Whereupon my lord answered me, his house was full, he had more than he could well find, and advised me to seek in London, where he said I could not lack a service. And so in London I abode almost a year, and marked the course of the world, and heard our praters (I would say our preachers), how they boasted themselves and their high authority; and beheld the pomp of our prelates, and how busy they were, as they yet are, to set peace and unity in the world (though it be not possible for them that walk in darkness to continue long in peace, for they cannot but either stumble or dash themselves at one thing or another that shall clean unquiet all together) and saw things whereof I defer to speak at this time, and understood at the last not only that there was no room in my lord of London’s palace to translate the New Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all England, as experience doth now openly declare. Under what manner, therefore, should I now submit this book to be corrected and amended of them, which can suffer nothing to be well? Or what protestation should I make in such a matter unto our prelates, those stubborn Nimrods which so mightily fight against God, and resist his Holy Spirit, enforcing with all craft and subtlety to quench the light of the everlasting Testament, promises, and appointment made between God and us? and heaping the fierce wrath of God upon all princes and rulers; mocking them with false feigned names of hypocrisy, and serving their lusts at all points, and dispensing with them even of the very laws of God, of which Christ himself testifieth, Matt. v. “That not so much as one tittle thereof may perish, or be broken.” And of which the prophet saith, Psalm cxviii., “Thou hast commanded thy laws to be kept” _meod_, that is in Hebrew, exceedingly, with all diligence, might, and power; and have made them so mad with their juggling charms, and crafty persuasions, that they think it a full satisfaction for all their wicked lying to torment such as tell them truth, and to burn the word of their soul’s health, and slay whosoever believe thereon. Notwithstanding, yet I submit this book, and all other that I have either made or translated, or shall in time to come, (if it be God’s will that I shall further labour in his harvest,) unto all them that submit themselves unto the word of God, to be corrected of them; yea, and moreover to be disallowed and also burnt, if it seem worthy, when they have examined it with the Hebrew, so that they first put forth of their own translating another that is more correct. (C.) _COVERDALE’S PROLOGUE TO HIS BIBLE OF 1535._