Great Throughts Treasury

"The morality of clean blood ought to be one of the first lessons taught us by our pastors and teachers. The physical is the substratum of the spiritual; and this fact ought to give to the food we eat, and the air we breathe, a transcendent significance."

"All faiths be not one faith, though they be all called with one general name."

"By grace I understand the favor of God, and also the gifts and working of his Spirit in us; as love, kindness, patience, obedience, mercifulness, despising of worldly things, peace, concord, and such like. If after thou hast heard so many masses, matins, and evensongs, and after thou hast received holy bread, holy water, and the bishop?s blessing, or a cardinal?s or the pope?s, if thou wilt be more kind to thy neighbor, and love him better than before; if thou be more obedient unto thy superiors; more merciful, more ready to forgive wrong; done unto thee, more despisest the world, and more athirst after spiritual things; if after that a priest hath taken orders he be less covetous than before; if a wife, after so many and oft pilgrimages, be more chaste, more obedient unto her husband, more kind to her maids and other servants; if gentlemen, knights, lords, and kings and emperors, after they have said so often daily service with their chaplains, know more of Christ than before, and can better skill to rule their tenants, subjects, and realms christianly than before, and be content with their duties; then do such things increase grace. If not, it is a lie. Whether it be so or no, I report me to experience. If they have any other interpretations of justifying or grace, I pray them to teach it me; for I would gladly learn it."

"And thus are we come into this damnable ignorance and fierce wrath of God, through our own deserving; because, when the truth was told us, we had no love thereto. And to declare the full and set wrath of God upon us, our prelates whom we have exalted over us, to whom we have given almost all we had, have persuaded the worldly princes (to whom we have submitted ourselves, and given up our power) to devour up body and soul, and to keep us down in darkness, with violence of sword, and with all falsehood and guile; insomuch that, if any do but lift up his nose to smell after the truth, they swap him in the face with a fire-brand, to singe his smelling; or if he open one of his eyes once to look toward the light of God's word, they blear and daze his sight with their false juggling: so that if it were possible, though he were God's elect, he could not but be kept down, and perish for lack of knowledge of the truth."

"And as the circumcised in the flesh, and not in the heart, have no part in God's good promises; even so they that be baptized in the flesh, and not in heart, have no part in Christ's blood."

"Evangelion (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word and signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man's heart glad and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy."

"Expound the Law truly, and open the veil of Moses, to condemn all flesh, and prove all men sinners, and all deeds under the Law, before mercy has taken away the condemnation thereof, to be sin, and damnable."

"For if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes, or whatsoever names they will?"

"For no man by sprinkling himself with holy water, and with eating holy bread, is more merciful than before, or forgiveth wrong, or becometh at one with his enemy, or is more patient, and less covetous, and so forth; which are the sure tokens of the soul-health."

"He threatened me grievously, and reviled me."

"Here is also to be noted, that the cause of the institution was to be a memorial, to testify that Christ's body was given, and his blood shed for us."

"I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my conscience, nor would do this day, if all that is in earth, whether it be honor, pleasure, or riches, might be given me."

"I defy [defie] the Pope and all his laws [lawes]. If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy who drives the plough to know more of the scriptures than you do."

"I know divers, and divers men know me, which love me as I do them: yet if I should pray them, when I meet them in the street openly, they would abhor me; but if I pray them where they be appointed to meet me secretly, they will hear me and accept my request."

"I defie the Pope and all his lawes. If God spare my life, ere many yeares I wyl cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture, than he doust."

"I had perceived by experience, how that it was impossible to stablish the lay people in any truth, except the scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue, that they might see the process, order, and meaning of the text."

"My overcoat is worn out; my shirts also are worn out. And I ask to be allowed to have a lamp in the evening; it is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark."

"Neither was there any heresy, or diversity of opinion, or disputing about the matter, till the pope had gathered a council to confirm this transubstantiation: wherefore it is most likely that this opinion came up by them of latter days."

"No more doth it hurt to say that the body and blood are not in the sacrament."

"Now faith cometh not of our free-will; but is the gift of God, given us by grace, ere there be any will in our hearts to do the law of God. And why God giveth it not every man, I can give no reckoning of his judgments. But well I know, I never deserved it, nor prepared myself unto it; but ran another way clean contrary in my blindness, and sought not that way; but he sought me, and found me out, and showed it me, and therewith drew me to him. And I bow the knees of my heart unto God night and day, that he will show it all other men; and I suffer all that I can, to be a servant to open their eyes. For well I know they cannot see of themselves, before God hath prevented [that is, to go before - H&F] them with his grace."

"In the old covenants the people were sprinkled with blood of calves without, in their bodies, to bind them to keep the law; else we were bound to just damnation, for the breaking of it."

"I perceived how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth except the Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue"

"If God promise riches, the way thereto is poverty. Whom he loveth, him he chasteneth: whom he exalteth, he casteth, down: whom he saveth, he damneth first. He bringeth no man to heaven, except he send him to hell first. If he promise life, he slayeth first: when he buildeth, he casteth all down first. He is no patcher; he cannot build on another man?s foundation. He will not work until all be past remedy, and brought unto such a case, that men may see, how that his hand, his power, his mercy, his goodness and truth, hath wrought altogether. He will let no man be partaker with him of his praise and glory. His works are wonderful, and contrary unto man?s works."

