M. More is against the pope's profit. Purgatory. A purgatory visible, and a pur. gatory invisible. Canonis. ing. How you may know who be saints in heaven. may come, save a few flatterers which minister unto them all voluptuousness, and serve their lusts at all points, which flatterers must first be corrupt with gifts, ere a man may come at the king. Then he saith, A man may pray to every dead man. That, me thinketh, should be against the pope's doctrine and profit also. For he will have no man prayed to until he have canvassed him, I would say, canonised him, and till God, or at the least way the devil, have shewed miracles for him. Then he bringeth how one that was dead, and in the invisible purgatory holp another that was alive and in the visible purgatory. This is a strange case, that a man there may help another, and not himself. And a more strange case that God heareth a man here for himself, being in his own purgatory, and helpeth him clean out, or easeth him if it be too sore. But and he be in the pope's purgatory, God will not hear him for himself, and that because the pope might have somewhat to deliver him. And the strangest case of all is, that the pope is Almighty there, and God can do there nought at all, as the pope cannot here in this purgatory. But because this is not God's word nor like God's doctrine, I think it no damnable sin to believe it poetry. Then how ye may pray for them and to them, till they be canonised and when they be canonised, but to them only, for then ye be sure that they be in heaven. By what token? I may be as sure by the canonising, as I am that all the bishops which the pope confirmeth, be holy men, and all the doctors that he maketh well learned, and that all the priests which he anointeth have the Holy Ghost! If ye say, Because of the miracles; then do men King Hen- wrong to pray for king Henry of Windsor, at Cambridge and Eton. For he, as men say, doth miracles. And also if the miracles certify us, what needeth to buy the pope's canonising? ry of Wind sor. THE NINTH CHAPTER. doctrine to pray to him IN the ninth he putteth no jeopardy to pray to him A strange that is damned and to stick up a candle to him ; nor I trow unto the devil thereto, if he might have a vantage by for help him. that is bad and damn The Israelites were more in number than the Jews. The Jews committed Then he maketh no jeopardy to do and believe what- ed. soever an open multitude called God's church doth and believeth. For God will have an open church that cannot err. For saith he, When the Israelites fell to Idolatry, the true church remained in Jerusalem among the Jews. First I say, if a man had no better understanding than M. More's doctrine, he could not know whether were the true church, the Jews or the Israelites. For the Israelites were in number five times more than the Jews, and worshipped God, though as present in the image of a calf, as the Jews for the most part, present in the ark of testimony. And secondarily he saith false. For the Jews were fallen into open idolatry a thousand times worse than the Israelites, even in their very temple, as it appeareth by open stories and by the prophets: so that for their open idolatry, which they would for no preaching of the prophets amend; their priests thereto resisting the prophets and encouraging the people in their wickedness, God sent them captive out of the land. Yea and the people erred in following the scribes and pharisees, and the open multitude called God's church, at the coming of Christ; as it is to see in the gospel, contrary unto M. More's deceitful poetry. And again, God reserved him a little flock reserveth a ever in Israel, and had ever prophets there, sometimes openly, and sometimes in persecution, that every man must hide himself and keep his faith secret and even in the houses of the evil kings both of Jewry and also of Israel he had good people, and that among the high officers, but secretly, as Nicodemus among the pharisees. So that the very church was every where oftimes in capti idolatry. God ever little flock. More feareth not to worship an unconsecrated host. 1 Cor. i. We must first know the true way, and then agree in the same. Christ rebuked the false trust the Jews will works. vity and persecution under their brethren, as we be under our's in the kingdom of the pope. Then he putteth no jeopardy to worship an unconsecrated host. But with what worship men should worship the consecrated doth he not teach, neither the use of that sacrament or any other, nor how aught may be worshipped, but teacheth only that all things may be worshipped, and sheweth not the right worship from the false. Then he noteth Paul, (1 Cor. i.) how he exhorteth us to agree only, but not on the truth or on the good, but only to agree a great multitude together. O this deep blindness! Did not Paul first teach them the true way ? And did he not instruct them anew in the true way, and in the said Epistle rebuke the false confidence that they had in men, the cause of all their dissension and all errors that were