through fayth in Christ, to such as beleue. Wherunto also séemeth to perteine this most elegant and fit sentence of the Lord speaking with Paule: I will make thee a witnesse and messenger (marke how he sayth, a witnesse and messen∣ger) and will send thee vnto nations and realmes, to open their eyes, that they may be turned from darknesse to light, and from the power of Sathan vnto God, so as they may receaue forgeue∣nesse of sinnes, and lot among those that be sanctified by the fayth which is to meward. You haue in these wordes a most exacte description of the keyes of the kingdome of heauen. Wherunto to adde any more, I thinke it but superfluous.
Now if vnto all these thinges, ye will adde the practise of the Apostles (as they terme it) and diligently search out how they haue vsed the keyes that were deliuered to them, and after what sort they haue opened or shut the kingdome of heauen vnto men, and also in what wise they haue ei∣ther bound them or loosed them: ye shal no where in all the new Testament finde them to haue exercised the Popishe practise, that is to wit, that the Apostles haue set thē selues downe in the places where they came to preach the king∣dome of God and saluation, and commaunded mē to come vnto them, and there to crouch or to knéele after the ma∣ner of worshippers, and to shriue them selues, that is to say, to poure out all their thoughtes, wordes, and déedes, with all the circumstances of them into the eare or lap of the confessor as he sits, and to craue of him the absolution of their sinnes, with enioynance of satisfaction: and that he on the other side laying his handes vpon the head of the shriftman, whispered an absolution of sinnes ouer him in an ordinary forme of wordes, and enioyned him a certaine satisfaction by the workes of penance. Much lesse shall ye finde that the Apostles installed them selues in thrones, and thrust downe sinners into hell by sentence of excom∣munication. &c. What then? Looke vpon the Actes of the Apostles, or rather goe through that booke, wherein Luke hath most diligently written the notable sayinges and do∣inges