VOLUME 3

AN ANSWERE VNTO SIR THOMAS MORES DIALOGE

LOCATION
KEY Commentary Side Textual Bibliographic Scriptural

oure synnes in Christes bloude / and of other rightwysnesse knowe we not before god. And contrari wise youre rightwysnesse or iustifienge which stondeth / as youre faith doeth / with all wekednesse / springeth out of youre holy workes which yee doo to no man frely saue vn to paynted postes.

And when he allegeth the sacrifices of the old law / I saye they were sacramentes and preached vn to the people (as no dout / oure candels once were) and were no holy werkes to be referred vn to gods person to obtayne his favoure / and to iustifie the people / and that the people shuld doo them for the werkes selues. And when the people had lost the significacions and loked on the holynesse of the dedes / to be iustified therby / they were imageseruice and hatefull to god and rebuked of the prophetes / as it is to se thorow out all the old testament.

Sacrifices [1531]

sacrifices of the old law. Cf. CWM 6/1.50/2–3.

And when . . . old testament. Cf. Isa. 58.3–7, Joel 2.13, Hos. 6.6.

] Isaiah

] Hosea

] Joel

Then he iugleth with a texte of S. Paule Rom. xiiij. let eueriman for his parte abounde / one in this Idolatrie and a nother in that: when the sens of the texte is / let euery man be sure of his awne conscience / that he doo no thinge / excepte he know well and his conscience sarue him that it maye be lawfully done. But what care they to abuse gods worde and to wrest it vn to the contrary?

Rom. 14.[1573]

Rom. xiiij. . . . abounde. Cf. Rom. 14.5. Answer translates the Vulgate, unusquisque in suo sensu abundet. Tyndale's 1526 NT gives "Se that no man waver in hys awne mynde"; 1534 NT has "in his awne meanynge" (Wallis 339/9; TNT 239B). KJV has, "Let euery man bee fully perswaded [fully assured] in his owne minde." The 1557 edition of Dialogue (CWM 6/1.50/14) identifies this quote as 1 Thess. 4.[10]. Cf. "We beseche you brethren that ye encreace more and more" (Wallis 430/15–16; TNT 302B).

] Romans

] 1 Thessalonians

And in the last end / to vtter his excellent blindnesse / he saith / the wiseman Luther thinketh that if the gold were taken from the reliques / it wold be geuen vnto the pore immediatly / when he seith the contrary / that they which haue their purses full will geue the pore (if they geue ought) ether an halfe peny or in his contre the .iiij. parte of a ferthynge. Now I axe master

Luther . . . immediatly. Luther's sermon on 14 September 1522, feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, attacked giving contributions of silver and gold for reliquaries holding fragments of the true cross, while at the same time paying no heed to God's mandate to help the poor (WA 10/3.332–34; not in LW). This sermon also circulated in Latin in a collection published in Strassburg in 1526 (WA 10/3.xxi).

Luther . . . ferthynge. Cf. CWM 6/1.51/10–17.