrine.  
The grace and fortitude or strength of the lord be unto all christian men in christ: and unto those that are seduced and do err, a return again in to the right way: and unto the blind & obstinate and hard hearted pharisees, a forewarning of the terrible & dreadful judgement, and knowledge of the unmeasurable & infinite goodness of god in Christ jesus, Amen.  
FOr as much as the sword sent down from heaven (whereof our lord doth speak in the ten chapter of math) hath in this our time renewed itself, and is now come forth free & naked from the covert of the close scabert/ wherein it hath been long hid, (that is to wit, from worldly wisdom/ from traditions of men/ from ceremonies/ from counterfeit and disguised holiness) but yet being through dust & long being unoccupied/ unbright and defiled with rust. Our lord jesus christ pytieng this condition and state of that sword, which he had many years agone delivered and betaken to Paul, and to the apostles, to overcome and subdue the mighty sceptres of kings and princes, & the Empyers of darkness: hath now again commended and betaken the same sword unto his written & elect Captayes & mynesters: which being drawn forth and rid out of the seabarde: forthwith at the beginning of the furbyshing and scouring out of the rusty spots afore gathered, suddenly do break forth and spread themselves abroad mists of all manner kinds and sorts, that is to wite of the worldly wise men/ of proud rich men/ and men of power/ of covetous men/ of the servants/ of lechery and bodily lust/ of counterfeit and feigned religion/ & the devil himself also, which being again adredde and standing in fear of himself to take hurt & to be overcome, doth covet & desyere the old wicked and ungracious peace, the quiet and peaceable seat of his power ini hypocrisy, doth look about by Ambassadors/ and by pertyes, by his friends, for aid and soccourre: wherefore the hid and secret treasures are now opened & showed/ that is to say, where as above certain hundredth years a go, kings, princes, lords, cities, rich men, even until this day have given liberal gifts to the honouring and worshipping of god, as chyrstes Monasteries/ benefices/ provinces/ castles/ villages/ tithes/ liberties/ & such other things, weening that thereby high reverence doth come to god/ which goods of the church are now granted to the sons of kings & princes for this intent and purpose, that they also should be of those parts and sides/ and the same goods also are given in the stead of stipend and wages unto the pestilent and mischievous flyees and locusts of Egypt: for by this mean (as they believe) they shall close up again the fearful sword in his sheath or scabbard, and shall obtain and get our old peace/ but the glittering brightness of the fiery sword, hath so pierced & entered in to the eyes of many men's hearts, that strife is sprung & risen well near in all the earth the son rising against his father/ and the daughter against her mother/ & all the hole house being in a stir & great unquietness, & every one in others top/ through discord and debate. Besides this the colleges of the men of the church, & the parts of the religious persons, which are excellently learned and wise, holding their peace, as if they were dumb, and their speech taken from them: the simple and unlearned commonalty do enserch the deep & marvelous mysteries of, god and speaketh them after divers ways to and fro: whereof is risen a proverb among many men, I take part with the old god, the old faith, and the old doctrine/ I will believe as my father, and mother, & mine ancestors have believed/ and either of the parts will accuse the other of error and justify them selves and show the right/ all the which things have constrained me to give knowledge, briefly what is either the old god or the new, and by the course of holy scriptures and of histories to give comen instruction in all such manner questions and controversies or strives/ by the mean of which instruction every man being not of a stubborn nature & of obstinate manners might the sooner wax wise & amend/ & that no man should bind himself to contentions and false understanding of the manifold honouring and worshipping of god as a vain, a corrupt, and hurtful thing, of no value & an obscure & dark thing, and that we might follow straight & directly the scripture of god, & that according to it as to a rule, we should direct ourselves & all our deeds/ and that we should search out the curnell or inner meat of the scriptures/ betaking the chaff and the husks thereof to the wind. Now in this book is showed the very original fountain & spring/ out of the which died issue our banishment in to this vale of wretchedness and misery and how that blindness and the malygnyte of sin in us did begin and spring of the incredulity and unbelief of our first father Adam, out of which as out of the rote all Idolatry hath grown and sprung up. Consequently in this book is also showed & rehearsed by the histories the very beginning of all manner superstition in the worshipping of false gods/ and whereby lucifer/ Belus/ Pallas/ juno/ Venus/ Saturnus/ jupiter/ purchased & gate to themselves the names of gods and goddesses. Then afterwards is showed the blindness of the jews after the nativity of Christ, impiety of philosophers, and the perverse & corrupt understanding and mysconstruing of the scriptures used of heretics. last of all is showed, how through the sleight and deceit of the devils, that proud creature which we do now call the pope, hath been exalted and advanced above god, even divine honours being decreed to the same pope by the most pestilent host of flatterers, which fight under him as their captain/ from the which pope as from the head of abused power & authority, 
the pope is head  the multitude of errors have descended in to all the body of the whole world, Christ being well near so put out of place, and brought out of mind that he is in manner more unknown to us, then any stranger. And in the church of Rome (moche after the fashone that was in the old time under the fiends) are used divers ceremonies & strange & marvelous worshipping of god, which knoweth none end of varyete and sundry fashions/ which thing is open for every man to see. It showeth also how Rome doth confirm/ doth condemn/ doth judge all things/ so that a man may not without good cause call it in to trial and judgement/ whether he that now reigneth at Rome/ be Antychryst/ or else we ought to look for some other antichrist hereafter to come: saying that this man in all points that is to wite both in his doctrine and also in his living/ is far disagreeing & in manner clean contrary to the doctrine and life of Christ which both him self & also his apostles did neither teach so/ neither yet did have any such things in use: but did forbid, and also did curse such manner doctrine, and such rites or ceremonies.   

