Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066; Middle Ages -- Sources
of a new mould, or rather as instruments of the devil, being even ready
in this state and fashion to stretch out violently their hands (not so
worthy of the holy altars as of the avenging flames of hell) upon
Christ's most holy sacrifices.
§ 68. What do you therefore, O unhappy people! expect from such belly
beasts? (as the apostle calleth them). Shall your manners be amended by
these, who not only do not apply their minds to any goodness, but
according to the upbraiding of the prophet, labour also to deal
wickedly? Shall ye be illuminated with such eyes as are only with
greediness cast on those things that lead headlong to vices (that is to
say), to the gates of hell? Nay truly, if according to the saying of our
Saviour, ye flee not these most ravenous wolves like those of Arabia, or
avoid them as Lot, who ran most speedily from the fiery shower of Sodom
up to the mountains, then, being blind and led by the blind, ye will
both together tumble down into the infernal ditch.
§ 69. But some man perchance will objecting say, that all bishops or all
priests (according to our former exception), are not so wickedly given,
because they are not defiled with the infamy of schism, pride, or
unclean life, which neither we ourselves will deny, but albeit we know
them to be chaste, and virtuous, yet will we briefly answer.
What did it profit the high-priest Hely, that he alone did not violate
the commandments of our Lord, in taking flesh with forks out of the
pots, before the fat was offered unto God, while he was punished with
the same revenge of death wherewith his sons were? What one, I beseech
you, of them, whose manners we have before sufficiently declared, hath
been martyred like Abel, from malicious jealousy of his more acceptable
sacrifice, which with the heavenly fire ascended up into the skies,
since they fear the reproach even of an ordinary word? Which of them
"hath hated the counsel of the malicious, and not sat with the ungodly,"
so that of him as a prophet, the same might be verified which was said
of Enoch, "Enoch walked with God and was not to be found" in the vanity
(forsooth) of the whole world, as then leaving our Lord, and beginning
to halt after idolatry? Which of them, like Noah in the time of the
deluge, hath not admitted into the ark of salvation (which is the
present church) any adversary unto God, that it may be most apparent
that none but innocents or singular penitents, ought to remain in the
house of our Lord? Who is he that offering sacrifice like Melchisedeck,
hath only blessed the conquerors, and them who with the number of three
hundred (which was in the sacrament of the Trinity) delivering the just
man, have overthrown the deadly armies of the five kings, together with
their vanquishing troops, and not coveted the goods of others? Which of
them hath like Abraham, at the commandment of God freely offered his own
son on the altar to be slain, that he might accomplish a precept of
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