The Obedience of a Christian Man, Part 11
¶Gf miracles and worsheppinge of sayntes.
ANtichriste shall not only come with lyenge signes and disgised with falshed but also with lyenge miracles and wonders / saith Paul in the said place. ij. Thessa. ij.True miracles drawe to christ. Al the true myracles which are of god / are shewed (as I above rehersed) to move vsus to here Gods worde and to stablish our fayth therin and to cō firme the trueth of Gods promises / that we myght with out all doutynge beleve thē ▪ For Gods worde thorow fayth bryngeth the spri…te in to our hertes & also lyfe / as Chiist saith Ihon. vj. the wordes which I speake are sprite & lyfe. The worde also purgeth vsus & clenseth vsus / as Christ saith Iohn. xv. ye are cleane by the meanes of the worde. Paul saith .j. Timoth. ij. One God / one mediator (that is to saye / advocate / intercessor / or an atonemaker) betwene God & mā the mā Christe Iesus which gave hī selfe a raunson for all mē Peter saith of Christ Act. iiij. Nether is there health in any other: nether yet also any other name gevē vntounto mē wherein we must be saved. So now Christ is oure peace oure redēp…iō or raunson for oure synnes / oure righteousnes / satisfaction and all the promyses of God are yee & Amē in him .ij. Cor. j. And we for the greate & infinite love which God hath to vsus in Christ … love him agayne love also his lawes & love one a nother / And ye deades which we hēceforth doo / doo we not to make satisfaction or to obteyne hevē: but to succour oure neyboure to tame the flesh that we maye wax perfecte & stronge mē in christ and to be thankefull to God agayne for his mercy / and to glorifie his name▪
COntrary wise the myracles of Antichrist are done to pull the from ye worde of God ād from belevinge his promyses & frō Christ & to put thy trust in a mā or a ceremony wherein Gods worde is not.False miracles dryve frō ch…iste. As sone as Gods worde is beleved ye fayth spred abrode thē sease ye myracles of god But the myracles of Antichrist / because they are wrought by the devyll / to quench the fayth / growe dayly moare and moare: nether shall cease vntyll the worldes ende amonge them that beleve not Gods worde ād promyses. Seist thou not how God loosed and sende forthe all the devyls in the old worlde amō ge the hethen or gentyls? And how the devyls wrought myracles and spake to them in every image? Even so shall the devyll worke falsheed by one craft or a nother vntyll ye worldes ende amonge them that beleve not Gods worde. For the iudgemente and dā nation of hym that hath no lust to heare the trouth / is to hearelyes and to be stablyshed and groūded therin thorow false myracles / and he that will not se / is worthy to be blynde ād he that byddeth the sprite of God goo from hym is worthy to be without him.
Paul / Peter / & all true Apostles preached Christ only. And the myracles did but cōfirme and stablysh their preachinge and those everlastinge promises and eternall testamente that God had made betwene man & him in Christes bloude / and the miracles did testifie also that they were true servauntes of Christe. Paul preached not hī selfe … he taught not any man to trust in hym or his holynes or in Peter or in any ceremony but in the promyses which God hath sworne only / yee he mightylie resisteth all soch false doctrine both to the Corinthiās / Galathiens / Ephesians and everywhere.He that teacheth to trust in a saynt ys a false prophete. Yf this be true (as it is true and nothinge moare truer) that yf Paul had preached him selve or taught any man to beleve in his holynes or prayer or in any thinge / save in the promyses that God hath made and sworne to geve vsus for Christes sake / he had bene a false prophet … why am not I also a false prophete / yf I teach the to trust in Paul or ī his holynes or prayer / or in any thīge save in Gods worde as Paul did.
