Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to the Holy Scriptures

alive again, make unclean and clean again, and send to hell and fetch thence again; so mighty is God's word. For if they preached the law of God, they should bind the consciences of sinners with the bonds of the pains of hell, and bring them unto repentance: and then if they preached unto them the mercy that is in Christ, they should loose them and quiet their raging consciences, and certify them of the favour of God, and that their sins be forgiven, in allegories Finally, beware of allegories; for there is not a more andgaii; that handsome or apt thing to beguile witnal than an allegory;

an?ef?fd nor a more subtle and pestilent thing in the world to per suade a false matter, than an allegory. And contrariwise; there is not a better, vehementer, or mightier thing to make a man understand withal, than an allegory. For allegories make a man quick-witted, and print wisdom in him, and make it to abide, where bare words go but in at the one ear, and out at the other. As this, with such like sayings: ' Put salt to all your sacrifices,7 instead of this sentence, 'Do all your deeds with discretion,' greeteth1 and biteth (if it be understood) more than plain words. And when I say, instead of these words, ' Boast not yourself of your good deeds,' ' Eat not the blood nor the fat of your sacrifice;' there is as great difference between them as there is distance deed?00re between heaven and earth. For the life and beauty of all good

God's work- deeds is of God, and we are but the carrion-lean; we are only t££SS£ *^e instrument whereby God worketh only, but the power is them.doth hig: as G°cl created Paul anew, poured his wisdom into him, gave him might, and promised him that his grace should never fail him, &c., and all without deservings, except that murdering the saints, and making them curse and rail on Christ, be meritorious. Now, as it is death to eat the blood or fat of any sacrifice, is it not (think ye) damnable to rob God of his honour, and to glorify myself with his honour?

IN the second and third book they received the law; and Free-wiii and in this fourth they begin to work and to practise. Of which [^0°Je0rf-our practising ye see many good ensamples of unbelief, and what forefathers, free-will doth, when she taketh in hand to keep the law of her own power, without help of faith in the promises of God; how she leaveth her masters' carcases by the way in the wilderness, and bringeth them not into the land of rest. " Why could they not enter in? Because of their unbelief." (Heb. hi.) For had they believed, so had they been under grace, and their old sins had been forgiven them; and power should have been given them to have fulfilled the law thence forth, and they should have been kept from all temptations that had been too strong for them. For it is written, (Johni.) " He gave them power to be the sons of God, through believ- Then cannot ing in his name." Now to be the son of God is to love God children of and his commandments, and to walk in his way, after the en- ^^Their sample of his Son Christ. But these people took upon them gSEuB to work without faith, as thou seest in the xivth of this book, £S?fJesus where they would fight, and also did, without the word of promise; even when they were warned that they should not. And in the xvith again, they would please God with their holy, faithless works, (for where God's word is not, there can be no faith;) but the fire of God consumed their holy works, as it did Nadab and Abihu. (Levit. x.) And from these un believers turn thine eyes unto the Pharisees, which, before the coming of Christ in his flesh, had laid the foundation of free-will after the same ensample: whereon they built holy Faithless works after their own imagination, without faith of the word, so fervently that for the great zeal of them they slew the king of all holy works, and the lord of free-will; which only through his grace maketh the will free, and looseth her from bondage of sin, and giveth her love and lust unto the laws of God, and power to fulfil them. And so through their holy free-wiii ex- works done by the power of free-will, they excluded them- seives.from selves out of the holy rest oi forgiveness ot sins by faith in in Christ. the blood of Christ.

And then look on our hypocrites, which in like manner, following the doctrine of Aristotle, and other heathen pagans, have against all the scripture set up free-will again; unto whose power they ascribe the keeping of the commandments of God. For they have set up wilful poverty of another manner than any is commanded of God: and, the chastity of matrimony utterly defied, they have set up another wilful chastity not required of God, which they swear, vow, and profess to give God, whether he will give it them or no; and compel all their disciples thereunto, saying that it is in the power of every man's free-will to observe it, contrary to Christ and his apostle Paul.

Blasphemy And, the obedience of God and man excluded, they have death. vowed another wilful obedience1, condemned of all the scrip ture; which they will yet give God, whether he will or will not.

o subtle And what is become of their wilful poverty? hath it

JSverty made n0^ r°bbed the whole world, and brought all under them?

