or profitable The praise of Holy Scripture than the Knowledge of Holy Scripture forasmuch as in it is contained God's true Word setting forth his Glory and also Man's Duty The perfection of Holy Scripture The knowledge of Holy Scripture is necessary To whom the knowledge of Holy Scriture is sweet and pleasant Who be enemies to Holy Scripture And there is no Truth nor Doctrine necessary for our Justification and everlasting Salvation but that is or may be drawn out of that Fountain and Well of Truth Therefore as many as be desirous to enter into the Right and Perfect way unto God must apply their Minds to know Holy Scripture without the which they can neither sufficiently know God and his Will neither their Office and Duty And as Drink is pleasant to them that be Drie and Meat to them that be Hungry So is the Reading Hearing Searching and Studying of Holy Scripture to them that be desirous to know God or themselves and to do his Will And their Stomachs only do loath and abhor the Heavenly Knowledge and Food of God's Word that be so drowned in worldly Vanities that they neither favour God nor any Godliness For that is the cause why they desire such Vanities rather than the time knowledge of God As they that are sick of an Ague An apt Similitude declaring of whom the Scripture is abhorred An exhortation unto the diligent reading and searching of the holy Scripture Matth. 4. The Holy Scripture is a sufficient Doctrine for our Salvation What things we may learn in the Holy Scripture whatsoever they eat and drink though it be never so pleasant yet it is as bitter to them as Wormwood not for the bitterness of the Meat but for the corrupt and bitter humor that is in their own Tongue and Mouth Even so is the sweetness of God's Word bitter not of itself but only unto them that have their Minds corrupted with long custom of Sin and love of this World Therefore forsaking the corrupt judgment of fleshly Men which care not but for their Carkass Let us reverently hear and read Holy Scripture which is the Food of the Soul Let us diligently search for the Well of Life in the Books of the New and Old Testament and not run to the stinking Puddles of Mens Traditions devised by Mens Imagination for our Justification and Salvation For in Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do and what to eschew what to believe what to love and what to look for at God's hands at length In these Books we shall find the Father from whom the Son by whom and the Holy Ghost in whom all Things have their Being and Keeping up And these Three Persons to be but One God and One Substance In these Books we may learn to know ourselves how Vile and Miserable we be and also to know God how Good He is of Himself and how He maketh us and all Creatures partakers of His Goodness We may learn also in these Books to know God's Will and Pleasure as much as for this present time is convenient for us to know And as the great Clerk and godly Preacher St. John Chrysostom saith whatsoever is required to the Salvation of Man is fully contained in the Scripture of God He that is Ignorant may there learn and have Knowledge He that is Hard-hearted and an obstinate Sinner shall there find Everlasting Torments prepared of God's Justice to make him afraid and to mollifie or soften him He that is oppressed with Misery in this World shall there find Relief in the promises of Everlasting Life to his great Consolation and Comfort He that is wounded by the Devil unto death shall find there Medicine whereby he may be restored again unto Health If it shall require to teach any Truth or reprove any false Doctrine to rebuke any Vice to commend any Virtue to give good Counsel to Comfort or Exhort or to do any other thing requisite for our Salvation All those things saith St. Chrysostome we may learn plentifully of the Scripture There is saith Fulgentius abundantly enough Holy Scripture ministreth sufficient Doctrine for all Degrees and Ages Matth. 4. Luke 3. John 17. Psal 19. What commodities and Profits the knowledge of Holy Scripture bringeth both for Men to eat and Children to suck There is whatsoever is meet for all Ages and for all Degrees and sorts of Men. These Books therefore ought to be much in our Hands in our Eyes in our Ears in our Mouths but most of all in our Hearts For the Scripture of God is the Heavenly Meat of our Souls the Hearing and Keeping of it maketh us Blessed Sanctifieth us and maketh us Holy it turneth our Souls it is a light Lanthorn to our Feet it is a sure stedfast and everlasting instrument of Salvation it giveth Wisdom to the humble and lowly Hearts it Comforteth maketh Glad Cheereth and Cherisheth our Conscience It is a more excellent Jewel or Treasure than any Gold or precious Stone it is more sweet than Honey or Honey-comb it is called the best part which Mary did choose for it hath in it everlasting Comfort The Words of Holy Scripture be called Words of Everlasting Life For they be God's Instruments ordained for the same purpose They have power to turn through God's Promise and they be effectual through God's assistence Luke 10. John 6. and being received in a faithful Heart they have ever an Heavenly spiritual working in them They are lively quick and mighty in Operation and sharper than any two-edged Sword and enter through Heb. 4. even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and the Spirit of the Joints and the Marrow Christ calleth him a Wise Builder Matth. 