indereth me the thing that you yourself may
lightly guess: the losing of the many commodities which I now
have--riches and substance, lands and great possessions of
inheritance, with great rule and authority here in my country. All
of which things the great Turk granteth me to keep still in peace
and have them enhanced, too, if I will forsake the faith of Christ.
Yea, I may say to you, I have a motion secretly made me further, to
keep all this yet better cheap; that is, not to be compelled
utterly to forsake Christ nor all the whole Christian faith, but
only some such parts of it as may not stand with Mahomet's law.
And only granting Mahomet for a true prophet and serving the Turk
truly in his wars against all Christian kings, I shall not be
hindered to praise Christ also, and to call him a good man, and
worship and serve him too.

ANTHONY: Nay, nay, my lord--Christ hath not so great need of your
Lordship as, rather than to lose your service, he would fall at
such covenants with you as to take your service at halves, to serve
him and his enemy both! He hath given you plain warning already by
St. Paul that he will have in your service no parting-fellow: "What
fellowship is there between light and darkness? Between Christ and
Belial?" And he hath also plainly told you himself by his own
mouth, "No man can serve two lords at once." He will have you
believe all that he telleth you, and do all that he biddeth you,
and forbear all that he forbiddeth you, without any manner of
exception. Break one of his commandments, and you break all.
Forsake one point of his faith, and you forsake all, as for any
thanks that you get of him for the rest. And therefore, if you
devise, as it were, indentures between God and you--what you will
do for him and what you will not do, as though he should hold
himself content with such service of yours as you yourself care to
appoint him--if you make, I say, such indentures, you shall seal
both the parts yourself, and you get no agreement thereto from him.

And this I say: Though the Turk would make such an appointment with
you as you speak of, and would, when he had made it, keep
it--whereas he would not, I warrant you, leave you so when he had
once brought you so far forth. But he would, little by little, ere
he left you, make you deny Christ altogether and take Mahomet in
his stead. And so doth he in the beginning, when he will not have
you believe him to be God. For surely, if he were not God