osperity and happiness from Him, whose unspeakable love towards us
went so far, that "he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up
for us?"[5] than to rest in the certain expectation of salvation and
eternal life, when we reflect upon the Father's gift of Christ, in
whom such treasures are hidden? Here they oppose us, and complain
that this certainty of confidence is chargeable with arrogance and
presumption. But as we ought to presume nothing of ourselves, so we
should presume every thing of God; nor are we divested of vain glory
for any other reason than that we may learn to glory in the Lord.
What shall I say more? Review, Sire, all the parts of our cause,
and consider us worse than the most abandoned of mankind, unless you
clearly discover that we thus "both labor and suffer reproach, because
we trust in the living God,"[6] because we believe that "this is life
eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath
sent."[7] For this hope some of us are bound in chains, others are
lashed with scourges, others are carried about as laughing-stocks,
others are outlawed, others are cruelly tortured, others escape by
flight; but we are all reduced to extreme perplexities, execrated
with dreadful curses, cruelly slandered and treated with the greatest
indignities. Now, look at our adversaries, (I speak of the order
of priests, at whose will and directions others carry on these
hostilities against us,) and consider a little with me by what
principles they are actuated. The true religion, which is taught in
the Scriptures, and ought to be universally maintained, they readily
permit both themselves and others to be ignorant of, and to treat with
neglect and contempt. They think it unimportant what any one holds or
denies concerning God and Christ, provided he submits his mind with
an implicit faith (as they call it) to the judgment of the Church.
Nor are they much affected, if the glory of God happens to be violated
with open blasphemies, provided no one lift a finger against the
primacy of the Apostolic See, and the authority of their holy Mother
Church. Why, therefore, do they contend with such extreme bitterness
and cruelty for the mass, purgatory, pilgrimages, and similar trifles,
and deny that any piety can be maintained without a most explicit
faith, so to speak, in these things; whereas they prove none of them
from the word of God? Why, but because their belly is their God, their
kitchen is their religion