A Dialogue bewteene a Papist and Protestant, applied to the capacity of the unlearned.  
Made by G. Gifford, Preacher in the Town of Maldon.  
Seen and allowed according to the order appointed.  
Imprinted at London, by Richard Field, and Felix Kingston. 1599   

To the right Honourable and his very good Lord, Thomas Earl of Sussex, Viscount Fitzwater, and Lord Egremont, and Burnell, Knight of the most Honourable order of the Garter, Captain of all the Queens Ma. Gentlemen pensioners, & Gentlemen at arms: Chief justice & justice in Oyer of all her Ma. Forests, Parks, Chases, & warrens by South Trent: and L. Chamberlain to her Highness, grace & peace in our Saviour Christ.  
MAny in these days, with great learning, have encountered the Papists, & strongly confuted their errors: It may be marveled therefore, what should make me so bold as to attempt any such matter, after so great clerk, being far unable to come nigh that which they have attained. I answer in mine own defence, that my travel is not to this end, as though I would make pretence of equal learning with those: but rather to put the stone and sling into the hands of little David, to conquer great Goliath withal, when as he is not able to wield the weighty armour of Saul. The battle is hot & fierce every where, between Israel & the uncircumcised Philistines. Great armour & weapons are prepared for the soldiers wherewith to arm and defend themselves: yet for the most part, not such as do fit young David. For whereas sundry men of fame have showed deep skill, in setting forth their books to confute the Papists, full of learning out of the ancient Doctors, Counsels, Historiographers and others: it doth not so well serve the turn of the simple unlearned man, neither can he defend himself therewith, because it is beyond his reach. This is the thing which hath moved me to write somewhat of these matters: applying myself to the capacity of the unlearned, dealing only out of the word of God, which lieth open unto them as their armory. This also hath caused me to deal in those points which do most commonly trouble them, omitting the great points in controversy: persuaded that I perform a duty therein. For like as when an house is on fire, the weak which is not able to throw a bucket of water to the top of the roof, may yet by no means be excused, if he stand and look on: because he may do somewhat in the lower parts of the walls: Even so I think myself not discharged, for this, that I am not of ability for to set forth any thing, which may reach so high as to encounter with the principal adversaries, and to further the learned: seeing I may profit the simpler sort, for whose sakes, and in respect of whom, I have taken this travel. I present this simple and poor treatise unto your honour, not as though I did esteem it worthy to bear the name and title of so noble, so honourable, and so great a parsonage, and of so high estate. But only (having no other way or mean) to signify and show forth a thankful mind, for that great aid and honourable assistance which I have received from your Lordship, in the furtherance and maintenance of the Gospel. It hath pleased the God of heaven, the Lord of the whole earth, to appoint me being very weak to build in the desolate places, and to spread the light of his glorious Gospel, even there, where it appeareth by the abundance of iniquity that of long time Satan hath had his throne. How unwilling he is to be displaced, and to give over the room unto Christ, may evidently appear, even by this, that he stirreth up his warriors, which like wild Boars would root up all that may be planted, which with malicious intent, and subtle craft, conspire what mischief soever they can, thrusting forth their bold instrument, which with an iron face, is so hardy that he dare attempt any thing; which could no way be daunted in his venturous attempts, nor their fury qualified, until such time as he was fallen into the hands of your honour, to come to his account for his manifold misdemeanours, and to receive some wages for his travel. I trust therefore your honour will think the best of this my boldness, considering it is what I am able. If I could in more ample manner testify my good will, & in any sort to be thankful, agreeable unto that which of duty I own for your great kindness, then would I be glad. But I leave the full recompense unto him who is able indeed to reward whatsoever is done for his name sake, & for the defence of his Gospel, and secure of his little flock, which is always compassed about with so many enemies, that they are able to devour and eat it up, and yet their bellies no whit the fuller. Some do wonder how it should come to pass, that among us there should be so many, which being borne since the Gospel was restored in this land, are so zealously addicted unto Popery, which they never did know: and so utter enemies unto the Gospel, which they hear: but if they weigh the causes of this deadly mischief, they will cease wondering at that, and rather wonder, that there be no more. For how can it be, so long as there be so many abuses in the ministry, but that many shall stumble and loath the Gospel: for from thence, as it is manifest, the chief cause of this evil doth spring. True it is, that our ministry, doth fight against them, but yet in such sort, that it doth greatly increase them, seeming and pretending to tread upon those cockatrice eggs, for to break them, and so to destroy utterly the viperous generation, when as indeed, they sit upon them, and so hatch the broods of this evil kind, and bring them forth in great plenty. For behold a number cry out against Popery, and proclaim utter defiance in speech, but their doings are such, that for every one which they convert to the Gospel, they cause an hundred to revolt, to be hardened in their errors, or fall into flat Atheism: while many contrary to the profession which they made when they entered, setting aside the care of souls, not esteeming, nor regarding what become of them, study most how to climb high, & to satisfy their ambitious desire of honour: raking together livings, covetously & greedily: not caring who feed the flock, so they may come by the fleece. Moreover, the door hath been opened also to let into the Church, a rout and swarm of such as are more like the priests of jeroboam then ministers of the Gospel, not only unlearned Idols, which have mouths and speak not, which being weary of their occupations and covet to live easily, & to that end are entered, but also riotous dicers, gamesters, quaffers, quarrelers, adulterers and such like. If the matter were secret, I should do amiss to make it manifest, but when as it is open in the sight & view of all men, who can complain justly, when it is spoken of? The Lord put into the heart of our governors to redress it. The same Lord heap his graces upon your Lordship, with increase of honour in his world, and everlasting life in the world to come Amen.  
Your Honour's most humble to command. GEORGE GIFFORD.   

A Contention between a Papist, and a Professor of the Gospel.  PAPIST. 
I Am glad to see you well Sir, for old acquaintance sake, which I would be content to renew again.  Pro. 
I am glad also that you are in health, I saw you not a great while before now.  Pa. 
I pray ye what news? were ye at London lately? What is become of the Catholics? I hear there hath been great disputation in the Tower.  Pro. 
There hath been disputation indeed, by reason of a proud challenge which was made.  Pa. 
Ye might term it a proud challenge, if he had not been able to make his part good. But I hear he behaved himself very learnedly, and with great victory against all which were set upon him.  Pro. 
Ye have heard more lies than that, but I perceive ye are a Papist, or at the least a favourer of Papists, for they brag that he did excellently, although in very deed, he was there showed to be but an obstinate caviller.  Pa. 
Wherefore should ye call me Papist, I am obedient to the laws, and do not refuse to go to the Church.  Pro. 
Then it seemeth you are a Church Papist?  Pa. 
A Church Papist, what mean you by that?  Pro. 
Do you not know? I will tell ye: there are Papists which will not come at the Church: and there are Papists which can keep their conscience to themselves and yet go to Church: of this latter sort it seemeth you are: because ye go to the Church.  Pa. 
How can you tell what is in men's consciences, you take upon ye to judge very deeply?  Pro. 
Nay there needeth no deep judgement, they are so shallow that a man may easily sound them to the bottom. Although the Church walls be thick, yet a man may espy them by some crevice.  Pa. 
Whereby do you know them so easily? I pray by what notes can ye discern them?  Pro. 
Some of them will not stick to maintain such popish opinions, as they know there is no great danger of law for. The simple sort which can no skill of doctrine, speak of the merry world when there was less preaching, and when all things were so cheap, that they might have xx. eggs for a penny. Other there be which never name Papists, but Catholics, & if ye reason with them, they do it but for arguments sake, not that they say so, but the Catholics say so. Another sort there are, & those are as pestilent as can be for to the end they may do the greater mischief, they are Protestants: but yet if any Preacher do zealously beat down Popery, he doth reaile, he is choleric, he is uncharitable, and so they devise all means possible to disturb him: these and suchlike, are the notes to discern a Church Papist.  Pa. 
You call them zealous Preachers, & they be very schismatics, and seduce the people with false doctrine, and therefore such as be wise, quiet, and stayed men, cannot abide them.  Pro. 
I see well that you are not of those which to it but for Arguments sake, you will not show what the Catholics say, but what yourself saith. Had ye not great cause to be offended when I said ye were a Papist?  Pa. 
I think plain dealing is best, in very deed I take ye to be heretics, I am a Catholic.  Pro. 
You take us to be heretics, but in very deed I am able to prove that you are foul and rank heretics yourselves: and far from true Catholics.  Pa. 
Ye do us great wrong to call us heretics, for we hold and be of the Catholic Church, which hath ever condemned all heretics. If Catholics be heretics, then are we also heretics: but this latter belongeth to you, and all other which forsake the truth.  Pro. 
Nay, those which hold the Catholic faith are of this Catholic Church, and the doctrine of the Catholic faith we hold, which hath always condemned heretics: and therefore ye do us as great wrong in calling us heretics, as the pharisees and Sadduces did unto Saint Paul when they counted him so. 
Act. 24.14.  You have forsaken the true doctrine of the old Catholic faith, and therefore ye are no Catholics.  Pa. 
We are they which hold the ancient Catholic faith, yours is new doctrine: we believe as all our forefathers did: If your doctrine be true, than all our forefathers were damned, for they always believed contrary to that which you believe.  Pro. 
The manner of you Papists is, to affirm things very strongly, but when ye should prove them, then are ye exceeding weak, and can bring forth nought but poor stuff. Ye are as able to prove these things which ye affirm, as I am to remove mountains.  Pa. 
We may say so of you more rightly, because you affirm much and prove little. I am able for to make good all that which I have spoken.  Pro. 
Are you content to make trial who bring strongest proves, if ye be, let me hear how ye can disprove our faith, and afterward I will show what I have to disprove yours, & so it shall be seen which hold the Catholic faith, and which be heretics.  Pa. 
I am very well content, tell me what I shall begin withal.  Pro. 
Begin with those things which ye affirmed even now: prove that our doctrine is new: that you believe as all the forefathers did: that our doctrine doth condemn all our forefathers, and every wise man will grant that yours is the Catholic faith: if ye cannot prove this, then confess that your doctrine is come from the father of lies, and not from the God of truth For there is but one truth, which is God's word, all other doctrines are of the devil.  Pa. 
If that faith which you believe, and doctrine which you profess, be not new, then was it believed and known in the days of our forefathers: but it was not heard of in their days, neither was it known until such time as Luther did set it abroach. Therefore the proudest heretic of ye all shall never be able, to show that it is of antiquity.  Pro. 
Here are ruffling words: the proudest heretic of them all is not proud enough to deal with you: but indeed if your proud conceit were no sturdier than your argument, ye might easily be dealt withal. I confess your Mayor, or first proposition of your argument to be true, which is this, if the doctrine which you profess be not new, then was it believed in the days of our forefathers. But your second, which is this, that our faith & doctrine was not heard of in the days of the forefathers, until Luther did set it abroach, is most false, for our doctrine is the holy word of God, delivered to the Church by the Apostles & Prophets. We believe as Adam, Seth, Enoch, and the rest of the holy fathers did believe before the flood: we believe as Abraham, Isaac & jaacob did believe, & the other godly patriarchs before the time of Christ: we believe as the blessed Apostles of our Lord, & other holy teachers in the Church a long time after them did. But you Papists when you speak of the forefathers, let pass all these, which are the most ancient and most principal, & draw us to a few of your own, which have been within these seven or eight hundred years: in which time religion hath been corrupted, and the great Antichrist, for the most part of this time hath prevailed. If we cannot prove our faith to be the faith of Abraham, let it be counted new, and let us be taken for heretics.  Pa. 
If this were true, that you believe as the holy fathers before the flowed, as the patriarchs after the flood, as the Apostles of Christ, then doubtless you are in the right way: but these are but words, how will ye prove this? we say still you are heretics and fallen away from the faith of these: and we prove it by this reason, because ye are fallen away from the faith of those forefathers which succeeded these. For the fathers of our Church are the successors of the Apostles, therefore you being fallen from them, are fallen from the Apostles.  Pro. 
Then ye grant, that those have the truth on their side, which believe as the Apostles, Prophets, & patriarchs did. It remaineth only in trial which of us hold that faith which they did. We prove that we do, because we acknowledge nothing but the holy doctrine of the Bible, upon which their faith was grounded. You bring for your proof the doctrine & succession of some men, for certain hundred years. Let us now see who bringeth the best and surest proof, say what ye can to weaken ours, & then I will show that the fathers which you boast of, from whom we separate ourselves, are no successors of the Apostles, and therefore in departing from them, we depart not from the Apostles: whose doctrine we hold.  Pa. 
What are ye the better to say ye bring the Scriptures, and ye believe nothing but the Scriptures, and ye will be tried by the Scriptures? By this you prove that you believe as the Apostles, and Prophets did, your reason is not good, because the Scriptures are hard to be understood, who shall judge which is the true sense and meaning of them? who shall tell ye how the Apostles and forefathers did understand them? Shall not the Church? If ye may take them after your own interpretation, than ye will do well enough: but the Church (which we are) is to interpret them, and therefore we do still condemn you and all other heretics, although ye allege the Scriptures never so much, because you do but abuse them, as the devil did when he tempted Christ. Therefore ye must bring better reason than this, to prove that ye hold the ancient Catholic faith, for this doth not prove it.  Pro. 
Oh what a trim shift is this: here is as pretty a juggling cast as ever the devil could play to blear the eyes of the simple and unskilful, to make them believe that the scriptures are nothing without the interpretation of the Church of Rome: Each man must light his candle there, or else he shall go in the dark. This is one of the most subtle and crafty cavils which you Papists can make, and one of the strongest pillars which your kingdom is built upon: For when ye cannot deny but that the Scriptures do speak for us, than ye fly to this, that they are hard to be understood: ye would make us believe that when they speak of one thing they mean another: when they speak of good they mean evil, when they set forth heaven, they mean hell.  Pa. 
It is like you will answer truth, when ye charge us with so great and manifest a lie, where can ye show that ever any of our side hath spoken or written, that when the scripture speaketh of one thing it meaneth another?  Pro. 
Is that such a lie, I pray you what is the cause why ye tell us the scriptures are hard, when they speak so fully, so plainly, and plentifully, and with such consent and agreement in those things which are the principles of our faith, if it be not, that when they speak of one thing they mean another? Wherefore should we not understand what God saith unto us, if he deal simply? Wherefore did the Lord speak by his Prophets and Apostles to the simple & common people if they could not understand what he said? I cannot tell, what other reason ye can show, why they should be so dark as you make them.  Pa. 
Are ye then in good sadness of this mind, that the scriptures are not hard to be understood? and are they not uncertain, because they may be expounded diverse ways?  Pro. 
I do not deny, 
2. Pet. 3●  but that as S. Peter saith, There be some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable do pervert, as they do other scriptures to their own destruction. I confess with the author of the Epistle to the Hebrues. 
Heb. 5.  That there are things hard to be understood, because we be dull of hearing. Also the just judgement of God upon the wickedness of men, as it is set forth by the Prophet Isaiah, 
Isa. 5.  in hardening their hearts & blinding their eyes, that in hearing, they may hear and not understand, in seeing they may see, and not perceive, and also in causing the word of God to be unto them as a sealed book, 
sa. 29 I.  doth make the Scriptures hard to be understood. Now although they be hard also in some sort even to the godly and diligent man, & those whom God doth teach, yet they are not hard as you make them, that is to say, that in no wise they may be understood or have any certainty in them, but by the interpretation of the Pope and his clergy. For that is most blasphemously to take away the light from the most pure and clear word of God. This therefore is but devilish craft, by which ye would drive us from God's word, which standeth sure on our side, and maketh flat against you. The Scriptures can be expounded rightly but one way: having but one sense.  Pa. 
That which you do allege out of Saint Peter doth make for us, where he saith, That the unlearned and unstable do pervert not only those hard things, but also all other Scriptures to their destruction. 
2. Pet. 1.  Likewise the same Apostle saith, That no Scripture is of private interpretation. S. Paul saith, 
1. Tim. 3.  That the Church is the pillar & ground of truth. Then I reason thus, the unlearned do pervert the scriptures, therefore they are not to deal with them: no private person is to interpret the Scriptures: therefore none but the Church, or those which have the authority in the Church: and because the Church is the pillar of truth: whosoever doth separate himself from the Church, doth departed from the truth. And by this we do still prove that you are all heretics and schismatics, and do pervert the scriptures, because you take them not as the Church doth expound them. The scriptures seem to be on your side, but they are not, they seem to be against us, but they are not.  Pro. 
This is very sound stuff, you make three strong conclusions out of three sentences of the scriptures. In the first ye reason thus, the unlearned do pervert the scriptures, therefore none can understand the scriptures but the learned: by this, your meaning is to shut out all the laity as you call them from judging of doctrine, and to allow understanding of the scriptures to none but the learned, that is, the Clergy of Rome, for that we shall have by and by. But ye overshoot yourself much when ye think that Saint Peter by unlearned men, doth mean such as have not been brought up in school learning, and so put that difference between clergy and laity: No he counteth all those learned which are taught of God, both of the common sort of people and other: & all those are unlearned which are not taught of God: although otherwise they abound in all knowledge of tongues and arts, or whatsoever. Such as have learned Christ jesus, and him crucified, and so are become new creatures in Christ, they are learned: 
Col. 2.  For in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He that hath not learned Christ, he is unlearned. If he be not new borne, but as S. john saith, 
1. john. 3.  committeth sin he hath not seen him nor known him: although otherwise he be never so studied a man in the scriptures. 
Math. 11.  For this cause we see that the poor Publicans are called the children of wisdom, because they embraced the doctrine of Christ, when the great Doctors the Scribes and pharisees, were stark blind. They said, none followed Christ but the multitude, which knew not the law, 
john. 7.  which were accursed: when as indeed they were blind and accursed themselves: & so fareth it now with the Pope and his shavelings: they say the people cannot understand the scriptures, when themselves do not. The next sentence upon which you conclude is out of Peter also, where he saith▪ No scripture is of private interpretation. From hence you fetch an invincible argument to prove that none of us may interpret, but Rome only: No private man is to interpret the scriptures, because no scripture is of private interpretation: all those which are not of the Popish Clergy, or which have not authority in the Church from the Pope, or do not expound as the Church, are private men: therefore none of those are to interpret the scriptures. Here the Pope like a greedy cormorant will have all to himself. But ye deal deceitfully, or at the least unskilfully with the text which ye allege: for Saint Peter when he saith private, doth not speak it to make this difference between men, as though for interpreting the scriptures, some should have authority, & some should be private: but he setteth men against God, calling that private which is of man. For he doth reason thus: the scripture was not given by the will of man, but by the spirit of God: therefore the interpretation thereof must be of God, & men must not bring that which is their own. If the interpretation be by the spirit, then is it not private: if it be out of man's brain, although it should be the Pope & all his Cardinals, yea, ten thousand Popes, it is still private, after the sense in which S. Peter doth call private. For let any skilful man in the greek tongue look upon the word, which is idias epiluseos, and he will confess, that it doth signify, that which is once own. Then the sense is plain, and it is also manifest how peevishly you pervert the word of God. What manner of argument is this? a man may not in the interpreting of the Scriptures bring that which is his own: therefore none may interpret them but the Church of Rome. Your last reason is not worth answering: for although it is most true, that the Church is the pillar of truth, & that those are void of truth, which abide not in the Church: yet this is as false, that the Pope & his company are the Church of Christ, as the other is true, and therefore we are no heretics nor Schismatics for departing from you, which are a den of thieves, which have conspired against the truth.  Pa. 
Two gross things and strange I gather out of your words, the one, that you would have the people of themselves, to judge of doctrine: the other, ye will have no other interpreter of the sense of the Scriptures, but the Spirit. I pray ye, I am an unlearned man, & would feign know which is the truth, I hear you allege the scriptures in one sense, and you say you have the spirit, our men allege them in another sense, and say they have the spirit: the Anabaptists, they have the spirit, the Arrians they interpret by the spirit: what shall I do? here is every man hath the spirit, & yet every one goeth a contrary way. It is manifest therefore that here needeth a more certain thing to lean unto, or else the simple man cannot tell which way to turn him. What shall he do now, but look how the Church believeth, and rest in that. For he must have that which may teach him to know which of all these hath the true spirit, or else he is never the nearer.  Pro. 
Ye find two gross things in my words, one of them is, that I say the people can judge of doctrine, when it is preached. What doth our Saviour Christ mean when he saith, 
john. 10.  My sheep hear my voice, a stranger they will not hear. they fly from strangers? Can they know the voice of the true shepherd from the false, & can they not discern doctrine? The other is, that I will have none other interpreter of the sense of the scriptures but the spirit. 
1. Cor. 2.  S. Paul saith: the ear hath not heard, nor the eye hath not seen, neither came into man's heart, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him: but God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit: for the spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. And the great doubt which you put forth in the simple man, which would feign understand the truth, and which of all those four that ye named have the spirit, I answer, that if he himself have not the spirit of God to teach him, he shall not be able to judge: but if the spirit do teach him, then can he find it, for the spirit which doth teach the one to utter the doctrine, which is his, doth teach the other to know that doctrine, and in them consenteth unto it, being his own: and therefore Saint john saith to all the Christians: 
1. john. 4.  Try the spirits whether they be of God. By your saying the people should not be able to try them, and so he would teach them that which did not belong unto them.  Pa. 
What a trim colour you set upon the matter, and how prettily ye can shift: but I will lay open your subtlety. To prove that the velearned people can judge of doctrine preached, you allege the saying of Christ, My sheep hear my voice etc. I pray ye Sir, if a man should demand of you, whether he meaneth that this shall be immediately or not, and whether, when he saith they shallbe all taught of God, doth he exclude the ministry of men or not? I know ye will say the voice of the great Shepeard is heard when those which he hath appointed to be shepherds do utter his doctrine. Ye will also say, that although God teach, yet he doth it by the ministry of men. Then I answer, that the unlearned people are to hear the voice of Christ from the Pope, who is their great shepherd under Christ, & God doth teach them by him: they are to stick and cleave to his determination: of themselves they cannot judge, but they must do it by him: he must tell them which is the wolf, and which is the false Prophet: they cannot tell which cometh with the true spirit, or which spirit is of God, but as he doth direct them. And for this cause we say still, that ye have not the true Catholic faith, nor the scriptures on your side, nor the true sense, because ye are gone from the only true expounder of them.  Pro. 
All that I have brought is but a colour and a pretty shift, and easily disclosed with one poor distinction of mediate & immediate. But I pray ye Sir, how doth this hang together, the voice of the true shepherd is heard when it is uttered by men, therefore the way to know it is by men. God teacheth by men, therefore God teacheth to discern the spirits by men: or if it be so, must this needs follow, that the Pope & his Clergy are those men which must do the deed? This is a strange thing, Christ jesus, S. Paul, S. Peter S. john & others, do foretell the people of false prophets the only way and remedy to avoid them, as you say, is to hang upon the Pope, & yet none of all these or any other, hath so much as once noted it, or tell the poor people by whose direction they might be safe in so extreme danger.  Pa. 
There was no need so long as Christ or his Apostles lived to tell them so, for they taught them this thing, or how can you tell they did not: they might, though it be not written: is all written which they did teach?  Pro. 
