wife, maketh long delaies, yet at length brought into Law, and being cast, gaue way to the Truth, and taketh his first wife againe, by the iudgement of the Church. When now the Parents & friends of the latter wife made the like wonderment, as these men do against me, saying vnto him, thou hel-hound, thou wicked couenāt-breaker, &c. And if a man would consider this businesse, shall he not see, as it were in a glasse, the very image of that Hus∣band in me? For indeed I (seeing I beleeued that no such Truth of obedience had bene, &c.) I compelled my selfe in a second Couenant, and thereto plighted my troth. Wherefore I thought that I had kept lawfull Companie: but when the TRVTH came, which is euery mans first wife maried to him in publike Baptis∣me, which wil require the first Promise at al mens hands, to her I applyed, to her I cleaued, and from my second knot, as of none effect, by the iudgement of my Church, I departed. And shall any man thinke it indifferent, that I shall be called a Liar, be∣cause I obey the Truth? &c. I am by most graue iudgement of the Truth diuorced from the Church of Rome, which it was not lawfull for me to keepe still, and am compelled to take my wife, TRVTH, to me when she cometh againe. Thus farre B. Gardiner.
The right and accurate Sence of this Similitude may, as the beames of the Sunne, dispell the foggie myst of Romish error, concerning the Question we now haue in hand; it being ta∣ken from the consideration of our Christian Vow made in Bap∣tisme. Wherein we are to obserue the Parties betrothed to∣gether, which are the Soule of a Christian, and the Truth of God in Christ: and secondly the Parties, and (if I may so say) Parents, by whose consent and Authoritie this mariage is made, which in the inward is our Father, euen GOD in the vnity of Three persons, Father, Sonne, and holy Ghost; and in the outward, is our spirituall Mother mentioned in our Creed, at the rime of our Vow in Baptisme, The holy Catholike Church.
It especially therefore concerneth euery Votarie, that hath vowed himselfe in Baptisme, to learne to acknowledge his true Father, his true Mother, and his owne true Wife. For Father, he is baptized in the name of the Blessed Trinitie, in