Yf Paul were here and loved me (as he loved thē of his tyme to whom he was sent and to whom he was a servaunte to preach Christe / What he shuld praye that prayeth for his neyboure.what good coulde he doo for me or wish me / but preach Christ ād praye to God for me / to open myne herte / to geve me his sprite and to bringe me vntounto the full knowleage of Christ? vntounto which porte or haven / when I am once come / I am as safe as Paul / felow with Paul / ioyn theyre with Paul of all the promyses of God ād Gods trueth beareth my prayer as well as Pauls I also now coulde not but love Paul and wish him good / and praye for him / that God wolde strength him in all his temptations and geve him victory / as he wolde doo for me.The wea…e shuld be taughte and not deceaved. Never the lesse there are many weak / and younge consciences all wayes in the cōgregation which they that have the office to preach ought to teach ād not to disceave them.
The spiritualte praye not that we mighte come to the knowlege of christ.What prayers praye our clergye for vsus which stoppe vsus and exclude vsus from Christ and seke all the meanes possible to kepe vsus from knowleage of Christe. They compell vsus to hyre freres / monkes / nunnes / chanons / and prestes / and to by their abhominable merites / and to hyre the sayntes that are deed to praye for vsus / for the very sayntes have they made hyrclynges also: because that their offeringes come to their profit. What praye all those? that we myght come to the knowleage of Christ / as the postels dyd? Naye verely. For it is a playne case / that all they which enforce to kepe vsus from Christe / praye not that we myght come to the knowlege of Christe. And as for the sayntes (whos prayer was when they were a lyve that we myght be grounded / stablyshed and strenghted in Christ only) yf it were of God that we shulde this wise worship them contrary vntounto their awn doctrine / I dare be bolde to affirme that by the meanes of their prayers we shulde have byn brought longe a goo vntounto the knowlege of God ād Christe agayne / though that these beestes had done their worste to let it. Late vsus therefore set oure hertes at rest in Christ and in Gods promyses / for so I thinke it best / and let vsus take the sayntes for an example only and let vsus doo as they both taught and did.The sa…tes are but an ensample.
Let vsus sett Gods promyses before oure eyes / and desyre him for his mercy and for Christes sake to fulfyll them. And he is as true as ever he was / and will do it … … well as ever he did. for to vsus are … made as well as to them.
Moare over the ende of Gods myracles is good / the ende of these myracles are evyll. For the offeringes which are the cause of the myracles doo but mynister and mayntene vice / Offerynges cause the myracles.synne and all abhomination / and are geven to thē that have to moch so that for very aboundance / they fome out their awn shame and corrupte the whole worlde with the stench of their filthynes
Thereto what so ever is not of fayth is synne / Romanorum. xiiij. Fayth cometh by heringe Gods worde Roma. x. Whē now thou fastest or doest any thinge in the worshepe of any saynte belevinge to come to the favoure of God or to be saved therby yf thou have Gods worde / then is it true fayth and shall save the. Yf thou have not Gods worde / then is it a fals fayth superstitiousnes and ydolatry and damnable synne.
Also in the collectes of the saītes with which we pray God to save vsus thorow the mentes or deservinges off the Sayntes (which sayntes yet were not saved by ther awne deservinges them selves) we saye Per Christum dominum nostrum / that is for christe our lordes sake. We saye save vsus good lorde thorow the sayntes merites for Christes sake. How cā he save vsus thorow the sayntes merites for Christes sake and for his deservinge merites and love? Take an example. A gentill man sayth vntounto me I will do the vttemost of my power for the / for the love which I owe vntounto thy father. Though thou hast never done me pleasure / yet I love thy father well / thy father is my frende ād hath deserved that I doo all that I can for the &c. Here is a testamente and a promyse made vntounto me in the love of my father only. Yf I come to the said gentill man in the name of one of his servaūtes which I never saw never spake with nether have any accoyntaunce at all with & saye: Syr I pray you be good master vntounto me in soch a cause. I have not deserved that yee shulde soo do. Never the lesse I praye you do it for soch a servauntes sake: yee I praye you for the love that you owe to my father do that for me for soch a servauntes sake. Yf I this wyse made my peticion / wolde not men thinke that I come late out of Saynt Patrikes purgatory / and had left my wittes behynde me. This do we. For the testamente and promyses are all made vntounto vsus in Christe. And we desire God to fulfill his promises for the sayntes sake yee that he will for Christes sake do it for the sayntes sake.
