Certain comfortable expositions of the constant martyr of Christ, M. John Hooper, Bishop of…Certeine comfortable expositions of the constant martyr of Christ, M. Iohn Hooper, Bishop of…

And in the other part that these shameless tyrants conspire thus against Christ and his people,¹ by lies and falsehood, is declared the filthiness of their conscience: that be so far past shame and honesty, that they care not (so they may obtain their wicked purpose,) how craftily or falsely they lie or calumniate any sayings or doings of God or man. As the devil their father, when God had exalted man into Paradise, he wished him out of it,² and began to work mans destruction,³ with calumniating and false lying upon Gods own word. When God had set up David to reign: Absalom his own son thinking the better to pull his father down, lied falsely upon him to the people, & said, that There was no Judge appointed in Israel to hear causes,⁴ and to end them between man and man. So slandered he his father, ⟨p. 61⟩a man of good justice: and advanced himself, that never knew what justice meant. ⁵The good Prophet Elijah likewise, whom God appointed to warn the people to beware of sin:⁶ king Ahab to disgrace him, lied falsely upon him, and said, that He was the troubler of the common wealth. ⁷So Christ, whom God had elected to save the world from death and damnation: the wicked sort of the world said, He hath saved others, but he cannot save himself. Again,⁸ God sent him to be amongest the troubled to comfort them,⁹ but such as wanted consolation,¹⁰