our workes when they are at the best are of themselues imperfect and when they finde the happiest passage not for themselues but in and for Christs righteousnes are accepted I iudge it a more proper speech to say that in the righteousnes of Christ which is absolutely perfect which is freely bestowed vpon vs and really made ours by faith and from which as from the fountaine of all Gods graces all our owne good workes are properlie saide to spring that therein we serue God truely it being of it self as it wel deserueth merritorious and making our poor endeuours which of themselues deserue nothing most gratiously to be regarded Indeede it is all in all vnto vs reconciling vs to the fauour of our God and inablinge vs to doe that which is acceptable both before God and man for where this righteousnesse is faithfully receiued This righteousnesse through which only we enioy all the blessings of the earth by which onely as I said our best deedes must purchase acceptation and for which only we confidently hope at the last daie to be saued where I saie this righteousnesse is truely apprehended by faith by vertue of the same the heart and all the powers of the whole man are instantly prest so much as in him lies for al godly designs and eagerly bent so far as by grace he is inabled to the execution of any religious office that may tend to the seruice of his Lord and sauiour and to the manifestation of his obedience loue and thankefulnesse to his maiestie for such his vnspeakable mercy towardes him for looke how proper light is to the sunne or heate to fire so proper and so inseparable are good workes vnto that faithe which is so surely founded vpon the mercie of God in this righteousnesse of Christ Iesus No I am so far from renouncing or disclaiming from good works that I will acompany any true or stiled catholick protestant or papist in the world in commendation estimation and approbation of them till they come to be so intollerably prized as to be set in the roome of christes righteousnesse to fulfill the eternall law of God which was Christs office to be held meritorious of saluation which is the due of christs obedience and consequently to be made proportionable with Gods iustice which is onely proper to christs righteousnesse In this degree of magnifieng them I hold it security to leaue them acknoledging my pouerty one waie acording to that rate not able to reach them and knowing my riches another way after such a reckoning not to stand in neede of them for We are poore in our selues but rich in Christ I confesse that to glorifie God by doing good workes is a principall end both of our election creation redemption and sanctification I confesse that workes are necessary for great and waightie respects as besides the honnouring of God which is the chiefe end of all and to be preferred before any respect whatsoeuer to manifest our faith to credit our vocation to expresse our thankefulnesse to benefite our neighbour and to acertaine vs that wee are in the right waie that leadeth to euerlasting happinesse yea so farre fourth necessarie that without them I meane without the workes of the second or at least of the first Table we shall neuer attain vnto saluation Howbeit I dare not thence conclude that those workes are the cause of our saluation but the effects of the cause which is faith in the righteousnesse of christ I confesse that all our good workes shal be rewarded euen to a cup of cold Water yet will not thereby enferre that such reward is extended for the merit either of the person that doth the worke or of the worke how wel done soeuer but frō the meere bounty of our god who dealeth with vs in all things better then of our selues we deserue and for manifestation of his truth who hath gaged his word to that effect and will euer be as good as his promise In a worde I approue good workes I honour the doers of them and admire that grace which by faith enableth men to do them but stil vnderstand them to be the fruites and consequents of faith and in vs to receiue their life and being from the same for I cannot thinke that repentance or charity themselues though both of them steed vs so much in this world the one of them stay with vs in the world to come are sent by the blessed spirit into the heartes or mindes of the faithfull till faith formerly planted there by the same spirit be ready to receiue them For I know they are diuine vertues and no sinnes Howbeit had they being before faith I durst not thinke them so Ro 14 23 because I am commaunded to hold the necessity of this consequent whatsoeuer is not of faith is sinne to be inuincible A legall contrition indeede and humaine effection may goe before but when that contrition becommeth true repentance and that affection is refined into perfect charity Questionlesse it is faith it being the receiuer of the spirit and purifier of the hart by which vnder God is wrought that happy and heauenly metamorphosis BVt to wade no deeper in this bottomlesse Ocean where the pilate himselfe if he take not good heed may quickly sinck ouer head and eares 3. Sect. so infinite are the misteries of our redemption and so many degrees more then infinite the mercies of God in our redemer And because I stand in feare least for the difficulty you conceite not or for the strangenes therof affect not this description which I haue already made of my Religion I will after a plainer sort for your vnderstanding and in a fashion more sutable for our liking draw forth in a word or two that pattern which in the profession of my faith and action of my life till the daies of my pilgramage in this