"Many things there be in the scripture, which have a carnal fulfilling, even there where they be spoken or done; and yet have another spiritual signification, to be fulfilled long after in Christ and his kingdom, and yet never known till the thing be done."

"In the beginning God created heaven and earth."

"Mark this also, if God send thee to the sea, and promise to go with thee, and to bring thee safe to land, he will raise up a tempest against thee, to prove whether thou wilt abide by his word, and that thou mayest feel thy faith, and perceive his goodness. For if it were always fair weather, and thou never brought into such jeopardy, whence his mercy only delivered thee, thy faith should be but a presumption, and thou shouldest be ever unthankful to God and merciless unto thy neighbor."

"Now there is no other division or heresy in the world save man's wisdom, and when man's foolish wisdom interpreteth the scripture. Man's wisdom scattereth, divideth, and maketh sects; while the wisdom of one is that a white coat is best to serve God in, and another saith a black, and another a gray, another a blue; and while one saith that God will hear your prayer in this place, another saith in that place; and while one saith this place is holier, and another that place is holier; one religion and this religion is holier than that; and this saint is greater with God than that; and an hundred thousand like things. Man's wisdom is plain idolatry: neither is there any other idolatry than to imagine of God after man's wisdom. God is not man's imagination; but that only which he saith of himself. God is nothing but his law and his promises; that is to say, that which he biddeth thee to do, and that which he biddeth thee believe and hope."

"Take heed, therefore, wicked prelates, blind leaders of the blind; indurate and obstinate hypocrites, take heed?. Ye will be the chiefest in Christ's flock, and yet will not keep one jot of the right way of his doctrine ?ye keep thereof almost naught at all, but whatsoever soundeth to make of your bellies, to maintain your honour, whether in the Scripture, or in your own traditions, or in the pope's law, that ye compel the lay-people to observe; violently threatening them with your excommunications and curses, that they shall be damned, body and soul, if they keep them not. And if that help you not, then ye murder them mercilessly with the sword of the temporal powers, whom ye have made so blind that they be ready to slay whom ye command, and will not hear his cause examined, nor give him room to answer for himself."

"The Spirit and his fruits wherewith the heart is purified, as faith, hope, love, patience, longsuffering and obedience, could never be seen without outward experience. For if you were not brought sometime into cumbrance [difficulty], when God only could deliver you, you would never see your faith. Yea, except you fought sometime against desperation, hell, death, sin, and the powers of this world for your faith's sake, you would never know true faith from a dream. Except your brother now and then offend you, you could not know whether your love were godly. An unbeliever is not angry until he is hurt and offended: but if you love him that does the evil, then is your love of God. And when you hurt not your neighbors, then you are sure that God's Spirit works in you and that your faith in no dream nor false imagination."

"There is no work better than to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a cobbler, or an apostle, all are one; to wash dishes and to preach are all one, as touching the deed, to please God."

"They will suffer no man to know God's word, but burn it, and make heresy of it: yea, and because the people begin to smell their falsehood, they make it treason to the king, and breaking of the king's peace, to have so much as their Pater Noster in English. And instead of God's law, they bind with their own law: and instead of God's promises, they loose and justify with pardons and ceremonies, which they themselves have imagined for their own profit. ... let any man eat flesh but on a Saturday, or break any other tradition of theirs, and he shall be bound, and not loosed, till he have paid the uttermost farthing, either with shame most vile, or death most cruel. But hate thy neighbour as much as thou wilt, and thou shalt have no rebuke of them; yea, rob him, murder him, and then come to them and welcome."

"Though that at the beginning miracles were shewed through such ceremonies, to move the infidels to believe the word of God, as thou readest how the apostles anointed the sick with oil, and healed them; and Paul sent his pertelet or jerkin to the sick, and healed them also; yet was it not the ceremony that did the miracle, but faith of the preacher and the truth of God, which had promised to confirm and stablish his gospel with such miracles."

"This word church has diverse significations."

"Where no promise of God is, there can be no faith, nor justifying, nor forgiveness of sins: for it is more than madness to look for anything of God, save that he hath promised. How far he hath promised, so far is he bound to them that believe; and further not. To have a faith, therefore, or a trust in anything, where God hath not promised, is plain idolatry, and a worshipping of thine own imagination instead of God. Let us see the pith of a ceremony or two, to judge the rest by. In conjuring of holy water, they pray that whosoever be sprinkled therewith may receive health as well of body as of soul: and likewise in making holy bread, and so forth in the conjurations of other ceremonies. Now we see by daily experience, that half their prayer is unheard. For no man receiveth health of body thereby. No more, of likelihood, do they of soul. Yea, we see also by experience, that no man receiveth health of soul thereby. For no man by sprinkling himself with holy water, and with eating holy bread, is more merciful than before, or forgiveth wrong, or becometh at one with his enemy, or is more patient, and less covetous, and so forth; which are the sure tokens of the soul-health."

"Truly to confess out of the heart that all benefits come of God, even out of the goodness of his mercy and not the deservings of our deeds, is the only sacrifice that pleases God."