_How all these landes yles and kingdomes, and the men therof
afore rehersed, haue some of the articles of our faith._
AND ye shall understand that all these men & folke that haue reason
y^t I haue spoken of, haue some articles of our faith, all[1] if they
be of divers lawes and divers beleves, yet they haue some good poynts
of our fayth, & they beleve in God of kinde as theyr prophecie sayth,
_Et metuent eum omnes fines terræ_, That is to say, And all endes
of the earth shall dread him. And in another place, _Omnes gentes
servient ei_, That is to say, All folk shall serve him, but they
cannot speak parfitly but as theyr kyndly wit teacheth them, neither
of the Son nor of the Holy Ghost can they speake, but they can speake
well of the Byble, and specially of Genesis, and of the bokes of
Moyses. And they say that those creatures y^t they worship are no
gods, but they worship them for great vertue that is in them which may
not be without special grace of God, & of simulacre and ydoles, they
say that all men haue simulacres, and that, say they, for us christen
men haue ymages of our Lady & other, but they wot not that we worship
not the ymages of stone nor of wood, but the saynts of whome they
are made, for as the letter teacheth clarkes how they shal beleve,
so ymages and paynture teacheth lewde[2] men. They say also that the
aungell of God speaketh to them in their ydoles & do miracles,
they say soth,[3] but it is the evil aungell that doth myracles to
maintaine them in their ydolatrie.
[Footnote 1: Even.]
[Footnote 2: Unlearned.]
[Footnote 3: Truly.]