Here is mighty strong gear, this were able to set up a Pope, if he were thrown down, & to revive him again, if he were hanged. No marvel forsooth Christ nor his Apostles did not tell the people, that the Pope and Church of Rome should be their refuge when heretics should seek to seduce them, because there was no need so long as they lived: this were somewhat if they had told only of the false teachers of their time: but when they foretell the great dangers & mischiefs which should be in the Church long after their days, being above all things most chary of the safety of the same, this were very absurd, 
Acts. 20.  not once to give any note of the surest remedy. S. Paul saith to the elders of the Church of Ephesus, that he did know, that after his departure there should enter in grievous wolves, not sparing the flock, & there should rise of themselves which should speak perverie things, and draw disciples after them: & yet he speaketh of no remedy but that which was banished in your Church, namely careful & diligent teaching: for he saith, therefore watch & be mindful, etc. S. Peter saith, as there were in times past false prophets among the people, so shall there be false teachers among you: 
2. Pet. 2.  and afterward he showeth this remedy, not willing them to hang their faith upon his chair, or successor, but to call to remembrance the words that had been told them of the holy Prophets, and by the Apostles of Christ. Saint john saith, 
1. john. 2.  little children, it is the last hour, ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, I say there are already many Antichristes in the world: and a little after he telleth them how they shall escape the danger: but (saith he) you have received an anointing: what, from the Pope, or his greasy oil? no, but from the holy one, and know all things. Again, ye need not (saith he) that any man teach ye, but as the anointing do teach ye. Christ jesus foretelleth, 
Math. 24.  that there should rise false Prophets, and do such wonders, that if it were possible, even the elect should be deceived: but that (as his words do most plainly show) is unpossible: and why? doth he say, because I will leave a vicar, and as many as hang upon his sleeve shall be safe? not so, but because God hath chosen them: for he doth keep them, 
john. 10.  and none is able to take them out of his hand. He saith in another place: Beware of false Prophets, which come unto you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves: and whereby, shall men know them: 
Math. 7.  He sayeth, by their fruits. But how know we whether he did tell them so or not, he might, though it be not written? alack, alack.  Pa. 
I know your sect make but a scoff at the traditions of the Apostles which were not committed to writing: but let that go, it is but a folly to persuade those to believe, which have denied the faith, and despise the Catholic Church.  Pro. 
The Pope of Rome hath a great chest full of traditions, which S. Peter did not put in writing, but he hath: & whosoever doth not believe these, hath denied the faith, & despiseth the Catholic Church. This is not your best way, your best way is to stand to this, that the Pope hath authority to decree what he will: & so your traditions shall stand sure though they be flat against the word of God. But I am content to let this go also, and to return to that which we had in hand: and because I would have the matter made a little more plain, I will demand a question or two at your hands. Was there not a Church in the world before the coming of Christ?  Pa. 
Who doth deny that? the jews were the Church and people of God.  Pro. 
Then tell me further, whether had they the word of God or not, to instruct them and to ground their faith upon?  Pa. 
They had the books of Moses, they had the books of the Prophets: they were bidden to hear them.  Pro. 
Who were appointed in the Church to expound the law and the Prophets unto the people?  Pa. 
The high Priest, and other Priests, and Levites, which God appointed to have that office.  Pro. 
Did the high Priests which succeeded Aaron departed away from the truth and seduce the people at any time, and likewise the other Priests and Levites?  Pa. 
What though they did? they cruc ified Christ: yet it followeth not that the Pope & his Clergy can err, because Christ promised to be with them to the end of the world.  Pro. 
I will come to that promise afterward, but tell me how did the Church in the mean time, when the high Priests and rulers taught contrary to the truth? what were they to lean unto now? where was the Church?  Pa. 
It was in Christ, and those which believed in him, these were the Church and he that joined himself to these did right, and had the true faith.  Pro. 
The high Priests and Rulers in the Church could fetch their authority and succession from Aaron, which was many hundred years. When Christ taught against these, and they against him: alleging that they were Moses disciples, 
Mat. 21.  they did know God spoke to Moses, as for him, they did not know whence he was: 
john. 9  they were the Church and had authority, they demanded of him by what authority he did those things, and who gave him that authority: they said he seduced the people, and none followed him but the common people, which knew not the law, 
Mat. 15.  which were accursed: they accused him that he broke the tradition of the Elders, he broke the Sabbath, and such like. How did the people know who had the truth, he or they?  Pa. 
They might know by the miracles which he wrought, when he cast forth devils, and healed diseases.  Pro. 
They said, he did it by the power of Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils: 
john. 10.  and so blinded themselves and all other whom God did not teach by his holy spirit: and therefore he saith unto them: 
john. 8.  Why do not ye hear my voice: because ye are not of my sheep. Also in another place, those that are of God hear the words of God, ye therefore hear them not, because you are not of God And whereas you speak of miracles which he wrought: 
john. 10.  how did the people know that john Baptist was of God, seeing he wrought no miracle? there can be nothing more plain than this, that the people did not stay their faith upon the succession of the Priests, nor upon the antiquity of traditions in the Church ordained by the fathers, nor upon the consent of the Clergy, or any outward thing, for than they should have refused Christ: 
john. 6.  but they were given unto him of his Father, and taught by him, and therefore heard his voice, and believed in him. Blessed art thou Simon, 
john. 10.  flesh and blood revealed not this unto thee, 
Mat. 16.  but my father which is in heaven. Even after this manner do the Romish pharisees deal now against the Gospel & the true believers: we are the Church, we are the successors of Peter, ye must be judged by us: your doctrine is new: ye break the traditions of the Elders, ye are seducers and heretics: but when you have said all that ye can, we stand still upon the rock of God's truth, which flesh and blood hath not revealed unto us, but the Father by his spirit.  Pa. 
Here is much a do, and yet nothing to the purpose. You made a comparison between our Church and the Church before Christ: and because the people than did not stay upon the rulers of the Church, therefore they must not now, how followeth this? do ye not know that there is great difference Christ made promise, that he would be with our Church unto the end of the world: 
Matth. 28.  and therefore it can not err. Now because the Church cannot err, all those must needs be heretics which depart from it.  Pro. 
There is great difference between our Church say you, and the Church of the jews: Is the great difference in this, that yours are the greater pharisees? no say you, our Church can not err, because Christ hath promised to be with it to the end of the word? I marvel much in what scripture a man shall find that same promise, where Christ saith, I will be with my holy vicar the Pope to the world's end, and he shall never err: I suppose a man shall find it either in Legenda aurea, or in some such Canonical scripture. I know you will say, it is in the new Testament for Christ did promise his Apostles that he would send them the Comforter, 
john. 16.  and that he would be with them unto the end of the world. Ye reason thus, Christ promised to be with the Church, therefore with the Church of Rome, your conclusion is very nimble, and cometh skipping in before it be called, but it must be sent away like a skipiacke, and be taught better manners. Is there also (as you say) so great difference, that the Church before Christ had no such promise? was the true Church ever without the spirit of God? had they no promise that way? what saith God by the Prophet, 
Psal. .132.  or what meaneth this, I have chosen Zion, here will I rest, here shall be my habitation for ever. 
Isay. 49.  And likewise when the Prophet Isay saith, but Zion said, God hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me: what doth the Lord answer? Can a mother forget her child, & not pity the son of her womb? though these should forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon my hands, and thy walls are ever in my sight. Are these no such promises as yours have? You see for all these, the builders refuse the stone, 
Psal. 118.  which is made the chief corner stone: the rulers in the Church and such as succeeded the holy Priests of God, fell away, nevertheless God preserved his Church: so the Pope, his Cardinals, his Bishops, and Priests, became & are very hell hounds, & yet God doth preserve his little flock: they should be in a most miserable case if they had none other guide but that horned beast of Rome: the Church, that is the elect cannot err to destruction; but the Pope is a Captain of heretics.  Pa. 
This is your spiteful spirit by which ye do blaspheme, but the holy father is never the worse for your railing: it is all the reason ye have against him.  Pro. 
As great railing and blasphemy, as if a man should call the devil a Dragon: for Saint john doth call the Pope Therion, which is a fierce and savage beast. But let us come to the matter again, when ye charge us with new doctrine, and make the cause to be this, that we depart from that doctrine which your Church hath believed now certain hundred years, against which we allege the eternal word of God, than ye shift us off with this, that we cannot understand the word, unless we receive the meaning thereof from your Church: and although we have the most clear testimonies of the Scriptures against you, yet ye set light thereby, and all because your Church cannot err, and you expound them otherwise. Therefore there is by your doctrine no rule left for a man to build his faith upon, but the exposition of the governors in the Church. Answer me directly unto this, were there not false Prophets in old time among the people of the jews?  Pa. 
The Scripture doth show that there were sometime a great number at once, and the Church of God did ever condemn them.  Pro. 
But tell me, how did the people know who were the true Prophets and who were the false? the one side cometh, and they say, thus saith the Lord: no saith the other side, that is false, thus saith the Lord quite contrary to the other: and not only at some times a multitude of false Prophets against one true servant of God, but also the high Priests and other Priests and governors in the Church, taking part with them against the true Prophet. Where was then your golden rule, which ye would have the common sort to measure their faith by, I believe as the Church believeth: I cannot judge: I must not meddle with the meaning of the Scriptures?  Pa. 
Prove this which you have said: it is an easy matter to affirm, and you are ready to do that, but your proofs come slowly. Can you show that the high Priests and governors in the Temple did join with the false prophets, against the true Prophet?  Pro. 
They come a little faster than you would gladly have them: or else you would not be so calm, if there were but a little matter of colour against us for want of proof, you would set up your bristles by and by, and you would crow: but when the matter brought out doth choke ye, than ye say there is nothing brought: ye bid me prove, that when there were false Prophets, and that sundry against one, they had the Priests and rulers of the Church on their side. Read jeremias the Prophet, ye shall find the false Prophets against him, and the Priests also: and even as you say against Luther, and other which embrace the holy Gospel, they be heretics, the Pope cannot err: so say they for themselves against jeremias, 
jere. 18.  come let us imagine some devise against him: for the law shall not perish from the Priest, nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the Prophet. Were the godly people now which forsook the Priests, 
jere. 1.  Princes, and Prophets, and gave ear to jeremias, apostates? Did not the Lord tell him at the first when he sent him, that he should have the people, the Priests and Princes against him? Also ye may see it very fully and plainly expressed, 
jere. 20.  that Pashur the Priest, which was appointed, chief in the house of God, did smite jeremias, and put him in the stocks, when he heard him prophesy: here was a right Pope, & a stout Bishop: that durst set God's Prophet in the stocks. This thing is set forth in sundry places of the Prophets, how the Priests & the false Prophets were linked together against the true messengers of the Lord. For ye may see how the Priests and Prophets, and people lay hold on jeremias, 
jere. 26.  and would have put him to death: for the Priests & Prophets accused jeremias before the Princes, that he was worthy of death. 
Eze. 22.  The Prophet Ezechiel also complaineth grievously of the Priests and the Prophets. Also long before the time of jeremias & Ezechiel, the Lord complained of the Priests and Prophets for their wickedness. For thus he saith by Mica, 
Mica 3.  the Princes judge for bribes, the Priests teach for reward, and the Prophets do prophesy for money. Behold also what God complaineth against the Priests and Prophets, even in the days of the most godly king josia: as ye may read in the Prophet Sophanie. 
Sopha. 3.  Likewise where the holy Ghost showeth the cause of the great destruction which came upon Jerusalem: 
2. Chro. 36  he saith that all the chief Priests and people, committed many transgressions according to all the abominations of the heathen, and defiled the house of God which he had sanctified in Jerusalem: & how God sent unto them his Prophets, but they would not hear them. See then, if the wickedness of the Priests draw the Lord out of his Temple, unto which he had made so glorious promises, and which he had chosen to be the place where he would be worshipped: shall we now tie him to that chair, from which there have come the most horrible villainies against God, almost that ever were committed in the world? shall we say that the most pure & most holy God, hath fastened himself to the mother of whoredoms, and abominations?  Pa. 
Ye take great pains to small profit, for a man may in a word overthrow all that you have built: ye have showed how the Priests and governors in the Temple did corrupt their ways and joined with the false Prophets against the true messengers of the Lord. You gather out of this, that there was no rule left in the Church for the people to try the worship and service of God by, but this conclusion of yours doth not follow, because the corruption of manners and withstanding the true Prophets, did not hinder but that they remained still the Church, and the worship appointed in the Temple was not to be despised, for if any did forsake it, they were indeed apostates: for when they were even at the worst, Christ sendeth such as he had cleansed of the leprosy to show themselves to the Priest, and to offer the gift which Moses had commanded. This must needs be so, for otherwise, how should that saying of Christ, 
Math. 18.  dic ecclesiae, tell the Church, be a perpetual rule to all the people: if there be once no Church visible to tell that cause unto, where is then the doctrine and precept of Christ? Here therefore, I say still ye be heretics and apostates, insomuch as ye have departed from the holy mother the Church: ye have forsaken the fellowship of the faithful: & that which ye pretend the abuses of the Church, is no excuse at all: for will ye forsake your mother, because she wanteth perfect beauty, or because there is some deformity in her? the abuses are to be reform, the thing must not be destroyed. I would wish ye therefore to return, and to submit yourselves again, and not to cast away your souls, for ye be all damned heretics which be out of the Church.  Pro. 
The breath of your mouth is very strong, when as with one blast ye are able to overthrow whatsoever a man can bring out of the word of God. But ye deceive yourself greatly, for God's truth will stand when you shall fall. Your poor and silly shifts will stand ye in no steed: you make your reason after this manner, when the Priests were most corrupt, either in manners or withstanding the true Prophets, yet they remained still the Church, and the service and worship in the Temple, was not to be despised: if any did, they were apostates. This ye confirm by such as Christ having cleansed he sendeth to offer to the priests, & then by a perpetual rule which Christ gave, dic ecclesiae tel the Church. Hereupon ye conclude again that we be heretics, because we have forsaken the Church of Rome, where ye tell us that the abuses should not drive us to do so, we must not forsake our mother, for some deformity, and want of beauty: I will answer ye, that this argument may easily be denied, when you say those which did forsake the worship in the Temple were apostates, therefore those which forsake the Church of Rome are heretics and apostates: for to make this hold, you must first prove that God hath tied his religion now to Rome, as he had then to the Temple, and that he hath chosen Rome, as he then chose mount Zion: which ye shall never be able to do, because it is most false. And then ye must prove, that your worship which you maintain, is that which God hath commanded, and then doubtless he that shall departed from that, is an heretic. For if any did departed from worshipping in the Temple, he was not an apostate for departing from wicked Priests, but for refusing that which God had appointed him to do. We depart not but from a den of thieves, and from an heap of damnable errors, and not from that which God hath commanded: & so Christ sendeth the Lepers which he had cleansed, to fulfil the law of God commanded by Moses, which was to be done, & to be done no where but in the Temple where the Priests bore the sway. The other reason which ye bring, as a perpetual rule of Christ, dic ecclesiae, tell the Church, is of no value, for although the rule be perpetual, doth it therefore follow, that it can always be put in practice? Hath Christ by that rule, where he saith if thy brother offend against thee, reprove him, if that do not serve, take one or two with thee, if he will not hear them, tell the Church, etc. set down that there shall be ever a true and visible Church, which will correct the offenders? How say ye to the Church of Israel in the days of the Prophet Elias, 
1. King. 19  when he complained to God, that they had killed his Prophets, digged down his Altars, and that he only was left, & they sought his life: God made him answer, that he had a Church among them: I have left unto me seven thousand in Israel, etc. which Elias did not see. Where was Dic ecclesiae now become? Must they bring their Dic ecclesiae to those which are fallen away from God, & will excommunicate the children of God, 
john. 9  as the pharisees did the blind man? Did he ever come unto them to be absolved? When your devilish synagogue do excommunicate us, we be the nigher unto Christ. It is true which ye say, that the true Church must not be forsaken for certain abuses, but if the abuses be such as utterly destroy the faith, as yours are, then is it no longer the Church of Christ: but a company of wicked hell hounds: and therefore ye do but lose your labour when you exhort us to rerurne to your Church, which is no mother of ours, but she is the whore of Babylon, which hath filled the earth with her fornications. There are none blessed unless they depart from her, her ways are the ways of damnation: 
Revel. 18.  come out of Babylon saith the Angel of our God.  Pa. 
I could answer ye again with words, but so I should but spend time, neither do I like of long circumstances without matter, which is the fashion of you heretics, when ye have no sound reasons, then to make a show of speech, and fall to railing.  Pro. 
You cannot abide words without matter: neither can your meek spirit tell which way to fall to railing: but let any indifferent man read over the books which your great Catholic Doctors set forth, and he will confess, that in many words there will be found little matter. Take away your untruths, slanders, and spiteful railings, there will be but a little left behind. If we speak of you, that which the Scriptures pronounce against you, by and by we rail. Did john Baptist rail when he called the pharisees, 
Math. 3.  The generation of Vipers? But seeing ye joan matter, let us see it, to prove our doctrine to be new: ye must bring stronger reasons then that the Church of Rome for certain hundred years hath not allowed it: there is no point of our faith, but it is far more ancient than your popish decrees: your bald and doltish shift, to drive us only to your exposition of the Scriptures is not worth a straw, God's holy spirit hath bestowed great gifts upon his Church in these last days. Proceed with your matter.  Pa. 
Nay you shall not so slily convey your self: ye make small account of the interpretation of the Church of Rome, which agreeth with all the holy Doctors and Teachers even from the time of the Apostles. Your exposition of the word began of late in Germany, and therefore is not to be taken for Catholic.  Pro. 
Seeing ye must needs lie, it is good to lie for somewhat: all holy Doctors and Teachers from the Apostles are on your side: this all doth signify none: For the very truth is (as every man that can read their writings may see) that they be (except in a very few points) all against ye: saving such holy devils, as within these latter times have been the Popes own Doctors. Our exposition is the same which the godly fathers (before Antichrist had gotten the upper seat in the Temple) did use: & therefore Catholic: although your mother disallow it.  Pa. 
Nay heretics be liars, we say the truth when we do challenge the ancient Doctors and Fathers to be on our side: we succeed them, we honour, love, and commend them more than you, we pray for their help, you seek to deface and pull down all remembrance of them: let all the world be judge whose side they are like to be of, ours or yours, when we have them in so great and high estimation, and you set so light by them. Can we be fallen from them (as you say) being so ready to do them all the homage we can? our hearts do witness that we do it in simplicity. Moreover, all your matter is not worth a straw which ye have brought out of the Church of the jews: ye have showed that in Israel Elias could see no Church: that in the Temple, the Priests and false Prophets did conspire against the true messengers of the Lord. This were somewhat if you could show it in our Church, unto which Christ hath made his promise, never to forsake it: but to give it his spirit to the world's end: Your matter is too weak to overthrow so great and manifest truth.  Pro. 
It is indeed a certain and sure thing, that heretics will lie, and therefore you Papists, whose Religion is a very hotch potch, & dunghill of all gross heresies, will not stick at that. But here is a great reason brought, to prove that the holy Saints of God are on your side and not on ours. The holy Fathers are like (as all men may judge) to be on their side, which succeed them, which do most love them, honour them, and commend them, but therein who knoweth not that ye go beyond us, which ye accuse to deface their honour? And therefore they be on your side, and must needs take you to be their special friends. Indeed we confess that you do give that honour to the Saints which we deny them, and therefore ye seem to love them more than we. But when the matter cometh to the due trial, every man shall easily perceive, that it doth not therefore follow, that they be on your side: because it is no true love nor right honour which ye give unto them: nor such indeed as they can in any wise accept of: for when as all their delight and joy was that God alone should be worshipped, and have all his whole honour reserved to himself: how can they take it well at your hands, when ye play the arrant thieves, and most villainously rob God to give unto them? Are there any good men hear in earth which would be content to see thieves spoil other men's goods, and to bring the same to them? if not, how should the blessed Virgin, the holy Apostles, & other Saints of God count those sacrilegious wretches to be their friends, which rob and spoil God of his honour, and thrust Christ from his office, to bestow upon them? No, those honour them which follow their steps, in giving all honour to God, they loved and held the truth, which was dearer to them then their lives, and therefore are on their side which walk in the truth. Moreover your love and honour which you give and bestow upon them, is even such as the wicked Apostates among the jews did bestow upon the holy Prophets of God. Thus Christ speaketh: Woe be unto you Scribes & pharisees, 
Math. 23.  ye Hypocrites, because you build the sepulchres of the Prophets, & garnish the Tombs of the righteous: and ye say, if we had been in the days of our Fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets. Will you say that these did love the Prophets, which did so much hate Christ? did they honour the Prophets, and dishonour Christ? Even such are you, ye honour the holy Saints of old, but if they were alive on earth, ye would murder them. In the next place you make that to be nothing which I allege concerning the Church of the jews ye require that I should show some such thing in your Church. What say ye to this, 
2. Thes. 2.  that S. Paul saith there should be a falling away: the man of sin should be set up. 
Revel. 13.  And when Saint john speaking of the same apostasy saith, that all the world wondered and followed the beast. And again in the same Chapter he saith, that whosoever would not worship the Image of the beast they should be killed, 
Revel. 13.  and he caused all both small and great, rich and poor, bond and free, to receive a make in their right hand, or in their forehead. And that none might buy or sell, but he which hath the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Ye will not deny also but that which Saint john speaketh of the woman persecuted by the Dragon, 
Revel. 12.  is meant of the Church, for the place doth plainly interpret itself, when he saith in the last verse of the Chapter, That the Dragon was wrath, and went and made war against the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of jesus. Behold, how he showeth there that this Church should be nourished in the wilderness for a time, times and half a time, from the presence of the Dragon Where was then the visible Church? Where was now dic ecclesiae tell the Church, if ye will understand it so fully?  Pa. 
Must those things needs be expounded against us? Can it not be taken but against the Church of Rome?  Pro. 
That prophesy of S. Paul, of the apostasy by the man of sin, and the description of the kingdom of Antichrist by S john in the Revelation, cannot with any show be turned upon any other save the Pope and his Clergy. But I will come unto this thing more particularly afterward. Ye cannot now deny but that there might be and was, so great decay of truth by Antichrist, that a man could not always see a visible government of the Church, seeing Antichrist was the head, and all things were done at his will & appointment.  Pa. 
You would make the world believe what you list: but let them believe ye that will. It is a like matter that God would forsake the Church so many hundred years, & suffer all our forefathers which were better than we to be deceived and to perish. No, no, I would we were like them: they were wiser than we are. It is marvel that they should be so far wide, and no man to reprove them. There is no wise man, but he will take it to be the more surer way to cleave to so many godly and wise forefathers, and good Saints, then to take part with a few schismatics and new fangled rash heads, which will not stick to condemn and overthrow all good orders, be they never so ancient. Oh, this corrupt age, whither will it tend at the last?  Pro. 
What we go about, or would make the world believe, God himself is both witness and judge: to him and to his holy truth we appeal. It is not like that God would forsake his Church so many hundred years: no he never forsook it one hour, no not even when it seemed to be quite destroyed and wasted by Antichrist. He never suffered all our forefathers to be seduced and to perish: neither did he ever suffer any one of our godly forefathers to perish: he forsook Antichrist and his brood, as a den of thieves, which forsook him: he forsook all those which received not the love of the truth that they might be saved: and sent them strong delusions to believe lies: that so they might be damned: as S. Paul setteth it forth. 
2. Thes. 2.  This was neither all the forefathers, nor yet so many hundred years as you seem to note: for the most part of your Antichristian religion hath not as yet seen six hundred Summers: And in those times there were ever some which cried out of your corrupt doctrine and wicked manners He is the right wise man which doth not leave to, nor depend upon the multitude of men: but doth cleave to the word of truth, and to those which embrace the same, although they be never so few. If we condemn any thing but that which the Lord himself doth condemn: and overthrow any orders but such as he telleth us to be disorders, although they have had long continuance, you might well term us schismatics & new fangled: but seeing we do nothing but that which is warranted by his mouth, your blasphemies are against him. This corrupt age (as you term it) if God prosper his Gospel, will never cease until it have plucked down the Romish monster.  Pa. 
By your own words than they have been deceived these five or six hundred years: could all the world so damnably err thus long? or is it to be thought, that in all those years, the most part, or as you say, almost all were cast away, for they were always very few in number which have refused to obey the Church of Rome?  Pro. 