vaile of affliction bee determined I am resolued by the ayde of the blessed spirit precisely to follow and whence as touching the discharge of my duty both towardes God and man I fetch my direction I formerly implyed that this patterne was the written word and so I doe still for the worde of God is a Lanthorne vnto our feete and a light vnto our pathes Psa 119 a Lanthorne to keepe our feete from falling in the race that we are to runne for so greate a Wager and a light to make our pathes though they be narrow and otherwise impossible to be hit yet plain passable vnto vs but an Epitomy onely of this word I wil now propose vnto you which consisteth of the creede the commandements and the lords praier the creed indited by the holy ghost and frō probability penned by the apostles howsoeuer yet composed of their doctrine therfore not vnworthily called their creed The commaundements indited and penned to for ought we knowe by god himselfe and deliuered to his chosen seruant Moses on the Mount Synay and the Lords prayer indicted
their birth immediately vpon the Apostles death but some of them sprang vp two hundred some three hundred some fiue hundred years after some sooner some later and were not al til within this very age euen the memory of men now liuing by your selus consented vnto nor absolutely by your owne vsurped authority concluded vpon Hence may you easily gather your religion being neither sufficiently waranted by authority of Gods word nor generally approued by the ancient fathers of the church how woorthily or vnworthily you stile the same with such confidence the old and catholicke religion I cannot go on with particular examination of euery part of your profession your patience and my leisure being I fear proportionable wil not permit me but do beg your attētion to the consideration of one principal point of doctrine generally taught by your greatest clarks as generally beleeued euen to the simplest amongst you whose stomackes indeed are the best digesters of such misdiet because at the hands of ignorance errour euer findeth her securest entertainment I formerlye in discourse of our Religion affirmed that our whole dependance for our saluation was vpon the free mercy of God through christ Iesus And the righteousnesse of christ without any worke or merit of our owne applyed truely by faith was before God our only iustification contrary to this doctrin you are taught and do beleeue that you shall be saued by your workes or at least that your workes must concur and stand vp with faith in the act of your iustification before God Now to make you see and acknowledge the absurdity and preiudice of this opinion first you shall heare what the Apostle himselfe inspired with the holy spirit and the fathers of the church hauing the same diuine scholmaister though instructed in farre different measure haue thought and deliuered touching the same and then som principal inconueniences that necessarily follow that doctrine pregnant and aparant enough I hope vtterly to deterre you from euer lending a listening eare againe thereunto Titus 3 5 Paule that writ more touching the manner of our iustification then all the rest of the Apostles to make his Scholler Titus and others by him to abandon all hope of being saued by their works telleth him plainely We are saued not by workes of righteousnesse which we haue done but acording to his mercy he saued vs Heere he excludeth workes though they be works of righteousnes though they be our best works and ascribeth all the matter of our saluation meerely to the mercy of God through Iesus christ I am sure there is no worke that you or the holiest of your church whatsoeuer can do that is a better worke more meritorious a worke of purer righteousnesse then the workes of Paule were No they hold in no comparison with his for his workes as yours doe not sprang from a liuely faith which made them so good as they were notwithstanding you see he vtterly renounceth them all how good soeuer and dare you in any sort rest vpon yours in this important matter of iustification The said Apostle laboring to win the Romaines to the same faith readeth them this lecture to the same effect Ro. 6 23 The wages of sinne is death but the guift of God is eternall life through Iesus Christ our sauiour Heere you are plainly told what are the causes of going to hell and comming to heauen The desert of man the cause of damnation but the mercy of God the cause of saluation our sinne doth incur the one for the reward of sinne is death but our best deserts merit not the other for eternal life is meerly the guift of God through Iesus Christ had Paule that learned Apostle in this point approued the doctrine of your church thus questionlesse or to this effect he would haue concluded the reward of sinne is death and the reward of good workes is eternall life but you see hee quite ouerthroweth that opinion leauing vs of our selues to deserue the one but ascribing the other to Gods free guifte in Christ beyond our desert But if neither of these places haue power to remoue you from your former opinion giue me leaue to produce one saying more out of the same authour which I assure my selfe so you ponder it rightly will pierce euen the quickest vayne of your heart if the same as I hope in my sauiour it is not be not vtterly benummed the sufferings saith he of this life are not worthy of the glory to come I conceiue that the workes whereby you hope to merit at Gods hands are the workes of doing and workes of suffering the former more easie and lesse deseruing the latter lesse easie and therefore as you are taught the more