Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

c3petra scandali, the stone of stumbling and the stone 1386 XVII. SIR THOMAS MORE.kept in lykewyse from the comons, and no man suffred toreade or heare them, but those that in hys churche representthe state & office of hys apostles, whiche ther will (I wotewell) no wyse manne say ; consider}'ng thai those thingeswhich were than comonly most kept from the people, be 12now most necessary for the. people to knowe. As it wellappeareth by al such things in effect as our sauiour at thetyme taught his apostles a part. Wherof I would not, formy mynde, witholde the profite that one good deupute vnlernedley man might take by the reading, not for the harme 13that an hundred heretikes vrould fall in by theyr own wilfulabusion, no more than oure sauiour letted, for the weale ofsuche as woulde bee with hys grace of hys little chosen flock,to come into thvs world and be lapis offensionis d:' s jji. Peter, ii.of falling, and ruine to all the wilful wretches in the world beside.Finally, me thynketh that the constitucio?/ prouincial ofwhiche we spake right now, hath determined thys question alreadye.For whan the cleargie therein agreed that the englyshebybles should remayne whiche were translated afore Wick- 14liffes dayes, they consequentlye dydde agree that to haue thebyble in englishe was none hurte. And in that they forbadeany new translacion to be read till it wer approued by thebishoppes : it appeareth well therby, that theyr intent wasthat the byshop should approue it if he found it faultlesse, 14and also of reason amend it where it wer faultye ; but if themanne wer an heretike that made it, or the faultes such andso many, as it were more eth to make it all newe than mendit. As it happed for bothe poyntes in the translacion ofTyndall. Now if it so be that it woulde happely be thought 15not a thyng metely to be aduentured to set all on a flushe atones, and dashe rashelye out holye scrypture in euerye lewdefelowes teeth : yet thynketh me ther might such a modera-