pleasure or profit, you cannot promote me; nor, if I displease you, ye cannot hurt me, or harm me: for I shall be out of your reach. Now, therefore, if you fear God, and can be content to hear the talk of him, that seeketh nothing at your hands, but to serve God and to do you good: hearken what I say.

I say unto you, as St. Paul saith to the Galatians, I wonder, my Lords, what hath bewitched you, that ye so suddenly are fallen from Christ unto antichrist; from Christ's gospel unto men's traditions; from the Lord, that bought you, unto the bishops now of Rome. I warn you of your peril: be not deceived, except you will be found willingly consenters unto your own death. For if ye think thus; "We are laymen; this is a matter of religion: we follow as we are taught and led; if our teachers and governors teach us and lead us amiss, the fault is in them, they shall bear the blame." My Lords, this is true (I grant you), that both the false teacher and the corrupt governor shall be punished for the death of their subject, whom they have falsely taught and corruptly led; yea, and his blood shall be required at their hands: but yet, nevertheless, shall that subject die the death himself also; that is, he shall also be damned for his own sin; for "if the blind lead the blind," Christ saith, not the leader only, but he saith, "both shall fall into the ditch."

Shall the synagogue and the senate of the Jews (trow ye), which forsook Christ, and consented to his death, therefore be excused, because Annas and Caiaphas, with the Scribes and Pharisees, and their clergy, did teach them amiss? Yea, and also Pilate, their governor, and the emperor's lieutenant, who by his tyranny did without cause put him to death? Forsooth, no, my Lords, no: for notwithstanding that corrupt doctrine, or Pilate washing of his hands,

neither of both shall excuse either that synagogue, or scigniory, or Pilate; but at the Lord's hand, for the effusion of that innocent blood, on the latter day all shall drink of the deadly whip. Ye are witty, and understand what I mean: therefore I will pass over this, and return to tell you, how ye are fallen from Christ to his adversary the Bishop of Rome.

And lest, my Lords, ye may peradventure think thus barely to call the Bishop of Rome Christ's adversary; or (to speak it in plain terms) to call him antichrist; that it is done in mine anguish, and that I do but rage, and as a desperate man do not care what I say, or upon whom I do rail: therefore, that your Lordships may perceive my mind, and thereby understand that I speak the words of truth and sobriety (as St. Paul said unto Festus), be it known. unto your Lordships all, that as concerning the Bishop of Rome, I neither hate the person, nor the place; for I ensure your Lordships (the living Lord beareth me witness, before whom I speak), I do think many a good holy man, many martyrs and saints, have sat and taught in that place Christ's Gospel truly; which therefore justly may be called Apostolici, that is, true disciples of the Apostles, and also that church and congregation of Christians, Apostolic church, yea, and that certain hundred years after the same was first erected and builded upon Christ by the true apostolical doctrine, taught by the mouths of the Apostles themselves.

If you will know how long that was, and how many hundred of years, to be curious in pointing the precise number of years, I will not be too bold; but thus I say, so long and so many hundred years, as that see did truly teach and preach that Gospel and that religion, exercised that power and ordered every thing by those laws and rules, which that see received of the Apostles, and (as Tertullian saith)

the Apostles, of Christ, and Christ, of God: so long (I say) that see might well have been called Peter's and Paul's chair and see, or rather Christ's chair; and the bishop thereof, Apostolicus, or a true dis ciple and successor of the Apostles, and a minister of Christ.

But since the time, that that see hath degenerated from the trade of truth and true religion, the which it received of the Apostles at the beginning, and hath preached another gospel; hath set up another religion, hath exercised another power, and hath taken upon it to order and rule the church of Christ by other strange laws, canons, and rules, than ever it received of the Apostles, or the Apostles, of Christ: which things it doth at this day, and hath continued so doing (alas, alas!) of too long a time: since the time, I say, that the state and condition of that see hath thus been changed, in truth it ought, of duty and of right, to have the names changed, both of the see and of the sitter therein. For understand, my Lords, it was neither for the privilege of the place or person thereof, that that see and bishop thereof were called apostolic; but for the true trade of Christ's religion, which was taught and maintained in that see at the first, and of those godly men. And therefore, as truly and justly as that see then, for that true trade of religion and consanguinity of doctrine with the religion and doctrine of Christ's Apostles, was called apostolic: so, as truly and as justly, for the contrariety of religion and diversity of doctrine from Christ and his Apostles, that see and the bishop thereof, at this day both ought to be called, and are indeed antichristian.

The see is the seat of Satan, and the bishop of the same, that maintaineth the abominations thereof, is antichrist himself indeed. And for the same causes this see at this day is the same, which Saint

John calleth in his Revelation, Babylon, or the whore of Babylon, and spiritually Sodom and Egypt, the mother of fornications and of the abominations upon the earth. And with this whore do spiritually dwell, and lie with her, and commit most abominable 'adultery before God, all those kings and princes, yea, and all nations of the earth, which do consent to her abominations, and use or practise the same : that is (of the innumerable multitude of them, to rehearse some, for example sake), her dispensations, her pardons and pilgrimages, her invocation of saints, her worshipping of images, her false counterfeit religion in her monkery and friarage, her traditions, whereby God's laws are defiled: as her massing and false ministering of God's word and the sacraments of Christ, clean contrary to Christ's word and the Apostles' doctrine: whereof, in particularity, I have touched something before in my talk had with the see of London, and in other treatises more at large, wherein if it shall please God to bring the same to light, it shall appear, I trust, by God's grace, plainly to the man of God, and to him, whose rule in judgment of religion is God's word, that that religion, that rule and order, that doctrine. and faith, which this whore of Babylon and the beast, whereupon she doth sit, maintaineth at this day with all violence of fire and sword, with spoil and banishment, according to Daniel's prophecy; and finally, with all falsehood, deceit, hypocrisy, and all kind of ungodliness, are as clean contrary to God's word, as darkness is unto light, or light unto darkness; white to black, or black to white; or as Belial unto Christ, or Christ unto antichrist himself.

I know, my Lords, and foresaw, when I wrote this, that so many of you, as should see this, my writing, not being before indued with the spirit of grace and the light of God's word; so many, I say,

would at these, my words, lord-like stamp, and spurn, and spit thereat. But sober yourselves with patience, and be still, and know ye, that in my writing of this, my mind was none other but in God (as the living God doth bear me witness), both to do you profit and pleasure. And otherwise, as for your displeasure, by that time this shall come to your knowledge, I trust by God's grace to be in the hands and protection of the Almighty, my heavenly Father, and the living Lord, which is (as St. John saith) the greatest of all. And then I shall not need, I trow, to fear what any lord, no nor what king or prince can do unto me.

My Lords, if in time past ye have been contented to hear me sometimes in matters of religion before the prince in the pulpit, and in the parliament house, and have not seemed to have despised what I have said, when as else, if ye had perceived just occasion, ye might then have suspected in my talk (though it had been reasonable), either desire of worldly gain, or fear of displeasure; how have then your Lordships more cause to hearken to my word, and to hear me patiently, seeing now ye cannot justly think of me (being in this case, appointed to die, and looking daily, when I shall be called to come before the eternal Judge), otherwise, but that I only study to serve my Lord God, and to say that thing, which I am persuaded assuredly by God's word shall and doth please him, and profit all them to whom God shall give grace to hear and believe what I do say. And I do say even that I have said heretofore, both of the see of Rome, and of the bishop thereof: I mean after this their present state at this day, wherein if ye will not believe the ministers of God, and true preachers of his word, verily I denounce unto you in the words of the Lord, except ye do repent betime,