Within that compass of time which I named (as it is most evident by many ancient writers) the most part of your abominable abuses have been established: yet ye cannot gather that all the world have erred so long, because we say your Romish Synagogue hath: for you never had any more indeed but a corner of the world under your Pope: your dominion was only in Europe: as for Asia and Africa, which refused to be of your faction, they are far the greater regions as the countries of Grecia, India, Chaldea, Egypt, Ethiopia, and a great number besides these. Let a man reason with you thus: either all these were deceived or else you: so that of necessity you shall be forced to confess, that God suffered so great multitudes to err. But what absurdity is there in that, seeing the holy Scriptures do show that of old God chose the seed of Abraham only to be his Church, & cast off the Gentiles to walk after the vanities of their own heart: these were a far greater multitude than ever your Popish rout, and three times as many hundred years as you, they might allege for the antiquity of their religion. Might not these have objected against S. Paul and the rest of the apostles: what, were all our forefathers for these thousands of years cast away? they never heard of this new religion of Christ, were there not a number of great wise men among them? Shall we forsake all these, and the faith which they have taught us, in so many learned and excellent books, and follow a few of you? No doubt a great multitude of mad fools, such as you Papists are, did reject and condemn the Gospel of Christ with that reason. I say still therefore, that he is wise which sticketh fast to God's word, and not to the multitudes of men: nor to the antiquity which they can allege.  Pa. 
It pleaseth you to term us what ye list: but it is no matter, your words are no law. I could answer you well enough, but I perceive it is but to small purpose: a man were as good to hold his peace for let never so great reason be alleged, you are so blind that you do not understand it.  Pro. 
Indeed you do but lose your labour, if you think to persuade me unto your mind: your stuff is over course to entice any wise man from the truth. Ye may seem to old simple souls (whose eyes ye have put out) to be excellent men, and they will nod, & soothe your sayings, when ye tell them this & that of forefathers, & what a goodly world it was, & that your religion hath ever since Christ been continued: although indeed ye need not tell so great a lie to persuade them: for it is even enough to draw them wholly, to say but this, your father, your grandfather, and your great grandfather believed thus, will not you do as they did? but show your words once to a man, although a simple man, which hath but even a little tasted, & hath but some smack of God's word, and he will judge them by and by to be counterfeit, and very babbles, so that they can move none but children & fools. And therefore seeing as the Apostle S. Peter saith, 
2. Pet. 2.  Ye should beguile but unstable souls, and such as Saint Paul doth say, are like children carried away with every puffed of vain doctrine: 
Ephes. 4  all men are to be exhorted to grow and increase in understanding of God's holy will, that they may be able to espy such draff and filthy dregs as you offer them, not to be wholesome unto the soul.  Pa. 
Then you are able to make a simple man to be so well lettered (as you say by the spirit) as to judge in so high causes: you that can do so much, can be able to absolve me in a great doubt, or else you shall show yourself to be a very vain man. Tell me then, how shall a man know whether he hath the spirit of God or not, and when he believeth this doctrine or that doctrine, and is persuaded that the spirit of God doth teach him: how shall he be sure as you say, that he hath the right spirit? all sorts of heretics do persuade themselves that they have the spirit. May not a man be deceived, and suppose he hath the spirit of God, when it is a spirit of error?  Pro. 
Here is a great doubt, and a marvelous hard question propounded: how a man shall know whether he hath the spirit of God, etc. This is so hard a case, that a man had need to take long deliberation to make answer. Well may this be one question and doubt in your religion, and a matter so far beyond your reach, that you do suppose an impossibility: it doth manifestly declare that your acquaintance hath been very little or rather none at all with the spirit of God, that ye neither know him, nor yet can perceive how he may be known? Can ye know fire from water, or can ye know an Appletree from a Crabtrée?  Pa. 
Ye have made a great speak. What if I can know fire from water, and a Crabtree from an Appletree? Doth this reason follow, because a man doth know these, therefore he may know the other? Is your comparison equal? These things we see, feel, handle, and taste, the other we do not. Ye must bring other manner of gear than this, or else a man may crave leave to laugh at ye.  Pro. 
I cannot let ye to laugh, if it be your pleasure even your belly full, but yet it must be at your own folly. For the matter well weighed and understood, peradventure ye may show your teeth, but not laugh very heartily. Ye can know fire from water, and why, because the nature and working of the one is contrary to the other: ye are able to know an appletree from a Crabtrée, because ye taste of the fruit, and they are the one sweet and the other sour. Is there such a working, & quality in the creatures that they may thereby be known? Is there such certainty to try the tree and to know it by the fruit? And hath the spirit which made them, and preserveth them, so lost his power, and are his qualities and operations so weak, that he cannot be discerned from the spirit of the devil? Are his fruits such as they cannot be discerned from the rotten fruits of the flesh, and the works of darkness? 
Ephes. 1. Rom. 8.  Saint Paul saith, that we are sealed with the holy spirit of promise, he willeth men to walk after the spirit, & not after the flesh: he setteth forth the fruits of the flesh, 
Galath. 5.  and the fruits of the spirit. 
Rom. 8.  He saith, that this spirit doth bear witness unto our spirit, that we are the sons of God. This should be but a weak witness if we should not be able to know whether we have him or not. But perhaps all these scriptures & many other which I could cite, have not light enough in them for your blind eyes: and therefore I will show ye the thing more fully thus. A man heareth the word of God preached, 
1. Cor. 12.  it striketh his heart and converteth him: whereas before he was as blind as a beetle, now he seeth the light: whereas before he had no love to the holy word of God, now his heart is inflamed with zeal and delight in it: whereas before his care was of this world, & covetousness did cause him greedily to seek unlawful gain, now his mind is bend upon heavenly things, and after them he seeketh: whereas before he was full of adulteries, riot, wantonness, vanity, now his wicked affections are tamed and altered, he much abhorreth such filthiness: and whereas before he could never cease doing evil, he was never at ease, but when he delighted himself in some ungodliness: now he is a man quite changed, he doth much lament and sorrow that ever he was so wicked to despise God: all his joy is now to do good works, the fear of God is before his eyes: now feeling this wonderful change in himself, that he is new borne to God, that he is a new creature, he knoweth right well that he is lead by the holy spirit of GOD, and that he hath wrought this new work in him.  Pa. 
It seemeth by your talk that such as have received the spirit are so sure that they cannot be deceived. To what purpose then was Saint Paul so careful to warn the true Christians to take heed? yea we may see, that there were divers of them seduced. This is quite contrary to that certainty which you do speak of.  Pro. 
There is no contrariety in these things: for if any were seduced, and drawn away from the truth unto destruction, it is most certain they were never sealed with the spirit, but had some small taste. He laboureth with the other, to have them grow strong, to be grounded and rooted in the truth, not to be as children, carried away with every blast of vain doctrine: for the blessed Apostle Saint Peter describing such false Teachers as you, 
2. Pet. 2.  showeth that they shall beguile unstable souls. Such therefore as will not be seduced, neither by you nor any other heretics, must abound in knowledge and grace: for so we are willed. If the wisdom of the holy Ghost be in us, and hath enlightened us, the subtlety of the devil, and the power of darkness shall not overcome us: the power of the holy Ghost is greater than the power of Satan, and for this cause we are sure of victory. If this were not, we could have but small comfort: we should he but in woe case. It is not your greasy pope which could help us: which himself is overcome of the devil, and obeyeth his will.  Pa. 
Well, well, for this matter, I say still that your doctrine is new, that ye condemn all our forefathers: and whereas you would seem to prove that it is the ancient Catholic faith, because ye prove it by the Scriptures, I say you prove nothing: for the Scriptures can prove nothing without the interpretation of the Church, you can not interpret, neither can ye judge, but the great shepherd, whose voice ye should hear, must give the sense: therefore I say still that ye be heretics all the pack of ye: and but that I spare ye I could bite ye a little better, I am sorry ye be so wilful.  Pro. 
When ye have spent all your powder, than ye retire back again into your castle, which is so sure as you suppose, that nothing can batter the walls: but when a man doth view them well, he shall find them to be but painted clothes. For in very deed ye stand obstinately and frowardly upon certain bare affirmations. And when a man hath never so strongly confuted and disproved them, yet ye allege them still. But let this go, and come to the rest. Ye say ye could, but that ye spare me (or else that ye are muzzled) bite me a little better, I fear not your teeth, for I trust your biting will not rankle, not because they be not venom, but because I am so well defensed, that ye cannot fasten your teeth upon me. But spare not, power out all your poison, and do your worst.  Pa. 
Ye do but gibe and mock at those things which I speak: it is even according to your profession, ye are deriders of good things and of the true Catholic faith: take heed, it is better for ye to repent, and to turn home again to the holy Church, which ye have and do dishonour. I said that I did spare ye, and it shall appear now, for I will touch ye a little nearer, and yet but with the truth: not with all that I might say neither: for it were infinite to rehearse all your abominable ways which ye walk in, and are to be charged withal. A little shall suffice: I say by your wicked and carnal doctrine, even your new Gospel, ye teach all looseness, and licentious liberty to the flesh. As for example, ye deny the merits of good works, ye teach that men are justified by faith, without good deeds: ye teach Election, and Predestination, and deny free-will: and so by this means, the people are brought to have no care of good works but to live as they lust: for thus it doth follow, if we be justified by faith alone, what need we care for good works? If we be chosen and predestinate, and have no free-will left in us, to choose or refuse, then let God alone, we cannot further nor hinder ourselves, what should we ear, let us then set cock a hoop, and take our pleasure while we be here: this is your sweet doctrine, thus ye teach.  Pro. 
I need not marvel to hear ye threaten to bite me: when ye dare open your mouth to blaspheme the Lord God, and to bark like a most filthy and profane dog against the most glorious Gospel of Christ. Which (howsoever ye bely it) doth teach all heavenly purity, and care of good works. They be conclusions of your own framing, which neither we teach, neither do they follow of that doctrine which we deliver. The devil and the flesh reason thus: God hath chosen men, they have no power of themselves, they cannot deserve or merit by their good deeds, but are justified by faith alone in the merits of Christ, therefore let them care for no well doing, but walk after the carnal desires and lusts of the flesh: what should they care, they can neither further nor hinder themselves? But the holy spirit of God concludeth thus: God chose us when we were his enemies, of his own good will, when we were not able so much as to think a good thought: therefore we are bound to yield all praise and honour unto him. He hath of his infinite love given us his dear and only be gotten son, for to redeem us, and to justify us: therefore we ought to show ourselves loving and kind unto him again, to serve, honour, and obey him, in all true obedience, and holy conversation. What should I stand to recite testimonies of Scripture to prove these conclusions, and to overthrow yours, when as every poor man which hath any delight in the sacred Bible, is able for to see them? They be worse than bruit beasts which have not learned this out of the word, that God hath chosen his people, hath by his free grace redeemed and justified them, to the end they may be holy, & zealous of good works: although not to merit withal, which they cannot, yet to glorify GOD, as Christ saith: Let your light so shine before men, 
Matth. 5,  that they may see your good works, & glorify your father which is in heaven. Likewise he saith: Herein is my father glorified, 
john 15.  that ye grow and bring forth much fruit. We teach with S. john, 
1. john 3.  he that worketh righteousness is borne of God, he that committeth sin is of the devil. We teach with Christ, 
john 8.  that he that committeth sin, is the servant of sin. We teach with Saint Paul, 
Rom. 8.  that those which are in Christ walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. We teach with S. james, 
james 2.  that that faith which is without good works is dead, & therefore cannot justify & save a man. It is not faith but a dead picture and show of faith, which the devils have. The true faith cannot be without good works. So that we teach a necessity of good works: not to merit or to justify, but to show forth the fruits of our calling.  Pap. 
Ye say that ye do not teach liberty to the flesh, nor give men leave to live as they will: nor that your doctrine doth not destroy good deeds: but shall we give more credit to your words, or to the success, and fruits which we see to follow of your doctrine? He that will rightly try what your doctrine is, let him look what fruits it doth bring forth. What better and more sure trial can a man require then this? I trow ye will not refuse to be tried by this rule. Then let us come unto it, your holy doctrine, how cometh it to pass that it doth bring forth so many sour fruits? Was there ever more sin committed? What fowl wickedness is it which doth not flow in your streets? You may compare with the Sodomites, for your gluttonies, wantonness, whoredoms, pride, covetousness, and such like. What good thing can a man see in your Clergy, which should give good example to others, and whose pure conversation should be a pattern for other to follow? How many of them are there which are men void of all learning and grace? who having spent their time lewdly, and consumed their substance, when they cannot tell how to live, step into the ministery, or at the least coveting to live at ease, and shunning to work, being scarce sit for the plough, much less for the pulpit, yet are admitted by your heavenly Gospel, to be masters in Israel. How many wanton fleshly adulterers are there among them? How covetous, how worldly, how ambitious are your learned men? Do not all men see how they preach and take on, until such time as they be laden with livings, and are got up as high as they can, and then as though they had won the upshot, they put up their arrows into their quiver, and unbend their bows: they need not any further to trouble themselves? But what need I speak, when the matter itself doth as it were make open proclamation? Your common people, seeing they have no better examples, are given over to all kind of naughtiness. If ye can prove this to be wholesome doctrine, which doth bring forth and allow such things as these, I will be no longer a Catholic.  Pro. 
If I should answer ye only with this, that your evil fruits do far pass ours, although it were most easy to be proved, yet should I make but a slender answer: because that in overthrowing you, we should also condemn ourselves. For this I must needs confess with ye, that the doctrine which doth bring forth evil fruits cannot be good. And a good trial I do confess of the doctrine, to be in the good fruits which it doth bring forth. When ye charge us that all abominable sins do flow in our streets, we do also with great grief acknowledge it. And this far I allow your sayings: but when ye ascribe these things to our doctrine, as the fruits, which it doth bring forth: there I do disallow ye, as a blasphemer of God, and his most pure truth. For it is not because our doctrine doth allow, much less breed such evils, that they be among us, but because our doctrine which is the holy word of God, is of the most men despised, and not known. The Lord by sundry of his prophets doth complain of the jews, and accuseth them to be worse than the heathen: was therefore the law and doctrine which he had given them, to be blamed? No, they refused to walk in his ordinances, and so do the people at this day. The Lord be blessed there are a number (although far the less number which lie as scattered corns in a great heap of chaff) which have embraced the holy doctrine of the Lord, and do express it in their lives, & do every day mourn for the abominations of Jerusalem: and earnestly do desire that the Lord would purge it. If either our doctrine did allow such abuses, or those which do sincerely embrace it, walk in them, than your words which ye utter might have some weight in them: but seeing it is otherwise, ye remain still with the rest of your companions, a wicked blasphemer of the holy word of God. As for that which ye utter against our Clergy, it maketh nothing at all against us: unless ye could prove that our doctrine doth allow such. But ye may see the contrary, for our Gospel doth allow none but learned Teachers, and godly Pastors, which express the word in their conversation: those which Saint Paul alloweth unto Timothy and Titus, 
1. Tim. 3. Titus 1.  those doth our religion allow, and none else. If any have preached diligently, and when they are once come to promotion have given over, it is plain, they sought themselves, and not the Lord jesus: will ye lay the fault of such ungodly men upon the doctrine. Cease therefore, not to be a true Catholic, which ye never were, but an obstinate blind heretic, without true understanding.  Pa. 
Better is a bad excuse than none at all. Forsooth the doctrine must not be blamed, but the men: but I pray ye for your Clergy, why are those things maintained? Are they unknown? If not, why are they borne? Answer this, and then ye say somewhat to the purpose.  Pro. 
When I have answered it you shall gain little. For as I may most easily prove that God's word which is our religion, doth allow no such ministery, so may I as easily show, that all this corruption in the ministery came from you, we may rue the time that ever your corrupt laws and orders in matters for the ministery took place in the world, because the very Relics of them are deadly wheresoever they remain, and do poison the Church of GOD: the most filthy and cursed abominations in the lives of the Ministers, and other abuses began among you. Ye have no cause to boast of the goodness of your Priests, nor of their learning, look upon those of them which at this day do remain in our Church, not as standers, but as poor rotten stakes in an hedge: the people may here and there, (although twenty years and odd have greatly wasted them) see how grave Divines & godly Prelates were among you. As for the maintenance of such things among us, I say still we defy all such abuses, we allow none other ministery but such as S. Paul describeth. If any man do defend an unlearned ministery which is not able to guide the flock of Christ, or to build up the temple of God: or if any do bear with vice in the ministers, they do follow Antichrist, and not S. Paul: they are then become enemies of Christ, and fighters together with you against the Gospel, destroyers and rooters up of the Lords vineyard, which is to be dressed and kept by expert and skilful labourers. You must learn therefore not to slander the most glorious Gospel, nor to lay the blame of such things upon it, but for to find the fault where it is.  Pa. 
I cannot deny, but that in words ye do seem for to allow such as Saint Paul willeth they should be: but when it cometh to the performance, ye do utterly fail: for having many learned men, ye have none godly: all of them given over to some fowl vice or other: as to be ambitious, covetous worldlings, idle bellies, gluttons, proud prelate's, vain boasters, or such like.  Pro. 
I perceive your subtle craft well enough: ye describe our learned men by these fowl vices, when ye mean your popish clergy. For from the top of yours even to the bottom: even from the triple crown, unto the bare footed friar, all these vices, and a great number more do abound. The Lord be blessed that in our Church and other Churches of his Gospel, hath raised up a great number whom he hath prepared and sanctified by his spirit: which do give testimony of their purity, both before GOD and men: that they seek not themselves nor the world, but only to build up the Church of Christ. As for other which are defiled with any of those crimes which you do name, I say still, they be not the workmen by whom God will build his house: they be rather fit to set up the kingdom of Antichrist, and although they should take upon them with never so great profession to defend the truth, yet because they profess godliness in word, 
Titus 1.  and have denied the power thereof, God doth not acknowledge them to be on his side: neither will any godly man account them true professors.  Pa. 
Will ye allow none to be of your side, but such as be free from those forenamed vices or such like. Alas where is your Church become? where shall a man find a company of those rare birds which you speak of? take the people and their teachers together. Who are they among ye which are not accused in some such crime or other?  Pro. 
I say still, that because God hath allowed none to be his redeemed and chosen, but those whom he doth also sanctify: we also do allow none, neither of the teachers nor of the people, to be the true friends of the Gospel, but such as do yield and show their obedience thereunto, and express the doctrine thereof in their conversation. How small soever the number of such seem unto your bleared eyes for to be, they are the true Church of GOD, and more in number far, than you could wish. I know if all should be guilty which are accused, than your saying were true: but when it is most evident that the more godly a man is the more he is subject to false accusations and slanders: even as our Saviour himself was, and his Apostles, and other most godly which succeeded them: your reason is very weak, when ye say all are accused: for, doth it by and by follow, that all are guilty?  
I confess that our Church if ye understand the whole assembly, is full of all wicked vices: but shall God's word be blamed for that? There are a number among us which are of your brood, whose evil life is seen well enough: there are a very great number of mere worldlings, which do not greatly esteem any religion, although they seem now because of laws, to allow and favour our side, yet in their hearts they rather cleave unto you: which is evident by this, that they can better away with the friendship and familiarity of a rank Papist, then of a zealous godly protestant: they will highly commend the one, and deeply condemn the other. Thus ye shall have them speak: such a man, indeed I cannot praise him for his religion, I let him alone for that, he shall answer for himself, I would he were of a better opinion, but for his behaviour there is not a better man. As for such and such, I cannot tell what to make of them, they are so holy, and so precise, that they have forgotten all good fellowship. Thus you and your favourers among us, agreeing in a carnal and evil conversation, and filling all the land full of naughtiness: do charge the Gospel and holy religion of God, which doth most severely condemn and curse all such abuses. I will not stand in particular reciting of those vices which you Papists do join in, and allow in our carnal protestāns, it would be over long, a man might make a long book of that matter alone.  Pa. 
I confess there be many which care not what religion be, so they may live in wealth & ease: but what are those vices which we do join with them? Ye make a very liberal accusation of great and foul matter, although ye say it would be too long to recite the particulars, to entreat upon them, yet ye may name them.  Pro. 
In few words I may name some, if that will pleasure ye: our carnal protestants are covetous greedy worldlings, crafty in their dealings to seek all advantages against those with whom they deal, full of usury and bribery: and these things are also in you, our carnal Gospelers are very fowl mouthed in slanderings, railings, ribaldries, and horrible oaths: these things ye make no conscience of. Our carnal protestants are given over to spend their time in gluttonies, drink, vain pleasures, and unlawful exercises: these are your venial sins, and whosoever will not run with ye to power out themselves in the same excess of riot, they are precise fools: more nice than wise: they do it but of vain glory and singularity.  Pa. 
Ye may be ashamed to charge us with such things, seeing our Church hath always used so sharp discipline upon such offenders: you may justly be charged, because ye let loose the rains unto all vices: ye give the flesh the swinge: ye have no discipline among ye, to make men stand in awe.  Pro. 
We may be ashamed to speak truth of you: but you must not once blush at the matter when ye blaspheme the glorious Gospel of Christ: and why? only because ye are past shame: but let your words go, and come to your matter. You may not in no case be blamed for such vices, which have always holden men in awe with sharp discipline, and corrected the offenders. It is well known to all wise men what your discipline was: true it is that ye did hold men wonderfully in awe, but of whom? not of God, but of the Romish prelate. No man durst wag his finger against him: no man might once find fault with any of his dirty inventions, under pain of his extreme and heavy curse. But each man might live as he lust in all vices against God: only he must confess his sins to the priest, and receive a certain penance, to fast certain days, or to go on pilgrimage to some Saint: or to have the Pope's pardon for a piece of money, not only for his sins past, but also for those which he should afterward commit. Others when they had committed some horrible sins, must whip themselves, and so at it again. Thus your holy pope, did open the gate to all uncleanness, and therefore in the Scriptures is called the man of sin.  Pa. 
This seemeth very strange to me, how penance and correction should open the gate unto all sin. It seemeth by your words, that men would love sin the better, because it should be punished. I would wish ye to be better advised in your words, for I could take ye in many such absurdities: but I am almost ashamed to recite them, they be so childish trifles, to come from any one of your coat, which profess learning. But let me see how you shut up the gate against sin, which enjoin no penance or correction. It is a world to see the vanity of men's minds, which persuade themselves, that they can make men believe the crow is white: alas your poor Sophistry is not able to do this. Yet I perceive ye have some grace in ye, for I trow ye blush.  Pro. 
It would make any man blush I trow, to be taken in such a trip, and so to overshoote himself, as I have done, by affirming that your discipline did open the gate unto all sin. For can such sharp penance, as to fast three days together with bread and water: or to go bare footed to our Lady of Walsingame: or for a man to whip himself until the blood follow: or to give ten shillings for a pardon, make men love sin the better? This gear I trow would scar them, and make them to have little lust to sin. Oh no good sir, this is nothing so sharp as hell fire: men find such a sweet taste in sin, that if they may escape so they will not care. The adulterer hath such pleasure in his unclean lust, that he will to it again, if he may be persuaded it be but a whipping matter. The drunkard will have one pot of ale the more, if he may heal the matter again by drinking a cup of water. The envious and hateful man will have one fling at his enemy, if a pair of old angels will dispatch the matter, and procure his pardon at the hands of the holy father: and so in each sin. O ye holy hellhounds, here is your sharp discipline, by which ye give liberty unto men to turn back to uncleanness, even as a dog to his vomit. But while we reprove your discipline, we have none ourselves: and so we do but play the Sophisters, which would take upon them to prove that the crow is white. Sir, before I come to our discipline, I say our doctrine is this, that under pain of God's curse and eternal damnation, men must return from their wicked ways, and not return unto them again: they must give up themselves wholly to serve God in all good works. As for the discipline of our Church, thus sharp it is, that the obstinate sinner is to be cut off from the congregation, & to be delivered up unto satan & not to he received in again, until such time as he hath declared very apparent tokens of deep sorrow & hearty repentance. Let all men judge whether this be not to shut up the gate against sin.  Pa. 