SSofail Can there be either king, or emperor, or of whatsoever de gree it be, except he will hold of them, and be sworn unto them to be their servant, to go and come at their lust, and to defend their quarrels, be they false or true? Their wilful poverty hath already eaten up the whole world, and is yet still greedier than ever it was, insomuch that ten worlds more were not enough to satisfy the hunger thereof.

wnfui chas- Moreover, besides daily corrupting of other men's wives wickedness. an(j Open whoredom, unto what abominations, too filthy to be spoken of, hath their voluntary chastity brought them! The papists And as for their wilful obedience, what is it but the dis- dienceis obedience and the defiance both of all the laws of God and man; insomuch that if any prince begin to execute any law of man upon them, they curse him unto the bottom of hell, and proclaim him no right king, and that his lords ought no longer to obey him; and interdict his common people, as they were heathen Turks or Saracens? And if any man preach

them God's law, him they make an heretic and burn him to ashes. And instead of God's law and man's, they have set up one of their own imagination, which they observe with dispensations.

And yet in these works they have so great confidence, that they not only trust to be saved thereby, and to be {^"JJJJ1 not higher in heaven than they that be saved through Christ, Jh but also promise to all other forgiveness of their sins through the merits of the same; wherein they rest, and teach other to chrS"/ rest also, excluding the whole world from the rest of forgive ness of sins through faith in Christ's blood.

And now, seeing that faith only letteth a man in unto rest, Faith oni^ and unbelief excludeth him, what is the cause of this unbelief? *° and Verily, no sin that the world seeth, but a pope-holiness, and a righteousness of their own imagination. As Paul saith, Rom. x. they be ignorant of the righteousness wherewith God justifieth, and have set up a righteousness of their own making, through which they be disobedient unto the righteousness of God. And Christ rebuketh not the Pharisees for gross sins which the world saw, but for those holy deeds which so bleared the eyes of the world, that they were taken as gods; even for long prayers, for fasting, for tithing so diligently that they left not so much as their herbs untithed, for their cleanness in washing before meat, and for washing of cups, dishes, and all manner vessels, for building the prophets' sepulchres, and for keeping the holy day, and for turning the heathen unto the faith, and for giving of alms. For unto The Pharisees such holy deeds they ascribed righteousness, and therefore ^"/^Jj when the righteousness of God was preached unto them they ^fencould not but persecute it, the devil was so strong in them: 11 °f which thing Christ well describeth, (Luke xi.) saying, " That after the devil is cast out, he cometh again, and findeth his house swept, and made gay, and then taketh seven worse than himself and dwelleth therein; and so is the end of that man worse than the beginning." That is, when they be a little cleansed from gross sins which the world seeth, and then made gay in their own sight with the righteousness of tra ditions, then cometh seven, that is to say, the whole power of the devil: for seven with the Hebrews signifieth a multitude without number, and the extremity of a thing, and is a bu*y *«** speech borrowed (I suppose) out of Leviticus, where is so oft mention made of seven. Where I would say, I will punish thee, that all the world shall take an ensample of thee; there the Jew would say, " I will circumcise thee or baptize thee m anVfn the seven times." And so here by seven is meant all the devils ti?iipwuorrdby °f kell, anc^ a^ ^e might and power of the devil. For unto seven times, what further blindness could all the devils in hell bring them, than to make them believe that they were justified through their own good works? For when they once believed that they were purged from their sins, and made righteous through their own holy works, what room was there left for the righteousness that is in Christ's blood-shedding? And therefore when they be fallen into this blindness, they cannot but hate and persecute the light. And the more clear and evicehristafndst dently their deeds be rebuked, the furiouser and maliciouser blind are they, until they break out into open blasphemy and sinning against the Holy Ghost, which is the malicious perse cuting of the clear truth, so manifestly proved that they can not once hish1 against it: as the Pharisees persecuted Christ, o? fhe°phirf- because he rebuked their holy deeds; and when he proved doecstrfnedo?e his doctrine with the scripture and miracles, yet though they dorwpeifagrsee. could not improve him, nor reason against him, they taught that the scripture must have some other meaning, because his interpretation undermined their foundation, and plucked up by the roots the sects which they had planted; and they ascribed also his miracles to the devil. And in like manner, though our hypocrites cannot deny but this is the scripture, yet be cause there can be no other sense gathered thereof, but that overthroweth their buildings, therefore they ever think that it hath some other meaning than as the words sound; and that no man understandeth it, or understood it since the time of the apostles. Or if they think that some that wrote upon it, since the apostles, understood it, they yet think that we, in like manner as we understand not the text itself, so we understand not the meaning of the words of that doctor. The papists For when thou lavest the justifying of holy works, and cSonubtifi" deniest tne justifying of faith, how canst thou understand faith- St Paul, Peter, John, and the Acts of the apostles, or any scripture at all, seeing the justifying of faith is almost all that they intend to prove?