& The first book.  
THat there was a departing and division made even from the beginning of the world, forth with as soon as reasonable cratures, received life: the nature of angels do evidently declare/ for part of them did follow god and part of them died depart and fall away from god, making a new god to themselves, that is to wite lucifer/ man in earth, (for of Adam forthwith broke forth Abel & Cain two sundry & divers ways: in to which all their posterity have entered & do even yet walk in they & so shall walk even to the world (end) did search out high acts/ now if we do read the old histories, 
In the book of Genesis and thorough out the Bible.  as manetho among the Aegeptions/ Berosus the histo. of the chaldeis/ Mochus & Estius of the syryans/ Hisiodus & josephus of the Jews/ and Tytus lyviꝰ of the Romans: then do we find most sure and undoubted, & also most true tokens, that all men of all times have been both in other things, but most specially in the honouring & worshipping of god, marvelously disagreeing & stiffly contrary one to another/ in so much that every land and region hath devised & imagined to itself a proper & a new & strange god, not herd of before. ¶ The first original cause of so manifold & divers gods, was the incredulite & unbelief of our first father adam. For after that the eternal & the very god had showed himself unto Adam, & he had given little credence to the word of god he came therefore in to inobedyence, which was the occasion of his headlong fall: for in the mean season when he did not fere god by faith & belief, he did search out things ꝑteining to his own self, that is to wite, that he might get the cunning & knowledge of good & evil, trusting that thereby it should have come to pass, that he should have been made like unto god: then suddenly the lord god did reject him & cast him of as one being an unbeliever, & as one being disobedient unto his commandment. Thereof hath diffydence or unbelief, & wantonness, and temeryte entered in & possessed all the lands of Adam, out of which we all seli wretches do creep forth, & that nature we have all the meinie of us sucked out of the breast and bosom of our mother Eve, with so great violence and might that all we men and women are by the comen progress and course, gendered & brought forth indyffydence, & unbelief as saint Paul saith in his epistle to the Ro. Therefore aft mine opinion & judgement, 
what original sin is.  original sin is none other thing than incredulity or unbelief, and wytching or rebellion & disobedience against god, which cometh with us in to this world. Therefore the offering up of sacrifices in the law of nature, & Circuncision in the law of moyses, & Baptism in the law of grace, are certain divers tokens of belief towards god in which men have faithfully & boldly excercised themselves to faith to the signification and betokening of the inward man being obedient & giving credence to the words & promise of god/ for the sign and token without faith & belief is vain & unprofitable/ & when the sign or seal & mark of faith which was imprinted in us by the invocation of the name of god, doth come to our mind & remembrance: them we ought evermore to take an occasion from the innermost desire of our heart to give credence, & to give thanks unto the exceeding grace of god given unto us, and to his most benign & liberal promises. For the greatest of all sacrifices is a right & true christian faith: which after that thou hast exercised, thou dost verily a profitable work, & dost not wither & dry up with idleness as certain blind persons do. If Adam had verily believed the word of god: he should never have fallen, upon whom the justice of god (& not unworthy) took vengeance & punishment/ the same perverse & corrupt nature of unbelief & disobedience of our first parent, all we his offspring have taken and received as our inheritance every one after other: so that commonly nature guiding & leading us there unto, we are in all things held with the love of our own selves/ & our own things we do seek magnify & advance/ and do prefer them afore all things, and of ourselves do form and make as it were a certain god/ so did Cain prefer himself before his brother Abel, and did byelde the first city, 
The first begynnge of Idoltrye  called Enoch & made himself a king/ so also Nembrothe being proud and high minded began to byelde the proud kingdom of Babylon/ so sen the king of the assyrianes, 
The first grease or step.  grand father to Abraham, did byelde the first temple of Idolatry, setting forth men for to be honoured in the stead of god/ not long after when Belus the son of Nembrothe had governed Babylon and all the kingdom of Assiria with marvelous peace and tranquillity by the space of three score and fyfftene years: Ninus the son of Belus, willing to get the favour of the people, & glory, did set up an image of his father very cunningly and workmanly carved upon an high pillar, in the mids of the market place/ ꝓnounsinge and openly declaring it to be a certain sanctuary & place of refuge, that who soever, of what so ever trespass or crime they were guilty, did run for succour unto that image, they should be safe & untouched, and delivered. Into the which image anon after the old serpent lucifer did enter giving oracles and answers unto men: by the reason whereof the Assirianes and the people of Babylon began to worship a new god called Beel. 
Beel the first new god.  After the death of Ninus forthwith came Beel in use, and by succession and process of time Beel was taken for a very and an old ancient god/ which Beel continued afterwards in babylon by the space of fifteen hundredth years, as long as that proud kingdom did stand undestroyed. 
The three goddesses of Paris.  Pallas. juno. Venus appeared unto Paris the son of Pryamus the king of Troy/ whiles he was a sleep, as unto a judge which of them was most excellent in beauty: upon whom the young man was so marvelously enamoured, that both the images of them were set up in churches, & also that the very Images selves/ which did speak & give answers by the fraud and deceit of the serpent, were accounted and taken for goddesses. 
Saturn.  Saturnus being a very witty & also a diligent & good husbandman purchased & gate to himself such laud & praise among men: that whom they took for a king in his life time, the Image of him after his death they did worship as the god of the earth. 
jupiter.  jupiter the son of the said saturn in the isle of Creta inclined & prone to play at the dyesse, being also ambyeyous & desirous of honour, & also an horemonger, for to purchase & get to him self most high honour & worship, spent largely moche gold & silver, & gave exceeding great rewards, specially about the deceiving & wynnyge of young women, which were excellent in beauty and fairness, whom he did beguile through dysguysing of himself, in many sundry appelles, & so appearing in diverse likenesses: of the which sleight and craft Ovid took the occasion of writing his book entitled, Methamorphoses. And the same jupiter also after that he was departed from this life, was called by the name of god: and in process of time was made an old god. 
The cause of idols.  Semblably may we rehearse all the gods of blind antiquity. For who so ever was notable/ whether he were a king, as Belus, or else a covetous man as Saturnus/ or else ambitious, as jupiter/ or else a cruel and bloody tyrant as Mars/ or else witty & eloquent as Pallas & Mercuryus/ or else given to voluptes & pleasures of the body, as Venus & Priapus/ or else drunken & overcomen with wine, as Bacchus/ or else a soothsayer & teller of things after to come, as Apollo/ or else a wise & cunning hunter, as Dyana: briefly what so ever notable, special, & singular thing they did find to the use & perfect of men thereof they got the name of a god. Then as soon as the images of such excellent men or kings were set up in the steed of a god: the devil entered in to the said Images, 
The craft and deceit of the devil.  playing masteries in these stocks, otherwhiles casting forth fire, or else making & causing dreams to men, that if they would lay sick & diseased persons afore this or the Image, and would kill some beast, & offer it up in sacrifice to that god, they that were diseased should receive their health again: by this craft & mean was idolatry begun, and also continued & increased among them of the old tyme. Afterwards in so great a multytud, & as a man would say, an host of divers & sundry gods, every king, when he should go forth to make battle, chose him out a god, some one, some an other (as diverse men are of sundry appetites & affections) such a one as they thought meet for their business: as for example, the god Mars/ or the goddess Bellona, (I take record of the Capitalie house in rome, which was full of diverse gods) to whom he would make sacrifice, and whose counsailles or oracles & answers he would take. Another desiring a young woman to his wife/ & that a fair & a well favoured one: worshipped venus. The husband man, that was greedy & desirous of corn and fruits of the earth, did honour & made his prayers to Saturnus: likewise as he that was sick & diseased, did make his prayers to Apollo, for the recovery of his health/ And they that were desirous of sapience & wisdom (as the greeks) did pray unto Dyana or Pallas which gods and goddesses had every one of them their own proper priests/ which did comen with the ꝓdigious & wonderful images, 
The priests of the gods called Flamines.  as interpreters of their minds/ unto which priests the co-men people both men & women did resort to take instruction of bringing & offering sacrifices & gifts to the god: & so one land after another falling from the worshipping of very god, would have a proper god of their own, whom they supposed to be more mighty & puissant than all other gods/ wherefore the holy prophet Helias did mock & scorn the goddess Baal, & their four hundredth prophets, And hereof also the Ephesyons were proud of the most noble and famous temple of Dyana, 
The temple of Diana within the city of Ephesus.  which was reckoned among the marvels & wunderful works of the world, which thing was unto many men an accasyon of entering in to their provinces, breaking the gods all to gobbets, because the gods being equal in goodness, thus dissension and stryeffe among themselves, did war each to destroy other. And this superstition lasted and continued about the space of two thousand and three score and two years, before the coming of our lord jesus Christ. But after that the lord and king of glory, the son of god came down from heaven, from the bosom of his eternal father unto us wretched & blind sinners, to take upon himself the nature of mankind: than was there a bridal cast upon these counterfeited, 
Christ jesus the vanquissher of idolatry.  & forged, & new gods (which yet in their time were among men accounted for old gods) and a mark was prefixed & set up, that they should not from thensforth so mightily have dominion & rule over the world, that the scripture should be fulfilled. sapi. xiv. And Christ jesus began to teach man kind, that the very eternal god, & the old god, which was afore the beginning of the world, was to be acknowledged and to be worshipped in spirit and troth/ by the reason whereof in divers and many places the temples decayed and fell down, the images at the coming of the truth of christ/ waxing dumble, & the ꝓphesyenge spirit or breath of the caves or dens wearing out and vanyshing away, & the might of the christian faith and religion increasing and waxing stronger & stronger. This thing could not the old serpent abide & suffer, to see himself thus to grow all together into contempt: 
The cause of the persecution of the christian men.  he did therefore conspire & spoke to the priests of the false gods (which were called flamines) that they should chase and drive christian people out of all places, and oppress them, because they did teach strange things & new things against the old faith & belief: and so the kings & princes being persuaded thereunto by the said priests, did exercise exceeding great and cruel tyrannies, and wheresoever the christian people had become or stirred themselves: there was no remedy but forthwith they must needs lease their lives/ and as though death had not been enough for them, they were vexed afore & tormented with intolerable torments, & the most sore pains that could be devised/ and the tyrants did suppose and ween, that of such cruel handling of the christian men, there did come high & singular reverence to the gods, & also the by the reason thereof themselves should have the better speed and fortune. But after that the chosyne and elected soldiers of Chryst most virtuous christian men had put their confydens & trust in Chryst: he assisted them with his present & mighty aid and help/ working by them through his mighty and wonderful power many marvelous things/ as that the idols did fall to dust and powder, and were brought to nought/ and that the slayghtes and deceits of the priests, and of the prophets and soothsayers came to light and were openly known with their great infamy and shame/ and that the kinds and their empires, (as it were compelled) were subdued to the christian faith. Then the old serpent, 
Lucifer the first new god.  the first and new god lucifer, did cast and compass in his own mind these crafty counsels/ The idols or images, and the offering of beasts in sacrifice (said he to himself) decayeth & goeth away/ thy name is despised, 
The craft & subtlety of the same Lucifer.  seorned, & set at nought/ all divine honours, & also the sweet smelling frākentens are taken a way from thee: thou must find another way & some other crafty provision, seeing that this way hath deceived the. As long as christian men did not greatly esteem nor set moche by temples or churches, and by the pomps of the same, but all their power & might stood in the scripture, they vanquished & overcame all men with their speech, & no man was able to take them in so marvelous a doctrine as they did teach: that god hath a son/ & that the same son had taken flesh upon him, & afterwards had suffered passion, being nailed on a cross/ had died/ had ryson again from death to life/ & that they ought to believe the gospel according to the rule whereof we ought to live, to be patient in tribulation & necessity/ to love our enemies/ to do them good/ to pray for them & such other things, which the priests of the maumettes had never told to the kings & princes, but had often times told them the contrary things to these. Also christen men did so constantly & perfectly lead an honest, a loving, & a peaceable life/ that one of them (that is to wite Augustyne) did say, I would not believe the gospel, unless the authority of the church (that is to say, of the christian men, which by the means of the gospel have grown up in so commendable a life) did compel me/ as though he should say, seeing that so honest men & virtuous, so good & so chartable, & loving among themselves, & so holy & just men do springe & grow up of the doctrine of the gospel: it can not be otherwise but that the doctrine of the gospel is true and just. And afterwards this wicked & ungracious serpent full of a thousand crafts and guiles, 
The second degree of idolatry.  considered and pondered the first principles, that is to say, the foundation and ground work of the christian faith, disputing & reasoning in this wise with himself: thou waste among all creatures the fairest and most beautiful/ the most wise, & the most noble in nature/ and most reasonable, and most perfit of understanding/ and thou gavest no credence to the word and commandment of god, but thou wast disobedient to his precept: therefore thou waste cast down headlong from the place that thou wast in, and was rejected and forsaken. Then afterwards he used such a manner of argument also. The first men Adam and Eve, they also by the reason that they did not believe God, nor obey his commandment, came in to the same estate of ꝑdition: And like wise Cain and Saul. wherefore experience doth teach me, that who so ever doth not believe God, & give credence to those things, either which he hath promised, or which he hath spoken: that man shallbe rejected and forsaken of God, and shall be dampened. Of which things doth follow this corner stone for the foundation, That there can be no greater, no more profitable, nor none more acceptable work to God, than if a man doth holly in all things give credence to the words and commandments of God, with out any questioning or enserchinge of the causes: as my capital and deadly enemy isaiah doth say in the forty chapiter/ who was of counsel with him? Besides this I do understand and perceive of the apostles that they utterly believe their jesus of Galyle/ and what soever they do speak, it is scripture/ they do neither add any thing thereto, neither minish any thing therefro, leaving the words as god spoke them. wherefore Messiah doth assist them so strongly, that no power of the Emperors of Rome can any thing prevail against them. For the more christian men that are out to death by sore & cruel torments: by somyche the more cheerfully, and the more boldly and manfully do they fight for the faith, and do teach it. But this policy and craft thou shalt use, & thus thou shalt do. Thou knowest very well he worm, with which the hook was baited, wherewith Adam/ Eve/ Cain/ Nembroth/ Saul/ Hieroboam/ and such other were alured & taken: Thou shalt cast thy hook again, and let it hang/ thou canst not tell, what fish thou mayst happen to draw up at the next draft, if the hook be devoured & swallowed in together with the bait: and so the old wily & guileful serpent began his fishing, covering and hiding the hook with meat/ & convenient bait for his purpose (by the hook, understanding disobedience/ by the bait incredulity. For whosoever distrusteth, doth believe nothing) So anon he got certain of the juwes/ which did repine & speak against the doctrine of the apostles accusing them to be seductours & deceivers, which went about to withdraw the people from the law of Moses to an other law, & therefore that they were not to be followed, nor their doctrine to be believed/ for who so ever (they said) were not circumcised, and did not live according to the law of Moses: that man was fallen from eternal health & salvation. O how delectable & pleasant, and also how bright and how clear a bait did that most ungracious and mischievous deceiver lay for the jews? Suppose you, or ween you that the jews might with honesty have said, The Apostles do teach a new faith, and they do teach errors and heresies/ but we will believe in the old god of Israel, and we will give credence to the old faith and doctrine: whereunto what did Paul answer? he did not make any phylosophycall disputation & reasoning, but said, If you will be circumcised, 
Gala. v.  then is Christ not profitable nor advayllable unto you. O foolish creatures, who hath bewitched you, that you should not believe and obey the truth? O Paul would god thou were living now these days. with this deceitful bait the old serpent did creep through all the corners of the world, and in what soever place the apostles and disciples did preach the gospel, suddenly the chief priests & the pharisees broke forth, laying against them the law of Moses, the old god of Israel, the old faith and belief: & when they were not able to make their party good, nor to match them in doctrine/ then they fell to opprobrious and rebukeful words/ to raising seditions against them/ to beating and punishing of them, which thing the most noble captain Paul doth witness in the xi chap. of his second epistle to the Corinthyanes', most grievously complaining from the bottom of his heart, of the labours and travails/ of the strokes/ of the shypwrakes/ of manifold dangers and jeopardies of false brothern. etc. which place I beseech the to read diligently, and it shall make the sorry at thine heart, to see that Paul for his so great labours and travails was so unkindly and ungentily entreated. And this most ungracious and cursed bait of unbelief the devil, carried about, nigh the space of two and forty years, until that the jews were all wholly vaynquesshed and overcomen by Tite and Vespasian, and were compelled to forsake their own country, and wander about like banished men: which said jews even yet at this day do receive the aforesaid bait of perdition, wherewith (alack for pity) they shall be stangled for evermore. But after that this bait was so published and so well known, 
The third degree.  that men being ware and wife would no longer be taken and be made fast with the hook, despising and setting at nought such manner meats: Then he put upon the hook meat of an other colour, that is to wite, the power and authority of the emperors & kings (as we have taught heretofore) according to the comen proverb: when words can nothing avail, than we must provoke to strokes. But by how moche the more cruelly the princes did exercise their tyranny: by so much the more the christian faith waxed strong and gathered fast roots. 
The fourth degree.  Then did the ungracious wily serpent cast this in his mind, by this way I am never the nearer to my purpose, The kind of men is constant/ strong/ steadfast/ and do stand styflye, and will not once be stirred & moved out of their place: I must take some other way/ & devise some other policy: seeing that for all that ever the jews & tyrants can help, yet thou art never a deal the further: now take also on thy side the disciples & scholars of the priests that served the idols, (which were the philosophers that had in times passed learned many things of the said priests) and first he perceived the Greeks to be very meet persons for this business, as the Athenienses in Boetia/ Corinthia and Achaia. These philosophers did rise against christian men, laughing to scorn all that ever they did speak of the Nativity and death of Christ: bringing forth arguments and reasons out of the books of the philosophers/ Aristotle/ Socrates/ Pythagoras/ and of the seven wise men of Grecelande/ and by crafty and very subtle sylo gismes, they did infer and conclude it to be impossible, that a deed man could rise again from death to life. And what soever such things the christian men had put forth concerning any point of our faith/ the Greeks always gain said & withstood it very subtilye and wisely with their philosophy/ in so much that saint Paul also was moved and stirred to say to the Corinthians in the first epistle and the first chapter, But we do preach Christ, crucified/ to the jews an occasion of falling/ & to the Greeks foolishness. But yet not withstanding when miracles did follow the doctrine of the gospel: at the last they did believe the gospel. And this disputation & strife between the christian men & philosophers endured and continued after Christis ascension about the space of three hundred years. But yet (to speak as to the worldward) the christian men must needs than be in thraldom and subjection/ and to keep themselves within a narrow and straight room: for contempt and despising did follow them (as the shadow followeth the body) thorough banyshementes/ torments, ꝑsecutions, and deaths. But never did the church of christian men stand either better or more blessedly & prosperously, than in those three hundredth years. After which in the year of our lord three hundredth and eleven came Constantyne, 
Constantine  a good man and a noble, & a great favourer and lover of the religion of god, which when he should make against Maxentius the tyrant, a murderer of christian men, and a tormentor of good men, a neocromancer, and the author and causer of the murder & destruction even also of his well-beloved. And when the said Constantine took great care and thought for that battle: it happened him as he lay a sleep in his bed to have a dream or vision that he was making battle against Maxentius, and in the mean season appeared to him in the air a cross of gold towards the east, and when he asked and demanded what manner a sign and token this was, there sounded in his ears a loud voice sent down from heaven, saying: Constantyne in this sign & token thou shalt win the victory. Anon after he awoke, musing sore what manner image this should be: and when it was day light, he gathered and assembled a counsel of his nobles and great lords, by whom he had perfect understanding and knowledge, that the Cross is the sign and badge of christian men, whom he did also send for afterwards, which did preach and tell many things to him of the holy cross, and of the christian faith, to whom constantine the emperor made answer in this wise: If I have good speed in my battle against Maxentius, so that I do get the victory: I myself also will become a christian man. And so he did, as it were arm himself & his soldiers with the holy cross of Christ: and fighting with Maxentius he did most valiantly get the victory of him, & also did most prosperously triumph. And when the Romans according to the usage and custom had decreed to Constantine, pompous & royal ornaments and other things appertaining to a goodly triumph: he answered and said, These things are not due to me, but to Christ, & therefore he did set up a very noble and goodly cross, and was baptized and became a Christian man. Here the Roman history, which is had in the .xcvj. dist. Constantinus. etc. doth say that the donation was made of the emperor Constantyne, the four day after his baptism: when saint Hierome in the history called Tripertita historia, doth record, that Constantyne was not baptized afore the last end of his life, and that not at Rome, as these men do say, but in Nicomedia, which things do not stand well together nor agree one with the other. The Pope's law in this place doth feign many excellent and goodly donations and grants/ to have been made to the pope of Rome, that the rule & governance of the hole world is granted to the pope of rome, & that the majesty of kings & princes is subject to him. etc. which things do take no likelihood or colour at all of the testament of Constantius. For this Constantius likewise as his father Constantinus governed th'empire of Rome, And after Constantius likewise did julyanus. etc. This is of truth, he gave to christian men licence & leave to build churches, & he adorned the same church's with rich gifts, and he granted liberty to preach the gospel in every place: but he neither gave room, neither yet any other province or nation. 
The crafty policies & counsels of Satan.  The old serpent took recourse again to his old crafts & subtylties, he ꝑpared & ordained a crafty bait to the hook, reasoning thus with himself, it is now come to pass, that the emꝓour of the Romans hath forsaken the for his captain/ he is fallen from taking thy ꝓte, & from worshipping of thee/ that images of the gods in the capytalie house do decay, & are trodden under the feet/ their temples are shit up & do fall down to ground/ thus shalt thou do trusting to the help of philosophers, thou shalt sow false seed into the field of the scriptures, that is to wit, ꝓuerse & wrong understanding, so that the unite & concord of christian men may be broken insunder into diverse ꝓtes, 
Herespes did spring of philosophy.  & by the reason thereof, their faith shall begin to wax weak, to fail, & to be suspected & mistrusted, & then shall thy gods rise up again/ and so the hook being covered with this bait, a certain priest among the christian men did devour and swallow it in, whose name was Arrius, a Graecian in Alexandria of Egypt, 
Arrius.  when he fortuned to read that place in the xiv. chap. of Iohn: Pater me maior est, my father is greater than I: he took thereof occasion to teach a difference in the most blessed trinity, saying that the father is the greatest, and most puissant of all/ and that next to him is the son, but inferior and less than the father/ and that last of all followeth the holy ghost, the least of all in the Trinity. Pluck up your ears, and listen o christian men, how full of wonderful frauds and guiles the old serpent is, by which he would break the corner stone of the true christian faith? in what wise he hath imagined and ordered all things from the beginning of the world, to th'intent that we should neither believe God, nor trust in him. Thou Arrius, why didst thou not also read that text in the ten of Iohn, Ego et pater sumus, I and my father be both one: And like wise when he said to Philippe, Qui videt me, videt et patrem, he that seeth me, seeth my father. And what other thing did deceive Arrius the priest, & bring him in to error: than the phylosophyes? whiles he would measure & judge the holy scripture by Aristoteles learning: Likewise as even these days over many men do, the more pity. This Arrius did draw after him a great flock of disciples & followers, which did extol & magnify him for a new god, by the reason of his doctrine. For those things, which he taught, he did fortify & strengthen with many philosophical arguments and syllogysmes, and also with many examples. But than that old Leviathan did tread on roses, and was not a little well appaid, after that he saw this invention and devise of his to go forward, and to come well to pass: that the christian men did disagree and were at variance among themselves. For both Constantius did consent & agree with Arrius, and also many excellent bishops, as Eusebius in Nicomedia, a city of Asia the the less: For in it and in Morae and in Achaia, and in Macedonia, all philosophers well near did spring up and begin, which did reign there in schools by the space of many years, continually from the time of Daris, the king of Asseria and of Medea, & these philosophers did believe nothing else, but only that, which reason did teach/ and lead them unto. In this said time the good and well learned man Athanasius was promoted unto the bishop rich of Alexandria/ which took upon him to show the verity & troth to Constantius. 
Athanas; ius  But what business had than the old Leviathan? what crafts and subtle guiles wrought he than? He proved false accusers/ which did is false lies so accuse that good and well learned bishop Athansius unto th'emperor Constantius/ that he was so far brought out of favour with the said emꝓour/ that he did a long season seek means & occasions to put Anathasius to death: but th'end & ꝓfe of the thing did full well declare and show his innocency. For Arrius within a little while after died a shameful death/ his entrelles & guts falling from him in to a privy or siege/ in the Synod of Niece/ as afterwards the aforesaid Athanasius in the city Treveres openly did express/ & put in writing upon the psalm Quicunque vult. So when the old dragon had drawn to him this fish hanging fast on the hook/ he preserved and kept the bait to beguile & take more with all, 
The beginning of heresies  because he saw that there was a great multitude of Arrianes/ which picking out divers and sundry texts of the scripture, did season them with their broth of the philosophies/ & cover them with a deceitful colour, and fastening them on the hook/ did take many unprofitable fishes nothing appertaining to the vessel of salvation/ as Macedonius/ Nestorius/ Eurites/ Simon/ Valentiniane donatus. etc. In process of time about the number of lxviij of such unprofitable fishes, as it were the first draft/ did swallow in the bait and the hook withal. Hereof sprang so great dissensions and strifes among christian men, that the holy fathers and bishops were fain to take exceeding great labours and pains in disputing and writing against errors & heresies/ as Anastasius/ Eusebius/ Hilarius/ Cirillus/ Damascenus/ Ambrose/ Hierome/ and Augustine. etc.  
This dissension and diverse understanding of the scriptures, lasted and endured in certain places, about the space of eight C. years. And who soever is desirous to see the steps & tokens of the new gods, and of the new faith by name, let him read the decretals in the xxiiij cause and the third question Quidam. etc. In such manner disputions occasion was offered to good & worshipful fathers, by subtle and crafty objections of philosophy, to take in their hands whatsoever manner weapons, to cast forth against them/ although they were otherwiles unlike & not agreeing to the holy scripture. But yet for asmuch as they did it full sore against their wills, and did fight of a pure and a good faithful mind: they were promitted and suffered to retreat, and call again such things as their works do sufficiently witness and record. wherefore saint Augustyne said not unwisely, other men's works (saith he) I do so read, that, be they never so excellent in holiness and doctrine/ yet I do not therefore think their sayings true/ because they did so say and think: but because they have been able to persuade it unto me to be true/ by the canonical scriptures/ or else by probable reason. Ungracious and cursed Lucifer continually trusting after heavenly honour and worship/ still compassed and did cast all policies and crafts to & fro in his mind and left no way unassayed, having his mind steadfastly set upon all the state of christian men, and well avising it/ he ꝓceyved and marked th'emperors making war among themselves/ and other provinces: by the reason whereof they had ones fallen again from the faith of christ/ & might little give their mind to holy scriptures: 
The office of the bishops in old time,  which the bishops did study/ all other things despised/ preaching the gospel in poverty/ neither was the bishop of Rome any thing else at that time, than a pastor or herds man/ not a king and lord/ as he is now/ and so likewise in other cities also, the bishops did exercise the office of shepherds/ they had not the dominions and lordship's/ and the governance and rule of the world nor did not seek their own honour and lucre: they taught the people the kingdom of God/ they comforted & cherished poor folks. For at that time the people did minister & give to them their necessaries, and also money to be distributed among poor and needy folks, according to the example given by the apostles: but of the great & noble estates, & of the dukes and lords they had many injuries and persecutions done unto them/ & they submitted themselves/ suffering patiently all adversity and tribulation for the name of the lord. But the comen people with great fidelity comforting each other/ as every place was most in quiet and tranquillity: so thither they did most assemble & gather themselves together. As for example in Egypt/ where saint Antony did win many disciples unto Christ/ the christian people swarming there so thick/ that certain thousands of men and women did in that place live a life according to the heavenly philosophy, that is to wite, according to the gospel in mortifying of the flesh as saint Hierome doth witness.  