Now you may very well be likened unto a man that will make great brags of his riches, when he is nothing worth. A marvelous sharp discipline ye speak of: but I pray ye where shall a man find it? even in your Spiritual courts, for there a man if the officer cannot get his fee, shall be cursed to the devil, & thrown out of the church: yea so severely that he shall not be received in again, before he come weeping, until the tears drop out of his purse. O ye dissolute teachers of liberty, and maintainers of iniquity, cease your bragging of those things which are not among ye.  Pro. 
Your blasphemous tongue will never cease, unless it be cut out of your head: do we teach liberty? do we maintain iniquity? Admit your saying be true, yet I pray you how slenderly do you reason, when ye say, that a man is excommunicated for money, and received in again for money, although they do not repent: and therefore your Gospel giveth liberty to sin. Oh good sir, Christ and his Gospel allow no such thing: if men do offend, do not you therefore blame the truth: for there is no equity nor good dealing in that. What though we have not the discipline of the Gospel in our Church, here in this land, so whole and sound as it should be, yet because we allow it, we pray for it, we thirst after it, we confess the want thereof: we ought not to be charged as those which defile God's house, we wait when it shall please God to put into the hearts of our godly governors to purge the Church by it.  Pa. 
You give the greater colour unto the matter, because a few among you speak of such a thing: what is that to the purpose? the whole discipline of your Church, which all those which are your Church do acknowledge, is established among ye, there is no want confessed.  Pro. 
No man is to regard what a few or many do speak, but what God doth speak by his word. Whereas ye affirm that our Church doth acknowledge no want, I say our Church doth acknowledge a want: for who are the Church, or of the Church, but such as do embrace the whole word of GOD? But lest ye should still go forward after your former manner, and say that a few do this, & not the state of our Church: look in the book of our Common Prayer, and there ye shall find that the grave & godly fathers of our Church, when they did reform it from Popery, setting down the curses out of Moses, which are to be denounced at a certain time in the year: they do withal set down and declare their meaning, namely, that this should be for a time in stead of that discipline, which they can not only confess to be wanting, but also greatly to be desired: as they wished for it.  Pa. 
I cannot tell what the fathers of your Church do set down there, neither do I mind to look. When ye have said all that ye can, ye shall be driven to confess that there is all looseness and liberty unto the flesh among ye. Ye have feasting and gluttony, in stead of fasting. O our good forefathers, how much are ye unlike them? they did oftentimes fast and punish their bodies, and go in sackcloth: these new Gospelers have found a more easy way, they can do all contrary and yet go to heaven nevertheless. Our fathers lived in great straightness, and these walk at liberty: which of these shall we like best? shall we forsake them and allow of these? No, Christ telleth us, The way is strait which leadeth unto heaven. If ever any walked in that way, they were our forefathers, which punished themselves, and lived so devoutly.  Pro. 
If there be looseness and liberty among us, it is by them which obey not the Gospel, which calleth them from all sinful lusts of the flesh, unto the obedience of God's holy wil The right fast which the Scripture doth commend is in estimation among us: we do not only write and speak of it, but also have and are ready for to practise it, both publicly and privately. That which you brag of is not the true fast: for although a man cram his belly never so full of fish, so that he abstain from flesh, you call it a fast. Sweet wines and dainty junkets are allowed in your fast. Moreover ye fast, when ye do it in the most strait manner, and pine yourselves, to a most wicked and abominable end: for ye do it as a work which is meritorious, ye seek remission of your sins by it: and so ye deny the redemption by the merits of Christ only: which is so cursed & blasphemous a thing, that it doth turn all your fastings and prayers into sin. Your fasting is such as God did reprove in the jews, by his prophets: and such as the blind Pharisee boasted of, saying: 
Luke 18.  I fast twice in the week. Doubtless if the abstaining from meat could make a man holy, the pharisees should have been exceeding holy men, and the ancient jews against whom the Lord complained, should have been commended: but they like hypocrites fasted from bodily sustenance, and filled themselves with all spiritual wickedness: even such are you, O ye detestable hypocrites, although ye go sometimes with empty bellies, yet your souls are as full of sin as ever they can hold. We have just cause to cry out against ye for seducing so many of our forefathers, and making them believe that the very broad way to hell, was the norrow & strait way which leadeth unto heaven. You blind pharisees, answer, is that the strait way unto life, which the starkest hypocrite of all, & the most ungodly men can observe and walk in as well as other? Is that the narrow gate, which the covetous, the malicious, the adulterous and unjust man, can pass in at as well as other? Tell me this, can there not be a lecherous heart, and a malicious mind in a body covered with sackcloth? Cannot a wicked hypocrite punish his body, pine and whip himself, and yet his sinful soul within never a whit reform? This then is not the strait way, but the strait way is that which Christ and his Apostles do teach, which none can find nor walk in, but the true faithful man: namely, to deny himself, to kill and crucify all sinful lusts and concupiscences in the heart: to seek out the will of God, and in all things to obey it. This is the narrow way which all those are to seek after if they will be saved: all our godly forefathers have walked in this way, and sought thus to please God: they knew that the kingdom of heaven could not be purchased by any such outward trifles as you devised: but that such as will enter in there must be new borne. No man therefore need to fear when he walketh in this strait way which we publish by the doctrine of the Gospel: because he doth not forsake our forefathers, unless it be such as have forsaken the truth, being seduced by Antichrist.  Pa. 
What is it which you cannot do, that can so easily prove all the holy devotion of such as live a strait life to be but hypocrisy: but say what ye will, ye shall never be able to prove, that such things are trifles, I know well enough that your sect make small account of all religious observations: let them believe ye that will, is it possible that God should refuse those men, which of a good meaning and devotion are so careful to please him? which are content to take so great pains to serve him, and are so humble minded, as to refuse nothing by which they may abase themselves, to please him. O that you heretics did but a little know how devout the mind of the Catholic is: ye would even be ashamed that ever ye were so foolish to separate yourselves from so holy a company. But alas the world hath blinded your eyes, and the devil hath be witched ye so far, that ye care not for any goodness.  Pro. 
All faithful Christians do know well enough the blind devotion of you Papists: and are so far from being ashamed to separate themselves from ye, that they give immortal thanks and praise to God, that he hath opened their eyes to see the light, and to avoid that strong delusion which you are deluded withal, what good meaning and devotion so ever ye pretend, what pains so ever ye take, how humble so ever ye seem to be: yet God will refuse to acknowledge ye for his servants, because ye refuse his ordinances, and devise toys of your own, which ye thrust upon him, and as it were force him to accept them. If ye did mean well, ye would do better: your devotion is devilish obstinacy: your meekness is haughtiness, in despising God. You have forgotten what the Lord saith: In vain do they worship me, 
Esay 29. Matth. 15.  teaching for doctrines the precepts of men.  Pa. 
Where learn you to give such railing sentence against the devotion of holy men, and to judge? Ye boast of the Gospel, ye have nothing else in your mouth: and yet the Gospel willeth ye not for to judge. This doth declare what spirit ye are led with.  Pro. 
If your Romish rout were holy devout men, than no doubt we should be found to give railing sentence: and if the holy scriptures did not warrant us so to speak of those which are open enemies to GOD, than we might justly be blamed: or if we should enter so far as to judge of the secrets of men's hearts, & not where the word of God doth pronounce the judgement, than were we to be condemned: but seeing the word doth teach that which we utter, we neither give railing sentence, neither do we judge, otherwise then to pronounce out of God's truth, what is holy, and what is wicked and abominable.  Pa. 
Prove those things which you have said out of the word, as that good intents are not pleasing to God: that when men are devout and take pains to serve God, it is devilish: and other such like, and I will be your bondman while I live.  Pro. 
Good intents do please God: God doth require that men should be devout, and take pains to serve him: and unless these things be in them they are not his servants. But yours are no good intents but fantasies of your own brain: for they proceed not of faith, because they be not ordered by God's word, 
Rom. 14.  but against the word: and whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Your worship being not framed after the will of God, but proceeding from your own liking, is no more but blind devotion, when ye have taken all the pains ye can, and have wearied yourselves, this shall be your reward: 
Esay 1.  Who required these things at your hands? Who did set ye a work, and appoint ye this service? As concerning such kind of worship as yours, the Apostle doth call it will-worship: for when he hath spoken of commandments and doctrines of men, he addeth thus: 
Colos. 2.  Which things have a show of wisdom, in voluntary worship, and humbleness of mind, and not sparing the body: which things are of no estimation, seeing they pertain to the filling of the flesh. This place of Saint Paul well observed, doth fully and clearly without any exposition quite overthrow all your Popish religion. For he showeth, that before GOD all such trash is of no estimation. Again, his description doth so fitly paint out Popery, and that which you brag of, as nothing can be more apt. Mark well every branch and member of his words, and ye will confess the same. He demandeth of the Colossians, how it cometh to pass, that if they be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, that they be burdened with traditions? 
Colos. 1.  as touch not, taste not, etc. Which things perish in their use: and therefore this conclusion is to be drawn out, that the eternal and spiritual kingdom of GOD, doth not consist in such things. For how should the kingdom of God consist in those things which perish?  Pa. 
Ye would make somewhat of nothing: that place of S. Paul is not against us. If ye have none other, ye cannot overthrow our religion.  Pro. 
Ye do interrupt me in the midst of my matter, only to cavil, because ye are loath to have this place of scripture touched, seeing it doth so fully open and display your wards. Because ye say it maketh not against ye, and would feign pass from it, I will lead ye to it by the ears. Doth not your religion stand in outward things which perish in their use? Are not your traditions the commandments and doctrines of men? Let all the world judge of that. And Saint Paul doth make that a sufficient reason to overthrow any thing whatsoever, in the service of God. If it be of man, the holy Ghost would have us make no further inquisition, but to take it for dung, and draff, how goodly soever it seem and glister as gold. 
Esay 29. Matth. 15.  Doth not the Lord also say: In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the precepts of men? Well, to go forward, these devices of yours are marvelously well liked, and the people of the world, are made very devout towards God by them: indeed the people of the world do like well such religion, and it carrieth them to a kind of devotion, & to esteem such matters to have great wisdom in them. Therefore the Apostle doth say, that those inventions of men have a show of wisdom: and the people use to say, I warrant ye our fathers which devised these things, were wise men. But mark well the causes which the Lord doth set down, why these things seem to have such wisdom, and why they be so well liked of. The first cause is, that it is a voluntary religion: a religion which being framed by the corrupt will and brain of men, is very well pleasing to the devisers: and doth also fit other men, whose will and brain is as corrupt as theirs. For as that which proceedeth from the will of God, is contrary to the wisdom of flesh, and therefore misliked and condemned of folly: so that which cometh out of man's will, is agreeable to man: and therefore approved and commended as the only wisdom. Thus may we see (when the Apostle saith, such things have a show of wisdom in voluntary religion) how it cometh to pass, that the worship which is set by the policy and invention of men, is better accepted of, then that which proceedeth from the will of God.  Pa. 
Ye have enough of that place, unless ye would expound it more truly: there are many scriptures which make for your purpose, if ye may have this scope, to take them as ye lust. Leave off your vain heap of words, with which ye go about to blear men's eyes, and to draw and wrest the Scriptures to your own sense. It were much better for ye to meddle less.  Pro. 
All men may easily see, that this place of Scripture doth bite ye to the bone: no marvel therefore though ye have enough of it, for less would better content ye. There are many Scriptures indeed which make for our purpose, without any wresting at all. Even as this one place of Saint Paul which we be in hand with, needeth no wresting to make it speak against you, when as every blind man which cannot see, may yet by groping, feel the weight of it against ye. But let your foolish words pass which deserve no answer, and come again to the matter The next cause why such draff as yours, being but the foolish and doltish dreams of men, hath such a show of wisdom: and that is the humbleness of mind which appeareth in such holy hypocrites as worship God after their own fantasy. They do so abase themselves, and are as meek and lowly as can be. What can a man devise to be more humble than a devout Papist? he will do any thing: he is content to bow down and to lick up the dust at the feet of a stock or a stone: he doth so abase himself that he is content to worship rotten bones: yea whatsoever the holy father of Rome will lay upon him, he is ready to bear, his mind is so humble. But this is not humility, O ye blind asses, but pride and haughtiness of spirit even against God, against whom ye presume, and take upon ye to be wiser than he, because ye refuse the worship which he hath prescribed, and think ye can frame a better of your own. This is the humility of you Papists, in those good intents, and devotion which ye brag so much of: ye are like sturdy Rogues, whom a man would take by their patched cloaks to be gentle and lowly: when as indeed they be exceeding proud and rebellious against all good laws. The third & last reason which S. Paul setteth down, why there is such a show of wisdom in corrupt religion, is in this clause when he saith, Not sparing the body: for look how men which are proud men are moved with a show of humility: so also, although they walk after the flesh, and the flesh reigneth in them: yet they like of mortification, after a sort, a show whereof doth appear in the outward punishing of the flesh, which because they are able to attain unto, they take it to go for good payment: and when they have pined themselves with hunger for a while; whipped themselves, or gone barefooted, and bare-legged, they suppose they have mortified the flesh. Alas poor wretches, how humble they be not to spare their bodies, to take such pains to serve GOD, and yet never the better. For when their skin is torn, their heart is whole within still, and as full of all uncleanness as it was before. These are the things which ye boast of, and the Apostle saith: They be of no price, 
Colos. 1.  because they pertain but to the filling of the flesh. The Devil hath bewitched men after this sort, to lead them from the sight of the true mortification of the flesh, through the spirit unto outward things of no value. Thus we may understand, that all your goodly show which ye make, is nothing worth: all your religion is but superstition: they do but lose their labour which travel in it, and are so far off from pleasing God, that he doth accurse and abhor their doings.  Pa. 
A man may see what trim shifts you heretics can make: but for my part I am not moved one jot thereby to like of your religion. For it cannot be good, when there are so many sects among ye, which it doth hatch and bring forth. For your Gospel doth come into no place, but by and by up starts one and he doth maintain this heresy; another he doth maintain that heresy, and there is such snatching, as if a man should shake out a bag full of errors, and every one catcheth that which doth like him best: for such effect doth follow of your preaching in all places. If it were of GOD, would this come to pass? Can errors arise of true doctrine? No, this were enough to warn all wise men to take heed of ye, and to fly far from ye, although there were no more. In our religion we are all of one mind, and agree together: and therefore ours is the truth. All that will be saved, must come and agree with us.  Pro. 
Nothing can move you to be of our religion: and why? Because it cannot be good. Nay, because it cannot have your allowance to be good: for the holy word of God is so perfectly good, (which is our whole religion) that all the poison which such venomous beasts as you are able for to vomit up, is not of force to infect it. But I do ye wrong, for you show a great reason why it cannot be good. Well, I will answer it. The reason which ye use here against us, is that bolt which ye have taught every fool to shoot: but a very course armour will defend a man from it: it giveth but a bump, and never doth pierce, but rebound back again. Nevertheless, because among you it is esteemed as a sharp arrow, and principal weapon, I will take somewhat the more pains, not only to view it myself, but also to let others see the power thereof. Truth it is, that whatsoever is of God, or whatsoever is good, cannot bring forth that which is evil: no more than darkness can bring forth light, or heat can cause cold: for how can any thing breed that which is of a quite contrary nature to itself. But say you, Wheresoever your Gospel cometh, there follow sundry sects and heresies: one maintaineth this, and another that, with sundry divisions. Therefore your Gospel is not of God, it is not the truth. Before ye make this conclusion strong and sure, ye must prove, that as all sorts of errors do spring where the Gospel is preached, which is so indeed, that in like manner the Gospel is the cause of them and doth breed them, which ye shall never be able to do. For as Christ and his Gospel bring peace, and yet he saith he came not to send peace, 
Matth. 10.  but a sword, and to set the father against the son, and the mother against the daughter: and there shall be five in one house, two against three, and three against two: even so the Gospel is the truth, and setteth forth the doctrine of unity, and yet wheresoever it cometh all kind of errors spring up. Now every wise man will confess that Christ is the author of peace, and the strife that ariseth between men is not to be imputed to his doctrine, but to the devil, and his servants which war and fight against us, because they hate it, and seek to banish it. The same devil is the cause of heresies, for to discredit the word of God: wheresoever it is taught he setteth up his school also, and will have his scholars go under the name of the Gospel. For this is one of the readiest ways that can be to bring the word of God into contempt, and to make men afraid of it. See, say they, how many heresies these men fall into, which meddle with the Scriptures: were it not much better that there were no such preaching?  Pa. 
Do ye then allow of strife, and errors, that ye will needs have them to be companions of your Gospel?  Pro. 
If ye can gather that we allow of the devil and his ministers, ye may also affirm that we allow of these, for we ascribe all these to them. They be no companions of our Gospel, unless ye take it in this sense, that they always accompany the same, as utter enemies to overthrow and destroy it. The holy Scriptures do testify, 
2. Pet. 2.  that there shall be false Prophets, false Teachers, and Antichrists in the Church to seduce the people. 
1. john 2.  And the experience of all times doth show the same. 
Phil. 3. 2. Cor. 10.  For were not the false Apostles in all places set against Saint Paul, and the other Apostles? Do not the books and writings of ancient fathers shortly after the Apostles show what fowl monsters rose up in the Church, and what horrible errors did vex the peace thereof? Were not the right Catholic fathers within short time after the Apostles of Christ marvelously troubled with heretics, and had as it were their hands full in confuting them? Do not their books remain unto this day in which they do confute them? I wonder greatly how you Papists should be so shameless beasts, as not to deny that the Gospel in those former days had so many and so fowl errors springing up with it, and yet not to be blamed: and now so wickedly to blaspheme it, when ye see the same thing come to pass: ye might rather believe that it is the truth, because ye see the same success now which it had of old, and how the devil doth sweat to quench and overthrow it. Tell me this O ye hounds of hell: did the gospel hatch or breed the abominable errors of Ebion, Cerinthus, Saturninus, Carpocrates, Basilides, and such like? Did the Gospel bring forth the devilish opinions of Arrius, Manicheus, & of others which sprang up with it? If ye shame to say it did: why then should ye not now be as much ashamed to charge it with the errors of the Anabaptists, Libertines, and the Family of Love, and other, which are the warriors of the devil as well as you, to fight against the truth? As for this that ye say, You did all agree, and were of one mind: It is very true in this, to resist God and his Gospel, but otherwise it is false: for ye have a multitude of sects and sundry orders amongst ye, which could not one away with the other. Your whole church of Rome is but a schism, and an Apostasy from the Gospel, and Church of God: and yet among yourselves divided into a great number of sects and schisms. For as among the Corinth's, I hold of Paul saith one, I hold of Apollo, 
1. Cor. 1.  saith another, the third of Cephas: So among you, I am of Benedictus order, I am of Francis, I am of Augustine, and a rabblement beside, both of Monks and Friars, and other such vermin. These agreed all in this, that they acknowledged the Pope, and had their confirmation from him, as from the fountain and main head, which sent forth rivers and streams every way: for he was the head, not of unity, but of all schisms. The head indeed of unity, as they held all of him, but of division, that every one put holiness in his order, and sought salvation thereby. 
Ephes. 4.  There is but one God, one faith, one baptism, one Lord jesus Christ: and therefore but one way to life eternal, how many soever you have invented: which indeed are but crooked paths that lead to hell. I let pass your dissension in those points which among you should be of the most weighty things.  Pa. 
I could show many horrible things against ye, but I see well it is to no purpose: a man were even as good hold his tongue, he shall have answer at your hands, with so many flim-flams, and toys. I will leave ye as I found ye, seeing I can do you no good: it is but a folly for a man to power water upon a stone, to make it soft.  Pro. 
I doubt not but that you and your fellows have so well profited in the school of the father of lies, in which ye have been trained up, that ye are able to utter many horrible things against us, even as true, as those which ye have uttered already. Therefore in very deed ye were better a great deal to hold your tongue, then so shamefully to abuse it in blaspheming the glorious Gospel of God. The answers which I do give, are such flim-flams as the word of God doth express. I thank God he hath so opened mine eyes to see his truth, that even the most crafty juggling of Papists cannot bring me into any mammering: a man ought to stand fast and to be rooted in the doctrine of the Lord, that is no hardness, as you esteem it, neither is yours the water of life, which ye would power upon me, but filthy stinking mud, which ye have drawn out of the puddle of Popery. Ye offer me drink, but not wholesome wine, but dregs, which ye bring in the golden cup of the whore of Babylon. Your cup doth entice many a simple soul to drink: for they do not suspect that such deadly poison should be offered in so goodly a cup. I beseech God to give men the wisdom to look what is in it before they drink.  Pa. 
What mean ye by this goodly Allegory? what is that golden cup which ye speak of, in which ye say we offer ye poison, and deceive the simple souls with the gains of the cup? Can ye tell your own meaning? Do ye not speak that which ye do not understand yourself in?  Pro. 
Saint john in the Revelation doth use this allegory, which you so like a dog scoff at. 
reve. 17.  He painteth out the whore of Babylon, with a golden cup in her hand full of abominations: with this she hath made drunken those that dwell upon the earth. For as I said before, who would suspect that so goodly a cup should be full of poison? But what is this golden cup say you, in which we offer poison? This is your golden cup, the name of the Catholic Church, which ye brag of: and the name of the forefathers: this is a golden cup: how can a simple man once suspect any evil to be in this cup? Doubtless it is only your cup which deceiveth so many, & allureth them to drink, and to suck out even the dregs of your abominations. For ye cry Catholics, Catholics, the Catholic Church, the forefathers: and in this ye bring in all your trumpery, and purchase credit unto it, because the Catholic Church is very honourable, and true, which name you pretend: the ancient fathers of the Catholic Church are very reverend, whom you falsely challenge to be of your side. Therefore I say still it is wisdom to look what is in your cup, and not to be hasty to drink.  Pa. 
I told ye even now that although I might say much, yet because I see it is to little purpose, that I will give ye over.  Pro. 
I must not give you over: for as you have uttered your slanders against the Gospel of Christ, so you must give me leave to lay open some of those abominations which you are justly to be charged withal.  Pa. 
It is no matter what ye say, I doubt not but that I shall be able to defend our holy Mother from all your spiteful accusations. Say the worst ye can.  Pro. 
When I have said the worst that I can, I shall yet come short of the matter. For what tongue is able to express the full wickedness of Babylon, the mother of whoredoms and abominations: which did in pride lift up herself against God, and his truth? and made all nations drunken with the wine of her fornication.  Pa. 
I tell ye this is but to rail and slander, unless ye be able to make proof of that which ye say: but I look for no such thing at your hands: for your sect is wont to accuse deeply, and to prove slenderly.  Pro. 
I mind to say nothing but that which I will prove, and that more strongly than will be to your liking. Your dealing is manifest to all men: and your evil meaning may soon be espied, unless men will be wilfully blind. Are ye not like unto whores and thieves, & other malefactors, which put out the light and seek darkness to cover them, that they may not be seen, when they commit evil. What is your purpose when ye remove the word of GOD from the sight of the people, and do as it were bury it in a strange tongue? Is it not the light to guide our steps? 
Psal. 119.  Is it not the food of our souls? What is your intent, that ye would not have the people know it?  Pa. 
I see there is nothing so honestly done, but evil men will suspect it, as you compare our doings with whores and thieves, because we allow not the people to read the scriptures in a known tongue. But I answer, that ye may keep your comparison to yourself: for our wise ancestors did not take the scriptures from the lay people, of any evil intent: but because the common people did abuse them, and gather errors out of them. It is a very dangerous thing for unlearned men to meddle with or to read the scriptures: they be dark, and hard to be understood, every man can not gather the true sense of them. You are fools, and therefore ye are not able to judge of the wisdom of the fathers in our Church: you take that to be amiss, which is done most excellently.  Pro. 
