Manchurian Books

They depreciated not acts of piety, integrity, and
social kindness, but 'masses, dirges, obsequies, rising at midnight,
going barefoot, jubilees, invocation of saints, praying to images, vows
of celibacy, pardons, indulgences, founding of abbeys'[2], and other
supererogatory performances, by which Popery in effect invalidated the
true atonement, and pretended that sinners might merit heaven. Against
these vain devices of men our glorious martyrs lifted up their voices;
these were the good works they decried; but when ye misapply their just
anathemas, to condemn the fruits of faith acting by love, ye belie their
memory, and tear asunder those strong pillars of belief and practice
which support the Christian doctrine. Lamentable are the effects which
schism produces. At the very beginning of our divisions the pious Jewell
doubted how to address those who preferred contending for trifles to
peace. He could not, he said, 'call them brethren, for then they would
agree as brethren; nor Christians, for then they would love as
Christians.


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