The decay and fall of the Roman Empire.  In those days in the year of our lord. CCCC. lxxvi. and after, the Emperors still making wars (for by destiny th'end of the Roman Empire was then near at hand) the families and lineages of the said Emperors were destroyed and plucked up by the roots, and there was a capitain made governor of Rome called Orestes, which had given this honour to his own son/ that he should be called not Augustus (which was the proper and true name of the emperors) but Augustulus, which was as you would say/ a small encreacer of th'empire. For the old Roman Cesar th'emperor of the west ꝓte, that is to wit, of Rome/ of Italy, of France/ of Germany, was thrust from that empire/ and in his stead Isaurus the emperor of Constantinople, had set Orestes one of the senators blood/ and had made him captain & governor of Rome/ which did substitute & make his son Augustulus governor of the city after himself, and so the noble city of Rome/ which sometime was lady and masters of all the world/ did serve under a captain without any Roman Emperor. Then rose up a prince beyond the borders of Hungary (as I suppose out of walachia) whose name was Odoacer Russus, which with a great army assembled, took his journey strait toward rome/ against whom came forth the captain Orestes being also armed with his legions/ to meet with him/ and to withstand him: but at the first sight of valiant & bold Odoacer, he fled towards Papia. But Odoacer Russus pursuing fast after him, laid siege to the city/ and wan it by battle/ and slew Orestes. And afterwards walking to and fro throughout all Italy/ making havoc and great destruction in all places where he went/ when he found none enemy that durst withstand him, he went straight to Rome to make war upon it/ and in conclusion was advanced by the sword to the Empire of Rome, and did govern it after his own pleasure/ and as he list himself/ And this is the decay and fall of the Roman Empire. 
The decay and fall of the west empiere.  In the year after the bielding of the City of Rome M.CC.xxix. and after the nativity of Christ CCCC. lxv. after that Odoacer had reigned at Rome xiiij years among other provinces and regions/ which were tributary to the Romans, France also was one, and after certain years when the Romans did require tribute/ the french men did rebel and did try the natier with the Romans by battle: wherein the Roman host being overcome and driven out of France/ the french men did elect and make a king over themselves, one Pharamundus/ and in like manner the other ꝓuinces also/ which afore time did belong to the Romans/ did now one and then another create kings of their own/ forsaking the city of Rome from the yoke of obedience. Of which said city withdrawing themselves by little & little/ they were their own lords/ all servitude and subjection clean shaken of. For as Odoacer had won and gotten Rome by violence and strong hand: even so likewise was it taken again from him/ for he was slain of Theodoricus of the goths/ so the the noble and famous City of Rome was made a pray to all out tyrants and nations: 
Rome turned into a pray.  even so as the city of Melayne hath been in our days, whereof at one time an Vngaryan/ at an other time a Greciane/ at another time a Gotthiane/ and within a little while after in Armenyan hath had the rule & governance: he that is most mighty/ & can do most with weapons & guns, is nearest it & most set by with them.  
There is not one word in any writing, that the pope at those days did desire Rome or that he made any war at all/ either against Rome, or else against any other nation, he had hid himself in a corner in poverty, and adversity, living by his own joys and mosture. But in the year after the incarnation of Christ five hundred and xix justinius th'emperor, a very good man/ a Gotthiane, did govern the city of Constantinople, which calling forth the bishops from the corners, wherein they lay hid as banished men/ did show towards them great benevolence & favour. After whom succeeded justinianus his sisters son/ which was so great a lover of justice and righteousness, 
Justinian.  that he did gather together all the constitutions of the Roman emꝓours, and did set them in order/ which until this day we do call the Civil or th'emperors law. This justinian considering the ruins and decays of the Roman empire/ did recover again certain provinces from the enemies of the Romans, & so did set up again the Roman Empire/ which for the most part was decayed and fallen down/ and he did also bielde goodly churches in the honour of god, specially at Constantinople/ enriching them with great treasures and riches/ adding also thereunto yearly meat & drink and cloth to the ministers of the same. This thing did encourage the bishops & priests/ and they began to take heart again/ and to be cheerful & glad, all thoughts and cares clean cast away. At this time the bishop of Rome called Agapitus was sent to the emperor by Theodotius to make peace and unite, 
Agapitus' bishop of Rome.  all discords and debates laid aꝓte. This Agapitus was so holy a man, that as he entered the gates of Constantinople/ a certain blind man received again his sight: which things were done in the year of our lord. CCCCC. thirty. neither could then the new God lucifer leave using of his frauds and crafty guiles. About the year of our lord five hundred & lxxx. 
Gregory the first.  Gregorius Magnus the first of that name was made the bishop of Rome, the first emperor also then being of the Greeks/ one Maurice a Capadociane. At that time the riches of the bishop of Rome being well increased, the old serpent brought forth his hook again/ stirring moving enticing Maurice, that he should deadly pursue Gregory, & that all the other bishops also should be in great contempt. But when th'emperor continued and held on still to hate holy Gregory: the providence of god granted vengeance to be taken upon him, that is to wite that he was taken of Focas, which beheding Maurice, did afterwards hold the empire himself. This Gregory the first was the last bishop of Rome that did follow the steps of the martyrs and apostles, in living and doctrine. And albe it that from the reign of Constantine the bishops of Rome had daily increased more & more in riches, and had not any longer all of them ordered and led all their life so straightly & perfectly according to the rule of the gospel as they had done afore that time, but declynede & fell down by little and little from the gospel to ceremonies, making and publishing one law after another: yet had they but tolerably changed themselves until the time of Gregory, after whom they did utterly close and shit up the gospel book breaking in by salutations into the courts of princes openly/ as followeth. 
The fifth degree of idolatry.  In the year of our lord. CCCCC. iij. Focas a man borne of a low stock and degree but a valiant man of arms and a doughty warrior, was first in service with the captain & governor of Rome, and afterwards being elected & chosen Emperor in the tents, was a cruel tyrant. In the second year of his reign deceased out of the world the holy father Gregory: which is accounted and reckoned one of the four doctors of the church. But than the old dragon did garnish his hook with a bright bait by this craft, The lawful emperor was resident & had his seat in Constantinople. But yet nevertheless he had chosen and taken to himself a ꝓtener and fellow, which should occupy & govern the kingdom and Empire of the west part (as Rome, italy/ France/ Germany) th'emperor of the westpart then being slain, as we have said before, & driven out, so that Rome was set out to ravin and robbery unto every man, & the nations did ransack away whatsoever things they might. In the mean season riches grew and increased to the bishop of Rome but not regions or people's/ but as it happeneth other whiles in treasures of money. Therefore than began the spirit of the gospel to keel and wax faint in him: because that the bishop of Constantinople did prefer himself afore the bishop of Rome, to whom forthwith the old serpent did proffer and reach forth a bait, which he had prepared and made ready before for the same purpose, 
Boniface the third.  (the bishop than was Bonyface the third of that name) uviht this manner colour/ what? wilt thou always lie still in misery & in contempt? Rome is the head city of all the world, it is a foul shame and rebuke to thee, that thou thyself art not also called the head bishop of all other: which name should much more rightfully agree & belong to thee, then to the patriarch of constantynople. The dominion and empyer of Rome is changed, and thou thyself art not in so low a condition and estate or degree among th'emperors/ as thy predycessours have been. The hook of this pride together with the bait did Bonifatius utterly swallow in fleeing to the friendship of the emperor Foeas, to whom he made instant request and prayer for the prevelege, that the bishop of Rome should be the highest of all other bishops/ that is to say, that he should be pope or father of father's/ and that the church of Rome should be head church of all other/ which thing albeit that it was long and much ado, 
How the name of pope first began.  ere it would be granted: yet for all that through importune request and prayer he obtained and brought it to pass at the last, that Focas did consent to the said privilege. But this thing do the Popes now a days wisely dissimule, and speak no word of it at all, crying out the the pope is the greatest of all bishops, and the church of Rome head above all other churches: and that by the ordinance of god immediately, as they do say in the xxij. distinction omnes & c why or for what cause then was the donation of Constantine forged by which the bishopric of Rome, should be above all other bishoprics/ and reign over them all? as they have it in their decrees in the. xc.vi. distinction, Constantinus. etc. The Romanistes do say even what soever they list of their own privileges and do put into their law what so ever thing smiteth into their brains, and cometh in to their mind: but yet no man durst be so bold to say against their law, unless he will be contented to be called by that terrible name of an heretic, as it is decreed in the ten and twelve distinctions, and also in the distinction, Sic omnes. et cete. This bait of glory, as I have said, did Boniface the pope devour and swallow in. But whether this thing be conformable and agreeing to the gospel of God, let other men judge: and this same hook did also catch and draw all the bishops that have succeeded the said Bonyface, so that it is made a law, yea more over a divine law, under pain of committing deadly sin/ who so ever should have other opinion or should think other wise of the primacy or pre-eminence of the bishop of Rome: 
Here begun the name of most holy father the pope.  and hereof came the name of the most holy father the pope/ and so they fond framed the scripture, tu es Petrus. etc. thou art Peter to the privileges of the emperors/ and of both these they made themselves a divine law. Oh what a strong and mighty Idol, and a new god, did then spring up and begin? For this name had never any bishop of Rome afore that tyme. But when the fire of contempt and poverty was quenched and put out/ than did riches, and slothful idleness bring forth such manner fruits, as we do see remaining still even at these days.  
Bonifacius even then forthwith usurped the title of Pope, writing himself, Bonyface the third of that name, greattyste bishop, and he gathered a counsel at Rome of the other bishops and priests/ in which counsel he decreed, that from that time forward, the pope being elected of the priests & the people, should be of the same strength and authority, and of as great reputation, as if he had been also confirmed by th'emperor/ which decree was clean repugnant and contrary to the old usage and custom of the emperors, and against the authority of confirming the bishops, which they had used from the first beginning that emperors became christian. But Boniface after he had obtained and gotten the privilege of th'emperor, that he might call himself pope: this recompense he made to Cesar to acquit him his kindness withal, he did privily derogate and minyshe th'emperors majesty and prerogative/ and presumed to be lord and ruler over the same emperor, of whom afore, as of his lord & emperor, through humble petitions and lowly requests, he had obtained the privilege of primacy and pre-eminence above other bishops/ how be it neither he himself, nor a certain meinie of his successors durst be so bold, as to put this decree openly in execution and use: because at that time the emperor had set a captain and deputy under him at Rome, one of the senatory stock, by whose election and approbation the pope's were created and made. But yet from then forward the pope's did so bear themselves, as though by right they were superiors to th'emperors, without whose help they did what soever thing they might: teaching bishops, that they should obey the pope/ rather than th'emperor. Yet is there one thing, that thou mayst compare and match to this so passing and outrageous pride. For not long after Focas being slain, which had granted so great privileges, to the vicar of Christ, so humbly and lowly requiring and beseeching him. Heraclius was made emperor in the year of our lord two hundred and twelve, 
The beginning of mahomettes sect & belief  at which time the new idol in very deed and the new god Mahomet an Ismaelite did rise/ which had builded and set up a new faith and belief, in which the Turks do live. After that the first new god lucifer had promoted and put forward his cause so far forth, that he had gotten one among christian men/ which did take unto himself the name of highest bishop, and the greatest lord of all men: the said Lucifer was well apaid and proud thereof, and thought this in his mind: Thou shalt proceed and go further fourth yet, seeing that thou hast thus broken the bedge and leapt over it, he cast forth his old bait well overlayed with guiles, afore the pope Constantyne in the year after the nativity of Christ six hundred lxxxvij which bait he greedily swallowing in, died desire more privyleges to be confirmed of justinian th'emperor of Rome/ the third of that name, (not of him that made the Civil law) by which things it is easy to perceive, by what mean that so great holiness hath sprungen & grown up. And so the pope's of Rome fell from the holy scripture, taking so great a name unto themselves, and taking also the chief rule in all matters and business/ and the chief seats and most honourable places, and began to join amity and friendships with princes & emperors, and learned to visit their courts/ intermeddling and making themselves to do with all matters and causes/ that were to be treated of this party and that party/ growing also and increasing well-fevouredly in possessions and riches, which manner of living endured and continued by the space of one hundred years. The mischievous & cursed fiend took great joy and pleasure, that his sleights and crafts did go so royally forward. For within a little while after, about the year of our lord seven hundred and eight/ the Emperor Leo, the third of that name, a Syriane borne/ deposed the patriarch of Constantinople, which was a German borne, and did substitute in his crown Anastasius. Then the pope Gregory the third broke forth, 
The first dissension of the pope & th'emperor.  and wrote to th'emperor, that he should restore the German to his old honour again, which thing, when Leo th'emperor would not do, Gregory after the counsel of the old serpent did move and persuade all Italy that they should forsake th'emperor (but not according to th'ensample of the old pope's, which lived after a low sort/ whom also he did excommunicate to th'intent & purpose/ that whiles the emperors did keep wars amongs themselves, the empire might fall in to his hands, for as much as he was of great name among the princes. The old serpent straight way without any delay anointed bait, and put upon the hook, to cast it forth again: (for this was all his travail and labour, that if he might not suppress and hold under the faith of Christ, yet at the least wise that he might by some manner, what so ever it were, entangle and trouble it) he gave this counsel to the pope: and did put these thoughts in his mind: In as much as the lawful Roman Empire is destroyed, and every stranger from every part of the world doth break into it, making himself emperor at Constantinople/ & setting here over thy neck some of the senatory blood: why dost thou not put thy life in jeopardy, that thou mayst not only have the name of greatest, but the thing also with all? Rome shall be thy seat, th'empire shallbe at thy pleasure, to whom soever it shall like the to give it. 
The first breaking in of pope's in to kingdoms.  After Leo th emꝑour succeeded Constantine his son, a very tyrannous person/ under whom Pypine sent ambassadors from France unto the pope in the year of our lord seven hundred & lij and the pope likewise again of his part/ laying their wits together, and brewing craft ye counsels between them, that pope zachary should take certain power & authority upon him, & so deposing the old king, he made Pypyne king of France/ with the favour and consent of the princes to the same/ and this Pypyne is reckoned the first king of that land, made by the benefit of the pope, as the pope's laws do record in the xi cause, the first question, De quidam. The next year following, the pope zachary being deed, Stephen the second was substituted in his place. This Ste. willing to use his power when king Astulphus did molest and disease him in Italy, he did forthwith call upon Pypyne & met him certain miles of the way, beseeching him to give aid & defence to the church of Rome: for he had liefer to be a confessor then a martyr/ thinking it enough, if he did by that title break in to heaven. Then the old wicked devil took no more thought, thinking his matter in good case enough, after that he had made the true kernel of the christian divinity corrupt and faulty. For those men, which in times afore passed, were the most strong pillar of all christian men, in contempt & martyrdom: now being alienated and turned from the holy scriptures, had taken upon them worldly & earthily businesses/ of creating emperors & kings/ of drawing kyngedomes and lordship's unto themselves/ sechinge and going about to get royal & proud titles, offering forth their feet to be kissed/ that no business should be brought to an end without the pope, which did threaten vengeance and punishment upon his enemies. And so the devil being free and void from all thought & care/ needed no longer to walk about as a ramping lion/ of whom Peter speaketh: for he knew well enough that saying of the gospel. No man can serve two lords & masters, and also that saying of Paul, No man that warreth on god's part/ doth entangle himself with worldly matters or businesses. And the old Satan was exceedingly glad garnishing and preparing his bait more gaily, and casting it forth again before the new god to be devoured & swallowed in of him, and his deceit and guile was so contrived, as I have made mention a little here before. In the year of our lord seven hundred & li when there reigned kings in France by title & name only, the parliament (as it is also even to this day) determining all the causes of the realm: the pope did somewhat make the heed of France to bow downward/ at which time there reigned king Hilderike of noble blood, of the ancient family and stock of Merovenge. But Pypyne the grand father of great Charles otherwise called Charlemagne, was the governor and ruler of the realm, in whose room, after his decease, succeeded his son Charles, which also was a governor & orderer of the realm, no thing less than Hylderyke (as the which was sprungen of royal progency) the king of France, I can not tell with what faith and trustiness Charles was over seer and ruler of the realm: but this is plain and undoubted, he had the pope of Rome favouring & leaning to him. In the mean season died Charles, leaving behind him three sons, Charlemagne, Pypyne, and Grypho. Charlemagne had opened & showed his mind to Pypyne/ that he purposed to enter in to religion and was in deed made a monk/ so by the reason thereof, occasion was opened to Pypyne of invading the realm, under the cloak and pretence of administrator and governor, Even yet Hilderike yet being a live, Pypyne thrusting after the regal dignity did join himself to the pope, and the pope again joined himself to Pypyne, moved both of them with their own private and singular profit, Pypyne therefore (consider here & mark well in the mean season the guile and craft of the old serpent) did send over to Rome one Burcard the bishop of Herbipolis/ with a chaplain also of his own, called Fobrardus, unto the pope zacarie, to have his answers and counsel concerning such manner demands & interogations, 
The counsels of the pope against Hilderike.  whether of the two were more worthy to be king, he that did bear all the burthayne & charge of the realm, or else he which being free from all cares & businesses of the realm, was king and governor only by name. unto which things, zachary by the instruction of the devil made answer and gave sentence: that it was more profitable and behoveful that he should be named king, which by his diligent care, did order the matters and businesses of the realm, & which took upon him all the labours & pains, (which is the very office of a king:) than the other which was an idle king only by name. which sentence the pope had learned of his own law in the xxii cause and the .v. question. Si quis convictus. etc. when Pipine the minister had perceived and found so great favour, and saw so great a window opened, and so great an occasion given to himself, for to invade the realm: he conceived in his mind a purpose to win by force the regal majesty, which enterprises were deceits and guiles against the natural and lawful lord of Pipine and king, that is to weet, Hilderike. For he (even so as it is seen now a days) was governor of the realm, by a custom fet and brought again from the most ancient kings descending of Merove. Such manner power had the pope neither granted to him by Christ, (which would no divide the patrimony between the two brethren) neither yet by any other man, I mean that he might give a disagreinge sentence and judgement for the servant, against the lord mysdeming no such manner thing: but the old serpent had his plays and pastimes, & they came end as he would have them. And so (as we have said) Pipine clened to the pope, and the pope also to Pypyne/ seeking defence and maintenance of his own power/ (as like always rejoiceth and is glad of like, 
proverbs  and there is no pot, but it findeth a meet cover) but there was neither example/ nor law, for it/ that the pope should make kings. wherefore he did turn himself to other subtylties and crafts/ he purchased and got to himself and Pipine, the amity and friend ship of many of the princes of germany, and like wise of the people of France/ that they should consent thereunto, and so was the barlay broth (as we say) brewed, that the Pope might take the sword of his power/ advancing Pipine unto the regal dignity/ according to the tradition of the holy laws in the. lxxx.viij. dist. Epus. etc. Good lord after that the true, and good, and the old king Hilderike had understanding and knowledge hereof. what should he do? for all things, both which were to be done, & which were to be left undone/ were in the hands & power of Pipine/ as orderer and governor of the realm/ when the very good king did monyshe Pipine his minister and put him in remembrance of his promise that he had made, and of the oath that he had taken: then braced forth the holy father pope Stephen (which succeeded zachary) and did assoil Pipine and dispense with him for all the oaths which he had made, 
The power of the pope more than hethenisshe  and the faith/ which he had given and promised to the old king Hilderike: and not only he did this to Pypyne, but also he did the same to all other princes, which did consent unto the making of Pypyne king, and the very good king Hilderike, 
The pope a new god.  they did thrust into a house of religion. Therefore like wise as Christ did refuse and flee from the kingdoms of the world, 
Iohan vi.  and the apostles did despise and set at nought the honour of the world, and the old holy bishops did fight with the holy scripture, willingly and gladly suffering death for the truths sake: So at this time the bishops of rome with open face did boldly break in to all the world, sechinge the highest honours and the riches and power of the world, yea usurping also the heavenly power, against all the civil laws made by themperors, against all natural, and also against all divine laws, in that he did by fraud depose the lawful & natural king from his seat (whom they fain to have been unprofitable to the realm: & what manner of folks be they?) & also in that he did assoil and lose the oaths holy made, & the faith & true allegiance ꝓmymysed. what more perfect joy & pleasure, thinkest thou could have happened unto the old serpent: than this matter brought luckily to pass? How be it the Pope hath a colour of this power and authority in the holy canon law in the xxvij distinction Omnes. etc. The first new god lucifer was of good comfort and courage upon the setting up of the temple & of the new god, in comparison of which temple that sumptuous and gorgeous temple of Diana was in a manner nothing, but he would also receive and bear away the fruits & tribute of his labour (for th'empire of Rome was plucked up by the roots, & clean destroyed, the city of Rome was become the Pope's seat/ which reioysedde greatly, & was proud in spirit, that he was comen into the place of so great an emperor) he took again Astulphe king of Lombardy, which did war against the pope, and did sore vex him for that he did so by little & little take away of the lordship's dying near unto the city of Rome with the injury of the pope.  
wherefore Stephen the pope did desire Pipine of aid and help, and that he would defend his goods and the province from the king Astulphe, so Pipine did on his harness, & went to Rome with the Pope, (which was comen his own self unto him for secure) & did drive out Astulphe from Rome. At which time Pipine did grant unto Stephen Ravenna and certain other cities as a gift. In the mean season, 
How the pope came by the cities of italy.  when Pipine was thus ordained and made king of France, by the power of the Pope/ and the favour of the people: there reigned at Constantinople Leo the fourth Roman/ and as moche as France grew and increased: so moche did the reign of Rome/ and of th'emperors, minyshe and decay, all obedience at Rome/ being clean extinct/ & no lawful Emperor governing Rome, where as in old time of ancient custum there had been lords and rulears. Now the pope had found maintenance of his power in Pipine, which gave freely unto him, according to his own lusts and pleasure, cities/ provinces/ and nations in all Italy. For what cause I do rehearse these histories, thou shalt anon perceive/ for they are profitable and necessary/ but the thou mayst get out the very truth, what the pope is. After these things done which we have rehearsed, in the year of our lord vij C.lxxxi. Leo being dead at Constantynople, there succeeded him constantine his son/ and Pipine also the king of France died/ leavin behind him alive his two sons Charles/ and Cherlemaine, Charles being king of France, came to Rome: and was very lovingly received of pope Adrian, whose two sons, that is to weet, Pipine,/ and Ludowyke/ he did his own self make and anoint kings/ the one that is to wite/ Pipine, of Italy (the old king taken and banished) and the other that is to wite, Ludowike, of Aquitania/ the comen people was taught to say, that Charles was of the senatory stock governor of Rome. This Charles & Pipine had subdued unto their own dominion all Rhenus even unto Antwerp/ Saxony/ Durenne/ Colayen. etc. bavarie/ Normandy/ Britaygne/ Austria Vngaria. In the year of our lord vij C.xcix, the pope's living quietly in good peace, & no man daring openly to vex or trouble them for fear of the kings of France, (which were the only refuege of the pope's, & in whom the pope's did put all their hoop and trust, 
How the kingdom of France came from the pope.  and which had given to the same royal gifts of regions and people. In the mean season Constantyne the son of Leo th'emperor dysceassed without any heir: after whom his mother Hyrena reigned by the space of five hole years/ then came the time in which it was or deigned by destiny, that the kings of France should/ climb up to higher honours. The pope of rome after Adryane was Leo the third/ to whom the romans had done I wot not what contumely and displeasure: which he taking very heavily fled unto his wont remedy charles the king of france, declaring unto him with lamentable words his calamities, and beseeching him of help. Charles then gathering a great army incontinent went forth right fyetsly against the Romans, (Oh how great a rejoicing and gladness was this to the old serpent) and revenged the pope gaily of his adversaries/ for which cause he was of Leo the pope, crowned king of Romans, all the people crying Charles the great emperor. So this was the first king of France, that ever was made emperor of Rome, In the year of our lord eight hundredth and one. But from that time forward the emperors of Constantynople had no longer the name of the roman emperor, but were content with their own title, meddling nothing at all with Rome/ which was the cause, that moved me to rehearse this history/ for thou hast herd how the people by little and little forsook holy scripture, 
An epilogation or recapitulation of all the things a foresaid.  the gospel & the steps of the old bishops, falling from poverty/ contempt, heaviness & low & vile state/ & torning himself utterly unto the contrary things. Then afterward how he gate the privilege of the emperor Focas, that he might name himself the highest of all bishops & pope, and his church of Rome the chief and heed church of all other. furthermore how they gave diligence, and laboured, that their privileges should be approved & confirmed of justinian th'emperor, gathering also in the mean season many other privileges by flattering/ by subtle crafts & deceits (for true christian men, such as were the first bishops of Rome) had no need of such privileges and liberties/ neither did they once covet & desire any such/ wherefore according to their deserving they receive the crown of glory, of etnal god) but these men did wind themselves in to the courts of princes & kings, being choose & called otherwhiles to be of their counsels (as the use & manner is even now a days also) dyspatching & bringing to an end their matters, always well and honestly to sight & appearance. In conclusion they desired aid & help of the kings and princes against their adversaries & enemies, and did suffer also that they should be slain albeit that they did greatly abhor and hate to bear the name of the effusion of their blood. At length they did confederate themselves with princes, and began to take counsel with them, as it chanced with Pypyne the admynystratoure and orderer of the realm, against the rightful and natural king hylderyke, when they did cast away all cloaks and usuries, and boldly with open face did embrace and take unto themselves great power (but yet with fear in the beginning) that is to wite/ of making kings whereof they had made pactions with princes/ last of all, because all things went forward luckily they did also adorn themselves with most goodly cities and provinces, cunningly and peacybly obtaining Rome for their own selves, which should be, as it were, the mirror of the christian faith, in which all the whole world might see & learn the very christian and evangelyke life as they do write themselves in the sixth of the decretals, in the sxyte title, & the first book, & the xvij. chapter/ Numquid. And by their own proper power which they had taken unto themselves, they promoted Charles unto themperourshyp of Rome/ & by such feats, they have so crept into possessions and dominion: (always under the semblance and colour of holiness, and under the cloak of saint Peter's name) that now they are lords of all the world. 
The pope is compared & likened to an ivy tree.  And here cometh to my remembrance a proper symylyrude. In like manner as the ivy tree doth in the first beginning/ it is a tender twig rising out of the ground, and creeping low on the ground: but by little and little it joineth itself to the rote of a strong and a very high tree, as a fir tree or such an other, which fealeth nothing at all so slender and so weak a sprygge, for in the winter time it getteth and receiveth divers and many injuries as in suffering otherwiles the fall of the bows and of the leaves. Nevertheless although it doth in such wise suffer, yet doth it continually grow up until it have fastened itself within the bark of the tree, that it may cleave always more fast, until beside the bark it do grow fast also to the body & substance of the tree/ & then is it no longer in danger to be hurt with winds. Then contynuethe he to go forth on mightily winding himself about the tree, and when he is ones cropen up so high that he may get hold of the branches, then doth he shed and departed himself unto the way of the branches of the tree, embracing them every one in such wise, that the tree hath much work to grow: In conclusion there do break out so many branches, of the ivy so many leaves, so many berries, and that so thick, and so great a number of them: that the very right tree itself is straungled and choked/ and so that excellent and noble tree doth perish and die, upon which the stinking ivy doth grow to such bygnes, that it is a tree of itself, and doth occupy the place of the former great tree. Compare now the narration that we have made, what thinkest thou? did it not come even so to pass in old time: as it doth even yet also daily? an example hereof fetch in the xcuj dystinction through out all the chapters of it. But Adryan afterwards the pope, when he did perceive himself to be unequal in power to desyderyus king of italy: he raised up against him Charles the great, which coming with a great host against desyderius, took the said desyderius prisoner, and commanded the pope with an hundredth and. iiiij. bishops and abbots for to assemble to a counsel at rome, 
