" For these men now, after they have left nothing remaining in
the Church of God that hath any likeness of this Church, yet will they
seem the patrons and valiant maintainers of the Church, very like as
Gracchus amongst the Romans stood in defence of the treasury,
notwithstanding with his prodigality and fond expenses he had utterly
wasted the whole stock of the treasury. And yet was there never anything
so wicked, or so far out of reason, but lightly it might be covered and
defended by the name of the Church. For the wasps also make honey-combs
as well as bees, and wicked men have companies like to the Church of God:
yet, for all that, "they be not straightway the people of God which are
called the people of God; neither be they all Israelites as many as are
come of Israel the father." The Arians, notwithstanding they were
heretics, yet bragged they that they alone were Catholics, calling all
the rest now Ambrosians, now Athanasians, now Johannites. And Nestorius,
as saith Theodoret, for all that he was an heretic, yet covered he
himself [Greek text]: that is, to wit, with a certain cloak and colour of
the true and right faith.
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