They have also marters which never preached Gods worde nether died therfore:All soch marters are the p… pes marters and no… Gods For mart… signifieth a wit… nes …erar: now is he not gods w…ttenes that testifieth not his worde. but for preveleges ād lyberties which they falsly purchesed contrary vntounto Gods ordinaunces Ye and soch sayntes though they be deed / yet robbe now as fast as ever they did nether are lesse covetous now then when they were a lyve. I doute not but that they will make a saynte of my lorde Cardinall after the deeth of vsus that be a lyve and know his iugglinge and crafty conveyaunce and will shrine him gloriously / for his myghtyly defendinge of the right of holy church / excepte we be diligente to leave a cōmemoracion of that Nimroth behind vsus.
The reasons where with they prove their doctrine are but fleshly and as Paul calleth them / The reasons which they make for the worshepīge of sayntes are solved.entysinge wordes of mans wisdome / that is to wete / sophistry and blawlinge argumentes of men with corrupte myndes and destitute of the trouth / whose God ys their bely / vntounto which ydole whosoever offereth not / the same is an herytike / and worthy to be brunte.
The saynte was greate with God when he was a lyve / as it appereth by the myracles which God shewed for hī / he must therfore he greate now say they. This reason appereth wisdome / but is very folyshnes with God ☞For ye myracle was not shewed that thou shulde put thy trust in the sainte / but in the worde which the saynte preached / which worde yf thou belevedest it / wold save y• / as god hath promysed & sworne / & wolde make y• also greate with God / as it did the saynte.
If a man have a mater with a greate man or a kinge / he must goo fyrst vntounto one of his meane servauntes and then hier ād hier tyll he come at the kynge. This enrysynge argumente is but a blinde reason of mans witte It is not lyke in the kyngdyme of the worlde and in the kyngdome of God and christ.
It is not lyke with kynges and God.With kynges for the most parte we have none accoyntaunce nether promise. They be also most comenly mercylesse. Moare over yf they promyse / they are yet men as vncō stante as are other people ād as vntrue. But with god / yf we have belefe / we are acomted and have an open waye in vntounto him by the dore Christ which is never shutt but thorow vnbelefe / nether is there any porter to kepe any mā out. By him saith Poul Ephe. ij. that is to saye / by christe we have an opē waye in vntounto the father. So are ye now no moare straungers and forenars (saith he) but cetysens with the sayntes & of the housholde of God. God hath also made vsus promyses and hath sworne: ye hath made a testamente or a covenaunt and hath bound him selfe ād hath sealed his obligaciō with Christes bloude and confirmed it with myracles. He is also mercyfull ād kynde / and complayneth that we will not come vntounto hī He is myghtye and able to performe that he promiseth. He is true and can not be but true / as he can not be but God. Therfore is it not lyke with the kynge and God.
We be synners saye they / God will not heare vsus. Behold how they fle from god as from a tyraunte mercylesse. Whom a man counteth most mercyfull vntounto him he sonest fleeth. But these teachers dare not come at God. Why? For they are the childern of cayn. Yf the sayntes love whom god hateth / then God and his sayntes are devided. Whē thou prayest to the sayntes / how doo they know / excepte that god / whom thou countest mercylesse / tell them? Yf god be so cruell and so hateth the it is not lykely that he will tell the sayntes that thou prayest vntounto them.
When they saye we be synners:Christ is no synner▪ I answere / that Christ is no synner / save a satisfaction / and an offeringe for synne. Take Christ from the sayntes and what are they? What is Paul without Christ? ys he any thynge save a blasphemer / a persecuter / a murtherer / and a sheder of Christen bloud?
