in His hand the body that was broken? Did that morsel of bread take
away the sin of the world? Look you, right in so far as the bread was
the body, in so far also was the breaking of that bread the death of
that body,--and no further. Now, Mistress Blanche, was the breaking of
the bread the death of the body? Think thereon, and answer me."
"It was an emblem or representation thereof, no doubt," she said slowly.
"Good. Then, inasmuch as the breaking did set forth the death, in so
much did the bread set forth the body. If the one be an emblem, so must
be the other."
"That may be, perchance," said Blanche, sheering off from the subject,
as she found it passing beyond her, and requiring the troublesome effort
of thought: "but, Master Tremayne, there is one other matter whereon the
speech of you Gospellers verily offendeth me no little."
"Pray you, tell me what it is, Mistress Blanche."
"It is the little honour, or I might well say the dishonour, that you do
put upon Saint Mary the blessed Virgin. Surely, of all that He knew and
loved on this earth, she must have been the dearest unto our Lord. Why
then thus scrimp and scant the reverence due unto her? Verily, in this
matter, the Papists do more meetly than you."
"`More meetly'--wherewith, Mistress Blanche? With the truth of Holy
Scripture, or with the fantasies of human nature?"
"I would say," repeated Blanche rather warmly, "that her honour must be
very dear to her blessed Son."
"There is one honour ten thousand-fold dearer unto His heart, my maid,
and that is the honour of God His eternal Father. All honour, that
toucheth not this, I am ready to pay to her. But tell me wherefore you
think she must be His dearest?"
"Because it must needs be thus," replied illogical Blanche.
"I would ask you to remember, Mistress Blanche, that He hath told us the
clean contrary."
Blanche looked up with an astonished expression.
"`Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same
is My brother, and sister, and mother.' Equally honourable, equally
dear, with that mother of His flesh whom you would fain upraise above
all other women. And I am likewise disposed to think that word of
Paul,--`Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now
henceforth know we Him no more'--I say, I am disposed to think this may
have his reverse side. Though He hath known us after the flesh, yet
thus, now that He is exalted to the right hand of God, He knoweth us no
more. And if so, then Mary is now unto Him but one of a multitude of
saved souls, all equally fair and dear and precious in the eyes of Him
that died for them."
"O Master Tremayne!"
"What would you say, Mistress Blanche?"
"That is truly--it sounds so cold!" said Blanche, disparagingly.
"Doth it so?" asked the Rector, smiling. "Cold, that all should be
beloved of His heart? Dear maid, 'tis not that He loveth her the less,
but that He loveth the other more."
As Blanche made no response, Mr Tremayne went on.
"There is another side to this matter, Mistress Blanche, that I daresay
you have ne'er looked upon: and it toucheth at once the matter of
images, and the reverence due unto Saint Mary. Know you that great part
of the images held in worship for her by the Papists, be no images of
her at all? All the most ancient--and many be very ancient--were ne'er
made for Mary. The marvel-working black Virgins--our Lady of
Einsiedeln, our Lady of Loretto, and all such--be in very truth old
idols, of a certain Tuscan or Etruscan goddess, elder than the days of
the Romans. [Note 3.] Again, all they that are of fair complexion--such
as have grey eyes [blue eyes were then called grey] and yellow hair--
these be not Mary the Jewess. We can cast no doubt she was dark.
Whence then come all these fair-complexioned pictures? We might take
it, in all likelihood, from the fancy of the painters, that did account
a fair woman to be of better favour than a dark. But search you into
past history, and you shall find it not thus. These fair-favoured
pictures be all of another than Mary; to wit, of that ancient goddess,
in her original of the Babylonians, that was worshipped under divers
names all over the world,--in Egypt as Isis; in Greece, as Athene,
Artemis, and Aphrodite; in Rome as Juno, Diana, and Venus: truly, every
goddess was but a diversity of this one. [Note 4.] These, then, be no
pictures of the Maid of Nazareth. And 'tis the like of other images,--
they be christened idols. The famed Saint Peter, in his church at Rome
is but a christened Jupiter. Wit you how Paganism was got rid of? It
was by receiving of it into the very bosom of the Roman Church. The
ceremonies of the Pagans were but turned,--from Ceres, Cybele, Isis, or
Aphrodite, unto Mary--from Apollo, Bacchus, Osiris, Tammuz, unto Christ.
