aboue man, is amonstre in nature, contumelie to God, and a thing most
repugnant to his will and ordinance. For he hath depriued them as before
is proued, of speakinge in the congregation, and hath expreslie forbidden
them to vsurpe any kinde of authoritie aboue man. Howe then will he suffer
them to reigne and haue empire aboue realmes and nations? He will neuer, I
say, approue it, because it is a thing most repugnant to his perfect
ordinance, as after shalbe declared, and as the former scriptures haue
plainlie geuen testimonie. To the whiche, to adde any thing were
superfluous, were it not that the worlde is almost nowe comen to that
blindnes, that what soeuer pleaseth not the princes and the multitude,
the same is reiected as doctrine newelie forged, and is condemned, for
heresie. I haue therfore thoght good to recite the mindes of some auncient
writers in the same mater, to the end that suche as altogither be not
blinded by the deuil, may consider and vnderstand this my iudgement to be
no newe interpretation of Goddes scriptures, but to be the vniforme
consent of the most parte of godlie writers, since the time of the
apostles. Tertullian[38] in his boke of womens apparell, after that he
hath shewed many causes why gorgious apparell is abominable and odiouse in
a woman, addeth these wordes, speaking as it were to euery woman by name:
Dost thou not knowe (saith he) that thou art Heua? the sentence of God
liueth and is effectuall against this kind, and in this worlde of
necessity it is, that the punishment also liue. Thou art the porte and
gate of the deuil. Thou art the first transgressor of goddes law. thou
diddest persuade and easely deceiue him whome the deuil durst not
assault[39]. For thy merit (that is for thy death) it behoued the son of
god to suffre the death, and doth it yet abide in thy mind to decke the
aboue thy skin coates? By these and many other graue sentences, and quicke
interrogations, did this godlie writer labour to bring euerie woman in
contemplation of her selfe, to the end that euerie one depelie weying,
what sentence God had pronounced against the hole race and doughters of