6 October 2015 A.D. Jewel’s “Apology”—Everyone claims the title “Church”; “the angel also saith in the Apocalypse, `They say they be Jews; but they be the synagogue of Satan,’” pp.92-93

6 October 2015 A.D. Jewel’s “Apology”—Everyone claims the title “Church”; “the angel also saith in the Apocalypse, `They say they be Jews; but they be the synagogue of Satan,’” pp.92-93

So likewise the false prophets of all ages, which stood up against the prophets of God, which resisted Esaias, Jeremy, Christ, and the Apostles, at no time craked of anything so much as they did of the name of the Church.  And for no other cause did they so fiercely vex them, and call them runaways and apostates, than for that they forsook their fellowship, and kept not the ordinances of the elders.  Wherefore, if we would follow the judgments of those men only who then governed the Church, and would respect nothing else, neither God nor His word, it must needs be confessed, that the Apostles were rightly and by just law condemned of them to death, because they fell from the bishops and priests, that is, you must think, from the “Catholic Church:” and because they made many new alterations in religion, contrary to the bishops’ and priests’ wills, yea, and for all their spurning so earnestly against it.  Wherefore, like as it is written that Hercules in old time was forced in striving with Antæus, that huge giant, to lift him quite up from the earth that was his mother, ere he could conquer him, even so must our adversaries be heaved from their mother, that is, from this vain colour and shadow of the Church, wherewith they so disguise and defend themselves: otherwise they cannot be brought to yield unto the word of God.  “And therefore,” saith Jeremy the prophet, “make not such great boast that the temple of the Lord is with you.  This is but a vain confidence: these are lies.”  The angel also saith in the Apocalypse, “They say they be Jews; but they be the synagogue of Satan.”  And Christ said to the Pharisees when they vaunted themselves of the kindred and blood of Abraham, “Ye are of your father, the devil;” for you resemble not your father Abraham; as much to say as ye are not the men ye would so fain be called: ye beguile the people with vain titles, and abuse the name of the Church to the overthrowing of the Church.