But as sone as he came to christ he was no moare a sīner but a mnister of righteousnes he went / not to Rome to take penaūce apō him / but went and preached vntounto his brethern the same mercy which he had receaved fre / without doinge penaunce or hyringe of sayntes or of monkes or freres. Moare over if it be Gods worde that thou shuld put thy trust in the sayntes merites or prayers / then be bold▪ For Gods worde shall defende the and save the. Yf it be but thine awne reason / then feare. For God commaūdeth by Moyses Deuteronomion. xij. sayenge: what I cō maunde you that observe and doo / and put no thynge to / ner take oughte therfro: yee & Moses warneth straytly in an hundred places that we doo that only which God commaundeth and which semeth good ād righteous in his sighte ād not in oure awne sighte. For nothinge bringeth the wrath of god so sone and so sore on a man / as the ydolatry of his awne imagination.
Last of al thes argumentes are contrary to the argumētes of Christ and of his apostles. Christ disputeth Luke. xj▪ sayēge: yf the sonne axe the father bred / will he geve him a stone? or yf he aske him fysh / wil he geve him a serpēte? and so forth. Yf ye then (sayth he) which are evell can geve good gyftes to youre childerne / how moch rather shall youre hevēly father geve a good sprite vntounto thē that aske him? And a litle before in the same chapter he saith. Yf a man came never s… out of season to his neyboure to borowe bred: even when he is in his chambre and the dore shett / and all his servauntes with him. Never the lesse yet if he contynue knockynge and prayenge / he will ryse and geve him as moch as he neadeth / though not for love / yet to be rydd of him that he maye have rest: As who shuld saye / what will god doo yf a man praye him: seynge that prayer over cometh an evyll man? Aske therfore (sayth he) and it shalbe geven you / seke and ye shall fynde / knocke ād it shalbe opened vntounto you. And Luke. xviij. he putteth forth the parable or similitude of the weked iudge which was overcome with the importune prayer of the wedowe. And cōcludeth sayenge: Heare what the wycked iudge dyd. And shall not God avenge his electe which crie vntounto him nyght and daye? Whether therfore we cōplayne of the intollerable oppressiō & persecuciō yt we sofre / or of ye flesh yt cōbreth ād resisteth ye sprite / God is mercifull to heare vsus ād to helpe vsus. Seist thou not also how Christ cureth many & casteth out devyls out of many vnspoken to / how shall he not helpe / if he be desyred and spoken to?
When the old phareses / whose nature is to dryve synners from Christe / asked Christe why he did eate with publicanes and synners. Christ answered that the whole neaded not the phisicion but the sycke. That is / Christ ys a gyft gevē to synners.he came to have conversacion with synners to heale them▪ He was a gift gevē vntounto synners / & a treasoure to paye their dettes. And Christ sente ye cōplayninge & disdayning phareses to the prophete God loveth mercy.Oseas sayē ge / goo and lerne what this meaneth / I desyre or require mercy and not sacrifice. As who shuld saye / ye phareses love sacrifice ād Ipocrites love offeryngesofferinge for to fede that God your belyes with all / but God commaundeth to be mercyfull. Synners are ever captives and a praye vntounto the phareses and ypocrites / for to offer vntounto their belies / and to bye merytes / pardons and forgevenes of synnes of them And therfore feare they them awaye from Christ with argumentes of their bely wisdome. For he that receaveth forgevenes free of Christe will by no forgevenes of them. I came (saith Christ) to call / not ye rightwes / but the synners vntounto repentaūce. The phareses are righteous & therfore have no parte with Christ / nether neade they. For they are gods thē selfe & savars. But synners yt repēte pertayne to Christ. Yf we repente / Christ hath made satisfaccion for vsus all ready.
God so loved the worlde / that he gave his only sonne / that none that beleve on him shuld peresh / but shuld have everlastinge lyve. For God sente not his sonne in to the worlde / to condemne the worlde / but that the worlde thorow him might be saved. He that beleveth on him shall not be damned / but he that beleveth not he is damned all ready. Iohn. iij.