of vows. Finally, concerning vows, whereof thou readest in the xxxth chapter, there may be many questions, whereunto I answer shortly, that we ought to put salt to all our offer ings; that is, we ought to minister knowledge in all our works, and to do nothing whereof we could not give a reason out of God's words. We he now in the day-light, and all the secrets of God, and all his counsel and will is opened unto us; and he that was promised should come and bless us, is come already, and hath shed his blood for us, and hath blessed us with all manner blessings, and hath obtained all grace for us, and in him we have all. Wherefore God henceforth will God accept- receive no more sacrifices of beasts of us, as thou readest, Heb. J^Jf^g^ x. If thou burn unto God the blood or fat of beasts, to ob- °"!Y Je,s.us tain forgiveness of sins thereby, or that God should the better Son> hear thy request, then thou dost wrong unto the blood of Christ, and Christ unto thee is dead in vain. For in him God hath promised not forgiveness of sins only, but also what soever we ask to keep us from sin and temptation withal. And what if thou burn frankincense unto him, what if thou AH holiness burn a candle, what if thou burn thy chastity or virginity Imagination unto him for the same purpose, dost thou not like rebuke ' unto Christ's blood? Moreover, if thou offer gold, silver, or any other good for the same intent, is there any difference? And even so, if thou go in pilgrimage, or fastest, or goest woolward, or sprinkles! thyself with holy water, or else whatso ever deed it is, or observest whatsoever ceremony it be, for like meaning, then it is like abomination. We must therefore bring the salt of the knowledge of God's word with all our sacrifices, or else we shall make no sweet savour unto God thereof.

Thou wilt ask me, Shall I vow nothing at all? Yes, God's commandment, which thou hast vowed in thy baptism. For what intent? Verily, for the love of Christ which hath bought thee with his blood, and made thee son and heir of God with him, that thou shouldest wait on his will and com mandments, and purify thy members according to the same doctrine that hath purified thine heart: for if the knowledge of God's word hath not purified thine heart, so that thou consentest unto the law of God that it is righteous and good, and sorrowest that thy members move thee unto the contrary, so hast thou no part with Christ, For if thou repent not of thy sin, so it Faith followis impossible that thou shouldest believe that Christ had delivered thee from the danger thereof. If thou believe not that Christ hath delivered thee, so is it impossible that thou shouldest love God's commandments. If thou love not the commandments, so is Christ's Spirit not in thee, which is the earnest of forgiveness of sin and of salvation.

For scripture teacheth, first repentance, then faith in faith, and Christ, that for his sake sin is forgiven to them that repent;

elms1?*0 then g°°d works, which are nothing save the commandment of God only. And the commandments are nothing else save the helping of our neighbours at their need, and the taming of our members, that they might be pure also, as the heart is pure through hate of vice and love of virtue, as God's word teacheth us: which works must proceed out of the faith; that HOW our is, I must do them for the love which I have to God for that gLodhfthe great mercy which he hath shewed me in Christ, or else I do them not in the sight of God. And that I faint not in the pain of the slaying of the sin that is in my flesh, mine help is the promise of the assistance of the power of God, and the The work comfort of the reward to come; which reward I ascribe unto but the word, the goodness, mercy, and truth, of the promiser that hath that is to say, -it the promise, chosen me, called me, taught me, and given me the earnest thereof; and not unto the merits of my doings or sufferings:

for all that I do and suffer is but the way to the reward, and not the deserving thereof. As if the king's grace should pro mise me to defend me at home in mine own realm1, yet the way thither is through the sea, wherein I might haply suffer no little trouble. And yet for all that, if I might live in rest when I come thither, I would think, and so would others say,

Anaptsimi- that my pains were well rewarded; which reward and be- rewardof nefit I would not proudly ascribe unto the merits of my pains taken by the way, but unto the goodness, merciful ness, and constant truth of the king's grace whose gift it is, and to whom the praise and thanks thereof belongeth of duty and right. So now a reward is a gift, given freely of the mustbemade g00dness °f the giver, and not of the deservings of the receiver.

tifySgS01" Thus it appeareth, that if I vow, whatsoever it be, for any members! °oi other purpose than to tame my members, and to be an ensam- ofe0urneigh- pie of virtue and edifying unto my neighbour, my sacrifice is they are unsavoury, and clean without salt, and my lamp without oil, and

I one of the foolish virgins, and shall be shut out from the feast of the bridegroom, when I think myself most sure to enter in.

