_With a Brief and Plain Declaration of the True Religion Professed and
Used in the Same_.



PART I.


It hath been an old complaint, even from the first time of the patriarchs
and Prophets, and confirmed by the writings and testimonies of every age,
that the truth wandereth here and there as a stranger in the world, and
doth readily find enemies and slanderers amongst those that know her not.
Albeit perchance this may seem unto some a thing hard to be believed, I
mean to such as have scant well and narrowly taken heed thereunto,
specially seeing all mankind of nature's very motion without a teacher
doth covet the truth of their own accord; and seeing our Saviour Christ
Himself, when He was on earth, would be called the Truth, as by a name
most fit to express all His Divine power; yet we, which have been
exercised in the Holy Scriptures, and which have both read and seen what
hath happened to all godly men commonly at all times; what to the
Prophets, to the Apostles, to the holy martyrs, and what to Christ
Himself; with what rebukes, revilings, and despites they were continually
vexed whiles they here lived, and that only for the truth's sake: we, I
say, do see that this is not only no new thing, or hard to be believed,
but that it is a thing already received, and commonly used from age to
age. Nay, truly, this might seem much rather a marvel, and beyond all
belief, if the devil, who is the father of lies, and enemy to all truth,
would now upon a sudden change his nature, and hope that truth might
otherwise be suppressed than by belying it; or that he would begin to