appeach us as seditious persons, breakers of the common quiet, and despisers of princes’ majesty?
Truly, we neither put off the yoke of obedience from us; neither do we disorder realms; neither do we set up or pull down kings; nor translate governments; nor give our kings poison to drink; nor yet hold to them our feet to be kissed; nor, opprobriously triumphing over them, leap into their necks with our feet. This rather is our profession; this is our doctrine: that every soul, of what calling soever he be—be he monk, be he preacher, be he prophet, be he Apostle—ought to be subject to kings and magistrates; yea, and that the Bishop of Rome himself—unless he will seem greater than Evangelists, than the Prophets, or the Apostles—ought both to acknowledge and to call the emperor his lord and master, which the old Bishops of Rome, who lived in times of more grace, ever did. Our common teaching also is, that we ought so to obey princes as men sent of God; and that whoso withstandeth them, withstandeth God’s ordinance. This is our showing, and this is well to be seen, both in our books and in our preachings, and also in the manners and modest behaviour of our people.
But where they say we have gone away from the unity of the Catholic Church, this is not only a
matter of malice, but, besides, though, it be most untrue, yet hath it some show and appearance of truth. For the common people and ignorant multitude give not credit alone to things true and of certainty, but even to such things also, if any chance, which may seem to have but a resemblance of truth. Therefore, we see that subtle and crafty persons, when they had no truth on their side, have ever contended and hotly argued with things likely to be true, to the intent they which were not able to espy the very ground of the matter, might be carried away at least with some pretence and probability thereof. In times past, where the first Christians, our forefathers, in making their prayers to God, did turn themselves towards the east, there were that said, “they worshipped the sun, and reckoned it as God.” Again, where our forefathers said, that as touching immortal and everlasting life, they lived by no other means, but by the “flesh and blood of that Lamb who was without spot,” that is to say, of our Saviour Jesus Christ, the envious creatures and foes of Christ’s Cross, whose only care was to bring Christian religion into slander by all manner of ways, made people believe that they were wicked persons, that they “sacrificed men’s flesh, and drunk men’s blood.” Also, where our forefathers
said that before God “there is neither man nor woman,” nor, for attaining to the true righteousness, there is no distinction at all of persons, and that they did call one another indifferently by the name of sisters and brothers: there wanted not men which forged false tales upon the same, saying that the Christians made no difference among themselves either of age or of kind, but like brute beasts without regard had to do one with another. And where, for to pray and hear the Gospel, they met often together in secret and bye places, because rebels sometime were wont to do the like, rumours were everywhere spread abroad, how they made privy confederacies, and counselled together either to kill the magistrates or to subvert the commonwealth. And where, in celebrating the holy mysteries after Christ’s institution, they took bread and wine, they were thought of many not to worship Christ, but Bacchus and Ceres; forsomuch as those vain gods were worshipped of the heathens in like sort, after a profane superstition, with bread and wine.
These things were believed of many, not because they were true, indeed (for what could be more untrue?), but because they were like to be true, and through a certain shadow of truth might the more
easily deceive the simple. On this fashion likewise do these men slander us as heretics, and say that we have left the Church and fellowship of Christ: not because they think it is true—for they do not much force of that, but because to ignorant folk it might, perhaps, some way appear true. We have, indeed, put ourselves apart not as heretics are wont, from the Church of Christ, but as all good men ought to do, from the infection of naughty persons and hypocrites.
Nevertheless, in this point they triumph marvellously—“that they be the Church, that their Church is Christ’s spouse, the pillar of truth, the ark of Noah;” and that without it there is no hope of salvation. Contrariwise they say, “that we be renegades; that we have torn Christ’s seat;” that we are plucked quite off from the body of Christ, and have forsaken the Catholic faith. And when they leave nothing unspoken that may never so falsely and maliciously be said against us, yet this one thing are they never able truly to say, that we have swerved either from the Word of God, or from the Apostles of Christ, or from the primitive Church. Surely we have ever judged the primitive Church of Christ’s time, of the Apostles and of the holy fathers, to be the Catholic Church; neither make we doubt to
name it, “Noah’s ark, Christ’s spouse, the pillar and upholder of all truth;” nor yet to fix therein the whole mean of our salvation. It is doubtless an odious matter for one to leave the fellowship whereunto he hath been accustomed, and specially of those men, who, though they be not, yet at least seem and be called Christians. And, to say truly, we do not despise the Church of these men (howsoever it be ordered by them now-a-days), partly for the name’s sake itself, and partly for that the Gospel of Jesus Christ hath once been therein truly and purely set forth. Neither had we departed therefrom, but of very necessity, and much against our wills. But I put case, an idol be set up in the Church of God, and the same desolation, which Christ prophesied to come, stood openly in the holy place. What if some thief or pirate invade and possess “Noah’s ark?” These folks, as often as they tell us of the Church, mean thereby themselves alone, and attribute all these titles to their own selves, boasting, as they did in times past which cried, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord;” or as the Pharisees and Scribes did, which craked they were “Abraham’s children.”
Thus with a gay and jolly show deceive they the simple, and seek to choke us with the very name of