If I vow voluntary poverty, this must be my purpose, that HOW we

1 will be content with a competent living, which comcth *"ful P°- tinto me either by succession of mine elders, or which I get truly with my labour in ministering, and doing service unto the commonwealth, in one office or in another, or in one occupation or other, because that riches and honour shall not corrupt my mind, and draw mine heart from God; and to give an example of virtue and edifying unto other; and that my neighbour may have a living by me as well as I. If I make a cloak of dissimulation of my vow, laying a net of feigned beggary to catch superfluous abundance of riches, and nh0is?netor high degree and authority, and through the estimation of false holiness to feed and maintain my slothful idleness with the sweat, labour, lands, and rents of other men, after the example of our spiritualty, robbing them of their faiths, and God of his honour; turning unto mine hypocrisy that confidence which should be given unto the promises of God only; am I not a wily fox, and a ravening wolf in a lamb's skin, and a painted sepul chre fair without and filthy within? In like manner, though I seek no worldly promotion thereby, yet if I do it to be justi fied therewith, and to get an higher place in heaven; thinking that I do it of my own natural strength, and of the natural power of my free-will, and that every man hath might even so to do, and that they do it not is their fault and negligence, and so, with the proud Pharisee, in comparison of myself despise the sinful publicans; what other thing do I than eat the blood and fat of my sacrifice, devouring that myself which should be oifered unto God alone and his Christ? And °£tr ™5sin shortly, whatsoever a man doth of his natural gifts, of his th.e wisdom natural wit, wisdom, understanding, reason, will, and good in- SoSF0*6* tent, before he be otherwise and clean contrary taught of God's Spirit, and have received other wit, understanding, reason and will, is flesh, worldly, and wrought in abominable blindness; with which a man can but seek himself, his own profit, glory and honour, even in very spiritual matters. As if I were alone in a wilderness, where no man were to seek profit or praise of, yet, if I would seek heaven of God there, I could, of mine own natural gifts, seek it no other ways than for the merits and deservings of my good works, and to enter therein by another way than by the door Christ, which were very theft; for Christ is Lord over all, and whatsoever any man will have of God, he must have it given him freely for-

Christ's sake. Now to have heaven for mine own deserving, is mine own praise, and not Christ's. For I cannot have it by

Desert and favour and grace in -Christ, and by mine own merits also; for contraries, free giving and deserving cannot stand together.

If thou wilt vow of thy goods unto God, thou must put salt unto this sacrifice; that is, thou must minister knowledge 2 Pet. i. in this deed, as Peter teacheth, 2 Pet. i. Thou must put oil of God's word in thy lamp, and do it according to knowledge, if thou wait for the coming of the bridegroom to enter in with him into his rest. But thou perad venture1 wilt hang it about the image, to move men to devotion. Devotion is a fervent love unto God's commandments, and a desire to be with God anc^ w^k his everlasting promises. Now shall the sight of sucn riches as are shewed at St Thomas's shrine, or at Wal- mesanhtonho- smgham2, move a man to love the commandments of God *od' better, and to desire to be loosed from his flesh and to be with God; or shall it not rather make his poor heart sigh, because he hath no such at home, and to wish part of it in another place? The priest shall have it in God's stead. Shall the priest have it? If the priest be bought with Christ's blood, then he is Christ's servant, and not his own; and ought therefore to feed Christ's flock with Christ's doctrine, and to minister Christ's sacraments unto them purely, for very love, and not for filthy lucre's sake, or to be lord over them, as Petcr teacheth, 1 Pet. v., and Paul, Acts xx. Beside this, Christ is ours, and is a gift given us; and we be heirs of

Christ, and of all that is Christ's. Wherefore the priest's doctrine is ours, and we heirs of it; it is the food of our souls. Therefore if he minister it not truly and freelv unto whether did us, without selling, he is a thief and a soul-murderer: and80'0™05" even so is he, if he take upon him to feed us, and have not wherewith. And for a like conclusion, because we also with all that we have be Christ's, therefore is the priest heir with us also of all that we have received of God; whereof inas much as the priest waitcth on the word of God, and is our servant therein, therefore of right we are his debtors, and owe him a sufficient living of our goods, and even thereto a wife of our daughters owe we unto him, if he require her. And Yetthespi- now when we have appointed him a sufficient living, whether jjjjjjw ^ was in tithes, rents, or in yearly wages, he ought to be content stlpend!nding and to require no more, nor yet to receive any more; but to be an ensample of soberness and of despising worldly "things, unto the ensample of his parishioners.

Wilt thou vow to offer unto the poor people? That is £g* pleasant in the sight of God, for they be left here to do our alms upon, in Christ's stead; and they be the right heirs of all our abundance and overplus. Moreover we must have a school to teach God's word in (though it needeth not to be so costly); and therefore it is lawful to vow unto the building or maintenance thereof, and unto the helping of all good works. And we ought to vow to pay custom, toll, rent, and all manner duties, and whatsoever we owe; for that is God's commandment.