The aucto … e of theꝓ … to 〈◊〉 pope  in which the pope Adryan with the whole counsel did offer unto th'emperor & all his posterity for ever all his authority and power for thenherytaunceinheritance and ordynation of the Roman see. So that all the archbishops through out all lands, should take their investiture (as they call it) of th'emperor, and that none should be consecrated without it, under pain of excomunycation and giving to the devil, which same thing Leo the pope next elected after Adryane did also, which in an open council assembled in the church of saint saviour, did both his own self and all the counsel a foresaid with him confirm unto Otho the first of the germans that was emꝓour of Rome, that the same should endure & continue for evermore/ as it is red in the lxiij distinction Adrianus, & also in synodo. This motion they made to Charles, that they might have one of the senatory stock & a defender against the king of italy, whom Pippin & Charles had deprived of his kingdom, giving it to the pope of rome, which sat in peaceable possession/ after that he had submitted himself, & all his clergy, unto th'emperor living then in security, & without any fear or dread, he did at the last in process of time, take all the goods of the whole province of Thuscia by pnscription in to his possession. The old serpent knew his nest well, & therefore willing to bring forth some new thing in the world, he conveyed himself in to his own counterfeit new god. Charles the great deceased in the xlvij year of his own reign, which was the year of our lord viii. C.xv. after whom succeeded Lewes his son & the pope Adryan the first of that name like wise died which with the council had given the afore rehearsed liberty unto Charles/ hearken now an history. (The great ivy, which as I said before was grown up: had felt hurt) in the election of the new pope, they did create & consecrated pope Stephen the four neither calling to counsel th'ambassadors of th'emperor neither so moche as speaking one word of the matter to th'emperor jews. But after that it was noised, that th'emperor was displeased and angry, for that the pope with the hole counsel were shortly found false and untrue brekers of their own judgement and sentences: and yet they do now a days say that it is impossible, that a counsel should err or lie, than Stephen fled to guileful exception framing letters which should witness the contrary. In the beginning he did confess it to be true, that to th'election of the new pope afore that he were chosen there ought to assemble the bishops, & priests, and the senators, & the people of Rome: (and he dissembled the name of th'emperor and of his ambassadors) but after that the pope was elected & chosen, that then themperors ambassadors were to be called, in whose presence he should be consecrated, and not before. consider the wicked craft of the pope. The election belonged to them with out any knowledge given to th'emperor the consecration of the pope belonged to them: only th'emperors ambassadors must stand by and look on at the time of the consecration. But where was the counsel of Adrian left in the mean season? The pope by himself alone did infringe the said counsel: and yet did not the pope alone neither decree, nor make nor give that liberty to th'emperor. But the pope invented a craft & a subtle exception as the history saith: that th'emperors had been some time unwise, & furious, following their own brains, nothing regarding the voices of their men (where as in the counsel of Adrian there was no such word, that th'emperor should give his voice with other: but that th'emperor alone should have the jurysdyction of electing and confirming the pope, which as a new god had changed the words of the council, and turned them a contrary way) and that they did fall sometime into heresies/ from which themselves god wot were safe, wherefore themperors should not meddle with the eletion of the pope under pain of excomunycation/ of these things, let every man judge, what holiness followed the pope's from day to day, after that they had ones gotten cities and dominions. But if any other man had said against the counsel: in to how great heresies should he have fallen/ but Stephen the Pope was greatest of all men, there is another reason in him: now is it tolerable to see how pertly he percheth forth of his nest? getting unto him prettily the power of kings and emperors, so that now, hence forth he needeth no more their favour. ¶ Afterwards Pope Stephen sent ambassadors to jews the emperor in to france, to myttygate his indignation, for that he was not saluted nor spoken to about th'election and consecration of the pope: for he would come to him his own self personally (see the wicked craft, the pope took boldness upon his back, visiting th'emperor in his own proper person: but by that craft he brought to pass that thing which he desired, that is to wite, the destruction of Adryanes' counsel) when the pope was comen in to France unto th'emperor Lewes, the good and patiented emperor went forth towards him with a great company to meet him, and received him very courteously & lovingly: where the pope said mass and crowned Lewes the emperor of Rome/ whom the pope did then desire that he would pardon and release to him the privileges granted by Adryane his predecessor unto the ancestors of the said Lewes: The good prince being perswadede did consent. Then this renunciation forth with they did put in to the pope's laws, and from that time forwards the Romanistes have made us pope's after their own will & pleasure. This jews was the second emperor of Rome, which was made by the power of the pope/ and he left successor of the kingdom his first begotten son Lotharius, and his other two young sons Charles and Lewes being kings only in name, he made the one prince of Acquitania (which is a region of France lying towards spain) and the other of bavarie. After the decease of their father Lewes, there arose discord and strife between the three brethren. The younger brethren were dyscontented & angry, that they were deprived & put from their kingdom of their father, and which was heredytarie to them: wherefore they made as it were just and rightful battle against Lotharyus in which battle there was so moche blood shed on both parties, 
The change of thempire.  that all the power of the said brethren was minished & decayed: In conclusion Lotharius was overcomen: & so france was divided, Charles had to his part, all that ever is between the english see and Mosa: and to Lewes' part which was th'elder brother, fell all germany whole even to the river called Rhenum/ And all the region dying between, as Lothoryngya (so called of Lothorius) Treveris/ Colayne, Moguncia/ Braband/ Flaunders. After this manner did th'empire of Rome fall in to the lot of dyvyson. The old ancient kings of France, as the Merovenges took their name of merovens, the son of Clodyus/ so like wise the Carolines were called of Carolus the first son of Pypyn, which said carolines, did reign about an hundredth & ten years, and as long as the Roman Empyer was continually remaining and holden of the Frenshe men In these three brethren the family and stock of the Carolines was quite extynete/ Lewes (which was also called Suendebalde) being the last of them all. And Otho duke of saxony by the voice and consent of all men was called to be Emperor of the Romans is the year of our lord ix. C.xiij 
Otho the first Roman emperor of the Germans.  This Otho laying for himself very great age, & be sides that his own impotency, that he might be lightened and eased of so great a charge and rule of the Roman Empire. By his judgement therefore and counsel a certain man called Conradus, one of the germans was elected Emperor/ of whom it is doubt, whether he was of the lineage of the Carolynes or else not. But when he had reigned seven years in germany, he died/ and afterwards. Otho the son of the duke of Saxony, was called, the first emperor of Rome, that was made of the Germanyes. Now it was necessary to the old serpent, that he should make this so plentiful a fysshing, once so happily and luckily gotten, proper & sure to his own self. Therefore after that the roman empire was comen down from the frenshe men to the flemings, in the year of our lord ix C.lxij. with in a little under or over. The pope in the mean season about the space of. C. years both had put in certain emperors in th'empire, & had anointed them/ so that the authority of that thing was now waxed strong and had gathered roots: albeit yet nevertheless some men other whiles did speak against it, and also did therefore war against the Roman dominions & lordship's/ and when it was ones comen to pass that the Frenshe men did fall from thempire, being nothing of might and power of themselves singularly above other: then the Pope also (wisely in deed) looked another way, turning his heed from them, & made Otho duke of sax onye Emperor of rome/ but yet under a condition, that his own power should from thenceforth remain steadfast & stable unto himself, if at any time an account should be required of his possessions, & also that he should have, to whom he might trust & lean for succour & maintenance. Iohn therefore the twelve pope of that name which was gotten up to the popeship by the aid and power of his friends, did prescribe an oath unto Otho, in which Otho should acknowledge himself to be the pope's phasalle (as we do now call it) 
The pope requireth an oath.  & so by these crafts & sleights the most noble & mighty empire of the world did receive of the pope. Ius client lariorumpndicorum, under whose very great holiness it hath for the most part continued also. The said oath is written in this form & manner/ in the canon law in the lxiij distinction To the lord Iohn the pope, 
The form of the oath.  I king Otho do make promise & an oath, by the father, the son, & the holy ghost, and by this tree of the quickening cross, & by the relics of saints, that if it please god to suffer me, that I may come to Rome: I shall exalt the holy church of Rome, and you the governor of it, according to all my might and power, and also you shall never lease your life, no neither any member of your body, neither this honour which you have, by my will, or by my counsel, or my consent, or my exortation, and I will make no decree or ordinance in Rome concerning any of all those things, which do belong to you, or to rome, without your counsel: & what so ever lands of saint Peter'S, shall come in to my hands and power, I shall restore it unto you: and to whom so ever I shall commit and betake the governance of italy, I shall make him swear, that he shall aid and help you to the uttermost of his power, to defend the patrimony of saint Peter. The pope hath power and authority to require such a manner of oath as this, for so doth the canon law witness in the twelfth cause and the first question Clericus. This is indeed to devour & swallow in the sop that is laid afore the. From this Otho, all themperors that followed ever after even to this day: have been compelled to bind themselves unto the pope as to their lord, by such an holy oath. Oh Roman empire, such a meat or supping as this is thou wouldest in old time not once have tasted of: But now there is no remedy but that thou must eat it clean up/ but thou wilt none other, for the scripture also must be fulfilled. To the making of this great oath, first Otho the first of that name did consent/ then afterwards his son Otho the second, and after him Otho third, also did the same, briefly the same did all the dukes of saxony. But when Otho the third was elected, being yet in a manner but a child, the Romans were greatly offended and grieved therewithal, for they did covet greatly to have had a certain man Crescentius magnus which was consul of the city of Rome, made emperor/ whom when they had also elected and chosen, than pope Gregory the .v. fled to Otho in germanie, whose cousin he was. And otho going forth with very great strength besieged the city of Rome with a passing great host, and wan it: in which bykering Crescentius was stricken thoroghe and slain, and the new pope Iohn had his eyes put out/ pope Gregory the .v. therefore gathered a counsel, that he might decree, after what form and manner the elections were to be made of the new king or emperor: for the emperors were in the power of the pope's, because they had sworn to them as unto their lords, likewise as the Othoes had done, wherefore the pope's took then up on themselves to govern and rule thempire with full power & authority. For when one would not swear to such things, as they did require, nor keep and fulfil such things as he had sworn to: there was found another prince, which was full glad to swear only to th'intent that he might once be made Emperor. And such manner contentions and pride of the Princes did give the pope occasion, and place often and sundry times to invade thempire. ¶ In this great counsel it was decreed and ordained by the pope (he being a German), which descended of the lineage of the dukes of saxony, that from that time forward there should no more any Emperor be made of the line or blood of the Romans, 
The beginning of choosing the emperor in Germany.  but only of the Germanyes: and it was put in th'election, power, and authority, of the princes of germany, to make emperor whom they list. And this thing was constituted by Gregory the .v. and by the counsel in the year of our lord M.ij From such a beginning it came afterwards in to a custom, that themperors were made by the voices of seven princes of germany the electors, which thing we do see to be done even at these present days. & therefore the king or emperor of the Romans is named the son and the defender of the church of Rome, whiles we will that our faith should decay & perish. After such fashion do the pope's now a days vex divers ways and subdue unto them the silly emperors of Rome: even as coursers do horses/ what soever thing they covet to be brought to pass in any part of the world, they do send a cardinal called a legate a latere unto th'emperor, putting him in remembrance of his office & duty, and of the oath which he hath made, and whiles he will be made perjured, he is compelled to assist the pope in all things, whether it be right or wrong, which in the mean season being instruct with goodly painted eloquence, ꝑswadeth even this thing also, for that the Pope can not err. etc. Read thou the histories, whether this thing be true or not/ & now all power & authority is turned clean contrary to the right way. Constantyne the first, with his successors which professed christ, did create & make and confirm all the pope's of rome, & also all the other bishops: but now the pope's of Rome, do make both kings and emperors bishops, and abbots/ & what so ever is in the world. Moreover the pope, that he might order all things according to counsel and policy of the old serpent, did assemble one counseyl after another, in which counsels he did constitute and decree what so ever thing made for his purpose: and what so ever thing did not like him, or did make against his purpose, that he did forbed under pain of the thunderbolt of excommunycation. Thus were the privileges of the church of Rome invented, and afterwards obtained by the confirmation of the Roman emperors, and diligently gathered together into the canon law/ but yet if any thing had been forgotten by their negligence straight ways they patched to an extravagant, with this law the pope hath well armed and fenced himself, that there should be no man at any time which might be bold in any thing to gain say him, 
Here the pope setteth his seat equal to god.  or to reprove him, constytuting and exalting himself above all men in the whole world, as it is written in the same law in the ix cause & the third question. Nemo. etc. with many other vain trifles/ and he did not only reject men from himself or his own person, but also he hath drawn both the very gospel, yea and all the hole scripture, in to captivity no man daring once to use it, but as farforth as his consent and favour shall permit and suffer. Be sides that he hath decreed that no man shall either teach, or understand the scripture, otherwise then as the Pope hath given sentence and judgement unpon it. Also that no man shall either trust or give fast and sure credence to the virtue and authority of the holy scriptures: if the Pope will not consent thereto, in the xvij cause and in the fourth question. Nemini. etc. & in the xxiiij cause and the first question. Quotiens/ and so consequently in divers other chapters. But what other thing is the scripture than the word of god's mouth? as the lxxxuj psalm doth witness saying Dominus narrabit in scriptures. etc. The lord shall speak or tell in the scriptures. The scripture therefore is the speech of god, which is the very truth self/ and his speech is truth, in the xvij of Iohn. Moreover Chryst saith, I am the way, verity, and life/ If christ than is the truth and the scripture (as is said before) is also the same truth: now then saying scripture (as is afore declared) is the pope's captive which maketh of it what he will, it followeth necessarily that christ the eternal god is the pope's captive also & prisoner. Oh serpent lucifer what manner a new god dost thou here bring forth to us, & what manner a new faith? it lacketh not moche, but that I do think him to be, that beast, with vij heads and ten horns, of which Iohn speaketh in the xiij chapter of the apocalypse/ of these things doth follow this proposytion, that it were as profitable, (yea I had well near said more profitable also) that all the hole scripture & the holy gospel were abrogate and clean put away, then that it should continue in such state and captivity/ If this wholesome message ought to be preached, and showed to no man more largely (as they do say) then as much as the pope/ will confirm and allow. Be sides this we do see openly before our eyes that the pope doth in some places most openly and plainly reject the scripture, and minish the authority of it, setting his own laws in equal degree of honour, and making them equal unto it in reverence and strength and virtue: which thing that thou mayst perceive to be true read the canon law in the xix distinction Sic omnes. etc. But wherefore serveth the holy scripture, or what needeth us to have it: if the pope himself be to us the scripture? Oh wretched man how far doth thy madness proceed, which dost make thy seat equal to thy lord god? which did not suffer neither Lucyfer in heaven, neither Adam in paradise, so long as he doth patiently suffer that in earth. But such manner blasphemies against god, doth the old serpent bring forth by aristotelical & Thomisticall divinity. Freers, and the subtle ymagynation of the Scotistes, do raise up such manner gods: likewise as the lord god hath signified by his holy prophet Ezechiel in the eight chapter do you not think that the walls of our heart and the usage of the church doth contain the most greatest part of the pictures & the images of abominations, which are mentioned in the said chapter? and under a good and religious semblance, even such golden calves also as hieroboam did make in the old time? 
The pope a new god.  even likewise as if he did say in that place you christian men look well upon the Pope, which is your god, which hath in his power heaven and hell you do believe him, 
iii Regum xii.  what soever he doth is rightwise neither do you need to require any more of hierusalem, tarry you still in bethel, there to offer your brent sacrifices. Many things might be written of this boisterous new god: but who soever list to know his new faith, his life and his governance, let him read the canon law which he hath made/ and let him compare it to the holy scripture, and to the old faith of Christ: and it shall appear to him more clearly than the son, that he is a new god and a new faith/ let any man search thorough out the chronicles, and histories, and he shall find in a manner that not the devil himself was ever so ꝑsumptuoꝰ so filthy, & so sinful & mischievous. Now he that hath been at Rome, 
Pope Alexandre the vi. & pope july the two.  in the time of Pope Alexandre the vi. or of Pope july the second: he shall not need to read many histories/ I put it to his judgement, weather ever any of the pay nyms or of the Turks did ever lead such a life, as did these our most holy pope's. And albeit peradventure that I do overmuch touch the foundation & do meddle to much with this matter/ which may turn me to displeasure: yet that not withstanding, it is profitable & very necessary, that the troth be assisted & defended least that any man do prefer or make equal the Imaginations and inventions of man, unto the everlasting righteous, most good, & most great and mighty god, & least man do put his trust and confidence in man, and so by the reason thereof be condemned eternally. 
The greatest plague & punishment in earth.  This I do say, god could never have suffered a greater nor a sorer punishment and plague to fall in to this world, than blindness, ignorance and unbelief: for the scripture saith most evidently, who so ever doth not believe: (understand thou the holy scriptures) he is already judged. Therefore when we will by no mean give credence to the holy scripture, but we will with rotten gloss expound it, & turn it in to all fashions after our pseasure, as it were a peace of wax: the god of his righteousness doth permit and suffer, that we can none otherwise judge nor otherwise know, but that in so doing we do all right and well. In such, manner and incredulity we do continue, and in our own carnal and wordly wisdom we do continually proceed and go forward, and so we do raise up a new faith/ we do set up a new god/ of whom we shall also receive the reward of our merits and deservings. O. wo. wo. be to this reward eternally. O most tender & dearly beloved christian men, pluck back your foot, give yourselves to Christ the most good & gentle lord, that he may govern you, which may help us for evermore. 
The cause of the exaltation of the pope, and of saints.  So then the old serpent lucifer hath brought to the world, this excellent & strange new god no less craftily, then in the old time they which wrote tha fable of transformatyon as ovid among latin men by showing of Homer (as I suppose) in which said fable men are turned in to wolves, into asses, in to goats/ in to birds/ in to herbs/ in to stones/ which thing the gods and goddesses jupiter, Pallas, juno, Apollo, Venus. etc. did work by their power, which after their death were made gods of men. For in the old time as every man or woman was excellent & notable, which had singularly either invented, or else done any thing which the people knew not before: so was he or she magnyfyed and exalted for a god or goddess: as Hercules an excellent strong, & hardy man, a stout enemy of vain men/ and a defender of all innocent persons being oppressed of tyrannous men/ of whom he was a very valiant conqueror and queller: this hercules (I say) being so good, so wise so strong & valiant a man (being moche like to Samson, whiles he was living, in his time) after that he had done so excellent and noble acts, was of all men magnified & lifted up with laudes and praises even to the sky/ was worshipped and after his death also was deyfied. For the old serpent instructed and armed with his deceit and craft, exepte to, putting men in the mind, that of most valiant hercules they should make a demonyake. Likewise in a manner came it to pass in Christ/ in peter/ in benedycte and fraunciske/ which all were most virtuous and most perfit christian men/ but the posterity & successors of them did only keep still the title, and did highly exalt and magnify the goodness and holiness of these persons afore rehearsed, and setting themselves in to their rooms do challenge like titles unto themselves/ & under the pretence and clock of such holy names, they do occupy the tyranny of the whole world/ they do rule & reign/ yet is their living nothing at all agreeing to their titles, but they do all things clean contrary thereto, & that openly, & without any manner shame in the world. And if any man do speak any whit of their manners and living, or do rebuke them, or withstand them: what do they? strait ways they do cast forth against us holy men, 
The comen oration & speech of religious persons to the lay people.  as it were a certain shield to defend themselves with all, Christ our lord/ the power & authority of Peter/ the most weighty authority of the works of Thomas of aquine, the wounds of saint Frauncyske/ the temperance of benedict/ the charity of Augustynne: behind whom standeth this cursed hypocrite and new god with his tyrannical and new faith, pretending and making the people believe, that blasphemy is committed against god & his saints/ and against the catholic church, sedytions to be moened/ inobdedience to be brought in/ the peace of christendom to be disturbed/ and with such and other like false reports, they do blind and deceive princes, & lords, so that a man cannot lightly rid out himself therefro, neither know what is right, and what is contrary to right/ and so thus we do walk forth on in our blindness our children have learned this thing of us and their children of them/ and so by this means it doth & hath continually grown and increased by the space of many hundredth years/ Be sides this, if at any time god pytyenge our blindness, doth elect some good, well learned, and virtuous man, which will restore eyes agyne unto our understanding, and which will god about to teach what difference is between precious things, and things of small value, between lead, & pure gold/ between the true faith of christ, & the new superstition, between the doctrine or law of men and the heavenly and divine scripture: then do these brethren fall to their uttermost defence & shift/ first come forth the religious men/ the burthaynes of churches, 
The malingnite of priests.  with mischievous words hatefully accusnyg him and informing the new gods, that there is a certain fellow sprung up which would put them out of place/ and drive them out of the world. All the new gods then assemblen themselves together & do take, their counsel against him/ covering some ungracious and wicked person with the innocent garment of christ our lord and so being instructed and prepared do go up in to the pulpit of their unshamefastness, countrefayting an holy & godly work and gesture, in such wise that an ignorant person would swear/ that there stood in the place either saint peter/ or domynyk or frauncyske his own self/ & there they begin to sing their forged song: but suddenly forgetting their matter/ when they ought to show themselves as Christ taught: they do show themselves to be none other manner ones, then was belial in the old time/ they rave/ they rage/ & rail as it were mad men/ without scripture, without reason/ lewdly & shamefully: whose chief doctrine & wisdom is this, he is an heretic/ a seditious person he wresteth the scripture to a perverse & wrong sense/ he will preach & teach to us a new faith. Oh good god, the silly comen people doth inwardly sorrow, by reason that this pharysaye doth so boldly & presumptuously inveigh, rage, & fiercely speak against the true doctrine being offered and put forth unto them: Also foolish freers do walk a bout among the comen people, babbling in this wise/ friends, how think you by this new doctrine? what think you will follow thereupon? we ought not to visit the church/ we ought not to offer unto the alter/ we ought not to make our confession and shrift, the priests ought to be spoiled of all their goods/ (yet they do falsely & shamefully imagine all these things, for there is no man, that doth so teach without difference) what is your best council in this matter? Noli Noli. To the fire, with the knave/ suppose ye that all our forefathers were fools? or that they were dampened each one of them? what meaneth this heretic to bring in new things? I will stick to mine old god (that is to weet, to the canon law, to the rules and ceremonies and to the book of rents and pensions) I will a bide by the old faith (which that is/ like wise which is the new: you shall hear a little hereafter) to what so ever place my fore fathers have gone after their death: thither will I also with a good will. The simple unlearned comen people, when they do hear so goodly narratitions, do think this in their minds/ seeing that the priests do so strongly resist & strive against this doctrine: what hast thou to do with it? thou shalt incline to the more part/ and so even now a days is that saying of christ fulfilled, if one blind man be guide to another blind man both of them shall fall in to the ditch. Even likewise did the ministers of the altar of the new god belial, 
Examples of the 〈◊〉 of true ●…ten me.  in Babylon, unto the good prophet Danyell, and semblably was innocent Susanna entreated of the two ungracious priests/ and Hieremie, 
Danyells.  which was sanctified from his mother's womb, was none otherwise handled of the false gods & their ministers/ & after the same manner was jesus Christ dealt with all, of the new gods in hierusalem and of the priests through out all jury/ and after such fashion also was the excellent martyr saint Stephen handled of the new god Annas, and of the ministers of the temple. In like manner was saint Peter & saint Iohn entreated/ what need many word? always the hole council/ the chief priests/ the doctors/ the pharisees/ the religious/ the seniors/ have thought & judged the contrary, yea and also in their counsels have decreed what soever these afore named holy and righteous men did teach, to be heresy and blasphemy against god, putting forth and laying afore them the old faith/ the old councils/ the old statutes/ the old usage and custom: and therefore they did drive out the said holy men out of their cities/ they did beat them with scourges/ they did stone them and slay them also: but do you ween that christ was therefore an heretic/ that Hieremye, that Isaiah, and all the apostles, were heretics: 
Take heed you priests  because the priests of the temples with their new gods, did rage & rail against them? that is nothing so/ for the truth is truth and shall evermore endure/ although the most wretched priests of the temples with their new gods will go down to the devils, let that move the nothing at all: for to hell they do belong, unless they will amend and be heartily repentant & sorry for their blindness & tyranny: for it chanceth scantly otherwise, but that to whom soever many things/ have be committed and betaken, 
Luc. xii.  of the same is also a great reckoning & large account required. But thou wilt say, 
A question concerning god's service.  what is it that thou sayeste? are the ceremonies, and the rites & usage of the churches, superstition: as thou dost show? for thou dost in mockage name religious men, & priests, the servants of the temples/ thou dost (I say) name them the ministers of the new god's/ of the princes and doctors: did not god himself command & appoint unto Moses many ceremonies to be used in making of sacrifice to himself? I make answer/ if I do speak after the comen usual manner of speaking, which is found in the scripture: I trust I have done none injury. 
Mymnysters of the temples.  The name of ministers of the temples is most openly noted in the first chapter of the prophet johel. Now whether he be pope, or bishop, or person, curate doctor, religious man, or who soever he be, that doth not his office & duty, according to the most simple and pure sense of holy scripture with out any addition, which the scripture neither hath in use, nor can bear: or else which doth abuse the scripture to his own advantage: or else doth forsake his sheep, and doth not feed them with the most sweet food of holy scripture, but doth cast afore them thystelles, and stinking and filthy doctrine, & fodder of vile weeds, the doctrye of men repugnant the one to the other/ that man (I say) may well be called a new god, or idol, as the scripture witnesseth to me most openly, in the xi chapiter to zachary. And where as they bring in mention of the ceremonies, which Moses taught: we will at this time let those pass. For all these things were figures and significations of grace to come, which the heavenly father promised to us under such manner shadows, and hath now fulfilled his promise, & hath given the said grace by jesus Christ his dearly beloved son, to whom be praise worlds without end Amen.  
BUt for as much as we christian men do hold and keep many ceremonies & rites in the churches, and daily do imagine and decree more & more new: I do first say, that ceremonies are not evil, but good, if every man did well and wisely understand, why and wherefore this or that rite and ceremony was brought in, & what thing were signified by it, 
How ceremonies are to be suffered.  for ceremonies of themselves are nothing at all, neither are they necessary to be done. Now the simple men do think, that the more proud the ministers of the temple are namely religious men, the greater by so moche is the honour and worship of god: and yet in very deed all the ceremonies that are, be nothing else but certain examples & sygnyfications/ when the mass is in singing in great and cathedral churches, then is the brent frankincense in the sencer, & it maketh a smoke about all the alter/ & this day the priest hath a red vestiment, to morrow he shall have upon him a whit one, and an other time a green one, and when he singeth mass of requiem, he hath on a black vestiment. There is also joined to him deacon and subdeacon, and one to sing the epistle, and the other to sing the gospel. But although none of all these things were done at all, (as it happeneth oftentimes in villages) yet should there nevertheless be done a lawful mass. The thing which the ceremonies do betoken, is good/ if there were also a good heart & mind: peraduentur the sacrifice should not be unpleasant to god. The monk goeth well near smooth, 
Monks.  having all his hear in a manner quite shaven of/ and covered also with a great cowll that nothing may be seen/ his garment is side down to the foot, his hose either being grey or white do touch his knee: when he passeth by the altar, or by his superior, than he lowteth & maketh lowly reverence/ he casteth his hood far at his back, & so afterwards with a trembling heed he goeth a part in to his own place: although none of the said things were done at all, so that they were endued other ways with good manners and with honest operation of the body, it were very well done: & they should reserve so great lowting & reverence to the humility, benevolence, and charity toward their neighbour. The pope writeth himself, servum servorum. that is to say the servant of servants, and by this mean he weeneth himself to be conformable and like to christ, which called himself the minister of his disciples, 
Math twenty  and did teach that who soever of them would be greatest, he should be least, and the servant of all the other. Therefore it is instituted, that upon maundy thursday the superior doth wash the feat of the inferiors, for example as the pope doth wash the feet of the cardinals, and so likewise of other/ if this thing be done unfeignedly with the heart, the devil fetch me out of the world/ for in stead of this washing of feat, they are all the whole year beside lordly and tyrannous, and they would not so much as one's sharp a prick to their neighbour. But wherefore serveth this hypocrisy their works, being so far contrary? yea it is rather a mocking & scorning of the humble & meek lord jesus Christ/ what if this said washing of feet were laid aside and left undone, and the prelate all the year beside did suffer gentyly & patiently shame & ignorance of his subjects, did with mildness instruct wretched and blind sinners/ did with a liberal hand succour & relieve poor men, whom the bishops for the most part now adays do devour even quick, and do destroy them/ did in time minister justice to poor men, as well as to the rich/ did rebuke sharply, with the sword of god's word did hold under, open and obstinate blaspemers against god/ and did not so cruelly suck the silly priests of the country even to the very bone, nor did flay their subjects out of their skins, to whom they never vouched safe to speak any loving word? These were the very works of washing feet, by which every man should easily learn & perceive, how humble the prelate were & the servant of servants. But oh good lord, how is the pure gold turned in to copper. That ceremonies are not of the substance of the true honouring and very service of god, I may perceive even hereof, saying that either none or else very few ceremonies are prescribed in the books of the new testament. 
The pomps of ceremonies are not necessary.  Secundaryly I find the said ceremonies on every side sundry & unlike among themselves. Thirdly they be exceedingly mutable/ wherefore it were good, in asmuch as there are so many men, which do so highly regard ceremonies, that there were sometime declaration & instruction given to the comen people, concerning the same: but in such wise that they might learn and know the difference between the very worship and service of god, and the rite and usage of the churches. For if a man do come to mass, and doth here it, he weeneth that he hath done his duty gaily well: and he doth not yet know what the mass is. But in our times ceremonies have gotten this name of the goddess Ceres: for they do give or bring in bread and victuals by a good fire. And therefore we do not suffer, 
Whereof they are called by this name ceremonies  that any man shall speak evil of that manner of worshipping god. Let no man be angry nor micsontent, if I shall some what speak and give signification of them: for ceremonies after this manner are in a manner idolatry/ & that thou mayst perceive and understand what they are consider & mark well these things following. If we will at any time do the offices and works of the church, and keep divine service and honour: what do we? do on a white linen surplice: which ought to signify our innocency and chastity of life, and also the clear understanding of the holy scriptures, which same thing white & pure silver doth represent and signify in the holy scripture: but in our judgement, we are no less of weight and authority, nor less wise, than the very scripture of god, besides this, 
The amyce of fur what it signifieth.  we do on us a calabere amyce of dead beasts skins, which doth betoken mortality: for if we should be only clad in a linen garment, and that same also being white, we might perhaps considering that thing which it signifieth, that is to weet, that we were so greatly ennocentes/ of so chaste life/ and so excellently learned in holy scriptures: we might (I say) by the reason thereof fall in to pride: for cunning and knowlyge oftentimes maketh a man proud. Therefore we do look upon the overmost amyce of grey skins, which may put us in remembrance of our mortality, by the reason whereof we fall in to humility and meekness/ and so being full of cleanness/ of innocent life of great knowlyge of the scriptures/ and most deep humility: we do go forth into the temple to give unto god his honour & service/ what say ye my neighbours, are not this gay gods? 