meritorious but Paule that knew what it was both to do suffer better then those by whom you are perswaded to place such hie affiance in your workes preacheth vnto you heere another kind of doctrine namely that euen the sufferings of this life your afflictions your deeds of best desert are not worthy of the glory to come And you may be assured that no man that euer fought vnder the banner of Christ Iesus suffered more for his sake or deserued heauen better for his sufferings then he that teacheth you this lesson For he testifieth of himselfe that the sufferings of Christ did abound in him That in labours he was more aboundant then other in ripes aboue measure Co. 11 23 in pryson more plenteously on death oft that of the Iewes fiue tymes he receiued forty stripes saue one that he was thrice beaten with rods once stoned thrice suffered shripwracke that he was night and day in the deepe Sea In iournying often in perils of waters in perils of robbers in perils of his owne nation in perils among the gentiles in perils in the citty in perils in the wildernesse in perils in the Sea in perils amongst false breathren In wearinesse and painefulnesse in watching often In hunger and thirst in fasting often In cold and in nakednesse and beside the thinges that were outward he was combred daiely and had the eare of all the Churches Phi 1 13 And that his bandes in Christ were famous throughout all the iudgement hall and in all other places These are Paules owne wordes of himselfe and his sufferings Now if euer there were such merit in our works sure heere it was if euer the desert of sinfull man could iustly haue challenged such a reward as euerlasting life doubtlesse Paule for these his sufferinges would haue put in with the formost Howbeit you see when he speakes of the glory to come and the proper cause of our attayning vnto eternall saluation he then disclaimeth from al his works from these his sufferings and all and cherefully runs to another refuge euen the righteousnesse of his sauiour christ Iesus wherein there is true merit indeede and wherewith hee knovveth the iustice of God is worthily satisfied and our eternall peace onely procured thus you
see what this holy Apostle of christ Iesus thought touching this poynt of mans meriting And I pray you marke how firmely the learned Fathers of the church cleaue vnto the same doctrine My first place out of Paule was that wee are saued not by c. And Saint Ierom one whom your church highly reuerenceth writeth in this manner Hier lib 1 ad Pelag Then are wee iust when wee confesse our selues to be sinners And our iustice consisteth not of our owne merit but of Gods mercy Heere this holy father in the matter of iustification reiecteth with S. Paule all our owne merit and referreth the same wholly to Gods mercy My second place out of the Apostle was that the Wages of sinne is death but the guift of GOD is eternall life through c. Origene one of the most auncient Fathers of the church in exposition of these very words of Paule saith thus Origen in ep ad Ro ca 4 lib 4 The apostle saith that the wages of sin is death but he added not said likewise the wages of iustice is eternall life but he sayeth eternall life is the gratious guift of God to teach vs that wages which is like to debt and reward is a recompence of pun shment and death and to assigne eternall life to grace onely Thus you heare this reuerent father expoundeth Paule that our wickednes iustly meriteth condemnation but that the ballaunce wanteth waight the other way and that our best deedes merite not saluation which is assigned to grace only and if only to grace then are all our workes absolutely excluded in that busines My last place out of paule was The sufferings c. Answerable to this sayeth Saint Barnard on this manner Now concerning eternal life we know the sufferings of this life are not worthy of the glory to come Barn in Anunt Mariae Serm. 1 no not if one man should suffer all heere this deuout and religious father remoueth all doubt touching the former doctrine by a forcible supposition on this manner Admit that the afflictions and persecutions of Paule of Peter of Iames and all the Apostles that the paine and torments of the Primitiue Church and of those fiue and twenty Byshops which successiuely were martyred for the name of Iesus And that all the tortures and sufferings of all the Saints of God in allages from the death of Abell to the last drop of blood that euer shal be shed vpon the earth for the testimony of the Lords truth were laide vppon one man to beare and that it were possible for him onely to vnder go the paines torments and tortures that they all indured yet were the glorye of eternall life to rich a guerdon for those his sufferinges hee coulde not merite heauen thereby for the infinite iustice of God must haue a greater satisfaction This was the holy fathers censure hereupon No not saith he if one man should suffer all Now let me reason with you by an inuincible and familiar argument if the suffrings of Paule or of anye of these holy martyres whose continuall persecutions and torments were insteed of many deaths vnto them Nay if all their paines tortures and deaths ioyned together would not make vp a desert answearable to the meed of euerlasting glory It must needes followe that your deeds and sufferings which cary no neerer a proportion with the other then your span doth with the spatiousnes of the whole earth can merit no such matter and shall neuer for any desert they are of come home so rewarded No no you must not look for such an inrichment after such a reckoning but rather saye with