THE EIGHTH CHAPTER. In the eighth he saith, the saints be more charitable Saints. now, than when they lived. I answer, Abraham was when he lived as charitable as the best. And yet dead, he answered him that prayed to him: They have Moses Luke xvi. and the prophets, let them hear them. And so have we, not Moses and the prophets only, but a more clear light, even Christ and the apostles, unto which if we hearken, we be saints already. And to prove that they in heaven be better than we in earth, he allegeth a text of our Saviour, (Luke vii.) that Luke vii. the worst in heaven is better than John Baptist. Now the text is, He that is less in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. We that believe are God's kingdom. And he that is least (in doing service unto his brethren) is ever the greatest after the doctrine of Christ. Now Christ was such service Christ did as all the saints coul less than John, and therefore greater than he. And by their own doctrine, there was no saint in heaven before the not do. resurrection of Christ! But what care they what they say, blinded with their own sophistry. Moreover, cursed is he that trusteth in ought save God, saith the text, and therefore the saints would have no man to trust in them while they were alive. As Paul saith (1 Cor. iii.) What is Paul, save Christ? Did Paul die for you? your trust in him? your servant to preach 1 Cor. iii. Were ye baptized in the name of Paul? Did I not marry you to Christ to put And again, Let no man rejoice or trust in man, saith he. For all are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas; whether the world, life, death, present things, or things to come; all are yours, and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's. If my faith be stedfast in the promises that I have in Christ's blood, I need but to pray to my Father in Christ's name and he shall send me a legion of angels to help me; so that my faith is lord over the angels, and over all creatures to turn them unto We may not trust to saints. my soul's health, and my Father's honour; and may be subject unto no creature, but unto God's word in our Saviour Christ only. I may have no trust therefore in the saints. If ye say, ye put no trust in them, but only put them in remembrance of their duty; as a man desireth his neighbour to pray for him, remembering him of his duty; and as when we desire our brethren to help us at our need. That is false, for ye put trust in all your ceremonies, and all your holy deeds; and in whosoever disguiseth himself, and altereth his coat from the common fashion, yea, and even in the coats of them that be not yet saints after your doctrine. If a priest said mass in his gown, would ye not rise against him and slay him, and that for the false faith that ye have in the other garments? For what honour can those other garments do to God more than his gown, or profit unto your souls, seeing ye understand nought thereby? And thereto in the collects of saints ye say, Save me God, and give me everlasting life, for the merits of this or that perstition. saint; every man after his phantasy choosing him one saint singularly to be saved by. With which collects I pray you shew me, how standeth the death of Christ? Paul would say that Christ died in vain if that doctrine were true. Prayer to saints is a great su Before Christ we used not to pray to saints. And thereto inasmuch as ye say, the saints merit or deserve not in heaven, but in this world only, it is to be feared lest their merits be sore wasted, and the deservings of many all spent through our holy father's so great liberality. Abraham and the prophets, and the apostles, and many since, prayed to no saints, and yet were holy enough. And when he saith, they could help when they were alive. That was through their faith in believing the promise. For they had promises that they should do such miracles to stablish their doctrine, and to provoke unto Christ, and not unto themselves. the resur And when he proveth that the saints be in heaven in glory with Christ already, saying: If God be their God they be in heaven, for he is not the God of the dead; there he stealeth away Christ's argument wherewith he M. More proveth the resurrection, that Abraham and all saints destroyeth should rise again, and not that their souls were in heaven, rection. which doctrine was not yet in the world. And with that doctrine he taketh away the resurrection quite, and maketh Christ's argument of none effect. For when Christ allegeth the Scripture that God is Abraham's God, and addeth to, that God is not God of the dead but of the living, and so proveth that Abraham must rise again; I Matt. xxii. deny Christ's argument, and say with M. More, that Abraham is yet alive, not because of the resurrection, but because his soul is in heaven. And in like manner Paul's argument unto the Corinthians is nought worth. when he saith, If there be no resurrection, we be of all wretches the miserablest; here we have no pleasure, but