Thus, when these Pagans found that they did in very deed worship the
same god, and with the same observances, as of old--for the change was
in nothing save the name only--they became Christians by handfuls;--yea,
by cityfuls. What marvel, I pray you? But how shall we call this
Church of Rome, that thus bewrayed her trust, and sold her Lord again
like Judas? An idolatrous Christianity--nay, rather a baptised
idolatry! God hath writ her name, Mistress Blanche, on the last page of
His Word; and it is, Babylon, Mother of all Abominations."
"I do marvel, Master Tremayne," said Blanche a little indignantly,
though in a constrained voice, "how you dare bring such ill charges
against the Papistical Church. Do they not set great store by holiness,
I pray you? Yea, have they not monks and nuns, and a celibate
priesthood, consecrate to greater holiness than other? How can you
charge them with wickedness and abomination?"
"Poor child!" murmured the Rector, as if to himself,--"she little wist
what manner of life idolaters term holiness! Mistress Blanche, yonder
cloak of professed holiness hideth worser matter than you can so much as
think on. 'Tis not I that set that name on the Papistical Church. It
was God Himself. Will you tell me, moreover, an' it like you,--What is
holiness?"
"Goodness--right-doing."
"Those be unclear words, methinks. They may mean well-nigh aught. For
me, I would say, Holiness is walking with God, and according to the will
of God."
"Well! Is not God pleased with the doing of good?"
"God is pleased with nothing but Christ. He is not pleased with you
because of your deeds. He must first accept _you_, and that not for any
your deserving, but for the sake of the alone merits of His Son; and
then He shall be pleased with your deeds, since they shall be such as
His Spirit shall work in you. But nothing can please God except that
which cometh from God. Your works, apart from Him, be dead works. And
you cannot serve the living God with dead works."
Blanche's half-unconscious shrug of the shoulders conveyed the
information that this doctrine was not agreeable to her.
"Surely God will be pleased with us if we do out best!" she muttered.
"By no means," said Mr Tremayne quietly. "Your best is not good enough
for God. He likeneth that best of yours to filthy rags. What should
you say to one that brought you a present of filthy rags, so foul that
you could not so much as touch them?"
Blanche, who was extremely dainty as to what she touched, quite
appreciated this simile. She found an answer, nevertheless.
"God is merciful, Mr Tremayne. You picture Him as hard and unpitiful."
"Verily, Mistress Blanche, God is merciful: more than you nor I may
conceive. But God hath no mercies outside of Christ. Come to Him
bringing aught in your hand save Christ, and He hath nought to say to
you. And be you ware that you cannot come and bring nothing. If you
bring not Christ, assuredly you shall bring somewhat else,--your own
works, or your own sufferings, or in some manner your own deservings.
And for him that cometh with his own demerits in hand, God hath nought
saving the one thing he hath indeed demerited,--which is--Hell."
Mr Tremayne spoke so solemnly that Blanche felt awed. But she did not
relish the doctrine which he preached any better on that account.
"How have I demerited that?" she asked.
"God Himself shall answer you. `He that hath not the Son of God hath
not life.' `He that believeth not is condemned already.'"
"But I do believe--all Christians believe!" urged Blanche.
"What believe you?"
"I believe unfeignedly all that the creed saith touching our Lord."
"And I believe as unfeignedly all that the Commentaries of Caesar say
touching that same Julius Caesar."
"What mean you, Master Tremayne?"
"What did Julius Caesar for me, Mistress Blanche?"
"Marry, nought at all," said Blanche, laughing, "without his invading of
England should have procured unto us some civility which else we had
lacked."
Civility, at that time, meant civilisation. When, according to the
wondrous dreamer of Bedford Gaol, Mr Worldly Wiseman referred
Christian, if he should not find Mr Legality at home, to the pretty
young man called Civility, whom he had to his son, and who could take
off a burden as well as the old gentleman himself,--he meant, not what
we call civility, but what we call civilisation. That pretty young man
is at present the most popular physician of the day; and he still goes
to the town of Morality to church. The road to his house is crowded
more than ever, though the warning has been standing for two hundred
years, that "notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a
hypocrite,"--as well as another warning far older,--"Behold, the fear of
the Lord, that is wisdom." [Job twenty-eight verse 28.]
"But now," said the Rector, with an answering smile, "tell me, what did
Jesus Christ for me?"
"He is the Saviour," she said in a low voice.
"Of whom, dear maid?"
Blanche felt rather vague on that point, and the feeling was combined
with a conviction that she ought not to be so. She tried to give an
answer which could not be contradicted.
"Of them that believe."
"Certes," said Mr Tremayne, suppressing a smile, for he saw both
Blanche's difficulty and her attempt to evade it. "But that, look you,
landeth us on the self place where we were at aforetime: who be they
that believe?"