the same Saint Barnard Serm 1 anunt Mar whom your selues confes to be one of the sweetest queresters in the Lords quier What are all our merits to so great glory The gardens of all the Fathers of the Church are thicke set with these flowers they all of them teach if true vnderstood the selfe same doctrine Thus you heare then what the Scriptures and Fathers haue deliuere touching our iustification how they referre the same wholy to the mercy and grace of God in the righteousnesse of Christ Iesus and shake off our owne merits as hauing no hand in that worke nor worthinesse in that degree to be trusted vnto But fearing least you are made beleeue that the Scriptures as we read them are false and the Fathers as we vse to alledge them but wrested as what will not falshood affirme to discountenance the trueth or error be ashamed to say for her owne shelter I will yet attempt another meane which I assure my selfe will cool and am in good hope vtterly extinguishe that your conceit of merritting and it shal be by making knowne vnto you the wonderfull inconuenience you incurre and the dangerous premunire that your soule runs into by holding your workes in such estimation There are two principall vertues whereby our grations God vouchsafeth to manifest himself to the know ledge of his seruants vpon the earth and wherin it pleaseth his diuine omnipotency to be delighted and they are his mercy and his Iustice There are likewise 2. principall offices which our mercifull Sauiour daigned to vndertake for our sakes whereby the fauour of God which our old notorious pranke had estranged is regaind vnto vs and thorough the blessed means whereof we are not onely become gratious with him in this world but haue assurance of his sight and the happye fruition of eternall felicity in the worlde to come and those are his redeemershippe and mediatorshippe and I pray you what will you thinke of your Religion if the same nay if one branch thereof among twenty as rotten as it selfe if this onely point of attributing merit to your workes in the act of your iustification doeth impaire and manifestly obscure the dignitie of these excellent proprieties of God his mercie and his Iustice and withall disparage and apparantly detract from the Worthynesse of Christ his merite in that his redeemershippe and mediatourshippe if your religion I say be guilty of such heinous treason against the diuine Maiesty will you not then iudge it your securest course to abandon her daungerous fellowship and embrace insteed therof for your comfort true christianity of whome you shall be sure to learne nothing but true faith and true obedience to your heauenly Soueraigne In discouery hereof it is behoouefull for you to conceiue that as the essence of God is infinite and perfect so these proprieties of God his mercy and Iustice because they are essentiall in him must likewise of necessity be perfect and infinite which being graunted doeth not euery opinion that shall intimate defect or insufficiency therein impaire as I saide and manifestly obscure the dignity thereof you cannot denie but it doth neither shall you euer be able substantially to cleere your doctrine of merites from this high and perillous imputation For looke how much you attribute to your owne merits in the purchase of saluation So
debt that you alreadie owe vnto God at whose hands you thinke to merit and of whom you must confesse commeth all saluation Indeede were you a cleere ground with him did you owe him nothing but had condignly requited him for all the pleasures he hath done you and satisfied him for all the trepasses you haue done vnto him Then happily there might be some colour for such an ability in you then were the grossenes of the opinion not all so palbable But being so deepely indebted vnto him I cannot particularize wherein but would haue you conceyue it thus for all that you are for all that you haue receiued that you haue not deserued and for all that you haue not receiued that you haue deserued All this being vpon your score already amounting were it truely told to ten thousand Talents at least euery minute increasing and no means in you to cleere the same how can you think to merit ought of him to whom you stand thus ingaged Is not all and more by much then you are able to doe by the considerations aforesaide due vnto him How then is it possible that the vttermost thinge you can doe when the vttermost is not so much as you are bound to do should be merritorious with him and so merritorious as to purchase of him euerlasting saluation you may assure your selfe were there no other reason but this only of the debt you owe him and cannot pay him that it is impossible The second reason is that your works admit that they sprang from true faith which must giue them vertue worthy them the title of good workes are not properly your owne but Gods and therefore it is impossible you should deserue your saluation by them for can you thinke to merit such a matter at the hands of God for giuing him that which of right belongeth vnto him and for presenting him but with the fruite of his owne vineyard you haue no foundation whereon to ground any such an opinion but Methinkes you take it very strangely that the good workes you do should not be your owne and that without proofe thereof you will not so easily be perswaded thereunto The holy apostle and learned father S Paule and S. Austin shall iustifie the same vnto you Phi 2 13 The one telleth you that it is God not your selfe which worketh in you not the wil onely but both the will and the deede and in another place saith vnto you as though he were