If thou wilt vow pilgrimage, thou must put salt thereto HOW thou in like manner, if it shall be accepted: if thou vow to goj""ys°on and visit the poor, or to hear God's word, or whatsoever cdificth thy soul unto love, and good works after knowledge, or whatsoever God commandeth, it is well done, and a sacrifice that savoureth well. Ye will haply say, that ye will go to this or that place, because God hath chosen one place more than another, and will hear your petition more in one place than another. As for your prayer, it must be according to God's word: ye may not desire God to take vengeance on him whom God's word tcacheth you to pity and to pray for. And as for the other Moss, that God will hear you more in one place than in another, I suppose it sal infatuatum, salt Jf^^wS unsavoury; for if it were wisdom, how could we excuse tho Jf^" pl death of Stephen, Acts vii. which died for that article, that God dweiieth God dwelleth not in temples made with hands? "We that bepiesmade lieve in God are the temple of God, saith Paul. If a man with man s r hands. ]ovc QQ^ anc[ keep fog word, he is the temple of God, and hath God presently dwelling in him: as witnesseth Christ

John xiv. xv. John xivth, saying, "If a man love me, he will keep my word, and then my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and dwell with him." And in the xvth he saith,

God regard- "If ye abide in me, and my words also abide in you, then ask

Ld not th" ' what ye will, and ye shall have it." If thou believe in Christ, we pray. and hast the promises which God hath made thee in thine heart, then go on pilgrimage unto thine own heart, and there pray, and God will hear thee for his mercy and truth's sake, and for his Son Christ's sake, and not for a few stones' sake. What careth God for the temple? The very beasts, in that they have life in them, be much better than an heap of stones couched together.

wnfui chas- To speak of chastity: it is a gift not given unto all tity is not meet for a persons to meet for aii persons, as testifieth both Christ and also his apostle Paul;

wherefore all persons may not vow it. Moreover there be causes wherefore many persons may better live chaste at one time than at another. Many may live chaste at twenty and thirty, for certain cold diseases following them, which at forty, when their health is come, cannot do so. Many be occupied with wild fantasies in their youth, that they care not for marriage, which same, when they be waxen sad, shall be greatly desirous. It is a dangerous thing to make sin where none is; and to forswear the benefit of God and to bind thyself under pain of damnation of thy soul, that thou wouldest not use the remedy that God hath created, if need required.

cS?ifyigned Another thing is this: beware that thou get thee not a false feigned chastity, made with the ungodly persuasions of St Jerome1, or of Ovid in his filthy book of the remedy against love; lest, when through such imaginations thou hast utterly despised, defied and abhorred all womankind, thou come into such case through the fierce wrath of God, that thou canst neither live chaste, nor find in thy heart to marry, and so be compelled to fall into the abomination of the pope, against nature and kind.

Moreover, God is a wise father, and knoweth all the infirmities of his children, and also merciful; and therefore j hath created a remedy without sin, and given thereto his Su favour and blessing. Let us not be wiser than God with our imaginations, nor tempt him; for as godly chastity is not every man's gift, even so he that hath it to-day hath not power to continue it at his own pleasure, neither hath God promised to give it him still, and to cure his infirmities with out his natural remedy; no more than he hath promised to slake his hunger without meat, or thirst without drink. Wherefore either let all things bide free as wise2 God hath created them, and neither vow that which God [requireth not, make YOWS nor forswear that which God3] permitteth theo with his favour and blessing also: or else, if thou wilt needs vow, then vow godly and under a condition, that thou wilt continue chaste so long as God givcth thcc that gift, and as long as neither thine own necessity, neither charity toward thy neighbour, nor the authority of them under whose power thou art, drive thee unto the contrary.

The purpose of thy vow must be salted also with the S7™vnjv°0 wisdom of God. Thou mayest not vow to be justified thereby, onr'vows!1 ly or to make satisfaction for thy sins, or to win heaven or an higher place; for then didst thou wrong unto the blood of Christ, and thy vow were plain idolatry and abominable in the sight of God. Thy vow must be only unto the further- HOW avow is ancc of the commandments of God; which arc (as I have said) nothing but the taming of thy members, and the service of thy neighbour: that is, if thou think thy back too weak for the burden of wedlock, and that thou canst not rule thy wife, children, servants, and make provision for them godly, and without overmuch busying and unquieting thyself, and drown ing fhyself in worldly business unchristianly, or that thou canst serve thy neighbour in some office better being chaste