establish his own kingdom by using now any other practices than the same
which he hath ever used from the beginning. For since any man's
remembrance we can scant find one time, either when religion did first
grow, or when it was settled, or when it did afresh spring up again,
wherein truth and innocency were not by all unworthy means, and most
despitefully intreated. Doubtless the devil well seeth, that so long as
truth is in good safety, himself cannot be safe, nor yet maintain his own
estate.

For, letting pass the ancient patriarchs and Prophets, who, as we have
said, had no part of their life free from contumelies and slanders, we
know there were certain in times past which said and commonly preached,
that the old ancient Jews (of whom we make no doubt but they were the
worshippers of the only and true God) did worship either a sow, or an
ass, in God's stead, and that all the same religion was nothing else but
a sacrilege, and a plain contempt of all godliness. We know also that
the Son of God, our Saviour Jesu Christ, when He taught the truth, was
counted a juggler and an enchanter, a Samaritan, Beelzebub, a deceiver of
the people, a drunkard, and a glutton. Again, who wotteth not what words
were spoken against St. Paul, the most earnest and vehement preacher and
maintainer of the truth? sometime that he was a seditious and busy man, a
raiser of tumults, a causer of rebellion; sometime again, that he was an
heretic; sometime, that he was mad; sometime, that only upon strife and
stomach he was both a blasphemer of God's law, and a despiser of the
fathers' ordinances. Further, who knoweth not how St. Stephen, after he
had thoroughly and sincerely embraced the truth, and began frankly and
stoutly to preach and set forth the same, as he ought to do, was
immediately called to answer for his life, as one that had wickedly
uttered disdainful and heinous words against the law, against Moses,
against the temple, and against God? Or who is ignorant that in times