sorrow, care, and oppression. And therefore, if we rise not again, all our suffering is in vain. Nay, Paul, thou art unlearned, go to Master More and learn a new way. We be not most miserable, though we rise not again, for our souls go to heaven as soon as we be dead, and are there in as great joy as Christ that is risen again. And I marvel that Paul had not comforted the Thessalonians with 1 Thess. iv. that doctrine, if he had wist it, that the souls of their dead had been in joy, as he did with the resurrection, that their dead should rise again. If the souls be in heaven in as great glory as the angels, after your doctrine, shew me what cause should be of the resurrection? For 1 Cor. xv. And when he saith, Whether the saints do it themselves. or by intercession made to God, it maketh no matter, so we be holp; it appeareth by his doctrine, that all is good that helpeth, though a man pray unto the devil, by whom many be holp. Now in Christ we have promises of all manner [of] help, and not in them. Where then is our faith to be holp by Christ, when we hope to be holp by the merits The more have in saints, the less we have in Christ. of saints? So, it appeareth, that the more trust we have in saints, the less we have in Christ. And when he bringeth in a similitude, that we pray Physicians. physicians, though God can help us, and therefore we must pray to saints; it is not like: for they have natural remedies for us, which we must use, and not tempt God. But the saints have no natural remedies, nor promise of supernatural. And therefore it can be but a false superstitious faith. And where no natural remedy is, there God hath promised to help them that believe in him. We must first call upon God, and then send for the physician. And moreover when I pray a physician or surgeon and trust to be holp by them, I dishonour God, except I first pray to God, and believe that he will work with their doctrine and medicines, and so receive mine health of the hand of God. And even so when I pray to man, to help me at mine need, I sin, except I complain first to God and shew him my need, and desire him to move one or another to help me, and then when I am holp, thank him and receive it of his hand, inasmuch as he moved the heart of him that holp me, and gave him wherewith, and a commandment to do it. M. MORE. Christ is not dishonoured because that they which here preach him truly shall sit and judge with him. TYNDALE. That to be true the Scripture testifieth, but what is that to your purpose that they which be dead can hear us and help us? Howbeit if M. More should describe us those sects, I am sure he would paint them after the fashion of my lord cardinal's holy chair, as he The fleshly doth God after the similitude of worldly tyrants and not according to his own word. For they that be worldly and fleshly minded can but fleshly imagine of God altogether like unto the similitude of worldly things. minded cannot judge the things that be of God. M. MORE. The apostles and saints were prayed to when they were alive, and God not dishonoured. TYNDALE. What helpeth that your carnal purpose? I have answered you unto that and many things more in the Obedience, and other places against which ye reply not, 1 Cor. iii. More driv God. pray for you unto my John xvi. As who should say, Then he breaketh forth into open blasphemy, and saith that it behoveth us to pray unto saints and that God will eth from else not hear us, for our presumptuous malapertness. So it is now presumptuous malapertness to trust in God's word and to believe that God is true! Paul teacheth us Heb. iv. to be bold to go unto God and sheweth us good cause in Christ, why we so may, and that God would so have us. Neither is there any cause to keep us back, save that we love him not, nor trust him. If a man say, Our sins should keep us back I say, if we repent and believe in Christ, Christ hath taken them away, and therefore, through him we may be bold. And Christ said at his last supper, (John xvi.) I say not that I will Father, for my Father loveth you. Be not afraid, nor stand without the doors as a dastard: but be bold, and go in to my Father yourselves in my name, and shew your complaints, for he now loveth you, because love ye doctrine. And Paul saith, (Eph. ii.) Eph. ii. my We have all an open way in, through him, and are now no more foreigners or strangers but of the household of God. Of God therefore we be bold as of a most loving and merciful Father, above all the mercy of fathers. And of our Saviour Jesus we be bold, as of a thing that is our own and more our own than our own skins, and a thing that is so soft and gentle, that lade we him never so much with our sins, he cannot be angry nor cast them from off his back, so we repent and will amend. But M. More hath another doctrine to drive us from God and to make us tremble and be afraid of him. He likeneth God to worldly tyrants, at whom no man We may be bold to resort to God, for he willeth us so to do. |