Yet notwithstanding, because we will grant somewhat to succession, tell us, hath the Pope alone succeeded Peter? And wherein, I pray you? In what religion? in what office? in what piece of his life hath he succeeded him? What one thing (tell me) had Peter ever like unto the Pope, or the Pope like unto Peter? Except peradventure they will say thus: that Peter, when he was at Rome, never taught the Gospel, never fed the flock, took away the keys of the kingdom of heaven, hid the treasures of his Lord, sat him down only in his castle in S. John Lateran, and pointed out with his finger all the places of purgatory, and kinds of punishments, committing some poor souls to be tormented, and other some again suddenly releasing thence at his own pleasure, taking money for so doing: or that he gave order to say private masses in every corner: or that he mumbled up the holy service with a low voice, and in an unknown language: or that he hanged up the Sacrament in
every temple, and on every altar, and carried the same about before him whithersoever he went, upon an ambling jannet, with lights and bells; or that he consecrated with his holy breath, oil, wax, wool, bells, chalices, churches, and altars, or that he sold jubilees, graces, liberties, advowsons, preventions, first fruits, palls, the wearing of palls, bulls, indulgences, and pardons; or that he called himself by the name of the head of the Church, the highest bishop, bishop of bishops, alone most holy: or that by usurping he took upon himself the right and authority over other folk’s churches; or that he exempted himself from the power of any civil government; or that he maintained wars, and set princes together at variance: or that he sitting in his chair, with his triple crown full of labels, with sumptuous and Persian-like gorgeousness, with his royal sceptre, with his diadem of gold, and glittering with stones, was carried about, not upon palfrey, but upon the shoulders of noble men. These things, no doubt, did Peter at Rome in times past, and left them in charge to his successors, as you would say, from hand to hand; for these things be now-a-days done at Rome by the popes, and be so done, as though nothing else ought to be done. Or contrariwise, peradventure they had rather say
thus, that the Pope doth now all the same things, which we know Peter did many a day ago: that is, that he runneth up and down into every country to preach the gospel, not only openly abroad, but also privately from house to house: that he is diligent, and applieth that business in season and out of season, in due time and out of due time: that he doth the part of an evangelist, that he fulfilleth the work and ministry of Christ, that he is the watchman of the House of Israel, receiveth answers and words at God’s mouth; and even as he receiveth them, so delivereth them over to the people: that he is the salt of the earth: that he is the light of the world: that he doth not feed his own self, but his flock: that he doth not entangle himself with the worldly cares of this life: that he doth not use a sovereignty over the Lord’s people: that he seeketh not to have other men minister to him, but himself rather to minister unto others: that he taketh all bishops as his fellows and equals; that he is subject to princes, as to persons sent from God: that he giveth to Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s: and that he, as the old bishops of Rome did without any question, calleth the emperor his lord. Unless, therefore, the popes do the like now-a-days, and Peter did the things aforesaid,
there is no cause at all why they should glory so of Peter’s name, and of his succession.
Much less cause have they to complain of our departing, and to call us again to be fellows and friends with them, and to believe as they believe. Men say, that one Cobilon, a Lacedæmonian, when he was sent ambassador to the king of the Persians to treat of a league, and found by chance them of the court playing at dice, he returned straightway home again, leaving his message undone. And when he was asked why he did slack to do the things which he had received by public commission to do, he made answer, he thought it should be a great reproach to his commonwealth to make a league with dicers. But if we should content ourselves to return to the Pope, and to his popish errors, and to make a covenant not only with dicers, but also with men far more ungracious and wicked than any dicers be; besides that this should be a great blot to our good name, it should also be a very dangerous matter, both to kindle God’s wrath against us, and to clog and condemn our own souls for ever. For of very truth we have departed from him, who we saw had blinded the whole world this many a hundred year: from him, who too far presumptuously was wont to say, “he
could not err,” and whatsoever he did “no mortal man had power to condemn him, neither kings, nor emperors, nor the whole clergy,” nor yet all the people in the world together; no, and though he should carry away with him to hell a thousand souls from him who took upon him power to command, not only men, but even God’s angels, to go, to return, to lead souls into purgatory, and to bring them back again when he list himself: whom Gregory said, without all doubt, is the very forerunner and standard-bearer of Antichrist, and hath utterly forsaken the Catholic faith, from whom also these ringleaders of ours, who now with might and main resist the gospel, and the truth, which they know to be the truth, have ere this departed every one of their own accord and goodwill, and would even now also gladly depart from him, if the note of inconstancy and shame, and their own estimation among the people, were not a let unto them. In conclusion, we have departed from him, to whom we were not bound, and who had nothing to say for himself, but only I know not what virtue or power of the place where he dwelleth, and a continuance of succession.
And as for us, we of all others most justly have left him. For our kings, yea, even they which
with greatest reverence did follow and obey the authority and faith of the bishops of Rome, have long since found and felt well enough the yoke and tyranny of the Pope’s kingdom. For the bishops of Rome took the crown off from the head of our King Henry the Second, and compelled him to put aside all majesty, and like a mere private man to come unto their legate with great submission and humility, so as all his subjects might laugh him to scorn. More than this, they caused bishops and monks, and some part of the nobility, to be in the field against our King John, and set all the people at liberty from their oaths, whereby they ought allegiance to their king; and at last, wickedly and most abominably they bereaved the king, not only of his kingdom, but also of his life. Besides this, they excommunicated and cursed king Henry the Eighth, that most famous prince, and stirred up against him, sometime the Emperor, sometime the French king: and as much as in them was, put in adventure our realm to have been a very prey and spoil. Yet were they but fools and mad, to think that either so mighty a prince could be scared with bugs and rattles; or else, that so noble and great a kingdom might so easily, even at one morsel, be devoured and swallowed up.
And yet, as though all this were too little, they would needs make all the realm tributary to them, and exacted thence yearly most unjust and wrongful taxes. So dear cost us the friendship of the city of Rome. Wherefore, if they have gotten these things of us by extortion, through their fraud and subtle sleights, we see no reason why we may not pluck away the same from them again by lawful ways and just means. And if our kings in that darkness and blindness of former times, gave them these things of their own accord and liberality for religion’s sake, being moved with a certain opinion of their feigned holiness; now when ignorance and error is espied out, may the kings, their successors, take them away again, seeing they have the same authority the kings their ancestors had before. For the gift is void, except it be hallowed by the will of the giver, and that cannot seem a perfect will, which is dimmed and hindered by error.