udges cause twelve men to give verdict of the felon's crime,
whereby he shall be judged to be indicted: sessions of deliverance is
much like council; for at sessions of deliverance the judges go among
themselves to council, to determine sentence against the felon: execution-
day is to be compared unto hell-fire; for the Jews had amongst themselves
a place of execution, named "hell-fire:" and surely when a man goeth to
his death, it is the greatest pain in this world. Wherefore you may see
that there are degrees in these our terms, as there be in those terms.
These evil-disposed affections and sensualities in us are always contrary
to the rule of our salvation. What shall we do now or imagine to thrust
down these Turks and to subdue them? It is a great ignominy and shame
for a christian man to be bond and subject unto a Turk: nay, it shall not
be so; we will first cast a trump in their way, and play with them at
cards, who shall have the better. Let us play therefore on this fashion
with this card. Whensoever it shall happen the foul passions and Turks
to rise in our stomachs against our brother or neighbour, either for
unkind words, injuries, or wrongs, which they have done unto us, contrary
unto our mind; straightways let us call unto our remembrance, and speak
this question unto ourselves, "Who art thou?" The answer is, "I am a
christian man." Then further we must say to ourselves, "What requireth
Christ of a christian man?" Now turn up your trump, your heart (hearts
is trump, as I said before), and cast your trump, your heart, on this
card; and upon this card you shall learn what Christ requireth of a
christian man--not to be angry, nor moved to ire against his neighbour,
in mind, countenance, nor other ways, by word or deed. Then take up this
card with your heart, and lay them together: that done, you have won the
game of the Turk, whereby you have defaced and overcome him by true and
lawful play. But, alas for pity! the Rhodes are won and overcome by
these false Turks; the strong castle Faith is decayed, so that I fear it
is almost impossible to win it again.
The great occasion of the loss of this Rhodes is by reason that christian
men do so daily kill their own nation, that the very true number of
Christianity is decayed; which murder and killing one of another is
increased specially two ways, to the utter undoing of Christendom, that
is to say, by example and silence. By example, as thus: when the fat
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