The seven hours canonical.  So then prime (as we call it) is begun/ in some countries there must one come forth armed with a bag full of money, to comfort such humble and heavy hearts which same thing is likewise done at Tertia, Sexta, and Nona/ who would, were not this: do the divine service? here are heaped together innumerable psalms, Antemnes/ Collects/ many prayers, although they do nothing at all agree one of them with another: & making haste, as it were hunters in a wood we do mumble together and make a busszing none otherwise than do wasps or gad bees in an old stock of a willow tree, at which noises both of them, it is pleasant and swate sleeping beyond measure. For we do sing so easily & tenderly, that even in prime alone, we are feign to change our tune, and to take it higher, twice or thrice often times even hole four ꝑtes. ad totam quartam. 
Canons or lords of the close.  Afterwards do come in our masters & lords of the close covered with grey amyces, and having on a very white surplice, but not such one as the foresaid chaplains do wear, but of most fine reins or silk, briefly so fine and thin that a man may see thorughe it, in token of most high and perfect excellency in holiness/ in chastity in innocency/ & in profound understanding of the scripture/ namely in the epistles of Paul, and in the gospel. For albeit that they be very excellent in other things yet in these things they are excellent, as who is most excellent. These men beholding their amice to fur, which hath in other countries a great girdle of green colour hanging down (as thick as the cord wherewith the mynorities are girded) with many tenrils, & wretched silken threads very thick as are the brusshes of drapers or tailors: then is their heart stricken as it were with a knife, when they are thus put in remembrance of teryble death: wherefore for passing great heaviness they compass their heed round about with a purple tiara and they are nothing so proud as they, which do sing in the quire, which do continually run in to the church clad in a garment gnawn and eaten of worms & moths, but they have three or five servants waiting upon them & two chaplains, which follow hard at their master's heels, to th'intent forsooth that they also might drink in so great contemplation, & so might learn well to consider and remember death/ but they are of a very high mind/ they honour the chaplains, neither do they trouble them in labours/ they sing either nothing at all/ or else very little, because the other should not be letred, they have also but comen or course breasts: but yet they resort to the choir very worshipfully/ they do highly honour to the lamp/ they do make great reverence to the saints/ and so after that they have once presented and showed themselves in the church/ anon after they desire friendly and loving departing/ they go forth of the choir, committing the residue of the divine service to the chaplains/ but yet their mind is much set upon him which walketh about with the bag of money/ to whom after that they have humbly put forth their hand, then is there no longer any cause of tarrying: for they are exempted, and the birds do leap up at home fasting the whelps do tear one another/ the old cokesse & the young cokesse do brawl and fight/ they must needs be commanded to keep peace. But least the chaplains might say, whiles these men are idle and do nought/ we must be fain to sing continually in the queare: they are wise/ they do part and divide the labours with them, so that the chaplains do sing mightily, and themselves do mightily receive money/ to th'end that all things may be brought to egalyte yet nevertheless they do give to these men. iiij.d. But if mass be begun & the time of offering doth draw near, 
Oblatyon.  here also is diversity: for the chaplains armed every one of them with an ob. do cast their ob. in to the basin kissing the sudary. But the master's themselves do come with a very deep conscience/ & when they are comen near unto the basin, they do think in their minds/ peradventure thy money may be a possession or goods untruly and wrongfully gotten: they will not therefore offend any thing at all/ and do touch the basin right well with an empty hand/ very honourably drawing back again their arms/ kissing also the sudary/ and making courtesy very goodly turning round about/ and so fair and softly they go again to their place/ who would call these things/ trifles/ when they do so honourabli make their oblation to god? Oh how goodly ministers and service are daily done to almighty god? how goodly shrill songs do sound daily? here the musicians do sing songs of five parts/ according to the. xc.ij. distynction Cantantes. 
The song used in the church  etc. Otherwhiles they do so strain their voice above their reach/ as though they would be strangled, with in a little while after they do let their voice fall so low/ that thou wouldst ween/ that they did weep/ one man singeth on this part, an other sin gethe on another part/ & by and by afterward they wax dumb: anon after one beginneth to crow as it were a hen, which would lay eggs/ and than followeth a sound of a full voice, as it were the sound of a drone or of a ledder pipe: insomuch that often times in so great a strife & dyversytyes of manifold voices it doth seem necessary to cry peace peace/ they do howl so pytyously, that we have in very deed pity & compassion upon them: moche like to the howling of cats in March. But what shall I say of the gospel? when it is song? Oh how goodly ceremonies are then done? (it is much like to the fashion, which the Jews did use in old time about the sepulchres of the prophets, whereof it is mentioned in the xxiij of Math) There is borne a banner of silk & garnished with a goodly cross, 
The ceremonies used at the reading of the gospel.  in token of the victorious & blessed triumph which jesus christ made of subduing the world unto himself by the doctrine of the gospel Iohn the xvi And also because in baptism all we did be come sworn to christ under this sign of the cross, and also in token that the world is to be overcomen by the gospel/ besides that there are borne about two brenning tapers in signification and betokening that the gospel is the very heavenly doctrine, by the which all men are illumynated & saved, and not by any other thing/ to th'intent that we should keep firm & steadfast faith in the gospel, Iohan the eight chapiter. Then afterwards a priest beareth a sencer of silver making a fumigation & savour of incense, as long as the gospel is in reading to syngnyfy our inward affection toward christ with devout prayers to him, to the laud of him/ for his grace and doctrine given unto us. There is also borne about the gospel book richly covered with gold and silver, garnished with precious stones: in the sign and token of our great estimation that we have towards the gospel, and that in our judgement it is the highest treasure, which of fervent love enclosed within our breast with many virtues & christian life doth break out in to works, which thing we do see a manner daily. Afterwards there thundereth a great bell/ by which we do signify our christian preestly & apostolical office/ that it is well done and executed of us likewise as christ hath committed and given commandment to us preelates, in the twelve of luke/ and in the last of Mark/ last of all the gospel is borne about to every person in the choir, and offered forth to be kissed, in the sygnyfication of the great fervent charity that we have towards Chryst & his doctrine, where we do openly show, that we will be perpetually the friends and followers of the gospel: for that oath, which we did make at the receiving of the sacrament of baptism, the same we then confirm with a kiss/ and we do go about to get that glory in the sight of the lay people, to whom the gospel is not in like manner offered to be kissed. Oh how great honouring and service of god is this? for if this be not high honour to god then wot I not what is honour to god. Now the Lutherans do always come against us with the gospel making jews and pharisees of us/ how should we otherwise worship the gospel? is not this reverence great enough and enough again? for even whiles the gospel is in singing, we do put of our caps, we do rise up on our feet/ we do wake out of our sleep/ we do spit & reach strongly/ which thing doth help well/ although our mind in the mean season be in another place occupied about other matters/ which thing can not hurt for as much as we do stand there present/ as it is had in the ten distinction fixum strosack. Anon after these things done/ we do go in to the chapiter house (as they call it) and there we take great care, and do take weighty counsels/ by what means the service of god may be maintained/ where the letters of the pensyons do lie hid/ how much treasure is in the treasure-house/ how they may lend money to bring in increase that our canonshyppes might be made the more fat: & we do also make a new statute, how long season a new chaplain or canon shall receive no fruits, at the beginning, that the building might go forward by the pensyons/ for this intent they do give charge to the preacher under an oath given, that he shall make no sermon in which he shall not proclaim & declare a great building to be in hand, & great costs and charges/ wherefore he must exhort the people very diligently to give money promising many a thousand years of pardon/ beside I wot not what lents & he saith that all things do not belong to poor folks, for almsdeed may be well done also upon churches. But if god doth no more desire of us/ then this outward garnishing and pomp it is a very easy excuse: but I fear greatly my well-beloved lords least those things may be laid to your charge, which are written in the first chapter of the prophet Isaiah/ Our bishops have their name of considering & oversight, 
Episcopi bishops.  as the which ought to be watch men, keepers and overlokers among the people, that if at any time the said people do err & go out of the right way fro the law of god, they may by the bishop be called and brought again in to the way/ be monished, be thaughte & rebuked: wherefore Hieremie in the first & second chapter doth by a true name call them pastors & herdesmen, which by knowledge & the doctrine of the gospel do teach faith to the people. But now the bishops have turned their eyes an other weigh, and not one of them preacheth any word, yea they do moreover think it an unseemly thing for them to preach, albeit yet that it did beseem/ saint Nycholas saint Martyne/ Vlryche & was very convenient and seemly and also worshipful to the apostles yea and christ jesus himself also did walk about on his feat in diverse regions preaching the kingdom of heavens. If to preach that word of god were a shame, if it did minish and appear the honour of bishops: then might christ have rested in bethany with lazarus, and have committed that office to the apostles, whose master he was in good peace & rest living his own self pleasantly & easily in all kind of pleasures, as our bishops do now a days. 
Actorum i  But he began first to work, and afterwards to teach. But now a days the bishops do begin strives and suits for benefices/ pensyons/ castles/ cities/ these matters they take in hand/ these things they do ween to be honour unto them: but they are ashamed of that thing, whereof and by which they have gotten their name and possession. I say to you bishops, that your dignity is great, and it is worthily given to you for the honour of Chryst, if you do follow his steps/ but who soever of you doth not every sunday in his own person teach the gospel in that place? where he is abiding: surely he is no pastor, and he shall be compelled to give a sore account and reckoning of his deed according to the word of the lord in the xxiij chapiter of Hyeremye. Also if he do preach his own law, and the doctrine of men/ in the stead of the word of god: he shall give an account for all the harms growing thereupon, so is it written Isaiah xxiv. If you be the vicars & successors of the apostles: execute the office of apostles, in your own parson, in that place where you are resydente and abiding/ how greatly should the gospel be regarded & had in high estimation: if the fathers the bishops did teach it their own selves: for than the persons & parish priests would despise themselves like wise with good trust & boldness, to follow them. But now you all for the most part are very despisers of them which do faithfully teach and preach the gospel. Oh lord, save me from that terrible judgement which you bishops shall receive/ your vycars/ your offycialles/ notaries/ your advocates, 
Offycialles notaries.  and proctors are very tyrants/ they do regard one person afore another with great percyalytye/ they love bribes/ they vex poor men and desolate persons/ they suffer simple silly men to ꝑishe: they think in this wise/ I am out of all jeopardy, what so ever I do, it belongeth to the bishop, and he shall abide all the danger/ all the sins therefore of them/ all the blood of innocentes oppressed, doth cry up to heaven for vengeance upon you bishops/ for you ought diligently to look upon these things/ and to enquyer & serache out of such men as are not suspected, what is the state of all things: & not to give credence to your flatterers. This blood was committed to your hands, of whom it shall be required again by the justice of the straight judge, even unto the least farthing/ which things I do speak to you for your ꝓfetes. And if you do not thus: ye are idols, according to the testimony of the divine scripture in the xi chapiter of zachary. Also in the second cause, and the vij question Non omnes. etc. if you do say that it is not the usage & manner of the church, that you bishops should teach the gospel: then I say to you that you have none other authority or office of god then in the word of god, in which all things are comprehended, as Paul saith writing to Tyte in the first chapiter, and to Tymothe in the third chapter of the second epistle/ wherefore if you will not execute your office, lay from you your bishopric: but yet consider, what this name doth contain within itself, in the third chapter of Ezechyel. If you be ashamed to make a sermon: 
Nota.  be you also ashamed to receive & take the reward which you have not deserved/ we might much more profitably set in your place a man made of straw: which if he did nothing labour, he should again also nothing eat, who soever doth not labour: let him not eat, according to the doctrine of saint Paul. These things have we spoken to your utility & profit/ for in open sermons no man dare tell you one word of the truth/ wherefore it is needful, that we do send those things in to your houses which we would have you know, that your office and duty may come in to your remembrance, and also the judge christ jesus, in the xxiiij chapter of Mathue. Now let us set upon the very mischievous persons, by whom spiritually above measure the greatest honour and service of god is daily done by six hundredth diverse fashions among themselves in all points unlike: for every one order of them hath set up a special idol, holy Helyas, the prophet called by surname Thesbis, in the old time afore the nativity of Christ, certain hundredth years, did dwell near the river jordane about the Mount Carmelus, but not perpetually/ to the same Mount came the mother of saint Anne, yea & also saint Anne herself, & last of all blessed Marry Christ'S mother was brought thither, (as they say) to the dedication of the temple. In this Mount (I say) of Carmelus, rose up the holy order of them, 
The carmelites commonly called the white friars.  which are called carmelites. I cannot tell what came in to their minds, they have made themselves a better name now a days, & they are called the friars of saint mary our lady: I marvel greatly, in asmuch as our lady saint Mary was never Nun, nor never did make any religious man: why they do call themselves our lady's friars: they should much better & more rightfulli be called Helies friars, of Helie/ from this beginning hath so great divine honour come forth of great holiness, from so old an original of that order, even from Helye (if it be true) But if a holy place, 
Nota.  and long time may make good and virtuous men: then should the devil be very good and holy, whose order began in heaven before the creation of man. But the sultan considered the thing the right weigh for after that they changed their orygenall, he drove them out of his land, to whom before he had been very often beneficial. Dominik was a good man, 
friars preachers commonly called the blakce fryres  & of a good mind he did invent a mean way, after which, men might live better according to the gospel, at such time as he was yet a canon regulare. Now they do a scribe to him, that he was called by gods own self to that so high and excellent order and that god had put him in to it, & that the blessed virgin the mother of god did upon him his religious habit: I never knew that our lady saint mary did make freers. que certe rem quasi acu tetigit. for the dominicanes do give great honour and reverence to our lady, as in Berna, & Senis, laudably and gloriously/ and likewise in other places, as we have often times hard say/ I marvel greatly, that you also are not called our ladies freers, sith it is so the you have received your habit of her. But peradventure the Carmelites have gotten this name from you at rome, of the pope, which adorned them with such a name. If that another man should do this: we would say that he did renye his own name. 
Thomas of aquine.  Afterwards Thomas of Aquine liked well the life of Domynyk, and therefore he took it upon him & so continued: this said Thomas/ when at the beginning he did love natural arts and wisdom, in process of time, he fell to the study of divinity, wherein he bestowed all labour and diligence to get the understanding of the holy scriptures/ and according to the old usage & custom of philosophers, he began to compare the philosophies to the scripture of god, & by the philosophers he did measure & judge it/ howbeit yet it was never his mind, that those things, which he had written should be accounted & taken for articles of the faith: for he doth submit all his works to the primates of the chryche, and to the judgement of wise men, which thing may be suffered/ but what things have sprung afterwards thereof? In like manner as I said here tofore of hercules/ saturnus, & of other wise men which after their death were set up for gods: even so also do the freers preachers, now extol and magnify their Thomas/ holy Thomas/ a holy doctor of the church a holy doctor approved by the see apostolic: much after the same fashion as the prophet saith/ the temple of the lord/ the temple of the lord/ the temple of the lord/ they say also, that christ from the cross spoke with thomas: and said O Thomas thou hast written well of me. They do fashion to him a great dyadeame, and do set a dove upon his shoulder/ which doth look in to his ears, and doth whisper somewhat in to them: make a goose on the other side which may betoken his great divinity and godhead/ when we do enter in to their churches, all the tables are full of freers painted dying in beds, to whom doth come golden beams from they windows by these beams god doth wonderfully talk with them from above, one miracle upon another. Besides this they do cry saint Thomas is the greatest and chief of all doctors and teachers of holy divinity: near at his hand they do paint an Instrument of the body of Christ, as though he had excellently written thereof. Saint paul the apostle did never boast, that himself was above all teachers: but he called himself least of the apostles, & unwise, and yet to him god had given testimony of wisdom. But you freers preachers have made good saint Paul inferior to Thomas: and do you ween that you have done a great pleasure to your Thomas, that you have exalted him for a god? verily it is no pleasure to him at all/ who so ever doth not hold saint Thomas, that man is susspected in his doctrine: who so ever doth mynyshe the authority of him, he doth greatly hurt the tender ears of the Thomists: and who so ever doth reject Thomas, that man immediately is an heretic, and worthy to be cast in to the fire. Now I do know, if Thomas be conferred to the scripture: he doth halt greatly/ yea he hath defined many things falsely, which thing neither himself nor any of his friars did ever understand or perceive. My council therefore shall be/ that Thomas should continue Thomas, he is a good and sufficient defender of his own self, where he wrote well/ but in such things wherein he did err, in those you cannot help him, though you do magnify and exalt him never so high, contrary to his own will/ for Thomas is nothing else but Thomas, when you have all done that ever you can/ be content and suffer that he may abide one in the number and sort of other good fellows. Do not cast yourselves within every gate & door, then shall you not be pressed and thrunge: who so hath ears to here: let him here/ last of all, you do hang forth a great table a broad in sight, in which table do stand froth divers of your freers goodly painted, one a cardinal/ another a bishop/ the third a doctor/ the fourth an astronomer/ one holdeth a lily in his hand an other a sheephook/ and many religious women, leaves of books are mingled among, cleaving fast in the branches of a painted tree to and fro, as it were doves, covered with great diadeames/ which of the devils hath showed by revelation unto you that all these are in heaven? do you suppose, that the pope may make saints? if I had money: even my servant should be made a saint hypocritically/ you do wander from one place to another as it were pies/ (I do tell you a thing as true as an oracle you are known) neither will ye ever rest until the same thing do chance to you, which in the old time did chance to the religions of the templaries. 
saint Fraunciske  Take now forewarning/ where is our good franciske left which was the son of the very mighty and rich merchant, borne in a stable, & laid in a crib, even likewise as Christ himself was: yea peradventure he did also flee in to Egypt for fear of Herode. I do not believe that there is in any histories mention made of any saint, which hath been so famous in working of so many miracles as franucyske. And it is no maruaylle in asmuch as he hath also been crucified and hath received wounds I marvel greatli where you kept him in the mean season, until such time as he was fastenid to Cryst upon the cross, now first within these four years why have you not set up a special cross in the honour of him? least homely rustical parsons might mistake, & be ygnorant/ which were Christ'S cross, & which the cross of Fraunciske. But peradventure it is otherwise red in the old history, then in the new. Saint Barnardyne likewise standeth among other saints set forth to the show, being garnished with many miters & bishops crosses, which do lie on this side and that side round about him. whereto neadethe or wherefore serveth this gloriation and bragging of the contempt of worldly honours? saying that ye do now adays with all diligence, labour to get the proud & most high dygnytyes of Cardynalles, and do obtain them not without great sums of money/ saying also that you do entremedle with the greatest matyers of the world, & do determine and end them: ye do make great booste of your vows, & of keeping the counsels & rules of the gospel: but if a man do behold & consider well the thing near unto the light, then have you well near dispensed against them all, spending all your life in ceremonies only, as it were wild horses, eating only straw & chaff, for asmuch as the true grains & good corn is utterly unknown to you. There are many of your .v. or vi sects, most pestilent and poisoned despisers (but yet under a good colour and semblance) of the most holy gospel of Chyrste/ if a man would burn you all (I mean ceremonial persons) in an heap: (I swear the truth) you could not tell what is the gospel, you are rather a certain glittering, then fruits of the gospel. But yet you have a prerogative that none of you shall go down to hell, whiles peradventure it should fortune so that onye man going to heaven did fall by the way, at the sound of that excellent and credible revelation, which the holy angel did bring to Fraunciske, as his brother Ruffyne, Leo and peter, have showed in the chapter. Nevertheless to say the truth, there are some (though very few) reverend & good fathers, & brethren/ in that order: which have the right and true understanding of the scripture, and also the clear difference between the flesh and the spirit. wherefore I hope it will once come to pass, that these old servants of the temple shall awake and shall forsake the law of Moses, & come to the true liberty of christ. 
The friars augustynyans.  The Augustynyans do make unto their Augustyne a heart, which he holdeth in his hands stricken thorughe with two arrows: verily I do not perceive, what this thing doth mean, except the one doth belong to Augustyne, betokening his love towards god, and the other to his friars betokening their brenning love towards Margeret other whiles when they be enamoured and burn in love, as we do see daily, and do perceive also by the comen fame and rumour. 
abbots.  If great abbots would take my salutation in good worth: it should be ready for them/ your house is called a cloister, because it ought too be shit and close: you have a side garment even down to the foot, either black or white, and this is needful above which you do on a scapuler (as you call it) whether it be of linen or else of  cloth, it doth signify the yoke of christ crucified, obedience, the exile and misery of this life patiently to be suffered for god's sake. 
The cowll or hood.  Besides this you bear a round hood which covereth your head well in sign and token, that your five wits have renounsed the world with all worldly affections, & that they are dead to the world, your head is well near altogether shaven & smooth, a little garland & rundel only being left to signify your mind to be erected and lifted up unto god: 
The garland of hear upon the heed.  and the garland betokeneth the passion of Chryst with this apparel you do appear to all men. Some are appareled with black wings hanging down from their arms: to betoken their inward love to be very fervent and boiling towards god/ 
The monks of saint Blaze.  and also that by hymylyte they do fly up an high afore the face of god/ but under these titles you convent us upon all our goods, as belonging unto the temple of god: your monasteries are made free and the abbots also are made free & without all charges. By what reason can such liberty stand with you, which have offered yourselves to the lord god, in all obedience and adversity of this life to bear the yoke of Christ, which can not stand together with such secular liberty, except you will behold and consider the papale immunityes, in the xuj cause & the first question placuit. Moreover also there must be some ducal abbots, and that by the donations & grants of the pope/ how can the pope contrary to the propriety of your name give to you immunytyes or liberties: 
The liberties of monks.  seeing that you are called monachi, which ought to be solitari/ shit up close, & destitute, & to be accounted as a barren tree, as saint Hyerome saith, which asketh this question. Interpret thou (saith he) this word Monarchus, that is to weet thy name: what dost thou in the press & multitude, which by thy name art alone & solitary? cities are not the habytations of hermits and dwellers in wilderness/ but of the multitude & people, whereof it hath that name/ what answer dost thou now make to saint Hierome? wilt thou defend the by the pope? then provide that he may change thy name and thine habit/ and thou shalt be no longer a Monk: for he may make of the a lance man of France. If thou art not a Monk/ for what cause and under what title or name dost thou convent us upon our pensyons and goods belonging (as thou sayest) to the Chrich? if contrariwise ye have a dyspensation? then do the lay men well also to dispense with you, & give you even as you are/ that is to weet, nothing at all/ you do also bear (which god wot is very needful) a bishops mitre garnished with gold and precious stones/ bearing also in your hands a sheephook of silver & gold: could ye not else rule your monks/ although you had none of these things? wherefore do you bear the ornaments of pastors/ when you are no pastors? nor do feed your sheep/ as saint hierome writeth to Helyodorus/ but do cast forth afore your sheep for their fodder the rule of the order? & what is the rule? to be clad in a black or a white cowl/ to sing matins, to keep silence two hours daily at dinner & souper to quaffed of two cans or tankardes of wine/ also to fast from myghelmas to Christmas/ not to go out of the Monastery without licence/ lay men do none of all these things: and yet that notwithstanding they also are good christian men. But the canon law (I say) is the very food of christian men: what food had the people of Jerusalem? which by the space of certain hundredth years were very good christian men/ and yet had never that law canonical? suppose you that you shall win heaven with you cowls and your own statutes & ordinances? nay verily/ that will not be/ nevertheless right welebloved abbots with your garlands your mitre with two horns/ & your sheephook doth show you an other lesson/ and an higher albam (as they call it) with sweet smelling spike, it is in nowise of that read growing in the marsh ground, which you do greatly set by/ & what a monster is this? where as you ought to were a cowl with an hood/ you take a dispensation therefore and do upon you the ornaments of a bishop/ you garnyshe the one hand with a goodly sheephook/ the other you do arm with a naked sword/ and that is in daily use: sometime also besides all this you have a Cardinal's hatre hanging down side at your back. whereunto need you a sword? is not that sword strong enough which Paul doth show in the vj. chapter to the ephesians: but that it is also needful too borrow the sword the shedder of blood, of emperors & kings? remember and think upon your scapuler/ & let Caesar alone with his own sword, what wicked devil hath possessed you priests and bishops: that you should be willing all of you to be secular princes & kings? 
The secular sword of priests is against god.  either Paul and christ do lie: or else you do possess the worldly sword, against god & against right/ you brag and boast of your religious state, unto which (if you did read Paul in the second chapter of the second epistle to Timothe, and johan in the xv. chapter) you are unmeet, do you what so ever you will and busy yourselves to the uttermost that you can. But one error engendereth an other/ likewise as a change was made from the good holy apostle Peter, & ever after continually, the pope's have turned themselves away from the first fountain of whom there hath broken in a clean contrary form/ as it hath been clearly declared heretofore, until of a sheep sprang up a roaring wolf/ of a preacher of evangelical peace, a law maker of all tyranny/ of a priest a man of war/ of a poor apostle the most mighty Cesar and emperor of the world/ are not these wonderful acts? wherefore the state of religious men doth very well make them selves like unto their capitain. Such as the head is: such is the body. The pope is turned in to a worldly emperor/ and hath his priests and religious men soldiers and men of war. As the pope doth follow Chryst: 
As the pope is so are religious men  even so doth the bishops/ priests, and religious men follow their profession. The pope fashion of Chryst the most patiented lord, what so ever him self listeth: for he alone doth give strength and authority to the scripture/ he doth interpret it/ he doth grant the use of it/ in which Chryst doth rest, after his pleasure. So likewise churches and monks do make oft their patrons and professyons/ what so ever they list. The pope in process of time hath put forth and exalted himself for a god, wherefore churches & religious persons do extol & magnify their saints and statutes also for a god. The pope giveth to them imunytyes and liberties: and they again of their part do therefore worship him in stead of a god, for so is the fashion, help me then/ and I shall help thee. Of those things it cometh to pass, that every one of the pope's parts do without shame spit out blasphemies against the blessed trinity, 
In praising of the pope is blasphemy of christ.  ascribing and giving that unto the power of the pope, which belongeth only to almighty god/ for verily I myself herd with mine own ears, when it was openly preached in a certain monastery, of one which, did proclaim and declare indulgences/ now four years a go: that the pope hath the same power, that hath the blessed trinity in heaven. Oh strange and wonderful blasphemy/ let any man read the books, which are made and put forth against such as they call heretics: he shall find in them great blaspheminations against god, such as one may wonder to read them. The gospels they do name trifles. Moreover the pope doth confirm/ what so ever thing we will desire/ if money only be present, he giveth to the religious men saints, he canonizeth according to their pleasure/ and so are new gods exalted without number. Go to what monastery thou list, thou shalt find a very great multitude of holy religious men made fat on the walls/ & tables adorned with goodly dyadeames, and each one of them holding a singular and special ape in his hands. Also every company and fellowship of artificers have proper saints of their own, holding the instruments of their crafts in their hands, one a / and other a twyble/ the third a fish/ the fourth a swine/ the .v. a smiths hammer. I trust strongly that dysars and privy traitors also shall within a while have a saint of their own/ who in the mischief hath granted unto you this so high and so divine office of making saints, which doth appertain only to god? wherefore it is not without a cause, 
A proverb the old god.  that many men do speak of the old god, and the old doctrine & faith, and of the new god/ and the new doctrine and faith. But this is a point of craft/ to understand every one of these things a right: that no man do take the one for the other. Often times some man taketh a raven for a popyngaye or a peacock: if he never saw any before that time/ other whiles we do by the fish called Nasus in the stead of the noble fish Ascha: but when he is comen home and hath opened and bowelled the said fish, then doth the first perceive the fraud and guile/ for the fish Nasus is black within, and the fish Astha is white and full of goodly fatness. 
christen men are admonished.  Now whiles we do live in this world, in the precious time of grace, if we will not open the eyes of our understanding, but will be content in the outward usage & custom weening that we have hit the right nail on the head, and in the mean season do not regard the true kernel & inward things: we shall perceive afterwards (but to our most and perpetual loss and harm) our error and journey out of the weigh, & that we did by and take the fish Nasus in stead of the noble fish Asta/ but then the market shall be passed when the spouse shall be entered in and shall have shit the gate after him, 
And excusatyon.  wherefore most well-beloved and good christian men, do not take otherwise then well, this my showing & declaration of your error, although it be somewhat hard and sharp: for the body is of more value than the cote, & the soul of more value than the body: all lordship perisheth and forsaketh us in the extreme article of death. There followeth no man but our own works to accompany us unto the straight and heavy. judgement of the very righteous god: where both a king and a shepherd shall be equally regarded, and the pope and a simple priest, both moche like reputed, we will be christian men, go we then, and let us not thus banish our most gentle and most merciful redeemer jesus Christ altogether in to wilderness, let us suffer that he may revive again by holy scripture: nor let us not so rage and play the cruel tyrants against him upon his members, that that psalm be not said of us to our perpetual infamy & shame, Ouare fremuerunt gentes. &c. In that noble psalm we see what hard & sore judgements god hath given.   

