title="p. 52" id="pgepubid00053"/>person is but an unprofitable servant: that the law of God is perfect, and requireth of us perfect and full obedience: that we are able by no means to fulfil that law in this worldly life: that there is no one mortal creature which can be justified by his own deserts in God’s sight: and therefore that our only succour and refuge is to fly to the mercy of our Father by Jesu Christ, and assuredly to persuade our minds that He is the obtainer of forgiveness for our sins; and that by His blood all our spots of sin be washed clean: that He hath pacified and set at one, all things by the blood of His Cross: that He by the same one only Sacrifice, which He once offered upon the Cross, hath brought to effect and fulfilled all things, and that for that cause He said, when He gave up the ghost, “It is finished,” as though He would signify, that the price and ransom was now full paid for the sin of all mankind.  If there be any, then, that think this Sacrifice not sufficient, let them go, in God’s Name, and seek another that is better.  We, verily, because we know this to be the only Sacrifice, are well content with it alone and look for none other: and, forasmuch as it was to be offered but once, we command it not to be renewed again: and because it was full and perfect in all points and parts, we

do not ordain in place thereof any continual succession of offerings.

Besides, though we say, we have no meed at all by our own works and deeds, but appoint all the means of our salvation to be in Christ alone, yet say we not, that for this cause men ought to live loosely and dissolutely: nor that it is enough for a Christian to be baptised only and to believe: as though there were nothing else required at his hand.  For true faith is lively, and can in no wise be idle.

Thus therefore teach we the people, that God hath called us, not to follow riot and wantonness, but, as St. Paul saith, “unto good works, to walk in them:” that God hath plucked us out “from the power of darkness, to the end that we should serve the living God;” to cut away all the remnants of sin, and “to work our salvation in fear and trembling:” that it may appear, how that the Spirit of sanctification is in our bodies, and that Christ Himself doth dwell in our hearts.

To conclude, we believe, that this our self-same flesh wherein we live, although it die, and come to dust, yet at the last day it shall return again to life, by the means of Christ’s Spirit which dwelleth in us: and that then verily, whatsoever we suffer here in the meanwhile for His sake, Christ will wipe

away all tears and lamentation from our eyes: and that we through Him shall enjoy everlasting life, and shall for ever be with Him in glory.  So be it.

PART III.

Behold these are the horrible heresies, for the which, a good part of the world is at this day condemned by the Bishop of Rome; and yet were never heard to plead their cause.  He should have commenced his suit rather against Christ, against the Apostles, and against the holy fathers.  For these things did not only proceed from them, but were also appointed by them: except perhaps these men will say (as I think they will indeed), that Christ never instituted the Holy Communion to be divided amongst the faithful; or that Christ’s Apostles and the ancient fathers said private masses in every corner of the temples, now ten, now twenty together in one day: or that Christ and His Apostles banished all the common people from the Sacrament of His blood: or that the thing, which they themselves do at this day everywhere, and do it so as they condemn him for a heretic which doth otherwise, is not called of Gelasius, their own doctor, plain sacrilege: or that these be not the

very words of Ambrose, Augustine, Gelasius, Theodoret, Chrysostom, and Origen: “The bread and wine in the Sacraments remain still the same they were before:” “The thing which is seen upon the Holy Table is bread;” “There ceaseth not to be still the substance of bread, and nature of wine;” “The substance and nature of bread are not changed;” “The self-same bread, as touching the material substance, goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the privy:” or that Christ, the Apostles, and holy fathers prayed not in that tongue which the people might understand: or that Christ hath not performed all things by that one offering which He once offered: or that the same sacrifice was unperfect, and so now we have need of another.  All these things must they of necessity say, unless perchance they had rather say thus, that “all law and right is locked up in the treasury of the Pope’s breast,” and that, as once one of his soothing pages and claw-backs did not stick to say, “The Pope is able to dispense against the Apostles;” against a council, and against the canons and rules of the Apostles: and that he is not bound to stand neither to the examples, nor to the ordinances, nor to the laws of Christ.  We, for our part, have learned these things of Christ, of the Apostles, of the devout fathers: and do sincerely, with good faith, teach

the people of God the same.  Which thing is the only cause why we at this day are called heretics of the chief prelates (no doubt) of religion.

O immortal God! hath Christ Himself, then, the Apostles, and so many fathers all at once gone astray?  Were then Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, Gelasius, Theodoret, forsakers of the Catholic faith? was so notable a consent of so many ancient bishops and learned men nothing else but a conspiracy of heretics? or is that now condemned in us, which was then commended in them? or is the thing now, by alteration only of men’s affections, suddenly become schismatic, which in them was counted Catholic? or shall that which in times past was true, now by-and-by, because it liketh not these men, be judged false? let them then bring forth another Gospel, and let them show the causes why these things, which so long have openly been observed and well-allowed in the Church of God, ought now in the end to be called in again.  We know well enough that the same word which was opened by Christ, and spread abroad by the Apostles, is sufficient both, our salvation and all truth, to uphold and maintain; and also to confound all manner of heresy.  By that word only do we condemn all sorts of the old heretics, whom these men say we have called out of hell again.  As for

the Arians, the Eutychians, the Marcionites, the Ebionites, the Valentinians, the Carpocratians, the Tatians, the Novatians, and shortly all them which have a wicked opinion, either of God the Father, or of Christ, or of the Holy Ghost, or of any other point of Christian religion, forsomuch as they be confuted by the Gospel of Christ, we plainly pronounce them for detestable and castaway persons, and defy them even unto the devil.  Neither do we leave them so, but we also severely and straitly hold them in by lawful and politic punishments, if they fortune to break out anywhere, and bewray themselves.

Indeed, we grant that certain new and very strange sects, as the Anabaptists, Libertines, Menonians, and Zuenckfeldians, have been stirring in the world ever since the Gospel did first spring.  But the world seeth now right well, thanks be given to our God, that we neither have bred, nor taught, nor kept up these monsters.  In good fellowship, I pray thee, whosoever thou be, read our books: they are to be sold in every place.  What hath there ever been written by any of our company which might plainly bear with the madness of any of those