An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations

Otherwise,¹ and more sharply I might have answered your ignorance, who can see no difference betwixt Adam once sinning, and yet shortly after by grace called to a new, and more sure league with God (which with all gladness and thankfulness he did receive) and the manifest contemners of God, which do nothing else, but delight in sin. form the which albeit, that ten thousand times they be called, yet contemning all society with God, their pleasure is, to remain in vanity, and so finally in death. This difference, I say ye ought to have observed, and then I doubt not, but that ye would have exempted Adam, from the rank of such as contemptuously cry, it is but labour lost to serve God. If diligently ye shall consider what is written in Job,² and in Malachi the third cha. ye shall easily understand that the prophet there divideth the hole multitude, in these two sorts of men, to wit, in those that be proud obstinate contemners, and in them that feared the Lord, whom he calleth his peculiar people, whom he promised to spare, as a man spareth his son that serveth him. And one of this last sort understand we Adam to have been all his days, after his fall, and reconciliation by grace. The lord purge your hearts (if his good pleasure be) from that venom, which so oft moveth you to spew forth your own shame, sometimes crying: that we be led with the spirit of Balaam: and now affirming▪ that we be careless libertines. To which blasphemies because I can nether answer without the sorrow & grief of heart, nether without some ⟨p. 228⟩offence of godly ears, I will remit judgement to him, to whom as he hath from the beginning, opened things that for a time lay hid in darkness, so I doubt not, but that he will, yea and that shortly reveal unto the world with what spirits both you and we be led. when more occasion shall be offered, I purpose, if so it please the mercy of my God to assist me, to notify with what spirits you and your sect have been led here to fore.

Otherwies,¹ and more sharply I might haue answered your ignorance, who can se no difference betwext Adam once sinning, and yet shortly after by grace called to a new, and more sure league with God (whiche with all gladnes and thankfulnes he did receaue) and the manifest contemners of God, which do nothing els, but delyte in sinne. forme the whiche albeit, that ten thousand tymes they be called, yet contemning all societie with God, their pleasure is, to remaine in vanitie, and so finally in death. This difference, I say ye oght to haue obserued, and then I doute not, but that ye wold haue exempted Adam, from the rancke of suche as contempteously crie, it is but labor lost to serue God. If diligently ye shall consider what is writen in Iob,