s and Prophets, who, as we have
said, had no part of their life free from contumelies and slanders, we
know there were certain in times past which said and commonly preached,
that the old ancient Jews (of whom we make no doubt but they were the
worshippers of the only and true God) did worship either a sow, or an
ass, in God's stead, and that all the same religion was nothing else but
a sacrilege, and a plain contempt of all godliness. We know also that
the Son of God, our Saviour Jesu Christ, when He taught the truth, was
counted a juggler and an enchanter, a Samaritan, Beelzebub, a deceiver of
the people, a drunkard, and a glutton. Again, who wotteth not what words
were spoken against St. Paul, the most earnest and vehement preacher and
maintainer of the truth? sometime that he was a seditious and busy man, a
raiser of tumults, a causer of rebellion; sometime again, that he was an
heretic; sometime, that he was mad; sometime, that only upon strife and
stomach he was both a blasphemer of God's law, and a despiser of the
fathers' ordinances. Further, who knoweth not how St. Stephen, after he
had thoroughly and sincerely embraced the truth, and began frankly and
stoutly to preach and set forth the same, as he ought to do, was
immediately called to answer for his life, as one that had wickedly
uttered disdainful and heinous words against the law, against Moses,
against the temple, and against God? Or who is ignorant that in times
past there were some which reproved the Holy Scripts of falsehood, saying
they contained things both contrary and quite one against other; and how
that the Apostles of Christ did severally disagree between themselves,
and that St. Paul did vary from them all? And, not to make rehearsal of
all, for that were an endless labour, who knoweth not after what sort our
fathers were railed upon in times past, which first began to acknowledge
and profess the Name of Christ? how they made private conspiracies,
devised secret counsels against the commonwealth, and that end made early
and privy meetings in the dark, killed young babes, fed themselves with
men's flesh, and, like savage and brute beasts, did drink their blood? in
conclusion, how that, after they had put out the candles, they committed
adultery between themselves, and without regard wrought incest one with
another: that brethren lay with their sisters, sons with their mothers,
without any reverence of nature or kin, without shame without diffe
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