We are over suspicious, for your intent is good: your honesty is such, that ye may be trusted in the dark: ye are shameful honest men indeed. We are but fools, and not able to discern with what wisdom such things are done. Surely we can no skill of that wisdom, when men take upon them to be wiser than God. But let us see the wisdom and good meaning in this thing. This it is, the common people will abuse the Scriptures, and gather errors out of them, and therefore a dangerous case for them to meddle therewith: the Scriptures are dark, they be not able to gather the sense. I know this is a great deep point of wisdom, among those which savour the things of men, 
Matth. 16.  and not the things of God. But try it and it shall appear to be extreme folly, and those which approve thereof are very doltish asses: although for worldly wit they have deep heads, and excel a number of other men. For look how a cunning artificer, when he steppeth out of his own shop, and meddleth with a science beyond his reach, is no body: even so the wisdom of the world when it will be so busy, as to control the wisdom of God, disgraceth herself. God is here checked for giving such a word, it is better to remove it away: errors, errors, do spring by it. It is hard to be understood: God might have dealt more plainly. O ye blasphemous wretches: what will ye charge God and his holy word withal: hath he in such wise declared his blessed will to men, that it were better they were without it? Have the sacred Scriptures so little profit in them, that they be better unknown then known? Moreover see how ye reason: men do abuse the Scriptures, and gather errors of them, therefore they are to be removed. This reason is the like, men abuse meat and drink, and become drunkards and gluttons: therefore it were good to make a law to debar them those things. The body cannot live without meat and drink: the soul can not be saved without the word. Some do abuse meat and drink, shall therefore all be debarred? Some do pervert the word to their destruction, shall all other therefore be deprived, and want the most necessary use thereof? No, this is but a craft which ye use to make men afraid to search the Scriptures, lest they should espy you: for there every man may easily learn to judge of your dealings. You know well enough, that when the people come to know the will of God (which you are loath they should) than they little esteem your will. Ignorance is the strongest pillar of your religion, and as you term it, the mother of devotion. For so soon as men have a little knowledge of God, their zeal towards you is quenched: when they see once the true treasure, they will no more of your trash. In deed I cannot blame ye, that ye labour to put out the light, and to hold men still in darkness, because the light will uncover your shame.  Pa. 
When should we come to an end, if I should answer all your words? You confess that some do abuse the word, & gather errors out of it: I suppose then, that every wise man will grant, it were better for these that the Scriptures were taken from them. And who can tell which they be, until it be too late? Were it not better to work the surer way, so that no one may fall into that danger. You care not as it seemeth for the loss of a few souls: but the price of the soul is so great that ye should be careful, if it were but for one. Moreover, we do not remove the word away, but from those which are unmeet to deal with it: we do not say it were better unknown than known: but to such as will abuse their knowledge. In good sooth me thinketh ye overshoot yourself greatly, very reason doth lead a man to see that it is not a seemly nor fit thing for Tom carter, when he hath laid down his whip, to take up the bible. Let him meddle with that which he can skill of, and leave the Scriptures to such as have learning to judge of them.  Pro. 
I would be very loath to keep ye company, until ye should answer all my words: the time will be so long that if ye should fast until ye had done, the Pope need not enjoin ye any further penance. A very clarklike reason ye make out of that which I grant: some do abuse the Scriptures, if a man could tell which they were, than it should suffice to take them from those: but because it cannot be known, until it be too late: it is better to work the surer way: that is to take them from all, and so ye shall be sure no one shall gather errors out of them. This reason is amplified, by the price of the soul, where also ye charge us not to care for the loss of a few souls. This is a great reason, I pray ye, if a man might ask, what did it cost ye?  Pa. 
This is a pretty conveyance, when ye are not able to answer, than ye find a way to make yourself merry, ye ask what it cost me, ye should first ask where I bought it.  Pro. 
Nay, I know the chief market of such wares is at Louvain, I need not ask where ye bought it. But I am sure ye bought it too dear, although it cost ye nothing, because it was not worth the taking up. But ye say I cannot answer ye: Yes that I can: I say ye are like to a great wise man, who having one sheep dead of the rot, by feeding in his pasture, doth knock all the rest down and destroyeth them, casting them away least some one more should be infected. For because some do pervert the Scriptures to their own destruction: 
2. Cor. 3.  and because the Gospel is the savour of death unto death, in some, therefore you will cast away all the rest with them. For what other thing do ye, when ye take from them the food of life, and all the armour wherewith they should defend themselves against the spiritual enemy. Your reason were somewhat worth, if men could be saved without the knowledge of God's word: but because they cannot, therefore ye may put it up again, until it be better grown. For your other words, God gave the Scriptures for all his people to read and learn, and therefore ye are murderers of souls, and arrant thieves when ye deprive the people of God of the waters of life, and in stead thereof give them the stinking waters of your own inventions. And howsoever it pleaseth you to esteem of the common people (whom ye do in disdain set forth by Tom Carter) and think it no reason to lay down the whip, and to take up the Bible: yet you must know they are the people of GOD, redeemed by the blood of his son, unto whom the Gospel doth belong, and they have as great interest and full right in it as any other: GOD hath promised to teach it them, and also doth teach it them. You are like the Scribes and pharisees, which condemned those which followed Christ, because they were of the common people: Do any of the Princes (say they) or of the pharisees believe in him? 
john 7.  But this multitude which know not the law is accursed. Those proud Prelates thought the people had no understanding of God's word, when they understood it better than they: even so it shall be found, that many a poor ploughman hath more right and sincere knowledge of God's word, than all your horned Bishops and great Rabbins.  Pa. 
Truly I cannot but marvel to hear ye: cannot the people be saved without the Scriptures be in their hands? Can they not do well without the knowledge of God's word? Is it not enough for them to believe in Christ, and to live uprightly? Must they needs meddle with that which is so far above their reach? See I pray ye, what case you set the people in: ye shut them out from salvation, when ye teach that they cannot be saved without the knowledge of God's word. For they be not able to know the word. Let the best instructed of your common people come for to defend their faith, will they be able to answer such reasons, as some can bring against them? if not, how do they know they hold the truth? that which they cannot reach unto, to perceive may be the truth for aught that they know. Therefore I say still, that the holy Mother hath done well and wisely to take the Scriptures out of the hands of lay men. You must prove that the common people are commanded to read and study the Scriptures: which ye shall never be able for to do.  Pro. 
No man can be saved without faith: faith cannot be without the word: for S. Paul faith, Faith doth come by hearing, 
Rom. 10.  & hearing by the word. How should a man believe, before he doth know what to believe? 
john 3.  God doth give testimony of his son, he that believeth that testimony, he doth seal that God is true. He that will believe, must know what and how to believe: & therefore of necessity, that he have the knowledge of the word of God. This doth prove how foolish you are, when ye ask if it be not enough for them to believe in Christ, & to live uprightly? as no wise man doth doubt but that this is enough: so there is no fool almost, but a man may make him see, that this can in no wise be without the knowledge of the word. Is it not the word which converteth the soul? Is it not the word which lighteneth the eyes, and giveth wisdom to the simple? Is it not the word which doth purify? 
Psal. 19 john 15. john 8.  Is not the word the light to guide our steps? do not they which are of God hear the word of God? Is it not said, Blessed are they which hear the word of God, & keep it? Is not the man pronounced blessed, 
Psal. 1.  which doth meditate in the law of the Lord day and night? O ye miserable wretches, what whores faces have you put on, that are not ashamed to speak directly contrary unto God. Is it not above their reach to believe and to obey God? and yet is it above their reach to know what to believe, and what is the will and pleasure of God, which they are to obey? Can subjects obey their Prince and not know the laws? Or, do Princes make laws, and then keep them secret? If not, wherefore should the laws of the king of kings be secrets? Can any servant do the will of his master, and not know what it is? But you have an other stout argument to prove that the scriptures are above the reach of the unlearned, and therefore he is not to meddle with them? he can never come to any certainty of knowledge by them: for let some man of great learning come and reason with him, and he may make sundry reasons which the other cannot answer: which you take to be a plain proof that his knowledge is not certain, but such as he may be driven from. Alas what stuff here is to reason withal against the truth: such a caviller as you may meet with some simple plain man riding upon his horse, which he doth perfectly know to be his own, and make such Sophistical reasons to prove the horse not to be his, or not to be an horse, but a dog, that the simple man cannot answer: yet nevertheless, because he is sure it is a horse, and his own, & not a dog, the other may make many reasons which he understandeth not how to avoid: notwithstanding, they cannot once bring him in doubt, or to go from that which he knoweth. Even so all the subtle cavillations of the devil and his ministers, when they come against the faith and knowledge of a godly simple man, which is grounded in the word of God, cannot once move him: the deep fetches and subtleties may make him muse, but yet because he doth certainly know the truth, he doth not give over that: he hath felt the power of the word of God in himself, and therefore is out of doubt: it hath done that in him which cannot be wrought but by God. Unstable souls may be beguiled: for they have not felt the power of godliness. ye would have me prove that God commandeth the unlearned men to study and exercise themselves in the Scriptures: I am ashamed to hear ye doubt of that matter.  Pa. 
If ye be ashamed to have that doubted of, than I trow ye will be ashamed not to prove it.  Pro. 
I would you would be also ashamed of your wilful blindness, and see, when things are manifestly proved. Did not God utter his word by Moses unto the Israelites, both men and women? Did he not give it them in their own tongue? Did he not charge them by Moses, even the lay people, 
Deut. 6. and 11.  that they should put his words upon their heart, and upon their soul: and bind them for a sign upon their hands: and teach them their children: to talk of them, as they sat in the house, as they walked by the way, when they did lie down, and when they did rise up? 
Hosh. 4.  Are not the people blamed both among the jews, and also in the time of the Gospel, for their ignorance and dullness? Are they not exhorted to grow in knowledge and understanding every where? 
Heb. 5.  Did not Christ and all his Apostles travel night and day to bring the people to understanding? 
2. Pet. 3.  Do not the Apostles pray that they might be filled and abound in all knowledge? 
Colos. 1.  Did they not give great charge unto other to teach and feed the flock diligently? 
Philip. 1.  
Acts 20. 2. Tim. 4.  Did they not open all the counsels of God unto the people? Will your holy mother the whore of Babylon be wiser than all these? Did all these travel in vain? Did Paul foolishly when he commanded that men should not speak in the Church in a strange language, 
1. Cor. 14.  unless it were interpreted, that so the rest might be edified? For shame give over, and confess that your great whore hath done as fowl villainy to the Church of God as could be, in taking from them the word of life, and putting out the light, to the end that she might play the whore, and commit all her abominations in the dark, where none should espy them. The light doth now shine so clear, that she shall never be able to hide herself any more, nor to cover her shame: unless it be among those Nightbirds, such as you are, which cannot abide the light.  Pa. 
Would ye make men believe that it is commanded as a thing so necessary, and profitable, when we see what followeth since the scriptures have been opened unto the people? What a multitude of sects and divisions, and quarrels have risen? Whence cometh all this, but that holy things are given to dogs, 
Matth. 7.  and precious pearls are cast before swine? The unholy and unpure, and sinful men do as it were with filthy unwashed hands, handle the heavenly mysteries, and each man doth gather for his turn that which liketh himself: and then they are puffed up, and prattle they know not what. I wisse, I wisse, they might be better occupied, then to meddle with the word of God, which should not be touched but with great reverence: now every one will be prattling of it, even upon their alebench. Wherefore did Christ speak in parables, 
Luke 8. Matth. 23.  and told the Apostles, that to them it did belong to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest in parables, that they might see and not see? Doubtless, as I said before, there is great cause why the scriptures should not be known of the people. When they did not know them, they agreed and went all one way: now he is of this sect, he is of that sect, he saith this is truth, another saith that: a man cannot tell which way to turn him. Your learned men also themselves are at war, one against another, one confuting another, in their sermons, in their writings: alas, must it not then much more follow among the unlearned people. If the learned cannot understand the Scriptures, how shall they which have no learning? O how well were our forefathers which knew none of all this. I would the reading of the Scriptures did make men no worse than they were: they had good souls to Godward, now men are stark nought.  Pro. 
The great subtlety of the devil, to draw men away from reading the Scriptures, appeareth in ye: ye would prove it not only a thing unnecessary to have them known, but also very evil. This ye prove by the effects which follow, as divisions and quarrels, and sects: by the same reason ye may prove, that it had been good never to have heard of Christ, about whom there have been so many quarrels in the world. 
Esay 28. 2. Pet. 1.  Many do stumble at him, he is the rock of offence unto many: but the fault is in men and not in him. Even so the wicked which abuse the Gospel, although they be never so many, yet must not cause the small number of Gods elect, to be deprived of their right, and to be spoiled of their comfort. So soon as the Gospel appeareth, the devil laboureth by his instruments to bring an infamy upon it, and to make men believe it is nought: for it is he which raiseth up sects and errors, God's word is not the cause. He would by that means bring men into a maze, that they should not know which way to turn them. But you say the cause is that holy things are given to dogs, and precious pearls are cast before swine. Ye reason even like your forefathers the proud pharisees, which took themselves to be so holy, that they were not to be taught: and so wise & skilful, that they regarded not others. The multitude were accursed: 
john 9  the blind man he was altogether borne in sin: you wretches count them dogs and swine: and yourselves holy: whereas yourselves have played the notable villains, and have dealt unreverently with the word of God. 
Matth. 9  The pharisees blamed Christ that he did eat with Publicans & sinners: he answered, that he came not to call the righteous, 
Luke 5.  but sinners to repentance. You say, sinful men are permitted to deal with the scriptures: we answer, the more sinful, the greater need they have to know the scriptures, because they must reform them, and cure them: other means for the sinners there are none. 
Psal. 119.  Wherewithal (saith the Prophet) shall a young man cleanse his ways? even by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Ye reason even as handsomely, as if a man should count it unmeet for those to come to the water to wash them which are all mired: or if a man should be out of his way in the dark, let him have no light, because he is out of his way. 
Matth. 12.  O ye wicked pharisees, ye shut up the kingdom of God before men, ye neither enter yourselves, neither do ye suffer those which would. Let thousand thousands, and millians of thousands, deal undiscréetlie and wickedly with the word, gather all kind of devilish errors out of it, by perverting it, be puffed up with their knowledge, & make but a prattling thereof: yet this must not let, but that if God had but ten chosen in the world, his counsels must be opened unto them. Men abuse the word when they talk unreverently of it, therefore you say it is to be removed: thieves and quarrelers do fight, rob, and kill with their weapons, & therefore the true men must cast them away. Do ye not know that we are commanded for to meditate and talk of the holy scriptures, night and day: but yet reverently? Is not the word of God called the sword of the spirit, 
Ephes. 6.  with which we must fight against the devil? Doth not Christ our captain give us example, 
Matth. 4.  when he still allegeth the scriptures against him? How childish are ye in alleging this that Christ did speak in parables: and said it was given to the disciples to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest in parables: that in seeing they might not see? I pray ye were they the unlearned only of whom he speaketh? Were they not the great clerks, the Scribes and pharisees, which did see & not perceive, & hear and not understand? Yea it is to be understood of all the reprobate, both the learned and unlearned. As on the other side, the mysteries of the kingdom of GOD are revealed to simple ones: 
Matth. 11.  I thank thee O father (saith Christ) Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise & prudent, and hast opened them unto babes. Do ye not see in the Gospel, how our Saviour Christ did publish the Gospel, & instruct the multitude? Is it not testified, that publicans and sinners did embrace the same, when the wise ones despised the counsel of God? Doth not Christ tell them that publicans & harlots should go before them into the kingdom of God? 
Luke 7. Matth. 21.  You say they went all one way when they knew not the scriptures. Doubtless the heathen men went all one way, but it was no good way, for it was to destruction: even so as many as did not (as S. Paul saith) receive the love of the truth that they might be saved, 
2. Thess. ●.  God did send them strong delusion to believe lies, & so they were damned. These were not all our forefathers, for God always showed his truth to his servants. Ye say the people cannot understand the scriptures, when as the learned do not, but are set one against an other, & one doth confute another: ye should conclude of this, that because learned men do raise up errors, aswell as the unlearned, therefore the scriptures ought to be taken away from them also, and so ye should make sure work. Let God speak no more, unless he can do better: let the Pope only utter his mind, and hear him, for he will tell a plain tale.  Pa. 
This is even like all your schismatics, and heretics, for all of ye do allow errors, quarrels, and contentions. Ye think it a small matter to have the world filled and set upon an uproar with them, ye do even glory in them, as though there could be no truth without them. Oh say you, it is a certain and infallible proof, that ours is the true Gospel, that so great troubles, and sundry sects do follow it. Thus ye are not ashamed to confess the evil fruits of your doctrine: so that others need not to speak thereof. Many other such like speeches ye utter.  Pro. 
I am no liker those which embrace the truth, than ye are like your father, not the father of truth, but of lies: for let a man convict ye a thousand times in your sayings, yet ye will not stick to lie and slander. Where can ye ever show, that any true professor of the Gospel doth allow errors, quarrels, & contentions? Because we say that the scriptures must not be taken from the people, although never so many errors and schisms do follow: can ye gather thereof that we allow the same? no, we detest and abhor from the bottom of our hearts such treachery of the devil, and his wicked instruments. We count it a lamentable thing, to see the malice of the devil and of the wicked world to be so great, that so soon as ever Christ and his Gospel appear, they bend all their might against it, seeking all means to quench the light thereof: and utterly to banish it. From hence do spring all uproars and tumults in the Church. We affirm indeed that this is a proof that it is the Gospel of Christ, that the wicked world cannot abide it: if it were of the world, the world would love his own: but because it is not of the world, therefore the prince of the world with all the power and armies that he can make, doth rise up against it: for Satan will not be dispossessed of his hold without great stur. The strong man armed which keepeth his house, 
Matth. 12.  must first be bound before his house can be spoiled. When there shall be no devil, no wicked ones, no kingdom set up against the kingdom of God, when Christ shall have none enemies: then the Gospel may come forth in peace, without troubles, tumults, sects, errors, and such like. But so long as all those do remain, wherefore should the Gospel lose any glory? because these things follow it: nay, why should it not be so much the more glorious, that it doth break through all these things, and by it Christ doth rule in the midst of his enemies? When the Prophet foretold, that the stone which the builders refused, 
Psal. 110.  was become the head of the corner: he addeth, 
Psal. 118.  this is the Lords doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. So this is the Lords doing, and it is most marvelous in our eyes, that so many cruel persecutions do follow the Gospel, and yet cannot banish it: so many heaps, or rather floods of monstrous errors do even as it were flow over it, to cover it, to corrupt it, to abolish it: and yet doth still break forth, as bright and pure as before. So soon as Christ was borne, persecution arose, and the children were cruelly murdered. Paul and the rest of the Apostles do not so soon go forth to preach, 
Matth. 2.  but the false prophets are at their heels. Cease therefore ye wicked wretches, to blaspheme Christ and his Gospel, because such things follow: they be not the fruits of the Gospel, nor they do not spring out of it, but they be the enemies thereof, which do always pursue it. Make a reconciliation between Christ and the devil, if ye will have the Gospel go quietly. Now let a wise man way this reason, the word of God, which is the word of salvation, of life, of grace, our light, our shield, the food of our souls, can not be set forth, but there follow troubles, and errors, therefore it is good to keep it unknown, and not to let the people have any sight thereof. All the world may see, that ye have conspired with the devil, & are become instruments to fulfil his desire: for he covereth by those evils to banish the truth, and to hold men in blindness, and all kind of errors which they be by nature full of, and so to bring all to hell: and you perform his will, in crying out against the sacred Scriptures, and seeking to bury them.  Pa. 
Nay, you have consulted with the devil, like unnatural children, to seek the overthrow of your mother the holy Church, and to dishonour the vicar of Christ.  Pro. 
We bring all our consultation out of God's holy word for the upholding and maintaining of our holy mother, the true Catholic Church and spouse of Christ, against the filthy whore of Babylon, and against Antichrist the great vicar of hell.  Pa. 
I may say the like against your side, and so we may play at Tennis until we be both weary, and part as wise as we began.  Pro. 
I say nothing against your but that which the word of GOD doth plainly show. You have no colour to say the like against us, saving that your shameless faces have made ye bold to speak all kind of lies.  Pa. 
Great brags ye make of proving out of the Scriptures. Where do the Scriptures tell ye, that the Bishop of Rome is Antichrist? You can make the Scriptures serve for your turn in any matter whatsoever.  Pro. 
We brag no more of the Scriptures, then that which is manifestly proved by them: we make them serve none other turn, than the Lord hath appointed them for. The Scriptures do not in flat speeches say that the Pope, or the Bishop of Rome is Antichrist: yet nevertheless they set a brand upon his forehead, and describe him in such sort, that every man which hath eyes may easily know him: and as perfectly know him to be Antichrist, as a man may know an egg to be an egg.  Pa. 
I have read the Scriptures, and know what they speak concerning Antichrist, and yet could never find that brand which you speak of, nor such a description as should paint out the Pope to be Antichrist. You are marvelous fellows, you can make somewhat of nothing: you are so cunning that ye can draw water out of a flint.  Pro. 
You have read the Scriptures, and so have your fellows, even all the Popish shavelings: and ye know they speak of Antichrist, whom you believe shall come: you cannot find that brand or mark, or such a description of Antichrist, as should belong to the Pope: and that causeth ye to pronounce, that we make somewhat of nothing, etc. because it is not like that so many great Cardinals, Bishops, Abbots, Monks and Friars should read and read again in the Scriptures, and not see the Pope to be Antichrist, if he be so marked, that he may easily be known. This may seem strange, but I tell ye it is no marvel, for ye are all blind as beetles. The Scribes, the pharisees, the Sadduces, and all the learned among the jews did read Moses & the Prophets, and studied them devoutly: looked for the Messiah which was promised and described there: and yet when he came, they were so far off from knowing him, that they did kill him, and fulfilled the voices of the Prophets: even so fareth it with you, ye read what manner of one Antichrist should be, and what he should do, and yet ye are so blind, that ye fulfil it, in helping him to murder the Saints. The jews could not know Christ, because they looked for a trim Christ, and he came base and poor. You have also devised a popish fable of Antichrist, which doth so stick in your heads, that ye cannot see the notes and marks of the very Antichrist indeed.  Pa. 
Go to, go to, let us see your great skill, and what your scriptures will be whereby ye will show this thing. I fear me we shall have but slender conclusions.  Pro. 
When ye have tried them, then give judgement, and so although ye should judge falsely, yet ye shall not be altogether so rash. Will ye confess that S. Paul 2. Thess. 2. and S. john in the Revelation do describe and set forth Antichrist?  Pa. 
That I will: for I suppose no man will deny it: but what are ye the better? that which S. Paul doth speak, and that which Saint john hath written, as concerning Antichrist, may more fitly be applied to you, then to us.  Pro. 
If it may as fitly be applied to us as to you: nay I will say further, if it may be applied to any but to you, let us be counted heretics.  Pa. 
Saint Paul saith, that the day of the Lord should not come, except there came first an apostasy, or falling away. Doth not this touch you? Let all men judge who are fallen away, we, or you? Are we fallen from you, or you from us? Have we made the departing, or have you? Our Church hath always stood fast and unmovable, you have rend yourselves from us: by what reason can any man say, that they have made the apostasy which have always, and do still keep their standing: and not rather those which are gone out from us: to fulfil that which S. john saith, 
1. john 2.  They went out from us, because they were not of us.  Pro. 
You would shift this thing from yourselves, and lay it upon us: but it cleaveth so fast to your hands that it will not off. Ye go about by a subtle cavillation to blear the eyes of simple men. We confess we have made the departure from you, and not you from us, because you had departed from the truth, and true Church, and had led us out of the way of truth, unto which we are now again by God's gracious goodness returned. You say your Church hath always stood steadfast and unmovable, and therefore hath not made the departing. It is true, if we respect place, and succession of Bishops: but what doth that help ye, when ye are departed from the faith, which thing ye might and have done without changing your place and rooms? The high priests, Scribes and pharisees among the jews had their succession and place longer than you, and yet Christ and his Apostles did departed from them, and were neither heretics nor schismatics. And why, because they had first departed from the truth? Ye must not stand upon one clause, but take that which doth follow with it. This falling away shall be by the man of sin, the son of perdition, who was to be revealed: which is an adversary, and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that hath imperial majesty, so that he sitteth as God in the temple of God, boasting or showing himself to be God. This is one sentence which doth set the brand in the forehead of your Pope: the scar whereof will evidently appear, when ye have made as fine work as ye can.  Pa. 
