An apology, or answer in defence of the Church of England concerning the state…An apologie, or aunswer in defence of the Church of England concerninge the state…

For to pass over, and to speak nothing of the times of the ancient Patriarchs & Prophets, in whose days, as I have said before, there was no season void of slanders and reproaches against the truth. We know that there were certain persons that said and openly pronounced of the ancient Jews, (of whom we doubt not, but they worshipped the only and the true God) that in stead of God they worshipped other a Sow or an Ass:¹ and that all their religion was nothing else but a sacrilege & a contempt of all divine power. We know that the son of God, our saviour Jesus Christ, for teaching of the truth, was taken for an enchanter, for a worker of mischief, for a Samaritan, for Beelzebub, for a deceiver of the people, & for a man that followed his delight in eating and drinking. And who is ignorant of those things that were spoken in time past against that most earnest setter forth & champion of the truth S. Paul: sometime that he was a seditious person, that he gathered soldiers, that he intended uproar: sometimes that he was an Heretic, sometime that he was mad, sometimes that only to make strife and for his pleasure, he blasphemed the law of God, & despised the ordinances of the fathers? Who knoweth ⟨p. 2⟩not how that S. Stephan,² so soon as he had received into the inward bosom of his mind the truth, and had begun freely (according as he was bound) & stoutly to preach it and to profess it, was by & by brought to plead for his life, as though he had wickedly spoken blasphemy against the law, against Moses, against the Temple, & against God? Or who is ignorant that there were men in times paste, which accused the holy Scriptures of lies, saying that they contained things plain contrary and repugnant one to an other: & that the Apostles did dissent every one from an other,³ & Paul from them all? And least it should be to long to rehearse all, for that were infinite:

For to passe ouer, and to speake nothing of the times of ye auncient Patriarkes & Prophets, in whose dayes, as I haue sayde before, there was no season voyde of slaunders and reproches against the truth. We knowe that there were certaine persons that sayde and openly pronounced of ye auncient Iewes, (of whom we doubt not, but they worshypped the onely and the trew God) that in stede of God they worshipped other a Sowe or an Asse: