pass them over.

There remain the sayings of the heretics concerning life and
morals, the noxious goblets which Luther has vomited on his
pages, that out of the filthy hovel of his one breast he might
breathe pestilence upon his readers. Listen patiently, and blush,
and pardon me the recital. If the wife will not, or cannot, let
the handmaid come (_Serm. de matrimon._); seeing that commerce
with a wife is as necessary to every man as food, drink, and
sleep. Matrimony is much more excellent than virginity. Christ
and Paul dissuaded men from virginity (_Liber de vot. evangel._).
But perhaps these doctrines are peculiar to Luther. They are not.
They have been lately defended by my friend Chark but miserably
and timidly. Do you wish to hear any more? Certainly. The more
wicked you, are, he says, the nearer you are to grace (_Serm. de.
pisc. Petri_). All good actions are sins, in God's judgment,
mortal sins; in God's mercy, venial. No one thinks evil of his
own will. The Ten Commandments are nothing to Christians. God
cares nought at all about our works. They alone rightly partake
of the Lord's Supper, who bury consciences sad, afflicted,
troubled, confused, erring. Sins are to be confessed, but to
anyone you like; and if he absolves you even in joke, provided
you believe, you are absolved. To read the Hours of the Divine
Office is not the function of priests, but of laymen. Christians
are free from the enactments of men (Luther, _De servo arbitrio,
De captivilate Babylon_).

I think I have stirred up this puddle sufficiently. I now finish.
Nor must you think me unfair for having turned my argument against
Lutherans and Zwinglians indiscriminately. For, remembering their
common parentage, they wish to be brothers and friends to one
another; and they take it as a grave affront, whenever any
distinction is drawn between them in any point but one. I am not
of consequence enough to claim for myself so much as an
undistinguished place among the select theologians who at this day
have declared war on heresies: but this I know, that, puny as I
am, I run no risk while, supported by the grace of Christ, I shall
do battle, with the aid of heaven and earth, against such
fabrications as these, so odious, so tasteless, so stupid.

NINTH REASON

SOPHISM

It is a shrewd saying that a one-eyed man may be king among the
blind. With uneducated people a mock-proof has force which a
school of philosophers dismisses with scorn. Many are