An account of a disputation at Oxford, anno dom. 1554 with A treatise of…

My dearly Beloved, the time is now come wherein Trial is made of Men which have professed Christ, and would have been counted keepers of his Testimonies; but, weal away! the tenth person persevereth not. The more part do part stakes with the Papists and Protestants, so that they are become mangy Mongrels to the infecting of all the Company ⟨p. 2⟩with them, to their no small peril; for they pretend outwardly Popery, going to Mass with the Papists, and tarrying with them personally at their antichristian and Idolatrous Service; but with their Hearts, say they, and with their Spirits, they serve the Lord: and so by this means they save their Pigs, which they would not lose, I mean their worldly Pelf. So they would please the Protestants, and be counted with them for Gospellers, yea marry would they. But mine own beloved in the Lord, flee from such persons, as from men most perilous and pernicious, both before God and Men, for they are false to both, and true to neither. To the Magistrates, they are clean contrary to God, they are most untrue, giving him but a piece which should have the whole. I would they would tell me who made their Bodies; Did not God as well as their Spirits and Souls? And who keepeth both? Doth not he still? And alas, shall not he have the service of the Body, but it must be given to serve the new-found God of Antichrist his Inventions? Did not Christ buy both our Souls and Bodies? And wherewith; with any less price than with his Precious Blood? Ah wretches then that we be, if we will defile either part with the rose coloured Whore of Babylon her filthy Mass Abominations. It had been better for us never to have been washed, than so to wallow our selves in the filthy puddle of Popery. It had been better never to have known the Truth, than thus to betray it. Surely, surely, let such men fear that their latter end be not worse than the beginning. Their own Conscience now accuseth them before God, (if so be they have any Conscience) that they are but Dissemblers and Hypocrites to God and Man. For all the Cloaks they make, they cannot avoid this, but that their going to the Church and to Mass is of self-love, ⟨p. 3⟩that is, they go thither because they would avoid the Cross; They go thither because they would be out of trouble;

My dearly Beloved, the time is now come wherein Tryal is made of Men which have professed Christ, and would have been counted keepers of his Testimonies; but, weale away! the tenth person persevereth not. The more part do part stakes with the Papists and Protestants, so that they are become mangy Mongrels to the infecting of all the Company