corrupted amongst them, yet hold they still a great
number of those things which they received from the Apostles. They have
neither private masses, nor mangled sacraments, nor purgatories, nor
pardons. And as for the titles of high bishops, and those glorious
names, they esteem them so, as whosoever he were that would take upon him
the same, and would be called either universal bishop, or the head of the
universal Church, they make no doubt to call such a one both a passing
proud man, a man that worketh despite against all the other bishops his
brethren, and a plain heretic.

Now, then, since it is manifest, and out of all peradventure, that these
men have fallen from the Greeks of whom they received the Gospel, of whom
they received the faith, the true religion and the Church; what is the
matter, why they will not now be called home again to the same men, as it
were to their originals and first founders? And why be they afraid to
take a pattern of the Apostles' and old fathers' times, as though they
all had been void of understanding? Do these men, ween ye, see more, or
set more by the Church of God than they did who first delivered us these
things?

We truly have renounced that Church, wherein we could neither have the
Word of God sincerely taught, nor the sacraments rightly administered,
nor the Name of God duly called upon: which Church also themselves
confess to be faulty in many points; and wherein was nothing able to stay
any wise man, or one that hath consideration of his own safety. To
conclude, we have forsaken the Church as it is now, not as it was in old
times past, and have so gone from it as Daniel went out of the lions'
den, and the three children out of the furnace: and to say the truth, we
have been cast out by these men (being cursed of them as they used to
say, with book, bell, and candle), rather than have gone away from them
of ourselves.

And we are come to that Church, wherein they themselves cannot deny (if
they will say truly, and as they think in their own conscience) but all
things be governed purely and reverently, and, as much as we possibly
could, very near to the order used in the old times.

Let them compare our churches and theirs together, and they shall see
that themselves have most shamefully gone from the Apostles, and we most
justly have gone from them. For we, following the example of Christ, of
the Apostles, and the Holy fathers, give the people the Holy Communion,
whol