On the 23d of June, the prolocutor appeared with his long list before the upper house of convocation. 'There are certain errors,' he said, 'which cause disturbance in the kingdom,' and then he read the sixty-seven _mala dogmata_. 'They affirm,' he continued, 'that no doctrine must be believed unless it be proved by Holy Scripture; that Christ, having shed his blood, has fully redeemed us, so that now we have only to say, O God, I entreat Thy Majesty to blot out my iniquity.[382] They say that the sacrifice of the mass is nothing but a piece of bread; that auricular confession was invented by the priests to learn the secrets of the heart, and to put money in their purse; that purgatory is a cheat; that what is usually called the Church is merely the old synagogue, and that the true Church is the assembly of the just; that prayer is just as effectual in the open air as in a temple; that priests may marry. And these heresies are not only preached, but are printed in books stamped _cum privilegio_, with privilege, and the ignorant imagine that those words indicate the king's approbation.'[383] The two armies stood face to face, and the scholastic party had no sooner read their lengthy manifesto than the combat began. 'Oh, what tugging was here between these opposite sides,' says honest Fuller.[384] They separated without coming to any decision. Men began to discuss which side they should take: 'Neither one nor the other,' said those who fancied themselves the cleverest. 'When two stout and sturdy travellers meet together and both desire the way, yet neither is willing to fight for it, in their passage they so shove and shoulder one another, that they divide the way between them, and yet neither gets the same.[385] The two parties in convocation ought to do the same: there ought to be neither conquerors nor conquered.' Thus the Church, _the pillar of truth_, was required to admit both black and white—to say Yes and No. 'A medley religion,' exclaims an historian; 'to salve (if not the consciences) at least the credits of both sides.'[386] [Sidenote: ALESIUS IN CONVOCATION.]