Revelation

We of alien looks or words must stick together.

Like all lawyers, I was delighted by gratitude. It happened so rarely.

Fanatics on both sides,’ old Ryprose said gloomily. ‘And all we poor ordinary folk in the middle. Sometimes I fear they will bring death to us all.

It has driven men to extremes, to the impious arrogance of believing they alone can comprehend the vast mysteries of Scripture, let alone the mind of God. Such people are incapable of understanding even their own minds, for they confuse their own needs, for certainty or power, with God’s voice speaking to them.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

You sound as fierce against sin as Harsnet.’ He grinned. ‘Only sins I don’t feel drawn to myself,’ he said with a flash of his old humour. ‘ ’Tis always easy to condemn those.

It has become a world of black and white, Matthew, a Manichean world where preachers encourage everyone to rush towards a conflict between good and evil. Each knowing, of course, that their own side is entirely in the right.