VOLUME 3

AN ANSWERE VNTO SIR THOMAS MORES DIALOGE

LOCATION
KEY Commentary Side Textual Bibliographic Scriptural

the wordes of the righteous Deut. xvij. When couetousenesse findeth vauntage in servinge falshed / it riseth vpp in to an obstinat malise agenst the trouth and seketh all meanes to resiste it and to quench it. As Balam the false prophete / though he wiste that god loued Israhel & had blessed them and promised them greate thinges / and that he wold fulfyll his promises / yet for couetousenesse and desyre of honoure / he fell in to soch malice agenst the trueth of god / that he sought how to resiste it and to curse the people. Which when god wold not let him doo / he turned him selfe a nother waye and gaue pestilent counsell / to make the people synne agenst god wherbye the wrath of god felle vppon them / and many thousandes perished. Notwithstondinge gods trueth abode fast and was fullfilled in the reste. And Balam as he was the cause that many perished / so escaped he not him selfe. No moare did any that maliciously resisted the open trueth agenst his awne conscience / sence the world beganne / that euer I red. For it is sinne agenst the holy gost / which Christ saith shall neyther be forgeuen here nor in the worlde to come / which texte maye this wise be vnderstonde that as that sinne shalbe punished with euerlastinge damnacion in the life to come: even so shall it not escape vengeaunce here. As thou seist in Iudas / in Pharao / in Balam and in all other tirantes which agenst their consciences resisted the open trueth of god.

DEUTERONOMY: 16.19 (TOT, Ch. 17): 22/15–17, 146/14–16

MATTHEW: 12.31–32: 22/32–23/1

So now the cause why oure prelates thus rage / and that moueth them to call master More to helpe / is not that they finde iust causes in the translacion / but because they haue loste their iugglynge and fayned termes / wherwith Peter

2 PETER: 2.3: 23/10–11,27/20–21, 41/5,41/27–28