Blanche wisely determined to commit herself no further.
"Would it please you to tell me, Sir?"
"Dear child, if you heard me to say, touching some man that we both were
acquaint withal,--`I believe in John'--what should you conceive that I
did signify?"
"I would account," said Blanche readily, thinking this question easy to
answer, "that you did mean, `I account of him as a true man; I trust
him; I hold him well worthy of affiance.'"
"Good. And if, after thus saying, you should see me loth to trust an
half-angel into his hands to spend for me,--should you think that mine
act did go with my words, or no?"
"Assuredly, nay."
"Then look you, Mistress Blanche, that it is greater matter than you
maybe made account, when a man shall say, `I believe in Jesus Christ.'
For it signifieth not only that I believe He was born, and lived, and
suffered, and arose, and ascended. Nay, but it is, I account of Him as
a true man; I trust Him, with body and soul, with friends and goods: I
hold Him worthy of all affiance, and I will hold back nothing, neither
myself nor my having, from His keeping and disposing. (Ah, my maid!
which of us can say so much as this, at all times, and of all matters?)
But above all, in the relation whereof we have spoken, it is to say, I
trust Christ with my soul. I lean it wholly upon Him. I have no hope
in myself; He is mine hope. I have no righteousness of myself; He is my
righteousness. I have no standing before God,--I demerit nought but
hell; but Christ standeth before God for me: His blood hath washed me
clean from all sin, and His pleading with God availeth to hold me up in
His ways. And unless or until you can from your heart thus speak I pray
you say not again that you believe in Jesus Christ."
"But, Master, every man cannot thus believe."
"No man can thus believe until God have taught him."
Blanche thought, but was not bold enough to say, that she did not see
why anybody should believe such disagreeable things about himself. She
did not feel this low opinion of her own merits. Hers was the natural
religion of professing Christians--that she must do the best she could,
and Christ would make up the remainder. Mr Tremayne knew what was
passing in her mind as well as if she had spoken it.
"You think that is hard?" said he.
"_I_ think it--Mr Tremayne, I could not thus account of myself."
"You could not, dear maid. I am assured of that."
"Then wherein lieth my fault?" demanded Blanche.
"In that you will not."
Blanche felt stung; and she spoke out now, with one of those bursts of
confidence which came from her now and then.
"That is sooth, Master. I will not. I have not committed such sins as
have many men and women. I ne'er stole, nor murdered, nor used profane
swearing, nor worshipped idols, nor did many another ill matter: and I
cannot believe but that God shall be more merciful to such than to the
evil fawtors [factors, doers] that be in the world. Where were His
justice, if no?"
"Mistress Blanche, you wit neither what is God, neither what is sin.
The pure and holy law of God is like to a golden ring. You account,
that because you have not broken it on this side, nor on that side, you
have not broken it at all. But if you break it on any side, it is
broken; and you it is that have broken it."
"Wherein have I broken it?" she asked defiantly.
"`All unrighteousness is sin.' Have you alway done rightly, all your
life long? If not, then you are a sinner."
"Oh, of course, we be all sinners," said Blanche, as if that were a very
slight admission.
"Good. And a sinner is a condemned criminal. He is not come into this
world to see if he may perchance do well, and stand: he is already
fallen; he is already under condemnation of law."
"Then 'tis even as I said,--there is no fault in any of us," maintained
Blanche, sturdily clinging to her point.
"`This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.'"
"Nay, Master Tremayne, you be now too hard on me. I love not darkness
rather than light."
"God saith you so do, dear maid. And He knoweth--ay, better than
yourself. But look not only on that side of the matter. If a man
believe that and no more, 'tis fit to drive him unto desperation. Look
up unto the writing which is over the gate into God's narrow way--the
gate and the way likewise being His Son Jesus Christ--and read His
message of peace sent unto these sinners. `Whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely.' It is God's ordering, that whosoever _will_,
he can."
"You said but this last Sunday, Master Tremayne, that 'twas not possible
for any man to come to Christ without God did draw him thereto."
"_I_ said, my maid? My Master it was which said that. Well--what so?"
"Then we can have nought to answer for; for without God do draw us, we
cannot come."
"And without we be willing to be thus drawn, God will not do it."
"Nay, but you said, moreover, that the very will must come from God."
"Therein I spake truth."
Blanche thought she had now driven her pastor into a corner.
"Then you do allow," she asked triumphantly, "that if I should not will
the same, I am clean of all fault, sith the very will must needs come
from God?"
