ture,” were both in the right. For I believe there was never such another cheat in the world, and I wonder that the Kings and States of Christendom never perceived it.
A. It is manifest they did perceive it. How else durst they make war, *as they have done*, against the Pope, and some of them take him out of Rome itself and carry him away prisoner? But if they would have freed themselves from his tyranny, they should have agreed together, and made themselves every one, as Henry VIII. did, head of the Church within their own respective dominions. But not agreeing, they let his power continue, every one hoping to make use of it, when there should be cause, against his neighbour.
B. Now, as to that other distemper by Presbyterians, how came their power to be so great, being of themselves, for the most part, but so many poor scholars?
A. This controversy between the Papist and the Reformed Churches could not choose but make every man, to the best of his power, examine by the Scriptures, which of them was in the right; and to that end they were translated into vulgar languages; whereas before, the translation of them was not allowed, nor any man to read them but such as had express license so to do. For the Pope did concerning the Scriptures the same that Moses did concerning Mount Sinai. Moses suffered no man to go up to it to hear God speak or gaze upon him, but such as he himself took with him; and the Pope suffered none to speak with God in the Scriptures, that had not some part of the Pope’s spirit in him, for which he might be trusted.
B. Certainly Moses did therein very wisely, and according to God’s own commandment.
A. No doubt of it, and the event itself hath made it appear so. For after the Bible was translated into English, every man, nay, every boy and wench, that could read English, thought they spoke with God Almighty, and understood what he said, when by a certain number of chapters a day they had read the Scriptures once or twice over. *And so* the reverence and obedience due to the