Now ye are come unto the matter, I trow ye will make it plain, and out of all doubt. This is spoken indeed of Antichrist: but where will ye find one jot of it in the Bishop of Rome? Where will ye find that ever he hath exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped? which word you translate at your pleasure otherwise than ever I heard it before, that which hath imperial majesty. Ye must prove that the Pope hath exalted himself above God, or else ye have slandered & blasphemed him. Such an one shall Antichrist be  Pro. 
This is all fulfilled by the Pope, as I will show, I am not to prove that he hath exalted himself above God: but that he hath exalted himself above all that is called God. 
Psalm. 82.  The kings of the earth are that which is called God: for the Scripture saith, they are called Gods. 
john 10.  And because sebasma, which is translated, that which is worshipped: is in the New Testament given to the Emperors of Rome, I translate it, that which hath imperial majesty or dignity. Ye may see, that not only among the profane writers, the epithet sebastos is given to the Emperors, but also in the 27. of the Acts of the Apostles S. Luke saith, that S. Paul was delivered to a captain, spires sebastes, of the band of Augustus. Also likewise Act. 25. Festus saith that Paul had appealed to Sebaston, that is, to Augustus. Now the words of S. Paul setting forth the man of sin, are clearly fulfilled in the Pope, who hath been, as all men know, exalted so high above kings and Emperors, that they held his stirrups, when he went to horseback. There hath been none Lord over kings and Emperors, but the Roman Bishop. None exalted to that dignity, but the Italian Priest.  Pa. 
The Apostle saith, all that is called God, and therefore it is to be understood of God himself: for is not he called God? There is cause why the Pope should be above all the kings and Emperors, that doth not prove him to be the man of sin. He hath that of right, because he is Christ's Vicar.  Pro. 
The Apostle doth use this speech to put difference between in deed, and that which is called God, and hath but that high title, and is not God in deed: God is more than called God, for he is very God indeed. This thing is also manifest when the Apostle in the next words rising by degrees, saith, that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. In this last and highest he doth but set him forth, to challenge to himself to be equal with God. Where ye say it doth belong of right to the Pope to be above all kings; because he is the Vicar of Christ, I will answer that anon in another matter.  Pa. 
I must let ye have your saying, there is no remedy: but doth the Bishop of Rome then sit in the temple of God, boasting himself that he is God? I marvel what gloze ye can make to persuade the people that the Pope doth this. Who ever can show that the Bishop of Rome doth not take himself to be a man? If he take himself to be a man, doth he then boast himself to be God? For shame leave your slandering, and find some other to ascribe this name Antichrist unto, for to the holy father it doth not belong.  Pro. 
Ye must needs let me have my saying, when it is so manifest truth that ye cannot tell which way to cavil against it. The Bishop of Rome doth sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Ye need not marvel, nor there needeth no glozing to persuade the people in this point. It is rather greatly to be wondered how men should be so blind as not to know this great monster, seeing the holy Ghost doth so lively paint him forth in his colours. The man of sin must not be a forenner: for the Apostle showeth, that he should have his seat in the temple of God. This cannot be understood of the material temple in jerusalem, for that was utterly destroyed shortly after Christ. But it is meant of the true temple of God, which is his Church. In this temple sitteth not the Turk, nor yet the jew, or any Pagan, doth here reign: but the Pope hath long time had his royal throne set up in this temple. No man can say the Turk, or any of the forenamed is Antichrist: for we must not go out of Christendom to seek him, but find him we must set up in the very temple of God. Al the Papists in the world shall never be able to show any other in the church, besides the Pope unto whom they may apply this description. Where hath there ever been any in the temple of God, (which of necessity is here taken for the church) exalted above all that is called God, beside the Bishop of Rome. I pray God open the eyes of the ignorant people whom ye seduce, that they may see Antichrist and forsake him.  Pa. 
O how you would triumph, if ye had any great matter of your side: when ye brag so much of nothing. What if I should tell ye that the Antichrist which S. Paul doth describe, is not yet risen? What can ye say? must the Pope needs be he, because he hath the highest seat in the Church? When ye have proved that he boasteth himself to be God then ye shall say somewhat.  Pro. 
Where the word of God goeth directly against ye, there ye make no account of it at all, such bold beasts ye are to call it nothing. But what if ye should tell us that Antichrist is not yet come, alas poor foolish papist? What if a jew should tell us that Christ is not yet come, shall we believe him? We know he is already come, & hath fulfilled all things which were written of him in the Prophets. Shall we be so foolish, with the jews, as to wait for another? Likewise, what if a Papist tell us that great Antichrist, which the scripture doth speak of, is not yet come? shall we be so mad, when we see that the Romish Bishop and his clergy, have fulfilled all those things which S. Paul and S. john in the Revelation have written of him, as to gape after another? The Pope must needs be be, not simply because he hath the highest seat in the Church, but because he hath so high a seat in the Church, as God never appointed to any. Antichrist should be the highest of all, where will ye find any that was above the Pope, or that ever did challenge such authority as he had for certain hundredth years? But ye say when I have proved that the Pope doth boast himself to be God, than I shall say somewhat. It is indeed such a somewhat, as may of itself suffice if there were no more, to cause all wise men to see that he is the man of sin, and utterly to renounce him.  Pa. 
When ye have done that, I also will recant and forsake him: because I am sure the spirit of the devil is in that man, which maketh himself God: and so I dare promise for all that be of our side.  Pro. 
Ye make a double promise, one for yourself, and another for your fellows, that if the Pope can be proved to have boasted or showed himself to be God, ye will recant and forsake him. But I am sure ye promise much more than ye can perform: I cannot trust that which ye make for yourself, much less, when ye promise for all that be on your side. Ye are blinded and hardened, as the Scribes and pharisees were: they said, if he be Christ let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him. 
Matth. 27.  Can they, or would they have believed in him if he had come down from the cross? Why then did they not believe when he was risen from the dead, which was a thing far greater than to come down from the cross? When I see ye recant I will believe it, otherwise I will not, because there is a great number of ye which do wrangle, and cavil, & seek shifts against those things, which your consciences do tell ye are true: so that ye do willingly and wilfully blind yourselves, and so blind others. And thus while ye go about to deceive others, ye are deceived. But let us come to the matter. It may be ye look that I should go about to prove that the Pope hath taken upon him to be called God, or to be taken for God, and not man: I do not mean so.  Pa. 
No, ye cannot tell what ye mean: I thought this would be the end, now ye will not go about to prove that the Pope would be called God, or be taken not to be a man. This is the sleight of ye all, to make great cracks, and when ye are to come to your proof, then to wind out. I may keep my promise well enough: you have released me of it: I would like it well if ye would confess plainly, and shame the devil, that ye have made promise of more than ye are able to do: and that ye have done great injury unto the holy father, and have slandered him.  Pro. 
I have done even as much injury to the holy father, and have slandered him even as much, as a man doth slander and injury the devil, when he saith, he is the father of lies. I should not shame the devil in retracting that which I have said, and by saying that I have promised more than I am able to do: but I should please him very well. For although his own credit is so far spent, that he should utterly lose his labour in seeking to recover it: yet he seeketh to uphold the credit and estimation of his vicar, & by that means doth maintain his kingdom. I have used no sleight, nor am gone from aught that I did promise to prove. For doth it follow that because the Pope doth confess he is a man, and taketh not the name of God, therefore he doth not boast himself to be God. You are a very simple Logician, which from denial of some part, will deny the whole.  Pa. 
What is the whole if this be not, neither to take the name, nor yet to esteem himself to be the thing. Neither to be called God, nor yet to think himself to be God. If ye can show any other way whereby he may show himself to be God, let me hear it.  Pro. 
He doth sit in the temple of God, boasting himself that he is God: when he challengeth to himself the power & authority which doth belong only to God, and to no creature, this power he hath usurped many ways. Tell me, is not this to boast himself to be God?  Pa. 
I grant indeed that whosoever doth challenge the power and authority to himself which doth belong to God only, doth make himself God. But what are ye the nearer for this, so long as ye shall never be able to show any way, whereby the Pope hath usurped any such power, although ye say he hath done it many ways: he hath his power given him of God, and yet never the power to be as God.  Pro. 
I might with travel make a large discourse with many proves, to show that he hath usurped the highest authority: but I will content myself to show it in some things, which are known very well even unto the simple. Is not God only Lord over our faith? and ruler over our consciences to bind the same? Hath not God only power to forgive sins? To shut heaven, and to open hell, to save and to destroy? Is not God the only lawgiver? is not Christ our only Doctor? how then can the Bishop of Rome challenge these things to himself, and yet not show himself that he is GOD? If this be not much more to make himself GOD, when he taketh upon him God's power then to take the name, let all men judge.  Pa. 
The Pope doth take no Lordship over the conscience, nor doth not bind them further than he hath authority given him. The laws which he maketh are made by the holy Ghost which is in him, and therefore there is but one lawgiver. For ye may even as well say, Moses gave laws, therefore there is more than one lawgiver: for look how he gave laws so doth the Pope. Hereby every man may see that ye reason very strongly, when by making laws ye would prove an equality with God, than all the Apostles and Prophets were equal with God. And so I may say for the rest.  Pro. 
God never gave any such authority to any man: If the Pope had it given him, it was by the Dragon, as S. john saith, 
Revel. 13.  which gave him his seat, and great authority. Ye say I reason strongly, when I say, the Pope doth make laws, to bind men's consciences, therefore the Pope maketh himself God: and likewise maketh that there is more than one lawgiver. For say you, by this reason Moses, all the Apostles and Prophets should be equal with God: because they gave laws. But as they did it by the holy Ghost, so doth the Pope: and so God is still the only lawgiver. Thus ye would blear the eyes of the ignorant, to make them believe that the Pope doth make laws as Moses did. But I will show a difference: Moses gave no laws nor any of the Apostles, but such as they received from God. They never challenged authority for to make any law contrary to any part of the word of God: nor to abrogate any of the laws of God. For S. Paul saith, 
Galath. 1.  that if he or an Angel from heaven should preach any other Gospel then that he had preached, let him be accursed. Such was the authority of God's word, that if either Paul, or Moses, or any other which brought it, should alter, add to it, or diminish the same, he should be accursed. And yet the Pope doth take power to make laws contrary to the laws of the word of God: to dispense with the same, to disannul what he will: and which is most blasphemous of all, to affirm that the holy Scriptures have no authority without him: but are of themselves dead & can have no certainty. Is not this to make himself God, or equal with God? What is there which hath authority over God's word, but God? Who doth not here espy the very horns of the devil peep up, and speak these things out of the mouth of his vicar Antichrist? They do all forsake God and worship the beast, which give him this authority.  Pa. 
I will not deny but that he which doth set up laws contrary to God's laws, maketh himself God, even as a subject which taketh upon him to make laws, and to refuse the laws of the Prince, maketh himself as it were a king. But I say the Bishop of Rome doth not so, for he hath the holy Ghost and cannot err. And so when he doth forgive sins, he doth no more than is warranted by the word: and in very deed which ye take upon ye to do.  Pro. 
What should I stand to answer bare words: we know the Pope is not led by the holy Ghost, but by the lying spirit of the devil, because he hath so flatly trodden down God's word, and brought in his own laws in stead of it. I will not stand to recite particulars, all the world may judge. And whereas ye say, he doth not forgive sins, but as we do take upon us: that is but a shift which ye have devised: for all that will may see, whether this be all one: to pronounce remission of sins to the penitent, which we do: and to send forth pardons, whereby for ten shilling matter, a man might not only have forgiveness of his sins past, but liberty for a good time after to commit many sins. If this be not the man of sin, where shall we find him? Who doth take upon him to be God, if he do not, which for money will forgive a man whatsoever he doth commit against God? Shall a rotten stinking carrion thus blaspheme, and men not espy that he is the great Antichrist? I have now showed ye how the Pope boasteth himself to be God: but I dare not say you will recant.  Pa. 
When I see matter which may force me to recant I will do it, but for aught that I see brought to the purpose, to prove that which you promised, there is cause rather why you should recant, and renounce your errors, and return again to the holy mother, which is ready to receive those that return to her, how unkindly soever they have behaved themselves toward her.  Pro. 
The devilish strumpet is almost left desolate, and therefore she laboureth to draw as many as she can, and to entice them to her love: fair and foul, tag and mag, all are welcome, none come amiss now: Murderers, whoremasters, whores, bawds, drunkards, and all such like: if they will take her for their mother, she is not ashamed to take them for her children, and to make them partakers of her holiness. But let us come again to the matter. Saint Paul in the same chapter saith, That Antichrist should come with lying signs and wonders: and so is it also expressed in the Revelation, that the beast should that way seduce and deceive the inhabitants of the earth. If this be not fulfilled in the kingdom of the Pope, how shall it ever be fulfilled, or where shall we look for it? What hath been all your outcries, but miracles, miracles? Let a man read your Legenda Aurea, and festival, and such other pure books, what shall he find but miracle upon miracle: and so true, that if a man would lie for the whetstone, he may there store himself, if he will have a whole bundle. The people did believe them, for why, the Scripture saith, 
2. Thess. 2.  GOD should send them strong delusion to believe lies. I dare say boldly, that although you Papists, a great number of ye, have put on impudent and shameless faces, to maintain lies: yet there is not one of ye, but will blush, if he should take upon him to defend that stinking puddle of lies, and feigned wonders, which ye fed the common people withal. A man may be ashamed to recite them, lest those which know not the matter, should think he doth lie.  Pa. 
What way can you prove that the miracles of the Church were false, and counterfeit? Will you take upon ye to condemn such things as were done long since? If there be some things written which might well enough be left out: is the Church to be charged with that which every particular man doth? There were abuses crept in, which the Bishop himself did not know of. Is it reason he should be blamed?  Pro. 
I think no wise man will doubt but that this is a sufficient proof, that your miracles were but juggling casts in the dark, because ye had such store then, & have none now: alas there is as great need now as ever there was. And if there be but one miracle left in your budget, pull it forth and let us see it, that we may give some credit unto ye. Nay your mother had no good counsel given her, when she had such plenty to spend it so wastefully as she did, and to keep none for a dear year. I wisse a few of those great wonders which she showed in time past, would now stand her in great stead.  Pa. 
Mock on, take your pleasure, there is none to control ye. What though there be need at this time, yet the world is unworthy: even as Christ said to the pharisees when they required a sign, 
Matth. 19  This evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign, but there shall no sign be given them but the sign of jonas the Prophet. Even so what reason is it, that the holy mother should show any wonders and miracles unto you, which are worse than the pharisees?  Pro. 
Alack good old mother, she hath need as much as ever she had to show her cunning: but the world is not worthy. Although she might win great credit by it, yet she had rather keep a good conscience. And therefore she doth follow the example of Christ, which would not do any miracle at the request of the pharisees. Yea but why doth she not show some of her power to her own chickens, for fear lest they should be drawn from her. Christ wrought miracles still to his disciples, although the pharisees were unworthy. No there is some other let, the window doth stand too wide open, there cometh too much light. Your mother would play one feat, but that she feareth she should not make her conveyance so cleanly, but that one or other would espy her. She doth use worse means a great deal.  Pa. 
What can you tell what miracles the Church doth, you have not faith to believe them? She worketh more than you are made privy of.  Pro. 
I do certainly persuade myself that I know not all that she doth: she hath learned to be more close then to let every man see what she doth. And yet sometime we see more than we can well like of. Your little pretty moulden God in the box doth give her counsel how to deal against her enemies.  Pa. 
I see well when men are fallen away, they care not what blasphemies they utter. This is far from the thing which ye offered to prove.  Pro. 
If a man may utter blasphemy against a piece of dough, than I have blasphemed. But I do assure ye I will never crave pardon for it. I am still in the matter which I took in hand, which was to show that the Pope is Antichrist. I could make plain proves unto ye out of other places of Scripture, & especially out of the Revelation, where the holy Ghost doth of purpose set forth the kingdom of Antichrist.  Pa. 
Will ye take upon ye to expound the Revelation, and the things are set forth in it so darkly by mysteries, that no man can say precisely, this or that is the sense? but when you have interpreted things one way, another may make as good and as probable a sense another way. What one thing is there which maketh so plainly against us, as ye would bear men in hand? Doth it not make as plainly against you?  Pro. 
Although the Lord hath spoken darkly in the Revelation, yet not so darkly but that it may be understood, otherwise to what purpose was it given? Wherefore are those pronounced blessed which read & hear it, 
Revel. 1.  if none can expound it? it would have been a great deal more hard to understand, if the mysteries had been but barely uttered: but because there is also an exposition of the chief things, which do as it were couple all the rest together: it is no hard matter to find the sense, especially, when as the exposition is in so flat and plain terms, that even the very obstinate Papists of your side are driven to confess them: and not only in word, but also in writing.  Pa. 
What can ye show that is confessed by our men, which ye say they are forced to confess both in word and writing?  Pro. 

Revel. 11.  Saint john saith, in the 11. chapter, that the beast which riseth out of the bottomless pit, should make war against the two witnesses which the Lord would send, & overcome them, and slay them. And their bodies should lie in the streets of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified. jerusalem was destroyed, and Christ although he was (if we respect the place) crucified there, but yet if we respect the authority he was crucified at Rome, because he was put to death by pilate, who had there the authority under the Roman Emperor.  
Moreover, in the 17. chapter, he saith plainly, This woman which thou sawest, is the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth. Other things he setteth down, as the seven hills and seven kings, all which do of necessity describe Rome, for there was, nor is none other city unto which they may in any colour be ascribed. Therefore as I said, it is confessed (because it is so plain that it cannot be denied) even by your men, that Saint john indeed in the Revelation doth call Rome Babylon. What fools are those which cannot by and by see that if Rome be Babylon, and then Sodom and Egypt, that the Pope must needs be Antichrist.  Pa. 
What fool is it which cannot see the weakness of your argument. I pray ye doth it in good sadness follow, that because the Scripture (as we confess) doth call Rome Babylon: therefore the Bishop of Rome is Antichrist. What if one should reason thus, London is a wicked city, therefore the Bishop of London is a wicked man. Were not this a pretty argument? And why is not the other as good? Rome of old time even when S. john did write, was so full of wickedness that he called it Babylon: and therefore the Bishop of Rome then was Antichrist. For ye must as well bring in then, as now. Are ye so poor a Logician to frame an argument after that sort? Can ye not distinguish between a city, and the Bishop of a city? Either you were but a while at Cambridge, or else ye spent your time evil.  Pro. 
O great wise man, what a quick and sharp sight have you. And how sound a Logician you show yourself, if to be blind, be to be a Logician. Do ye take it in good sadness, that I would frame my reason thus, Rome is Babylon, therefore the Pope is Antichrist, without consideration of circumstances thereto annexed. No sir, although it follow not at all, if we barely consider the city and the Bishop: yet if ye put on your spectacles, & look well upon other circumstances, ye shall be forced to confess that if Rome be Babylon, the Pope is Antichrist.  Pa. 
If ye can prove such a consequence by circumstances, I suppose ye would be able for a need to prove Paul's steeple and Charing cross to be cousin germans. Ye have as many circumstances belonging hereto, as to the other. They be both made of stone, and dwell both in one city, and peradventure much about one age. But perhaps yours are nearer matters.  Pro. 
As for Paul's steeple and Charing cross, I have known them but a while. I can not testify of any kindred between them, I leave that to you. Sure I am of this, that ye shall as soon prove the one of them to be the Father, & the other the Son: as ye shall be able to disprove this reason, Rome is Babylon, therefore the Pope is Antichrist. I pray ye tell me this: wherefore doth S. john, describing the kingdom of Antichrist, describe or note out also the City of Rome? Is it not to let us to understand, that if we will seek for Antichrist, we shall find him there? Rome is his seat, he that would find him let him go thither, for there S. john placeth him. When a man is come thither, where shall a man look, for this little fellow which is exalted above all, that is called God, which sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God: is there any other there which beareth this likeness? Peradventure ye will say this was fulfilled in some of the Emperors which would be taken for God. Yea sir, but there was none of the wicked Emperors which did sit in the temple of God. Neither was there any of them which did seduce the world by lying wonders. We must find such an one at Rome which is exalted above Kings & Emperors, which sitteth in the Temple of God & seduceth by miracles. But perhaps he shall arise at Rome hereafter, and is not yet come. Surely then let us never look for him: if we think there shall arise one at Rome, which shall be lifted up higher than the Pope, or do more feigned miracles, and lying wonders than he hath.  
Moreover, tell me this: is there any man so simple when he readeth the 17. chapter of the Revelation, 
Revel. 17.  where the Angel doth show the mystery of the woman (which he calleth the great whore) and of the beast which beareth her: that will not by & by confess, that seeing Rome is that whore, borne up with the scarlet coloured beast with seven heads: the Pope also must needs be Antichrist: for he is one of the heads of the beast. The heads of the beast being seven, are (saith the Angel) seven Kings, where should they reign? At Rome. Five (saith he) are fallen, one is, another is to come. Seven kinds of governments in Rome: whereof it is well known, five were fallen before the time in which john wrote. One was then standing, which was the Empire. And the seventh or last should shortly follow. Where is he that hath risen at Rome to be the seventh & last of these kings, if it be not the Pope? O ye foolish Papists, have ye come thus far as to confess that Rome is Babylon, which is the great whore, & so tell men where they must seek for Antichrist: And will ye deny the Pope to be the beast? Why, they be joined together. Show us some other, upon whom we may see the brand which the scripture hath set upon Antichrist? We now, by that which you have granted and confessed, must not look for him elsewhere, but at Rome: & until ye can show us some other there, we see none so like him, as the Pope's holiness. If ye can show any other, put men out of doubt.  Pa. 
Doth the Scripture say that Antichrist should be at that place which is called Babylon. Where find ye any such thing? It was called Babylon for the great wickedness of the city, not because Antichrist should reign there. Again, where ye take the interpretation of seven heads to be seven kings in Rome, as you say, seven kinds of government: five were fallen, one was, which is the Empire, one was to come: which say you must needs be the Pope, for he hath reigned in the last place. Yea, but ye said five were fallen, to give place to the sixth: should not then the sixth also fall to give place to the seventh? How then is your interpretation true, seeing the Empire hath stood ever since?  Pro. 
Doth not S. john in the Revel. set forth the same Antichrist which S. Paul doth describe, which he calleth the beast which all the world should wonder after and worship?  
Doth he not set forth the whore sitting upon the beast? Is not the whore by you confessed to be Rome? will ye have the beast to bear her, and not to be at the same place? the beast that riseth out of the bottomless pit, and killeth the saints. Revel. 11.  
Where shall their bodies lie, in the streets? doth he not say in the streets of the great city, which there he calleth Sodom and Egypt: & afterward in the seventeenth chapped. he calleth it the great city which ruleth over the kings of the earth, is it not all one beast which he speaketh of, & all one city? doth it not follow that where he shall kill, there be shall reign? and as for the other thing which ye take exception against: I confess the Empire did still retain the name, and was not quite cast down: nevertheless it was not indeed an empire, when the Emperors themselves were brought down so far in subjection to the Pope, as to have him tread in their neck, and to hold his stirrups.  Pa. 
If the Pope were Antichrist, as you would make men believe, than what became of the Church all that while, when men believed in him, & when he reigned? you confess a thousand years or there about, since the Bishop of Rome had the sovereignty. Would God forsake his Church a thousand years, or eight hundredth years? is it like that God which is so gracious and merciful, would cast off all our forefathers thus many hundredth years, and suffer to perish? O how hard hearted are you, how unreverently minded against our ancestors, how unkind children, so to judge of the fathers? let them believe ye that will: ye be all heretics, I will keep me to the ancient faith.  Pro. 
