ANTHONY: Well, then, if the great Turk give you your goods, can there then in all your life none other take them from you again?
VINCENT: Verily, I suppose not.
ANTHONY: May he not lose this country again unto Christian men, and you, with the taking of this way, fall in the same peril then that you would now eschew?
VINCENT: Forsooth, I think that if he get it once, he will never lose it after again in our days.
ANTHONY: Yes, by God's grace. But yet if he lose it after our day, there goeth your children's inheritance away again! But be it now that he could never lose it; could none take your substance from you then?
VINCENT: No, in good faith, none.
ANTHONY: No, none at all? Not God?
VINCENT: God? Why, yes, perdy. Who doubteth of that?
ANTHONY: Who? Marry, he who doubteth whether there be any God or no. And that there lacketh not some such, the prophet testifieth where he said, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." With the mouth the most foolish will forbear to say it unto other folk, but in the heart they forbear not to say it softly to themselves. And I fear me there be many more such fools than every man would think. And they would not hesitate to say it openly, too, if they forbore it not more for dread or for shame of men than for any fear of God. But now those who are so frantic foolish as to think there were no God, and yet in their words confess him, though (as St. Paul saith) in their deeds they deny him—we shall let them pass till it please God to show himself unto them, either inwardly, in time, by his merciful grace, or else outwardly, but over-late for them, by his terrible judgment.
But unto you, my Lord, since you believe and confess, as a wise man should, that though the Turk keep you his promise in letting you keep your substance, because you do him pleasure in the forsaking of your faith, yet God, whose faith you forsake, and thereby do him displeasure, may so take them from you that the great Turk, with all the power he hath, is not able to keep you them—why will you be so unwise with the loss of your soul to please the great Turk for your goods, since you know well that God whom you displease therewith may take them from you too?