our redemption by their pecuniary bribes and sales;
adulterate the gospel by their forced interpretations, and undermining
traditions; and lastly, by their lusts and wickedness grieve the Holy
Spirit, and make their Saviour's wounds to bleed anew.

[Illustration: 324]

Farther, when the Christian church has been all along first planted,
then confirmed, and since established by the blood of her martyrs, as if
Christ her head would be wanting in the same methods still of protecting
her, they invert the order, and propagate their religion now by arms
and violence, which was wont formerly to be done only with patience
and sufferings. And though war be so brutish, as that it becomes beasts
rather than men; so extravagant, that the poets feigned it an effect of
the furies; so licentious, that it stops the course of all justice and
honesty, so desperate, that it is best waged by ruffians and banditti,
and so unchristian, that it is contrary to the express commands of the
gospel; yet maugre all this, peace is too quiet, too inactive, and they
must be engaged in the boisterousness of war. Among which undertaking
popes, you shall have some so old that they can scarce creep, and yet
they will put on a young, brisk resolution, will resolve to stick at
no pains, to spare no cost, nor to waive any inconvenience, so they may
involve laws, religion, peace, and all other concerns, whether sacred or
civil, in unappeasable tumults and distractions. And yet some of their
learned fawning courtiers will interpret this notorious madness for
zeal, and piety, and fortitude, having found out the way how a man may
draw his sword, and sheathe it in his brother's bowels, and yet not
offend against the duty of the second table, whereby we are obliged
to love our neighbours as ourselves. It is yet uncertain whether these
Romish fathers have taken example from, or given precedent to, such
other German bishops, who omitting their ecclesiastical habit, and other
ceremonies, appear openly armed cap-a-pie, like so many champions and
warriors, thinking no doubt that they come short of the duty of their
function, if they die in any other place than the open field, fighting
the battles of the Lord. The inferior clergy, deeming it unmannerly not
to conform to their patrons and diocesans, devoutly tug and fight for
their tithes with syllogisms and arguments, as fiercely as with swords,
sticks, stones, or anything that came next to hand. When they read the
ra