Now ye return to your old fortress again: ye suppose that ye have some of those poor souls in hand which ye may seduce, because they are ignorant. Ye can lay forth this matter so pitifully among them, that ye can make them even weep again. But when ye come among such as have understanding out of God's word, and know the state of the Church, they laugh at your folly. This is a great question, what became of that Church? we answer as the scripture telleth us: 
reve. 17.  the beast & the dragon did persecute & murder the servants of God. The whore of Babylon was drunken with the blood of the saints. 
Revel. 12.  The Church was driven into the wilderness: God did never forsake his Church one day, much less a thousand, or 8. hundredth years: it doth not follow that because Antichrist was exalted in the church, therefore the church was utterly forsaken and destroyed. Although corruptions came into the church apace for the space of this 8. hundredth, or a thousand years: yet nevertheless the religion did remain a more tolerable estate, & nothing so corrupted, as within these 5. or 6. hundredth years, which space we may indeed ascribe to the reign of Antichrist: and yet even in this space he could never utterly destroy the Church, for the most gracious God did preserve that little remnant which was his: and none did perish but those which loved not the truth, and therefore God did send them strong delusion to believe lies.  
None but those which worshipped the beast, and wondered after the beast, and received the mark of the beast: whose names were not written in the book of life. We reverence our godly fathers, & show no unkindness towards them.  Pa. 
I will deal with ye then upon your own confession: ye grant that for the space of five or six hundred years the Pope hath reigned, and the truth suppressed. Where was the Church for this space, this is a long time: will ye condemn all the world for the space of these five hundred years? It ye can show any fathers in the Church which were godly and denied the Pope, show them, Or will ye speak of a church which ye can show no members of? such folly there is in a number of ye.  Pro. 
Answer you to a question of mine, and I will give you an answer by and by to yours: when saint john saith Revelation 13. All the world followed the beast: & power was given him to make war with the Saints, and to overcome them. And again, when all both small and great, rich & poor, bond & free, were compelled to receive a mark, and none might buy & sell but those which had the mark or name of the beast, or the number of his name.  
Tell me, where was the true Church then, when this was fulfilled? whether were all those condemned or not, (if they returned not by repentance) which worshipped the beast, or had his mark? Saint john saith, they were killed with the sword, not a temporal sword. Where then shall we in these times seek out the godly fathers, but such as were persecuted by the beast? Of these there be histories, which show in all times that there were some.  Pa. 
I may soon answer your question, by showing your great ignorance. He saith, all the world worshipped the beast, and you will needs have it to be the Church: is there no difference between these two. You must prove such a general falling away of the whole church and not of the world. God hath promised to be with his Church to the end of the world, and therefore that can not fall away. Did the beast which S. john speaketh of cause all the Church to worship him? If you can show that, than ye prove somewhat.  Pro. 
Here is a blind shift brought in to answer the question which I demand. He saith (say you) all the world, & you will have it all the Church. I do not say that any part of the Church did fall away, if we understand by the Church those which are the elect of God, and the true members of Christ's body: for these can never be seduced to follow the beast, Christ hath promised to be with these to the end of the world. But when by the Church we understand all those companies which do profess Christ outwardly, those may be seduced and fall from the truth, being but the outward & visible Church: and these are here by S. john called the world: which thing is manifestly to be proved thus: those nations & people where the beast should reign, or which follow the beast, are called the world: now it is manifest that the beast, being the same Antichrist which S. Paul setteth forth, should reign in the Church: for he must sit in the Temple of God. It is therefore also as manifest that the visible Church is called in that place the world. The other nations of the world did not follow the beast. But if any will be so wilful & perverse as not to see plainly by this, that the beast should bear sway over the nations which were the visible church: let them further consider that S. john doth plainly affirm, that the beast should make war with the saints, & overcome them. If he shall make war with the saints, and overcome them: where shall he then reign, but in the visible Church? the true saints of God shall not reign in the visible church outwardly, for he shall outwardly overcome them. O wicked enemies and upholders of the beast, which because he hath for a time gotten the upper hand in the Church over the saints, would have him continue so still for ever.  Pa. 
If a man should grant all that which you say, that there should be a falling away in the church yet this is not likely that God would suffer the great-, test part, and almost all to perish. For what a few have those been which have resisted the Pope, in respect of those that have joined with him.  Pro. 
This is a very foolish objection, especially to those which consider the state of God's Church at all times in the world, what a few were the seed of Abraham in respect of all other nations of the world, whom God cast off many hundred years? what a few were they among the seed of Abraham, which continued good in respect of those which did degenerate? What a few were there in the Church when Christ came, which were faithful? it appeareth they were very few.  Pa. 
There be sundry things spoken by S. Paul concerning that Antichrist which should come, and likewise by S. john, which cannot agree to the pope: as for example, the one doth say that the Lord shall destroy him with the breath of his mouth. Where hath that been fulfilled in the pope? the other saith, that Antichrist should continue but a short time, he also setteth forth the time to be three days and a half. How absurdly then is this applied to the Bishop of Rome, which hath continued ever since the Apostles by succession? Who is able to deny this? I am afraid Antichrist, if he be not yet come among you, will come shortly, for you are even his forerunners.  Pro. 
Sundry things there are (say you) spoken by S. Paul and by S. john, concerning Antichrist which cannot agree to the Pope. And for example ye name two, the one, that it is said the Lord shall destroy him with the breath of his mouth: the other, that he should continue but a little while, as namely three days and an half. These things agree right well to the Pope: although this latter might seem to be otherwise: for a thousand years, if we respect it according to men is a long time, but with the Lord it is but as yesterday. Five or six hundred years by itself is somewhat, but compared with eternity, it is but a little: & so although we grant that it is almost a thousand years since the Bishop of Rome was exalted so high, yet it is but a while. But say you the time is limited three days & an half: is it possible that any man should read the things uttered concerning Antichrist, what he should do, and the same also set out by sounding of seven Trumpets, 
Revela. 16.  in several ages, in which it is apparent he should continue, that can be so ignorant as to take it of common days & not every day to contain many years? are the weeks in Daniel to be taken for seven natural days to the week? 
Daniel 9  when it is certain that the seven weeks, did contain almost five hundred years. Ye are over foolish to make this cavil. Where as ye say the Bishop of Rome hath continued ever since the time of the Apostles, & therefore it could not be understood of him: it is very true that there hath been a succession of Bishops there ever since, but yet not of such Bishops, for six hundredth years after Christ were passed, before the Bishop of Rome was taken to be universal Bishop and head of the Church: all the Bishops for that space or at least the most of them were godly men, & some of them suffered martyrdom. As for the other matter which is the fall of Antichrist by the breath of the Lords mouth, it is a marvelous clear testimony which we may use to prove the pope to be Antichrist. What I pray ye is the breath of the Lords mouth but the gospel preached? by what other means hath this beast been overthrown? when he had gotten all the kings in subjection, and sworn unto him, when not one durst move war against him, but said who is able to war with the beast: how hath the Lord brought him down but by the Gospel? And look in the Reu. 14. 
Revel. 14.  There he saith, he saw an Angel flying in the midst of heaven, having an everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell upon the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice: Fear God, & give glory to him etc. And by & by it followeth, that another Angel followed, saying, She is fallen, she is fallen, Babylon the great city etc. Is it not manifest by this, that when the preachers should publish the Gospel (for that Angel doth signify the ministers of the Gospel, whom he doth call Angels in the 1. chap.) Babylon should be cast down: his kingdom stood by worshipping of creatures, therefore when the Gospel doth will men to fear God, and to give glory to him, and not to worship creatures, straightway he cometh down. I would wish all men to consider this.  Pa. 
Do you make account that the pope is fallen: or can ye say that he is fallen, because a number are fallen from him? They are fallen and not he. I hope in God to see him set up again. If ye have no better matter than this, to show his fall, it is no matter.  Pro. 
I cannot tell what ye count to be fallen: sure I am of this, his credit is marvelously cracked. He that had known him 60. years agone, and should look upon him now, would say he were nothing the man he was, for he hath been in a sore consumption, & none of all his physicians can tell which way to cure him. Then he could shoot out thunderbolts over a great part of the world, and kings would quake at them: now every man dare come within the noise of the crack & fear no danger at al. We must not think that he should be utterly destroyed at once, for the contrary is plainly to be gathered out of the Revelat. Read the 16. 
Revel. 26.  chap. ye shall find thus: The fift Angel powered forth his vial upon the throne of the beast: and his kingdom was darkened, & they did gnaw their tongues for sorrow. Here ye see a beginning which doth fret at the guts: and cause ye to bite for anger. Then it followeth that the sixth Angel powered forth his vial upon the great river Euphrates, etc. Yet the kingdom of the beast is not utterly cast down, although his munition be thrown down. For it doth by and by follow: I saw three unclean spirits like unto frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, & out of the mouth of the false prophet: then he saith, they are the spirits of devils, working wonders which go unto the kings of the earth to move them to battle. Surely I see no cause why we may not take your jesuits to be of these frogs: do not they go forth into kingdoms to remove rebellions & wars? is it not to hold up the beast▪ & that by all such wicked & devilish means as there can be no worse.  Pa. 
The jesuits be holy men, and do no more but that which is their duty, by the appointment of their great shepherd. They labour to uphold Peter's chair, and the truth: and therefore they do it not by any unlawful means; much less by such wicked & devilish means as you do charge them. I will not stand to reason with ye about those places which ye apply against the pope, I doubt not but they may be answered well enough with silence.  Pro. 
The jesuits must needs be holy men, or else the jebusites could not: for they have almost as many letters in their name as they had, I suppose in deed that they do all at the appointment of their shepherd: for from whence should we look for such holy-déeds, but from so holy a father. They labour to uphold Peter's chair, and to throw down Paul's doctrine. Truth in deed is upholden by truth, and needeth no falsehood to help her: which is a most manifest argument that you have not the truth, because as I said ye do uphold it by all wicked and devilish means.  Pa. 
A man would suppose to hear you speak generally that ye had great matters, but when ye come to make good in particular, then there is nothing. Ye are to be likened to an empty barrel, which if a man knock, giveth a lusty sound, but pull out the spigot, and there cometh not forth one drop. What are those wicked and devilish means? show them.  Pro. 
I perceive you will both knock and pull out the tap also: and needs I must by broaching somewhat, let ye see your want of skill, which did not knock near enough to the bottom. I pray ye tell me, are lies and forgeries devilish?  Pa. 
No man doth deny but they are, can ye charge the Catholics with any? if there be any thing which is not in all points true, ye must not by and by condemn it, when as it is to a good end: as namely to keep the people in devotion & in awe.  Pro. 
True it is, when ye say, your forgeries and lies which are out of all number, were to keep the people in awe, and to terrify them, & so hold them in a foolish blind devotion. This ye did when your kingdom stood, let any impudent papist in the world deny the dunghill of gross lies in the legend and festival, & some other books of yours. Very children may laugh to hear them: if I should reckon them, or study to reckon them, I need no other penance enjoined me. But of thousands a few, as these: when the devil came to tempt S. Dunston, he held the devil by the nose with a hot pair of tongues, & caused him to roar & cry out: it seemeth it was some young devil, which had a tender nose. A rich man which never had done good deed in his life, but only in anger did throw a loaf at a poor man's head, when he died the devil came for his soul because he had done never a good deed: on the other side our Lady she claimed the soul, because he had given a loaf to a poor man: the devil he replied, that it was no good deed, because he did it not of devotion, for them he must have been saved. In fine, the matter was so hard to judge whose he was, that he was sent again into the body. He was not admitted to to go to heaven nor to hell, nor yet to Purgatory. But it seemeth our Lady was somewhat too hasty, for being no better man, she should first have let him been well fried in Purgatory, & so peradventure she would but that the devil was so greedy that he would not tarry. She did not wisely neither, for what a number of souls might she lose, caught by other devils whiles she was pleading for this. S. Katherine did vow herself to be married to none but Christ, and therefore the Virgin Marie did appear to the holy Hermit Adrian, & sent him to bring Queen Katherine to a place where the marriage should be solemnized: which was a goodly gorgeous Abbey erected for that use: where a multitude of glorious virgins did meet the new bride, & bring her in, where she was married to Christ, in the presence of the blessed Lady, whom they salute as Queen of heaven, Lady of the world, & Empress of hell, she biddeth her new daughter welcome, she carried her into the quire to Christ, who took her by the hand, & so was married unto her, & put a ring upon her finger, & did charge her to keep it in remembrance. There was such a glory at that marriage as never the like: the blessed Virgin also so glad of her new daughter; and Christ of his new wife, must needs cause exceeding joy. Our blessed Lady came often among ye in those days: and now she doth scarce visit ye once in seven years. What should be the cause, is she wearied, or hath she conceived some displeasure against ye? I pray ye tell me.  Pa. 
You are disposed to play and sport yourself. What if some did write such things which were their own devices? Is the Church to be blamed: and if so be they were allowed by the church, you are not to be taken for an indifferent judge: because you do not understand them. If the blessed Virgin did then appear often, it might be because they were then more worthy, or some other cause which we know not. Is it not enough now, although she do not appear, that she heareth the prayers of those which call upon her, & helpeth them.  Pro. 
If I play because I recite some part of your divinity: how did your good ghostly men play which devised them. Yea how did your Antichristian Synagogue play in setting them forth to be read openly to the people, and that in the Church. Your blind shifts cannot serve the turn. Your vain speech is not worth the answering. Ye shall pardon me, if I proceed a little further in the declaration of your holy lies. Ye have a goodly history (if the book of lies be true) of Saint Kenelm once king over some part of England: wherein you have many a fair miracle. The story is very long, and therefore I must tell but the sum of it. King Kenelm had one sister which was a wicked woman, & hated him, conspired his death, with Asheberd his governor: who going abroad with the king, which being heavy and laid down to sleep, the traitor made a pit & purposed to kill him: but he awoke and told him he did labour in vain: God would not have him killed there. He gave him a small rod, and told him, that where he should set it in the earth, there he should be martyred. Then this traitor went forth together with him unto a Hawthorne, and there he pight the rod, & forth with it bare leaves and grew up, & suddenly waxed a great Ash tree, which doth stand there unto this day, & is called Kenelmes Ash. He smote off his head there, and buried his body in a valley between two high hills. Then Quendred his wicked sister was glad, and was Queen. Now although the body did lie in unhallowed burial, yet no man durst take it up, for fear of Quendred the Queen. But a poor widow had a white cow which was every day driven into the wood of Clent, where she would departed from the rest of the kine, and go into the valley, and there did rest all the day sitting by the corpse, and at night returned home, never eat meat, and yet was fatter and gave more milk than any of the kine. This thing did continue certain years. Afterward as the Pope was at Mass in Rome, there came a white Dove, and let fall a scroll upon the Altar, in which was written thus in letters of gold: In Clent, in Cowbage, Kenelm king borne, lieth under a thorn, his head off shorn. The Pope and all his could not tell the meaning thereof, until an English man did expound it. The Pope did send to the Archbishop of Canterbury, & willed the body should be taken up. They came to the place which they knew by the white cow: they digged up the body, and in the place there did spring up a well, which is called Kenelms well unto this day: where many of the people have been healed. When they had up the body, it was brought to the Abbey of Winchcomb. By the way they were so dry that they fainted: The Abbot of Winchcomb pitched his cross down, & there sprang up a well. Before they came at the Abbey all the bells did ring without man's hand. Quendred demanded wherefore the bells did ring, it was told her that the body of her brother was taken up, and that the bells did ring alone. That is even as true said she, as both mine eyes are fallen out of my head upon this book. And by and by both her eyes fell upon her Psalter, upon which she was reading, and it is seen to this day where they fell upon the book. This is all as true, as any lie in the world may be.  Pa. 
What of all this, how can you tell whether this were true? Why might it not be so?  Pro. 
It might be true as well as the rest of all your lying wonders, which ye coined to seduce the blind people into Idolatry. Ye had gotten this advantage to persuade that the Pope could not lie nor err. And therefore whatsoever ye did invent, although it were never so gross, it would be credited: not only when they prayed to an Image to make them believe that it did sweat in taking pains to pray for them, and roll the eyes: but also all your feigned wonders, of which I will yet give a little further taste. For although they may seem unprofitable to be uttered, yet because they declare your spirit of lying, whereby Antichrist is known: there is use in them. What a goodly story is there of your Saint Dominike? When he was at Rome, he saw in a night jesus Christ in the air, holding three spears, & brandishing them against the world: and his mother ran hastily against him, & demanded what he would do. He said, all the world is full of vices, and therefore I will destroy them with these spears. Then she fell down at his feet and said: Dear son have pity, & tarry thy justice by thy mercy. He said, Thou seest what injuries they do me. She said, Son temper thy wrath & tarry a little: I have a servant a noble fighter against vices, he shall run over all & vanquish them unto thee. And I shall give unto him another servant to help, the shall fight as he doth. And our Lord said, I am appeased. But I would see who they be. Then she showed him S. Dominike, and S. Francis, and he praised them. Here the blessed Lady did help at a pinch, or else all had been marred. These her two Apostles which she did send forth, even the two Friars, Saint Dominike and S. Francis, were worth all the twelve Apostles of Christ. There were certain Ladies heard S. Dominike preach, which had been seduced by heretics: which kneeled down at his feet, and told him their case, prayed him to help them. He had them tarry a little, and they should see what Lord they had served. Anon they saw spring out of the middle of them a cat right foul and horrible, which was bigger than a great dog: which had great flaming eyes, a broad tongue, and bloody, she had a short tail, out of which issued a terrible stink. She turned her about among the Ladies a while, and afterward mounted up by the bell rope into the steeple, and went away, leaving a foul stink behind her. Thus were these good Ladies delivered by holy S. Dominike. After S. Dominike was dead he healed many, & raised up sundry from death. The blessed Virgin S. Marry might do the Pope now a great good turn, to give him two such as dominic and Francis: and it may be if he beg hard and call loud enough, she will hear him.  Pa. 
Go too, you have these things out of the Legend: who did ever allow it to be canonical? What should we regard what is spoken there? Ye may be better occupied.  Pro. 
If it were not allowed, why did Friar john of Vignay translate it out of Latin into English? Why had it this price set upon it to excel all other books as far as gold doth excel all other metals? And therefore is called Legenda Aurea, that is to say, Golden Legends. The festival, which was read upon Saints days in the church, doth fetch as many authorities out of the Legend, as out of the Scriptures. I perceive you are loath to hear any further: & therefore I will tell the less. What say ye to that good Lady which was so devout in the service of the blessed Virgin: and yet at a time upon the purification her Priest was from home, so that she could not have Mass. Nevertheless she went into her Chapel and prayed to the blessed Virgin, so long until she fell on sleep. At the last she saw a great company of goodly Virgins, and one glorious Virgin above the rest. She saw also one come in with a bundle of candles. She saw a priest go to Mass with two Deacons, which were Laurence and Vincent: The priest was Christ. Every one had a candle given them light, and so had she: two young Angels began the introite of the Mass: the Angels bore the Tapers, before the priest all the virgins did sing the Mass. When the offering came, every one brought their candle, and they stayed for this woman which did not come with hers, the great Lady sent to her two times, and yet she would not come. She sent the third time to pray her to offer her candle, or else to take it from her. She would not: then the messenger laid hold of the candle, he pulled and she pulled so long, that the candle was between them pulled in pieces, he had one end, and she another, and withal she did awake and found the piece of candle in her hand. Then she did know certainly she had heard Mass, and thanked God and our blessed Lady. Surely they did her wrong, for they should have awaked her first, and then have bid her offer her candle. If I had been as this Lady, I would have made much of that piece of candle. For it is like that some Chaunler in heaven made it. For Christ & the Angels occupy candles, whensoever they say Mass. If I should tell all the tales of holy S. Anthony, which fought with a number of devils: of good S. Patrick, which in Ireland did find out Purgatory: of pitiful S. Francis: of chaste Saint Hagnes, which yet was so gentle to be wooed, that at divers times she would hold forth her finger to receive a ring. Indeed I do not remember that she did receive any but of priests: by which it doth appear she loved them well. If (I say) I should tell all of these and a number more, I cannot tell whether you Papists might be judged the greater liars for devising, or I the greater fool for rehearsing. To be short, he that will come to your dunghill, he can light no where amiss dig where he will, he shall find it spade deep. Let him come with his dungcart as oft as he will, he shall soon fill it. I suppose the devil hath well emptied his bags among ye.  Pa. 
I told ye, I have nothing to do with those things, if ye can show any forgeries among us now: the things which are past, we cannot judge of them.  Pro. 
That which is bred in the bone, will not out of the flesh. Ye have it so naturally in ye to lie, that ye cannot leave it. Ye are not ashamed to falsify the Scriptures, the ancient writers, and Counsels: ye are not ashamed to devise and spread abroad foul slanders, against such men as GOD raised up to throw down Antichrist. Although it be of things impossible, yet tell it and a number believe it. As for example, a great Bishop of yours did preach in open assembly, that the Devil came like a trim fellow, fell in love with a man's daughter, begat her with child, which was Martin Luther. Is it like that the Devil could beget children now in his old days? and yet I know it goeth for payment among the ignorant blind papists. A number of things ye devise against Caluin, Beza and others, which are even as true as that.  Pa. 
These men were so good that a man need not to devise any thing of them: he may find even enough of that which is true: and too much to be told.  Pro. 
You are not sure of it, although ye affirm it.  Pa. 
Yes I am very sure of many things.  Pro. 
Did ye ever know any of these men: or have ye seen their conversation?  Pa. 
What though I have never known any of them, nor seen their conversation. I have heard enough, and that by such as I may believe.  Pro. 
If that be sufficient, ye might have heard of Christ that he had a devil, 
Matth. 9  and by as credible men as you have any: likewise that he was a glutton, 
Matth. 11.  and an unmeasurable drinker of wine, a friend of Publicans and sinners. Ye might have heard many things also against S. Paul. This is the equity which is among you Papists. Some one of ye do devise a lie, and then ye toss it from one to another, until at the last it hath a passport given it from such credible men, that it may go where it wil But I will let this pass, and come to some other of your wicked means, by which ye labour to stay up the rotten chair of Antichrist. I will come yet to greater and more shameful villainies, which truth never needeth, because the Lord doth support her.  Pa. 
Can you find such matters against us, and not see yourselves? I warrant ye, that which ye do accuse us of is to be found in you: howsoever ye accuse us, and excuse yourselves.  Pro. 
Where can ye find that ever the truth was maintained by perjuries, and breaking covenants? Let a man read and read again, among all Heathen men, Turks, and jews, where shall he find that it hath been taken generally to be allowed, that they might swear and forswear to deceive, and not make conscience to keep the oath? Among you this is a principle, faith is not to be kept with heretics. Which also ye do from time to time put in practice. It is not to be looked for that you should stick to make lies, when ye dare publish it to the world in writing, that ye may lawfully forswear yourselves, and break the faith which ye have given by oath. By this means ye have committed very horrible slaughters, and cruel murders: the like whereof have scarcely been heard of. Are these practices of God, O ye bloody, perjured, forsworn wretches? Doth the holy Ghost lead men into such kind of dealing? no verily, it is the spirit of the father of lies, of perjuries, of murders, which ye are lead withal. God's spirit is the spirit of truth, he never teacheth men to lie, and to deal falsely: and therefore those people are bewitched, which think the Pope & his adherents to be lead by the spirit of God: when as they be so full of all abominable treacheries.  Pa. 
What should we meddle with these things: I cannot tell how a man should persuade you, to see the authority of the Church. You judge of all things after your own reason. I have no delight to deal in these matters: I will not say that which I could say.  Pro. 
