The Church is the one institution that exists for those outside it.
I will cause a boy who drives a plow to know more of the scriptures than the pope.
I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, that I never altered one syllable of God’s Word against my conscience, nor would do this day, if all that is in earth, whether it be honor, pleasure, or riches, might be given me.
For if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes, or whatsoever names they will?
I perceived how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth except the Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue.
There is no work better than to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a cobbler, or an apostle, all are one; to wash dishes and to preach are all one, as touching the deed, to please God.
Neither was there any heresy, or diversity of opinion, or disputing about the matter, till the pope had gathered a council to confirm this transubstantiation: wherefore it is most likely that this opinion came up by them of latter days.
To see how Christ was prophesied and described therein, consider and mark, how that the kid or lamb must be with out spot or blemish; and so was Christ only of all mankind, in the sight of God and of his law.
For we love not God first, to compel him to love again; but he loved us first, and gave his Son for us, that we might see love and love again, saith St John in his first epistle.
Many things there be in the scripture, which have a carnal fulfilling, even there where they be spoken or done; and yet have another spiritual signification, to be fulfilled long after in Christ and his kingdom, and yet never known till the thing be done.
In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
All that I do and suffer is but the way to the reward, and not the deserving thereof.
The Scriptures sprang out of God.
Be cold, sober, wise, circumspect. Keep yourself low by the ground avoiding high questions. Expound the Law truly and open the veil of Moses to condemn all flesh and prove all men sinners, and set at broach the mercy of our Lord Jesus, and let wounded consciences drink of Him.
Here is also to be noted, that the cause of the institution was to be a memorial, to testify that Christ’s body was given, and his blood shed for us.
No more doth it hurt to say that the body and blood are not in the sacrament.
Christ made the bread the sacrament of his body only: wherefore as the bread is no similitude of his blood, so am I not bound or ought to affirm, that his blood is there present.
In the old covenants the people were sprinkled with blood of calves without, in their bodies, to bind them to keep the law; else we were bound to just damnation, for the breaking of it.
The morality of clean blood ought to be one of the first lessons taught us by our pastors and teachers. The physical is the substratum of the spiritual; and this fact ought to give to the food we eat, and the air we breathe, a transcendent significance.
My overcoat is worn out my shirts also are worn out. And I ask to be allowed to have a lamp in the evening it is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark.
I know divers, and divers men know me, which love me as I do them: yet if I should pray them, when I meet them in the street openly, they would abhor me; but if I pray them where they be appointed to meet me secretly, they will hear me and accept my request.