Were it not better for
us, more for estimation, more meeter for men in our places, to cut away a
piece of this our profit, if we will not cut away all, than to wink at
such ungodliness, and so long to wink for a little lucre; specially if it
be ungodliness, and also seem unto you ungodliness? These be two things,
so oft to seek mere images, and sometime to visit the relicks of saints.
And yet, as in those there may be much ungodliness committed, so there
may here some superstition be hid, if that sometime we chance to visit
pigs' bones instead of saints' relicks, as in time past it hath chanced,
I had almost said, in England. Then this is too great a blindness, a
darkness too sensible, that these should be so commended in sermons of
some men, and preached to be done after such manner, as though they could
not be evil done; which, notwithstanding, are such, that neither God nor
man commandeth them to be done. No, rather, men commanded them either
not to be done at all, or else more slowlier and seldomer to be done,
forasmuch as our ancestors made this constitution: "We command the
priests that they oft admonish the people, and in especial women, that
they make no vows but after long deliberation, consent of their husbands
and counsel of the priest.
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