let them hear Bernard their own friend. "The
bishops," saith he, "who now have the charge of God's Church, are not
teachers, but deceivers: they are not feeders, but beguilers: they are
not prelates, but Pilates." These words spake Bernard of that bishop who
named himself the highest bishop of all, and of the other bishops
likewise which then had the place of government. Bernard was no
Lutheran: Bernard was no heretic. He had not forsaken the Catholic
Church: yet nevertheless he did not let to call the bishops that then
were, deceivers, beguilers, and Pilates. Now when the people was openly
deceived, and Christian men's eyes were craftily bleared, and when Pilate
sat in judgment-place, and condemned Christ and Christ's members to sword
and fire, O good Lord, in what case was Christ's Church then? But yet
tell me, of so many and so gross errors, what one have these men at any
time reformed? or what fault have they once acknowledged and confessed?

But, forsomuch as these men avouch the universal possession of the
Catholic Church to be their own, and call us heretics, because we agree
not in judgment with them, let us know, I beseech you, what proper mark
and badge hath that Church of theirs, whereby it may be known to be the
Church of God. I wiss it is not so hard a matter to find out God's
Church, if a man will seek it earnestly and diligently. For the Church
of God is set upon a high and glittering place, in the top of a hill, and
built upon the "foundation of the Apostles and Prophets:" "There," saith
Augustine, "let us seek the Church; there let us try our matters." "And,"
as he saith again in another place, "the Church must be showed out of the
holy and canonical Scriptures: and that which cannot be showed out of
them is not the Church." Yet, for all this, I wot not how, whether it be
for fear, or for conscience, or despair of victory, these men alway abhor
and fly the Word of God, even as the thief flieth the gallows. And no
wonder truly. For, like as men say, the cantharus by-and-bye perisheth
and dieth as soon as it is laid in balm: notwithstanding balm be
otherwise a most sweet-smelling ointment; even so these men well see
their own matter is damned and destroyed in the Word of God, as if it
were in poison.

Therefore the Holy Scriptures, which our Saviour Jesus Christ did not
only use for authority in all His speech, but did also at last seal up
the same with His own blood, these men, to the intent