An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations

The reasons & the conclusion, which you make upon these words of David: Praise God all you nations, are so foolish, on the one part, and so filthy and execrable upon the other, that amongest all nations ye ought not only to he mocked, but also to be had in horror and detestation. first you say. If God must be praised amongest all nations, then must gods works be such as all nations may know them and praise them. I answer, even so they are, and such amongest all nations as have the eyes of their minds illuminated by gods holy spirit, do see just cause why that they ought to praise gods wisdom, even in all his works. But you proceed saying there is no nation which at any time shall acknowledge God to be just, for that be punishe•• ma•, for that whereunto he him self did provoke him, and so after the example of the priests of the Philistines, ye ask this question: If God should punish man because he hath a beard, should any glory redound […] God there of, seeing he hath given us beards his self, And so you scoff & jest at us, saying that we be very religious: because we say that none ought to speak so unreverently of gods works. God is witness that I write notwithou• some grief of heart, nether yet that I affirm this, which I am to speak. for privy hatred, which I bear against the person of any ⟨p. 343⟩man. But in gods presence I say, that rather then such horrible blasphemies should have been fostered in my heart, devised in my brain, written by my pen, and pronounced by my mouth and tongue, that rather I would my carcass should have suffered most cruel and vile death. yea and further I say, that better it had been, for you never to have been borne, then thus blasphemously to expose gods great Majesty to opprobrie and mockage. for I appeal to the judgement of the heaven and the earth, and of all creatures in the same contained, if ever that Julian the apostate spake more disdainfully of God, then here you write. But for the instruction of the simple reader, to answer you more reasonably, than your unreverent scoffing deserveth, I say first, that the mind of David was not to teach us what every nation and every particular man amongest the Gentiles shall do,¹ but what was the duty of every nation, every people and every man to do, when gods mercies should be offered unto them.