Tyndale.

John Bap-
tist and our
Lady also
were sin-
ners, and
looked for
the re-
demption
in Christ.

Chrisosto

mus.

There was never any but Christ that was without sin.

TYNDALE. Jeronn Baptist said to Christ, (Mat. iii.) 1
had need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
whereof did John confess that he had need to be washed
and purged by Christ, of his holiness and good deeds?
When John said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world, he was not of that sort, nor
had
any sins to be taken away at any time, nor any part in
Christ's blood, which died for sinners only. John came
to restore all thing, saith Christ. That is, he came to in-
terpret the law of God truly, and to prove all flesh sinners,
to send them to Christ, as Paul doth in the beginning of
the Romans. Which law, if M. More could understand
how spiritual it is, and what it requireth of us, he would
not so dispute. And if there were no imperfectness in
our Lady's deeds, why did Christ rebuke her, (John ü.)
when he ought rather to have honoured his mother, and
why did he make her seek him three days? Chrisostomus
dare say that our lady was now and then taken with a
little vain glory. She looked for the promises of Him that
should come and bless her, from what? She believed to
be saved by Christ, from what? This I grant, that our
Lady, John Baptist, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and
many like, did never consent to sin, to follow it; but
had the Holy Ghost from the beginning. Neverthelater,
while they followed the Spirit and wrought their best, yet
chances met them by the way, and temptations, that made
their works come sometimes unperfectly to pass, as a
potter that hath his craft never so well, meeteth a chance
now and then, that maketh him fashion a pot amiss. So
that I think the perfectest of them all, as we have ensam-
ples of some, were compelled to say with Paul, That good
that I would, I do not, and that evil that I would not, that
I do. I would not swear on a book, that if our Lady had
been let slip as we other were, and as hard apposed with
as present death before her eyes, that she would not have
denied some things that she knew true, yea but she was
preserved by grace that she was not. No, but though she

were kept by grace from the outward deed, yet if there were such wickedness in her flesh, she had sin. And the grace was, that she knew it, and was meek to believe in Christ, to have it forgiven her, and to be preserved that it should not bud forth. John the Evangelist, when he was as holy as ever was John the Baptist, said, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.

1 John 1.

Works are

law.

Then he compareth faith and deeds together, and will that faith should stand in no better service of right than under the deeds. Yes, for the deeds be examined by the law, and therefore it is not enough to do them only, or to do them with love: but I must do them with as great love as Faith is unChrist did for me, and as I receive a good deed at my need. But faith is under no law, and therefore be she Tyndale. never so feeble, she shall receive according to the truth of

the promiser.

der no law. More.

MORE. What thing could we ask God of right be- More. cause we believe him?

TYNDALE. Verily, all that he promiseth may we be Tyndale. bold to ask of right, and duty, and by good obligation.

MORE. Ferman said, that all works be good enough in More. them that God hath chosen.

TYNDALE. I am sure it is untrue, for their best be Tyndale. not good enough, though God forgiveth them their evil of his mercy, at the repentance of their hearts.

Then he endeth in his school doctrine contrary unto all the Scripture, that God remitteth not the sin of his chosen people, because that he hath chosen them not of his mercy, but of a towardness that is more in one than in another saying, God saw before that Peter should repent, and Judas would despair, and therefore chose Peter. If God chose Peter because he did repent, why chose he not Judas too, which repented as much as he, and knowledged his sin, and brought the money again? O this blindness, as [if] God had wrought nothing in the repentance of Peter! Said not Christ before, that Peter should fall? And said he not that he had prayed for him

The blind

and fond

reasoning

of More.

Luke xxii.

John xvii.

The difference between

Peter's

fall, and

the fall of Judas.

Judas.

Judas perished in despera

tion.

By Adam we are all made the children of the wrath of God.

that he should be holp up again? Christ prayed a strong prayer for Peter to help him up again, and suffered a strong death thereto. And before his death he committed them unto his Father, saying, I have kept them in thy name and I depart, keep them now from evil. Peter had a good heart to God, and loved his law, and believed in Christ, and had the Spirit of God in him which never left him for all his fall. Peter sinned of no malice, but of frailty and sudden fear of death. And the goodness of God wrought his repentance and all the means by which he was brought up again at Christ's request. And Judas was never good, nor came to Christ for love of his doctrine, but of covetousness, nor did ever believe in Christ.