The second book.  
Now will I add a certain little & brief instruction, & as it were a rule or mark by which, any man what soever he be, of the simple comen people, (for the great doctors, and laboryours martyrs the saruauntes of the temples, peradventure have no need at all of it, being certain and assured of them, that they may perceive their own diseases, and so shall they have help, orels never) I may easily perceive and judge in the daily custum of our faith/ and in the usage and rights of the churches, which we do see daily to increase, what is the old god, the old faith, & the old doctrine, and on the contrary part also, what is the new god, the new faith/ and the new doctrine, that many good men be not so miserably seduced/ and suffered to remain in diffidence & misbelieve of all their works and reward concerning god & their neighbour whereof doth never grow or come forth any good thing.  

first what is the word of god.  
For asmuch as no man doth know for certainty, what god is, but only as far as himself hath revealed unto us, & the only by his holy scripture: it shall not be lawful for us otherwise to speak, to teach of god, to believe, to hope, (which rule let all men well consider) then holy scriptures do teach and instruct us, a form whereof appeareth in the third chapter of Exodus.   

The second.  
The highest worship, honour, and glory, which almighty god doth ask and require of all men, is: that every man should simply give credence to the mouth and words of god, without any human addition, john the xvij a form whereof is most openly showed Numeri. xiii. and xiiij whereof it followeth that faith is the highest good work, and the greatest worship and service of god, and the only mean of our health and salvation: for by faith we are unied and knit to god, John the xiij Capytre. and the. C.u. Psalm. and Ecclianst. xxxij.   

