Quotes from RICHARD BANCROFT

Where Christ erecteth his church, the devil in the same churchyard will have his chapel.

All Christian men should read the Scriptures, buy unto themselves Bibles, and meditate continually upon the word of God, so as, thereby, their eyes might be opened, their consciences comforted, their faith nourished, and their hope lifted up to a full assurance of the promises therein contained.

Whereas there is among you envy and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

Many false prophets are gone out. Are gone out, that is, are manifest. Before, they lay hid in the Church, but now, by their schisms, they have made themselves known.

Almighty God, grant unto them, and to every one of us, such grace from above as that we may not willfully infringe His holy commandments, prohibiting us to covet other men's goods, but with all thankfulness to satisfy ourselves with those benefits which He hath already bestowed upon us.

For I am fully of this opinion, that the hope which many men have conceived of the spoil of bishops' livings, of the subversion of cathedral churches, and of a havoc to be made of all the Church's revenues, is the chiefest and most principal cause of the greatest schisms that we have at this day in our Church.

The best amongst us, in like manner, I fear, are come to the same pass that they were in Melancthon's time, who complained as he writeth in this sort: "We understand whom to avoid (meaning the Papists), yet whom to follow we know not."

Touching the causes why false prophets, with so great danger of their souls, do depart from the Church: if we respect them as they are indeed, I can say nothing, but as it is contained in the old distinction: "they were in the Church, but not of the Church."

The children of God (you know) are heirs of the world, and these things which the wicked have they enjoy by usurpation.

Nay, in my opinion, you ought to be ashamed to open your mouths ever hereafter against the present government of the Church, and for the new platform, until you can be contented to be so far from coveting the goods of the Church, as that you are both willing and ready to deliver out of your hand such spoils and preys thereof as you have already.

True it is that Almighty God, if it had stood with His good pleasure, could easily have brought it to pass, in spite of the Devil, that there should never have been any such false prophets or heresies amongst us. But He saw it not to be expedient; for, as the Apostle saith, by His directions, "There must be heresies in the Church ... that faith, by having temptation, might also have probation."

Of the times in like manner wherein we now live, the Apostle Paul did prophecy that there should be many false prophets: and we do see his sayings therein to be fulfilled.