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THE SECOND BOOKE 145
was never any so factious, what difficultie or strangenesse
soever his doctrine maintained, hut would in
some sort conforme his behaviors and square his life
unto it: Whereas so divine and heavenly an institution
never markes christians but by the tongue. And will
you see whether it be so ? Compare but our manners
unto a Turke, or a Pagan, and we must needs yeeld
unto them: Whereas in respect of our religious superiorities
we ought by much, yea by an incomparable
distance, outshine them in excellencie: And well might
a man say, Are they so just, so charitable, and so good ?
Then must they be Christians. All other outward
shewes and exterior apparences are common to all
religions: As hope, affiance, events, ceremonies, penitence,
and martyrdome. The peculiar badge of our
truth should be vertue; As it is the heaveuliest and
most difficult marke, and worthiest production of
Verity it selfe. And therefore was our good Saint
Lewis in the right, when that Tartarian King, who
was become a Christian, intended to come to Lyons,
to kisse the Popes feet, and there to view the sanctitie
he hoped to find in our lives and manners, instantly to
divert him from it, fearing lest our dissolute manners
and licentious kind of life might scandalize him, and
so alter his opinion fore-conceived of so sacred a religion.
Howbeit the contrary happened to another,
who for the same effect being come to Rome, and there
viewing the disolutenesse of the Prelates and people of
those dayes, was so much the more confirmed in our
religion; considering with himselfe what force and
divinity it must of consequence have, since it was able,
amidst so many corruptions and so viciously-poluted
hands, to maintaine her dignitie and splendor. Had
wee but one onely graine of faith, wee should then be
able to remove mountaines from out their place, saith
the Holy Writ. Our actions being guided and accompanied
with Divinitie, should not then be meerely
humane, but even as our beliefe, containe some wonder-causing
thing. Brevis est institutio vita honestat
beataque, si credos: 'The institution of an honest and
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