angry with you for arrogating any goodnesse vnto your selfe Ro 4 7 Augustine Tract 3 in Ioh. What hast thou that thou hast not receiued The other I meane S. Austin assures you that god crowneth not you but his own gifts or graces which hehath giuen you rewardes not your good workes but his owne good workes in you Seeing then your workes whereby you hope to merit are not properly your owne but belonging vnto God to whom you offer the same you must needs confesse that by this reason likewise it is impossible you should deserue ought at the hand of God much lesse merit according to the doctrine of your church your owne saluation My last reason of impossibility is the disproportion betwixt the vvorke you doe and the reward you hope to acquire for doing the same for if you vvill receiue one thing in lieu of another if your deseruings must gaine you the blessings of eternall life It is necessary that those merits of yours which you bring vnto God be insome sort of equall value or neere in worth to the benifits which you are to receiue from him But do you know what comparison there is betwixt gold drosse the difference betwixt light and darknesse or what proportion there can be betwixt perfection and imperfection such a comparison such difference such and no nearer a proportion there is betwixt the greatest desert of the holyest saint vpon the earth and the least reward if there be a difference of rewardes bestowed vpon the saints in heauen For the ioyes of heauen are as I know you will confesse absolutely perfect insinite and incomprehensible and you must vnderstand that the works of the regenerate such as we call and do best deserue the title of good workes although as they yssued from the pure sountaine of gods grace they bee perfectly cleare vntainted yet passing along through the furred pipes of the corrupted wiland vnderstanding of man they loose some parte of their natiue purity and proceede from him defiled and poluted I may therefore conclude it impossible that the one being so imperfect should merit the other of such infinite perfection Further sayings I might alleadge to the same effect and make those that I haue alledged if neede were by familiar instance more perspicuously to appeare vnto you But that which I haue already said to the point is either sufficient or all that I can deuise to say would be to no purpose I haue proued vnto you that this doctrine of merits taught in your church is against the doctrine established in christes church And by no lesse pregnant reasons then because the apostle flatly condemneth it because the fathers vtterly disclaime frō it because those excellent and infinite proprieties of God his mercy and iustice are therein obscured the holy and blessed offices of christ his redeemership and mediatorship thereby infringed that catholicke doctrine of the holy ghost increasing our faith and renewing vs to newnesse of life through the same in some sort impugned and finally because it is repugnant euen to common sence and reason and standeth not with any possibility I will stirre no further into the errours nor rip vp any more absurdities of your religion But for the present with my earnest and most instant desire importune you without preiudicate opinion without foreconceipting after probabilities my insufficiency to speake substancially to matters of this nature that you wold subdue your selfe to a serious and indifferent consideration of that which I haue said against this one only opinion of your religion Shew your selfe a skilfull artist heerin and like the exquisite Geometrician that by the foote of Hercules was able to deliniate the true shape of his whole body so by this one point onely of mans merit I pray learne iudiciously to obserue what the whole substance is like to be of that which you call your catholicke religion For if this one member as you see the Apostle and fathers haue giuen Iudgement be rotten what soundnesse can you assure your selfe to find in the other parts that make vp the body of your profession if the doctrine of this point be so preiudicial to the mercy and instice of God your maker so detractory from the redeemership and mediatorship of Christ your sauior so repugnant to the office of the holy ghost your sanctifier and finally so impossible What infecting errors nay what soule-bane heresies can the doctrine of all the other points of your religion be free from There is an
for a signe vpon your hand that they may bee as a frontlet beeweene your eies and you shall teach them your children speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the waie and when thou liest downe and when thou risest vp and thou shalt write them vpon the postes of thine house and vpon thy gates This is the commaundement of Gods owne mouth vnto you But alasse how do you performe the same How can you laye his wordes vp in your heart How can you make such a Iewell of them when you neither reade them nor heare them reade vnto you Surely that is the cause of all for as an ancient father saide of the Hereticks valentiniani Ireneus cont valentianos that their ignorance in the Scriptures had brought them to that passe So questionlesse may I conclude that your neglect of the worde which would be a Lanthorne vnto your feete and a light vnto your pathes is the reason that you are thus missed in blindenesse and so seduced with error and superstition And this your ghostly aduersarie is well acquainted with for he knowes that vnlesse you reade or heare the word of God you can neuer as the blessed mother of christ did treasure vp the same in your hart to your eternal inrich ment