uperstitis ing fal vickedze db an be standeth, and to make his laws for them to be left tions were man's device God is of For commonly of such traditions followeth the Holiness of transgression (or breaking) of God's command- is commonly ments, and a more devotion in the keeping of such occasion that things, and a greater conscience in breaking of fended. them, than of the commandments of God. As the Scribes and Pharisees so superstitiously and scrupulously kept the Sabbath, that they were offended Matt xii. with Christ because he healed sick men, and with 1+ his Apostles because they, being sore hungry, gathered the ears of corn to eat, upon that day. And, because his disciples washed not their hands Matt. xv. 1-6. so often as the traditions required, the Scribes and Pharisees quarrelled with Christ, saying, Why do thy disciples break the traditions of the seniors? But Christ laid to their charge, that they, for to keep their own traditions, did teach men to break the very commandments of God. For they taught the people such a devotion, that they offered their Matt. xxiii. 16-22. Ilid. 23. goods into the treasure house of the temple, under the pretence of God's honour, leaving their fathers and mothers (to whom they were chiefly bound) Mark vii. 9. unholpen; and so they brake the commandments of God, to keep their own traditions. They esteemed more an oath made by the gold or oblation in the temple than an oath made in the name of God himself or of the temple. They were more studious to pay their tithes of small things than to do the greater things commanded of God, as works of mercy, or to do justice, or to deal sincerely, uprightly, and faithfully with God and man. These, saith Christ, ought to be done, and the other not left undone. And, to be short, they were of so blind judgment, that they stumbled at a straw and leaped over a block: they would, as it were, nicely take a fly out of their cup, and drink down a whole camel. And therefore Christ called them blind guides, warning his disciples from time to time to eschew their doctrine. For, although they seemed to the world to be most perfect men, both in living and teaching, yet was their life but hypocrisy, and their doctrine but sour leaven mingled with superstition, idolatry, and overthwart judgment, setting up the traditions and ordinances of man in the Ibid. 24. stead of God's commandments. THE THIRD PART OF THE SERMON OF GOOD WORKS. THAT all men might rightly judge of good works, it hath been declared in the second part of this Sermon what kind of good works they be that God would I have his people to walk in, namely, such as he hath commanded in his holy Scripture, and not such works as men have studied out of their own brain, of a blind zeal and devotion, without the word of God. And by mistaking the nature of good works man hath most highly displeased God, and hath gone from his will and commandment. So that thus you have heard how much the world, from the beginning until Christ's time, was ever ready to fall from the commandments of God, and to seek other means to honour and serve him after a devotion found out of their own heads, and how they did set up their own traditions as high or above God's commandments. Which hath happened also in our times (the more it is to be lamented) no less than it did among the Jews; and that by the corruption, or at the least by the negligence, of them that chiefly ought to have preferred God's commandments, and to have preserved the pure and heavenly doctrine left by Christ. religions Christian What man, having any judgment or learning joined with a true zeal unto God, doth not see and lament to have entered into Christ's religion such false doctrine, superstition, idolatry, hypocrisy, and other enormities and abuses; so as by little and little, through the sour leaven thereof, the sweet bread of God's holy word hath been much hindered and laid apart? Never had the Jews in their most blindness so many pilgrimages unto images, nor used so much kneeling, kissing, and censing of them as hath been used in our time. Sects and Sects and feigned religions were neither the forty part so among many among the Jews, nor more superstitiously men. and ungodly abused than of late days they have been among us. Which sects and religions had so many hypocritical and feigned works in their state of religion (as they arrogantly named it), that their lamps, as they said, ran always over, able to satisfy, not only for their own sins, but also for all other their benefactors, brothers and sisters of their religion, as most ungodly and craftily they had persuaded the multitude of ignorant people; keeping in divers places as it were marts or markets of merits, being full of their holy reliques, images, shrines, and works of overflowing abundance ready to be sold. And all things which they had were called holy, holy cowls, holy girdles, holy pardoned beads, holy shoes, holy rules, and all full of holiAnd what thing can be more foolish, more ness. The three chief vows of religion. superstitious, or ungodly, than that men, women, and children should wear a frier's coat to deliver them from agues or pestilence, or, when they die or when they be buried, cause it to be cast upon them in hope thereby to be saved? Which superstition, although, thanks be to God, it hath been little used in this realm, yet in divers other realms it hath been and yet is used among many, both learned and unlearned. But, to pass over the innumerable superstitious\ness that hath been in strange apparel, in silence, in dormitory, in cloister, in chapter, in choice of meats and drinks, and in such like things, let us consider what enormities and abuses have been in the three chief principal points, which they called the three essentials (or three chief foundations) of religion, that is to say, obedience, chastity, and wilful poverty. First, under pretence (or colour) of obedience to their father in religion (which obedience they made themselves), they were made free by their rules and canons from the obedience of their natural father and mother, and from the obedience of emperor and king and all temporal power, whom of very duty by God's laws they were bound to obey. And so the profession of their obedience not due was a forsaking of their due obedience. And how their profession of chastity was kept, it is more honesty to pass over in silence, and let the world judge of that which is well known, than with unchaste words by expressing of their unchaste life to offend chaste and godly ears. And as for their wilful poverty, it was such that, when in possessions, jewels, plate, and riches they were equal or above merchants, gentlemen, barons, earls, and dukes, yet by this subtile sophistical term, Proprium in communi, that is to say, Proper in common, they mocked the world, persuading that, notwithstanding all their possessions and riches, yet they kept their vow and were in wilful poverty. But, for all their riches, they might neither help father nor mother, nor other del ther 1st C th ber let & that were indeed very needy and poor, without the licence of their father abbot, prior, or warden. And yet they might take of every man, but they might not give aught to any man, no, not to them whom the laws of God bound them to help. And so through their traditions and rules the laws of God could bear no rule with them; and therefore of them might be most truly said that which Christ spake unto the Pharisees: You break the Matt. xv. 3, commandments of God by your traditions. You honour God with your lips, but your hearts be far from him. And the longer prayers they used by day and by night, under pretence (or colour) of such holiness to get the favour of widows and other simple folks, that they might sing trentals and service for their husbands and friends, and admit (or receive) them into their prayers, the more truly is verified of them the saying of Christ: Woe be to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Matt. xxii. for you devour widows' houses under colour of long prayers: therefore your damnation shall be the greater. Woe be to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you go about by sea and by land to make mo novices and new brethren, and when they be let in or received of your sect you make them the children of hell worse than yourselves be. 14, 15. Honour be to God, who did put light in the heart of his faithful and true minister of most famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, and gave him the knowledge of his word, and an earnest affection to seek his glory, and to put away all such superstitious and pharisaical sects by Antichrist invented and set up against the true word of God and glory of his most blessed Name; as he gave the like spirit unto the most noble and famous princes, Josaphat, Josias, and Ezechias. God grant all us, the Queen's Highness' faithful and true subjects, to feed of the sweet and savoury/ bread of God's own word, and, as Christ com- Matth. xvi. 6, manded, to eschew all our pharisaical and papistical leaven of man's feigned religion. Which, although 12: Luke xii. I. 8. |