Mr Tremayne understood the drift of his catechumen.
"An' it like you, Mistress Blanche, we will leave a moment to make
inquiry into that point, till we shall have settled another, of more
import to you and me."
"What is it, Master?"
"Are you willing?"
"Willing that I should be saved eternally? Most assuredly."
"Then--willing that all the will of God shall be done, in you and by
you?"
"The one followeth not the other."
"I cry you mercy. The King of kings, like other princes, dealeth with
His rebels on his own terms."
Blanche was silent, and, very uncomfortable.
"'Tis time for me to be about my duties. When you shall have fully
settled that point of your willingness, Mistress Blanche, and shall have
determined that you are thus willing--which God grant!--then, an' it
like you, we will go into the other matter."
And Mr Tremayne left the room with a bow, very well knowing that as
soon as the first point was satisfactorily settled, the second would be
left quiescent.
Mrs Tremayne had never opened her lips; and leaving her in the study,
Blanche wandered into the parlour, where Clare and Lysken were seated at
work.
"I marvel what Master Tremayne would have!" said Blanche, sitting down
in the window, and idly pulling the dead leaves from the plant which
stood there. "He saith 'tis our own fault that we will not to be saved,
and yet in the self breath he addeth that the will so to be must needs
be given us of God."
Lysken looked up.
"Methinks we are all willing enow to be saved from punishment," she
said. "What we be unwilling to be saved from is sin."
"`Sin'--alway sin!" muttered Blanche. "Ye be both of a story. Sin is
wickedness. I am not wicked."
"Sin is the disobeying of God," replied Lysken. "And saving thy
presence, Blanche, thou art wicked."
"Then so art thou!" retorted Blanche.
"So I am," said Lysken. "But I am willing to be saved therefrom."
"Prithee, Mistress Elizabeth Barnevelt, from what sin am I not willing
to be saved?"
"Dost truly wish to know?" asked Lysken in her coolest manner.
"Certes!"
"Then--pride."
"Pride is no sin!"
"I love not gainsaying, Blanche. But I dare in no wise gainsay the
Lord. And He saith of pride, that it is an abomination unto Him, and He
hateth it." [Proverbs six, verse 16; and sixteen verse 5.]
"But that is ill and sinful pride," urged Blanche. "There is proper
pride."
"It seemeth to my poor wits," said Lysken, "that a thing which the Lord
hateth must be all of it improper."
"Why, Lysken! Thus saying, thou shouldst condemn all high spirit and
noble bearing!"
"`Blessed are the poor in spirit.' There was no pride in Christ,
Blanche. And thou wilt scarce say that He bare Him not nobly."
"Why, then, we might as well all be peasants!"
"I suppose we might, if we were," said Lysken.
"Lysken, it should be a right strange world, where thou hadst the
governance!"
"Very like," was Lysken's calm rejoinder, as she set the pin a little
further in her seam.
"What good is it, prithee, to set thee up against all men's opinion?
[What are now termed `views' were then called `opinions.'] Thou shalt
but win scorn for thine."
"Were it only mine, Blanche, it should be to no good. But when it is
God's command wherewith mine opinion runneth,--why then, the good shall
be to hear Christ say, `Well done, faithful servant.' The scorn I bare
here shall be light weight then."
"But wherefore not go smoothly through the world?"
"Because it should cost too much."
"Nay, what now?" remonstrated Blanche.
"I have two lives, Blanche: and I cannot have my best things in both.
The one is short and passing; the other is unchangeable, and shall stand
for ever. Now then, I would like my treasures for the second of these
two lives: and if I miss any good thing in the first, it shall be no
great matter."
"Thou art a right Puritan!" said Blanche disgustedly.
"Call not names, Blanche," gently interposed Clare.
"Dear Clare, it makes he difference," said Lysken. "If any call me a
Papist, 'twill not make me one."
"Lysken Barnevelt, is there aught in this world would move thee?"
"`In this world?' Well, but little, methinks. But--there will be some
things in the other."
"What things?" bluntly demanded Blanche.
"To see His Face!" said Lysken, the light breaking over her own. "And
to hear Him say, `Come!' And to sit down at the marriage-supper of the
Lamb,--with the outer door closed for ever, and the woes, and the
wolves, and the winter, all left on the outside. If none of these
earthly things move me, Blanche, it is because those heavenly things
will."
And after that, Blanche was silent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. The Gentiles (saith Saint Augustine), which seem to be of the
purer religion, say, We worship not the images, but by the corporal
image we do behold the signs of the things which we ought to worship.
