'I will promise for them.' 'What?' asked De Freston. 'That they shall do nothing contrary to the authority of the church.' 'If the church command me to worship the Virgin Mary, the angels, and the host of heaven, I will not do it. If she says I ought to pay respect to pictures at altars, candles and candlesticks, saints and their statues, I will call her idolatrous. If she tells me that the blood of any of her martyrs, male or female, will wash away my sins, I will tell her she lies. 'In a word, my Lord Cardinal, and my Lord Bishop, if you think I would recant the doctrines which Bilney has preached at Ipswich, or elsewhere, you are mistaken. I desire to be tried even by the learned Tonstall, and before thyself; I will answer any question thou dost put.' It is not the intention of these pages to record that long but interesting discussion, which then took place between four as learned men as could be well found in the realm at that day. Pain and grief did it give all parties to see that no mutual bond of union could settle the dispute between them. Tonstall was convinced of the very superior antagonist he had met with in De Freston; and he was made to feel his lash when they talked of the destruction of those who professed to believe in Christ, and strove not to act up to that belief. 'How can the Pope make laws,' said De Freston, 'to burn, or put to the rack, or torture, or destroy any soul professing Christ's religion? 'Come, I will dispute the authority of the Church of Rome in this respect. I will maintain her to be an engine of Satan if she dares to shed any blood whatsoever, especially the blood of believers. 'Show me any authority for her putting any one to death. Did even the Apostles put Ananias and Sapphira to death? They saw that God would visit the wicked, and they told the wicked that it would be so; but they left the visitation for the Almighty's hand, in whose power alone is the life of every living thing.' 'Wouldst thou, then,' replied Tonstall, 'have the murderer live?' 'No: an apostle says, "If I have done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die." The sword of justice is borne by the civil, not the ecclesiastical power; and if an offender against human and divine laws will not hear the voice of the preacher calling him to repentance, if neither private nor public rebuke will convince him of his danger, all the authority of the church cannot go beyond his rejection from their companionship or fellowship. 'They must then leave him to the mercies of the civil law, or criminal jurisprudence of the country he lives in, and God will do with him as he sees best. I deny the power of Rome justly to punish any man whatsoever with death, where his life is one of faith, though that faith may be exercised to overthrow all the superstitions of Rome.' 'Then the church errs in punishing heretics?'