Paul. Ro. v. saith. Be cause we are iustified thorow fayth / we are at peace with god thorow oure lorde Iesus Christe / yt is / because that God / which can not lye / hath promysed and sworne to be mercyfull vntounto vsus and to forgeve vsus for Christes sake / we beleve and are at peace in our consciences / we runne not hither and thither for pardon / we trust not in this frere ner that monke nether in any thinge save in the worde of God only. As a chyld when his father threatneth him for his faute / hath never rest / tyll he heare the worde of mercy and forgevenes of his fathers mouth agayne / but as sone as he heareth his father saye / goo thy wayes / do me no moare so / I forgeve the this faute / then is his hert at rest / thē is he at peace / then runneth he to no man to make intercession for him. Nether though ther come any false marchaunde sayenge / what wilt thou geve me & I will obtayne pardō of thy father for ye / will he sofre hī selfe to be begiled / no he will not bye of a wily fox that which his father hath gevē him frely.
It foloweth. god setteth out his love yt he hath to vsus / yt is / he maketh it appere / yt mē may perceave love / if they be not moare thē stocke blynde. In as moch saith Paul as while we were yet synners / Christ died for vsus. Moch moare now / saith he (seinge we are iustified by his bloude) shall we be preserved from wrath thorow him. For if whē we were enemyes we were reconsyled to God by the deeth of his sonne: moch moare seinge we are reconsiled / we shalbe preserved by his lyfe. As who shulde saye / yf God loved vsus when we knew him not / moch moare loveth he vsus now we know him. Yf he were mercyfull vntounto vsus while we hated his law / moch moare mercyfull will he be now / seinge we love it and desyre strngth to fulfill it. And in the .viij. he argueth. Yf God spared not his awne sonne but gave him for vsus all / how shall he not with hī geve vsus all thinges also?
Christ prayed Iohn. xvij. not for ye Apostles only / but also for as many as shulde beleve thorow their preachīge and was herd / what so ever we aske in his name ye father geveth vsus Io. xvj. Christe is also as mercifull as ye saītes. Why we come not to Christ.Why goo we not streght waye vntounto hī? Verely because we feale not ye mercy of god nether beleve his trouth. God will at ye lest waye (saye they) heare vsus ye soner for ye sayntes sake. Thē loveth he the saynte better thē Christe & his awne trueth. Heareth he vsus for the sayntes sake? so heareth he vsus not for his mercy. For merites and mercy can not stonde together.
Finally if thou put any trust in thine awne deades or in the deades of any other man of any saynte / thē mynishist thou the trouth mercy and goodnes of God. For yf God loke vntounto thy workes or vntounto the workes of any other man or goodnes of the saynte: thē doeth not he all thinges of pure mercy and of his goodnes & for the truethes sake which he hath sworne in Christ. Now saith Paul in the last to Titus. Not of the righteous deades which we did: but of his mercy saved he vsus.
Oure blynde disputers will saye / yf our god deades iustifie vsus not / yf God loke not on oure good deades nether regard thē ner love vsus ye better for thē what neade we to doo good deades?God loketh on oure good deades. I answere God loketh on our good deades ād loveth them / yet loveth vsus not for their sakes. God loveth vsus fyrst in Christ of his goodnes and mercy / and powreth his sprite in to vsus / and geveth vsus power to do good deades. And because he loveth vsus / he loveth our good deades: yee because he loveth vsus / he forgeveth vsus our evyll deades which we doo of fraylte and not of purpose or for the nonce. Oure good deades do but testyfie only that we are iustified and beloved. For excepte we were beloved and had Gods sprite we coulde nether doo ner yet consent vntounto any good deade. Antychriste turneth the rote… of the tre vp Warde.Antichrist turneth the rotes of the trees vpwarde He maketh the goodnes of God the braunches ād our goodnes the rotes. We must be first good after Antichristes doctrine / and move God and cōpell him to be good agayne for our goodnesses sake: so most Gods goodnes springe out of our goodnes. Naye veryly Gods goodnes is ye rote of all goodnes and our goodnes / if we have any / springeth out of his goodnes.