And Lactantius saith, The Gentiles say, We fear not the images, but them
after whose likeness the images be made, and to whose names they be
consecrated. And Clemens saith, That serpent the Devil uttereth these
words by the mouth of certain men: We, to the honour of the invisible
God, worship visible images.--(Third Part of the Homily on Peril of
Idolatry: references in margin to Augustine Ps. 135; Lactantius l. 2.
Inst.; Clem., L. S ad Jacob.) Here are the "Fathers" condemning as
Pagan the reasoning of modern Papists.
Note 2. "Credit et defendit que in eucharistia sive altaris sacramento
verum et naturalem Christi corpus ac verus et naturalis Christi sanguis
sub speciebus panis et vini vere non est; et quod _ibi est materialis
panis et materiale vinum_ tantum absque veritati et presentia corporis
et sanguinis Christi."--Indictment of Reverend Lawrence Saunders,
January 30, 1555; Harl. MS. 421, folio 44.
"Tenes et defendes in prout quod in eucharistia sive sacramento altaris
verum naturalem et realem Christi corpus ac verus naturalis et realis
Christi sanguis sub speciebus panis et vini vere non est, sed _post
consecratione remanet substantia panis et vini_."--Indictment of
Reverend Thomas Rose, May 31, 1555; Harl. MS. 421, folio 188.
Note 3. There is the initial M on the pedestal of one or more of these
black Virgins, which of course the priests interpret as Mary. This is
certainly not the case. It has been suggested that it stands for Maia,
a name of the Tuscan goddess. May it not be the initial of Mylitta,
"the Mediatrix," one of the favourite names of the great original
goddess?
Note 4. See Hislop's _Two Babylons_, pages 22, 122, 491, et aliis; and
Shepheard's _Traditions of Eden_, page 117, note (where many references
are given), and page 188.
CHAPTER TEN.
COUNSEL'S OPINION.
"A cross of gold, of silver, or of wood,
Or of mean straw, hid in each shape of life;
Some trial working for eternal good,
Found in our outward state or inward strife."
"Bab! Art thou yonder?"
"Is it Jennet?"
"Ay. There's a gentlewoman i' th' bower to see thee."
"Nay,--a gentlewoman! Who can it be?"
"I've told thee all I know. Hoo [she] wanted Mistress Clare; and I said
hoo were down at th' parsonage; then hoo said, `Is Barbara Polwhele
here?' And I said, `Ay, hoo's come o'er to fot [fetch] somewhat for th'
young mistresses.' So hoo said, `Then I'll speak wi' her.' So I took
her to my Lady, for I see hoo were a gentlewoman; and hoo's i' th'
bower."
"I wis nought of her," said Barbara. "I never looked to see none here
that I know."
"Well, thou'd best go to her," decided Jennet Barbara hurried down, and
found an old silver-haired lady sitting with Lady Enville, and addressed
by her with marked deference.
"Well, Bab!" said the old lady, who was brisk enough for her years;
"thou dost not seem no younger since I saw thee in Cornwall, and the
mirror yonder saith neither am I."
"Marry La'kin! but if I thought it metely possible, I would say it were
surely Mistress Philippa Basset!"
"I will not confute thee, Bab, though it be but metely possible," said
the lively old lady, laughing. "I came to see the child Clare; but
hearing she was hence, I then demanded thee. I will go down to the
parsonage anon. I would like well to see Robin, and Thekla likewise."
"Eh, Mistress Philippa! but there be great and sore changes sithence you
were used to come unto the Lamb to see Mistress Avery!"
"Go to, Barbara! Hast dwelt sixty years, more or less, in this world,
and but now found out that all things therein be changeable? What be
thy changes to mine? Child, there is not a soul that I loved in those
days when Isoult dwelt in the Minories, that is not now with God in
Heaven. Not a soul! Fifty years gone, brethren and sisters, there were
seven of us. All gone, save me!--a dry old bough, that sticketh yet
upon the tree whence all the fair green shoots have been lopped away.
And I the eldest of all! The ways of God's Providence be strange."
"I said so much once unto Master Robin," responded Barbara with a smile;
"but he answered, 'twas no matter we apprehended not the same, for the
Lord knew all, and ordered the end from the beginning."
"He hath ordered me a lonely journey, and a long," said Philippa sadly.
"Well! even a Devon lane hath its turning."
"And what brought you thus far north, Mistress Philippa, an' I make not
too bold?"
"Why, I came to see Bridget's childre. I have bidden these four months
gone with Jack Carden. And being so nigh ye all, I thought I would
never turn home without seeing you."