151/7
prestes . . .
multitude. Cf. CWM 6/1.301/1–2.
151/10
a man . . .
synne. More does not examine the coexistence of intellectual
consent to the truth of faith with a life of sin in Dialogue
Bk. 3, Ch. 12, but in Bk. 3, Ch. 1 he discusses Noah's
contemporaries and his own, who had faith but lacked charity,
cf. 70/1n and CWM 6/1.252/22–24 on unformed and formed faith.
151/14–15
S. Ihon . . . vntrulye. Cf. 1 John
4.20.
151/22
few . . .
tyme. Cf. CWM 6/1.301/17–19.
151/24
the lawes of the
church. The proliferation of laws by local churches, regional
and ecumenical councils, and the papacy led to successive codifications.
The collection by Gratian, Concordia discordantium canonum (c1140), had wide influence in the Western
Church and was supplemented by further collections before the
Reformation (NCE 4.348).
Luther's colleagues organized a ceremonial burning of canon law books at
the Elster Gate of Wittenberg on 10 December 1520. Luther tossed into
the flames the copy of the papal bull Exsurge
Domine that he had received on 10 October and that gave him
sixty days to recant the erroneous teachings listed therein. Cf.
Luther's account in Why the Books of the Popes and his
Disciples Were Burned (WA 7.162–82; LW 31.383–95). (JW)
For the medieval British church, William Lyndwood (1375?—1446), Bishop of
St. David's in Wales, compiled Provinciale, (seu Constitutiones
Angliae), a digest with gloss of the constitutions of the
province of Canterbury from 1207 to 1443, first printed at Oxford in
1483 (cf. CWM 6/2.691). More as Mentor to the Messenger
cites from this collection the constitution of
1409 requiring episcopal permission to translate the Bible
into English (cf. 167/21–22n; CWM 6/1.316/16–17).
151/24–25
if . . .
better. Cf. CWM 6/1.302/4–7. Tyndale changes More's clause
"Luther & Tyndall wolde haue all broken" (6/1.302/ 4–5) into "Luther
wold haue burnt" (151/25).