among them? Then he saith, The Jews had saints in honour, as the patriarchs and prophets; we teach to dishonour none. But the Jews prayed to none. MORE. Christ rebuked not the pharisees for garnishing the sepulchres of the prophets, but for that they followed the conditions of them that slew them. TYNDALE. Yes, and for their false trust in such works as we do you. And ye, Sir, think that ye deserve heaven in had in their worshipping the saints' bones, and be as ready to slay them that believe, teach and live as the saints did, as your fathers were to slay them: besides that, ye worship saints that followed Christ after the example of your holy cardinal, of whom I doubt not but that ye will make a God in process of time also. Then repenteth he for forgetting, how Eliseus' bones raised up a dead body: that was to confirm his preaching only. For the Israelites, as wicked as they were, neither prayed to him, neither kissed his bones, nor offered, nor sticked up candles before him; which thing if they had done in the kingdom of the Jews, I doubt not but that some good king would have burnt his bones, as well as the brazen serpent, that was as great a relic as dead bones. And Christ shewed miracles at the finding of the cross. That was to stablish the faith of Christ's death, and that it should be a memory of his death; and not that we should trust in the wood as we do. For which false abuse, the whole land where Christ did his miracles is destroyed. The mira cles done by the prophets and apostles was to con firm their doctrine. made the woman Then he allegeth the woman that was healed, through Christ touching of Christ's coat, because we should worship it. When Christ said, her faith hath made her whole, not the coat, but in Christ. in whole, and And the miracle was shewed, to provoke to the worshipping of the preaching, and not of the coat. Though to keep the coat reverently in the memorial of the deed, to provoke unto the faith of Christ were not evil of itself. And Paul, by your doctrine, sent his napkin to heal the sick, that men should shrine his snivelled napkin, and not to believe his preaching. THE TENTH CHAPTER. not his coat. Miracles were done for the condoctrine. firmation of THE tenth chapter of saint Walary is meet for the A filthy author, and his worshipful doctrine. THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER. chapter. In the eleventh he juggleth with this mystical term Latria. I answer, God is no vain name, but signifieth Latria. one that is almighty, all merciful, all true and good, which he that believeth will go to God, to his promises and testament, and not follow his own imaginations, as M. More's doctrine teacheth. He saith, that bodily service is not Latria. No, but bodily service done and referred unto him which is a spirit, is Idololatria. He trusteth, that men know the image from the saint. Moses. Moses's I ask M. More why God did hide Moses's body and divers other? The Jews would have known that Moses had not been God, and that Moses's bones had not been Moses. And they knew that the brazen serpent was not God, and that the golden calves were not God, and that wood and stone were not God. But, sir, there is ever a false imagination by. The world, because they cannot worship God in the spirit, to repent of evil, and to love the law, and to believe that he will help at all need, therefore run they unto their own imaginations, and think that God, for such service as they do to images, will fulfil their worldly desires; for godly can they nought desire. Now God is a Spirit, and Spirit, and will be worshipped in his word only, which is spiritual, and worshipped will have no bodily service. And the ceremonies of the spiritually. old law he set up, to signify his word only, and to keep the people in mind of his testament. So that he which observeth any ceremony of any other purpose is an idolater, that is, an image server. God is a will be trous per son wor And when he saith, if men ask women whether it were our lady of Walsingam or Ipswich that was saluted of Gabriel, or that stood by Christ when he hung on the cross? The idola they will say neither nother. Then I ask him what meaneth it that they say, Our lady of Walsingham pray for me; Our lady of Ipswich pray for me; Our lady of Wilsdon pray for me? insomuch that some which reckon themselves no small fools, make them rolls of half an hour long, to pray after that manner. And they that so pray, thou mayest be sure, mean our lady that stood by the cross, and her that was saluted thereto. shippeth the image for the saint. Processions though they be abused may not be put down. Then he rehearseth many abuses, and how that women sing songs of ribaldry in processions in cathedral churches unto which abominations yet our holy church, that cannot err, consent with full delectation. For on the one side they will not amend the abuse. And on the other side they have hired M. More to prove with his sophistry that the things ought not to be put down. Then he bringeth in how the wild Irish and the Welch |