The third/ the christian faith is the holy scripture, which scripture is the mother of the christian church, Iohn the xvij and in the first to the Corinthyans', the four chaptyre. All these men/ which from the bottom and innermost fountain of their heart, do give credence to the scripture: are regenerates the sons of god. Iohn the first, & the xvij and as long as they do continue in faith, they do also continue and are the sons of god: and are also the coherytours with Chryst of the kingdom of god. Roma viii Now if they be inheritor of the kingdom of god, they are safe: wherefore it followeth, that all we are saved or made safe, only by the christian faith/ and by none other thing. Ecclianst xxxiiij An example whereof is read in the xiiij chapter of Numeri.   

The fourth.  
All the scripture which hath proceeded from god, doth show & teach unto christ jesus the son fo god Iohn the .v. chapter. Now that followeth that the holy scripture is the christian mother, which doth gender us by faith, Iohn the xvij and that all men, which do believe the scripture (as it was said before) are the only daughter of it, a pure & an incorrupt virgin, whose merry & lovely spouse is christ jesus. Math. the ix hereof we may perceive, that which is commonly said, that no man can be saved out of the chyrsten church/ is in no wise understanded in his foundation of the pope & the bishopric of Rome, which are outward things & mutable. But this is unmutable cleaving fast unto the soul, and not of man's reason or strength but of the holy ghost.   

¶ The fifth.  
Albeit in the scripture faith is singularly spoken by itself in the second chapter of the prophet Osee/ and good charity is singularly extolled in the xiij chapter of the first epistle to the corinthians/ & hope likewise in the eight chapter to the Romans: and semblably here & there in other places of the scripture: yet for all that the christian faith is never in this world separated nor departed from charity and hope, for as much faith as is in thee: as much also is there of charity and hope in thee/ & then first do spring good works following as signs & tokens of thy faith, which thou haste by charity in hope unto thy lord god. Mathue the vij chapter. Of these things take a very necessary instruction & lesson. That the servants or ministers of the temples are exceeding foolish, which do put all their faith & hope in works to the ceremonies of the church, so that if they shall have trimly garnished & decked the altars with many images/ candelstyckes and shall have set round a bout the altars as it were a certain of trees, and then do offer, do sing mass/ do make a clattering with bells/ and do run about in the church, even until they do sweet & be hoorse: they would affirm with an oath, that they have wrought a good work to god, albeit that in all these things now rehearsed there standeth not the value of one peace: yea although none of all these things were done, yet would not god be angry, neither should we sin, though we did lay a side all these things, to speak as touching to the works of themselves/ but not to give credence to god with all our heart: in all his words/ not to love him with all our heart and mind/ nor to trust and hope in him: this is the thing that doth displease god, and which doth separate and depart us from him/ wherefore the lord said. The hour shall come when you shall neither worship the father in this Mount neither yet at Jerusalem: but the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit & truth/ that is to say in their heart desierfully sighing to god in faith, and such manner servants loveth god. But the mynysteres of the temples should die for hunger, if such worshipping and service of god were used. wherefore they will in no wise suffer such manner worshipping of god/ seeking somewhere rotten gloss for the maintenance of their deed.   

¶ The vi that there be open temples it is profitable specially for simple and unlearned men that by the examples of other good men/ they may be provoked to think upon god, until that god shall grant and give his grace more largely unto them/ for as touching to the spirit it is nothing needful to bielde churches. Iohn the four & two Corinth. v.   

¶ The vij The multitude of diverse ceremonies of the church not being understanded nor perceived of the comen sort & most part of people, what they are, & how moche they are of weight and value: engendereth and causeth many errors in the faith, so that the comen people doth otherwiles account the thing for a very great thing, which is least of all. As when the ground work and foundation is cast of a church to be builded/ or of a altar, then do they lay thereupon strange and marvelous relics of saints upon some goodly and costly pillow/ & when they are brought or carried away again, two or four wax tapers are lighted, which are borne before / the priest himself is clad in silk, being accompanied with two priests the onbeing deacon, the other subdeacon. Now if a simple lay man do in the mean season stand near to a priest being at mass, and he is either at the levation, or else at the reception of the sacrament, this lay man seeing so great pomps and royal solemnity and so much cost about the relics, where as a bout the sacrament, there doth scarcely one poor candle burn: he forsaketh the mass, & maketh haste to a new altar, falling down on his knees/ & I do believe that many also do worship the relics/ for we may perceive by the work, that the lay man doth give more mind and reverence unto the relics (which peradventure are bones of a rotten horse) then to the sacrament/ which doubtless are manners/ not seemly for christian men. Also if a man do stand near the mass and sacrament, and in another place they do ring to the levation or sacring, this man runnythe about from one altar to another as though the sacrament anfone altar were better or of less virtue, than the sacrament at an other altar. I do not see any other causes of these errors, then be cause they are not well and rightly instructed and taught in the faith. Now this manner and custom hath contyuned many years/ with many other sundry and divers rites manners and usage of the church, as thou thyself mayst remember. Is this the old faith or the old god? I covet not this faith: how soever the ministers of the temple do babble, and prate they what soever they list. But this thing we have disputed also here tofore.   

¶ The eight  
As god is true and aeternal so is there a true divine scripture, and a true & an undoubted christian faith: 
The very old god.  and this is the very old god/ the very old faith/ and the very old doctrine Ephe. iiij.   


The bible.  ¶ The ix the divine scripture is the holy bible of the christian church (which church what it is, was declared before in the third and fourth article, and let no the pope & the Romanystes be understanded by the name of the church) in the holy ghost known and received as true what soever is written in it is true: for it is the mouth of the lord which cannot lie. psal. E. xvij.   

¶ The ten  
Besides the bible be any man never so holy, 
The doctors.  as Augustine/ Hierome/ Ambrose/ Gregory/ Thomas Bonaventure/ Leo/ Cipryane/ Crysostone/ all the pope's and bishops: yet are their sayings and writings & what so ever they taught to be understonden with reason and judgement, and not to be compared & made equal with the bible in authority and credence/ wherefore this argument is nothing of strength, to say, Augustyne saith this thing, ergo it must needs be true: or Thomas saith it, ergo it is true: or the pope teacheth this: how can it then be error. This saying is nothing worth. But the holy gospel saith this, ergo it is true. This believe thou of a certainty/ for in the believe of holy scripture is the worship full sacrament consercrated of the priest/ in the faith of it, we are assoiled from sin. The kingdom of heaven is promised/ the fire of hell is threatened/ & all things are true. Mathue the xxiiij chapter.   

¶ The. xi. All men, angels, wise men/ philosohers', doctors, bishops, pope's, monks freers, and Nuns, if they be not fortified and borne up by the scriptures, & grounded upon it, they are every one of them new god's/ antichrists/ vain, and nothing worth/ sapienty. xiii. and Hieromie ten and xi   


The bible is the rule of all doctrines.  ¶ The twelve The holy and divine scripture, is the canonical, and true rule, which doth justly measure all things according, unto which all doctrines/ all open sermons/ all the commandments of superiors, either spiritual or temporal or secular. The pope/ and th'emperor/ all doctors/ whether it be Augustyne/ or Thomas/ The counsel or chapter/ The church of Rome/ or of Bohemye: all men (I say) and all things ought to be measured and tried by this rule, which I have said/ and what so ever thing is approved by it, let it remained still: and what so ever thing doth not abide the trial and judgement of the scripture, let it be refused as erroneous/ let it be despised as a thing brought up and begun by the new gods. Let it be cut away as new faith and new doctrine. Actus the fifth chapter, we ought to obey god, rather than men.   

The thyrtynth  
All men that live in this world, let them study and give their mind hereunto, that they do learn to read and write/ if it may be to th'end that every man may often times read the bible namely the gospels, to himself/ his children/ & his household: specially on the holy days/ for the gospel is of such virtue and strength, that the more often times men do read it with desire: so much the better they do learn to understand christ/ and the more firm and stable faith to get towards god/ & their charity is so much the more excited and stirred up towards their neighbour/ & the love of heavenly things do spring: to be short it is the highest consoltion that is in the world in all adversity. And it is a shameful lie to say, that the gospel can not be understonden without the doctors for the divine scripture is so set for the by the holy ghost/ that it doth expound it own self, & doth open and declare one text by another/ and one place doth bear witness to anotehr/ neither hath it any need to beg help either of the doctors, or of our men, which of themselves are none other than liars/ for as much as it is rich and perfect enough of itself. For this is the close garden, and the enclosed or sealed spring and the fresh waters of life, which in most haboundaunte and plenteous wise do perpetually spring forth and issue in to all the breasts of them that do believe Iohn four and vij I beseech the for the love of god, tell me, who taught all martyrs & them that inhabited the wilderness, the gospel? peradventure they also did continue in the worshipful university of ꝓhyse by the space of a dozen years/ & they did here some master doctor in the sentence upon the gospels, in the school Sorbona, where god wot, the gospel is moche had in hand, and is in honour and custom, none otherwise than a cat among skinners/ who did instruct the martyrs in so honest, so good and so reverend & worshipful life in god? peradventure/ Duns/ or Thomas. Good master dotour what great dystynctyons did Peter/ Iohn/ james/ Jude/ and Luke use in th'acts of th'apostles, or in their epistles? did they teach the people (trow you) other things, than they have written.   