he knoweth you can hardly beleeue a right with those honest women of Boeriae vnlesse as they did you first receiue the word with readinesse whereby true reliefe is begotteÌ„ yea he knowes by his long experience that where the word is not preached the people for the most part perish and therfore where it is neither preached nor reade nor regarded his kingdome must nedes florish which maketh him so to bestir himselfe by his vnhallowed ministers amongst you so to discountnance the word vnto you and so with their false suggestions to discourage you from the reading of it in calling it with their blasphemous mouthes imperfect doubtfull insufficient but a dead letter and euen like a nose of waxe subiect to any impression and in telling you that by the reading thereof diuers haue become Heretickes howsoeuer yet that it is impossible by such as your selfe to be conceiued But beleeue them not no more then you would beleeue their maister the father of lyes euen falshood it selfe if you saw it vnmasked For you may be assured that the word of God is perfect pure vndefiled and that albeit some places in the scripturs be obscure yet generally they giue vnderstanding to the simple and are as Iraeneus saith Plaine without doubtfulnesse Iraeneus lib. 1. cap 31 Gregorius â—â—epist id Leandâ—uÌ„ and may be heard indifferently of all men Therein is milke and proper nutriment euen for the tendrest babe that euer lay in the lap of the church It is a water saith Gregory wherin the little lambe such as your selfe may wade and the mighty Elephant meaning the learned ones may swim which Saint Augustine likewise affirmed saying that almighty God in the scriptures speaketh as a familiar friende without dissimulation Augustine Epist 3. ad VolusianuÌ„ not to the learned only but both to the learned and vnlearned And with these holy fathers of the church the rest generally accorde herein inuiting by their strongest perswasions all sorts of people the ignorant with the wise the learned and vnlearned together to repaire hether for their instruction and from hence as touching the discharge of their christian Office both towardes God and manto fetch theyr absolute direction This may giue you occasion to woonder what your Priestes meane so perimptorily to interdict you the vse of the holy scriptures when the learned Fathers whom notwithstanding they will impudently challenge to be wholly theirs were neuer heard in that tune but euer taught the contrary the reason heereof is easily gathered they know that the worde of God being absolutely trueth must needes were you acquainted with it discouer their falshoode vnto you They knowe that the nature of it being to giue light it would quickly expell that Caemerian darkenes wherewith your sence is so inveloped and by meanes whereof they lead you blindfolded into their denne of I dolatrie and abhomination at their pleasure they know that then you woulde soone perceiue their Iuggling and that thereby you would plainly discerne them in their propper colours Let them pretende therefore what they will but this chiefely is the cause Tertullian in libro de Trinit chrisostom in opere imperfectio Ho 14 for as Tertullian saith The sacred scriptures doe conuince and discouer the guiles of Haeretickes which Chrisostome likewise obserued when he saide Hereticke priestes shut fast the gates of the truth meaning they conceale the worde of God from the people Because they knowe that if the trueth appeare they must of necessity forsake their church I aduise therefore to forsake their Counsell herein and will propose vnto you for an excellent paterne of imitation those godly Sisters in christ which accompanied that Religious Paule at Bethlem Hierom in Epitaph Paulae who by the testimony of Hierome accounted it vnlawfull to to be ignorant in the Psalmes and spent not one day without learning something out of the Scriptures And that vertuous Gorgonia whome her brother the good Nazianze in his Funerall oration ouer her commendeth for being expert both in the olde and new testament let these holy virgins and blessed handmaids of Christ be your president go hand in hand with them as will best become you and most redound to your aduantage vnto this sacred Fountaine of Gods word this holy well indeed insteed of your extraordinarie vnsanctified Sai Winifreds For hereof you may drink your sill and haue your thirst quenched heerewith you may wash your selfe and haue your leprosie clensed herin your soul for that is the proper vertue of it may find an heauenly solace and be conuerted Forsake I say their doctrine herein Nay forsake and abandon both theÌ„ their doctrin them as no ministers of christ their doctrine as meere Antichristian Forthe Ministers of christ deliuer with Paule no other doctrine saue that which they haue receiued of christ but they teach you the quite contrary as in forbidding you to read the scriptures when christ commaundeth you to reade them Search the scriptures sayeth christ Io. 5 3 9 serch them not say they They tel you that the reading of them would driue you into errour Mar. xii 29 But christ telleth you that your error groweth because you read them not Is not heere a plain opposition betwixt christ and them his doctrine and theirs What reckoning then should you make of them The Apostle teleth you that if a very Angell should come from heauen and preach vnto you such doctrin as this so different from that which he and the other apostles haue preached you should be so far from beleeuing him as rather to hold him accursed Surely these fellows are such as our carefull and louing shephearde giueth vs that