JUVENTUS.
As for those filthy doings[96] I utterly detest them;
I will hear no more of your wicked communication.
HYPOCRISY.
If I may be so bold by your deliberation,
What will you do at a preaching?
JUVENTUS.
Learn some wholesome and godly teaching
Of the true minister of Christ's gospel.
HYPOCRISY.
Tush, what he will say, I know right well;
He will say that God is a good man,[97]
He can make him no better, and say the best he can.
JUVENTUS.
I know that, but what then?
The more that God's Word is preached and taught,
The greater the occasion is to all Christian men
To forsake their sinful livings, both wicked, vile and naught:
And to repent their former evils, which they have wrought,
Trusting by Christ's death to be redeemed:
And he that this doth shall never be deceived.
HYPOCRISY.
Well said, master doctor, well said!
By the mass, we must have you into the pulpit:
I pray you be remembered, and cover your head;
For indeed you have need to keep in your wit:
Ah, sirrah, who would have thought it,
That youth had been such a well-learned man!
Let me see your portous,[98] gentle Sir John!
JUVENTUS.
No, it is not a book for you[99] to look on,
You ought not to jest with God's Testament.
HYPOCRISY.
What, man? I pray you be content;
For I do nothing else, but say my phantasy:
But yet, if you would do after my advisement,
In that matter you should not be so busy;
Was not your father as well-learned as ye?
And if he had said then as you have now done,
I-wis he had been like to make a burn.
JUVENTUS.
It were much better for me than to return
From my faith in Christ and the profession of his word.
HYPOCRISY.
Whether is better a halter or a cord,
I cannot tell, I swear by God's mother:
But I think[100] you will have the one or the other:
Will you lose all your friends' good will,
To continue in that opinion still?
Was there not as well-learned men before as now?
Yea, and better too, I may say to you?
And they taught[101] the younger sort of people
By the elders to take an example:
And if I did not love you, as nature doth me bind,
You should not know so much of my mind.