" But how strongly and agreeably to reason these
things be spoken, we are not as yet able to perceive, except perchance
these men have plucked off the wings from the truth; as the Romans in old
time did prune and pinion their goddess Victoria, after they had once
gotten her home, to the end that with the same wings she should never
more be able to flee away from them again. But what if Jeremy tell them,
as is afore rehearsed, that these be lies? What if the same prophet say
in another place that the selfsame men, who ought to be keepers of the
vineyard, have brought to nought and destroyed the Lord's vineyard? How
if Christ say that the same persons, who chiefly ought to have care over
the temple, have made of the Lord's temple a den of thieves? If it be so
that the Church of Rome cannot err, it must needs follow, that the good
luck thereof is far greater than all these men's policy. For such is
their life, their doctrine, and their diligence, that for all them the
Church may not only err, but also utterly be spoiled and perish. No
doubt, if that church may err which hath departed from God's words, from
Christ's commandments, from the Apostles' ordinances, from the primitive
Church's examples, from the old fathers' and councils' orders, and from
their own decrees, and which will be bound within the compass of none,
neither old nor new, nor their own nor other folks', nor man's law nor
God's law, then it is out of all question that the Romish Church hath not
only had power to err, but also that it hath shamefully and most wickedly
erred in very deed.
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