¶ The xiiij religious men, of what so ever order they be/ which do extol and advance highly their own doctrines & their own doctors and saints: what other thing do they talk, sing or preach, or what else have they in their mouths, then holy saint Thomas/ the subtle doctor/ master Duns/ the most excellent clerk Augustyne/ worshipful Albert. The aungelycall doctor Bonaventure. The yrrefragable doctor Alexandre of hales. &c. Now I say, for as much as in all doctors according to the nature of man, hath been found inconstauncye, and a certain fear to affirm in so moche that of their doctrines to & fro many exceeding & noisome errors have been perceived & espied out: if the doctrines & sermons which their doctors have taught, have not openly & plainly builded upon the sure stone of the divine scripture/ but if they do take any thing what so ever it be for sure & undoubted/ if either Thomas or Duns/ or Ockam & such other have written: so I say that they do stand in great jeopardy afore god. For this is evident & more clear than day/ that duns and thomas do agree with none other doctors/ and they two be also so repugnant and contrary the one to the other/ that what the one affirmeth & saith/ the other doth deny the same: the one saith that this thing is deadly sin, the other saith it is no sin. Now if the silly simple people do here them make so contrary sermons/ the one to the other/ from the pulpit: what other thing ought they to think, then that they are trifles & lies? Ecclianst xxxiiij   

¶ The xu All princes, & specially bishops are bounden under pain of hell, diligently earnestly & sharply, to provide, that the people be taught none other thing in sermons, than the gospel and scripture. Now if the bishops be negligent and slack, (as now a days many be, and do (alack for pity) more let then help:) it belongeth to secular princes, and they ought and may assist and stand by the gospel, that it may be preached/ nothing considering nor regarding neither curse neither interdyction neither of bishop or of pope: and the cause is/ Chryst himself: sayeth in the gospel, who so ever shall confess me afore men him shall I confess afore my father. But if the secular princes also will be blind (as I hope and trust they will not) than it belongeth to the comen power, 
Acts .v.  even by the promission of holy scripture, to help the gospel, & to give honour to the same. For we aught more to obey god, than men, for Chryst saith plainly in the last chapter of Mark. Go ye in to all the world/ and preach ye the gospel to every creature/ he did not say preach you the canon law, or preach you Thomas or Arystotle.   

¶ The xvi The word of god the holy scripture, standeth not ne is grounded in the wisdom of philosophers i Coryntheo three wherefore it can not be proved or measured, by Arystotle & Auerrois, neither have the simylitudes of natural science and craft/ agreement in every behalf with the scripture: by the reason whereof many, even excellent learned men also are deceived/ yea and some saints also have erred.   

The xvij The mouth of god the holy scripture, is stable, unmutable/ perpetual and true. Mark in the third chapter/ wherefore it suffereth not itself to be crooked or bended after the mutation and laws of man: but contrariwise men ought to change and shape themselves according to the scripture/ if they desire to have eternal life. math. the last chapi.   

The xviij Now this is the difference between the holy scriptures/ and the philosophies and doctrines of men: that the scripture can be understonden of no man, (be he never so high of wit) but only of him, to whom it is singularly given by god from above. Iohn the twelve and Isaiah xcix. Now the grace of god is not given to any of all the proud, wise, & prudent, men of the world. Luke the first/ unless they have before in their mind reputed themselves for unwise & fools i Corinth three But this thing is never done, except god himself do work it Iohn the sixth. But the wisdom and foolishness in all the wisdom of men before greatly esteemed, is caused & springeth of the right & true knowledge of a man's own self. Apocalyp two 
the knowledge of man's own self.  Now there is none other master of whom a man should learn to know his own self: them pure & perfect humility proverb xi To be humble and meek: that is to take from a man his life, and to ascribe it unto god so that a man do think himself to be nothing/ do nothing ascribe to himself: but for asmuch as his heart is taken away that he do wrest and sigh for desire to come unto that thing, whereunto it is drawn/ and whereupon it is steadfastly set, that is to were to our lord jesus Christ only. Luke the first. Now if a man doth live in god/ he is made one with god Iohn the xvij 
Famyliarite with god  And when he is thus made one with god, he hath also famylyaryte with god, & god with him, which in these days is nothing else but the knowledge of god, & of his will and desire. psal. xxxv. after which succeedeth also that help of the divine grace that we may be more, & more lightened in the will of the lord. And the amity and friendship, which god hath with man, and man with god is knit and made one in the divine seal/ which is the holy scripture Ro. xv. for the scripture is closed up & sealed round about to all the mighty men/ to all the wise/ and the learned men/ of the world/ that they can not understand it: neither shall they understand it whiles the world standeth. luke xuj. ye more over they are the more blinded, & more obstinately made hard hearted/ by the objecting & laying of the scripture against them. Iohn the xix wherefore it should not force the value of a straw whether one be a doctor of divinity, or not/ whether he be a bishop or pope/ or else a swynherd/ or any other abject and vile person. For god himself hath reserved to his own self the election and gate, whom he list to favour/ and whom to hate/ & to whom he list give moche of his grace, & to whom little. Exodi. xxxiij. And although there were no scripture in the world at all/ neither any other understanding/ then this rule: yet nevertheless all men ought to raise up themselves/ and to lift up their heads unto god/ saying in this wise/ Lord I am a wretched sinner/ have pity and compassion upon my desolation and misery. But the wise men, the great doctors & masters, the old ministers of the temple, have no need of these things/ there is weightyer matters to do, they write themselves to be the enemies of such manner foolish and unwise men in christ. Beware you subtile wise men, lest that yrene ring of Senacherib be not fastened in to your nostrils/ that your own proper worldly wisdom do slander you & give you a fall perpetually, according to the word of god i Coryntheo three whereto serveth your power without the fear of god/ and the knowledge of holy scripture: but only that poor men may be sore vexed & seduced/ and that we may thrust down the hueye burden of pharaoh daily more and more most cruelly upon the necks of our innocent subjects: albeit that they are free from it/ & have been delivered by christ jesus our lord/ paul wytnessyth that our sins have so greatly provoked the indignation & wrath of god that he hath set over us for prices & rulers, feminine heads, Curlues/ kyghtes/ goshawks/ gripes/ & we do daily receive more.   

The. xjx. There can not a more excellent or a more noble treasure be found in this world, than a true & righteous preacher of the word of god, in the pulpit. 
A good preacher.  Mathue xiij who so ever is of honest, of chaste, and of christian life: upon such one the commonalty ought not to spare for any cost/ for as the pipe goeth, so do the gests that are bidden, dance. If the preacher be true, and well skilled in the scriptures, no doubt of it, god speaketh by his mouth: but if he be untrue and guileful, god is far from him: & Belsebub speaketh by his mouth. Mathue the xiij And where shall the people learn to know god but by the open sermons? if than the preacher doth set forth before his ears the pure wheat grains without any chafe? then the gests which do sit at the table, 
A similitude of the word of god.  do eat pure and fine white bread/ which after that it is dysgested, doth gender pure subtile, and natural blood: this blood causeth good complexion, which good complexion giveth sure and stable health/ and this good health causeth good operations, of which precedeth laud and honour. So the word of god is that pure bread set forth afore the people by the preacher/ the gests, that is to weet the people, which heareth the word, if they do take it with diligence: they do digest it in contemplation & consideration, what was spoken/ how it was spoken/ & why it was spoken/ whereof is gendered good and subtile blood: that is to say, if they do learn to understand, and know what god is/ what is the true honour of him/ what is the true faith/ which be the very right and good works/ 
O man consider.  what man is/ that is to weet utterly nothing/ and which is able to do no good as of him self. etc. This understanding & knowledge doth engender and cause a quiet conscience, which else is troubled and disquieted with peevish questions, and with diffidence & dystruste. Now a conscience having this understanding, & being hole & quiet, doth make a man constant in all adversities, that he may underprop himself with god & the scripture as upon a rock. Such good & strong established health bringeth the very right manner and form of things to be done, & to be left undone: whereof first do arise good works, acceptable unto god. For a work how so ever great it be, or may be, if it have not a pure will & intent, and also good and godly circumstances: verily it is nothing worth/ but who shall tell and show so high things to the simple comen people: save only a well learned preacher, and which feareth god? when the people hear none other thing than the pure scripture: then also doth none other understanding and perceiving chance to the said people, concerning god and his will/ then which is right and true: 
Note and mark well you bishops.  as that god is truth, god is eternal life: hereof ensueth good peace & compassion among the people, which the word of god doth cause, and bring forth/ what thing is better in this world, than peace, & to have compassion among ourselves, each with other, of our misery? where undoubtedly god himself doech dwell with good fortune & wealth. The twenty There can no more noisome nor more strong nor more pestiferous poison, either be devised, or be found upon the earth: then a false and guileful preacher Mathue the xxiv. (Turn the similitude of the bread, which was given not long here tofore: and thou shalt perceive this to be true) Paul in the ten chapiter to the Romans saith thus, who so ever shall call upon the name of the lord, shall be saved. But how shall men call upon him: if they do not believe on him? or how shall they believe or trust in him: of whom they have not herd? and how shall they hear, if he be not preached or showed unto them? and how shall he be preached, when they are not sent for that intent. etc. That is thus moche to say to the comen sense and understanding/ if the people have none otherwise understanding & knowledge of god then by faith, & faith also doth come through hearing and hearing cometh by preaching, which cometh from the mouth of the preacher, (Now is the pith of the matter touched) if then the preacher be unskilled, unlearned, wicked, & false (as many there are now a days/ which in the pulpit do none other thing than parbreak forth their private braulles, hatreds, & pride, being not able any other ways to wreck & revenge themselves) what dost thou ween/ that such one shall preach of the spirit of scripture? Nay that can not be. As he is so he singeth his carol/ he hath learned the human wisdom's and phylosophyes', & the laws both civil & Canon, he hath learned the arts of Arystotle & Auerroys'/ & the master of the sentence with six hundredth opiniators & questionistes brawling and striving among themselves, and as ragged & toorne as beggars are/ as for other he did neither study ever/ neither can skill any thing of them. what other thing than should he teach/ but humane wisdoms? which if thou dost here of him/ thou dost also learn, & exercise them: whereof springeth a custom/ which engendereth forthwith confidence and boldness. And if this have once gathered roots in the thou givest thyself to rest and peace, & at the last thou dost conclude/ that thou wilt neither enquyer & demand more profoundly/ neither thou wilt judge any other thing/ & so thou supposest, that thou hast cast on a very strong bond/ & sure hold upon the kingdom of heavens, and that thou canst not be disappointed of it/ (& yet it is more than a. C. miles from thee) who so ever then will go about to pluck from the thy suꝑstion, what so ever is said/ how so ever plainly and openly the holy scripture be expounded & declared to thee/ & how so ever reasonable causes be showed to thee: thou art wont to thine old rotten and soft water/ (much like unto a Tench, which loveth better to lie hid in standing pools/ and in mud and filth: caring nothing for the fresh running waters, all though it be her death) thou haste a mad head, the true doctrine was never heard before of thee/ it is a strange thing to that: 
The froward speech of superstytious people.  thou dost therefore shake thine hore and mad head saying, what new and strange doctrine is this? from whence is this stranger comen with this new ware? I am now lx years of age & yet I never heard it otherwise preached, before now, there were wise & prudent men also in the old time/ what? did all they err? & were all they ignorant, what is right, and what is not? my father also taught me so/ if it were so, as these new preachers do preach & teach now a days: then were we all the enemies of god, & very devils/ and then also had all the men in old time wandered out of the right way, & lived in error/ how chanceth it that we are comen to this point? it is heresy, it is erroneous doctrine, that they do teach/ it is new faith, that they do preach unto us/ do not, do not believe them. I will stick to mine old god to the old faith/ & doctrine. And such things do their youngers here & do think thus in their minds. Thus doth the preacher, thus do our person and curate, thus do the religious men, thus do priests/ thus doth my father/ and our neighbours: & shalt thou think the contrary, to all them? falling to this new opinion? afterwards the multitude assembleth together, and one fool confirmeth & encourageth another. If there be but one word spoken otherwise than their mad ass heads do perceive & take: then they cry out aloud not the scriptures (for that they are nothing skilled in) but scorns/ dyspysynge/ railing words diffamations, slanders/ blasphemies: & afterwards they do look whether any man will say, this is an excellent man, & a jolly fellow. My fool tell me, when began thy god, thy faith, & thy doctrine? thou wilt say to me, I have heard it preached so all my life tyme. Now I here the very well/ it is the preacher then which hath taught the these things? ye verily. But what manner things hath he taught thee? (or else thy ghostly father in confession/ which is of the same sect & sort. Oh confession confession/ who will speak after the same manner of thee/ as of the preachers). 
Oh goodly declarers & exposytors of the scriptures if god be pleased.  Thou answerest & sayest, he hath taught me saint Thomas/ Duns/ Ocean/ Capreolus/ Aristo. Auerrois. The master of the sentences/ Dormi secure/ Roselles/ the Sammules the pope's law & themperors. Oh good poison/ Now I ask of the further/ what are all these, whom thou haste now named? Men. If he have preached men unto thee: then are men thy gods, thy faith & thy doctrine? thou answerest. No forsooth not so: for they are in deed men, but he taught their doctrine. Now tell me, what things do they teach? They teach many good things of the lord god/ answer me then further are all equally saints, if they speak of god? thou sayest no/ how then? Then put forth marvelous questions, they disagree among themselves, none other wise & fashion, then the gods do strive & fight in homere/ declare me therefore, which are those questions? They do ask & ensearche, how, what, & where, & wherefore the holy trinity is/ which way and under what manner Christ is god/ what he is, & of what office and power/ of what virtue and stength the holy ghost is/ & how the lord doth work in creating wonderful things: besides that they do demand many goodly things of heaven, & of Angels/ which way we may enter in to heaven/ what is in purgatory/ & in hell. These things are not rare and gheson. Good sir by what things do they prove these matters? one proveth by this scripture another by another scripture, but yet he reigneth & beareth the price/ which doth most strongly ꝓue and fortyfy these things, by the reasonable sayings of natural wise masters/ Ah, a good matter/ as fer as I here yet/ as touching to the scriptures/ they are yet in the preamble: but in the reasons of natural wise men, they do fight & strive for a blood wipe. My friend, but which are those natural masters, which have taught so great wisdom's? Arystotle is chief and head of all/ then plato/ Auerrois/ Pythagoras/ Ah so then I do here that Arystotle/ Auerrois/ and Plato are censors & judges/ which may give sentence & judgement of the holy scripture? thou answerest, these men do use them in their books throughout the hole works. Tell me further than/ these natural masters and wise men, were they christian men: or were they panyms & gentiles? gentiles/ grecians/ arabyans. Expound & declare to me/ whom dost thou call gentiles? these which do not believe in god/ so as we do now believe, and as the jews did under the law of Moses. O good sir, how could then the gentiles judge upon the words of god: if they never had knowledge of god? who was their god? The Son/ the moon/ juppyter/ Mars & the other rabble of idols, Ah a goodly thing in deed/ and what were such manner idols: The family and household of Satan. 
The conclusion of this work.  Now will we sit down together and seek bakwardes the old god, the old faith, & doctrine▪ what thinkest thou, if thy sathan should at the last be made thine old god? & Arystotle the murderer/ Auerrois/ the sodomyter/ Plato the traitor, thine old faith, & thine old doctrine? wherefore this saying of thine is nought/ all my life time I have herd it thus said: & therefore I will not change my mind and opinion. There is a comen proverb which goeth about/ and it is full true. Not all that glytterethe is gold: what comparison is there between chaff and pure fine wheat? As who should say, none at al. hearken this sentence. O thou old fool, how the lord god speaketh as touching to this article, by his prophet Hieremie in the xiij chapiter. If a man of Jude can change his skin or a libbard his changeable spots: (as who should say, that may in no wise be) then can you also do well, when you have learned wickedness and sin. O woe, woe, how sore a saying is this? Thou fool, read Hieremie throughout, and he shall show unto the thy folysshenes'/ that he was only sent forth of god for cause of this article, being so royally prepared in his mother's womb/ and that it was long before showed to him how many old & obstinate, & malicious fools should resist him with their old god, their old faith, & their old doctrine/ which should pursue him, despise him/ & at the last slay him: & yet should they not for all that overcome him/ would god foolish wise men would diligently read this prophet through/ if there did remain any sparkle of the fear of god in them: no doubt of it they should turn themselves/ & acknowledge their error. But what shall I say, the voice & cry of them is, the lamb/ the lamb, as the wolf did continually cry when he was tormented & vexed with hunger. But I do not marvel thereat any thing at all/ for thexperience of all times doth witness, that the lord god hath been of no man more had in contempt, more persecuted, 
Of men of holy order god is most despised.  and more despytuously entreated/ than of them which have singular and special commission of him, that they should show forth the laud and glory of god to all men/ for that whore clad in purple/ and garnished with gold and precious stones/ even until this day holdeth in her hands a golden cup/ full of the blasphemies of god/ offering and reaching it forth to all her wowers and lovers/ with which cup she doth make drunken all the princes of the earth/ as she herself is drunken of the blood of the saints & martyrs of jesus Chryst. This harlot shall exercise her own lusts and pleasures/ with this potion/ even until the worlds end, that she may be cast down headlong and slain only of our lord jesus christ: for to him this victory is reserved. wherefore let no man be offended or marvel, why they are in so high estate and prosperity/ and why all things do go so luckily forthward with them all their enemies being suppressed & undone/ and sometime slain also. For so it must needs be, according to the prophecy of Danyell in the eight chapter. who so hath ears: let him hear. And take you these things in good worth, and to the best: If I have been in any thing to bold: what so ever I have done, verily I have done it for your profit/ to th'end that no man should come in to error/ and so by the reason thereof be dampened ꝑpetualy/ where from, god preserve us by his high grace, Amen.   
Here endeth the book of the old god & the new, of the old faith and the new, of the old doctrine and the new, or the original beginning of idolatry.  
VIVE LE ROI.   

Imprinted at London in Fletesrete by me johan Byddell/ dwelling at the sign of our Lady of pite, next to Flete bridge. M.u. C.xxxiiij. the xv. day of june  
Cum privilegio Regali.  
first read/ and then judge.