7. that Buildeth upon his Word upon his sure and substantial Foundation By this Word of God we shall be judged For the Word that I speak saith Christ John 12. is it that shall judge in the last day He that keepeth the Word of Christ is promised the Love and Favour of God John 14. and that he shall be the Dwelling-place or Temple of the Blessed Trinity This Word whosoever is diligent to Read and in his Heart to Print that he readeth the great affection to the transitory things of this World shall be minished in him and the great desire of Heavenly things that be therein promised of God shall increase in him And there is nothing that so much strengthneth our Faith and Trust in God that so much keepeth up Innocency and Pureness of the Heart and also of outward Godly Life and Conversation as continual Reading and recording of God's Word For that thing which by continual use of Reading of Holy Scripture and diligent searching of the same is deeply Printed and Graven in the Heart at length turneth almost into Nature And moreover the Effect and Virtue of God's Word is to illuminate the Ignorant and to give more light unto them that faithfully and diligently
Superstition and Hypocrisie Their Hearts within being full of Malice Pride Covetousness and all Wickedness Against which Sects and their pretended Holiness Christ cried out more vehemently than he did against any other Persons saying and often rehearsing these words Mat h. â—â— Woe be to you Scribes and Pharises ye Hypocrites for you make clean the vessel without but within ye be full of ravine and filthiness Thou blind Pharisee and Hypocrite first make the inward part clean For notwithstanding all the goodly Traditions and outward shews of good Works devised of their own imagination whereby they appeared to the World most Religious and Holy of all Men yet Christ who saw their Hearts knew that they were inwardly in the sight of God most Unholy most Abominable and farthest from God of all Men. Therefore said he unto them Hypocrites the Prophet Isaiah spake full truly of you when he said This People honour me with their lips Matth. 15. Isaiah 19. but their Heart is far from me They worship me in vain that teach Doctrines and Commandments of men for you leave the Commandments of God to keep your own traditions And though Christ said they worship God in vain Man's Laws may be observed and kept but not as God's Laws that teach doctrines and commandments of Men yet he meant not thereby to overthrow all Mens Commandments for he himself was ever obedient to the Princes and their Laws made for good Order and Governance of the People But he reproved the Laws and Traditions made by the Scribes and Pharises which were not made only for good order of the People as the Civil Laws were but they were set up so high that they were made to be right and pure worshipping of God as they had been equal with God's Laws or above them For many of God's Laws could not be kept but were fain to give place unto them This arrogancy God detested that Man should so advance his Laws to make them equal with God's Laws wherein the true honouring and right worshipping of God standeth and to make his Laws for them to be left off God hath appointed his Laws whereby his pleasure is to be honoured His pleasure is also That all Mens Laws not being contrary unto his Laws shall be obeyed and kept as good and necessary for every Commonweal but not as things wherein principally his Honour resteth And all Civil and Man's Laws either be or should be made to bring Men the better to keep God's Laws that consequently or followingly God should be the better honoured by them Howbeit the Scribes and Pharises were not content that their Laws should be no higher esteemed than other positive and Civil Laws nor would they have them called by the name of other temporal Laws but called them Holy and Godly Traditions Holy Traditions were esteemed as God's Laws and would have them esteemed not only for a right and true worshipping of God as God's Laws be indeed but also for the most high honouring of God to the which the Commandments of God should give place And for this cause did Christ so vehemently speak against them saying Your Traditions which Men esteem so high Holiness of Man's device is commonly occasion that God is offended Matth. 12. be abomination before God For commonly of such Traditions followeth the transgression or breaking of God's Commandments and a more Devotion in keeping of such things and a greater Conscience in breaking of them than of the Commandments of God As the Scribes and Pharises so superstitiously and scrupulously kept the Sabbath that they were offended with Christ because he healed sick Men and with his Apostles because they being sore a hungry gathered the ears of Corn to eat upon that day and because his Disciples washed not their Hands so often as their Traditions required The Scribes and Pharisees quarrelled with Christ Matth. 