I cannot blame ye that ye are loath to meddle in these matters. It were a great deal better if they were kept close among yourselves. For now no man that is wise will trust ye, neither upon promise nor yet upon oath, which ye break so often. There be many goodly rules which ye devise now secretly among yourselves. But what should you go about to persuade with me in these matters, which am not first persuaded how great authority the Church hath? For ye have none other argument but the authority of the Church to allow these things. God's word doth curse and condemn perjuries and murders committed by such treacheries. To dispute out of that for the maintenance of them, ye know ye shall have but a cold suit of it. It is a great deal better therefore to lay the word of God aside, and to set forth what power the new God hath for to change the nature of things. He is of another manner power then men weet. The GOD which hath spoken in the Scriptures, can do nothing nor say nothing but truth: but the God of Rome hath power to do what he will, and to say what he list, whether it be true or false. This is a mighty God, he can play both fast and lose at his pleasure. Let a thing be never so much commended by God in the Scriptures, if he say it is nought, then is it nought. So on the other side, whatsoever it be that is condemned to be evil, he hath power to make it good. This is the cause why you say many are deceived, they look but to the Scriptures, and forget this God, which hath power over the Scriptures.  Pa. 
If you may accuse what ye list, than it were well. But let us see wherein the Pope hath challenged any such power.  Pro. 
Have not I showed ye already in some part, as in lies, murders and perjuries? Will ye have more? what say ye to treasons and rebellions? Doth not the Pope make it lawful to commit treason? Doth he not discharge subjects of their obedience and subjection to their Prince? Doth he not give any of them leave to kill their Prince? and maketh it a work greatly meritorious? What devil can go further than this? Doth not God set up Princes, and hath not he put the sword into their hands? Doth not he charge men to be subject & to obey them? Doth not he say, that whosoever doth resist them, doth resist the ordinance of God? and that those which do resist, do purchase to themselves damnation. O ye traitorous wretches, do ye not see that ye draw all those into damnation, & under God's curse, whom ye draw from their love and obedience towards their Prince? Let all men consider this: hath a greasy bald Priest of Italy, power against God's word, to give leave to subjects and inferior persons in England, to play the villains and traitors against their sovereign prince, whom God hath set over them: for whose defence God doth require at their hands to give their lives? Shall the foul beast of Rome have power to reward that deed in heaven, which God hath threatened to punish in hell? Let all the people of this land consider this, and shun such filthy & abominable men. Some will say, wherefore should we eschew them being honest? If rank traitors be honest, then are all the jesuits, Seminaries, and popish priests, with such as love and harbour them, to be counted honest.  Pa. 
I see more and more that I cannot prevail by speaking, and therefore I will give ye over, say even what ye list. I see it is good for a man to take heed with whom he doth talk. I could answer ye to the full, if it might do good. Thus much I will say, that it is one thing to commit treason against a prince which is godly: and another thing, to kill an heretic which is no lawful prince. The subjects indeed may not disobey and rebel: but when the prince is no right prince, than they are no longer subjects. What say ye to Ehud in the book of the judges? did not he slay Eglon king of Moab, and that under colour of a message? What say ye to jehoiada the priest? did not he cause them to slay Athaliah, when she had reigned certain years, and set up joash to be king? If the priest of the law had this power, how much more the priest of the Gospel?  Pro. 
Ye would give me over now, ye say, but your traitorous heart is so full that it will not suffer ye. Indeed I know ye like it much better to deal among the unlearned people, whom ye may draw to your opinion: or with such as ye know to bear the same mind that you do. Among these ye dare be bold to reason the matter to the full. But this I say unto ye, let the devil bring his note book with him: let the Pope and all his prelate's utter all the skill they can: yet the word of God shall still be able to beat them down in this matter, to prove that subjects incur damnation, when they rebel against princes, which are the ministers of God. As for the examples which ye bring, I will show how they do not prove that which you allege them for. And then I will let ye see, how it is to be proved by the law of God, that subjects have no such power against their princes: but that every private man doth very horribly rebel against the Lord God, which rebelleth against the powers set up by God.  Pa. 
Howsoever ye may seem to dally with those examples which I have alleged, yet sure I am, they prove that which I do allege them for, both that it is lawful to kill wicked princes, & also by colourable dealing: for we have example of the one in Ehud, and of the other also in jehoiada.  Pro. 
I will maintain that which I have said, and show that they do not make for that which ye cite them for. It is set forth in the judges, that Israel had done evil in the sight of the Lord, and he made Eglon king of the Moabites to prevail against them, & to bring them into servitude. When the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, he raised unto them a deliverer, even Ehud. Afterward it is set forth how he came, went with a present to Eglon, desiring to speak with him alone, and so slew him. Consider well in this story, first, how Eglon was an unjust usurper, 
judg. 3.  oppressing Israel like a cruel tyrant where he had no right. Secondly, Ehud is no private man, but raised up by the Lord to be their deliverer. Wherefore he had authority from God to put down Eglon, even as well as a lawful king hath right to fight against such as invade his land, and to kill them. Lastly, where Ehud did it colourably, we may not draw it into an example, because it was done by an extraordinary spirit: which the pope cannot give to other, because he hath him not himself. If he could give to a private man, that spirit which Ehud had to warrant him, them were it somewhat. As for the example of Athaliah the mother of king Achasia, 
●. King. 11.  after she saw her son was dead, did arise & murder all the kings séed, or the blood royal, and so usurped the kingdom: she was neither lawful Queen, nor yet to be suffered to live, because she had committed so horrible and cruel murder. Wherefore jehoiada, in whose custody the young king was secretly kept, when he brought him forth to be crowned, did not by his own right set up a king, whom it pleased him: but was an help to bring the young king to his right, & to put down the wicked murderer & usurper. This now maketh nothing at all for the pope, when he taketh upon him power to depose kings at his pleasure, and to set up whom he shall think good.  Pa. 
I see well a man cannot bring you to see the power which the prince of the Apostles had, and now his successor hath for to depose princes. What should a man contend with one which doth not care what he denieth?  Pro. 
Christ jesus when he was desired by one that he would command his brother to divide the land: answered, 
Luk. 12.  Man who made me a judge or a divider? Whereby he doth evidently show that he had no civil authority, no not in the lest causes: for else he would not have said, who made me a judge: much less he had authority in the highest matters, as to depose kings. And for this cause when Pilate did ask him, if he were a king, he did answer: 
john 18.  my kingdom is not of this world: & likewise he did testify his subjection to the Emperor, 
Matth. 17.  when he & Peter did pay tribute. How then doth it come to pass that the pope should challenge to have that because he is M. vicar, which neither Christ nor Peter had? No, he hath it not that way, but because he is the man of sin which hath exalted himself above all that is called God. Moreover, what saith Christ to his Apostles? The kings of the nations rule over them, 
Matth. 10.  and they that are great exercise authority over them: but it shall not be so among you. I pray ye sir, if the Apostles might not be as kings & princes, how had Peter this power to be king of kings, or how can a priest in Italy, because (as he saith) he is the successor of Peter, have this high dignity, to be so far above kings? Ye must needs confess, unless ye will be wilful, that the Pope can have no such power neither from Peter, nor Christ: they do both renounce him. Then I reason thus, (as I said before) Princes are set up by God: he hath made them his substitutes here on earth, he hath not alone given them the seat and the sword, but also he hath clothed them with glory, & put upon them as it were of his own robes, when he calleth them Gods. We are commanded to be subject, to honour and obey, not to resist under pain of damnation. If they command any thing which is disagreeing to Gods will, they have not that power over our conscience: we must obey God rather then man. Nevertheless we are still subjects to that power which they have received from God. And being but private men, we must say with David, God forbidden that I should lay my hand upon my master the king, the Lords anointed. I say therefore that your jesuits, or whosoever favour them (which know their practices) are traitors before God and man: because they dare lift up their hand against their sovereign prince, placed in the throne by the high God, and subject to no creature in earth. I say therefore let all men take heed of your cursed and damnable ways. Let all men see, that your kingdom is not of God, which ye uphold by treasons, perjuries, lies, murders, and all kind of evil means.  Pa. 
All is nought of our side, and all good of yours. Ye are so malicious that whatsoever we do ye condemn it, your charity doth show what ye are.  Pro. 
We must needs say all that is nought, which God saith is so. I confess our charity and yours are not all one, for the charity of you papists, is a burning love. Ye can both love a man, and cut his throat also. The Lord defend his people from such Vipers: which sting to death, when they be gentlest of all. But Idolatry is always cruel, & cannot be maintained, but with devilish and bloody minds.  Pa. 
I know ye do account us to be Idolaters, and so ye do call us, but we are as far from it as you be: we condemn it, and hate it more than you do. And although ye go about to abuse and wrest the scriptures against us, yet ye shall never be able to drive any true Catholic from the right pure and devout worship of God.  Pro. 
Will ye confess if I prove that you are Idolaters that yours is the false Church, and that ye are fallen away from the truth, that the Pope is Antichrist.  Pa. 
I must needs confess that Idolaters are fallen from the truth: but where as ye make offer to prove that we commit Idolatry, I say still we be the furthest from it of all other. And in this I think myself sufficiently armed to stand against all the heretics in the world, prove what ye can.  Pro. 
All those which worship idols, are condemned in the holy Scriptures to be idolaters. But it seemeth you Papists do not worship idols: at least ye would bear men in hand ye do not, when as in very deed ye do it in most shameful manner. Where hath it ever been heard of that men have more doted upon stocks and stones, than the Papists? Will ye still then be past shame, and say you hate idolatry, you are furthest from it of all other?  Pa. 
I say still, and need not be ashamed, that it is the blindness of you heretics, which either cannot or will not see that ours is no Idolatry. This sin of Idolatry is where they worship Idols: we have images of the true God, of the blessed Virgin, of the Apostles, and of other Saints: we have no idols of feigned and false Gods: we worship not the images themselves neither, but the things which are by them represented. Moreover, we do not give latria to the images of Saints, but dulias, which God in the scriptures doth never condemn. I say therefore ye help us when ye say we worship stocks and stones, or that we worship any besides the true God. You are the idolaters yourselves.  Pro. 
You would feign purge and clear yourselves from idolatry, and therefore ye have devised these distinctions: first, ye would make a difference between Idol and Image, yours are Images but not Idols. Secondly, ye shift the matter that ye do not worship the Images themselves, but that which the Image doth put ye in mind of. And last of all, your deep distinction between latria, which is worship, which ye give only to God, and dulias, which is service, which ye bestow upon the Saints. I will lay open how vain these things are: and yet how they be subtle to deceive poor ignorant souls.  Pa. 
I know your answers well enough, ye take upon ye to defend, that an Idol and an Image are all one. And so when it is said, God made man after his own Image, ye may translate it after his own Idol. It may be said of the picture & image of the prince, this is the prince's Idol. Likewise if a painter paint an image of a dog, ye may say this is an Idol of a dog. Ah Sirs this is over gross, ye show by this what your skill is in other things.  Pro. 
Now must ye needs win the spurs, because we say that Image and Idol is all one: saving that the one is Greek, and the other Latin. Ye say, than we must say God made man after his own Idol: which were very gross. I confess that in our tongue it were gross indeed, because the word Idol is by common use of speech taken always in evil part, but in the Greek tongue it was not so. But I will come nearer unto ye, to show your deceitful dealing in this: shall we desire a better judge in this matter then the Hebrew tongue, in the scriptures: in which it is said, that God made man after his own image, and in which there is much spoken of idols? What if I prove that he useth the same word where he speaketh of idols, which he useth where he saith, God made man after his own image? Will there then be such a difference?  Pa. 
When I see this, than I will believe it, before I will not: the Scriptures do speak of images, & it may be there is the same word. But you must prove it where he doth speak it of those which were idols indeed, of the heathen, & of false gods.  Pro. 
I will show where he speaketh of idols indeed which were worshipped by the heathen, and prove that he useth the same word. The word in Moses is Tselem, after which Adam was created: Gen. 1. Now look where he speaketh to the children of Israel by Moses, to command them to break down the idols of the heathen, and ye shall find the same word. As Numb. 33. He saith, ye shall destroy Tsalme, Massecotham, that is their molten images. In the 2. book of Kings, chap. 11. it is said, They went into the house of Baal, and broke down his images, which he calleth by the same name. By this it doth appear, that in the holy scriptures there is no such difference between idol and image, as the Papists would bear men in hand. For these were idols by their own confession, which yet are set forth under that same word, which Moses useth for the likeness of God, after which man was created.  Pa. 
All this doth prove nothing, for we do grant that which ye have said. Because idols be also images, although every picture and image be not an idol: for an idol is an image which is worshipped and taken to be God.  Pro. 
It doth prove this, for which I did allege it, that the same word is in that tongue used indifferently for the image of GOD, and for the idols of the heathen. But because ye say it doth prove nothing, seeing idols be images, although every image is not by and by an idol, unless it be worshipped. Let me demand this: Is not that which is forbidden to be made in the Scriptures an idol?  Pa. 
I know no man which doth deny, but that is an idol which the Scriptures do forbid. But you must go further than that: for ye must prove that those which the Scripture doth forbid are but called images: and so images and idols to be all one.  Pro. 
Ye say right, for those which the scripture condemneth, we must confess to be idols: then if I prove that the scripture doth condemn images, it must needs follow that they be idols. I require no more, for it is manifest that the Scripture doth forbid all images of God, as in Deuterono. 4. there is forbidden not only Semel, but also Temnuah and Tabnith. And in Esay 40. Demuth. Who will be so mad as to deny but that here are images forbidden: and therefore that images are idols.  Pa. 
I see no cause why I should not deny it, for they were also idols, because they were made to be worshipped.  Pro. 
I see no cause why I may not esteem you to be obstinately blinded. Because in these places which I have cited, he doth not only speak of the true GOD, but also the reasons which are set down to forbid the images, do disprove not only the worshipping, but also the very making. For why doth Moses tell them, ye heard the voice of words, when God spoke, but ye saw no similitude? Why doth Esay set forth the incomprehensible greatness of the Lord: but to conclude as he doth, that there can no similitude be made of God? And therefore this conclusion doth stand sure, that images in the Scripture and idols be all one. And therefore the Papists do but juggle when they shift their hands of idolatry in this manner: we do not worship idols, we do but serve images. Ours be the images of the true God: and we take them not to be any more than images. If this would have served the turn, the Israelites might have answered to Moses, and Esay, well enough.  Pa. 
Are ye of the mind that every picture or image of God is forbidden to be made, although a man do not worship it. Doth the Scripture say any such thing?  Pro. 
I must needs be of that mind, when I have the words of the commandment, Thou shalt not make, etc. and not only those places which I did allege with reasons to forbid the making, but also other reasons: as namely, that GOD dwelleth in light which none can come unto, whom never man saw, neither can see, as S. Paul saith. Again, 
1. Tim. 6. Acts 17.  the same Apostle telleth, that the Godhead is not like silver or gold, etc. Again, God is incorruptible, man is mortal: which reason is used in the 1. chap. to the Romans. Sundry things may be spoken to show that an image is a teacher of lies: and therefore accursed and abominable before God. For it is wicked to lie of a man: but most abominable to transform God into an heap of lies: as when a man saith, this is the picture of God: then must it be taken to be like God: or else why is it his image more than another thing: these lies then are in it, God is invisible, this is seen: God is alive, this is dead: God is incomprehensible, for the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, this is contained in a small room: God is almighty, this hath no power: God is glorious, and incorruptible, this is subject to rust and corruption: yea to conclude, it is nothing but lies, because it doth neither in shape, because God is a spirit, and that is a gross substance, neither in any property set forth that which is in God, but the quite contrary. If any should picture your Pope like a dog or a toad, ye would not take it well: and yet he is liker to either of these, than the Lord is to any image: ye do more disgrace him when ye picture him like any creature, than ye can do to any man to picture him like a toad.  Pa. 
What though it be not like him in some points, is it therefore to be condemned? If men should worship it, that were evil: but we worship that which it doth represent.  Pro. 
I am out of doubt that ye worship that which the image doth represent: that is not God, for it doth not represent him in any point, but it is the devil, who is the father of lies, and therefore the father of images which are full of abominable lies. But you papists have a pretty conveyance, when ye bear men in hand, that Idolaters are they, either which worship false gods, or which worship the images themselves, of the true God. As though either the heathen men were so gross, or the Idolaters among the jews, as to take the image itself to be God. Those are poor men which know not that.  Pa. 
The jews did worship the calf itself, and take it to be God. The heathen did take their Idols to be Gods: and therefore they did worship them.  Pro. 
To prove that these did not worship the idols themselves, nor take them to be gods: a few reasons may serve. For if it be showed that the heathen did not, then must it needs follow that the jews did not: unless ye will make them which had more knowledge of God, to be more brutish than the other. Now for the heathen, S. Paul saith, 
Rom. 1.  that which might be known of God was manifest in them: which he expresseth to be the eternal power & Godhead. If then the sense of the Godhead could not be rooted out of the hearts of these, much less out of the hearts of the jews. This thing is manifest in the heathen, that believed the gods and goddesses to be in heaven: & therefore they thought (as their writings do show) that oftentimes they came down from heaven, and appeared to them in the likeness of men and women. I need not recite particulars.  Pa. 
The heathen did believe that the idols were gods: else why should S. Paul persuade, 
Acts 19  that those were not gods which are made with hands. The learned among the heathen, did think as you say, but not the multitude.  Pro. 
Although the heathen did know that the idols were not the very gods themselves, yet this persuasion of S. Paul was not needless, because they did ascribe a certain divinity unto them: they thought the gods and goddesses came down into them, and did there receive honour. Even as you papists thought of your idols, and therefore you would trudge a great way on pilgrimage. As for the other excuse which ye make it is false: for when Paul and Barnabas came to Lystra, 
Acts 14.  and had healed a man that was lame, did not all the multitude cry out, Gods are come down unto us in the likeness of men? They took Barnabas to be jupiter, and Paul to be Mercury. And then jupiters' priest came to have offered sacrifice unto them, as he had done to the idol. The jews therefore which had seen the wonders which God wrought in Egypt & in the red sea, which had heard him speak out of the fire, with so great terror: could not be so brutish, as to think the Calf which they saw Aaron make, to be the God indeed which had brought them out of Egypt, but the image to represent the same God, whom they meant to worship in it. Where the foolish papists may see that in this foul idolatry of the jews, they neither did worship the idol itself: neither any false gods. You do worse than they, because ye worship the idols of those which are no gods: as of the virgin Mary, and other Saints.  Pa. 
I told ye before that we do not worship any image, but the thing represented: I said also that we do not worship the Saints: for we give not latria unto them, but dulias: which you can not prove to be any where forbidden. But you will have your own saying to charge us with what ye lust.  Pro. 
We charge ye not with any thing but that which is easy to be proved: I have showed that the gross idolaters among the heathen did not take the very image to be God, neither did worship it, but that which it did represent. And now I tell ye, that as ye play the beasts that way, so now ye play the part of subtle fools: which in seducing others, deceive yourselves. For this difference which ye make between latria, and dulias, is not found in the scriptures. And besides that, the word of God doth forbid to give dulian to any but God.  Pa. 
You have set down two things which ye will never be able to prove: the one, that ye say there is no such difference between latria and dulia: the other that dulias is to be given only to God. If ye can prove these two, let us see a piece of your cunning.  Pro. 
Our Saviour Christ is a very competent judge in this matter: and he useth the one word for the other. For where it is said in Moses Deut. 6. and also 10. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him shalt thou serve: he doth express it in Matth. 4. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, & him only shalt thou serve: I cite it to this end, to show that where Moses hath set down tagnabod, Christ doth translate it by the Evangelist, latreuscis: which is suffcient to show that he put no difference between them. To prove that dulias is forbidden to images, we need go no further then to the commandment, where he doth forbid to make them: and then he saith, Thou shalt not bow to them: neither shalt thou serve them: for he useth the verb gnabad. I might allege sundry other places: as Psalm. 97. where he saith, They shall be confounded gnobede pesel, which serve the graven image. You blind Papists would pluck out men's eyes, by your vain shifts and foolish distinctions: you make a difference where there is none. If ever there were abominable and foul idolatry committed in the world, either by jews or Pagans, or other, it is among you, ye go, no doubt, as far as ever did any. Now a days the papists, at least a number of them, do wax more crafty: they will not with their forefathers allow any thing to the idols themselves: but all to the things which they represent: whereas in times past the controversy was whether the image was to be worshipped with the same worship, that the first pattern that it did represent was? Some of your great clarks did affirm the one way, and some the other: for one part defendeth that the images of the Trinity, and of the Cross were to be worshipped with latria, divine worship: the other part doth reply that latria is proper only to God: and therefore not to be given to the images: they must adore them with some lower worship. But shift how ye can, agree or disagree among yourselves, the holy word of God standeth still, condemning and accursing ye as detestable Idolaters. For say what ye can, ye ascribe and give worship unto them.  Pa. 
Have ye by this proved, that dulias is to be given only to God?  Pro. 
I suppose that it is proved, when the Scripture doth make no difference, but useth latria, and dulias in one sense. For ye all confess now that divine worship is to be given only to God. Ye take dulias for a divine service or adoration: doth it not then follow that God is rob of his right, who is our Lord and we his servants? Now all may see, that are not obstinate, that the Romish Church is not the true Church of Christ, because ye commit idolatry. I do therefore conclude, that all which will have salvation, must remove themselves from ye, and return home to the ancient and true Catholic Church.  Pa. 
I wonder with what face ye can speak thus: ye would have men departed from our church, as you say to the ancient & true Catholic church: when as ye cannot show us that antiquity: for masters it is well known how young your Church is. To the ancient Church, we would not deny to return, if we were out of the way: but to you, which are newly sprung up, we may not.  Pro. 
It is a strange thing that men are so wilful: we do believe all the doctrine & faith, which the Prophets and Apostles taught and believed: we cleave only to this, & admit none other, and yet your blind eyes cannot see what antiquity we call ye unto. We are but men of late years, if the doctrine which we teach be no elder, I would wish ye not to believe it. But seeing we bring nothing but that which was from the beginning, we may boldly say that ours is the ancient Catholic Church: and therefore all those which be not members of it cannot have salvation. As for you, look how far ye are gone from the doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles, so far are ye removed from the true Catholic Church. Your doctrine is contrary to theirs, your Pope is nothing like Christ and his Apostles.  Pa. 
I see that I cannot remove you, nor you shall not remove me. I must even leave ye as I found you. I am sorry that ye are so far spent: yet I hope one day to see ye of a better mind. For a day will come when this gear will be better looked upon.  Pro. 
I may not be removed from that which I know most certainly to be the truth: unto that which is most cursed lies. And as for you, I leave ye to the Lord, no hope I see to win ye: for the day which ye hope for, we see that the Lord hath hitherto miraculously disappointed ye: and hath brought to light your traitorous purposes. Our hope is that the same Lord will still protect our gracious Queen and her honourable counsellors. Wonderful great blessings hath GOD bestowed upon us by her, and by them. For which as many as have any drop of grace, cannot but give hearty thanks and praise to the Lord, and sure I am, that unless our sins do provoke him, he is ready to bestow greater. Although a great number of ye: even as it were very devils incarnate, do enterprise and gape for her destruction, and the destruction of those over whom she doth spread her wings to cover them. All good subjects within this realm, both to GOD and their prince, are bound in conscience, not only to curse, hate, and detest, from the bottom of their hearts, your hellish and cruel practices: but also to lift up their hands and hearts to heaven, and to power out continual supplications to the Lord, for the preservation of her Majesty, and her Counsel. Desiring God to guide them with his spirit, to do nothing but that which is good and pleasing in his sight: also to give them all gifts of wisdom and courage, and to multiply their days, with true honour in this life, and eternal blessedness in the life to come. If men did see how needful this prayer is at this time, that this realm, & the poor Church of God in this realm may be in safety: it would cause them in stead of a few ordinary cold prayers in this behalf, to send forth strong cries into the ears of the Lord, and to power out rivers of tears, to move him to pity and compassion. For when that greasy priest of Italy doth set ye on, to spoil us of all peace both for body and soul: and to take from us