Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 3.pdf/31

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CRANMER
 

me up; I shall therefore declare unto you my very faith how I believe, without any color of dissimulation, for now is no time to dissemble, whatsoever I have said or written in times past.

First, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, etc. And I believe every article of the Catholic faith, every word and sentence taught by our Savior Jesus Christ, His apostles and prophets, in the New and Old Testament.

And now I come to the great thing which so much troubleth my conscience, more than anything that ever I did or said in my whole life, and that is the setting abroad of a writing contrary to the truth—which now I here renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand contrary to the truth[1] which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, and to save my life if it might be—and that is, all such bills and papers which I have written or signed with my hand since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand hath offended, writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished; for when I come to the fire, it shall be first burned.

And as for the Pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy and anti-Christ, with all his false doctrine.

And as for the sacrament, I believe as I have taught in my book against the Bishop of Win-

  1. ↑ A reference to the recantation, which he had signed, while imprisoned in the Tower.

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