Judas was by nature and birth, (as we all be) heir of the wrath of God, in whom the devil wrought his will and blinded his heart with ignorance. In which ignorance and blindness he grew, as he grew in age, and fell deeper and deeper therein, and thereby wrought all his wickedness, and the devil's will, and perished therein. From which ignorance God purged Peter of his mercy, and gave him light, and his Spirit to govern him, and not of any towardness that was in Peter of his own birth : but for the mercy that we have in the birth of Christ's death.

And how will M. More prove that God chooseth not of his goodness but of our towardness? What good towardness can he have and endeavour, that is altogether blind, and carried away at the will of the devil, till the devil be cast out? Are we not robbed of all towardness in Adam, and be by nature made the children of sin, so that we sin naturally, and to sin is our nature? So that as now, though we would do well, the flesh yet sinneth naturally, neither ceaseth to sin, but so farforth as it is kept under with violence: even so once our hearts sinned as naturally, with full lust and consent unto the flesh; the devil possessing our hearts, and keeping

out the light of grace. What good towardness and endeavour can we have to hate sin, as long as we love it? What good towardness can we have unto the will of God while we hate it and be ignorant thereof. Can the will desire that the wit seeth not? Can the will long for, and sigh for, that the wit knoweth not of? Can a man take thought for that loss that he wotteth not of? What good endeavour can the Turks' children, the Jews' children, and the pope's infants have, when they be taught all falsehood only, with like persuasions of worldly reason, to be all justified with works? It is not therefore as Paul saith of the running or willing, but of the mercy of God, Rom. ix. that a man is called and chosen to grace.

The first grace, the first faith, and the first justifying is given us freely saith M. More, which, I would fain wete how it will stand with his other doctrine; and whether he mean any other thing, by choosing them to have God's Spirit given me, and faith to see the mercy that is laid up for me; and to have my sins forgiven without all deserving, and preparing of myself. God did not see only that the thief that was saved at Christ's death should come thither, but God chose him, to shew his mercy unto us that should after believe; and provided actually, and wrought for the bringing of him thither that day, to make him see and to receive the mercy that was laid up for him in store, before the world was made.

THE TWELFTH CHAPTER.

God work

eth by dimake us to call upon

vers to

and to trust

in his

mercy.

In the twelfth, in chafing himself to heap lie upon lie, he uttereth his feelable blindness. For he asketh this question, Wherefore serveth exhortations unto faith, if the hearers have not liberty of their free-will, by which, together Freewill. with God's grace, a man may labour to submit the rebellion of reason unto the obedience of faith and credence of the word of God? Whereof ye see, that besides his grant that reason rebelleth against faith, contrary to the

doctrine of his first book, he will that the will shall compel the wit to believe. Which is as much to say as the cart must draw the horses, and the son beget the father, and the authority of the church is greater than God's word. For the will cannot teach the wit, nor lead her, but followeth naturally; so that whatsoever the wit judgeth good or evil, that the will loveth or hateth. If the wit see and lead straight, the will followeth. If the wit be leadeth the blind and lead amiss, the will followeth clean out of the way. I cannot love God's word before I believe it. Nor hate it, before I judge it false and vanity.

The wit

will.

More's wits

are captivated.

A pretty example.

He might have wiselier spoken on this manner: Wherefore serveth the preaching of faith, if the wit have no power to draw the will to love that which the wit judgeth true and good. If the will be nought, teach the wit better and the will shall alter and turn to good immediately. Blindness is the cause of all evil, and light the cause of all good; so that where the faith is right, there the heart cannot consent unto evil, to follow the lusts of the flesh, as the pope's faith doth. And this conclusion hath he half a dozen times in his book, that the will may compel the wit and captivate it, to believe what a man lusteth. Verily, it is like that his wits be in captivity, and for vantage tangled with our holy father's sophistry.

His doctrine is after his own feeling and as the profession of his heart is. For the popish have yielded themselves to follow the lusts of their flesh, and compel their wit to abstain from looking on the truth, lest she should unquiet them, and draw them out of the puddle of their filthy voluptuousness. As a cart that is over-laden going up a hill draweth the horses back, and in a tough mire maketh them stand still. And then the carter, the devil which driveth them, is ever by and whistleth unto them, and biddeth them captivate their understanding unto profitable doctrine, for which they shall have no persecution, but shall reign and be kings, and enjoy the pleasures of the world at their own will.