15. saying Why do thy Disciples break the traditions of the Seigniours 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 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 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 Matth. 23. 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 Hypocrisie and their Doctrine but sower Leaven mingled with Superstition Idolatry and overthwart Judgment setting up the Traditions and Ordinances of Man instead 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 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 Commandments 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 hapned 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 least by the negligence of them that chiefly ought to have preserved the Pure and Heavenly Doctrine left by Christ What Man having any Judgment or Learning joyned with a true Zeal unto God doth not see and lament to have entred into Christ's Religion such false Doctrine Superstition Idolatry Hypocrisie and other enormities and abuses so as by little and little through the sower Leaven thereof the sweet Bread of God's Holy Word hath been much hindred and laid apart
Neither 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 Religions amongst Christian Men. Sects and feigned Religions were neither the fortieth part so many among the Jews nor more superstitiously and ungodlily 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 satisfie not only for their own Sins but also for all other their Benefactors Brothers and Sisters of Religion as most ungodlily 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 Pardons Beads Holy Shooes Holy Rules and all full of Holiness And what thing can be more foolish more superstitious or ungodly than that Men Women and Children should wear a Friers Coat to deliver them from Agues or Pestilence Or when they Dye 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 Superstitiousness 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 The three chief vows of Religion under pretence or colour of Obedience to their Father in Religion which Obedience they made themselves they were made free by their Rule 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 subtil sophistical term Proprium in commune 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 or Mother nor other 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 ought 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 Pharises Matth. 15. You break the 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 Matth. 23. Wo be unto you Scribes and Pharises Hypocrites for you devour Widows houses under colour of long Prayers therefore your damnation shall be the greater Woe be to you Scribes and Pharises Hypocrites for you go about by Sea and by Land to make more 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 Honour be to God who did put light in the Heart of his faithful and true Minister of most famous Memory King Henry the 8th and gave him the knowledge of his Word and an earnest affection to seek his Glory and to put away all such Superstitions 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 King's Highness faithful and true Subjects to feed of the sweet and savory Bread of God's own Word and as Christ commanded to eschew all our Pharisaical and Papistical Leaven of Man's feigned Religion Which although it were before God most abominable and contrary to God's Commandments and Christ's pure Religion yet it was praised to be a most Godly life and highest state of perfection As though a Man might be more Godly and more perfect by keeping the Rules Other Devices and Superstitious Traditions and Professions of Men than by keeping the Holy Commandments of God And briefly to pass over the ungodly and counterfeit Religion let us rehearse some other kinds of Papistical Superstitions and Abuses as of Beads of Lady Psalters and Rosaries of fifteen Oes of St. Bernard's Verses of St. Agathe's Letters of Purgatory of Masses satisfactory of Stations and Jubilees of feigned Reliques of hallowed Beads Bells Bread Water Psalms Candles Fire and such other Of Superstitious Fastings of Fraternities or Brotherhoods of Pardons with such like Merchandise which were so esteemed and abused to the great prejudice of God's Glory and Commandments that they were made most High and most Holy things whereby to attain to the everlasting Life or remission of Sin Yea also vain Inventions unfruitful Ceremonies and ungodly Laws Decrees Decrees and Decretals and Councils of Rome were in such wise advanced that nothing was thought comparable in Authority Wisdom Learning and Godliness unto them So that the Laws of Rome as they said were to be received of all Men as the four Evangelists to the which all Laws of Princes must give place And the Laws of God also partly were left off and less esteemed that the said Laws Decrees and Councils with their Traditions and Ceremonies might be more duly kept and had in greater reverence Thus was the People through ignorance so blinded with the Godly shew and appearance of those things that they thought the keeping of them to be a more Holiness